City Council Work Session - workshop

And welcome to the May 4 work session. We will call this meeting to order, and the invocation will be provided by council member Ferguson.

Eternal father, we thank you for this day. We ask you to lead us, guide us in the right way to go. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Let us all stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all. Mister manager?

Y'all got to me so

much quicker than

normal because the announcements and recognitions. I have a a couple of things, mayor pro tem, and I may need your indulgence as well as I gather some of them to come back to you later after I've had a moment to confer with the city attorney. But probably most pressing for me at the moment is that we receive word that the historic preservation fund grant for College Heights and Seabrook Hills communities architectural archaeological survey is they need authorization and support from the city for $16,000 grant match. Chris, where are you at? Did I get that right?

If you could come up briefly and talk about that. What I'm gonna be asking mayor pro tem and looking to the city attorney since she and I have not had a chance to talk about this is that if counsel can give me the nod that this is something that you generally support, I will put it on for your consent agenda for next week for you to approve or if the city attorney feels that for the $16,000 and their authorization, we need to ask you to add an item to the agenda to take action on it. My preference would be if we were able through consent to get your acknowledgment to do it, that we will put it on as a retroactive item for your meeting on is it Monday, June?

Yes, sir.

Monday. So, Chris, could you describe briefly what the item is?

Alright. There we go. Yes, sir. Thank you, for a little bit of time at the beginning of the meeting here. So, we received, pretty pretty late last week that a deadline for a certified local government grant from the state historic preservation office, was available.

The city has recently, applied for two of these grants. They were both for Broadell and off of Merxin Road. The first grant that we did performed an archaeological, an architectural, and historic survey of the neighborhood in partnership with Fayetteville State University and the state historic preservation office and the community to really compile a lot of information to tell a story about that neighborhood, folks who live there, and the growth of that area. The second grant we got was to hire a professional firm that would write the nomination to put that area into the National Register of Historic Places. That grant is still ongoing.

We're right at the tail end process for that one. So every year, these funds become available through the state, and we're eligible because we're a certified local government to apply for those funds. And so the request is to authorize approval for the College Heights and Seabrook Hills areas, which are single family areas, very, very close aligned to to the Broaddale area. The grant is a total the project is a total of about $40,000, give or take a few. If it's $40,000, the grant will cover 24, and the city would need to cover the remaining 16.

I don't currently have a funding source for this, so we would need to source it out of the general fund, at at that time. But our grant policies and procedures and stuff require that council authorized staff to apply for it?

Well, first, let me go to councilmember Hare. Councilmember Hare, are you on?

Yes, sir. I am.

Can you give us some insight? Weren't you fighting for one of the neighborhoods to be designated historic? I don't know which one that we're referring to, but was College Heights or Seabrokes either?

Yes. They're they're both basically the same. They are both right there. I think and and first, just let me say thank you. I was I'm glad to be back with you all this, if no other way but just on teams right now.

I think our director just stated, the the two difference, but both basically the same. The Broadl Seabrook, community and, of course, the the College Heights community are somewhat within, unisons of each other. So I will be supporting, for us to continue to move forward with this historical registry. What I would like to also ask, so I will move in to get a consensus vote for that, but also to have mister Colley to explain, for the audience and and also to our members just what this registry means and that this registry does not put any type of, full of bone restrictions on the neighborhood, meaning, like, they don't have to replace windows or different types of material structure as falls up under some of the, the historical registries like we're speaking about sometimes for the downtown district. Thank you, sir.

Did you wanna address that, mister Collard?

I can help some too, doctor here and others. We, will definitely my recommendation and consultation with the city attorney as well is is that with the upward nod of counsel just to say you're you're supportive of this, that we will give the nod and we'll apply to the request came to us either on Thursday or Friday of last week. And we would have all of those details and more in your agenda packet for next week, but we just wanted to give the nod, understanding how important this was to the council, the choice neighborhoods, and the doctor here and others. If there's an effort or an interest to just kinda give us to nod or to

I hate I hate you doctor Hill, but let let me go through the round table first. Councilmember Jones?

Yes. He was gonna answer doctor Hill's

questions as I

I can do that real quick, less than thirty seconds. Historic designation is not the same as a historic district. The historic district has architectural standards that are overseen by our historic resources commission. Historic designation does not put that stuff on the property unless council elects to do so locally.

Councilman Jones.

Alright. Thank you so much. Yeah. The the Seabrook Bright community, the the the portion that's in district that I know I shared that with councilman Hare. The at the last community watch meeting, the two things, first, Seabrook Bright Air one is in process.

They meet with the state in June for that one. Back in 2022, one of the missus Leaks, one of the community watch groups, she had brought it to my attention when former ACM, Telly Wood field, was here and he helped kind of push out that particular process there with Chris's shop there to get it where it is now. So that's totally separate. What we have before us now, they're wanting to expand it to the other neighborhoods, basically go through that same process there. And I was made aware of it.

They weren't aware that it needed to go through this particular process for this, so that's why it came late. But basically, they're trying to expand into the other neighboring neighborhoods of Seabrook, Rodale as well. And as for, I can't speak very quickly and not as well as, of course, Mr. Cawley, as it relates to the meeting that we had in regards to the making sure that everyone understood what that historical designation meant, that was extremely clear. So they had staff from the state and some other individuals there to explain to the community what that actually looks like, like you said, so that it wouldn't be any misunderstandings of what that actually meant.

And just to say this on the tag end, for that particular area, one of the things that came up, of course, could we make adjustments and modifications to our homes without having x y and z? And the short answer was yes, unless they were applying for some specific tax credit. So it's pretty much, like you said, designation it's and with the neighborhood choice and with the trail that we're looking to complete over there, it would just be, to me it would be a holistic effort there. So that's what they were pretty much asking for there. Thank you, Mr. MPT.

We definitely don't wanna turn down no free money. Councilwoman Green.

Thank you, mister mayor pro tem. Mister Cawley, can you state the amount of the grants again that were being requested?

Yes. So this would be for $40,000. 24 would come from the state and 16 from the city.

Was there an amount attached for the Seabrook Broad Ale project? Did the city contribute to that one?

Yes. So in total, same formula. So it was about 40,000 for both of those grants and so 16 each from the city.

Okay. Thank you.

There's no other questions. We're looking for a consensus to move this to consent on Monday, November.

So moved.

Let's vote. Use your sure system. Can't make them. Council member Hare? Reed.

Who are we missing? We're missing one? Okay. That is unanimous. Yours is not up, and McMillan's is not up.

But that is unanimous, madam clerk. Doctor. Hueb.

That's all I approach him and thank you all for allowing us to gain consensus on that item. Thank you.

Alright. Next, we'll move to approve the agenda five point o.

So move. Move.

Motion and property second by Hondros and Davis. Ready for your vote? Green. Thank you, sir. We're still missing one. Now we got it. Alright. Items of business, 6.01.

This is Fayetteville next to the Advisory Commission nine one zero Future Fest presentation.

Thank you, Bob.

Good afternoon, counsel. Thank you for allowing us to be in front of you again to discuss the nine ten Future Fest. Just going pull up this slide for you real quick. Alright. So before we dive into this, did have one quick edit to make on the budget sheets that you guys have in front of you.

Tab four, the experiential and marketing tab line item one should actually say marketing with line item three saying content production. And then line item four will be for the opening ceremonies. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit. So the nine one zero Future Fest, as we've mentioned before, is an event for the community, more than an event. This is built to create opportunity here.

We're working through a couple of different areas to build this, from youth services, making sure that we create those opportunities for them, working alongside this very council with an effort to start workforce development at a younger age, starting that at a grade school level. We'll be touching in on the economic impact, our workforce readiness that will also be happening with, FableNext demographic, which is the age groups of twenty to forty, and the strategic tourism. So as currently slated, the nine one o Future Fest is slated to happen September 24 through the twenty sixth with Sunday, September 27, reserved as a contingency date in case any weather happens. We are currently in discussion with the Segre Stadium. We have reserved those dates with them, but we did find out today there is an urgency in locking that in as some other people are looking at that time period as well.

But this will run concurrently with the International Folk Festival. So we're looking to do two programmings at the same time and allow that to complement each other. So we have also, talked with the Arts Council, in regards to this. They have stated they love the idea of the two happening concurrently, and I think this would be a great opportunity within the area.

We have

also secured some various partnerships with this. The Dreamville Foundation has offered support in a number of different ways. In kind, there has been mention of financial support. Obviously, we are also working with the two six project. We've got Mark Mayer here representing that. Dennis Smith Junior, cool receptions, and

Who's this one again?

NBPA. And I'm actually gonna let you talk a little bit about the youth day that'll start it off.

For sure. Absolutely. So hey, everybody. My name is Mark Mayer. And, on behalf of the two six project, we're basically looking to incorporate youth activations with this festival.

So it's not just entertainment. It's also enriching experiences for young people to, you know, think a career day, think exposure to opportunities that they may not be aware of at this time. And so for this day, we're basically looking to use the existing two six project network, which is tied in throughout systems, high schools, and, I believe reaching out into middle schools as well. And essentially bringing them out into this event and doing activations to shed light on opportunities for them, essentially.

Following that, day, we'll roll into that Friday, which will consist of a number of community events happening within the downtown corridor as well as, some others. We would like to compliment our business summit that has shown three years of success, with an artist summit to build that workforce as well. This community has a lot of artists that do amazing work and really helping them grow as well within the business of arts itself. And then following that up, that Saturday is the big culminating event. That will be our concert day.

We have spoken with Parks and Recs in regards to footprint. The Arts Council with International Folk Festival does have a majority of the corridor. We are allowing them to continue utilizing what they are doing. What we will be activating is storefronts. We've been in communication with a number of businesses that have grown out of this area and really working to bring them back.

I think that's very important for our community to celebrate those who have succeeded, who have done amazing things, bring them back home. So we're looking at brands such as Spring Break watches, watches, who doesn't have a flagship store, being able to bring them back and put them in a storefront for the weekend, to share with the community, partake foods, bringing them back into the area, an international brand that it grew out of right here in Fayetteville, and and plenty of others. So activating storefronts, being able to showcase what businesses can do, within this corridor, to also help fill some of those vacancies. We'll also be utilizing the front of the Segre Stadium area, we'll be programming a stage there, as well for musicians to program other local artists, as well as local vendors do their and just continuing to to push the celebration that is happening down here. And then that will all lead up to Saturday evening's concert held within the walls of Segre Stadium with a much larger stage on the field, seating 10,000 guests, and really just having a good time.

So what we're looking at right now, our ask and some more of what we'll be discussing today is the sponsorship. We have our sponsorships. We've gotten a number of sponsors to pitch in financially over the last few months. But in order to make this successful at this time in the process, it's probably going to cost us about 500 k to be able to put this on successfully in a way that competes with our sister cities, our surrounding cities, as one of the quickest growing states and the sixth city and the fastest growing states, it's important for us to be able to showcase the things that some of these other cities are doing, that we can do it here and we can do it successfully to be able to retain the younger demographics that are moving here as well as the demographics that are already here. And so what do we get out of this?

As far as tourism goes, as mentioned, for the concert portion of this, we'll be able to seat 10,000 attendees. Some quick math on that, with just those attendees enjoying the area, the downtown corridor coming from not only the surrounding areas, but the surrounding states as we plan to target all of those. We're looking at just for the one day of the concert, a return of one about $1,200,000 into this area. If they are able to stay for two days through that, staying into the next day, we can double that to about $2,300,000 returned. That includes tax revenue from the hotels, from the businesses that goes to the county that also trickles back into these walls and back into our communities.

Again, large portion of this is also workforce development, working with the youth, working with, our age group of 20 to 40, providing those opportunities. Part of bringing back a lot of these companies and introducing industries, that are currently not here is to allow those opportunities for them, to get them connected with these people, to continue to grow, within this area. And I think if we provide those opportunities for them, they'll continue to grow and continue to thrive within this area. We'll also be uplifting local and small businesses. Obviously, with that kind of traffic in here and, again, that's just the numbers of what's going inside the walls of Segre, not including everything that'll be happening outside of those walls.

That is business pouring into our local community coming off of 95. They're shopping. They're eating. Allowing our local vendors and really focusing on local vendors to be within our corridor. And one of the biggest things, at least to me, is enhancing Fayetteville's reputation.

It is very important that we build pride in this city. There is a lot of pride here, but we want to enhance that. We're looking to really drive that home, giving Fedvillians something to be proud of, to celebrate our culture and our history, and then allowing that to be an annual tradition. And so we'll go ahead and open up the floor for questions.

Questions? Council member Davis.

Thank you. You all for being here and presenting to us today. My first question is your sponsors. Is there an amount that they've already said that they would give, know, as it solidified and all that, those good things?

So at this time, we are currently sitting, I would say, between 70 and 80 ks in sponsorships that we've been able to acquire over the last two months.

Cool. Cool. And my next question for staff is because of the assets in here, is there a way that because I saw that you guys are doing some stuff that's catered towards the youth, right? And I see Mr. John Jones is here. Is there a portion that, you know, that department could be able to sponsor as far as with the youth to help out with this event? Whoever can't. Mean, John's back back there, but mister Hewitt.

Staff would would welcome being able to help coordinate the the issue with

the investment amount. Thank you, sir.

Councilmember McMillan.

Thank you. I appreciate this. This offering to the city is is what it is to all of us. Thank you, and and congratulations again on the the business summit as well. I was able to check out some of that and this is a fruitful experience and event. I have a comment and then a couple of questions. Comment in terms of it's been a cultural event. I connected with what you said about pride in our city. Pride in in some of the best aspects of who we are. I think this is an opportunity to celebrate that.

Also note that this is not an ordinary year for for Fayetteville. I've I've done some traveling in my time. Usually, days when I say I'm from Fayetteville, people say that's where J Cole is from. Note that this was an album, The Falloff, that that that topped the charts, and that's influential in in its culture as well. And you don't just have people here talking about the two six.

You have people all over the country at this time. I think this is a time when we to celebrate our pride and and to celebrate each other and and what's unique about Fayetteville. Two questions were about were around engagement and input. One, is there any way that community members could have input in the plan? What this looks like?

