City Council Work Session - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening, everyone. We would like to call our April 27 Fayetteville City Council meeting to order. We welcome those who are joining us in the audience. Those who may be joining us remotely, we welcome you to the meeting. As with every meeting, we typically start with the invocation. We'll ask that pastor Derek Montgomery from the United Ministries in Christ if he would come. Ask that everyone please stand for the prayer immediately following the invocation. If we could repeat the pledge of allegiance in unison. Good evening. Let us Oh,

most gracious creator, we thank you for this evening for this opportunity to come together. We thank you for our leadership, and we're asking you that whatever the concerns is on their hearts be settled, that they may be able to focus, that they may be able to execute the business of this city in a way that is pleasing for all of us and all of you, representing who you are, who you desire us to be, not as just individuals, but as a community of whole with wisdom, unity, respect, and focus. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Reverend pastor Montgomery, where are going? We all we all know you. Chair of the Democratic Party, but certainly, we welcome you tonight. You wanna tell us a little bit about yourself and your ministry?

Absolutely. I've been a resident of Cumberland County since 2008. Three boys, two of which who graduated from our Cumberland County Schools and two of which are at Fayetteville State University right now as seniors. So I'm excited about that. Our church is a ministry that's open to all where we have, over the past ten years, served in mental health services, community resources, and supports for all across our county and some of our neighboring townships. We're grateful to be a part of such a work and this great community.

Well, we thank you for the work that you do and thank you for your service also in the political and civic public service space and the ministry. So can we give pastor Montgomery a round of applause? Thank you, sir. Alright, council. With that, we will we have an announcement. We have a very special lady. I think she's the hardest working lady in the money game. Gonna ask miss miss Crystal McClain would go with me and council member Davis and meet us at the podium. Have a little token and and, of course, the family so you don't get in trouble now.

Yes, this proclamation is a financial literacy month. Whereas financial literacy is an essential life skill that empowers individuals and families to make informed and effective decisions regarding their financial resources and whereas a strong foundation in financial education promotes economic stability, reduces debt, and incurs savings and investments, thereby strengthening our community as a whole And whereas, Financial Literacy Month provides an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of financial education and to encourage residents of all ages to enhance their understanding of personal finance. And whereas, schools, financial institutions, nonprofit organizations and community leaders play a vital role in providing resources and guidance that helps individuals build financial capability and whereas the 2026 theme for Financial Literacy Month emphasizes the importance of equipping individuals with the knowledge and tools needed to build a secure financial future and achieve long term financial well-being. And whereas improving financial literacy can help individuals afford preparatory practices plan for major life events and contribute to a more resilient and prosperous community. And whereas, the City of Fairfield is committed to supporting initiatives that promote financial empowerment, economic opportunity, and improve quality of life for all residents.

Now, therefore, I'm Mitch Coven, mayor of the city of Fairview Of North Carolina, and behalf of the citizens on city council and the 208,000 citizens of Fairview do hereby proclaim April in the month of in the year of 2026 to be financial literacy month. And witness whereof, I hereto unset my hand and call this great seal of the city of Fayetteville to be affixed this day, April 2026. Signed. Your mayor, Mitch

Hello, everyone. Hello. Before I say anything, I, first have to to give honor to my lord and savior Jesus Christ. He gave me the vision. He graced me to walk through it. And because of his power, I am standing here today. I honor him first because without him, of this is possible. To mayor Colvin and the entire city of Fayetteville leadership, including every member of city council, thank you for believing in something we are deeply passionate about. And I have to give a special shout out to councilman Malik Davis, was absolutely instrumental in making this moment happen. Thank you for opening that door.

I also wanna acknowledge our NBA board members, Moneybox Academy. If you're here and you're a board member, can you please stand? We should have, Maria Johnson, Terry Tibbs, Jessica Jones. If y'all could stand and Chris Peter King could not be here. Awesome. Thank you so much to our Moneybox Academy team. Yeah. Y'all clap it up. Clap it up. I do not do this work alone.

These are people full of wisdom, guidance, and advocacy who push this mission forward every single day. They are the glue and the backbone of this organization. And to our Moneybox Academy staff, Charisma Howard and Sunee Vasquez, if you could please stand. Y'all these are literally the ones who build out programs with boots to the ground, manage grants, manage interns and handle all the behind the scenes work that keeps that ship this ship moving. It is not possible without them.

I know y'all think I'm strong, but I need some help. Okay? And I cannot move on without acknowledging our money box instructors who allow us to duplicate ourselves across spaces. We can have two or three events in one day and nothing stops our flow. So Kendra Broughton, Rachel Townsend, and Larry Cummins, and Sunee Vasquez, if you're here, you please stand?

They believe in this mission so much and approach it with grace, with knowledge, and power, and I'm so grateful this organization has grown beyond just me. Now to my personal village real quick, my husband, Brenda McClain, founder of Teach Me To Tie Incorporated and Boys The Man Institute. I love you. Thank you for supporting all my crazy dreams. To my daughter, you are the reason I go so hard.

I started this journey right in Harmony and the Empty Piggy Bank of financial literacy book because I wanted to teach my daughter financial literacy in a way that made sense for her age. I did not know that one book written for her would actually travel around the world internationally and launch this entire journey. So thank you Harmony. And then to my pastor Lorna Taylor, can you wave your hand. Yeah, look at her.

She won't go stand up. I do call her my shero because she is the wisdom that pours into me and she leads Chosen Remnant Ministries and it is really immeasurable and I just have implemented so much from who she has been, so thank you is not enough for sowing into the making of a woman like me. And to my mentor and board member, Terri Tipps, I'm not sure if she's in the room, if she made it. Okay. She's not in the room.

Yes. But Terry Tiffs is a woman of poise, grace, and confidence. To my mother in her absence and my sister, India Shaw, my Martha, Angelica, my big mother, Keisha, my community auntie Sarah Ballet, Tamara Colvin, Latonya Parks, and my entire village of community advocates, clients, friends, and church family members. You keep the founder going so the organization can keep going. Now let's talk about Moneybox real quick and then I'm a go. I promise y'all. Our mission is to foster economic empowerment and create opportunities for all to thrive. We started with a vision to be the lead leading advocate for financial literacy in North Carolina. We have since grown beyond state lines into international territory. In our first months of operation in 2024, we served 69 participants across seven partnerships.

At 2025, we served nearly 3,000 people across more than 35 events in Fayetteville, Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, Asheville, beyond. Wow. Just four months into 2026, we have already activated 11 partnerships and programs, hosted three of our own financial literacy workshops and reached over 300 people from all demographics and when we survey our participants, a 100% leave reporting more confidence in managing their money and a 100% commit to applying at least one strategy within thirty days. That is not just programming, that is transformation. Now here's why this work is not optional.

The average American correctly answers only 48% of financial literacy questions. A score that has not meaningfully moved in nearly a decade, and a lack of financial literacy cost this country more than 246,000,000,000 in 2025 alone. We have all said it. If someone had taught me this, how much further I would be. The truth I believe in when I get on my soapbox about tonight, is that our that this knowledge was withheld, in my opinion, not by accident.

And if our parents did not have it and their parents did not have it, how would it have ever reached us without someone intentionally stepping in? That is why Moneybox Academy is here. Our goals this year is beyond, is captured, we're expanding. We're striving to build our first statewide chapter in the DMV area, launching our summer financial boot camp in partnership with FTCC in June, bringing financial education to Cumberland County Parks and Recreation summer interns and lifeguards so they know what to do with those first paychecks. Okay?

We are traveling to New York in June to celebrate the completion of our junior investment program with a 100 black men of America where we taught high school students how to invest. We are reaching kindergartens and senior citizens and every age in between. We are extending to reach entrepreneurs, veterans, active duty, and even meet injustice impacted individuals on the way back to society with a financial game and plan to help reduce recidivism. Our goal has never changed. Reach every community with no barriers so that the participants never have to pay for education that should have been given to all of us from the start.

And again, if you need convincing of why this is needed, let me bring it right home to where we're standing today. Right here in the city of Fayetteville, the median household income is $58,407, and nearly one in five residents are living below the poverty line. Nearly one in five. And more than half of this city does not own the home they live in. These are not numbers for somewhere else. This is our city. Okay? This is our community and if financial literacy is not woven into what we're building here, then we are leaving the very people in these in these seats, in these neighborhoods without the tools to change their story. In closing, I want to leave you with the charge. This proclamation is just the beginning.

If you run an organization of any kind, I am asking you a serious question today. How have you integrated healthy money habits into your model? Why is financial literacy still an afterthought when it touches every single area of community health? These questions should linger well beyond today. It should make you think.

It should be one of the first thoughts, not the last anymore because if we're not asking how the people we serve will financially sustain themselves then we've become part of the problem. Let us not let this be a great press release moment. Let this be a moment of action for all of us to push to make sure our communities are financially better and healthier. Thank you for accepting and giving this proclamation recognized in April as National Financial Literacy Month in the city of Fayetteville. We are honored that Moneybox Academy Inc is part of this conversation.

Now let's actually go do something about it. Thank you all. Can I get a picture? I'm a just grab one picture y'all and then we're gonna go. If y'all part of the village, can y'all just come up here very quickly? Yeah. Don't worry about the picture. Let's just come on.

Yeah. Yeah. Deep picture. A little bit. A little bit. Don't fall

Thank you again to Ms. Crystal and the Moneybox team. Man, they deep in here. But it shows you have a high level support and I have actually seen you at work and you do a tremendous job. So, you for that. Financial literacy is so important to the overall well-being and economic movement. So those are some numbers that you mentioned today in our tier one that we are striving to change that one in five number, but it will start with literacy because they have to change the mindset. So thank you for what you're doing. And, I also saw my queen tip in here, and so I have to acknowledge her so I can make sure my key works when I get home. Good to see you, honey. Thank you. Alright. So, with that, I'll go to Mayor Pro Tem has an announcement.

Thank you, mister mayor. For everyone that's out there, reminder that May is lupus awareness month. If you don't know, lupus is an autoimmune disease. It's one of the few autoimmune disease that affects your body that most people don't recognize. So if you get a chance, you can volunteer or you can donate. You can always go to lupus.org to be to raise awareness for yourself and for your community. Thank you, mister mayor.

Thank you. Certainly, very important. With that, I will move from our announcements to City Manager's Court, doctor Hewitt.

Thank you, mayor, and good evening members of council. Two announcements. The first is a victory lap in a lot of ways for the city staff. Mayor Colvin, you and I remember the times that we've struggled over the last ten years or so to manage our fleet. We've been in various locations, had various contractors.

But with council support, we were able to bring that function back in house. And I'm very pleased to announce that the City of Fayetteville's fleet division has been recognized as one of the top 100 public fleets in America. And that is no small feat when you think about how many cities, counties and others have public fleets in The United States. So that testament goes to our fleet manager, Mike Myers Tiffany Murray, our CFO and to our own Jeffrey Yates as well who has been instrumental in helping us do all of those things since he's been here with us in the city of Fayetteville. I'd like to applaud all of their work and the council's continued support.

Thank you, Doctor. Hewitt.

