City Council Work Session - Regular Meeting

called hundreds of illegal dump sites.

It was a lot in the bigger ones, but a lot of them were just little miscellaneous dump sites, so those ones were quicker to get. I would say the team was tackling like 10 or 15 of those a day because you know we can just go to put that in the bag of trash, throw it in the back of our now we have seen a major improvement. Only about seven of those sites have remained active now, so those sites we have cameras out at and we are actively trying to prevent those sites from ever becoming a major issue in the city again.

Well, good afternoon, everyone. We'll call our 2 o'clock council meeting to order. We thank those who are joining us in person, those who may be joining us remote. I think Council Member McMillan is remote, so we heard the mic check, so we know you're there, sir. Council, with that, as with every meeting, we start with a prayer. Let's see if Martin will pray for us, given they just had the March on Washington the other day.

Let us pray. Eternal Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you, God, for this opportunity that you have given us to come together and join and to look at the things that are most effective for the residents that we represent. Be with us, stand by us, lead us, and guide us in the way that we should go. It is in the matchless and precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Amen. under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you there council member Ferguson known as Martin so council will move to city managers report see Mr. Hewitt getting his microphone ready so yes sir thank you mayor I'm trying to grab a few things so if possible when we get to maybe before 7 7.0 I could make my announcements there I've got to grab a few things but but large I just had some items I want to share with council I just don't have them ready at the moment

All right so once we get rolling how long you think it'll be before you might be ready. Hope is not that extensive of a list circle back to you love it. All right, all right Council moving to the approval of the gym if we can use in our short system get a motion to approve the agenda. I is most about how some of green second and by. Councilman hand rose discussion. I counsel the T for you votes. Councilmember McMillan approved the agenda.

Councilmember McMillan.

He's still on, right? All right. Council, show of hands.

All right.

All right. Motion carries by those voting. Well. All right says he works to his audio. All right Council. Item one. Mister he was still getting ready so we'll go on to item one. The items of business parking management services return over. Sir good afternoon look mighty sharp and spiffy.

Thank you mayor. Good afternoon Council has everyone doing. Wonderful. All right. So to begin, the presentation before you today is about the parking management services contract. Nothing in this presentation is going to be talking about rates or time or anything of that nature. It's all about essentially who's going to be providing the services for the downtown parking area. Right now, our contract with Republic Parking is month to month. And of that, they are providing comprehensive parking services to the downtown area. That is, the parking decks, the parking service lots, and the on street parking. The city has gone through a competitive RFP, and from there we are recommending a contractor known as Pivot Parking. And we are asking council today to approve this item being brought to them at a council regular session for consent. So right now, our current contract is with Republic Parking Systems, and it's been that way since 2020. Our contract has gone under two different amendments. The second amendment was executed in December of 2025, and that moved into a month-to-month basis as we worked through the RFP process. And right now, that contract is covering over 2,000 spaces that the city maintains in the downtown area. We started drafting this RFP back in August of 2025. And this RFP, it includes the scope of work that is going to be included inside of the actual contract with the contractor that we are recommending. That being said, this document is 91 pages long. It's based off of 13 different sources of other parking contracts that other agencies and municipalities that they have. And then we also worked to make sure that it addressed all the comments and all the concerns that were brought forward by the audit committee. So with that, whenever we release the RFP, five contractors provided bids or proposals for this. And those five that you see on the screen are LAZ, PCI, Pivot Parking, Republic Parking, and Secure Parking. The evaluation committee for this process, it comprised the public services, finance, parks and recreation audit, and city manager's office. This is essentially everybody who has a hand in one way or another of how parking is administered in the city for the downtown area for city maintained spaces. And from there. After we went through the written proposal review as well as the interview process, pivot parking, their written proposal was ranked first or number one. And their interview was ranked second, but as an overall average, they're ranked higher than all other proposals that were put forward in front of the committee. And from this process, staff is recommending that we proceed with pivot parking. And notable municipal experience for pivot parking, the biggest one is going to be the city of Wilmington, but that also includes Wrightsville Beach, Alpharetta, Georgia, and places like Surf City. And whenever we went through the reference checks calling in everybody that we could think of for who has experience with pivot parking, they had glowing reviews of this company. So the proposed draft contract was developed by public services and it was in collaboration with Pivot. But it was also with input and coordination from Finance, Parks and Rec, the audit group, and the city manager's office. And so this wasn't created in a silo, this was created across the board. So with that, we are recommending a contract with Pivot Parking for two full fiscal years with a possible three year extension. And whenever I say two full fiscal years, we're in the midst of a fiscal year right now. So if we bring them on, depending on when we bring them on, they would finish out this fiscal year and then have two full fiscal years as the original contract before it gets to the three year extension possibility. Whenever we brought in, not brought in, whenever we started reviewing their proposal against what the requirements and needs of the city were, we identified that the cost that they're proposing is in line with what's being requested of city staff. Specifically during the budget process, $250,000 was reduced from what typically went to the parking fund. And council has directed staff to look at ways to increase the financial health of the parking program. And so with that, we're going to be requiring the contractor to return in 30 days after the contract commences to come back with recommendations on how to improve that financial health. And whenever you're looking at the future fiscal years that they are proposing, their escalator clause is essentially 3.3%, which is roughly in line with inflation, we feel. The contract pricing can also be modified based on changes to parking inventory, enforcement times, enforcement rates, special event frequency. Essentially, it's a very modifiable contract even after we get into the process of services being provided. And so with that, staff is recommending proceeding with the selection of P2 of North Carolina LLC. They do business as pivot parking as the next provider of parking management services. And assuming pending approval and execution of the contract by all parties, we would like services to begin on November 1st. And if council approves of this recommendation, then we'll be bringing this back on a regular meeting for the consent agenda once the contract is finalized and ready for approval.

And with that,

questions questions i do have a couple i have council member here council member green i have a question and then uh mayor protein and davis thank you uh mayor and uh council uh this item i don't know where where else that it goes but uh we did have the parking item to come through our audit department where i'm the chair and council members davis hondros and mayor pro tem Thompson are members among others and I'm glad to see that we have moved forward which we are already aware of because we had it brought to us during our audit committee meeting and the the the group that's in there now that we have been doing the month-to-month why the RFPs were out the bids were out they were just doing a pretty much terrible job. They weren't keeping records, they weren't collecting properly.

Council Member Jones, aren't you on the committee with us?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And Council Member Jones is on the committee with us also, so please forgive me. And so I'm glad to see that we've moved forward because we had a whole lot of stuff that was just in place. Well, that was not in place. So now we have adapted to move forward. I don't have a problem with the recommendations. I did have some slight concern of the cost and the inclement rise of not saying it's the wrong amount, but the 3.3 increase every, I guess, is every year. I'm not looking at it now. and I had a concern that day of the meeting, but I am glad that we are in this position now to start getting some proper revenue, or at least knowing what our proper revenue is from this new group pivot if we move forward so I don't mind moving forward with a motion but I guess I can wait until we have a question so I'll circle back to you we have quite a few questions you but I appreciate councilmember here councilmember Green and then Davis

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a question. In the text written up, it states that the proposed contract reflects this direction by requiring the contractor within 30 days of the contract commitments but date to identify proposed changes to the parking fund that could increase revenue and support ongoing parking operations so i need a little bit of clarity on that so are we talking 30 days from the date that it starts or 30 days from being awarded the contract that they have to bring us back proposals i'm a little concerned that we're signing up for something and then we're asking them to go back clarify exactly what it is they think they can do differently so I'm concerned about that so I kind of want to understand and you have you update me on that yes so the the term commencement date is tied to essentially whenever the boots are on the ground

you go to sleep it's still over public you wake up it's pivot and so if everybody if the pending approval of the contract and execution then that would be November 1st and there will be 30 days from November 1st for them to return and say here's how you can either increase revenue or decrease the cost of the program and then we would bring those recommendations after vetting them to city managers office and council so what happens if we don't like the recommendations they bring us we're then on the hook

my opinion from what you're telling us before the three-year term or whatever the term we commit to is how do we assure that they're going to bring us something different that hasn't already been done or already tried by us or previous programs or other councils so I have two answers for this the first one is

Okay, the first one is that the contract has different terms for essentially ending the contract based on mutual agreement or one party agreement. And there's advanced notice on that as well. So if we ever feel that the deal isn't working for us, we can always end the contract. But at the same time, there's also going to be a responsibility of staff, myself, and other individuals that are within the city.

to essentially hold the contractor responsible and if they're not performing their jobs then we're to essentially follow through on that first part about looking at possibly exiting the contract is there a reason that we didn't address this in the contract in the proposal itself because it sounds like this was always after it started not part of the rfp because to me it looks like that that idea should have come through the RFP and said, hey, show us what you can do differently than what we currently have. And maybe it was, I don't know.