What the offerings are gonna be? What community groups can be involved? We'd like you to speak towards that if you can. And then also, I'm I'm interested in what the glide path is in terms of collaboration with the city council, planning if if there's been thought about or a plan for regular engagement with with the council, with the staff, so that we're thoroughly integrated into the plans.

I'd be happy to speak

to the first one.

Sure. Sure.

So in terms of community engagement, that's of course extremely important to us. You know, we want anybody who wants to be involved in this to feel welcome to it's a celebration of our city, of our culture, so we don't want anyone to be excluded from that. In terms of practicality, what we're looking for right now is making sure we can secure the funds to actually make this happen before we go public with it. Once we secure that, a website will be launched where folks from all over the community can chime in in whatever way they see fit, and we will all be vetting those responses and, you know, working with you guys and the city at large to determine what would be best for the event for the city. Hello.

Hey.

So I what I would say for your second question, absolutely, we would love city council to be involved with this. I believe Dreamville as well as two six are ready to be aligned with what you guys have focused for this particular event, and we're welcoming any conversation and all in kind and doing business the right way. Thank

you. Councilmember Jones.

Thank you so much. Thank you all for the presentation and your willingness to even do something like this. I have a few quick questions. Councilman Davis hit on it already. So you've raised about 70 or 80,000 already. So I know your plans, the obvious question is yes. You're planning on continuing to look for corporate sponsors. So in addition to that, even though we know you're looking at it at being at Segre, have you approached or thought about also our county counterparts as well?

Absolutely. We named this festival the nine one o festival for the region. So our thoughts are to reach out to everyone in that demographic, and I believe it goes all the way from Wilmington all the way to Harnett County. So, yeah, we're looking at all of that. And also, we will be standing before the TDA, I believe, in July June. June, this this summer in reference to receiving funding for this festival as well.

Outstanding. And is this something that you're looking to do on a continual basis like this is an inaugural to something that's long term? Okay.

Yes. We would love for this to be an annual tradition here within the city. And part of the reason they ask is what it is now, and we have set up certain structures is to make it so that this can continue to be a tradition without us having to continue to come back. So a portion of this and the portion that will be held within the walls of Segra will be ticketed. We will make sure that that is an accessible price to the community.

But what we looked at was the history here. A few years ago, council commissioned someone to survey the Dogwood Festival and how it could be sustainable. And one of the things that was stated was that they should take it a portion. And so we made sure to include that in here so that we would be sustainable for coming years.

Okay,

alright then my next question the ask is 500 ks is that correct? Okay and I saw the portion for the youth I think again one of my counterparts may have mentioned it. The amount for youth and wellness event support, that's 10 ks. Is that inclusive of the youth activations that you all are asking? Is that the budgeted amount for the youth aspect?

I'll speak on the youth aspect.

For sure. And we were thinking that,

right? So

while we have 10 ks listed on the budget for the primary monies going towards that event. And the reason just to speak to that real quick. The reason that's able to be so low is because of our partnership with the two six project. I'm speaking on Grant's behalf today because he had a flight delay and wasn't able to make it. However, there's been a lot of just community coming together to make this happen. And so while it certainly could cost more, we're able to save a lot of money by just pooling resources. So while there's 10 k in the budget for that, if you go to the marketing section there's a 25 ks budget as well that was mislabeled as experiential I believe that would be also going towards the youth summit so that would be a total of $35,000.

Okay one last question Mayor Prochan. In regards to, I see also the axe again, the 500 ks, the talent is almost not quite half, but at 200. Are there any opportunities there where if the council were able to do something, I guess I'm looking at the amount. We asked the Dogwood Festival some of the similar questions, so that would also be my question there. That's almost half of the budget there. And I know it's coinciding with the, you said with the international festival as well. So can you kind of speak to that as well? Because that looks like the bulk of the the of the budget.

Absolutely. So being that we started planning this probably back, what, a year ago? And we're now in May. Talent has doubled, and especially the talent that we would like to bring in here to pull off an event like this. So being that those meetings that we were having with those talents, yes, that that is the correct figure for that.

Okay. Thank you, mister mayor pro tem.

Thank you. Council member Ferguson.

Thank you, mayor pro tem. And thank you for the work that you're doing. A couple questions. My first question, trying to kinda piggybacking off of council member Jones. As far as the talent, you're saying 200,000. Has it been allocated what the talent is? Or that's just a figure set aside and say this is our budget?

So we've been reaching out for quotes and talking to a lot of different people. Personally, come from the music video industry. So between me and the connections with DJ Recavelli, who has been on one of the number one tours in America over the past year, We've been in a lot of conversations getting quotes. You know, that's flexible. We can't really lock in until we have the funds to, you know, secured.

And I think one quick point I'll make is I completely it's not lost on me that this is an unprecedented ask that we're coming before you with today. We don't take that lightly. However, this is an unprecedented event for the city of Fayetteville in an unprecedented time. And as we're growing, I think these are the kinds of challenges that I'm excited to take on with you guys as a community and figure out. While there may be wiggle room there, I can tell you coming from a production standpoint, we spend a half million dollars on a single music video. We'll spend a million dollars on a single music video. Entertainment is more important than we tend to think in walls like this, but I promise you, it goes back into the community.

Okay. So how did you come up with the 200,000?

By securing quotes from talent that we have a roster of talent that we're looking at. And we're not looking at we don't wanna bring somebody that was relevant twenty years ago. We wanna bring relevant talent that will reach the youth of this city. And so it's by pulling quotes from individuals that we're interested in.

Okay. And then the have you worked with Seagram Stadium to as far as the logistical aspect of it? Because this is a pretty huge undertaking that has never been done at the stadium. And from my understanding, it is a pretty huge undertaking and so yeah. That part of it.

Yes. We have been in discussion with SEGRA Stadium since last summer in regards to how this will logistically work. One of the biggest things that is of concern is the staging. We want to use the field. And that is part of the cost that is coming in on Segre's side is making sure that the field is covered, to not damage it, to be able to fit the stage that we will need out there, and to also have the ability for guests to be on grass level as well, which actually could allot more ticket sales.

Okay. And there is there's going be two stages, right?

There will be a stage inside the stadium for the main event and a stage on the outside of the stadium that is for all of the public to see.

Gotcha. And what was my last question? So I noticed that the staging is the quote that you got is from a company out of

Delaware. Charlotte.

Charlotte. Okay. It says Delaware on there. Well, the one that we got last week, it's it's says 23,000, and it's it says the company's name, and it says Delaware. So my question was the reasoning behind getting a company outside when we have companies here that could do that.

So that and I believe that what you might have in front of you might be the old quote that was sent over in March. Since then, we have been in discussion with one in Charlotte, not as local as Fayetteville, but I do know the Drotten brothers are right down the street down here to also tap into.

Okay. So the yeah. That was my question because, you know, we're as council, we were trying to I think we made it an obligation to reach 40% as far as contracts with the keeping it within the city. And we have people because I've noticed like travel and a lot of expenses that if we use people who are here, we're not only keeping the money in the community but at the same time we're giving them access and then we're saving a lot of money. So that was my reasoning behind that. Are we looking at other entities in Fayetteville that could do that?

So we have actually been in discussion about Drotten Brothers. I brought that up in one of our meetings as a source to utilize. I will say we are open to utilizing that for the second stage, the main stage because we are working with larger scale producers and lighting designers and sound designers, we we wanna make sure that that is exactly what it, like, needs to be and people that are running these much larger tours and concerts to make sure that we aren't giving a subpar experience. We are knocking this out the park. We are giving the people more than they were expecting.

Okay. So so you're saying because I know the companies here can do that. They've done much larger events than what you're what you're looking at doing. So they are well well qualified to to to do that. It seems like you're saying that you chose them because you want to make sure that because they've dealt with larger to that extent. Is that what you're saying?

No. No. Not necessarily saying that. We we knew their work. I also know the Drottens Brothers work which is why I brought them up. I do absolutely love their work and so we can explore that some more.

Okay.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Councilwoman McNair.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. You guys just been grilled. Thank you for those questions, our focus. I just wanna say I am so excited about the nine one o project because I'm an artist myself and I love what you guys have presented to us. Also, I wanna ask a question about you guys mentioned that you reached out to the county?

Yes. So I had a meeting with, the visitors bureau, the March, that preliminary meeting that has to happen before you can go before the TDA for funding. So we did have that meeting with them. We're scheduling our meeting with the TDA.

Okay. So you have no commitment from them?

No commitment at this time.

Okay. Thank you.

Councilman Thank you.

Hondros. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, team, for your presentation. If you would, I think there was some nodding, but my colleague asked about the ask. If you could verbalize it in the in the microphone because this is recorded audio. I don't think it's audio and visual. So we need it on the record what the ask is.

So we are looking at $500,000 to be able to put this festival on.

K. And and is that total, or is that the ask from the city of Fayetteville?

That is total. As you've heard, we are also sourcing, funding in multiple other areas. I think we're able to pull off a large amount. However, I don't think that we're able to do this without at least 350 k from the city.

Thank you for that. And it was mentioned or stated there's about 70 or 80,000 in sponsorship or contributions already kind of are they are they pledged or are they is it cash on hand collected or is it in kind? Can you speak can you be a little more specific on that?

Yes. And that is a combination of both. And then we also have some meetings scheduled actually this week for more funding. We have a sponsorship team that I have aligned, and we have weekly meetings with different sponsors. We do the phone is ringing, and they're just waiting on a commitment.

Sure. So out of the seventy or eighty thousand, how much is that pledged for actual cash donations or contributions to the 500 estimated total?

Okay, so in the budget, I believe two six project had fundraised 25,000 to talent. And if you wanna go ahead and speak towards that.

I mean, covers that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So ultimately, as she mentioned, we do have some cash on hand from sponsors. And the pledges that we've received, you know, we're not really going around collecting a bunch of cash from sponsors yet because we're trying to make sure that we can actually make this happen. As stated, without this city support, probably won't. Just being realistic. So the moment that we have some kind of commitment, we'll be able to begin executing those transactions and attracting a lot more.

We haven't really emptied the entire line of opportunities for for sponsorship just yet. We've just been reaching out to our closest partnerships and, you know, seeing who is willing to kind of put their foot in the water with us. With a commitment from the city, we will drastically be able to increase our sponsorship amount.

Yeah. No. I get it. And I appreciate that that fact. And I appreciate, you know, as you all stated, it's a ambitious project, which is nothing in and of itself to shy away from. I mean, I have full confidence, you know, the team will pull it off and it will be a great thing. There's just a lot of moving pieces, so it's not, you know, a 25 or $50,000 ask, a 350 or $500,000 ask. I mean, that's that's a budget session. I mean, we do a whole workshop on that as we're getting into the budget season, which kinda leads me to a couple more questions. So the dates for this festival, September 2425, is that correct?

So those are essentially activation days leading up to the main concert event, which to be clear on the twenty sixth is the main concert event. There's a contingency day on the twenty seventh just in case weather disrupts our plans on the twenty sixth, being that it's partially outdoors, etcetera. So the activation days leading up, that's where you're seeing a lot of the youth activations. That's where you're seeing the community ball. I'm butchering the name of that.

The ceremony.

The opening ceremony. I'm so sorry. And so those days leading up are ancillary and connected. However, we're not gonna have 10,000 people at those events. The main key event is on the twenty sixth, which is where a majority of the budget is obviously being spent.

So the twenty fourth and the twenty fifth is a what? Friday, Saturday or Thursday, Friday? And the twenty sixth, the concert day, is what actual day of the week?

So Saturday, the twenty sixth is the concert day. And I did wanna add in those, ancillary days, before the the actual concert itself have these programmed events. But the hopes at this time with the way that the stars have aligned is we will have a lot of people coming in town on September 23 for the last leg of Jay Cole's tour, his concert here in town, which will be happening the night before we kick all of this off. And the hopes is we tap into that and also, you know, build things in to make them want to stay and continue exploring Fayetteville and enjoying Fayetteville.

Sure. And I think one of my colleagues asked about the county. So you all mentioned the TDA, which is a separate authority, the tourism development authority, but also the arts council. You know, TDA has their budget and funding. Arts council has theirs, and then the county obviously has theirs. So is the plan to go to all four of these Fayetteville, the TDA arts council, the county? Yes. K. And and these are some of the questions. I don't want you to feel like, you know, we're picking on you or beating up on you. Not at You're

just the

one that's here today. No. You know, I had some similar questions about our partners with the Dogwood Festival, and then I think we got some folks here from Cool Springs Downtown District. So all you guys play an integral part. Mister Penson from the Arts Council was on the radio with me this morning. So the arts are very important, and I think there's a lot of people here locally very passionate about them. At the same time, you know, we have I I could just speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure my my colleagues can can probably echo some of that. Have a lot of residents that reach out and say, hey. You know, the the Dogwood Festival, the International Folk Festival, which the arts council largely puts on

That's a wrap.

You know, this nine one o Dream Fest, You know, they're all great, and we need more of it. And then we have other residents that reach out and say, hey. Is the city really should the city really be in the in the entertainment business or the the festival business? And then I'll just close with this last question. I think this is more for our city manager.

Being that this is such an ambitious and and kind of a first of its kind event as far as the city's concerned with that kind of level of participation. Is there any how would this walk me through what this would work. Let's say, council, as we get into budget, we approve anywhere from the $3.50 amount to the 500,000 amount. What staff would work with the team to make sure the budget that's allocated to spent, you know, what kind of checks and balances we have in place to assure the residents their taxpayer dollars are being spent the way they're intended.

At the moment that is would be developed. As I understand it, the contract that the city would form would be with the two six project because you are the ones that are collecting the contributions at present, and you would be the entity contracting with the talent, not the city of Fayetteville. Correct?

Correct. So the city would not be assuming any liability for talent and whatnot. There would be liability on our side as the creators of the festival. And

so my recommendation would be we would take a look at you'd go back to your sponsorship page, that the city might consider itself as a sponsor. And whatever responsibilities or characteristics that the sponsor would have, that would be what we would have. But now if there's a I think the highest was a pinnacle. Mhmm. Yes.

Is that

the highest?