You, too. And then the last one, Mayor, is a little bit of another heartwarming story. If I can get Chief Dove and Chief Joyce to come up. Many of you know that this weekend we had a fairly large fire over on Sycamore Dairy Road. What many people may not know is the great lengths that the two departments working with our community partners went through to turn what could have been an absolute tragedy into, I think, a shining star of the city that who we are and the can do nature that we have. So without that further ado, I'll ask them to kind of lay the scene of all the collaboration we had this weekend.

Okay. I don't know if I can do this with the energy that miss Crystal had, but we'll see what we can come up with. Most of you know Sunday morning about 05:30, we were dispatched to a fire at a hotel in the middle of the city. Our unit was there in four minutes and thirty one seconds from time of dispatch, which we're proud of. They found heavy fire conditions, in the, in the hotel.

There were 65 rooms rented and 94 occupants at the hotel all asleep or largely asleep at 05:30 in the morning. So evacuation started. We had to remove five people by ladder and got the rest of them out. But as you can imagine, if you're dead asleep, you wake up, you go out the door, you got your night clothes on or whatever, and this was an extended stay hotel, so these people aren't here just for the night. A lot of them, all of their belongings are there.

So we were able to get them out, get the fire under control, but what I didn't realize and what I want you guys to to understand is that we're really good at fighting fire. After that, we use our community partners to assist the citizens with getting places to go and and their needs and stuff. Well, with 94 people, that's that's not normal. So the Red Cross can only do what they can do and that's admirable. OCS isn't, you know, prepared to cover for that.

But what I didn't realize, and I wish chief Brian was here tonight to be part of this, but the Fayetteville Police Department, you know, big and ugly and stinky and mean as they are, these folks care about residents in this city. They came in, jumped into it. The relationships that they have with the business owners, the faith based communities, all the other organizations is amazing, out of this world, and they saved the day, and I'll let Chief Joyce get into more detail about it, but by lunchtime, all of those occupants were settled or almost settled in new lodging, and one of the problems we had was the whole building was charged with smoke, The the conditions weren't allowable for us to get in and get people's let people get in and get their things, so that created another issue. But, again, the Fayetteville Police Department and their community engagement and their partnerships is unmatched. And I don't think a lot of people realize that.

So I'll let Chief Joyce talk about what they did.

Thank you, Chief.

Chief Jess, you're let him talk about you later?

He only says that because they

haven't beat us in softball yet. It's okay.

That's true.

No. And and and he says a lot and and and Major Petty was on scene first thing that morning as as we got the notification and and, you know, I got to the scene. You know, but what's interesting is that people start hearing about things. And one of the first calls I got was from Snyder Memorial Baptist Church. And they were like, how can we assist? And we knew that we needed some some ways to get folks out of the elements. It was raining. It's a little cool Sunday morning. And they were said, whatever you need us to commit to. And so they brought a school size bus from their church, Duncan Hubbard and the executive pastor, Mike Ramos.

And and they got on scene, met with major Petty. And we were able to start getting folks in into that bus, get them out of the elements. We had Al Barefoot from barbecue hut was calling and

say, hey. What food do

you need? Snyder was already bringing breakfast items for the residents who had been displaced, Gatorade, things like that, for the first responders who were there. And as that went on, you know, we reached out to director Jones with OCS, and he was able to coordinate with Fazoli's here in town. And they stopped what they were doing to make sure they could start making box meals for anyone who had been affected by that. We're reaching out to other city partners to make arrangements of what we needed to do.

And just as chief Dove said, you know, by early afternoon, all of these persons were being transported by our officers using our our POW bus to get them to locations where they needed to be. Working with them through those processes, when something that tragic happens to them, how can we alleviate some of the things that they have experienced? And it truly is a testament to the relationship between PD and fire as well. We work alongside each other, a lot. And a lot of times, they they are not given the same credit that they deserve as well. And it's just a true testament to the leadership of of both of those departments. So we're thankful for that as well.

Thank you to chief Dove. Thank you to chief Joyce. Thank you to chief Brian in his absence and all major petty, all of firefighters and all of our FPD who stepped up. That's what makes our community great that we step up as a family. So thank you for what you're doing and we pray for a speedy recovery for all those that were impacted, all those 94 persons.

Great point is only one was treated for smoke inhalation and they weren't even transported. They were released there so everybody was good.

It's good, that's good. So that's blessing for sure. Alright, thank you, mister manager. Alright. Councilors will go to six point o, the approval of the agenda. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, mister mayor. Mister mayor, I move I move that we approve the agenda with the exceptions of moving items 11.1, two, and three behind items eight zero four.

Okay. So moving the 11 o one, two, and three up on the agenda to eight point after the eight point items. Correct. Alright. So I guess for the number and purposes Five, six,

and seven.

That'd be five, six, and seven?

Yes,

sir. That number sequence okay? Yes, sir. Alright. Thank you. Alright. It's a motion by Mayor Pro Tem. Second. Second by Davis. Discussion? Alright. Look to you for your votes. Who who hadn't voted? Is that you?

It's not

working. It's

not working. Alright. Does yours come on? Yeah. Yeah. Tap it. Alright. Motion carries unanimous. Agenda's approved with modifications mentioned. Alright. Council, moving to, the consented items as we look to that and clear the board. Council member Hondros. Oh.

Thank you, mister mayor. I move that we table items 7.07 a one zero, seven a one one, and seven a one two to a

work session. One one, one two, one one o, one one, and one two.

Ten, eleven, and 12.

Ten, eleven, 12. Alright.

Ma'am? We typically would do that when we get to the item.

Alright. So he was gonna approve the agenda with the exception of 7.1,

eleven, and twelve.

Ten, eleven, 12.

Okay. So we can do that and then table with the others later.

Okay. So this will be most to approve it. Are there any other items that will come off besides ten, eleven, and 12? Councilman Mahondros.

7082, please.

0082. Alright. So this is a up and down vote on those. So it's a motion to approve the consent with the exceptions of seven point o eight two, seven point o eight ten, seven point seven point zero eight eleven, and 7.0812. Second. Alright. Alright. The second about council member Jones. Alright. Discussion? Alright. Council, I look to you for your vote. Alright, motion carries. It is approved. Now 7.082. I'll go to you council member Hondros.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I see some of our partners here from the Dogwood Festival. I don't know if they're willing to come up and speak but a week or two ago, a couple weeks ago we had a presentation from Ms. Suarez. I didn't know if you were prepared tonight to speak to some of the projections versus some of the actuals if we met our metrics did better or

Sure. Just excuse me. I've had two hours of sleep in the last forty Quite eight literally.

But good job.

Thank you. As far as I'm concerned if we have a 130 vendors and 10 of them are unhappy that's great. I don't know who was all out there on Friday night but it was packed. It was shoulder to shoulder which can be both good and bad. I'll take it as a win. Our VIP did sell out on Friday night and all in all minus the rain it was fantastic. So any questions you have, I'll be glad to answer.

I think I just have one more. So the last time we saw you, I think you were headed to the county and possibly TDA and the Arts Council with the same presentation. Did that ever happen and whatever?

As I had mentioned previously, that would be addressed in May for the county and then TDA we had already submitted and they won't announce any of those recipients until May.

Okay. Thank you. Mhmm.

Alright. So good to see you. I know Good to see you. You you had your hands full. A packed weekend.

Mhmm.

Did hear a lot of favorable comments and saw saw the crowds and and so it looked like a lot of folks enjoyed themselves. So we're after as you have an after action, this came up upstairs. So the 75,000 that you're requesting, is that for this year or is it for next year?

It would help supplement some of this year. Yes, sir.

Okay. And then and and do you at some point, will you have any specificity to that of how much goes

Well, I actually have the head count on for the attendance a little after May 1 is what we were told. But as far as the the budget goes and finalizing everything, yes, we'll have all of that done. Everything will be reconciled within the next week.

Alright. Thank you.

Council member McMillan. Yes. Thank you, mister mayor. Thank you. Yes. Just wanted to give give thanks to you and everybody who was involved in the the Dogwood Festival. We were down on Saturday. Favorite part parts were just the the vibe in the park was excellent for families, the great music.

Thank you.

And then

I appreciate the infusion of community groups. I got a chance to talk with Watchover Westover at Doctor. Katy. And then also in the NC Conservation Network, was on-site. So great conversations and interface out there. One of the things we talked about upstairs in the dinner meeting Mhmm. Was how fruitful it would be to, in following months, have regular contact with with you and the organization to talk about what the future looks like.

Yes, sir.

To talk about any shifting models, any changes in terms of what's ahead. Mhmm. And then also to talk about how we can best support what has turned into a cultural event.

Yes, sir.

If you're looking at decades of people coming to this and enjoying it, that's very important to thousands of people. I just wanna show appreciation to you for for all your work.

I appreciate that very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, you had your light? Yes,

mister mayor. Thank you, Caitlin Suarez. I want to hit on security.

Yes, sir.

I was impressed by the layout that you had. I think I talked to major Hunt before I came up here. I was impressed by how you had the police officers cars blocking every entrance and exit to surrounding cities and Festival Park. And I was impressed by the security that you had even though it was long lines to check-in through the metal detectors and the clear bag policy. I think security is paramount to bring more and more people Yes. Downtown. Do you think that played a major factor in the large number of crowds that you had I see. For Friday, Saturday, and Sunday?

It was very important to a lot of people. A lot of families felt safe. For anybody that knows, my kids were running around without any issue whatsoever between places. And for me, it was definitely a peace of mind not having to overthink more than what I already was.

Well, I just wanna add one more comment and I don't know who ideal it was, but Saturday I had to drive to Raleigh to get my grandkids just to bring them back for the Dogwood Festival. And whoever it is that got that train to drive those kids around the entire park, You need to have two or three of those because the line was astronomical for them kids to ride

that So

that was a great

That was miss Jackie Tucky. I'll be honest with you guys. She is one of the reasons I do stay in the role that I am. I couldn't do it without her.

Great job. Thank you, mister mayor.

Alright. Miss Tucky, she worked here for a long time. She knows how we are.

So how are doing? She gets around.

Oh, yeah. Councilman Davis. Thank you, mister mayor.

Quick question. So you said that this request is for this year. Correct?

Yes.

Do you foresee there being another request for the next year and years to come?

I hope not.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Smith. Yes.

Alright. And, the last thing I'll say, Ms. Schwartz, because I know you need to get some sleep, is there was some discussion up upstairs about the possibility as you all, you know, I did, of course, we represent this area and you hear from some of the vendors and the businesses who had some adjustment that they needed to make by everything being moved a little further up Hay Street. So I saw that you responded to say, hey, the time to talk about the planning will be at some future meetings. So there were also some council members who wanted to to maybe hear and and to serve as a liaison about some of the the areas Yes. On the importance of the council. So will you reach back out to us and let us know when Absolutely.

DTA and Cool Springs hold those meetings and I get invited. So I will gladly send when we have those. Last year, it was in July and then I forget what time in the fall, but I would be more than happy to share that.

And also this is coming from a personal point. Mhmm. It was discussed upstairs. I I think our corporate sponsorships here Mhmm. They can do more. Yes. You know, the city, you know, deposits a lot of money in various banks. It uses a lot of services, and these these banks sponsor a number of things in other communities. We see the truest this and the Bank of America Stadium and so we don't see that level of presence in which I plan to impress upon some of them the importance of it. If you take up the amount of deposits that PwC has and holds in these local banks and the amount of money that the county holds, we need to lean on our corporate partners to sponsor some more things. So, you all thought about integrating corporate sponsorship?