So the information that we provided to the proposers, the bidders, is essentially the information that we had available to our knowledge or we had our hands on that they can make their best proposal and put their best foot forward. At the same time, we don't have all the nooks and crannies of information of the parking program available at our fingertips. we are relying on the contractor to then go back identify those numbers and identify things that staff are not aware of that they can then base their recommendations on and so essentially it's so that the contractor once they're in place they are more knowledgeable of all the nooks and crannies instead of just the things that city staff are aware of I guess that's my concern is that we're asking them to

provide us knowledge that we don't have so they could basically tell us anything so i guess that's my concern with the way this is written and being handled so i'll i'll stop there i think you've answered what i need to know but thank you thank you thank you councilwoman green um before i go to councilman davidson uh mayor pro tem so

I'm trying to to to run back the timeline right so you know maybe last week I got an inquiry I'm sure other council members did about downtown parking that was gonna be presented well maybe last month presented to the DTA right downtown alliance And we had not yet had this conversation. What was the presentation you were going to present to them? And why didn't it precede a contract award? That's one question. Because we haven't seen what your plan is. And I understand today is not financial. But to Councilwoman Green's point, you're asking us to make a decision on a provider without a financial plan but you're putting that in their scope which was one of the concerns that I look forward to having whenever we had that conversation so one was the things that I hear regularly are that there's not enough signage and it's not a lot of directional instruction when people park down there that they don't know where the kiosks are or it's not visible uh two was that the kiosk um were not the easiest to use or they were not as reliable so i wanted to know if the scope would include that um before you know and i was trying to look at what scope of work you were asking here for the contract and not just maintenance of it but we need to really look to improve the quality of it i like the fact that a plan was being included but i'm to her point it was the sequence of everything so can you speak to the thought process behind behind the sequence that you used? Yes.

First, I can speak to the two points that you brought up, the signs and then the pay kiosks. So the signs, that's something that we work with the contractor in tandem with. While we have heard, hey, there's not enough signage, there's not enough way finding for this, we've also heard there are too many signs in the downtown area of sign pollution. And so while we've heard both of those aspects, that is something where staff are constantly reassessing where signs are located. And we are going to be working with current contractor and next contractor. independently of the contractor and working with the downtown community to see where signs can best be implemented for what we're trying to accomplish, which at the end of the day is not only to provide way finding but also safety. And then the second part, the pay kiosk, and I'm glad you brought that up. So in the bids that were provided to us, Only one vendor actually came and said, hey, we are including the cost of equipment, the kiosk, in our bid. All the others, they said, hey, we are going to, or not we are going to, but we have the option to essentially include the cost of the equipment and bake it into the contract. And I can't remember the exact term of that right this second. The reason that we are more enticed with that option rather than just a straight one-to-one replacement is because in the past year and a half, two years, staff have gone a lot more knowledgeable of parking program operations. And with that, we understand that the parking industry is evolving. They're coming up with more efficient equipment, more efficient ways. The city of Fayetteville is sort of an outlier in that we have a higher adoption of digital payment and digital app usage for paying for parking rather than traditional dollar bills and coins. Because most other municipalities have something like 30%, 35% still relying on old money and then the new money is 85% to 90% adoption for the city of Fayetteville. And so because not only are we a little bit above the curve on that part, but because of the new innovations inside of the parking industry, we are also relying on the contractor to come back with recommendations on the equipment and also to look out the options for essentially paying for that equipment. Because while it is something where we might be able to pay for it ourselves through the contract, it is also something where there might be different agreements available to us. Now, as far as the timeline for the scope of work, the RFP, things of that nature. The scope of work that was included inside the RFP, if you were to take out everything before and after scope of work, I think it would boil out to like 30 or 45 pages long. 30 or what? 30 or 45 pages. Okay. This is based off of 13 different sources, including city of Bloomington, state of North Carolina for their state fair, city and county of Durham. The list is inside of the right up there.

from that process we have essentially covered every nook and cranny of the program that we can think of in terms of operations Right so I guess let me clarify I don't think I was quite clear on what I was trying to get to I think you did you've done a great job with the you know capturing what a standard contract looks like we we are probably in their fifth or sixth year of this right and each year the council has to based on you know situational adjustments you know that would that we make adjustments to is we're just hours we do different things trying to do it I would have liked to be able for us to cover all of the concerns that we have here. I know you've kind of captured it broadly with using those other RFPs, but some of the things that we hear the most complaints about, right, it may not be the quantity of signs, it may be the clarity of the signs, right, that there's a lot of information on our signs. So are there other options to make it clearer and more user-friendly? A parking deck. I get more calls about that parking deck than you can believe. So is there a way that the new vendor also has a little bit more participation in keeping that deck right? We're tasked with the security of the deck. We're tasked with the cleanliness of the deck. Michael and his team go out all the time cleaning out graffiti on the deck. The breakaway bars are a problem. So I would have liked a little bit more comprehensive approach

just to make sure that whoever we get you know they understand what our specific situation is yes so a lot of that information specifically with regards to the parking deck those specific items they are identified in the scope of work and they're also included inside of the addendum as well as to the larger to the larger thing about essentially contractors coming with recommendations prior to being awarded the contract which I believe might be the direction that some of the questions might be headed towards While there are some proposers that came and said, hey, just the initial ideas, they listed one, two, or three different items. It's not something where they are contractually obligated yet to do them. And so without having that more in depth milk and cranny information, we don't know how much weight we should be applying to those.

Okay. All right, I see Mr. Hewitt has, and then Councilman Davis and Mayor Proctor.

Oh, okay. All right. Mr. Hill, you had something to add to that? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor and members of council. Really good questions. As Brian mentioned, actually Dr. Hare mentioned, we knew we were overdue for an update to our contract with Republic Parking or someone else because we were on at least a two-year, year-to-year contract extension. in that time frame we did uncover a variety of options and issues that our current contract that we have with republic parking did not adequately clarify one of them as the mayor mentioned was about the cleanliness of the deck were questions about enforcement of areas around special event parking and times and there had been over time a migration with the various staff people that park Fayetteville or public parking in the city of Fayetteville as well a lack of continuity about how deposits were made how we were handling appeals variety of other issues and some of that is dr. here mentioned was reported to the council committee and as well as to staff and so last year fiscal year Sheila and Brian went on a fact-finding mission where they were meeting almost every week with Republic parking consultants out of Raleigh to try to streamline and straighten out the contract that we had the variety of things that we did was we put a high pressure as Michael here We put a high-pressure valve over in the parking garage so that we'd be able to pressure wash that without having to take trucks. We have added, over the last 18 months, cameras, monitored cameras in the parking garages to address some of the security issues. But as you, Mayor, Council Member Green, and Council Member Dr. Heer also mentioned, those concerns continue. And so what's in front of you is really a parking contractor. contractor someone to manage the parking but we were looking for someone as well and all of the firms all the firms that were that put in bids at least of four that for which Brian had shown the the rankings the fifth did not get to an interview All of them can do whatever the city of Fayetteville wants them to do. If we want them to say, we want you to look and focus on signage, they have enough contracts in North Carolina and around the country, they can say this is what they did to address that. If we want technology, as Brian said, for how people pay, they can help with that as well. But they didn't, and I don't think they would come in and give us those recommendations necessarily for free. That would be an additional capital cost that we would have. Now, once they're a parking contract, I'm sure they would be definitely opining for us as to how best to collect the money, how best to do enforcement, how best to do appeals and all of that stuff, consistent with the contract that they all bid on. But the real, I guess, concern about why some of these questions are not here came up even this morning with some of the staff members when we were going over the presentation. Are we willing to go to a completely cashless system Remember, that was one of the emails that came to us, was it two weeks ago, Mayor? From a lady who wanted to be able to pay by cash. And it was like, how many of you go to any place and you pay with parking by cash? Am I mistaking that, Brian? It was a cash issue. Or when it came time to appeal. She had already been through the appeal process and was not happy with that. And so what tonight is, and we can delay this and we'd be happy to come back with more information for council if you'd like, is really just a recommendation on the parking operator. All of the firms, particularly P2, staff believes have the requisite knowledge and experience in North Carolina managing these types of systems that when they hit the ground running they will be able to advise us based upon what council's interests are and what you're willing to do about how we can close the revenue gap how we close the revenue gap this time as we moved was it tailored $250,000 $280,000 to be able to say that we had a balanced parking account. Council's interest was, we heard during the budget session was, what can we reasonably do that won't hurt downtown businesses won't stop people from coming downtown that could help close that gap some of those issues we talked with council about which were changing the the dollar value of special events changing a couple of Lots from was it changing the Bowen and lot from permit only to park paid parking and then also implementing different citation values And didn't we bring that to council recently?

Yes. Okay. On the work session, not on the consent agenda.