And so it may be something else. But as with all of these festivals and miss Bennett, when she comes up, we'll talk to you about Juneteenth as well. In order to get top talent, get them at the best rate, secure the equipment necessary to put on a production, you really want twelve months or more. And so they would be desirous if counsel is so inclined, whatever level of support, to know sooner rather than later, the dollar figure. And we would work backwards from there because, literally, they have to start signing contracts immediately.

So I did the department that we work with, it would be parks and recreation, our special events coordinator process. We also run economic development projects like this through mister Cauley shop and ECD. And of course, the city manager and the city attorney's office would help us craft something. But it would just depend on the level of funding. But I think the top pinnacle funding is

50,000.

And of course they're asking for more than

that. Yes.

Yeah. And and so I remain cautiously optimistic. There's a lot of moving parts. You know, having having put on festival kind of much smaller scale than what you guys are talking about and having reached out to local businesses for sponsorships, my experience has been the sooner so, you know, we're about a hundred twenty days out, maybe less today. The closer you get, I mean, sixty days out, a lot of my experience has been a lot of business that just is too short notice for them because they have budgets too, right? So I would love to see if it

I hate I hate I hate you, councilman. You good? Thank you. Council member Hare.

Thank you, mayor pro tem. First, let me say that I, do appreciate what I've heard, from the presenters. It sounds something very, very good for our city and for our region. We we all know how it is when it comes down or comes very close to a budget season. We have a whole lot of, areas that pull upon the city throughout, each district and and the city as a total.

I would love to have this discussion a little further, as we get as we go into the budget season, and, we don't know all all of the additional ask that we're gonna be having when the, when we start our budget season. So I I like what I hear. I I would love to have something like this, in in Fayetteville, but I also would like for us to have just to have some more deep diving discuss budget discussions with this and see what all the new and additional pools will be upon us as we move into the budget season and the year. Thanks for letting me make that comment, mayor pro tem and council.

Thank you, council member. Before we go to the second round, we need to wrap this up. We almost had a hour. Let me just state that. Is this gonna be a one time funding?

The goal is is to get close to that. We cannot promise anything yet, but we want to be able to work with you guys to set something up to be able to wean our way off of the city.

So from the ticket sales that you said you're gonna have for the stadium event, would that be able to sustain you at least to get you started for the next event for the next year is the question. We believe so. That's good. Because if not, I want to make sure that you set that price so it does, so you don't have to keep coming back next year. You can go buy sponsorships and donations to get you over the hump for the next year. Next question is

That is the goal.

When we talk about timeline of funding, council member here, I think it'd be a perfect opportunity for us to try to decipher this at our first budget session to see how we're looking fund wise to determine if and how much we would be able to provide you guys. Two other quick notes. I don't know if you recognize it or not, but when you put up your youth slide, when you put up the youth slide that says the readers and leaders program, you got four questions off that one slide. One asked you about funding 10,000, served from the two six. You said there's about 25,000 on the next page.

We have to focus more on our youth to make sure you said something about career day. That sparked my ears. Our youth are our future. Yes, it's good to have entertainment. Yes, it's good to have fun. But when you program in when you're having programs centered around youth, I'm pretty sure everybody on this diocese will be able to support you when it comes to stuff like that. So I want you to think twice about that. The second part is the storefront. I thought that was a great idea. We have some vacant facilities downtown that would be refreshed just by coming and having those vendors come in there, fulfill those with the magnitude of people that you're gonna have downtown.

It could show them the possibility of what can be. Those are great ideas, and I love those ideas. And lastly, before I get these guys to second round, you have an entire staff behind you. You wanna introduce them?

You guys wanna stand up? So you got a a blended team, of our fabled next, commissioners as well as, some of the two six project, board members.

We appreciate you guys. We appreciate your hard work. We'll go to round two. Council member Davis.

No. It's council member

Council member

first round.

Green. You didn't go. My apologies.

First round.

First round.

First round.

Thank

you. Could've went for me.

So many of them get to talk and they forget who's who's sitting around the thing. Councilmember Hondros asked some of my questions, but I'm gonna reask them in a way that, y'all are probably used to hearing me ask things. I wanna applaud you for all of your efforts because I have been involved in a lot of, events that have happened and failed over the last fifty years. And, I applaud anything that comes out new because it really is a challenge, and it's difficult. Excuse me.

I do have some concerns. So we're five months away, and I I understand your desire and what your ambitions are and what you wanna see this do for the city. And I think it can do all of those things. I'm concerned that you are looking to do it in too short a time frame from your ask for money because it doesn't give a lot of turnaround time. And for me, to me personally, because I've been involved in different things, when you push something to happen too quickly, the worst thing that can happen is that it falls flat, and then no one wants to buy in to what becomes your second annual because then it's not your inaugural event anymore.

I understand wanting to tie it to J. Cole, which is a great ambitious event as well because it makes sense. I'm not trying to downplay every effort you've done, and you guys have done what you need to do as far in advance. We're just a little behind the eight ball from being here. I'm also the same person that always says we need to stop funding things outside of the budget cycle and make everyone request during the budget cycle.

So I'm saying that again. We, as a council, need to fund things within our budgeting cycle so that we have no surprises. Because every time we fund something outside the budget cycle, it tends to come back, and we have to answer some question around it. So I'm not saying that we can't discuss it. We have a budget meeting coming up. I think it's next week. Yes. Heck, it might be this week. I can't keep up with my calendar. But, anyway, we can certainly, I think, have those discussions, and I know the city manager's probably prepared for those discussions, but that is the reality of what we have to deal with for all of the residents.

So I just wanted to go openly and say, I think the efforts are fabulous. I've been watching with intrigue the whole two six program and all of the things that are happening on Orange Street, and I think they've all tied together with Fateful Next, and and everybody's done a great job at that. But I just don't wanna rush something that maybe shouldn't be rushed when it has such a chance to be a bigger impact. So I would just say we move forward with caution. So that's just my 2¢ worth.

Thank you.

Council member Dates. Thank you, mayor pro tem. So I just wanna remind that remind all my colleagues on diocese that maybe staff too, that this is a city board and commission that we have here before us. Right? Their charge is to bring back to council things in this city to help the next generation stay, play, in faith.

And so I think their ask today is one of the ask that has not come before us from this board before because I used to be on there. We never asked for this. But they have done the work and research in finding out what can help some of our generation and the regenerations to come to stay in play effect. So before I accept this report, I do remind you everybody that this isn't another nonprofit organization asking me. This is a city organization who has partners with them that are asking for these funds. So I look forward to talking to about it in the budget season but let's be mindful of who we have before us. So with that being said I would like to receive the support.

Let me clear other questions council member McMillan.

I'm looking forward to the motion as well. Thank you mayor Protoon. Just walk away knowing that you have support, general support from the board, from this dais. We're grappling with prioritization as we should because we're dealing with resources. I think it would help to have a schedule that lays out you know later than times when you need decisions made especially from this body.

Would help also to lay out donations in kind as was asked of the Dogwood Festival just weeks ago. What are the types of things we could provide in terms of security and other services that may help help this that don't come down to to monetary donations. I think y'all should do some some humble bragging. A tremendous amount of experience in front of us. I know in terms of what Mark has done, what Rico has done in the industry and that plays into it and to some of my confidence and understanding that this is gonna be a success.

And then in terms of the youth and bringing back young adults and making this something to be proud of. I come back to the question that people ask every single Dreamville why can't we do it in Fayetteville? Every single Dreamville I've heard that. And there's there's all kinds of logical explanations about resources and lack of this or lack of that and what Raleigh has and what we don't have. This is an opportunity to show what we can do in Fayetteville, the can do city, right? I appreciate y'all

lot of nights council member Ferguson

thank you mayor pro tem and again thank you for the work that you're doing I think we're all aware of who you are what you do and the great work that you're doing I have one quick question on the line by line piece where

it

says stadium food cover. Is that a was that supposed to be field cover or is that covering food? I don't I'm just curious.

So we are still in discussion with SEGRA, but one thing they did send us over was a fee for their vendors. And so we are working to negotiate, on that, but that is currently what they've sent us

over. Okay. Great. And lastly, I know different figures. We we started at 500,000. You said that you had raised about 80,000. You're looking for more sponsors. You're going to the county. Then you said $3.50 is about the minimum. What would you say is a clear area? A clear line of what it is that you and I know that's still in the process but and before you answer that, mayor Proteyn, if we accept this presentation, what does what does that say? Are we

accepting

to What what I would suggest is we accept the presentation and then ask the the next committee, would it suffice for us to discuss this during our first budget to come up with the numbers, see if that's acceptable so they will have direction on whether they can move

from. Gotcha. Okay. So yeah. So $3.50 is pretty much the?

Yes, sir. Alright.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions? Council member Davis.

Yes, sir. I move that we accept this report.

And bring it to the first budget session.

I mean, we can bring it to the first work session of the budget season. Thank you.

There's been motion. Is there a second? Council member McMillan?

Sir.

Any discussion on the motion? Go for your vote. Three. Thank you, sir. Missing one?

Council member Ferguson.

That is unanimous. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Thank you, guys. We look forward to talking to you some more.

Yes, sir. Thank you, team. Great job.

Thank you.

Next item, 6.02 CPAC charter update.

Afternoon, mayor pro tem, council members. My name is Andrew Mansell from city managers manager's office. This is the community public safety advisory board updates, formerly known as the community police advisory board that that was originally formated in 2021. The chairman recently requested that the charter be updated to allow a broader spectrum of public safety that includes more than just the police department, but also fire, EMS, OCS, as well as updating the charter that encompasses those new objectives. The city council policy committee met in April 2026 and reviewed the new recommendations with fire, police, EMS, and voted to move them and approve them to city council for review today.

And what you'll see in this brief is a is an overview and a deliberate effort to align the broad needs of of what the board needs with what the city's currently needing for, public safety. The original CPAP was formed with great intentions, but it had a very narrow focus. It was designed around police department oversight at a time when public safety model was primarily police focused, but a lot's changed since then. We've stood up the office community safety. We've invested in mental health, and we've built violent intervention programming, and yet the board still advises public safety not having a formal role in any of those areas.

So that was the core problem that this revision looks to solve. And on the right hand side of the slide here, you'll see the new scope that encompasses police, fire, OCS, mental health, youth, homelessness, and that enhances their effective ability that reflects the full picture of the comprehensive approach to public safety in the city. Name and mission change. The name has changed from CPAP to CPSAB, and that doesn't flow as nicely as saying CPAP, but the name change matters more than it may seem. The board used to be called public or community police advisory board, and that signaled to the public, to applicants, and to partners that the police oversight was the purpose.

That framing was very limited, so the reconstituted board advises the city council and manager on public safety as a whole on the comprehensive approach from police, fire, office, community safety, and that's built around the four specific challenges rather than the nine loosely affiliated, goals that were previously listed. What hasn't changed is the the investigatory power and the limited or the the, subpoena authority. This is one of the most significant structural changes to the original charter. On the left hand, you'll see what some of the the goals that I originally covered, things like training, assisting with recruiting, evaluating use of force, which are reasonable goals for police, but it didn't tell the board where to focus. The word goal itself is also binary.

It means did or did not meet is the measurement of success. So we changed the word goal to objective, which an objective is an ongoing ongoing goal ongoing thing. The the four new objectives are mental health response, violence and intervention, positive youth engagement, and homelessness risk mitigation. And those map directly to enhance the public safety response to the investments that the city has already made. The membership and structure itself hasn't changed.

There's still nine members appointed by council, one nonvoting member, staggered three year terms. But what has changed is this new addition here in 05/2004, And that's where we're asking the council to consider the applicants on as as you receive their applications, to consider their backgrounds in behavioral health, in the violence and intervention, in the in public safety, fire, EMS, housing, people who've lived these experiences before. Because it's easier to advise on those topics when you've had experience with them, when you lived through them before. And on the training side, the Citizen Police Academy and FPD ride along is still a requirement, but we've added in additional requirements, to include fire and EMS ride alongs, exposure to mental health crisis response teams, and community safety provider orientation. Now these additional requirements give the board members the foundations to make appropriate recommendations on their report at the end of the year.

Those additional requirements are also not a prerequisite to their membership. They're just needed to be completed within their first term. Lastly, the governance and accountability. These are the final three major shifts from the original charter to the new one, but these are very important for making the board work long term. First is the important the appointment process itself.

The original charter had a very detailed questionnaire at the end of the charter, specific questions to ask the applicant. We simplified all that, and now the appointments will follow the city standard boards and commissions process, which is consistent with all the other advisory boards. Second is the annual report itself. The original charter just specified that they will produce a report, but didn't have any criteria for the content. The new charter is specific on what the report will encompass, specific recommendations, statuses of those recommendations, summary of community engagement activities, and the progress on all those four focused areas.

Third and lastly is the council is encouraged to formally respond to those board recommendations, including the ones that aren't adopted. Now this is important because when the board makes a recommendation and they don't hear anything back, the message is that those efforts may have gone unheard. And while we know that's not true, a response closes a loop and helps build credibility. So, the council options here are either to adopt the new revisions and request modifications, or I can gather additional information, and I'm open to any questions.

Thank you, Andrew. Great presentation. And I think that was your first time presenting in front of us.

Second. Okay.

You did very well. Council member Hare.

Thank you, sir. As chair, I wanna make sure that I I have good clarity of what the ask is. On on several of our, committees, are certain characteristics that are requested or professional professionalism or or whatever the case may be on certain, members that are chosen or applicants that we look at, is this the same If I'm understanding what I'm reading, is this the same request, on our advisory board, that we have right now on well, that we have on certain committees and the request of particular, you know, certain experiences that are asked of of of, some board members. Is this what I'm understanding to ask is as far as the updates and and to be adopted?

Yes, sir. The original chartered membership outline didn't specify what we are looking for in the candidates. And 5.4 is almost a consolidation of several several of these sections in the old charter that was kind of lengthy and just could be collapsed into one. And that's what 5.4 is, where it's encouraging the board to seek those individuals with the experience required for the board, and and that's where

the that's yeah. That's very good. Mayor Pro Tem, whenever you get to the point to take a consensus, I would like to move to make the motion whenever that time comes.