Yes. That's a big reason why we switched from a five zero one c four to a five zero one c three because while some believe it doesn't have that much of an impact, it actually does. And as of yesterday, I already have three sponsors that had asked about that were not particular sponsors they were just attendees.

Alright. Alright. Well good job Ms. Suarez. Let's give her a round of applause. Thank you

for a job well done. Thanks. Thank you guys.

Alright. Council, moving to Seven point. Yeah. Seven point o 08:10, eleven, and twelve. Thank you, mayor pro tem. Those are some items. I have a meeting scheduled later in the week or first of next week. Just had some additional questions for PWC, so maybe if those items can be moved. And I know you're the liaison, sir.

Right. But we need to vote on the previous item.

Right. Okay. Alright. So we do need to vote for the previous item which is the Dogwood Festival. Council Mounjos, you had that pull for up and down vote. Any other questions from you? Alright. There's a motion by Mayor Pro Tem. Is there a second? Second by Davis. Discussion? Alright. Counsel, I look to you for your votes. Alright. Madam clerk, that is seven to two. Those voting opposition, Ferguson and Hondros. Motion carries. Alright. Moving to seven point o eight ten, eleven, and twelve. The state before mayor pro temi pulled that.

You're the PWC liaison, and we do have a a meeting that we need to get a little bit more information on. So

Yes, mister mayor. I move that we table those three items. Alright.

There's a motion by motion by mayor pro tem to table. Is there a second? Second about Green. Alright. Discussion? Alright. Council, look to you for your votes. Martin, what you doing down there? Alright. Whenever the screen pops, I guess we'll vote. Not me, promise. Alright, show of hands. Go old school. Alright. Alright, motion carries unanimous.

Alright, miss Sabine, you got that? Alright, thank you. Alright. Moving to the next item, which is the eight point, the public hearing items. This time, we are prepared to hold a public hearing where the city council formally asks for your input.

Individuals designed to speak in the hearing must have signed up to speak with the city clerk by name and address before the start of tonight's meeting. We'll begin with a staff presentation by miss Keisha Parker, and then we'll move into formal hearings. Fifteen minutes will be allowed for those in favor and also those opposed of the items. Individual speakers, which are limited to three minutes each unless by previous arrangement, single spokesperson is designated in which case the spokesperson may use the entire fifteen minutes. When the city clerk calls your name, we ask that you please come to the podium. Please clearly state your name and an address for the record. You may then begin to address the council. When the light changes from green to amber, that means you have thirty seconds remaining. The timer will ring at the end of your allotted times. With that, I'll turn it over to you, miss Keisha.

Good evening, mayor and members of city council. This road, this portion of Maxwell Street is in the Cedar Road subdivision off of Cedar Deep Creek Road. It's never been constructed or open. As you're aware, North Carolina general statute dictates how the city can permanently close a portion or an entire road. We have followed the statute by contacting the police department, fire department, EMS, and all the utility companies.

There will be a utility easement that is reserved over this portion as requested. There were certified notices sent out to all adjacent property owners and the property was posted on both ends to give the public notice of the closing. We received no objections to the closing and staff is recommending closure. Are there any questions?

Seeing none. Alright. With that, we will open the public hearing. Madam Clerk.

Mayor, our first speaker is mister Sanjay Kajanski.

Yes. Good evening, sir.

Good evening, sir. How are you?

Please state your name and address for us.

My name is Sanjay Khazanchi. I'm the owner of Save Work LLC, and we engage in affordable housing around the city as and when we see opportunities to do. And this is regarding that. Let me come to you.

Okay. All right. Did you have anything you want to add to us? This is do

you anything?

Yes. Just a quick comment.

The streets are locked in. Excuse me, Mr. Kazanti. Is this timer running, mister B?

Alright.

Sir. You're the only speaker, so you got it.

Mr. Mayor, these streets were platted in 1924 plat map, but were never been accepted or maintained by the city of Fayetteville nor have any of these streets street portions been opened or used as a street by the public, to my knowledge, since the time the streets are platted in 1924. None of these streets portions serve as access to any properties not owned by me. And instead, all properties adjoining the street portions I seek to close have access ingress, egress to and from properties by all the streets. I desire to develop these lots and parcels, and development plan would be and my development plan would be compromised and likely impossible without these closures.

The street closures would not harm any persons or deprive anyone of access to any properties in the vicinity of the street closure portions. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, sir. Alright. Madam clerk, any other speakers?

No further speakers, sir.

Alright. Counsel, any questions for miss Keisha or mister Kazanchi? Alright. So with that, I'll close the public hearing. I'll look for a motion. Council member Davis, is your district? Thank you, mister mayor.

I move that we adopt the resolution in order of permanently closing a portion of Maxwell Street.

Alright. There's a motion by councilman Davis. Is there a second? Seconded by council member McNair. Any discussion?

Is it on this case, sir? Oh, okay. Yeah. This is a public hearing. Okay. Alright. So we'll make sure that that someone captures that for him. Alright. Council, seconded by councilmember McNair. Any discussion? Alright. Look to you before you vote on this. Alright. Alright. It is unanimous. Motion carries. Miss Keisha, back so soon.

Yes, sir. And it's gonna be a little repetitive. This portion of the road is also in the Cedar Rose Edition subdivision off of Deep Creek Road. It We also followed statute for this. We sent out the certified notices published, and we also posted on both ends of the road. This road is again not constructed. It's never been built. And there will be utility easement reserved as there is utilities in it. There were no objections from PD, EMS or fire on this either. So this road has also staff is recommending that this portion that is unopened also be closed for further redevelopment.

Alright. Thank you, miss Parker. With that, we will open the public hearing. Madam Clerk?

Mayor, our first speaker is mister Kajanski again.

Alright. Mister Sanjay, back back so soon.

Yes, sir. I have nothing further to add. I just compiled we have these three cases. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Counsel, any questions for miss Parker or miss Kazanti? Alright. So seeing none, I will close the public hearing and look to you for action. Mayor pro tem.

Thank you, mister mayor. I move that we

approve disclosure. I'm sorry?

Mayor, I do have someone sign up in opposition.

Oh, must be on my sheet. I don't mind even.

There's a separate sheet.

Oh, okay. Alright. Mister Wender.

Yes, sir.

Mister James Wender.

Let me reopen. Let me reopen.

The pen, I think,

with you over there. So

State your name just for us.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm James Brandon Weidner, the third, if you really wanna throw some spice on there. But, basically, what I I bought my house. My house is the corner house. It's 424.

And I've also this whole project has seemed a little weird from the beginning. I don't know if it's law that you need to tell people in neighboring areas, but it would be neighborly, I would say, instead of one day you just wake up and there's crushing machinery going around your house and dipping into your property line. I do not want this road to be continued anywhere. That is a big part of the reason why I bought this house where I did. I have some medical issues.

And one of them is PTSD. Actually, it's CPTSD. And I bought that house because it was quiet, but I didn't need to drive an hour to go to a store. But I don't see what the purpose is of opening that. For one, it seems like a waste of money. For two, I'm pretty sure that where the waterway is, past the waterway would be my neighbor's property. So I'm not even sure how that would work.

So, Ms. Keisha, this is to close the road, right?

Yes. I want to keep it closed.

Yeah. That's that's that's what the request is, to permanently close it.

Okay. I, like, I was trying to read the thing, and it's like lawyer speak to me. I I don't know it.

Yeah. Yes, sir. So he's making a request to permanently close it so it can no longer ever be opened and used, as you were saying.

Okay. That's good.

All right. It's just

ever since the construction project has started, there's been more crime in the area. There's been people shooting into the dirt mounds. They found they like to pull their car up, target the dirt mounds. They're right there next to my house, mind you. So I hear it quite well.

You need call like 01:00. Chief Joyce there when that happens so that he can get out there and check that out. But so on this issue for this hearing, it says to close the road. So you are

I guess, for it.

Okay. Alright.

Yes. I do not want that road open. I don't want the traffic. Alright. I can't take it. Like, I would have to move.

I understand. Alright. Thank you, sir.

Alright. Thank you.

Alright. Any any questions for mister Winder or mister Kazanci? Council. Alright. Thank you, sir. Alright. With that, I'll reclose the public hearing. Council, I look to you for a motion. Council councilmember Davis? This district's busy tonight.

Thank you, mister mayor. Mister mayor, I move that we adopt the resolution in order to permanently close a portion of McDonald Street.

Alright. Mister mayor. I think I see councilor Mahondros. Was that a second? Alright. So much for councilor David, second by Hondros. Discussion. Alright. Council, look to you for your votes. Alright. It's unanimous. Alright. Council moving to the next item, which is eight point o three. Miss Parker.

Good evening again, mayor and members of city council. Last but not least, this is an unopened and unnamed right of way that was platted in the nineteen twenties as a part of the Cedar Rose Addition subdivision off of Deep Creek Road again. It has never been constructed. It's never been opened. We did follow statute, and we posted the property on each end, and we sent certified notices and published in the Federal Observer. We contacted PD, fire department, EMS, and all utility companies and again a utility easement will be reserved in the area to be closed. There were absolutely no objections to the closing that staff received and staff is recommending to close for further redevelopment of the surrounding properties.

Alright. Alright. So with that, we will open the public hearing. And madam clerk?

Mayor, the only speaker we have is mister Kazanti again.

Miss Kazanci, you're back. You like us, Alright. Alright. So, council, any questions for miss Parker or mister Kazanci? Alright. So with that, we'll close the public hearing. I'll go to you, councilman Davis.

Thank you, mister mayor. I move that we adopt the resolution ordering by the city of Fayetteville to permanently close a portion of an unnamed street off Cedar Creek Street Cedar Street. Excuse me.

Alright. It's a motion by councilman Davis. Second about Hondros. Discussion. Alright. Look to you for your votes, council. Who are we missing? Councilmember Davis. It's not you. Alright. Bunch of cash. Unanimous. Alright. Thank you. Thank you, miss Parker. Thank you, mister Kazanti. Thank you, mister Winder. Alright. Council moving to eight point o four proposed annual action plan for community development block grant. It's probably mister Bell, mister Colley. We got mister Colley tonight.

I can my

sleep even that newborn. Forget about sleep.

Even mayor, city council. Hey, sir. Good evening. Alright. So tonight, we're here to talk about our annual HUD annual action plan, which is essentially our our budget for next year using the federal grant funds for community development block grant, home investment partnership, and emergency solutions grant.

We talked about this just a few weeks ago at our work session. We got a little bit of feedback from council, and and one of the things that was clear to me that I could do better was to tell the story that these numbers tell me. Right? So these aren't just dollars on a page. This is what my team does, our community partners do, and how we impact lives in our community.

And so if you'll bear with me, I'd like to tell you a little bit about that tonight, and then I've got some feedback based on council's discussion at the work session. And then, ultimately, I'd ask you to have a public hearing and hopefully adopt this plan. So first and foremost, ECD delivers our city's mission by sustaining affordable housing, creating economic development, partnering with community organizations, and providing resources and partnerships that strengthen neighborhoods. We're a core city department supported by the general fund, but we leverage federal grants to maximize that impact. So the way that looks is a little more than half of my team's salaries come from the general fund, and then 90% of the services that we deliver to the community come from federal grants.