On the work session. But we did not present this that night at the Downtown Alliance. You and I had a brief conversation. And one of the things, too, that I think that we may have overstated, I don't know if you've already shared that about the Downtown Alliance, is that they're like a lot of groups. When we talk to one office and two offices, small groups, sometimes there appears to be consensus about what we're presenting. But I want to be very clear that the Downtown Alliance and some of the other downtown groups have not given a formal vote on any of the proposals. So the goal would be if council is so inclined to move with P2 and move forward with the contract award, that that would be one of the first things that they and we and you would have to do with us is to actually meet with the downtown residents and business owners and really negotiate what you and they are willing to live with to try to make any parking contract, but if it is P2, at least more cost-nutrient to the city. Because right now, it's an additional $280,000 for this fiscal year, I think is what Taylor said. All right.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor. I'm a little off now because I had my questions lined up in my head, but now I'm throwing off a little bit. Because I believe under budget session, we had to give parking, I believe, close to $700,000. And now you're saying there's $280,000 we need to break even. So let me start with my first question that I do remember. Under the recommendations from audit, was those recommendations added to the scope of work that you added when you put out this RFQ? No. Thank you for that. Secondly, why did the price go down $20,000 to 678 to 672 the first year? And then if we had the option of going up the third year, it went to 746. And the second part of that question is, if it goes up 3.3% every year after that, what do we need to increase our prices to keep up with that pace?

I do not have an answer on that second question however on the first question there's a transition cost that is included inside the fiscal year 2027 cost and so of the 678 and I would have to look at the line by line item that they included inside of their bid the transition cost is included in that The $70,000 for a transition cost Not in the difference from 28 to 29, I'm talking about 27 to 28, where it goes from 678 to 672.

And what about when it goes from 672 to 746?

That one, I would have to do the math on.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right, Council Member McMillan.

Yeah, thank you Mr Mayor and I just wanted to plus one on some of the things I heard around price increase and caution. Around moving without the express engagement of the downtown alliance and then also making some room for folks who would be impacted on the on the consumer side. People who would have to pay additional fees to park downtown. I have heard recently some strong opposition to raising the prices from one from a merchant and then also from just everyday people would have to pay more to park downtown. I would also recommend just in addition to taking recommendations from from any new contractor to make space for the public to weigh in, perhaps in a public hearing of sorts. Just wanted to add that in and appreciate that being brought up at this point.

All right.

Thank you.

Council Member Hare.

Thanks, Mayor. After hearing all of the concerns I'm hearing tonight, this afternoon, I would like to kind of send this back to staff and give them an opportunity to incorporate some of the concerns that were heard today and see how we can all put that into place. And that would be my motion if there's support for it.

All right. As most of my councilmen are here, and councilmen are here, if you could, I saw Davis kind of nod with it. Can you give some specifics around maybe a date for the next work session, or when can we anticipate you all?

Does it have to come to a work session, or can it go straight to the?

Well, I think if at some point we'll need some venue to discuss some of the concerns, right? Like to make sure that the things that you have asked the contractor for captures what the council and the public's interests are being captured, you know, so that when they give us a price, it'll be a little bit more inclusive of that. So it's you all's call whether you wanted a work session or some other venue.

Yeah. I mean, I'm waiting to hear some toss-ups in the air if they wanted to do that. if it comes back to a work session, I mean, I'm pretty sure we would like for it to be fully explained. I'm pretty sure that could be fully explained at a actual meeting as we're doing tonight. And then just getting, putting in all of the other concerns that we've heard about, even to incorporate what our residents are saying downtown, even the concerns which you also mentioned, Mayor, we want to kind of hear a thorough report

back on those concerns that everyone has spoke on so if council can kind of give me some support what you want to hear or mr dr hewitt uh can you know based on the feedback what's your recommendation for when you would best like to present this back to cover that

Well, as soon as possible. What we'll do is, as Brian mentioned, he and Sheila and the other team members spent months going through our current contract for public parking and also examining other RFPs and contracts of other parking, contracts in North Carolina and other places. And so it addressed, or we attempted to address, as Dr. Heer said, let's say if there were 15 things that we uncovered, and I think it would be helpful, Mayor and Council, if we were to, next when we bring this back, have those 15 things which we beefed up or amped up in the RFP, and making sure that we're able to tell you that the that all of those concerns are addressed in the in the contract if council approves it and so that hopefully will answer those questions that you have but number two because um This is such an important issue, and it is a long-term engagement. We would also ask P2 if they could be available to come to your meeting to talk to you, and depending on the timing of that as well, we may even see if they're available just as a drop-in in one of the conference rooms for anyone from downtown that wishes to come, but that would be what I propose. I don't think we can probably get that done before the 28th.

So question on that point, Mr. Hewitt, with this still being an active RSP, is that... fair or a good look for one particular vendor to do it?

Well, we have made a staff recommendation. That's all this is. And so if y'all are evaluating the ability of P2 to do those things, Madam Attorney and Kim Toon, that is permissible.

She said, that's fine. Madam Attorney, I want to hear now from you. OK, OK. All right. So go ahead, Dr. Hewitt. I'm sorry.

So we could possibly look at the 28th. I don't think we could do it on the 14th. But the goal is to get it back as quickly as we can. And this setting, the work session, actually works really well for that. But I don't know if we will want to wait until October. But we will first talk to P2 and we'll report back to council offline. But I understand the need to move as quickly as we can. All right.

Councilman Honduras, you had a question?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have several, actually. So currently, the equipment, the pay kiosks, are owned by whom?

City of Papel.

OK. So can you show me on the RFP where the equipment Wasn't, we own it now, wasn't the equipment tied into the initial, the current parking contractor's contract?

In the original contract, I believe it was, yes.

So was that included in the RFP, was equipment? As far as the pay kiosk, I saw the equipment.

There's an item inside of the RFP that basically says that they have to be prepared to make recommendations and assist us with purchase and installation of the equipment. However, the price of that equipment is not required as part of the RFP bid.

Right, so in speaking with the downtown merchants, the meetings my colleague and I attended, as well as just speaking to residents, both local and traveling here from other places to do business here, is that the kiosks don't always work, right? So I thought in previous conversations over the last year or two when parking came up, we knew the current contractor's contract would be up and we would have to either renew it or put it out for an RFP to get a new contract, that we would look at that time of getting new equipment. So the fact that there's not a more robust section in both the RFP and the preliminary agreement is a little surprising to me because I was expecting that. And then the question, because it was talking about cash, if I wanted to come and park in a parking spot and pay cash, how do I do that today?

In the parking decks and the pay stations, there are those options too. In the parking decks and also in the service lots and the on street parking, there are kiosks if you can find one. There's also paying in cash in the contractor's office. And if we can actually go back for one second. We have 34 T2 pay stations that are out there installed right now. Those pay stations are no longer manufactured and the equipment that we stockpiled for repairs and maintenance got destroyed in the flood. from a while back and so of that, While we could require the contractor to make a bid saying, recommend us the replacement of the equipment, the next question is then, do we have 34 kiosks or do we have 20? Because every single kiosk requires an individual license, and that individual license is an individual payment that has to be made to the company. I do not know what that cost is right now, but if we had to make an estimate and said it was $100 per kiosk, it's $3,400 a month versus three grand or two grand, depending if we reduce the cost and put them in more favorable locations.

So currently we have how many kiosks?

34.

And all 34 available to take cash?

I would have to get back to you on that one.

Can you put, I think it's slide six of your PowerPoint. We had the different, the little graph with the different contractors. You just passed, there you go. So there was another, on one of the other attachments in our CCAM, it made reference to, or there's some language in there about the contractor having to bond each employee, each contractor employee that handles cash. So as we're having a discussion if we're gonna be able to take cash or not, personally I think there should be the capability to pay cash. Cash is still legal tender in this country while less and less people carry cash. I just don't think it's, I think it's disingenuous of us to not allow a cash option. Having said that, the more and more consumers that are getting away from using actual cash as a form of payment, then why would we require the contractor to bond each employee? It was a pretty substantial, I think it was like $25,000 bond per employee. If they're not handling very much cash, that sounds like maybe an overburdensome expectation or requirement, but on this, This slide here, I think I heard you say that out of the applicants or the responders to the RFP, only one included equipment and the other ones did not?

Yes.

Do we know which one included the equipment?

Our current contractor, Republic.

Republic. So were they proposing replacing all 34 of the current kiosks?

That is my understanding, yes.

And did they have a specific manufacturer?

Yes, Amana.

Amana.