Thank you, sir. But let me just clarify. It is not a prerequisite. It is just what's the word? Encouraged is the word I would use. That's that's in the diocese.

Yes. So but what I was yeah. So what I was wondering well well, help me with this, with the guideline of what I'm understanding. So then is this something that could be accepted, or is it best that we look at this at in the appointments, next appointmentscom committee meeting, for acceptance and then to come back? Help me understand which direction you're you're asking.

Yes. I would say it is just May

I pro tem?

Yes. I would just say that it's recommended because what it reads is diversity guidance added. Council is encouraged to seek members with backgrounds in behavioral health, violence, intervention, youth services, housing, fire, EMS, and live experiences.

So what my question is again, should we just if we accepted the report and take it to the the appointments committee for discussion or take it to the policy committee for discussion, then bring it back to council? Help me understand what

you're We're gonna we're gonna approve it right now and accept the report because it's already been the policy.

Okay. That's what I was asking. Okay? I got you.

This came from policy.

Just come just come back to me then when

you Yes.

And let me

just I got you.

I got you.

I understand, sir. But let

me just add

as the

as the policy chair, I have yourself as on the policy and council member Ferguson and council member Hondros and McMillan joins us quite frequently.

Yes.

Yes. Council member Ferguson. Any question? No. Council member McNell McMillan?

Yes. Thank you again. Great brief. And I wanna say thank you to everybody that worked on what I consider to be an improvement in terms of the board and its direction. Wanna go back to to 2020 when citizens were asking for the main thing was oversight.

Main thing was independent oversight of of the police, but also for a holistic approach to what public safety is. And and years later, we're get we're finally getting to the point where we're speaking the same language, we're on the same page in terms of the holistic approach. We have an OCS established, we have a document now and a board that's ready to move with mental health professionals until with people who deal with violence intervention. And I celebrate and applaud that. During the policy meeting, did have a point to make that I hope that my other colleagues will pay attention to in terms of the verbiage and the qualifications.

I had an issue with the requirement to complete the Citizen Police Academy. I know that's the old way of thinking. We need to have everybody in line and understanding the approach from the police standpoint. Now that we're moving towards a holistic approach, I would encourage us to modify that to just as we're strongly encouraging mental health professionals, people who have worked with our homeless community to be a part of this, to also encourage and not require attendance of the Citizen Police Academy. And I would like that change to happen today prior to approving this.

I would also welcome community input. I don't wanna make the same mistake that we that the city made years ago, six years ago. This this board came about mostly behind closed doors and a closed process that the community did not have input on. I think we had a special meeting where the community was very much involved and then it went to closed parlors and it came back as something that wasn't recognizable in terms of what we asked, was hardly recognizable. And I would ask if there are any plans for a public hearing of sorts or some opportunity for the community that's going be most impacted by these changes to have some input on what what their future looks like?

No. He can't answer that question, but I can. This is just policy. Policy will approve it, and it's here for recommendations for up and down vote. We didn't give it a prerequisite. But once you air in the position, it is a requirement part of the training as far as the drive alongs and ride alongs. So with that, we'll move to council member Hare.

Mayor Pro Tem, I'm sorry. Mayor Colvin has raised his hand.

Mister mayor, you're on?

Yes, sir. How are you doing?

Doing good.

Good presentation. Just wanna give some quick background. I don't wanna spend a lot of time on it, but as the one of the few council members that were on at that time, that that was not how this arrived. But I'm glad we are where we are, that it was always meant to be a bridge to improve relations between law enforcement and the community and now expanding it to cover those other areas, which I I think is in line with the way, as stated before, the public safety piece is if we're dealing with the other components. But this was never an oversight intent.

That was the request from some members of the community, but, again, it's not legal in North Carolina to do that. But building better relationships, we see the relationship of the police and the community has improved drastically over the last several years, and I think this will be another piece to that. And I just had a question about the requirement. Was it requirement for the citizens to attend the Citizens Academy, or was it to specifically attend, the police related academy? Because I think Since any of these boards you know, the Citizens Academy helped them understand how the government works and process and procedure. So what was the answer to that question?

It is what's new is the Citizens Police Academy, the FPD ride along, the EMS ride along, and community safety provider orientation.

Okay. So all of those? Yes. Which they will probably encounter some or one of all of that as a board member.

Exactly. Okay.

Alright. Thank you.

No more Councilmember Harris?

Yes, sir. Mayor pro tem, I move that we take a consensus vote that we, adopt the community police advisory board, chapter updates.

The motion is there a second?

Yes, sir.

Yes. Go

ahead. Just to clarify. Second. The the requirement was in the original charter for the police Citizen Police Academy

Mhmm.

And the ride along. The the addition is the, the requirement for fire EMS OCS. Those are the additional requirements. The requirement for citizen police county was

Was already there.

Yes,

I just read the whole thing off to him. Yes, sir. Alright. Then properly motion, is there a second? Second by council member Ferguson.

Second.

Question to the motion?

Discussion. Discussion on the motion?

Yes.

Go ahead. Council member McMillan.

Yeah. So I I can't support in this current form. Got got a stand on what what I know. We'll open this up to the most involvement, especially by impacted people in the community. It's not it's not indoctrination.

It's not a requirement of this type. For that reason I can't support but also I think there's an opportunity to send this forward with a requirement for public input as well. I am a I'm concerned that this is gonna be rubber rubber stamped in this council without the proper amount of impact from the people again who are gonna lead this hopefully as citizens but also who will be most impacted and for that reason as well. I'd to see this go forward with some direction and instruction for public input prior to becoming law and ordinance. Thank you.

Any other questions on the motion? Ready for your vote.

Green. Green.

Mister mayor? Alright. That is nine Thank to you, sir. Thank you, sir.

We'll go

to six item 6.03. Municipal services, 3rd Quarter Cool Springs Downtown District.

Good afternoon, council. Nice to see you again. I'll be up here a couple of times this afternoon.

Pretty soon, it's gonna be evening.

So we've got, miss Ashanti Bennett, CEO of CoolSpring Downtown District, a couple staff members and some board members here to give this presentation. But I wanted to take the first handful of slides and and just kind of reorient the community to, what this contract is and and what we contract with CoolSpring to do. So in Downtown Fayetteville, we have an additional tax levy for our municipal service district. That is a district of the city that, council has determined requires a higher level of service than other parts of the city overall. So instead of funding out of the general fund, we have a small additional tax to help fund those activities.

To do that, it's authorized in general statutes, we're allowed to provide those services as city staff or contract with a private organization to do so. When you contract with a private organization, there's a whole bunch of procedural things that have to happen. We have to survey the district. We have to make a finding of what services are needed based on that survey, and then we have to put out an RFP for a organization to provide those services. We then enter into a contract with them that is very specific on what services we're contracting for them to provide, and then they have quarterly reports as part of that contract and then an annual report.

They also give us, a report on deliverables, any annual audits that that occur, and they have to have the appropriate insurance provisions to work with the city. So this isn't all we do with Cold Spring, but I wanted to talk about what what what this covers. So we have a kind of primary municipal service district contract, which is about $230,000 a year, that's generated from that additional tax levy. We have a secondary contract with them for about $60,000 a year to provide for the downtown ambassadors. That is also generated out of that additional property tax levy.

Then under our parks and rec department, we have a couple of more contracts for New Year's and Juneteenth. Those are all funded out of the general fund. So the way that this contract is structured with Cool Spring aligns with the city's strategic goals and objectives. Staff puts that contract together. They respond to an RFP.

And so they have five goals, economic vitality and development, arts and design enhancements, promotion and marketing, special events and programming, and organizational support and conflict resolution within the district. And you can see how that maps to our strategic objectives there. So every quarter when we get a quarter of the report and when we get an annual report, Cool Spring, miss Bennett and her team put together a a comprehensive status of where they are on each one of those five metrics. And so with that, I'd like to invite Ashanti up to talk about that report and and the items that are in it.

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. You for having me this afternoon. I think this is the first time I've been back with you in this new year so far. Oh, so let's see.

All right. So as Chris mentioned, we do submit to you all a quarterly report and this is the activity from Q3 that just ended here in March. Some highlights from that and I won't read this all to you all the way through, but you can see there on the right hand side, we have had we track the businesses that are opening, any businesses that have moved, any businesses that we anticipate opening in the district. In this last quarter, we had three new businesses open, two moved location and we had one closed and then we anticipate two more that should be opening probably within the next several weeks but definitely within the fourth quarter there. Some of the other activities that we have done in part with this economic vitality and development goal that we have, We've recently hired a new staff member for Cold Spring Downtown District, our development and engagement director Larissa Vaya.

We are very, very happy to have her. Larissa comes to us from the Raleigh area and brings a wealth of experience and background in working with communities and bringing forward economic vitality initiatives that help contribute to the local economy. So those transferable skills that she had where we utilize arts and entertainment to achieve those goals have been working very well. And if you haven't had a chance to meet Larissa, she will probably be reaching out to you if she hasn't already. We kind of threw her in the deep end of meeting as many of our key stakeholders as possibly could.

We have her on a number of committees including our chambers military affairs committee. We have revitalized our own economic vitality committee for Cool Spring in the downtown district. We've had her writing grants, we've had her setting up workshops, she has dived right into that. Coming out of that, we have plans that we are working on currently that will take implementation in the fourth quarter and beyond into the next fiscal year for those activities in downtown. At that time with Larissa's working closely with myself, we've applied for nearly $05,000,000 in grants that will support those programs and initiatives for the downtown because the goal is always to leverage the investment that you all generously make in us so that we are not just using the city funds but utilizing other public and private investment as possible as we can.

To that end, we share these findings and we share these activities and also open up the doors to receive that impact from our small business community with a quarterly meeting that we host along with the Downtown Alliance. That one just happened back in February so the next one should be happening in the next month or so. But that just allows us to share what we're doing, give that public information to them and also receive that input because it is very important that we hear from the other organizations and the small businesses that are in the district to make sure that we are servicing their needs as they are ever changing. And our arts and design enhancement piece introducing more public art to downtown. If you are strolling around downtown, will see right by our office there at 222 Hay Street, we have the 222 Art Alley.

We do try to make sure that we keep that enhanced with seasonal decor. This last February we actually partnered with the Capital Encore Academy because we're always looking for those collaborations and utilizing some of the work that their art students do to be able to feature that in that space because there are still people somehow that don't know. We have a wonderful art charter school right here in our downtown district so we wanna make sure that those kids are incorporated with other folks that are in the district here. We changed that out. You will see if you go down that alley we have these large scale pieces of work.

We try to change those out at least twice a year. That includes a call for art so that goes out to the general public. They design sometimes on a theme, sometimes not but we are able to then support some of our emerging artist that are in our community and be able to have their work up for a period of anywhere from three to six months throughout the year rotating that out seasonally there. In addition to that we do support the Artscape public art piece that the Arts Council does by sponsoring pieces for that as they rotate that out twice a year. I'm very proud this year after a sort of long conversation about it that we were able to get the downtown banners up and if you've seen them around at our gateways into downtown and particularly around our the Market Square Circle, you'll just see that it's branded then it just says Downtown Fayetteville.

We have used that as a best practice from other cities as you're entering a designated district having that branding and having that signage gives people a sense of place and lets them understand exactly where they are. We have been very excited to have that up and hope to expand that as we move forward. Additionally, we speak on all of the activities that we're doing in downtown and I'll talk a little bit more about that when we do the marketing promotions update. But recently had some interviews for activities that are happening in our downtown. We are always open to any community blogs, any community interviews that we do with our local radio stations.

As the month goes by, in fact, I believe in the month of May, I probably have four or five of those interviews scheduled. And we utilize that time to not only talk about the events that we have going on downtown and any public initiatives that we have, but also always to encourage folks to shop local in our district and offer that support to our small businesses. So our marketing and promotions, I won't read through all of this here. There on the right you can see some of our social media analytics. We are on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok as everyone must be in this day.

But we also do marketing and promotions with ads with Beasley Media, Cumulus Media, CBS seventeen, ABC eleven, the Greater Faye Business Journal, Fayetteville Press Newspaper, City View Magazine, Pineshaw Magazine. We work with the CBB to distribute ads in the visitors guide that goes into all of the rest stops all along 95 Corridor. We have in house our own Constant Contact which is our e newsletter that goes out to roughly about 6,000 to 7,000 people. And we do that on a regular basis but then if there's something special that's happening in the city we will do a special post for that. We also work with Lamar Billboards and the city of Fayetteville yourselves to put up billboards that promote any of those large scale events that we have coming on.

We recently were able to do a digital billboard with the New Year's that also included a love local campaign bringing folks in for that holiday season always to drive that foot traffic back here and keep those dollars local where we need them to be. Recently, Fay and CMAG if you're familiar with them, they've just opened an office in Downtown Fayetteville and so we have already begun to contract with them to do some additional marketing and promotions for us as well. All right, In the past quarter, we hosted a total of six events that brought roughly about 24,000 people down to our downtown. That Q3 is always a little light for everyone. It's the winter months and this winter in particular with all of our unexpected snow.

It is always a time where we are easing folks back in post holiday to come downtown and enjoy those outdoor events. But it's around this time of year that the weather begins to cooperate us with us. So when I come back to you for that fourth quarter, there will be a lot more of those events that we'll be able to talk about happening. But even with that bringing an additional 25,000 people or so down to the district at a time where things are just naturally slower is something that I'm proud of with their staff. We continue to manage our social district and that is something that helps bring that foot traffic down even during those slow periods of time.

We often provide those social district cups that you see to our bars and our restaurants. If they have any special activities sort of like the bar crawl that happens around St. Patrick's Day, we're always happy to promote that. We offer additional items for them to put swag bags and give out to people just anything to sort of continue to drive that traffic to downtown for us. Additional recreational activities as I mentioned we have submitted any a fair number of grants.

One of the grants that we're looking for is to sort of combine our arts and entertainment piece with a bit of a walking campaign. We know that parking is a constant discussion in downtown and what we have all sort of agreed on both us and the downtown alliances. We don't necessarily have a parking problem, we have a walking problem. And so to solve that problem what we would like to do if we are waiting to get funded from that grant program is do a sort of mini mural project where those items would be, that artwork would be affixed to the sidewalks of downtown and take you sort of through a trail so that as you're sort of following the art, you're walking through the district and not really paying attention to how far you're walking. So getting those steps in, seeing some art and being able to visit our shops at the same time is really the goal.