So largely, I'm here because you guys support us to to pay for me and and, my assistant director, Alex, and all the managers that kind of oversee the contracts and partnerships, and then they push out millions of dollars into our community to better it. So when we do an annual action plan, it builds on a five year strategic plan that HUD requires us to put together. That consolidated plan that we have to do a market study, we have to look at a needs analysis of housing in our community, we have to look at the barriers to affordable housing in our community. We have to look at our growth patterns and plans. And then with all of that, we come up with a five year strategy of the different programs and activities that we're going to fund.

And then on an annual basis, we put a budget to them. So every year, HUD requires us to go out to the community to hold a series of public hearings and public meetings, and then city council on top of that has a redevelopment commission that oversees this, and that the recommendation tonight is their recommendation to you. So a way to think about the delivery again is staff plans, develops, oversees all these programs and millions of dollars, and then community partnerships deliver those services. So getting to the numbers real quick. We're talking about $3,600,000 worth of federal and and local resources here.

Entitlement is the grants that we get. They post them on a website saying this is how much money you're gonna get. Give us a plan for it. So all in, that's about $2,700,000 that we'll be looking to get next year. Program income, which is when we loan out money and then people pay those loans back to us, is almost a little over 3 quarters of $1,000,000 coming into us. Then we have the local match. So that is coming out of the general fund, and it's required for each one of the grants. So with HOME and ESG, that matches just under a quarter million dollars. It gives a total of 3.65 mil. So looking at affordable housing across all of our grants, the first thing we have is a CDBG funded rehab program.

It's a little over $300,000. Last year, we helped 30 homeowners, mostly seniors, mostly low income, and we do that through the Fayetteville Urban Ministry. They have a pretty extensive wait list. They use all the money we give them on an annual basis. And if we could do more, we we would.

With our home funds, largely what they are aimed at is creation of affordable housing. So a lot of things go into that. Brand new rental projects, new apartment complexes that we gap finance, brand new single family housing that we work with developers to build. And then this year, we have kind of an unusual thing where a developer approached us about rehabbing an apartment complex, and so I'll talk you through that just here in a second. The past couple of years, we've been booming.

We had a bunch of projects that kinda stacked up at one time. And so last year, we closed on 262 units of affordable housing in our community. So that's multifamily apartment complexes. We also had our home buying hero program for low and moderate income folks that's paid for out of our federal home grant. So we assisted five people with down payment or mortgage assistance, and we built four houses for single family ownership.

We've got four applications from developers. Some of these developers are nonprofit. Some of them are for profit, but this process is all governed by the state housing finance agency. So you can see we are a small part of a big pie, but what our money does is help secure lower rents and financial stability for these developments. You can see on the far right hand side, each one of these is represented by ninety, eighty four, 60 a 100 units.

The last one on the list is a new developer to our community that that works a lot in Durham that's looking for to rehab an existing property. So just to give you an idea of where these properties are located in our community and what they look like, you can see that on the map here. A lot of them kinda trend out towards Western Fayetteville with the rehab job being in Northeast Fayetteville. Most of these things are required to be along transit lines and be near amenities like jobs, grocery stores, things like that. On the economic development front, we've upped our budget quite a bit here.

For those of you who are got to join us at the community development revitalization committee, we talked about expanding some economic development programs that we have. You can see why from this chart here. Last year, we did two grants and two loans. We can do better. And so we're expanding and updating those programs after twenty five plus years, and we put more money into our economic development so that we can see a little bit more activity in that.

Now having said that, we helped 49 businesses last year with technical assistance, whether that was referring them and connecting them to resources at the hub, referring them to the small business administration for a loan, or just talking to a new small business owner about the importance of having a separate checking account for your business. On neighborhood revitalization, my five year old kid looked at this slide and said, so you tore down that house and built that park, and I regret putting them in this order because that's not what happened here. We we did tear down this house. So from time to time, code enforcement finds blighted properties that cannot be repaired. And either the owner comes to the city and off and asked if we can help them take it down or council orders it be taken down because it's a public safety hazard.

Either way, the ECD works with development services, we help finance tearing some of those down using grant funds. The other thing that we've been doing for the past couple of years is investing CDBG money in park amenities and improvements. So the picture you see here is Mary Mcdonald Park over on Merkerson Road. We've done a couple of improvements with parks. This year, we're funding the re resurfacing of Tokay into pickleball courts and the tennis court there.

And then next year, we're looking to replace some playground equipment that's out of date at Seabrook. These are usually projects that the general fund, as you guys prepare your budget for the year, you just don't have enough money, so the grant money gets used to help increase that. On community partnerships, this is a lot. Almost 8,000 residents were helped with a small amount of money. This money is capped by the grant, so about a quarter million dollars from CDBG gets gets pushed out to nonprofits.

And then in the past couple of years, we've gotten emergency solutions grant, which is homelessness. And so about a 142,000 of that has been pushed to nonprofits. You can see the greatest need that we have out of those 8,000 is almost half of them with homeless prevention services. I'm not gonna go through this, but visually, you can see there's a lot of steps to get to where we are tonight. It's a lot of putting out a application period for over two and a half months. We also train the community on what these grants are and how to apply for them. At the end of that, we we have a public comment period with our redevelopment commission. We put together a budget. We take that budget out to the community for thirty days and get comments as well. So this is where the numbers come in.

You can see we've got quite a bit more affordable housing money this year because we had a loan payoff, and so we'll we'll be able to invest that money into affordable housing. Overall, our grants were cut a little bit. CDBG and home went down, about $90,000. ESG went up just a couple of thousand. So you can see through this list, one of the questions I had from council member Hare, at the last was on neighborhood revitalization.

So we added a a little bit more context to that. Last year, we had identified the Tokay Tennis Courts as a substantial project, and so we increased the budget for that purpose. So you can see when you look back over the past three years, we actually have more in that than we've had in several years, but that is to help the general fund with demolitions of blight and then to fund a park improvement in a low income neighborhood. Just a quick note here on nonprofit demand and capacity. So we got 30 applications for $6,200,000.

We weren't never gonna bring y'all a request for $6,200,000. We got a lot of work to do on that before we bring it to you. So we filtered for incomplete applications, applications that didn't meet our goals, whether for the city or for our federal grants, and then the lowest scoring applications came out of that. Once we did all of that, we still had a little over $1,100,000 in valid, high priority requests from nonprofits. We had $661,000 to allocate.

So that left us with just about a half $1,000,000 in unmet need for those valid high priority requests. You can see here what those recommendations are and how we got to that math. So combined unified services works with homeless or unstably housed folks on Old Wilmington Road. The workforce readiness readiness program is with FTCC. You can kinda see down the list here as you see Better Health and Ivory's both work with house unsavly house or or people experiencing homelessness.

Connection to the Cumberland County is the Women's Day Resource Center where they work with single heads women held head of households. Legal aid has worked with eviction prevention. Roots, we were able to fully find. That's a great organization doing great stuff out there. Action pathways is probably the biggest noticeable in there, and that's, they requested funding for food bank assistance.

And, we've all been kinda tracking the changes in federal budget priorities, so action pathways food bank has been hit by that. This is the first time we've funded action pathways since I've been here, but we wanted to make sure we were able to assist in some way even if it is in a limited capacity. Next up is communities and schools. 20 to $40,000 is pretty much what we've been funding them year over year. It's it's pretty normal for them to ask for two or more support specialists in schools, and we fund them with 20 or $30,000 what we have available.

The Fayetteville Urban Ministry has a substantial amount there. That's because part of that is our emergency repair program we talked about under housing. So this is the last piece of it. Thank you all for getting through this with me. On the ESG bit, so this is our third year having ESG.

The first year, we had to stand up a program, write policies and procedures, do a lot of work to create a whole new program that the city didn't have before. And then we had to go out and find nonprofits and train them on how to spend this money. So we worked with Fayetteville Urban Ministry and Myvarice. Both of them stepped up to the plate to do something they'd never done before. But at this point, after year three, we have $67,000 in federal grants to help homeless that we have not allocated to a nonprofit.

And I'm not sure what the answer is. I've got a hopeful solution, but we need community partners who will take this money and and work with our nonprofits.

You had a number of them that came, this morning, which I'll share the context.

Absolutely. Yes, sir. One thing that we're hoping to do is, you know, council made a pretty bold move to support the county in funding the Salvation Army for a shelter. The game plan here is for the Salvation Army to to get up to speed, get get their operations going, and then be eligible for federal grants so that the general fund from the county and the city don't have to fully support that. So what we would like to do over the next year is to work with the Salvation Army and get them eligible for federal grants and then work with them to have this money for sheltering go to them on an annual basis.

But, absolutely, anybody we can take for partnerships, that's that's very exciting, mayor. So thank you. So with that, we'll leave you with, our resolution and public hearing, and happy to answer any questions.

Alright. Let's see what we got set up for the public hearing. I did have a couple of questions. Don't don't have any ready to speak. So a couple of questions on what you did.

First, thank you for that. That was an impressive presentation to the to council member McNair's group the other day about just some of the things that community and economic development do. I wanna talk a little bit about the home repair. I saw that, you know, we if I recall for the last several years that that funding allocation for them and that is for people with emergency repairs, roofs or HVACs or heat going out, 300,000 was roughly the range. I saw we've got a little bit added to it, but we never have enough money to to meet that. This model is just you using grant money only. There's no general fund dollar request, or that's gonna be on your budget side?

There's currently no general fund going towards this. No, sir.

Because because I know a few people that have gone to it and and they said they had to wait until the next funding allocation. So do you have any idea what the funding level that's actually needed? I'm not saying that we can get there, but this 300,000 has been the number we've used for a long time. Cost of things have gone up. Repairs go up. So what's what's the actual number?

Yeah. So a little bit of history there. When I got here seven years ago, they were funded at just just north of 200,000, and we we upped them. One of the things we did was give them quite a bit of money, 4 or $500,000, for two years. But what we found was that at some point, they either needed to bring on more staff or or they they could not handle the the amount of transactions.

And so now we're at this kind of space that 300,000 well, $3.30 this year is pretty much what they can do with the current level of staff. Roughly, if you were to double that, then they could hire additional staff to get the money out the door. If you were triple it, they could hire additional staff to get the money out the door. At some point, and I'm not sure where that point is yet, they run out of contractors to work with, but contractor shortages isn't really the challenge right now. It's just processing the applications, income qualifying folks, doing the federal regulation stuff, and then managing the jobs.

So so this is this is more of a a their capacity issue. So I guess where I'm trying to go, the the council had made, you know I don't know what was the where we ended up using. What an older homes? Was it legacy homes? I know we played with that for a little bit.

It was a legacy.

Vintage. Okay. Whatever. It was revitalizing neighborhood homes. Legacy. Like it was like okay. Well, you and Ferguson, I won't get y'all started on it. But but either way, there are a lot of homes in in in some of these original communities that need revitalization. We're running out of dollars for it. It was a council priority.

I would hope that you'd be prepared for that during budget to see if we can get that and maybe even look for some other partnerships or to see what it would take if they were able to scale that. Yeah. Because you have a lot of lot of scenes, heat go out, air condition goes out in between funding cycles. So we wanna make sure that we cover as much ground as we can even if there's some general fund dollars put to it. So I wanna leave you with that.