And if I can go back, you mentioned about the bonding of every individual employee. During our contract negotiations and discussions with Pivot, even though Council has not provided their approval yet, we are still working with them to make sure that everything can move as quickly as it can pending approval. They have identified that as one of the items that they are looking to revise or change. We are coordinating with them, the city attorney's office, and the other departments to ensure that any changes that they make to the contract goes through the proper process. At the same time, the contract that is included with the CCAM is still a draft version.

thank you um yeah so it's kind of a chicken and egg situation so do we work through how we want the paid parking program to kind of work and operate or do we do we get an agreement with a consultant first you know I could see the um advantages and the limitations to either option I just feel like um And I'm not necessarily suggesting that the new kiosk or the equipment need to be part of the contract. It could be separate if the city's going to fund the purchase of the kiosk and own them. It doesn't necessarily have to be part of this contractor's agreement, but I think... you have to be able to you have to provide a reliable method for the users to pay if you don't do that then the whole the whole paid parking program falls apart so so councilman uh councilman honduras those are great great points i think

to summarize all this i think that any good rfp needs to define the outcomes that we expect and i don't know that we've fully as a board identified or articulated to staff what the outcomes are right and so i think councilmember hare was headed there to pull this back The question on the floor, and I had a second. Council Member Honduras brought excellent points that also support that fact. So I guess the only thing would be is the manager will give us the time frame in which you'll be able to allow council to tell you the outcomes that we won't include it in whatever vendor is selected. and so he said the 28th if that's the date uh if that's a regular council meeting I guess you know I don't know at what venue we hash that out but I guess we can do it at this setting if that's what that's what council's desire is but that motion of the second uh council want to look to you for uh votes on that Mr. Mayor this is the yes the motion was yes ma'am I'm sorry I just have a question can before we vote on that can we really discuss coming back to the work session

because I feel like it needs more discussion than we're able to give it, particularly on a last meeting of the month, because that is historically a horrible meeting to try to have any discussion about anything.

Well, and to piggyback on that, as we're all talking this through, I think getting the resident input, particularly the downtown business owners, downtown property owners, and the residents that frequent downtown, to help us formulate, to your point, Mr. Mayor, what are the desired outcomes? That's why I think we need their input. And then we can provide that to staff and they can kind of hash out how we get there. between them, the RFP, and then whichever consultant ultimately wins the award. That was the purpose of my questions. There was a discussion of when this comes back, what do we want included when it comes back? I think we're several steps away from that at this point.

Thank you. This is a really, really powerful discussion and it sounds like we're not talking about the contract to manage parking. It sounds like we're talking about a parking study. What is the philosophy that we have for what spurs business, what doesn't? We're talking about how we're going to manage our assets, the deck. um what the pricing schedule should be because a lot of those things came out in some of the other conversations i've had with council about why do we charge fifty dollars per day in the deck um and not more um we started off at ten dollars per special event parking and we quickly moved to five i don't know that the the parking contractor is largely going to be agnostic and will do whatever you want them to do if you want them and part of their contract to come back in 30 60 90 days and tell you how they can achieve whatever council shares they'll be happy to do that but i think that this along with the downtown manager position we're looking at as well um are really good critical conversations and when we started this when we started the effort with the rfp we had in mind the stuff that came out of the um out of the review that dr here mentioned we had the information that came from the downtown merchants at that time and um again we'll be able to show whenever we have the meeting about how that lines up or was in the rf rfp or was it rfq that we did rp i think it was rfp

For the study or the contract here? For the one here. This is a RFP.

RFP, okay. So I think that we'll be able to definitely do that, but a lot of the questions and things which are coming up in the Downtown Alliance and things like that, it may be as well as part of this effort at some point in time we would update the parking study, which would tell us how council wishes us to manage the 2,000 parking spaces downtown.

right so i think we're there uh we've got a motion to move into a work session because we do have a robust agenda tonight but just to be clear i don't know that at least i'll speak for myself i don't know what i've heard and what i'm saying requires a study as much as it does requiring to make sure that you include the areas of of importance that we want looked at by whoever the chosen contractor is so So I guess this looks good. Look forward to the conversation. Council, I look to you for your votes to table this to the, now Councilwoman Green, what was the outcome of her recommendation? She recommended a work session. I kind of inclined to agree with that. So you amended it? Okay.

Right. Yeah.

Okay. I was in agreement. All right. All right. So Council, I look to you for your votes on this. Councilmember McMillan.

Great all right what was it. Just looks like question for that. I was thinking it I heard it from a councilman hundreds out downtown alliance and folk like that. And I don't remember if it was brought up at our audit or not are they involved in and the discussions.

So staff have met quite a few times with the Downtown Alliance on different aspects. A long while back, well, we talked with them about many aspects of this. The most recent meeting that we had with the Downtown Alliance was what they desire in terms of coordination and interaction between the contractor and the businesses and what they want to see. And that generally from the conversation, although there was no formal poll taken, so I don't know what the official position is. But from the conversation, the tone sounded like they wanted a contractor that is less punitive, more encouraging people to essentially pay and park instead of going out just trying to write tickets.

And before I sign off, Mayor, Council, there's always been concerns, and I think you may have heard it tonight, about keeping the area clean. Is that something that falls within the scope of the new contract, or is that another city department that does that?

nope that is inside of the contract is inside of the 30 or 45 page scope of work in the RFP we talk about graffiti we talk about maintenance we talk about literally everything that has been discussed tonight thank you mayor all right so motion carries thank you mr. McGill all right council moved to 6 1 0 3 2

Afternoon, Mayor and Council. This will hopefully be a fairly quick presentation, but it involves the Stamford Road partial culvert failure and the current road closure. So ultimately, what we're asking for here is for Council to provide us consensus to proceed with the capital project ordinance later this month to initiate the design for repairs to Stamford Road. As you can see, there was some substantial damage from a storm event that happened in late July. So if you can kind of see, here's just an aerial of Stamper Road and it's the roughly six by six culvert that crosses under Stamper Road here. Just some constraints and some other aspects to this project. You do have a 12 inch water main that's about four foot deep that runs down Stamper Road. You also have an eight inch sewer main that runs down Stamper Road. And then essentially you have the six by six storm culvert, which is 20 plus feet deep. So there are some constraints. There's constructability. You're going to have to have shoring, large trench boxes, or some type of sloping or benching. There's going to be some access and egress issues. We're also going to have some permitting challenges. It is in a floodway. There will be some wetland impacts. So those are some constraints that we do have. So essentially our next steps, we'd like to appropriate funding to begin the emergency repair, the design of that, approximately $300,000. That would go toward the design and possible any right-of-way or easement acquisition that we would need. The proposed funding would be coming from some available balance from some older stormwater enterprise funded projects, so we would not be relying on the general fund or a stormwater fund balance appropriation. This funding is some leftover budget that we have from older stormwater projects that we were either able to get grant funds for or were able to build under budget. um we would then execute a service contract we anticipate the design to include all the permits that we need to be six to eight months and then construction at another six to eight months so with that i'll entertain any questions i did sir councilman mojandras i know he's the stormwater champion so is stamp road going to be closed for 12 months yes there is it's currently closed um How the damage happened was you had some large mature trees on the downstream embankment that essentially were blown over. When they blew over, it took the downstream embankment with it, separated the end wall from the culvert, and then you've kind of had some head cutting where you've had other joints of the culvert separate. So if you were to go out to Stamper Road, the asphalt pavement is still intact, but you can look under one of the travel lanes.

Yeah, and that's why when we say that the MPDS permit in the state, whether those embankments are mowed or whether they're overgrown, both are kind of acceptable, whether they grow natural or not. But when the trees grow and the storm blows them over, the chance of damage is greater if it's not maintained. So I'm thinking of a park in, I think it's in District 5, where we did some work off of... I can't think of the name of the road, but there was a little city-owned park. There was a creek and an embankment, and we did some rip rap. This was about five, six years ago. It doesn't matter, but can you put the map up on that one slide? So where that kind of creek heads east, I think kind of along Rogers Drive, didn't we recently, there was a stormwater project we needed an easement for?

Correct. So currently downstream of Stamper Road, if you look at the next two downstream culverts, they are in the process of, there's a current construction project. It's our line and ivy project. So the culvert under Ivy Road and then McDougal are being upsized.

But that project didn't have anything to do with this failure necessarily? No. It's the same creek where it runs into it?

It just so happened to be the next upstream.

All right. Very good. Thank you.

All right. Councilman Davis. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Question, sir. So I think Councilman Mahindra was pointing out the fact that it's going to be closed for 12 months. I think just like we talked about when we were talking about the Neville Street situation, how are you guys informing the residents within the area on the timeline and when it could be complete and all that kind of stuff?

So fortunately, I won't say no one's impacted, but fortunately, Where the where the culvert is everybody still has access to their driveways. There's a there's a church to the right on the other side. I think there's one home and then is it the forget the name of the businesses there to the left. I mean we have the road closed signs. It's on ways. I believe that the road is closed. But as far as individual mailers to folks we've not done that for this project.

Okay, thank you so.

All right. So just had a question for you. The state accelerates some of their projects by putting a bid out to design it and construct it all at the same time. You don't have the delay of designing it, then turn around and have to bid out the building it. Have we considered employing this so that we can accelerate the expedite this work?

So we did consider doing design bid, excuse me, design build, but that would still have to go through an RF process we have an engineer on our own call that we can go ahead and mobilize as soon as we get the go-ahead we don't have to do an RFQ for that we have it from our own call list so I think that the time the time lining up that timing for this would be about the same if you did a design bid well I'm bill versus so so I understand you got the engineer but his work is gonna be can go back to that timeline

So his work's going to be six to eight months for the design, right? Then you have to turn around and prepare an RFP based on his plans, send that out, and that's about what? I've seen RFPs drag. 30, 60 days. To put it out to bid? Are we moving RFPs that fast? Okay. So 60 days, okay, and then they've got 30 days to answer it or some time frame to answer it. Then it comes back in, and then what happens after that?