So we are hoping to get funded for that and be able to implement that in Q4 as well. We do have the signature events, the New Year's Eve and the Juneteenth. I'll save Juneteenth till I get through this and give you a fuller update on that as well. So part of our role is an advocate and to act as a connector for downtown. We don't do everything but we do work with our partners as closely as we can so that when there are issues or people need some assistance or guidance, they can come to our office and our goal is always to connect them with the best resource that they need if it's not directly through us.

To that end, staff we as I mentioned host the quarterly meeting with our downtown alliance. Staff also attends community neighborhood watch meetings that are being held. The Office of Community Safety public feedback meeting that just happened, all of our safety and engagement ambassadors attended that as well. Anytime that there is a large local meeting that we can be at, for instance, Mr. Hewitt's dug in the district meetings, we help coordinate that for him at the Arts Council at the top of the calendar year.

We always try to make sure that there's some sort of CoolSpring staff representation if nothing else just information for us because people ask us we want to be able to make sure that we're giving out exactly what they need. One of those other pieces and this sort of is the marketing promotion as well we are currently undergoing a new website redesign. If you've been on our website in a while, we have a vast amount of information but it is not the most user friendly I would say. It's a very, very dense website. So we have been working with an agency to make that a little bit more user friendly, a little more intuitive for folks but keeping all of the information that's happening about any downtown events, any downtown initiatives, any city initiatives that you have, anywhere from our downtown residents to folks that are looking to start a business in downtown.

We want to sort of be that one stop shop where they can at least get connected to the resources that they need and be able to carry through with their project as needed. We with that new website, we have some ideas for some things. We may not get them all done at the same time but we have toyed with the notion of adding a podcast or partnering with some of the folks that are downtown that are already doing that and just making sure that we are regular members on those podcasts as well. Looking to add a blog post to that piece where we reach out to some of our community members, reach out to some of our small businesses and really lean into telling the story of downtown. Fay and Seamag has actually done a really great profile of another person that just sort of came down telling their story of why they started their business.

They've been here for years and I don't know if you read it or not but it taught me some things I didn't know about something that I see every day. And I think that's part of what we're looking for. As we look at downtown as a neighborhood and a third space that belongs to all, we want everyone in Fayetteville not just those of us that are always here in downtown to also feel that ownership and that sense of place with downtown as well and utilize that as that third space. Any other meetings or things that come up as we are asked ad hoc, we certainly do what we can to support and promote that whether that is in fact just promoting the event. But liking to sit at the table for those and offer our input as well as we possibly can.

Things like the public safety for Festival Park, we also sit on the special events committee and try to weigh in on input on any of those events that are coming into town just to make sure that everything can be as smooth as it possibly can. As our scene is growing, I remember when I first moved back to Fayetteville back in 2015 and it was right at sort of the beginning of what we call that sort of downtown revitalization and renaissance. And you could still hear people saying there's nothing to do in Fayetteville. Well, think even with the presentations you've heard today that's clearly not the case anymore. And so we're making sure that we keep those communication channels open, making sure folks know how to if they have an idea what that process looks like, who are the right people to talk to, the permits that are needed, etcetera, etcetera.

And so always looking for that input, always looking for the newest of that information so that we can put it on our new amazing website that I can't wait to share with you all. We will be launching that on June 4 at an event that we're hosting, a new event. If you were familiar with CityView's Downtown Visionaries meeting that they used to do a couple years back, They decided that they, you know, that wasn't sort of fitting in their mission and that it needed to go to another organization. And we are in fact sort of taking that event and reimagining it a little bit where we can give some of sort of town hall updates to the general public who may or may not be watching these particular meetings. But also to offer some recognition to some of the unsung heroes of our downtown, the folks that bring those events, the folks that run those businesses that people wanna frequent, that are just doing that work kind of quietly behind the scenes but may or may not be getting that.

As a downtown district, we see it. We know it's integral to what goes on and how we're successful in our downtown. So we just wanted to offer that opportunity to lift some of those folks up. We do hope that that will become an annual event. I think it's a great opportunity to just bring the community together and celebrate what we love about downtown in our district.

To that end, we don't I don't have a slide for you unfortunately for Juneteenth, but I can give you some good updates on that. The twenty twenty six Juneteenth Jubilee is gonna be held on Friday, June 19, right on Juneteenth this year. That event is going to be held from five to 11PM in Festival Park. I'm very excited for this particular year, largely because very early on, way back last summer, believe it was, I initiated conversations with our counterparts in Hope Mills and Spring Lake. This is the fifth year that we've been doing this event.

And it felt more than past time for us to get our ducks in a row so to speak and make sure that we were creating something not just for our individual areas but for Cumberland County as a whole and the surrounding areas. Making sure that we were not sort of stepping on each other with scheduling, splitting our vendors, doing all of those things. So through a couple of meetings with that we were able to create a schedule for all of our events so that we could then market that as a Cumberland County Juneteenth celebration. So from Thursday through Sunday, there are activities that you will be able to do every single day. And I'm pleased with that because it also allows us to support each other and go to each other's events.

You hear about it, but if you're working your own, you don't get a chance to go. I'm happy that we're able to collaborate and be able to be supportive of each other in that way. To that end, we do have our headlining talent that has been announced. It is a singer by the name of Kirby. If you are not familiar with that, please make sure you are following the Cool Spring Downtown page or Downtown Fayetteville.

We are currently putting together a Spotify playlist of all of the talent that we have coming so that folks can get familiar with the music. But this is a great opportunity to have her. I personally feel that this young lady is on the cusp of probably sleeping every award show next year and we would not be able to afford her at that time. So I'm very glad we were able to get her now. We also have some talent out of Charlotte, Misha Fair.

I attended a conference called Confluence Conference which is a very large music industry conference that happens here in North Carolina annually. And through that, they do artist showcase surrounding talents from the Carolinas and Virginia. And she just blew me out of the water and knew that we had to bring her to Fayetteville and introduce her to audiences here. So we're very excited to have her. We will also have a about five or six local bands and artists that will be on the stage.

It is incredibly important for us to create a platform where our local talent can shine and where they can, you know, perform for their own community. Supporting those emerging artists is integral to everything that we do so that they don't leave us and go to the triangle or the triad so that they stay right here in supporting that. We will have any number of community groups that are going to be playing a role in that whether it's vendors or adding activations to the space. I'm very excited for our partnership with our local HBCU, Fayetteville State University this year who will be helping to contribute again to an expanded art walk and art gallery that we're doing with some other community partners such as Black Artist Forward and Black Canvas where we are going to have a sort of Afrofuturism art walk that will connect the idea of Juneteenth celebrating our past, honoring our present, but also looking towards a future that is equitable and just and fair for our people as we move forward and allowing that to happen through that artistic expression. There are some other surprises that we are sort of in the middle of contracting.

I don't wanna give it all away just yet, but stay tuned. There should be a secondary press release coming out in the next couple of weeks. We have been able to secure additional sponsorship for that. The city grants us a contract of $110,000 to support that event. This year we've already brought in about $15,000 of additional private support and $25,000 of in kind support that will help with those marketing and promotions.

Our goal for that is to outreach as far as we possibly can outside of the area and bring folks in. We did notice a trend just pulling some of the data from our previous events particularly for the Juneteenth that we get folks as far north from SDC and far south as Myrtle Beach that do come to this event. So we are really doubling down on our marketing efforts to those areas and making sure that those folks know that we have a Friday event that is going to make Fayetteville Shine but we also have several other events and that they should come and stay for that whole weekend. Because again, everything that we try to do, I really like to leverage whatever investment that you guys have entrusted us with so we can make sure that we continue to grow these things as well as we possibly can. And as my voice just wears out, I think that's probably the end.

Great job we appreciate you. Questions counsel?

Councilmember McMillan. Thank you again.

Thank you for

your work year in and year out. Appreciate what you bring to the city and especially what you're to bring in the celebration of Juneteenth. I've had frustration with Juneteenth as a holiday for years because I've seen the commercialization of it. And the separation of Juneteenth as a holiday that really celebrates rebellion, celebrates our fight for liberation and the results of that fight. Knowing that we live in a state that was the home to the largest population of Maroons, enslaved Africans who resisted.

Knowing that that day did not come by accident it came through liberation and work. I'm wondering if there is space for the city to get back to the roots of Juneteenth and open up space for people who are still fighting the fight today. I'm thinking about organizations like Emancipate North Carolina or the NAACP or Black Voters Matter especially in context of what just happened last week with the gutting of the of the civil rights. If

I can answer that, we have a long roster and I'd be happy to share it with you once the finalized application is just closed and so we're kind of going through those now. But I personally make a concerted effort to make sure that we invite as many of those nonprofit and community organizations that are in fact doing that work to that space. It's not all just about the fun and games. We say that with Juneteenth often. It is about the history.

It is about the education. And it is about offering and bringing to the community in one fell swoop as many services and initiatives that they may or may not be aware of, but are resources for them as they continue, as you said, to fight the fight right here today. And so there is a tone to it that is serious as well. It's not all frivolity. But I do find that people best get their medicine with something a little bit sweet. And so we make sure that we blend that entertainment and that education as well as we possibly can.

I appreciate that. That joy has always been a part of it as well. And I welcome Kirby as well. Think she's a fantastic vocalist.

She's gonna be great. Thank you.

Councilmember Hundres. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I did have a couple questions. And one, my understanding is, but I really don't know, that's why I'm asking. Back in the inception of Cool Spring Downtown District, was it to manage and kinda promote our artistic district?

So Cool Spring was formed in fact and it's a response to the 2015 study that was done for whether or not the city could support bringing a performing arts center and as a result of that study Cold Spring was formed with the City of Fayetteville, the Arts Council and the Downtown Alliance to create and sustain an arts and entertainment district that would or would not support whether a performing arts center ever came, It was just creating the environment in which one could be sustained.

Awesome. I appreciate that. I didn't know that. So just a question. I see you have one of our ambassadors here having gone to Tampa in in to their Ybor City, and and there's other little districts like that around the country. Is that something Cool Spring Downtown District, I I don't think that was part of the original mission. Right? Is that something you all embrace or is that something you prefer not to do? Like would you prefer to just do art stuff like putting on Juneteenth and the New Year's Eve festivals or kind of if you were queen for the day, what would your vision of Queen Spring Downtown District be? And I know that's something

Don't threaten me with the good times,

sir, okay?

That's kind of a mixed

bag of a question largely because I can't imagine coming to work and not working with Adam and our new ambassador Mac who couldn't be with us. I do think that a larger program would be beneficial to the downtown. We do just have the two ambassadors and so we work to have seven day a week coverage in that downtown but there are some aspects to it that they just they find themselves in and because I have great staff, I think they are able to work through de escalation issues, you know liaise with their homeless population and they do an amazing and fantastic job. So I do think an element of that should always reside with CoolSpring just because we need that connectivity from what we're doing sort of administratively in the office to what's going on in the public realm. Could that be enhanced with other partnerships or an increased body?

Possibly, does that sort of all come to CoolSpring and we sort of manage that, that's conversations that we can absolutely have. I do think some of the landscape of what the city has been doing with our public safety and notions of that has changed since we began the ambassador program. So I think there's always opportunity to talk about ways that we could better partner or fit in with some of the other initiatives that you're doing. I would never advocate to not have ambassadors as a part of the Cool Springs staff because as I said I do think they really do help us keep that connectivity with our small business owners that cleanliness, that beautification piece that they also do. I think it helps us as a relationship builder with Parks and Rec.

They don't always have to come and clean for us or paint or do all those things. We have in house folks that can do it. But again I do think there's always opportunity for a larger conversation of what that could look like in an expanded capacity.

So your entire staff is how many right now?

Right now we are five full time staff.

And your new one, what was the official title?

We have our director of development and engagement that is Larissa Valla and then we've added a second safety and engagement ambassador, Malcolm Franklin.

So so currently just two ambassadors?

Correct.

And I think if I heard you correctly, you said it'd be good to potentially expand that program. What ideally, again, queen for the day, how many ambassadors would we have to have a full team?

If I were gonna do a queen for the day, I kind of would pick an ambassador for every day of the week. I think what that does is it allows for not only the expanded hourly coverage throughout the day but it does make sure, I mean it gets us to as close to twenty four hour a day coverage as you possibly can with scheduling. If I were to choose sort of a minimum to that, I would probably say at least a team of five strong. And I think about the other areas of downtown that are expanding, spaces that may or may not sort of fall within that MSD line but are downtown. And so those tend to get a lower priority because we're making sure that the main corridors in the spaces where we have the most foot traffic are getting the most services.

But there are other spaces that we would really love to attend to. I know that there are some areas the city are working on for instance that Blount And Gillespie Street property over by East Smith. As that sort of comes online, that's an expanded part of our downtown and so just making sure that we have enough folks that we're able to be as quickly responsive as we have been able to be now as those needs change and as the city grows. It's just something to think about growing the ancillary programs that support that along with it as as you're making those decisions and maybe less responsive afterwards. We don't we wanna avoid the problem and just kinda come up with a solution.

I think I got a for you. So with only a ambassador team of two, like what kinda coverage does that give us if we look at days of the week and and kinda hours of those days?

Right now we have seven day a week coverage. Our ambassadors will work eight hours a day during the week Friday, Saturday, and at least one or two of the other weekdays. We do try to make sure that they overlap with each other slightly just so that there can be hand off and continuity of how the day has gone. But then there are periods, for instance, Adam, who you see walking around on Saturday, will work a split schedule. So depending on also the event schedule and things that might be going on downtown, he may come in in the morning, take an afternoon break and then be there for the evening activities as the nightlife sort of picks up.

And so there are little gaps in between. For instance, if we had that other ambassador then when Adam goes on break there's someone else that's there. And so my personal goal is I would always like to see one of those orange polos being able to walk around downtown.