And the last thing I'll say is about your down payment assistant. So we have we've tweaked that a few times to just to try to get it more more eligible to that the money goes out. And so I saw that you said there were there are a number of folks. One of the presentations that Moneybox gave us was that over half of the people in this community are renters. And so we're trying to flip that number in verse it to where it says more than half are are owners.

There was something that you we had talked about that came directly from some of the mortgage brokers here who package these deals. One, the complexity of whoever's running your program to coordinate with closings on days other than Friday. Yeah. So I wanna hear from that because that's that's a tough box for the rest of the world to operate in. So if she has a problem or he has a problem with Fridays, maybe we maybe we need to get some some other people involved in that just to to be able to do it.

Two, you know, as Moneybox talked about financial literacy, one of the things when you're buying a home, they want your debt ratio down. And so when people pay off bills and pay off credit cards, they lower that. I understand that that actually counts against these folks if it goes below 20%, and I really was not able to understand that. So I want you to touch that a little bit. If we adopt this plan, does that mean that you're moving forward the way it is? Or what are our opportunities to tweak it when you get some of these answers?

Yeah. So that's a great question. So point taken on the senior emergency repair, That was one of the things that we talked about with the housing bond. So I will go back and talk with ACM Yates about, what we can do on that front. On the down payment assistance program, You know, I was real proud of that program, and and y'all have occasionally poke holes in it. And that that

This is a great program. We

just That is yeah. That's that that is frustrating professionally for me. And so take it like

that. No.

So so I left out of here that night, and I called my consultant. Uh-huh. And I said, look, man. My my mayor is saying this, and and I don't I don't get it. And he said, well, are you doing down payment assistance or mortgage assistance? And I said, well, we're we're we're doing both. You know? And he said, well, you know, somebody who can afford the mortgage might still need the down payment. And it clicked, and that just had not occurred to me before. And I kinda got upset that he designed a program for us, and he didn't write it in that way. So, anyway, long story short, Jeff Moore, our housing manager, is writing an admin report right now to counsel. And what we're looking at there is how to make sure that somebody, even if they can afford the mortgage payment, that they can get down payment assistance help.

Okay. Alright. Good.

And the closing on Fridays, we have a new CFO, miss Murray, and she's a little bit more comfortable with doing a couple of things off cycle or doing wire transfers, and and that had been not on the table before. And so what has happened is we have not operationalized that yet, so we're working to put the wire transfers in place so that we can work off of we can close on Tuesday, but we gotta get the check on Friday and then wait till the weekend's over to to close. And so we wanna get that a little bit more real time.

Okay. Alright. Appreciate it. That's good news. Alright. I have Mayor Pro Tem, Ferguson, McNair, and Jones. Thank you, mister Matt.

Chris, great job. Just one quick question. You're talking about nonprofits. Have Habitat Humanity applied? And if so, how come they wasn't awarded?

Yeah. So Habitat does two things with the city. They do emergency home repairs. And so for the past couple of years, we had a and the mayor's familiar with this. We had a a bunch of CDBG money that we were backlogged on. We got CARES Act money, COVID relief money, American Rescue Plan money, and so CDBG didn't go out the door as fast as we'd like. So we had Habitat, for the past two years. They took $300,000 each year and and ran, emergency repair program. Their their program is over after this year, and we've talked to them about, hey. You know, we we would have to split the existing funding we have between Fayetteville Arbor Ministry and Habitat, and neither one of you would have enough.

And so mister Price out of Habitat, he he kinda backed out of that. Now what we do with them otherwise is we we build new housing and put families in houses. And so part of that $1,200,000 that we have set there is for developers like Habitat to come in and apply for funding when we put our RFPs and then build houses.

My other question is you didn't address funding when you talked about home buyers assistance program. I know it's $400,000. I'm pretty sure we have reached that already. And I know that you have people waiting in line to close in the future. What are you gonna do to expand those funds? Was that a budget item?

Yeah. So under our home program, we doubled the number that we had. We had $200,000, and we're about out of the 200,000 as we sit here in almost May. And so next year, we're putting 400 into that. But we have been using a state grant of a million dollars for the past couple of years for people who are more workforce income levels.

Mhmm.

And we're gonna be out of that money very shortly. We're hoping that I'm it'll last sorry. What's that?

So you'd have a million dollars you're gonna be out shortly?

Yes, sir. Yeah. So we've been using that money to fund our home buyer workshop and then down payment and mortgage assistance for for buyers. And so that money will will will run dry. I'm projecting right now at June 30. And so that's another kind of conversation on the housing bond that we're we're working on.

Got it.

Thank you, Thank you, mister mayor.

Alright. Councilman Ferguson.

Thank you, mister mayor. So, with the home ownership assistance, going back to that, what is the max? Is it 30,000 is the max?

So for Homeowner's assistance. Yeah. So for people who are government employees, it's 30,000.

Okay.

So if they work for the hospital, they work for the school system, the university system for the city and county, Our normal program is $20,000. And so what we do is we we monitor that very closely. And what I look for is people who can't who take our full 20 and still can't close the gap, and that tells me we need to adjust numbers. So right now, on our $20,000 program, our average is 17,000 per transaction. On our $30,000 program, the average is 24,000. So we're still kind of in a sweet spot there. There there is you know, that's one of those ongoing monitoring things we have to look at over time to as the cost of housing changes and and things like that.

Okay. So the 400,000 is the what is allocated?

Yes. That's from our federal grant from the Home Investment Partnership. Right. That's enough to do the program from 80% of area median income and below. If we want to capture that workforce from 81 to one twenty, that's where we need local funding.

Okay. And so five people took advantage of that in the past year. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. So not in the current year. The current year is, like, '14, but

prior year, 2014.

Yeah. So a lot more. When we talk about activity of of having 17 in in the past year, that means 12 of them came from that local funding source where they were in the '81 to one twenty, which kinda makes sense. Right? The little bit higher income than moderate income, you're more equipped and ready to to purchase a home. Okay.

So the the balance of that, what goes to mortgage assistance, how does that so if we had five people who took advantage of 17 to $20,000, it's a $100,000 or less. Mhmm. But you have 400,000. Where does the the balance of that?

So I think most of those were city not city employees, but public service employees. So when I look at my individual home transactions, the I'm I'd have to go back and slice it that way. I've looked at it just on the the buckets and not on the funding level. But right now, we have not fully expanded all 200,000. So the 200,000 is what we have budgeted this year. Last year when we did five, I think we had one eighty, one seventy, something like that. It was our first year of budgeting with home. This year, we upped it to a flat 200. We're almost through all of that. And then next year, we've doubled that to 400.

So when we talk about five, we're talking about not this year, but last year. So we had, like, one seventy. I'd I'd have to double check that number, but so it was less than 200 last year that we budgeted.

I was just trying to see where that went because it's only 15 17 to 20,000, But you're working with 200,000.

Yeah. We're working with 200 this Almost

Yeah. Out. So I'm I was just seeing where the the the balance was was going to.

No. I follow your math exactly. So this year we have 200. Last year we didn't budget 200. And last year was the 5.

Okay. Do you know how much you budgeted last year?

I think it was, like, $1.60, $1.70, but I have to double check. Yeah.

So there would still be some some Yeah.

There's a little bit that rolls over year over year. Yes, sir. Alright.

Thank you. Thank you, mister.

Alright. Councilman council member McNair.

You can go to Jones. Okay. I'm making a motion.

You come back for a motion? Alright. Councilman Jones.

Alright. Thank you, mister mayor. Quick question. Statement first. One of the priorities is definitely trying to increase services for our senior population.

We just had a community meeting within District 3 and during the exercise that was the either number one or number two item that a community actually wanted to. So my question is have you all considered working with the Council on Older Adults? They have a program where they help seniors 60 of course with mobility, stability and aging in place and they have a home improvement program, things of that nature. So I know that would be a very specific population but I think it would also possibly give us an opportunity to have another vendor, for lack of a better word, to help service our residents.

Yes, sir. So so that program gets referred to when folks when folks go to Fayetteville Urban Ministry or Habitat looking for housing repairs, they they say, you know, hey. If you're over I think it's 62, then, you know, this is a program that's available to you. Action pathways also has a weatherization program for to change out windows and and stuff for lower utility bills. So there's all these different programs. Right? Ours is generally the most flexible and and I mean, we go to $15,000 on a house if we have to. Right? Mhmm. So that's pretty generous and you know, across the board. But I I guess I'll say all that to say that the folks that they are administering Habitat, they work with those partners to connect those resources.

Okay, because I had a conversation with someone over there and they are very much interested in seeing how they possibly could either apply for funding or get into that process directly. That's, yep, so just something to put out there.

If you could forward that to me, I'll absolutely follow-up.

Absolutely, thank you so much. And secondly, I love the aspect that you all did so much technical assistance with the business. I think that's an aspect that oftentimes gets overlooked just because sometimes it may not be a financial issue, it may be, okay, don't know how to do x, y, and z, so I'd love to see that. So thirdly and lastly, as it relates to our small business assistance, I know some businesses sometimes have issues with matching funds. And I know your department is sharp.

I have a great respect for you all. You all are really forward thinking. What thoughts have you given towards possibly what we could do for that? Either, I know it's challenging, either lowering grant amounts so that that match would be lower, but what possibly would would you foresee with we possibly could do to help those individual businesses that fall within that parameter? Thank you.

Yeah. So we've got a couple of things coming up on that at your May work session. So the first thing is that we're gonna use some local funding that council has set aside over the past couple of years for a smaller scale facade program. So if somebody needs to change an awning or replace some outdoor lighting $2,000, we we can do that program at a smaller scale. The the second thing that we're doing is in our CDBG funded program, which has traditionally been larger up to 25,000, we've asked the business owner to pay the 50 and then submit it to us, and we'll pay them back 25.

We're we're gonna skip that moving forward. And so that that the business owner, we can actually pay the contractor directly. So the business owner doesn't have to come up with $50 and wait to get reimbursed. We we can they pay their 25. The city pays our 25, and, you know, we we can be happy with the outcome.

Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you, Alright.

Council council member Ferguson Martin. Oh, alright. Council member McNair.

If if we're getting a motion, just wanted to I'm sorry.

Oh, I got

a I got a public hearing. Yes, sir.

Yeah, man. Yeah.

Oh, you do?

Alright. Yep. Alright. With that, we'll open the public hearing, madam clerk.

Mayor, we have no speakers.

Alright. That will close the public hearing. Councilman McMillan, you had something?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you again, Chris, for all your work. I just wanna encourage you on the resources piece to to request what's needed to include expenditures from the general fund.

I'm gonna bring my neighbors into the room that I've heard over the years talk about the amount of suffering in Fayetteville, the amount of poverty, and kinda watching our our government, this council, spend millions of dollars on things like sporting complexes, on museums. And I think we do live in an environment of much more abundance than we often want to acknowledge. So I think it can be a both and in a lot of cases, but I hear a lot that we under resource the organizations, the facets that address the suffering that Ms. Crystal even brought up at the beginning of this this session in terms of the poverty here in Fayetteville. So I wanna just encourage you to to to request what's needed.

You're doing some of the most critically important work that the city is doing. You're leading on that, And many of us would be interested in giving more resources to see that work forward. Also want to go back to the presentation that we got on the impacts of gun violence and the fact that we are paying on the other end, on not not bolstering our our ability to be preventative, going back to an ounce of prevention be being worth a pound of a cure. And I think a lot of us are are looking forward to committing more resources to being preventative. Also, Jelani Cobb said, in a democracy, the fundamental civic unit is neighbor.