For this project, it would be a formal bid. We'd have to take it to council to get the award.

So because we've got an engineer that we're used to using or that I guess is kind of on call, which I don't really understand that, I guess you're using it for qualifications or because his service is under a certain amount, how are you able to do the engineer service without bidding it?

So we have an on-call service with a multitude of engineers. They've already kind of been pre-qualified for certain things, and stormwater design was one of them.

so they don't offer the ability to give a bid to design it and to have it built the way the RFQ was done it was not done as a design bill I get that yeah so now I'm trying to cover if this is a process change that can be considered so that we can expedite some of this you know because you're talking 12 months right so if I live in and around this area that's a long time for me if I can cut it down by three months that's better than 12 months so guess I'm I'm asking I know it's not what we used to do and I just heard you know this is used at the DLT level I heard him use that a lot and it said that it cuts down on some of the turnaround time that's all yeah and we've had design bill before I think when they did the Louis Street Bridge I think DLT administered that project for the city but it was the design bill all right thank you mr. mayor real quick by it

Have you coordinated with PWC to see if they needed repairs to their water and sewage at the same time that you're doing this covert repair?

so we have been in contact with pwc they have camera their lines to make sure that there was no damage to their lines i don't know that if they'll want to replace their lines the water my understanding is the water is pvc the sewer main through there was recently relined so i don't know that they would want to do any facility upgrades but we would we would approach them if it needs to be thank you sir thank you mr mayor

I can see the comments questions for Mister Reeves. All right to take a look at some of the days.

If there's no more questions out there to make a motion, yes, sir. I think it's a move that Council provide consensus to proceed with the capital project ordinance to initiate the design. For the for the pairs of simple market. Thank you.

All right. It's a motion by Council Member Davis, seconded by, I think, Honduras Beachy there, Council Member Ferguson. All right. Discussion? Council, I'll look to you for your vote. Council Member McMillan? Green. All right. Thank you, Mr. Reeve. All right. Council 6.03, Starfield Street Lighting Subdivisions. You're back.

Yes, but only briefly. I just want to make an introduction. At the end of last calendar year, we had the pleasure of welcoming Ben Shepherd, who is a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the military. We are glad that he is a leader inside of our organization and a leader for the city. And he has, in his short time here, also become the expert in street lighting. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Ben Shepherd.

All right, good to see you, Colonel. Welcome.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. As Brian said, I'm going to cover street lighting update. I'm also going to throw it back to Byron at the end. I'm going to try to give you the overview and kind of the one big problem that we don't have a funding solution for right now. And then Byron's going to talk through the funding alternatives that we'd like council to consider. Okay, so this is kind of my overview, current challenges slide. And I'll start with our ordinance does delineate residential versus thoroughfare street lighting conceptually. We don't think it has enough detail that we're that's that's why we're coming back to to council right now because we don't have a funding solution for new residential areas is ultimately what i'm going to get to just as an overview for thoroughfare streets that connect multiple neighborhoods or connect the neighborhood to an arterial street or freeway that process is known there's an existing cip that we use to fund new installation installation of new street lights on unlit thoroughfares and then the city pays the monthly service fee for all of those thoroughfares On the residential side, for a new residential subdivision, that process is well known because it's captured in the developmental process, the developer pays the installation cost, and then once they're turned on, the lighting fee for those residences are charged as a surcharge on the individual residential lighting bill. The second bullet or sub bullet that I have here is the two utility companies and two EMCs that service our area have varying design installation and billing processes. And so while that's understood conceptually and we don't think anyone's taking advantage of that, we can't see that detail in all of those bills and the design and installation process is a little different for each of them. We're also continuously looking at and reassessing the thoroughfares. And so I'm not sure when it was last presented to council, the definitive list of these are our thoroughfare streets, but that's what we're prepared to present today. And then also tell you which of those thoroughfares are currently unlit and which ones we're prioritizing for new lighting. And then the kind of request that has driven most of this research and conversation over the last six to eight months is a fairly small residential area window replace that's out at Rockfish and King. And like I said, it's fairly small, but however it happened it did not get lights when it went in as a new development and it also happens to have underground power so it's quite a bit more expensive to go back and put lights in that area and so digging into that request and adjudicating whether or not the city should pay for that has driven a lot of this larger conversation and research when i get down to installation i've covered some of this new residential developments understood that the developer pays that cost that cip existing cip that we have for new thoroughfare lighting projects currently sits at about five hundred and thirty thousand dollars and like i said the kind of elephant in the room what i've highlighted in red there is that when we uncover a residential area that is not lit it's existing somehow it wasn't included when it was developed we don't have a funding solution for that there's not something in the ordinance that says this is how we pay for residences where we find no lights because they weren't put in by the developer And then general considerations, it's typically a year to 18 months to do a lighting project, DOT encroachment involved in most of them, and then the cost varies widely. And that's largely, like I said, about whether the power is underground or if there are existing wood poles that they can just put a mast arm and an LED on. The first sub-bullet at the bottom there, the utility and EMCs maintain the infrastructure. This is understood by all. If a pole gets knocked down, that utility company or EMC is gonna replace that when they have to replace LEDs. So the city is not on the hook for any of those costs. And then just a rough order of magnitude down there at the bottom, across those four, two utility companies and two EMCs, the city pays 14 bills every month. And so an average of, for the current thoroughfares, we're paying about $37,000 a month for a total of close to half a million dollars a year for the thoroughfare lighting right now. All right, this next slide, there's a whole lot of stuff on here, and I'll tell you, this is just a screenshot from North Carolina DOT. So, you know, engineering... states you know the classification of roadways freeways principal and minor arterials and then major and minor collector roads and anything below that is considered a local road i said earlier that we haven't come to council and said this is our list of thoroughfare streets are we good with that what i'd like to propose is that we just go with the dot functional classification that's listed here so anything that is considered a freeway an arterial or a collector road we consider a thoroughfare street for the purposes of street lighting and that's that's the list of all these that are that are in front of you what i have on the lower left there are roads that are not considered collectors arterials or freeways but that we think the city should light because they should be thoroughfare streets because they collect multiple connect multiple neighborhoods or connect a neighborhood to an arterial street The ones that I've highlighted in green, Roxy, Filter Plant, Graham, and Plymouth, already have lights. So including them doesn't cost us anything else. Dundall Road, which I've highlighted in yellow there, we would recommend we include it as a thoroughfare street, even though it's considered a local road by DOT. And it's yellow because it is currently in design. with Duke Energy. So it's probably six months into that 12 to 18 month process. They proposed a design to us and we're looking at it right now. And then Grimes Road is the only one that I would recommend. We add as a thoroughfare street that DOT classifies as a local road that is not lit currently. And so we would look to figure out how to pay for that with the CIP in the coming years. Okay, and this is just a graphical depiction of what I had on the last slide. This is where all of those thoroughfare streets are and by classification with obviously the freeways highlighted in blue and pink and then working our way down to the local roads. So what is unlit of everything from that previous slide? The ones that are called out in black here are the ones that are currently unlit. And so you can see the entirety of 295, all of the All-American Freeway and all of MLK Freeway are currently unlit. And so I have along the left side of this display is by that North Carolina DOT functional classification that I mentioned on the last slide. So this is not necessarily the order that we would recommend we use the CIP money to do them, but it's by that DOT classification. And then I'll kind of get into how we developed a cost estimate for what this is going to cost us in the next couple of slides. But ultimately, at the bottom, you can see we've got 56 miles of unlit thoroughfare streets that we need to get lit as soon as we can. And then what I have here, again, kind of just peeling it back, these are the ones that are currently in the process. Like I said, we have multiple projects that are either in the design installation phase. And so these are the existing ones that fill in some of that, but only six and a half miles of the unlit thoroughfares right now. So then this slide is our best estimate as what is it going to cost to light all of these thoroughfares. And we use two of our current case studies. So Rim Road is currently under design with Lumbee River. And it's a fairly budget friendly case because there are existing wood poles there. And so the estimate for that 2.1 mile stretch is $60,000 or about 28.5 per mile. Windover Place that I mentioned earlier is a relatively expensive case because it's all underground power, requires a lot of trenching. And so the estimate that we have from Duke for it is $117,000 for only about 3,500 feet. So we use kind of a low conservative estimate on the low case, $28,500 per mile to as expensive as about $175,000 per mile. then i overlay that on what i pulled on on this slide over on the right is that same 56 miles of unlit thoroughfares and if we assume we make some bold assumptions and say if we wanted to light all of those freeway miles it would be on the more expensive end probably 175 000 per mile to light the freeways and then all of the surface streets the arterials and collectors we would estimate would probably be on the lower end uh the majority of them already having wood poles And so we put together this estimate here, 3.3 million for all of the freeway miles and 849,000 for the non-freeway miles. The very bottom of this slide is what that means in terms of additional monthly service fee. Because like I said, the city pays 37,000 a month currently for the 220 miles of thoroughfare streets, and that will increase to about 63,000 per month if we were to do all of these thoroughfares. So again, nothing for decision. This is really for information for council on the thoroughfare streets, and then I will move into the residential portion. This is just a screenshot from our GIS layer and it has a couple of different things. The background colors is the utility service providers, right? So Duke Energy has everything in the northwest and some down to the south. Lumbee River is the pink and purple kind of coming in from the southwest. and then pwc has the majority of the area within the city limits all of the little blue smudges or areas inside there are individual residential subdivisions that are named subdivisions and so we were able to just look at each subdivision either drive it or look at it on on a google street view as long as it was only a couple months old and turn it blue when it had street lights And so the good story here is everything that's in blue is an existing residential area that already has lights. And we don't have to worry about it. The six or eight that you can see mostly on the west side of the city that are like a lime green color are the existing residential areas similar to Windover Place that don't have lights. And so we don't have a funding solution. If there were lights there tomorrow magically, we know that the EMCs are going to pay They're going to be paid by a surcharge, but we don't have a funding mechanism to do the installation of new lights in these areas. Of note, window replace that I mentioned at the very, very bottom of the slide, the kind of triangular largest green area there is window replace. So it's one of the largest ones left. And as I move to the next slide, it's by far the most expensive because all of the other areas have existing wood poles. So this is, I think this is the last slide I have before Byron talks about the funding options, but this is what we do not have a funding solution for. The first part of what I said, the thoroughfare street lighting, we have 530,000, but we have several million of unlit thoroughfares we're still prioritizing and we're gonna get to. This is what we don't have a solution for, which is these seven unlit residential neighborhoods that need to get lit like the rest of the residential neighborhoods. And so if there's no questions for me, I'll let Byron go next. Yes, sir.