Well I think I speak for my colleagues and a lot of the residents. Thank you for all that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Jones.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor, very quickly. First, thank you so much for the spectacular presentation. And I love the way you specifically tie outcomes into what you're doing. It was just very clear to follow. You kept saying something that was very key. We leverage, we leverage, we leverage. That's powerful in and of itself. I know it's not a given with everything, but the fact that very, you all are very, you and your team are very intentional on how do you utilize your dollars and how you maximize your dollars. I know you could always use more of course.

But I just wanted to really say thank you so much. Secondarily from that, thank you again for what you all have done over the years for the Juneteenth and the New Year's Eve events, just to see that evolve. I was blessed to be a part of that inaugural season where those two were started and to see where it's going, it is phenomenal. So I love to see that regional aspect because even during that time, I would try to go to different ones to support. So I love that collaboration.

That's what we need because we often speak about a regional aspect, so that really speaks to that. So lastly, my quick question is there's at the bottom of the slide, you say you often receive complaints to things. So just wanna know very quickly, what are some of the complaints you would hear around? You can condense it. Okay. Parking for one, because I know we're in RFP areas and then number two, you stated one of the reasons that the district was created was for a performing arts center consideration not necessarily to build it but what has that conversation been like? I'm just curious to see what you have been hearing about it.

So you all read the paper, you've seen all the comment sections on social media, I won't reiterate that. I will speak from where Cool Spring comes from it. When the decisions were made regarding the performing arts center that it was made, it was done. We come from a space where as an office, a general philosophy we don't come from a scarcity mindset. We like to come from what we do have and talk about what we do have going and not what we don't.

Our efforts right now are supporting the Cameo Collective. If you're not familiar with that it's our Cameo Art House Theater that I sit on that board as Vice President now. We have turned that into a non profit and the goal is to make that a multi art center. So still showing films that everybody loves but also adding an opportunity for performers, our comedians having other parts of the artistic expression show up there. So in many ways we do have another performing arts center and that's the conversation that we drive as well as the Arts Council's new building, the Arts Accelerator, another great venue and space where we can bring folks in.

So our goal here at CoolSpring is we're not going to worry about sort of those bigger decisions that we may or may not necessarily have an impact on. But the assets that we do have, we want to make sure that we are raising them to the consciousness of folks so that they know. We've had two other venues open up in our downtown, the 226 Warehouse, 143 Maxwell. These are spaces that can host those same sort of community events that we were hoping would go in the performing arts We look forward to the ongoing conversations and should there be any other venues that wanna come downtown, Cold Spring would absolutely like to advocate for that. I'm just had a very interesting conversation with someone who is very interested in purchasing a property downtown and turning it into a music venue which I think would be amazing for our community, a place where you could see live music most days of the week.

That's sort of where we're focusing our attention. You asked about parking. I do think that most of what I hear as I said you know and as we've kind of had the conversation Downtown Alliance our small business owners notice it too. We've we've got about 4,600 parking spaces in downtown. It is rare that that many people are parking in those spaces at the same time.

So our motto is there's always a parking space somewhere. We lean into that again. We don't have a parking problem, we sort of have a walking problem. You're not always gonna be able to pull like you are at the mall or somewhere like right in front of this place where you wanna go to. And so our goal is to partner with some of these other community organizations and figure out how do we make the walk interesting for people.

One of the other initiatives that we are looking to do and right now that is sort of collating all of the property owners that do own some of these vacancies that we have downtown. If you've walked on Hayes Street in maybe the last week or so, you would notice a property very close to our office in the vacant windows there is now a temporary mural that's in front of it. Our good neighbor Johnny Awesome there, Johnny Awesome Tattoos did that in partnership with that business owner. We would like to do more of that. If you're familiar with that broken window theory, right, you just you need to make it, it can be vacant but it doesn't need to look vacant and scary.

We can add some public art that allows us to continue to have another opportunity to support our emerging artists. It also allows us to put up say a spec sheet about that building and what it can possibly be done. The nine ten festival Nathan Cuffey he sits on our board. We've talked about this in support of their event should that move forward. That storefront piece, we are currently working on grant funding to create sort of a pop up space similar to what they have in Durham and Raleigh where you could have an emerging entrepreneur come in for any period of time whether that's three months, six months, have the experience of going through opening their business, determining if it's even something they want to do but also connecting them to any incentives, any tax credits, realtors, bankers, getting them through the whole program so that we are retaining and sustaining those businesses but also activating those spaces that are blank.

And so when we talk about parking, talk we about performing arts center, all of it is fluid. It's always going to change. It's why I appreciate the work of a downtown because it is not stagnant. It should not be. The downtown you come to today should not look the same in five years. Otherwise, I think somebody like myself is doing something wrong. And so we're always constantly looking for as those needs evolve, as the trends change, as the population shifts, how do we keep making sure that downtown is in fact a place for all.

Thank you so much. You definitely answered and went above and beyond. Thank you for your effort. We do need a thriving downtown. Thank you, mister Mayor.

Alright. Yes, sir. Councilman Ferguson, then we've we've got to we've got to get to another item or two.

Thank you, mister Mayor. I moved that we received the report Oh

you're ready to go. Alright well okay come right back

to you.

Okay come right back to you.

Councilman Davis.

That was

a second sir.

Oh alright Look. Real quick. Yes, sir. Mister Shanti, thank you for that. I was listening to your presentation on the way here.

I didn't

even see you slip into the room.

I know. You like magic. You you were engaged.

So but, look, I just have two things. One, when this was originally formed, there it was to bring the arts and entertainment. I know you've got programming, and since then, we've layered a thing after a thing. Mhmm. And so I did like hearing you say what you would prefer. Now, the ambassador program that that myself and previous council members envision, what does your ambassadors do currently? I I know you don't have enough of them to do enough things. No. They didn't. But what they are doing, what what would you say some of their their priorities are?

I mean, if I had to start with the tasks they do, I'd umbrella it under just community relations first and foremost. They are out there present. They help folks that are looking for parking, help them work the kiosks, tell them what events are going on, if they need to know where to go to find a thing, a place to shop, etcetera. So they're sort of in in some version of concierge of downtown. They are always knowledgeable about what's going on and can direct people as well.

And and right now you have this gentleman and one more you say. Right? One

more. Correct.

And and so that's a lot of territory.

That's lot of territory, but that's not all they do, sir. Oh. So I think the safety piece is also while they are around town, if you have folks that feel like they are encountering someone, one of our on house neighbors, they are having a negative interaction, something that startles them, they act as a liaison for those folks. If they need to escalate it to police intervention, they stay with them as well to the point that even our ambassadors have gone to court with some of our downtown merchants that have had to escalate issues. They are providing the cleanliness of downtown, keeping the litter and the trash from the big street sweeping and things that happen, but sort of that daily upkeep.

Making sure that our clean and safe program, that is our shared waste management program continues to run and function, constantly adding folks to that so that we can reduce the number of roll carts and just have a more shared clean space. They keep things upkept, do painting. If something's chipped, if a sign needs to be reported, they are always there to make sure that those things happen as well. And they also offer additional event support when we are having our our large scale events in our fourth Friday series.

Gotcha. So they do have a long a long list of things they do. Kind of the the important part for us, or the the thought process behind it when when council went in this direction was mainly what you said the first part was helping people who may be lost or maybe in a in a uncomfortable situation. Right now, I know chief Bryant's been showing a lot of presence down there, is which is good. Mhmm. But I think as we talk about how to build this out, having more of those folks because, you know, I get a lot of emails. You know, everything's my fault. And I'm sure the council gets a lot of it. But, know, folks who come into our community who park in and get tickets, folks who the kiosk is not working and Mhmm. And some of those kind of things.

And, you know, I know that you're not in the parking management, but I think some of the things that we can do on our end, maybe signage and we'll talk to the parking management folks. But if there's a way that we can figure out how we get more orange shirts out to help people when they have an experience because it's the experience that you're trying to encourage people to do.

Exactly. Good

experience, you come back. If it's a bad experience, you don't. And so we wanna make sure that that's there. So that that was one thing. The last the second thing was being a business owner downtown, I hear a lot. Right? Just, you know, and and the world's not perfect. But tell me how the the collaboration is working between Cool Springs and the DTA and and some of these other interested parties. Right? Because it seems that it seems that there's a lot of a lot of, I don't I won't say disjointedness, but but there there tell us about how and what you see your role is in collaborating with some of these business owners with what you do.

That's a big question. I think that you know CoolSpring, DTA was a part of forming CoolSpring And I think there were were expectations of how that relationship would go once we sort of came online that may or may not align to how we have the relationship today. We are as I said we are engaged with that arts and entertainment district. We are making sure that we are communicating with our small businesses and making sure that they have input. If there are issues there are things that we can help be a liaison with and move forward.

I do think some of the needs of the downtown merchant community may have shifted and changed in the last few years. It's been a rough economic season. We had the government shutdown that affected a lot of folks and so traffic to downtown in general and not just our downtown everywhere slowed and I think that we are all right now just trying to figure out ways to revitalize that space and keep it going. We come at it from different angles and so I think we are constantly trying to have communication with these folks to be able to sit down our board, their board, informally and formally just to figure out what is sort of the sweet spot between making sure that the merchants are their tills are ringing and that people are buying from them but also that they are a part of the larger ecosystem of downtown and supporting some of those initiatives and things that we're doing to make sure that the environment is supportive enough for them to be able to thrive in. I look forward to those conversations as we have them.

We've been able to take some feedback and be able to implement it. But I do think probably it would behoove all of us to be able to sit down and sort of create a long term strategy where we've sort of been have been short term strategies that may not always sustain themselves. And so we're constantly sort of having to revisit that. And we welcome any input from any of the city council, anyone else that wants to participate in that. You know, council member Ferguson is gonna be joining our board as our city liaison starting next month. And so opening that up is something that I welcome. I'm not queen for the day unfortunately yet so I don't have all the answers all the time but I welcome anything that is positive feedback and solution oriented.

Right. No. I get you. And and and just as you talked about being able to lay out activities. I think I heard on on the line there's activities that that you all share of what's going on so that everyone knows kind of what's going on. Same thing, I guess, with the Dogwood when they do summer concerts. So when they do so things that don't necessarily involve Cool Springs. Are you still the facilitator to help push information out? Absolutely. So there's collaboration there?

Absolutely. About 30% of our budget is purely for marketing. So we don't just market what Cool Springs does. And in fact largely we're trying to make sure that we're marketing what everyone else is doing. That includes not just the events but that includes if there are shopping specials, if there's a sidewalk sale, if there's something that our merchants are doing as well. We want to make sure we're doing all of that if there are special meetings that you all are having we want to make sure our goal is to push out that public information as widely as we can.

Gotcha appreciate it so we had a motion by councilman Ferguson second by Davis. Alright Council don't see any further questions so look to you for just receiving the report. Consensus to receive a report.

Perfect. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Oh, councilman Green. Okay. Hey, councilman.

I gotta say Dean.

Hey, mayor. How are you doing?

I'm good, man. I miss you. So come on back here. I gotta can't keep there.

Trying to

get there.

Alright. Uh-huh. Ma'am? Alright. 604? Yeah. So did talk to Wesley on 6 on 04. And, you know, would it be in state property, they have a number of approvals that they would have to do for any ask. And I think he had asked on last week that they had one final approval, so he had asked for this to be pulled, until it comes back. Was that what you were standing up there for, mister Collier? Sir? Oh, okay. Okay. I'm sorry. Alright.

You so, counsel, you know, when when you receive anything from the state, you know, not only do they have the the UNC board, but, they have a local board of trustees and some other, things. So are we okay with that being pulled? Okay. Alright. Thank you. So so so we'll just table until till further notice from Fayetteville State. Alright. So motion by mayor pro tem to, table item six point o four, second by Davis. Alright. Alright. Council, look to you for your votes, and it's just a table six point o four.

Green.

Alright. Green. It's unanimous. Thank you, council member here. Alright. Mister Collins, six point o five.

Yes, sir. That's what I was up here for. I got I I got I got, like, one or two more after this too. So I I'm gonna take a break and pass this over to my economic development manager, Derek McArthur. Alright.

I just kinda wanna really just briefly introduce this. Derek has been working towards benchmarking other programs, surveying the community, looking at what other folks in the state of North Carolina do for economic development programming that comes out of our office. And this is months and months of work that he's put into this. I'm I'm really looking forward to him showing it all to you. The direction that I gave Derek was how do we say yes to more folks and different kinds of projects? And so he put this together with that kind of key concept in mind. So I'll turn it over to him now that I got him situated.

Thank you for having me, council, mayor. Once again, Derek MacArthur, economic community development. I want to talk to you guys just today about the economic development programs that we have. Our economic development programs have been in place for over twenty five years. They've changed maybe because of some HUD HUD changes, inflation, or our interpretation of some state laws.

But since then, they haven't changed. In 2019, city council council introduced a a grant that was kinda similar to some of the programs we already have, but it used local forms, and it kinda mirrored what we have. So our vote our our plan is always to use our entitlement funds. So the funds that we use today are CDBG funds. So our community development block grant funds, they fund our economic development programs.

And we're kind of unique in that we're only the only ones in the state that use our our funds for this program. And on our programs, we're probably most aggressive of any city of our peer cities that we've examined in the in this last year. Now those grant funds also fund one FTE and 30% of our directors' time. So we get a lot of bang for our buck out of those community development grant funds that we use. Now what we wanted to do is discuss our policy and the budgetary changes and engage more impactful projects.

Today, we look to be that can do city, and we look forward to where we can say yes to more projects instead of saying, do they fit inside the project? How does the project help them? We wanna see I mean, instead of them saying, do they fit inside the project, we wanna see how can the project help them. Our agenda for the day is we we conducted a small business survey. We're gonna talk about that.

We're current, our current programs. We're gonna talk about our section one zero eight and our take policy, our loan, our facade program, a fall a small facade program, and also other available tools that we can have, the but it's not formalized right now. We also wanna talk about other opportunities and other resources that may be out there for us. And also, we wanna prioritize our area. We wanna see what that our priority area will be going forward.

Talking about the small business and growth needs survey that we put out. We put out a survey in August, and we took that all the way to November. We advertised with Marcom on social media. We also did it some advertising with the chamber, the greater favorite business journal, and also put it out to our business resource partners over at the small business hub and the FTC's small center. Now only 33 businesses responded.