And something that that I've heard talked about is the the idea of bolstering neighborhood organizations. I'm wondering if you could speak to the city's ability to reinvest in something that used to be big in the 50s and 60s, especially neighborhood organizations. It's making its way back in some cities. I know Cincinnati just had a neighborhood summit, established something they called a neighborhood a system of neighborhood councils, and really invest in some of the deeper work that's taking care of seniors, that's taking care of of youth at a at a a very granular level in in neighborhoods. If you could address our capacity in the future maybe to to revive neighborhood associations in Fayetteville.

Yeah. I think that's a a very timely question. So I've got, two folks that work for me, Nelson and Antoine, that work on neighborhood engagement. They go out to a lot of community watch meetings. They help with the, community safety micro grant program or water and sewer, all of those different programs, right, which we're coming back in May for mayor.

But that's not really the vision that I had in mind when we brought them on board, and and work kinda fills a vacuum. Right? And and so what we've been talking about with them is what other cities do around neighborhood engagement. What does that mean? Is is that showing up at community watch meetings, or is that something deeper and something more?

And so I don't have the answer yet, but the example you just provided is one that we've looked at. We've looked at some, like, neighborhood matching grant, neighborhood registration type stuff where maybe you take that community watch group and help them transform into a neighborhood organization and and just go to that next step. They've already organized. Let's give them, you know, a purpose and some resources to to move forward. And so that's really what I'm hoping that we can come up with a plan for the in the next year to do.

I am probably over judicious with coming and asking counsel for additional resources. I like to make sure that I'm fully using everything I got first, and so I wouldn't wanna come to you and ask for resources without a plan for that neighborhood piece. But that is absolutely what we're working on right now with with that team and my assistant director and me to really come up with what are other folks doing really good and what can we borrow from them and do here in Fayetteville. K. Thank you. So please share those ideas and stuff and and community contacts. If there's people we need to talk to, send them our way, and we'll we'll talk to them.

Yeah. Thank you. Alright. Council go to council member McNair for the motion.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, Chris. I just wanna let you know that the committee really appreciate the hard work that you're doing, and we are looking forward to getting some great things done on this committee along with McMillan, Davis, Ferguson, and and the mayor.

Can't leave him out. With that being said, I'd like to make a motion to adopt the resolution authorizing the twenty twenty six twenty seven proposed annual action plan for community development block grant, home investment partnership programs, and emergency solution grants.

Alright. The motion by councilmember McNair, second by Ferguson. Discussion. Alright. Council look to you for your votes.

Alright. Motion carries unanimous. Mister Colleague, great job. Tell your team, keep up the good work. Thank you all. I appreciate the time

and the engagement. Yes, sir.

Alright, counsel. We'll move to the adjusted items, the 11 items starting with 11 o one. Appointments committee, go to you, mayor pro tem.

Thank you, mister mayor. On April 17, I believe, at our last appointment committee, we had a consensus to nominate three individuals to two boards and commissions, and we're looking to get consensus from the entire council. The board consists of council member Hare, who is the chair, myself, the mayor pro tem, council member Hondros, and council member Macmillan. And the names are as follows for the historic resource commission. These are two year terms from April 27 today till 03/31/2028. For HRC, we have Brown. For senior citizens advisory committee, we have miss Julia White and miss Sherrell Golden Thomas.

Alright. There's a motion by mayor pro tem to approve the following nominees. Is there a second? Second by Davis. Discussion? Alright. Counsel, I look to you for your votes. Y'all good? Alright. Motion carries unanimous.

Thank you, mister mayor. I wanna make a correction on that one. It's council member Malik Davis, who is a member of the appointment committee. Alright. You ready for the next item, mister mayor?

Yes, sir. Let so correction noted. Alright. 11 o two, consideration of the proposed amendments for parades, motorcade special events, demonstration. Who will be presenting that? Madam attorney, is that your

team?

If we if I can, mister mayor, as we discussed upstairs, I would like to move that we table this item for the city attorney to go back and get some recommendations from the peer cities and bring back to us at a work session so we can go over some of the ordinances that she presented.

Alright. This is a motion to table, second by Jones. And that was, madam attorney has discussed to come back with some Pier City comparisons to align or to present back to council. Alright.

Yes, sir.

Alright. Comments, questions? Councilmember McMillan? I do.

I cannot support the motion

to table this. I will

ask the council at this time to consider a motion to dismiss this altogether.

But we have have a motion on the floor with a proper second. I have to

use both of So I'm gonna vote against this and if others feel the way that I do understand that this from its inception was a bad idea. As I said upstairs, this this came from targeting from a specific group in a way that infringed on their first amendment rights. It is on the legislative record record repeatedly, in this city. We are already susceptible to lawsuit because of this. And I think it's foolish to move forward even with revisions on something that so blatantly goes against what we all swore to to serve to protect and defend our first amendment amendment rights.

I think that if we continue on this path, we will end up wasting the city's money, wasting time, and fighting this in court when somebody realizes that they've been targeted and can fight this in court. I think this has a chilling chilling effect on democratic practice already. And for that reason, I cannot vote to table it. I will be the counter motion in order to dismiss this altogether. But thank you for your time.

Alright. Thank you. If that motion carries, since we're in a discussion phase again, as stated upstairs, Councilmember McMillan, know, that's certainly entitled to your opinion about that. There are oftentimes that things happen that prompt action. As I gave the example before last year, we had a situation at an amusement park with youth and them.

As a result of that, it wasn't targeting youth to go to amusement parks. What it did, it talked to the amusement park owners to say that we need you to have a security plan that makes sense. Again, the other example given was last year that there were incidents at the Dogwood Festival, Caitlin talked about the actions taken was that you no longer can bring in bags that are not clear or we ask you to leave your weapons in the car. So having circumstances that prompt legislative action is how laws and bills come about. And it's not necessarily targeting, but it's certainly, again, as your opinion, I want to get that on the record that there's nothing to substantiate that because any group, if an ordinance is adopted, just like the current laws are, that abides by the court current ordinances and and adoptions are able to practice their first amendment rights.

So, again, that'll be something up for discussion. And I do see

Can I

a few lights out? I'll come to you for a second round.

Let me

make sure no one else has first round.

Let me let me comment if I can,

mister Smith. May I protect you?

As I mentioned upstairs, this came about by an ordinance that I read from Raleigh. So if there wasn't a problem with Raleigh doing it, I think it's pertinent that we can look at Pierce City to see what they're doing to try to mitigate the same thing that we're doing when it comes to protections ordinance. So I don't think there's gonna be any lawsuits because if it was, it would be already. So thank you, mister mayor.

Alright. Councilman Miller Hondros. I'm sorry. First round.

Thank you, mister mayor. I I just wanna add that if there's any one group, it's the citizens of this city that contact us and tell us they'd like to be able to enjoy a peaceful meal or stroll down the sidewalk with their significant other without being bothered or infringed upon their rights to quiet peaceful enjoyment of their evening. So thank you.

Well, no. We're not gonna have that. So we'll escorted out.

Alright? Deescalate, sir.

Alright. Yeah. It's deescalation. And we got one chair. That's me today. So go ahead. Second round. Second round, sir.

Yeah so your your example mr. Mayor was perfect. You're talking about an ordinance that is unenforceable in the youth youth or youth curfew. Police chief just stood in front of us a month ago and said he cannot enforce that. You know why? Because it was unconstitutional. It calls for targeting of people because they looked young. And it's that type of thing that that makes it look like Fayetteville's is stuck on stupid when it comes to things that have to do with basic human rights and protecting the constitution. And we can continue wasting time. We can waste time on litigation.

We can waste time on this dais. Or we can start just recognizing these types of policies for what they are, dismissing them and go about the the business of taking care of the city like we should be. It's a waste of time.

Thank you. And Stuck on Stipwood is not hearing the comments because I said the amusement park owners would then submit a security plan. So it wasn't the curfew. So but with that, you had your second comments. Council, we got a motion on the floor, and so look to you for your votes. This is the table. The the motion is to table the ex city attorney to come back, with, comparisons from peer cities. Alright. Oh, we missed okay. Seven two.

Motion carries seven two. Those voting in opposition, Green and McMillan. Alright. 11 021103. Mister manager, who's doing the presentation there?

Mister attorney. Victoria Curtis, who advises planning and zoning.

Alright. Assistant city attorney, miss Curtis. Curtis. Welcome. Attorney Curtis.

Alright. Okay.

Good evening mayor and council. I'm Victoria Curtis, an assistant city attorney assigned to development services. I have prior experience in development law, and I've worked with the UDO over the past four years in, private practice. As you may recall, at the April 13 meeting, counsel directed the city attorney's office to prepare general information on development moratoria, and I'm here to present that information. Before we begin, you may have heard of the terms moratoria versus moratorium.

Moratoria is simply the plural form and moratorium is the singular form. So what is a moratorium? In the land use context, a moratorium is a temporary pause on development approvals. It functions as a pause button, allowing local government time to study issues and consider regulatory action before future development occurs. A moratorium is not a permanent tool, and it does not stop all development.

Turning to authority. The city's ability to adopt a moratorium comes from North Carolina general statute one sixty d dash one zero seven. That statute allows a city of the authority to adopt a moratorium for development approvals, and that term is broadly defer defined. It includes zoning permits, site plans, special use permits, and building permits. In terms of implementation, the statute outlines the procedural and substantive requirements of a moratorium ordinance.

So that means that both the process and the specific contents of an ordinance is regulated by state law. And so in terms of implementation, the city would need to define the scope and purpose of the moratorium, including any issues that would be affected or addressed. It would also need to define the scope and purpose concerning the development activity that would be affected. The city would also need to develop the required findings including any problems that are gonna be addressed, any alternatives considered, and the plan of action that the city would take during the moratorium. The city would also need to draft the moratorium or ordinance and consider any projects that may be exempted under state law.

Regardless of the duration of the moratorium, proper notice and at least one public hearing must be taken prior to that public excuse me. Following that public hearing, the city could adopt the ordinance and implement the plan. As mentioned, state law requires that the moratorium be adopted by ordinance and include specific findings. Those findings are a clear statement of the problems or conditions and alternatives considered and why those alternatives are inadequate. Second, a statement of the development approvals subject to the moratorium.

Third, a termination date and why that duration is reasonably necessary. And finally, a statement of the actions to be taken during the moratorium and a timeline for those actions. From a legal standpoint, the city does have some flexibility in how they could structure the moratorium. The city may define the scope by geography, by zoning district, or citywide. As mentioned, the city could adopt the moratorium following required notice in public hearings for a moratorium of sixty days or less.

It the moratorium could be adopted following one public hearing before counsel. And for a moratorium of more than sixty days, the law requires two public hearings. One public hearing before the Planning Commission and one public hearing before counsel. In the limited circumstances of an imminent threat to public health or safety, the city could adopt the moratorium without any notice or a hearing. As the saying goes, there's an exception to every rule, and state law identifies particular projects that may be exempt from a moratorium.

These include projects with valid building permits, complete special use permit applications, approved site specific vesting plans, substantial expenditures made in reliance on prior approvals, and subdivision plats accepted for review prior to the hearing. As a result, even if a moratorium is adopted, generally, these projects may continue. State law also also provides what is known as permit choice protection. And if a completed application is submitted before a moratorium takes effect, the applicant may choose which regulations apply. So the applicant may choose to move forward under the regulations in place at the time the application is submitted, or the applicant can choose to move forward with the regulations that are later adopted.