I have a question. Y'all want to do it before Byron? Because you probably have something for Byron. All right. We'll run them. So I had Mayor Pro Tem and then Councilman Heron-Hondros.

Yes I want to thank you for the presentation and for the information and I'm glad that you specified that you was differentiating the residential from the thoroughfares that's good that we all know that and where that funding come from but what I want to emphasize is most of those cases that you described of those seven community neighborhoods they're all in the southwest part of Fayetteville they were all annexed into the city so it's not like a developer was going to plan to put street lighting in there they were in rural areas before they were annexed uh i believe when annex started in 2005 2006 we told them these things that we were going to do to make sure they was equivalent to the rest of the community that is a failure on the city on what we did not do and that we should have been doing we talk about our priorities as being a Safe and secure community. You can't leave out Southwest Fayetteville when you talk about that priority. You want to talk about funding. They have been annexed since 2005. This is just a low estimate out of those 30 homes in Wendover who have paid over $3 million in taxes. And we're talking about $175,000 to give them street lighting. But we'll talk more about that when Byron comes in. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Sir, Councilman here.

I was expecting those questions. The unknown, the unknown part that you mentioned, is it Mr. McGill? Shepard, sir. Shepard, okay. Mr. Shepard, because the contractor did not develop and put the lights in at the beginning of the contract or the beginning of the development, You said that there's no funding resource for those particular lights to be installed now. Why? Why is it? Well, let me ask you this then. Are the contractors responsible in the beginning? They are, sir. Okay, question. Yes, sir. Question. Then, if that be the case, why isn't it now, I know it's

somewhat after the fact and the development is there that the contractor is still not um responsible yes sir and i probably misstated that earlier that's that's mayor pro tem's point is that these seven that are remaining that are not lit it's not because we didn't hold a development or a developer accountable it's that they were developed before they were annexed and so then once they were annexed in they they don't have city street lights because the developer didn't have to meet city standards at the time that they were developed. So they were essentially grandfathered. So I don't think there are developers out there who we need to go hunt down because we didn't charge them correctly initially. All right.

That is a very good question.

All right. Councilman Mahandros.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for the presentation, Colonel Shepard. Can you put the thoroughfare list back up that you had? Yes, sir. That slide. So none of 295 is lit?

The interchanges are. So there are individual accounts for the high mass lighting at the city doesn't pay for All-American and Bragg. The city pays for and maintains Merkison, MacArthur, and Ramsey. But along the main line, no, sir. There aren't any lights past Canopy Lane.

Gotcha. Thank you for that. This is a great list, Mr. Mayor, when we talk about thoroughfares and right-of-way cleanup. That's the list right there. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the presentation.

Yes, sir. All right, question. Kind of floated this to the manager and to Mayor Pro Tem. this has been an ongoing even when uh probably two representatives ago for district eight um you know and mr manager i have a question i remember before maybe a few budget cycles ago we put money uh in the budget toward uh street lights for thoroughfares didn't we yes sir and when byron comes up he'll be able to show you if uh ben hasn't already um it's about 400 500 000 a year that we're i think that's what we talked about this morning uh it's it the the cip account is currently at 5 30. um i think we add 200 ish does that does that include what you're paying the providers or is that for installation the cip is just for installation and then we're paying that 445k annually as the monthly service fee and and then i had a second question now pwc is a part of their payment in lieu of taxes used to not charges for the thoroughfare lighting has they changed that position

We can check on that, but there are two things at play here, and I'll make this very brief. One is thoroughfare street lighting, which we have offered, we'll offer to the thoroughfares, and then the other is the residential component. The note that I've been asking staff members, many of whom who were not here back in 2004 and five, is that we've got to pull out that annexation service plan. I don't know that residential streetlights in their neighborhoods were part of that because Dr. Harris left, but we actually went through a whole plan of talking about whether you put one light per three houses in the residential areas at some point in time after the annexation. But there are two parts. One, the $400,000, $500,000 we just mentioned about the CIP, that is for thoroughfare lighting. It is no money included in the budget or the CIP for the residential lighting installation. Right. I'm tracking you there.

And so I guess my question was, You know, to Mayor Pro Tem's point, whether the 20-year-old agreement for annexation talked about it because it didn't talk about fire hydrant, bringing those up to city recommendations in the distance, it's a matter of equity to me that, you know, if we brought an area in, you would expect over two decades that it brings everything up to the even playing field. So I guess that would probably be more of a policy decision, and I think you touched on my – other point was uh for the thoroughfare lighting if if some of the infrastructure bond funds were you were available to be used simply because uh you're smiling so i might be getting ahead of my skis so let me let me get out of the get out get out of that i'll hold my question to the end thank you colonel yes sir thanks

So I'll discuss a couple of policy options about potential ways that we could fund these residential streetlights. So if you just look at streetlight installations, they're just like any other type of street improvement. So it's the same logic behind paving, installing curb and gutter on a strip paved road, or installing sidewalks where you don't have sidewalks. So it is a street improvement. So I broke it out into three different options, and there's a lot of overlap between these three different options, but I broke them out into three different options just for clarity. We've got a charter option, an ordinance option, and a project option. And so I'll go into a little more detail in the next couple slides, but the current constraints with a little bit of what we've been discussing, you've got two different type of costs you've got your capital costs and your annual operations costs street lights are not pal bill are not a pal bill eligible expenditure so the source of funds for any type of street lights are going to come from the general fund and as we've been mentioning there's currently there is no capital or operating funding currently appropriated for residential street lights so we'll jump into the the three options here the first one i've called it There are currently no capital or operating funds currently appropriated for residential streetlights.

So the only way you can get streetlights is to take the money out of the general fund, is what you're saying?