Not a lot of a response there, but they all were in line with what they needed. And And biggest thing they needed was support with financing and also support with some natural growth. They wanted to be sustainable. Now we talk about a lot of the economic development programs that we have, and most of those programs are for those small projects that we do. And we have two main kind two major projects, two main resources that we utilize when we're talking about redevelopment tools for commercial properties.

Now that's gonna be our TIG, our tax instrument grant, and it's gonna be our section one zero eight, which is backed by HUD, where we can go up to five times our annual contribution, which is estimated about $8,000,000 that we can use for subordinate lending for those big projects. Now let's talk about those community development programs that we have here. What we wanna do is structure this currently so that the normal day to day programs offerings are handled by staff and our local committee. Our medium sized projects, the city manager takes those on, and then higher risk projects that we keep council involved in those projects, and they take on the higher risk because it's gonna need more authority. And those programs that we have in in in mind is gonna be talking about our currently, our business assistant program and our can do boost loan program, which is what we're gonna change that to.

We made some different programs, some different changes. This is more about our subordinate loan program. And since since I've been here, we've done at least one of these a year. And so that's impact of having a business owner take ownership of the building that's here locally. In the past, those loans were from a 100 up to a maximum 125,000 and 200 downtown.

Now what we wanna do is the maximum loan amount is gonna be how much funds we have available depending on the project. Now interest rates. We're gonna be able to take those interest rates, we're gonna have them developed by whatever the market is. This is gonna have it so that we're more competitive and that we have more tie in from our lending our lending, institutions. Now subordinate loans, we don't do the underwriting with these.

This is the great thing about this. They have to go to a lending in this institution, and we back to get them over there. We're pulling that gap. This is a great way to us to utilize that public private partnership that we can kinda go in there and fill in that gap for those business owners. And, also, what's the major change that we're doing two things we're doing different we wanna change is before it had to be an existing building. Now we wanna look at those big projects. We wanna take on projects that have new construction. And it used to also be that you had to be an owner occupied existing building. Now we wanna take that off to where as a business owner, if they have a qualified tenant. So if they have a qualified tenant, they have a lease in front of them and they're gonna supply jobs.

We wanna be able to make sure that we can help fill in that gap so that that developer can actually do that building also. Now those limits that we wanna set forth, the day to day owner occupied, existing building, 125,000 staff, and the committee should be able to take those on. Then higher authority should go up to $200,000. That should be looked at by the city manager. And for those bigger projects, anything and above, wanna bring it to city council's attention so that you're aware of what's going on in the city and you can make those hard decisions.

It's high risk, so we definitely want you involved. Now with all of these that we put forth, there's a not only just staff, it is a committee that makes the decision upon this. And those this committee is into offices. It's ECD, development services, and real estate. Their decision is made by more than just one department of where they should move forward. Now let's talk about our current projects. The commercial exterior grant. That is the grant that is the program that most of you counsel here complaints about or success stories about. What we wanna do is make it to the can do edge grant. In the past, those grants were from 5,000 to 25,000.

We're gonna take that up a notch. We're gonna take that from $75.07 7,500 to the maximum amount that can be approved within our budget. And we're gonna talk about those, a lower, a lower grant that we wanna permit to the council to help those smaller ones there. In the past, we also handled it only in the low mod census tracts. Now in the low mod census tract, that barrier is set by HUD.

Now what's so weird about that is one side of the street could be qualified and the next couldn't. We wanna take away those barriers now. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna put together an area map that we see that that is that we make a priority. Right? And so with that, the priority areas, they're gonna be able to qualify for a little bit more of a higher amounts because there's a focus for those.

And those focus would be they can get up to 7 $707,500 up to $50,000 approved, and that should be handled in a on a staff level. Anything above that, like we said before, will go to the city manager and the council. And so anything when we talk about those those areas and building that 50,000 to a 100 is the city council city manager, and anything above a 100, once again, council's approval. Now we we don't wanna forget those small grants that we talked about also. I we talked about we was gonna limit those amounts.

So currently, the corridor improvement, this is the grant that was introduced in 2019 that we said was kind of redundant and kind of repetitive. We found a way to kind of make this work by paying attention to our peer cities and what they're doing in other markets. We're operating on that same scale. So with this, we're able to act quicker, make quicker decisions. We're not gonna follow we don't have to follow of those HUD guidelines that and those regulations that's in place, and this is a way that we can kinda spear get these done a little bit quicker like we said before.

Now these right here are only in those priority redevelopment areas that we're gonna talk about a little further on. In the past, you had to be a business owner. Now what we wanna do is make this so that if you are eligible business owner or you have a qualified tenant, if you own that shopping center. So we've seen in the past some of these shopping centers become empty, and in the past, they couldn't take advantage of this. This is a way we've activated so that they can take advantage of those also going forward.

Now I wanna talk specifically about these program inputs improvements we're doing. The key thing is we're gonna take this from being in low mod areas to a citywide eligibility. Now those priority areas, they're gonna get a they're gonna get a a little bit more approval or a little more more bonus that they can get for for some money. This is more flexible programs. It is a citywide scope.

It takes us to where we say we can do going forward. Now part of that and changing this, we plan to put this on a quarterly basis so we're in line with our peer cities. What this does is we're gonna get with Marcom, and we're gonna have a marketing, some branding, and we expect quite a few more applications coming in once we start this. Now with all these all these improvements we talked about, that's what we can do right now. Now I don't wanna be a queen for the day, but if you've made me a king and what we could do.

If we had additional staff, we could expand these efforts, and some of these efforts could be an additional city specialist. So we can have an interior upfit program like we see in some other cities, and we can use our community development block grant funds. These are entitlement funds that we're utilizing that no other city is doing, and these funds are for for profit industries. Now we can have a downtown city senior specialist. That's somebody that could focus on business recruitment and expansion and stabilizing our downtown. We can also bring in retail strategies. It's a recruitment firm. They help get our message of what the can do city is out to those retailers. They don't look at it. They look us on paper and see that they shouldn't come.

But we know that there's there's a market here for them, and what we do is we work with them to get us our word out there in what we do. An additional investment the city could bring on is of some of our partners. Carolina Small Business Development Fund, that is a CDFI that brings those finance it answers those questions that from that survey. They need financing. They need technical assistance.

That is a company that could come in and provide that for us. Right now, they have a program where they asked for us to back just 30% of defaults. They can come into Fayetteville and deploy millions of funds in loans to small businesses and ask for us to back some of the defaults if they were to happen. We're gonna be talking about bringing that program shortly in in a couple in into your next economic committee also. And another thing we can do is specialize small business technical support.

We can spend more time doing that if we had that community development specialist. We talked early about those priority redevelopment areas. Now we took time to do traffic counts, look at the areas that impact the most that bring us into the city, which is our downtown, which is the heart of our heart of our city. And so the area selected do do they knew the these areas selected, they do need redevelopment. Some of it is aging stock.

And so this is why we see we consider these the priority areas. So keep in mind, these changes recommend they are tailored to offer enhanced benefits for high grant thresholds in this area or low interest rates. We wanna keep in mind that the entire city qualifies for our grant programs. Now one thing that will need to be changed is our tax increment grant will have to be revised for these target areas. So with this, I present to you our priority areas that we have taken a look at.

We like to call this the the hand of Fayetteville. It's got a hand. It's got a wrist. Now when you look at this, every connectivity takes us to 95, business 95, or two ninety five. All those connect to the city in the city limits and bring us into fed to the heart of Fayetteville.

Now staff recommend recommended the next states next steps. We revived the update information, provided consensus on the and the adjustment to the economic development programs. For one, we actually we can we can take we ask for staff approval to revive the programs, procedures, applications, develop a legal documents, update online application portal. If you approve this, with the timeline in place, we should have this done by July 1. Any questions?

Thank you, sir. Aggressive timeline. Good. I know you've been working hard on it, deck. So good job you and you and, mister Colley. Just had, one question. I know that we were, so two questions. You said you repeated it twice that with no no other city uses their block grant funds the way we do to pay for the things we pay for. Is that good or bad? Because when you bring Fed dollars, you've got the rules to go it.

So it is does do you do you think that causes any constraints? Anything that you're you're not able to do because you're doing this with federal and local government control like anything in North Carolina done by the municipalities would have the the state fiscal control requirements. But are you encumbered from doing anything because we're we're doing it that way? We're funding some of this stuff because it's unique that no other city's doing that because you repeated that twice. So what do you think we're missing?

Well, they operate on a smaller scale. They don't Raleigh. They operate on yes. The the On

a small scale, how?

When you're looking at facade and and those type of improvements, the limits they give are 10 to 15. No one's given that type of funding out. If they do, they're using tech increment tech. They're using take policies. What we're using is a direct reimbursement. And right now, we're proposing that we can pay the contractors directly.

I got that, and I think that's good. I guess my question is more so focused. So so, basically, those those areas that have more economic growth probably don't need to be as aggressive. Right? You know, our budgets are different. So I I wouldn't say a bigger scale, but that particular item, then they don't need to do as much incentivizing because, you know, natural growth is taking place. So and I and I know the components what you're saying I guess my question is it may be a cop mister colleague question. Are you restricted from doing anything because some of the source of what you're saying we're using comes from hood So it's got HUD rules and regulations, which are

There's always

trying to you know, if there's some adjustments we need to make, that's why I'm trying to go with it. So I

I think there's always gonna be some some restrictions there. In in in a couple years ago, we received some Harper funding, and we employed that into a corridor grant. And we put out almost close to a million dollars. They didn't have as many restrictions, and it was out into the community. And we were able to see a drastic change on that.

So so money with less restrictions went out the door faster, you saw more impact is what you're Okay. Alright. And then the last thing I'll say is if council adopts your hand, right, your fingers, you know, in between your fingers, you got lines. So if if we find that that Clifton and some of these other areas, as growth takes place, we need this to be able to be updated and morphed and changed. You know, we talked about that a little bit the last time. Have have y'all discussed that?

Yeah. One of the proposals that we look at is is council changes the priority areas may areas may change that we we suggest that every two years, you take a look at your priorities and see if they made an impact and see what needs to be changed going forward.

Okay. Alright. Councilmember McNair? SPEAKER:

Did you have a slide that talks about making sure that because we are looking as a committee, economic development and the revitalization committee looking to expand that into the West Fayetteville area to make sure that those areas are covered and I think I would need to I need an explanation, I mean, for you to explain how you could get that done in that type area to get some more businesses out there and people take advantage of this opportunity.

Yeah. One of the things that we want to make sure that we keep a focus on is that the the grant programs is for citywide. Uh-huh. So those businesses in this anywhere in the city can apply. And we do want to make sure to understand it that the funding that we have, this would probably be a competitive every quarterly. And so the the best plan that came to the market, the most jobs that was created would probably stand forth in front of anybody else. But they can all apply. There's gonna be a priority for those is located in the corridors that bring us to the city

a priority okay

alright thank you council member McMillan in Davis.

Alright. Thank you again, dear. That's excellent work. Appreciate you taking the time to lay this out for the council. We've seen this before and had a discussion about these fingers, and this this is it right here.

My people are all in that area that that just is not touched by that that furthest westward extending finger. I've I've thought about our our last conversation and measures of effectiveness, especially being able to use data to tell the story of what the impacts of of this program are. And if we can go beyond just talking about individual success stories beyond storyboards and and things that are social media worthy to actually talking about reduction of poverty and addressing reduced racial disparities, also improved upward mobility rates. Those are the types of things that I think if we can show effectiveness in metrics of programs like this for the city, people who are just on the cusp of that finger or the edge of that finger will understand why we prioritized some of the things that we did. I'm wondering if there's been any conversation or thought about what the metrics are gonna be that are used to to measure the success of these programs.

What we've looked at before is job creation and job retaining. I think going forward, it's gonna be more focused on that job creation. Job creation, what was the median household income and what the average salary would be for those jobs being created, and are they offered to low to moderate income employees. Okay.

Yeah. And and I think that's, the rest of that in terms of the upward mobility. I know we have some some new tools. I know we have Terry on staff now. I think the rest of that is is up to us as as a body how we get towards some of those other indicators. I

I just always wanna take a opportunity to plug one of the real boring reports that we do every year. So with with these HUD dollars, we we have to do an annual performance evaluation report. And so the things that HUD asked for are, you know, the median income of the households that we impacted with those jobs. Right? The the the race of of those households, the you know, whether it was a a single female, head of household, veteran status, all of that is is information that, to the mayor's point, we talk about using federal money, we gotta ask all them questions on top of everything else.

Right? But that does give us a lot of really good data on those things. Now it's at the back of a real long report. I'd be happy to show you this on our website. It's kinda not fun to navigate once you learn it. It makes a lot of sense, but we can absolutely explore that. But that's some of the stuff that HUD requires us to talk about and to track, and I've found that very beneficial in talking about some of the things that we are engaging for economic mobility and opportunity now as well.

Right on. Appreciate that. Thank you again, Drew. Thanks.

Alright. Who did I miss? Councilman Davis.

Thank you, mister mayor. Can you you or Chris or whomever elaborate more about the downtown specialist? I think it that's the title it was.

Yeah. That was just something that we were what we could do. Some of that we talked about with Ashanti, I know she got up. She talked about the pop up shop. That was one of the projects I brought forth to Chris when I first came here. Some of those ideas, some of the things they can look at when we partner and look at our peer cities and what they're doing in other peer cities downtown, and some of them have that downtown manager. And what they may do is it may be recruitment. It may be, you know, getting them resources that they don't know this is out there that exist. Sometimes lending is not always the the case. They may need more marketing advertising. It may be somebody just focused just in that area because that's a unique market as doubt that downtown. Thank you, sir.

Mayor Proteyn.

Thank you, mister Mayor. Let me just ask this question. There's a lot of people out there that are small businesses that are looking for places. How do we get them to recognize that we already have a place for them if they knew about this program? You see businesses all the time wants to build a building when there's already available building that they can use this program to reinvent it do a renovate.