This protection may be lost after prolonged inactivity of six months or more. Other legal considerations. The moratorium cannot function as a de facto down zoning. State or federal law may limit local regulatory authority. And finally and most importantly, the application of a moratorium depends on project specific facts and timing.

Thank you.

Alright. Madam attorney, thank you for the presentation. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, mister Mayor. I'd like to make a motion. I'd like to move that we do at least a hundred and twenty day stay to give our planning commission an opportunity to collaborate, to bring us back an ordinance along with a public hearing to hear from the public, see what concerns they have. Also, during our county liaison meeting with the city, give our staff an opportunity to collaborate with the county to see exactly what provisions they're gonna put in place so we can be collaborate and move together on how we want this ordinance to look like. So their ordinance is not more strenuous or less strenuous than ours that we're on the same sheet of music.

So if if that would be the motion, mister mayor. Least a hundred and twenty days.

Alright. So so there was a motion. Is there a second to that or do we have discussion prior to that? If so, I'll circle back to you may approach him when it's time. I saw some lights. So were those question guys or were those?

I had a I had a light. You mister mayor Questions. Would like to be recognized.

Questions.

Yeah. So I had a light, disappeared, had to hit it again.

I'm not

sure if I was ahead of the but I

think I probably was.

Say that again?

I'm not sure if I was ahead of the mayor mayor pro pro tem but I had to reengage my light.

No you wouldn't. I'd say it on my sheet.

Right on. So Yes I I have discussion on on his motion.

Okay. Alright. So is there a second first and foremost to the motion? Alright. To you said to amend it? I mean, you can offer friendly yes, ma'am. Yeah. If you wanted

to. Well,

I'm I'm

a come back. He's got a discussion. He wants to go to discussion. So we have to get through to any amended or accepted a second. So the second second Bahondro is now friendly amendment. Madam McNair, you were saying something? Yes. Turn your mic on

for me.

So if we move to the one hundred and twenty days, I propose that council members conduct site visit to local data centers before voting on the one year moratorium on data centers development. The purpose is to ensure an informed decision making by assessing the operational and environmental impact of data centers.

Alright. So that is a offer for a friendly amendment to include in that, I guess, the fat gathering period

site visit. I wouldn't mind, but I don't understand how we can hold council members accountable for doing it.

Well, I guess you just present the opportunity, I guess.

Recommendation, I'll agree

with it.

Yes. You don't have to.

Yes.

Alright. Most definitely. Alright. So I got a motion that includes a 120 period to

01/20.

I'm

sorry. To work with the county. Correction.

Mister corrections 01/20. I said a

year. Oh,

yeah. Yeah.

To work with the county, to gather information, and to include, recommended site visits to some of these sites, and there was a a second.

And have it published. Question

on the friendly amendment. Was that local data center sites or local to the county, the city county, or local to the state? Or which which developments did you wanna field trip? I

guess we can we can choose, pick and choose.

I guess where I'm It'll be lot of the

best sites are?

Mister mayor.

I'm okay with that.

Alright. Alright. So so there's a motion is the friendly amendment accepted to the second? Councilmember McMillan.

Yes. I thank you. And just to know, I've had my my light on since the beginning of your brief, but I appreciate your your work.

Actually had the first light on, sir.

Thank you. Alright. I I cannot support the mayor pro tem's motion. We understand what we need to do. The moratorium could incorporate everything that you just said. The first 120, if you want, could be included in that moratorium. I'm prepared to put a motion on the floor tonight to direct staff to prepare a moratorium ordinance on data center development applications. And I think many of us are ready to go ahead and get this moratorium in place, to get staff to work on said moratorium, and to schedule the hearings that you just proposed to all of us. Thank you for laying out the statutory pathway. This is not hard for us.

Matter of fact, about five different municipalities have done it in in North Carolina in the last seventy five days. Apex just voted to do this by unanimous vote the night after we voted to to receive this information. So, colleagues, what I'm asking is if you could vote against what the mayor pro tem just proposed with the understanding that that could be in accordance with what I sent you earlier today and what most of us already have, a full year schedule of things that will happen during a moratorium to include the education, the close examination, mayor pro tem, that you just proposed, to include council member McNair, if you want, in that moratorium phase, tours or whatever whatever we come up with. Those are those are things that are part of what I forwarded you already, and I would hope that you consider having a comprehensive approach to this. And thank you

for your time, mister

mayor. Thank you.

Councilman Jones, you have?

Thank you, mister mayor.

Just Councilman Jones, you have something?

Yes. Just very quickly. Madam attorney just very quickly on slide five I know there are some required ordinance elements. If something of a moratorium was passed is it possible to look to our some of our peer cities that may already have one in place to ascertain some of the information that they have to help build our facts, findings of facts, and to deal with some of those required elements? Kind of similar to what we do with some of the other issues that we look at some of their policies.

Is that for the or the

I'm happy to answer it. We can certainly do that. Sir, I was just confirming with the manager though, council did approve a set stack if you will of peer cities and so we'd look to those in accordance with council's prior direction but yes we can do that.

Okay then secondly very quickly I wanna make something extremely clear for Jones for me. I'm pro advancement, I'm pro economic development, I'm pro housing, I'm pro all of those things. So just because I support a moratorium does not mean that I don't support that. At any given time, any of us may not agree on something, but that does not mean that we're anti growth. So I want to make that extremely clear for me for me because I really want to do that.

Number two, I have been listening to the community again. This is part of the community but I want to go beyond that because my decision making isn't solely I appreciate everyone that comes to camp and to council chambers. That's a portion. I make an intentional effort to engage with the community within the district and a lot of what I've heard was yes, we support it simply because there are a lot of unknowns and I know there's questions about the utilities, things of that nature, water, and okay, if they are unsubstantiated. For me, if they are, what would preclude us from at least bringing in some subject matter experts and having the residents' questions answered on that behalf.

And that was one of the things that they've pretty much pushed to me. Some of them are for it, some of them don't know because there's just not enough, they just don't know enough about it but the majority of those within the district are in supporting a moratorium. So in closing I want to say this again I am pro economic development I am pro moving the city forward so please do not try to label me in that aspect just because I may vote a certain way. Tonight, I am in support of a little longer moratoria for that just because of the community. And community, I know, and I'm talking to the district and those in the city as well, because I represent all of the city as well, a part of the body.

I know there are times where we may not totally agree. I mean, we may totally not agree, and I may have to vote a different way. I will let you know why I vote a certain way, but tonight is one of those it's not one of those times. Thank you.

Alright. Councilmember Green.

Am going to say that I feel very similar to my council member Jones colleague. We all received an email today from council member McMillan, and I appreciate your thoughts. I appreciate everything that everybody has sent me. I in saying that, I too am am and have always been pro economic development. I understand that our tax base is too low to support the things that we need.

I do think that we need to manage, what we do and do not allow in our community. But one of the things that is was interesting to me is all of the emails that I received, and I can't say I sent back something to everyone because I received a lot, for the moratorium and against it. But what I did was I went through an exercise, and I sent an email back to a lot of those folks. And I asked them, what is the magical number? Why one year?

What is the magical number? Why is that magical? And I honestly, I think I heard back from about two people, and I read through that person's response, and they really didn't answer my question. I think that council member McMillan did a good job in laying it out. I do believe that we are kind of already into the process of months one through four because I think the city staff has done more than most of us may be aware on this dais.

And for that reason, I would like to have some answers to that hundred and twenty days and what would that look like during that hundred and twenty days because I'm not sure we could accomplish everything we need to accomplish. I personally would like to see a table or graph or however staff believes it's most appropriately done that shows us we want this size data center. We do not want this type of data center, and it shows us very concretely in what we're accepting and what we're not willing to accept because we just can't be we don't want any data centers. We just can't be that community because I think that borders on, for me, what councilmember McMillan was expressing that we just can't get I think you said stuck on stupid. I'm not thrilled with that analogy, but those were your words, not mine.

I I said that.

We can't be that community. We have to think forward, and we have to look at things in a way, which sometimes means compromising. So I probably am not in favor of the hundred and twenty day moratorium either because I need to understand what that looks like and what that hundred and twenty days is meant to do. So I need a little more detail. I'm always the one that wants more detail and wants to understand what you're putting in front of me.

I know it's frustrating to some of you guys, but I am who I am and I'm consistently who I am. So with that being said, I am probably gonna be a no on the moratorium, but like council member Jones, I am for economic growth. I wanna see us move forward in a community, but I wanna see us move forward in the right way.

Thank

you, Samir. Alright. And so before we Mister mayor, second round. Yeah.

Yeah. Hold on. Hold on a second. I'm I'm trying to make sure I cover first round. On this, if I if I understand the motion correct, this was a hundred and twenty day pause to gather information. Like, I am with you that I am all for having a conversation whether you pro or against for or not that should be fact based. Right? It should be it should be able to have some substance to it and not just talking points that apply regardless of where they go. What's unique about this community is as we all heard Moneybox say earlier today, we are a tier one urban county which doesn't exist in North Carolina except here. That means that our wages are low.

That means our tax base is lower. That means that our job and our unemployment rate is higher and we have communities, our municipal peers that we've referred to numerous times tonight, Wake County, one of the most prosperous has these, so they figured it out as a community. We have Guilford County who created more jobs in the triad last year than anyone else in North Carolina history has these. We have Mecklenburg County who is a financial hub that we've also asked for municipal peers in one of the fastest growing areas in the country has these. So how did other communities do it and not impact the quality of life?

What impacts quality of life, in my opinion, whether you come out of this or not, is certainly higher utility bills. But I want everyone to get take their phones out now and Google. And there's an 8% request by Duke right now to increase your utility bills and not one data center is here. You're killing yourself. Okay?

But at the end of it coal ash was not spilt in Cumberland County but Cumberland County is a part of the area that pays for it. So whether the data centers come here or they come in any of the other 82 counties, when they request an increase with the state utilities department, the cost is spread out. So communities that get something out of it pay just like communities that get nothing out of it. But I'd love to have fact based conversations. And what is interesting about it, I believe, and asked my council member as we talk about it, if the concerns are environmental, I like to hear that, substantiate it.

Because on the other hand of that conversation were low emissions and new strategies and new technologies. So if it is about power usage, we just address that, that you'll pay one way or another if the utilities commission approves it. So when you give any kind of pause the research should be quantitative and it should be able to be proved without the emotional part to it. And so you should be able to have a fact based conversation. And so with that, as you say that, council member Green, I don't know, as you said before, that a lot of this staff work on just the procedural part because the attorney just told us moratoriums are not a special power that cities have to stop development from coming or to do down zoning, I think is what you said.

That's correct.

To mean that you can choose and pick and choose what you will and won't accept. They have to have some justification. So I think gathering information, I've heard council member McMillan refer on numerous occasions that we need to trust staff. Well staff came back and said these are some things that you need to do to protect this community because right now you don't have any protection. And so I think that all of those things have to be factored in as we do it. So with that, the second round, I have council member Hondros and then McMillan.

Thompson. Thank you, mister.

Hondros McMillan.

Oh, is it Thompson first?

Hondros first.