That's how you fund most projects in the transportation fund, yes. All right, so we've got the charter option. So without doing anything, in your city charter, you have special assessments. And under the special assessments, there's a specific section for lighting improvements as well as annual assessments for maintenance and operation of lighting improvements. So what do these special assessments allow? Council can order streetlights improvement with or without a petition. The cost can be assessed to the properties that benefit from the improvement. So if my property benefits from the street light being installed, then the city can assess me that cost. You could also do the annual assessments to cover excess maintenance and operation costs. There is precedent for the city doing this. Back in 07-08, council used no petition assessments to pave soil streets. So you had these soil streets, they were paved, and then afterwards, after the city paved the streets, they went back and assessed the property owners based off of the fee schedule. So if council wanted us to pursue that action, basically we would have to do a resolution, prepare assessment roles. You hold public hearings because you're doing it without a petition. You may have some of these neighborhoods that don't want streetlights. You would then adopt a fee schedule, and then you would have to dedicate that upfront capital funding. Secondly, you've got an ordinance option. So you would have to amend the current chapter 24 uniform street and thoroughfare lighting ordinance. So this text amendment, you would have text amendments that establish a formal petition process that's consistent with general statute. Basically 50% plus one would petition the city to put streetlights in. Again, the residents petition the city for the streetlights within their unlit neighborhood. If it's approved, the cost of the improvement could be assessed to the benefiting property owner. So again, if I'm benefiting from the streetlight, I'm the one paying for it. The process is community driven rather than initiated by the city like you have in the charter option. But this result creates a clear, consistent, and predictable pathway for residential streetlight requests. It also establishes the defined process for evaluating, approving funding, and implementing those street improvements. So if council wanted us to move forward with this, we would draft the necessary text amendments, adopt a fee schedule, and then if we receive petitions from these neighborhoods, we would adopt a resolution, prepare the assessment role, hold public hearings, dedicate that upfront capital funding. Lastly, I've got what I call a project option, which basically we would just create a dedicated residential CIP that's modeled after the thoroughfare streetlights CIP. So we already have a dedicated CIP for thoroughfare streetlights. We would just create a dedicated residential streetlights CIP. Under this funding model, the city would fund 100% of the capital cost for that installation. If it's not, put in a surcharge the city would assume the ongoing operation and maintenance for this as well and then there would be no assessment to the individual property owners the trade-offs of this though and this would apply to the the charter and the ordinance option as well because there's no there's no current funding appropriated this adds an ongoing demand on the transportation fund So council would then have to have their resource allocation decisions on where do you put that general fund money that goes in the transportation fund. Do we fund sidewalks? Do we fund bike lanes? Do we fund improvements to our bridges? Do we do additional paving? Those one-way connectivity projects. These residential streetlights are going to be, I don't want to say they'll be in competition with those other projects, but it would be up to council to decide where the best place those resources. again timing this would also apply to the charter and the ordinance option we would have to do an appropriation through the fy28 cip and then funding would be considered through that normal cip and budget process so if this was the direction council would want us to take we would create a cip for consideration in the fy28 budget process and we would also do some text amendments to clean up some of the language in the ordinance So next steps, if council sees an option that they would like to pursue, we could move forward with a charter option where you would direct staff to draft the resolution, prepare assessment roles, and bring a fee schedule for adoption. If you want us to move forward with an ordinance, you could direct staff to draft the necessary text amendments and bring that fee schedule for adoption. Or if you want to go the project route, you could direct us to prepare CIP for the FY28 budget. Or you could take no action at all and maintain the current approach where there's no new residential streetlight program. Again, I want to stress options one through three currently have no funding appropriated to support it. So the selected approach, whichever one you guys would like to move forward with, we would further develop that with specific implementation steps, funding requirements, and timelines. So with that, we'll answer questions.

Thank you, sir. Dr. Hughes, you had your light on for some explanation before we get into questions?

I was old, okay. All right, Mayor Pro Temp. thank you Mr. Mayor Byron help me understand two things one is we're talking about seven communities that don't have street lighting if we had decided or if they decided they wanted street lighting it wouldn't be a need for ordinance anymore because we can no longer annex correct Mayor Pro Tem on the annexation question

involuntary annexation is not outright prohibited it's just a lot to do it so we we do still as municipalities have the ability to annex it's just that the legislature made it a little more difficult to do but I wanted to at least address the annexation part I'm not sure about the other part of the question

Well, I'll just move on to my next question then. I think the colonel described that the one expensive community was windowed over at $177,000 and the other communities was less than $70,000. So if we was to fund all seven communities, if that was their desire, we're talking about less than a half a million dollars. I think it was less than that. It's probably less than that. I'm just figuring this off the top of my head. It's less than that. It's $200,000. Mr. Manager, if we was to take $200,000 out of the general fund, would it even change our percentage of our general fund?

Negligible.

If it did, it'd be 0.00%, 0.1% rather?

Well, one of the things, Mayor Pro Tem, and again, I know this is a very tricky subject. It is something that you could find. We'd probably say we'd work with Taylor and others to say, given the time of year that we're in right now and the projects we already have under design, We'll probably ask you all to prioritize those and we would start working with Duke. I think there's a longer lead time on some of those.

Well, let me just say where I'm going with this, Mr. Manager. Our previous presentation about Stamford Road just talked about how they just found $300,000 on previous projects. That's more than enough to take care of all seven of these communities. I don't see how a community that has been waiting for almost 25 years for street lighting have to wait for another year for us to go to budget session to fund $200,000.

So never attempt to that point. You know course as we we get in the money money gets we need an extensive amount of time to get into money. Here is the interest that I have that all of our annexed involuntarily annexed areas get brought up to the same standard as everybody else so and I know we have some some pockets here and I know that this is not directed to you this is a general statement so I think there's an interest you find it I think as it relates to you know because really you've got to look at the previous presentation for Stamper Road the money they found was out of an enterprise fund that was set aside for the specifics of that you know this would be a little different if it came from general fund my point is is that Let's look at, you know, and I think the only reason I'm saying this is because you kind of threw this out there to say that if you take this money out of the bond fund and some other project now is competing for resources, which is technically true, however. With the amount of the money, it's not a real impact because we have and continue to get, and I hope we're applying for some of the Safe Streets money that DOT has and some of the sidewalks and the crosswalks, that there's a lot of available funding that they have that I want to make sure we leverage that has not been factored in when we allocate or appropriate these dollars to say that we're going to put 500,000 for sidewalks. And if we get a grant for 200,000, then we don't go back and amend it. What we do is leverage the money.

That's right.

So I think that... we can find a way to creatively deal with it but i think the premise of everybody here not only the western side's representation but i think most of the board feels that we want to make sure that that west fairville gets everything that that the rest of the city has and just like we advocate for merkson and east side as well so um i think we can solve that but i don't know if they'll get solved today so well let me finish my question before you finish

So according to these options, and you talked about the project option last, if we fund 100%, are you saying that you're not going to assess the private ownerships for the daily or the monthly maintenance of the street lighting?

So how I had this project option written, it mirrored the thoroughfare street lights, which we put up the capital costs and then our operating funds would have to cover. If it wasn't covered in a surcharge to the, and I think it depends on the utility provider, we would have to do the ongoing operation and maintenance. But no, the project option would not seek assessments from property owners.

But option two would, correct?

The ordinance option, yes. You'd have to establish a fee schedule because you don't currently have a fee schedule. You've got a fee schedule for paving a soil street. You've got a fee schedule for installing sidewalk. You don't have a fee schedule for residential street lights. So you'd have to establish that fee schedule.

And that wouldn't be hard to do with the limited number of individuals we're talking about, correct? Correct.

We'd have to come back with some options for what that fee schedule is, whether it's a per linear foot basis or you divide it by each benefiting property owner. That would be council's. We could give you options, but that would be council's direction. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Council Member Hondros.

I had a different question, but now that we're talking about fee schedule, so you're talking about assessing the property owners for the streetlights that we're talking about putting in?

Through the through the charter option and the ordinance option you would you would assess the benefiting property owners No, you would do would you would do it for the installation capital the capital cost

Yeah, so I know there was an issue or there was a challenge with certain utility providers for the ongoing, once the capital project is done and the streetlights are installed, typically PWC, who does most of the city, they charge a surcharge on everybody's electric bill, right? Some of the other utility providers may not do that. So how can we compel them to do that? Or if it's their policy, they're just not going to do it. uh i'm not sure how to and then this would be i think maybe more of a attorney and or cfo question couldn't we if the utility company is not going to do it create a municipal service district and charge them for the street lights the ongoing maintenance that way so where everybody else pays it on their utility bill they're paying it through an msd councilman hondros for the msd it requires um providing a service for a need that's greater than the rest of the city right so that the rest of the city is paying a surcharge on their utility bill their utility provider won't do that so the the additional service they're getting is is the lighting and they're paying for it um instead of paying for it on their utility bill they're paying for it through msd

Potentially, because the statute outlines for what you can create an MSD for, so I'd have to check that.

Make sure it's consistent. Thank you. Is there a way to do that, or do we need a special action to do that? My initial question, in our CCAM, there is the PowerPoint presentation you all shared today, but there's also one from 2019. Is it possible to get that on here, where everybody can see it? Yeah, it's file number 18-555. Yeah. No. It's like the Lumbee River, South River. It's not PwC or Duke. Or it might be Duke. I don't know. That's the one we're looking. So it's that one. Yeah, the 18-555. So if we go to slide... Starting with slide 7, 8, 9 has a list. 8 and 9 are maps. 9 and 10 are lists. And then finally getting to slide 11. I think you've passed it.

What's the title of the slide that you're trying to direct us to?

It just says update for unified street light plan. No, you're about to get to it, I think. You're going the wrong way. Right there. So that's kind of the opening, then, if you scroll down the way you were going. So this stuff was discussed in February of 2019. How do we find out what, if any, action council took? To Mayor Pro Tem's point, Because there's a summary with some costs. This stuff, it seems like, would have been put into the CIP back in 2019. Did we not do that? It was. If you go down past background, you'll get to a funding slide. If you go to the cam. There it is right there. Cost and then fundings right below it. So did we not include that in our CIP plan? If we did that in a five-year plan from 2019, we'd be finishing up this year, wouldn't we?

So that is the thoroughfare streetlights. So the 540,000 of available budget Ben was talking about, that's that project.