Well, we're actually gonna go into where we're gonna help with new construction. But those projects are gonna be on bigger scale, so those bigger scale projects will be brought by council. But this project this this program these programs have been out there since I before I got here. So we've done everything we can, worked with Marcom, to advertise them. Development services, when people come in and apply for zoning permits Mhmm. We've worked with them. They've been great partners. They've sent out emails. Somebody applies. They tell them about this program, see if it if we can help you and what how we can benefit and save them on on if they're creating certain jobs. So we're working on getting that word out there for them. But as a business owner, some of coming from the private sector

Mhmm.

With fifteen years in banking, Unfortunately, the number one thing when you get ready to move into a building is location.

Location.

Location. Location.

So you made up a good point. So how do we how do you notify them is I have the perfect location for you if you just renovate this building instead of building a new one where you want it.

Take courage.

But so I I I think we've gotta we gotta be sure. What we're doing is creating a condition that somebody wants to invest in. Right. Wait. I don't I don't think Robles office will be more just the list of properties that are available. I don't think Chris and them are in that space. What I think you're going Mayor Pro Tem which is a good point, how we get the word out right? This was the whole point was to let everybody know that we are aggressively moving in creating incentives for you to reinvest in our community. Exactly. So how do we get the word out?

Y'all did a outstanding job the way you pushed out the home the homebuyers hero. I think something in like manner with that same aggressive marketing approach to make sure that you're everywhere that you know they're you're you're personally everywhere right trying to to to champion it but I hope maybe to may approach this point or or you can think about it because I know we've got four four more items we gotta hit. But how do you plan to market it and roll it out just to make sure

it's as successful as it could be? Yeah. We we've been working behind the scenes before this before even approval with Marcom about a marketing campaign, not just getting it send the word out. And that's why you're gonna see a re a reboot of the of how it comes out. It's the can do boost grant. It's the can do edge grant. It's the can do core. So that's getting that word out there as much as we can. And and the sense of urgency that we've solved from our peer cities, whenever they had it going instead of having it going on constantly, they did it every quarter. So there was a sense of urgency that made people kinda respond.

Alright. Council member Green.

Thank you, mister mayor. Derek, can you talk a minute about, I've heard two complaints and not huge complaints, just comments more than complaints maybe. The fact that sometimes the people that need the facade grant that need to apply for it don't have their portion of what's required. Can you talk about that the existence of that problem?

So I'm gonna speak as I'm gonna turn the wheel a little bit as a banker. So we wanted expect nothing less. Okay. So so if for me to make an injection into you into your business, you have to have some skin in the game. And so we're gonna need them to have something, their portion to make that happen. Now one the things that we recently changed was instead of them waiting for them to get reimbursement, that now we've got it set up that we can pay the contractor our half directly. Now if they don't have their half, what we need to do is sit down with them and provide some more technical assistance to see why they don't have it. What what have they not done? Have they looked at their payroll? Do they know what resource partners may be out there for staffing?

Do they work with NC Works? Do do they go over to the small business hub, at Federal State to gain those resources and see what's out there?

That was my concern that they were being given an alternative to look for other locations to maybe bring their business up to where it needs to be so they can successfully apply. So that you kinda answer that in her directly on that. The other thing that I've heard was a situation recently where there was a business locating as a tenant. And because the and I'm not gonna I'm gonna say I'm not sure I'm getting this complete story correct, so you feel free to correct me. That the owner had used facade money for a portion of something.

Let's say, the parking lot because there was a parking lot issue and a facade issue. And then the tenant came in and wanted to enhance the facade. So can that money be used in two different ways by two different people, or can it now where it wasn't before? Can you speak to that?

Yes. Before, the way we had it set up that it could only be used one time, now we've got it set up that it can be used twice. What we did not want to do is that one come in one person come in and then one one parcel come in and use up all the funding in one site. But now we're gonna look at the impact of that. So those are some of the changes that we've submitted since May.

Thank you. I just wanted the community to be aware that some changes have been made to make the program easier to use because those are the type things I'm hearing over and over. So thank you.

Yes. Alright. Counsel, don't see any further questions for mister McArthur, mister Cawley. So you have a question? Okay. Alright. So see. That's a motion to receive. I was motioned by council member McNair to receive this report. Is it seconded by got a bunch of seconds. Think I Alright. So you and Jones was were close. He he beat you by a hair. Alright. Alright. Second by council member Davis. Alright. Discussion. Alright. Council look to you for you for mister Colley?

Yeah. What we're really looking for tonight is is consensus from council that we're in the right direction, and we're gonna go make this happen.

As long as those fingers can change, they grow some fingernails and get out west and and and east and those kind of things.

But through the changes.

Change is inevitable.

Yes, sir. Alright. Alright, councilor. Alright. Councilor Maher.

Green.

Alright. Thank you. Thank y'all. Good good work. Yeah. Alright. Council moving to, six point o six. Miss Colley, you you must like us. You're back again, brother.

You know, I like to batch them. You know? And

counsel, as we get to this item, are you okay letting us recess after this? Because we'll be up on our 06:00 start time for public, public forum. Have the public forum, which is which is an hour because we've told the citizens that we were gonna do those things at six. So I don't I don't think it it's it's 06:15. But as as we go through this but we'll take a recess, then we'll continue it after that. Good? Okay. Alright. Mister Collar.

Yes, sir. I'll I'll I'll be pretty quick here. I think this one is is pretty straightforward. So this is about our water and sewer assessment assistance program. This program was established a long time ago to to assist homeowners with water and sewer connection cost.

Part of the big bang annexation with with PwC. And so there was over 8,000 parcels affected by that. Construction is is planned out in in PwC's CIP out to 2037. But that means that residents properties that were impacted in in 2006 are still looking for that service. So so council asked staff to look into evaluating program modifications, and and one of the suggestions was to increase the income eligibility from 80% up to one twenty.

So we looked at that, but the first thing we do is look at the first, the the what it is now. So right now, is owner occupied households. Income eligibility is capped at 80% of area median income. We pay 2,000 of the $5,000 assessment that's applied to the property when the infrastructure is built, and we provide up to $900 for the homeowner to pay for a plumber to abandon their septic and well and connect to the municipal infrastructure. The assessment is financed over ten years, and and that roughly comes out to $40.50 dollars a month or $25.30 dollars a month when they use our program for to buy it down a little bit.

We have a two year application window, and right now, we're we're doing one to three households annually with this program on average. This is general funded with allocation of about $20,000 a year. So some of the things that, we're asking council to consider, we've done our job of can it be done? So now it should. Should we expand eligibility up to a 120% of area meeting income?

Should, assistance focus on upfront connection costs or monthly payment reductions? And what level of general fund investment is appropriate for a program like this? So we came up with a couple options. Option one is staff's recommendation. Maintain the $2,000 assessment assistance, expand eligibility up to a 120% of area median income, remove the two year window, and allow in assistance for the assessment or the facility investment fee.

Now I found out that term changed, and it is now system development fee. And then the most important change that we're looking at is tiered plumber assistance. Now I did have my AMIs a little wrong, so I I made that correction in red here so you can see that's a little bit different than your agenda packet. So for that workforce income, 81 to a 120% AMI, we would pay 10% of the cost not to exceed a thousand dollars. As you go down to moderate income, we pay 50% up to $5,000, and low income, a 100% up to $7,500.

So the idea there is, is the barrier to folks hooking up to the system the 30 or $40 a month assessment that they they do over ten years, or is it paying thousands of dollars for a plumber to come hook up to that system? And so we designed this program to really address that upfront cost that is gonna hit people at lower and middle income harder. We project this program out to have a a tenfold increase. So 20 households at an average of $4,000 would go from $20,000 annually up to $80,000. So that would be a general fund cost of additional $60,000.

Option two is quick and easy. Provide a 100% of the assessment coverage, pay off $5,000. Mhmm. Expand eligibility up to a 120% of area median income. Provide up to a thousand dollars for plumber costs, that's currently at 900, maintain that two year window so that people are pushed to to connect, and focus on reducing that monthly payment burden.

Now this one's very easy to project out. If we have a tenfold increase and 20 households a year, they'd be at a solid $6,000, which would be a $120,000 annually. That would be an additional $100,000 in the general fund. Option three, this cost is always an option to keep things the way they are. So this would keep the same program the way it is now with that two $20,000 that is already allocated.

So the way to think about this is option one really prioritizes that upfront cash barrier for low low and moderate and and middle income folks, while option two reduces those monthly payments on the assessment portion. Option three, obviously, is keep it the way it is, and that is the most budget friendly option because it's already in the budget. And that is really where we're at. So the direction here is to if councils elects to tell us which one of these options makes the most sense, consider that funding requirement as part of the budget process, and direct us to change our procedures and program. And then we'd also come back to the council policy committee with changes to council policy one fifty .one.

Alright. Thank you, mister Colley. I wanna speak on this. You know, this was something that, I've heard, I heard from, get a lot of emails from a lot of residents out there who are upset when the assessments come. It is, this is gonna be $5,000. Don't worry about it. You don't have to pay it. We'll put a lien on your house and just charge you 8%. Yeah. Most people don't wanna do that. So they say forget about it. I'll take my chance with my septic tank until it till it till it gives out. And what's happened is we've got a a less than 50% hookup from PwC. Had a meeting with the liaison. I I think councilor Mahendro set in on there the other day.

And and so phase five, which was not a creation of anybody on this board, needed to be done. But the way it was done back in 2005 was estimated at a 100 to $200,000,000 is now gonna be estimated at a 5 to $600,000,000 investment over the last twenty years. So taxpayers and the ratepayers are paying three times the cost because the amount of time. So I'm hoping that this body can fix can play our part to fixing that. To me, because it's such a gap between the 5,000 from the client from the citizen, 5,000 from the city, and 5,000 from PwC, which was the thought process back then, which would have totaled 15,000.

Now that connection is averages, you know, a 100,000, let's say, for for math purposes. I think it's it's worth it to us to to do option two and spend extra 40,000 to get these connections up to help these folks because option one is complicated. You know, it's if you, you know, 10%, you you give a thousand dollars. If you 80 to a 120%, you get 5,000. And I see the intent.

You were trying to cover as many people as you can. But simple and plain was number two, which is basically, you know, they don't have to have a lien on your house necessarily, with this option. You know, it it we're already funding it at 20,000. It doesn't look like we've made inflationary adjustments for that. And so I'm I'm hoping council that we can get West Fayetteville taken care of and fix a problem that's been going on for a couple of decades for a 120,000, at least get the connections up.

Now, also, if that happens, encouraging PwC to accelerate this is the next step, the next logical step that it can't can't be 2035 when when this is complete like they're estimating. So that's my thoughts. I'll go to council member McNair, McMillan, and Hondros.

Thank you, mister mayor. I too agree with option two due to the fact my very first meeting with the citizens over in West Fayetteville, they were struggling to accept the proposal, the first one. I think option two is a great lead way to assist them and to alleviate some of the stress that they may have and making a decision taking advantage of the water and the sewer out in West Fayetteville.

Councilmember McMillan? Thank you mayor. I agree as well with the option to appreciate the fact that there is aggressiveness around addressing a grievance that's long held. There's people in Western Fayetteville that feel like twenty years ago. They got a trash can and some extra taxes and are still waiting on fulfillment of city services as part of the city. And I think we need to be aggressive in addressing that grievance. I think option two is the best way to do that. I appreciate your work bringing us these options and also appreciate the council for support in addressing this as well. Thank you.

Alright. Councilor Hondros.

Thank you, mister mayor. And I appreciate, you know, in the meeting with PwC, the challenges they're facing, not just with the increased cost of the build out in that challenging project to getting all of West And Southwest Fayetteville connected. And I think it's proven to be a larger, you know, herculean task, a larger project than they had anticipated and hoped for maybe. It was an ambitious ambitious one for sure. My challenge and and I can't disagree.

I agree with everything that's already been stated. It's it's hard for me to to disagree with any of it. Here's my challenge. You know, where is the the fairness and equitability with the folks in those areas that have already connected? So they've already they've already paid their their connect fees, because presumably, this would not be retroactive. And then, you know, we look at because this will be general fund dollars. Correct?

Yes, sir.

So when we look at competing priorities or competing necessities needs that residents are demanding from I mean, just stuff we've talked about in the last several weeks from transit shelters to residents requesting speed humps, a $5,000 connection is potentially a transit shelter or potentially a speed hump. So if resources, if funding, if if if our income was infinite, then absolutely we do it all. Right? That's easy. But the reality is it's not.

So for that reason, I I don't know if I could support it. What I could support if we moved it to a work session, we're about to get into budget, and we look at all of it instead of looking at this one thing, look at all of these priorities, all of these asks, and all of these needs from residents and and try to get a holistic, way to do all of it or as much of it as we can and and prioritize it that way. Thank you.

Alright. Council member mayor pro tem and then council member Jones.

Thank you, mister mayor. Chris, I would only ask one thing. Come back in six months and tell us how many people have used program because you've only used six in the past two years we will know how viable it is thank you mister mayor you're talking about the current program the current the previous program says only use one to

three yeah I got you. Alright. Councilman Jones.

Yeah. Very quickly I definitely support some sort of assist excuse me some sort of assist I have a small very small area in that. But I want to be I I believe the the challenge is gonna be with as the mayor said is how do we engage PWC with that? Because I believe I thought when they had presented to us they shared with us that it wasn't necessarily if we can push hookups it was their capacity to actually do it to find the workers to actually do that. So I think that that's that's gonna be our that's not even a bottleneck.

That's that's that's gonna be a that's gonna be a challenge for us. Not saying that we don't attack it but I think that would be their opportunity to to assist us with whatever assistance that we provide to our residents.

Well well two two things on that councilmember and and just had that had that meeting with them. They've got jobs that's already designed bid out and ready to go for sections already that probably will last through the next twenty four months. I think when he was talking about their capacity to move it faster, don't know that they have the engineers, don't know that they've they've got projects ready to bid it out in bulk and plus they're paying money out of the other the electric fund to support this fund because the hookups are so low. So the revenue is not there. So I think that you know as mayor pro tem suggested if counsel so inclined to approve it which I hope they will option to that there'll be a report back to see if this did trigger any additional usage because we know that the other program was kind of outdated and used numbers that were not reflected.

Alright. Councilor McMillan you had another