I'm second. It it's it. It goes from top to bottom.

Question is either for attorney Curtis or attorney Pulliam, whoever wants to do a crack at it. Upstairs, there was something in our local UDO ordinances compared to peer cities. I know we haven't looked at all the peer cities yet, but there was something unique in our ordinance unique to Fayetteville. Can you speak to that a little bit? Either one. Yes,

sir. So if you would like to enact a moratorium longer than sixty days, the statute says you follow the process you would follow for other development approvals like text amendments. And our ordinance requires the planning commission to hear the matter and then the council to hear the matter.

Thank you. Next question, I think I see doctor Newton back there. Either doctor Newton or Craig either warn somebody from development services about zoning ordinances in general. So if we set data center developments aside for a second just for any kind of development, whether it's a residential subdivision, retail strip center, or an industrial zoning, what what typically environmental protections are in the zoning or to ask it a different way, in the zoning regulations or in the UDO, what type of environmental protections or limitations or restrictions are are in the development ordinances?

Can you be more specific in that question, please?

So is there any any place in our zoning ordinances for any any use in any of the use tables for any of the zoning classification? Does it talk does it speak to water usage? Does it speak to on-site generation of electricity? Does it speak to sound pollution, you know, noise pollution, air pollution, water pollution?

Okay. The first

two are not, in chapter 30 tied to, the resources that you just discussed. And I think that was part of the presentation that was given to this group before. In terms of other environmental issues, you also mentioned noise. Noise is a protection in a different chapter in the ordinances. I'm trying to remember where the noise is, But we do have standards that talk about compatibility within areas.

But the standards, as you'd heard in the presentation, as it relates to data centers, depending on the type and scale, are not in place currently to address those larger issues nor would they. As we tried to point out before, zoning is not gonna be the answer to all the issues that exist or that would have to be examined. There are some things that the state is handling handles, and there are other items that would have to be a further discussion.

Right. So if I remember correctly, some of the staff recommended protections and restrictions for our consideration, which are not in place yet, was about noise, buffers, and those things, different class buffers, setbacks?

That's correct. That was the beginning of the conversation. There were other items that were being talked about that would probably be needed in terms of instead of just a straight zoning that doesn't exist, what if we look at other things like conditional zoning?

Gotcha. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you, mister Mayor.

You're welcome.

Mayor Parton. Thank you, mister Mayor.

I just wanna give some thoughts on what I've been reading. Between 2026 and 2030, there's gonna be a $1,000,000,000,000 impact on data centers across just The United States, not across the world. They have learned from problems with other municipalities and what they're looking towards is for power, either nuclear plants, solar, gas, turbine, or batteries. For water, they're looking at recycling their own water so they're not distributing water and having to recycle it and filter it back and forth. For noise, they're looking at noise motion monitors to monitor the amount of noise that they lay off.

As far as zoning, they're looking for buffers and setbacks to make sure that it's not equate to neighbors and neighborhoods. These are some of the things that we can look at to look into when we do our ordinance as was stated earlier to collaborate with what the county is doing, what the state is doing, and what the federal government is doing to monitor the impacts of data Thank you, mister mayor.

Alright. So we got council member McMillan, Jones, and Green.

Yes. Thank you, mister mayor. Appreciate this new campaign from the NAACP that they've titled as stop dirty data centers. And one of their phrases in it is opportunity can never excuse harm. Opportunity can never excuse harm. And and we're stewarded with leadership of this city. I appreciate and agree with much of what's been said. Mayor pro tem, I agree with you. We can take the time to understand what's going on and to put measures in place. We can do that during a moratorium period. That's what it's designed for. Sir, that's exactly what it's designed for. Also wanna speak to trusting staff. I have a clean motion. I'm gonna vote against the mayor pro tems, and I I do respect that there's a motion on the floor.

I have a clean motion that puts this back in the hands of staff and also is not not limiting us in duration or scope. Those are things the staff is gonna come back to us with, and we're gonna approve preferably at adoption. So there is some research period for the staff, and I am trusting that the staff can come back with some with a solid ordinance so we can get behind and time that's built into the this process for for the public to be heard in public hearings that are mandatory at least twice, right, madam madam attorney. I also wanna point to Chatham County. I sent it to everybody earlier.

That's a that's a great amendment. It's very simple. It has protections that are highlighted every single period, things that we could be focused on. We could bring in experts like the SCLC. They've been here. They just haven't been had the time to speak. They've spoken to the community. They've spoken to me. They need to spoke speak to you all. They've they have written a book, literally, a pamphlet on making these types of policy decisions for municipalities.

We can also bring in the North Carolina in just Environmental Justice Network. I also wanna speak to my colleague's points about being anti technology or anti development. I think the beauty of what we're seeing is there are people on all sides of the spectrum, people that use this technology every day and people that are against the technology, but they all agree that a moratorium is the right way to methodically, to comprehensively approach all of the harms that we just just just briefed. Also, back to Doc Newton, We don't we don't put it on staff that's focused on zoning to worry about all of the other things that should be a part of this. That is, again, the beauty of a moratorium.

We can have your zoning expertise, but we can also have environmental expertise to talk about the impacts that that could not possibly have been addressed with the things that you briefed us a couple of weeks ago nor nor should it be expected to. In short, if we can vote against this, if we can get this one hundred twenty day proposal off, I can assure you that our able staff can be given time. Usually, the time is between five and eight weeks. That's what the the other municipalities in North Carolina have taken. Give our able staff those five to eight weeks to come back with a workable, defensible moratorium that addresses our concerns and allows us to move forward on the moratorium period. But thank you for your time.

Thank thank you, sir. Alright Councilmember Jones.

Thank you Commissioner Mayor very quickly. Even in the justice system there there's an assumption that you are innocent until proven guilty and I think that speaks to there it there being two sides to every story. So for me, I bring that up because I want to hear, okay, if there are not impacts to our environment, water, whatever the case may be, well show me the other side of that as well. So I want to, because there's information out there that show both things, so you can, we can find information on both sides of the spectrum is basically what I'm saying, so I would love to hear, even though we deal with the land issue, the land part of it, and I totally get that, what I would love to hear directly from PWC, what does this potentially look like? Yes, they buy their energy from Duke, and I understand that, but what does that potentially look like?

Like? Have they considered, what things do they have in place? And for me, again, it's just getting that other side of things, finding out what does it look like. Lastly, as it relates to even size as well, economic development, at what size data center will produce x amount of jobs. What's the economic impact at certain jobs post construction, things of that nature.

So those are the things that I do want to, would like to know, and I think a moratorium would, for me, would provide time to get those information because if there is an impact, which I know that there will be of course, what would that look like again per size? So those little caveats for me are important. So that's what I would be looking for and some of the things I would be looking for in regards to if a moratorium was passed of some sort. Thank you Mr. Mayor.

Alright thank you. Councilmember Ferguson.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. So we know that there are four issues that mostly everyone who is against is for the moratorium is concerned about and that's water electricity noise and air those four pieces and that's what everything everyone is talking about this will be always talking about so my thing is if we can address each of those issues and the question was asked last week but there was no the last meeting but there was no answer if we address all of those issues do you still would you still be in favor of not having a moratorium? That answer couldn't be no one answered that because it seems that most

of it is

we just don't want a moratorium period. I mean we just we want a moratorium we just don't want data centers period so as I said as I said excuse

me this is this is councilmember speaking please show respect or we'll be asked to leave last time go ahead councilmember

As I mentioned at the last meeting I hope that we could take a balanced approach and when I said a balanced approach I was looking at the concerns of the residents and if you address the concerns of the residents you can still do what you need to do economically build the tax base etcetera so how can you do those two things and balance it and have both I believe I personally believe and I believe just based on my research is that we can get to that point where we can address. We said that about the public forum and and there were certain issues that were we answered all those issues. Now that the council still has saved some time, moved it to another day, everybody's happy that's the balance I'm looking at and I'm looking at it from that aspect as it relates to this as well the problem if with I believe and I did support a moratorium looking at a moratorium I I mentioned at the beginning of that I didn't know what time frame that would be whether whether it be I think I mentioned to someone I would be willing to do four or five months or so and so because I believe that that's enough time for us to get the information and to address these concerns.

So my question would be is if we can address these concerns, will you still hold the same concern as far as data centers are concerned so I am I am in supportive of the time frame I was always in support of pausing it to take a look at it I think we have looked at it we've looked at it for five six months we're still looking at it and if we go another four months if we go another four months then of course we will that would give us plenty of time I believe so I'm supporting the

one hundred and twenty day.

Thank

you. Councilmember Greene. Oh.

I I would like a little bit of confirmation, please, because I think that mayor pro tem

got

out of the gate a little quick before some of us were ready to hear all that he was thinking because he was already there. I'll just like you to confirm your motion in that it is a 100 and it's a request for a hundred and twenty day stay for a study period and during that stay there would be no applications allowed for a data center and That no approval of a data center of any type during that period.

It's a moratorium.

And that if since it falls into the greater than category, I think the attorney stated that, and I don't know if that was specifically to a moratorium or just to the process, but I'm gonna assume that you would that would also include public hearing, community meetings, and a chance to have conversation, which I think we are all hearing it said, but in a different manner. I think the problem is that it's we're just saying it all a little differently because we see it from a different vantage point. So I I just wanna make sure it has the protection in place to keep us from someone coming along and standing up a data center or a permit. And I want it to have a piece that has public hearing because I think that's vital and I heard two public hearings. I don't care if it's 22 public hearings.

If that's what we need to do, that's what we need to do and the education piece and the time for everybody to understand how we move forward and listen to what staff has to say back to us.

Alright. So let me just recap that. So the motion on the floor was was a hundred and twenty day stay To include, as you're doing this research, of course, you need community input. You need the questions answered that came up tonight. I think Councilmember Ferguson nailed it.

Was basically the same four questions and concerns that you hear, which are big ones, but you should be able to get to those answers. And council member Jones, don't you know, I I just don't know that to his point, if you don't if you don't support it, you just don't support it. At some point, we're gonna have to be big boys and girls and take a vote and stand with it. Right. But if if the end result is research, then those four or five categories or whatever you hear I think are captured in in the spirit of what you said as well as the mayor pro tem and so we've had a couple rounds that I did as we call for the question I did wanna since this was brought up I want to to read exactly what the NAACP and the environmental climate justice advocate said.

It's the guiding principles for big tech and it says the following, that we want to demand community owned renewable energy. Didn't say we ban it, said if we're gonna do it, it needs to be community owned renewable energy. We demand that any commitments made must be legally binding and publicly disclosed so they want transparency. And we demand corporate tax accountability for data centers, meaning that they pay their own way. That is from the NAACP's website in conjunction with the the criminal justice advocates and some of the things that were mentioned tonight. So that madam attorney, you had something

from a

decision standpoint. I had two rounds, sir.

Thank you, mayor Colvin. Just wanted to clarify before the mayor pro tem clarifies that the only way to pause data center development is through a moratorium. So the one hundred and twenty day

stay is wasting time.

If that was your intent, would be that we not implement the moratorium and continue to study the process?

Study the process. Do not implement the moratorium. Action. And we would just make sure that if they do come, we don't give them any action till after the hundred and twenty days.

Alright.

So mister mayor, can we call for the vote?

Alright. So So we can Alright. Counselor Latif for your vote.