Gotcha. So then the residential, because they were kind of grandfathered in, built to county standards, not city standards, i guess those communities didn't formally request street lights maybe anyway i think it's time we put it in the cip plan so i don't know is there an action we have to take tonight to direct staff to come up with the cip plan to include these yes we'll get to that okay thank you all the questions all right uh council member mcmillan i'm yeah

Yeah, thank you Mr Mayor. Appreciate this conversation. Appreciate all the inputs and Colonel. Thank you for the thoughtful, thorough presentation of information in the packaging of some solid options. I have a question and then a comment, but I want to leave with the question on assessment in option two. And really want to understand what the penalties would be for residents who are not able to pay the assessment. And if that could lead to lien or foreclosure for any of the residents involved. And I'll pause there for anybody that can answer that question.

Yeah, Councilman McMillan, I think what we were trying to get to was a funding approach. You know, the first, he gave three options. I don't know if it popped on your screen, but I don't think it's been a, if we get into the conclusion that that's the route that we're taking, I think that's what was still being worked out.

Okay, yeah, I can say, even if we haven't spoken about it yet, would not be in favor of anything that We put residents on the hook 25 years later in a way that put their house at risk or put them at risk of lien. Also, just want to say this is a safety issue. I definitely understand my neighbors on Buhman would be interested in the residential portion of this and have heard plenty about the dark side of Room Road over in in District 7 and understand they're they're tuned into this conversation as well. I I am in favor of something that allows us to revisit prioritization of of these projects and something that allows us to really examine fiscal year 28 funding. Also would like to ALSO MENTION THAT WHEN WE HAVE THESE PRIORITIZATION CONVERSATIONS ON CIP FUNDS ESPECIALLY, IN TERMS OF FINDING MONEY, ALSO GOT TO REMEMBER THERE'S PEOPLE IN BONE CREEK WAITING FOR US TO FIND MONEY. BEEN WAITING FOR ABOUT 20 YEARS. FOLKS ON HOPE LOOP ALSO WOULD LOVE TO BE BUMPED UP IN PRIORITY. BUT I'M IN FAVOR OF A THOROUGH DISCUSSION. that allows us as a council to have consensus on prioritization and for this to be one of those prioritized efforts that allows us to correct some wrongs and appreciate the space to say that.

All right. Thank you, sir. Mayor Pro Tem, you had your light and then we'll try to.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Byron, I want to know, is there a way that we can pay for the installation pay for the maintenance and the use and assess the community individually at the end of the year for reimbursement.

Well to 2 things so question to you to your question. We pay for the installation right now I'm following it so that that the complication that I understood you to have is some of the utility providers will not give individual bills, but only want one bill. So like a homeowner. Right.

And give that one bill to the city instead of giving it to the resident. Because what Duke wants you to do is Duke wants you to form an HOA in order for you to get street lighting. Communities are not forming HOAs these days no more. So they need a single source because they don't do individual residents anymore. So can that single source be the city?

So your question is at the end of the year, there'll be a shore up that's added to the assessment. Correct. Kind of like when PwC comes in and gets it.

Or you could do it monthly. If they have the means of doing it monthly, like I get my monthly, they can do it monthly.

But, you know.

I think mine is $3.50 or $4.50 one or the other. monthly or yearly or biannually.

I just wanted to ask a question. I mean, clarify your question. Mr. Byron? Is that possible, Byron?

Because that's not one of your options.

I would say under the charter option. So if you look at the city's charter, under Article II Special Assessments, Section 7.22, there is a paragraph that says annual assessments for maintenance and operation of light improvements so I would my interpretation is as your charter says you can but I'm not so we can do and it would be annually madam attorney

I'm not sure that Mr. Reeves understands your question you're asking if the city can be the account holder for these residents when we do the streetlight installation and I don't think there would be anything prohibiting that just be another customer the city be the customer So that would be my proposal in my motion Mr. Mayor

All right. So before we get there, just to, because we've had a robust discussion. So this would be for the staff to come back with options that included that if there's a consensus that follows that.

I think that is the only option if I get a consensus from council, Mr. Mayor. Right. Gotcha. All right.

Mayor Pro Tem's question is what is the same line of thought will prompt in my question about the MSD earlier so in lieu of an HOA because the community may not want to establish HOA just for streetlights the city becomes the account holder and we charge them back annually for the streetlights in the MSD it's just a way of.

I guess what you're saying is that there are certain rules that go with the MSD but the premise is the same you sent out an assessment to get the money back.

Right.

Because I still feel as though they need to pay for their street lighting like everybody else pays for their street lighting, but they shouldn't have to pay for the installation when nobody else paid for the installation.

We're in alignment. Thank you. And I'll second that if there's not a second.

Motion and proper second that the option to be visited was explained. Mr. Byron and the clerk has got plenty of notes to clarify that.

All right. One quick clarification, Mr. Mayor. Do we need to discuss the funding part to put this into motion?

I think that will probably come back for another day. So basically now that you've given it to them, they'll come back with the numbers because money is going to take, that's going to be a whole meeting by itself. i mean i'm just trying to get us the good news we're going to do strategic planning in october november right sir it'll be here for we know yeah but i think once you get it then i think we come back and say these are your options right here yep all right all right council center for the question i look to you for your votes for that sir uh council member mcmillan great all right Who we miss OK all right most cares thank you Mister is thank you. Team all right 6.04. City Council policy recommendations. Who's the presenter of that. Okay, policy committee chair, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was trying to catch up because I had my iPad for the previous item. But these are the policies that has been updated through the policy committee. I am the chair, my colleagues is Dr. Hare, Dr. Jones, Dr. Ferguson, and- Not because I'm- I'm sorry. Dr. Hare, Dr. Ferguson, and Council Member Hondros is on the policy committee. And these are the items that we talked about and brought back for updates. Some are deleted lines and some are additions. I hope everybody had a chance to read the first one. It's 150.1, which is the water and sewer utility assessment. If you go down to item three, those are the items that was lined out. If you go to number four in green, those are the items that were added. It is for update for June 11, 2026. And I'll take any questions for that item before I move to the next one. MR. MAYOR, IF THERE'S NO QUESTIONS, I CAN MOVE TO THE NEXT ITEM, 155.2, WHICH IS DISPOSAL OF PROPERTY VALUED LESS THAN $30,000. THIS WAS BROUGHT BACK TWO OR THREE TIMES. TO BRING SOME CLARITY, COUNCILMEMBER McMILLIN SUGGESTED THAT WE DO THE ADVERTISEMENT OF THESE ITEMS ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM SO EVERYBODY WILL GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK AT IT, AND THESE ARE THE ITEMS THAT ARE ADDED IN RED, AND IT'S JUST ONE. And that's to advertise the item on sale on gov deals dot com for one time cost. And I'll take any questions pertaining to that item Mister mayor. and lastly this item 155.6 and that is the real property lease these are the line items that we have added uh there's quite a few we wanted to make sure that we clarified any ambiguity that was in the policy and that is also in blue right if there's no questions on that item that concludes uh the updates mr mayor thank you

Thank you. So not looking for any action on this, or this will come back as a consent? On consent agenda. Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. All right, Council, any questions for this to come back on consent?

All right.

Sounds good. Thank you, Policy Committee. Great work. All right council moving to now we're at the point where our council member request 10 minutes be given for presentation of each item and 6.05 will start with me so I guess Miss Jennifer I'll take the clock this particular item council uh like to introduce for your consideration um we have a um i think it is a policy that needs updating as to uh the lighting in our in our parks uh since you know and i'm not sure when the last time it's been updated i think michael was in the third or fourth grade was it but um but we have added uh a lot of assets to our parks and rec and uh done a phenomenal job with creating skateboard parks, tennis centers, fields, and now we still have the sports complex. We have a lot of citizens that utilize these assets, which is the purpose, and i get a lot of inquiries about why we can't extend the hours right now the lights turn off at dark um and so in the winter time that's five o'clock in the uh summertime that's eight o'clock um or 8 30 and the question was can we review the policy and see if there's a way that we can uh maybe have extended an extended hour or two in certain places um and so the ask today was to maybe that policy and also work with staff to come back with what that looks like to add some additional time on some of the the heavier use more demand areas so that we can continue to encourage use in it. It was given to me a couple times that you know some were familiar with with places in Wake County carry was brought up a couple times for tennis or soccer and so it's just something up that act for us to consider revision of that so any questions.

yes sir yes sir so you're saying depending on the use of the park a particular part on how long it stays open and how long Well, I guess the lights will be coming on depending on if they're pickleball or tennis courts or anything else where they need lights. So the only thing we would be doing is adjusting the lights.

The time, right now.

I know the time, but I'm saying some also receive lights. I don't know if the lights will stay on all night.

No, no, no, no, no.

That's what I'm saying. So we'll be looking at the lights and the time.

So I think the time that the lights are on. And so, in other words, right now, Michael, what's our current policy for you?

If you remember. I'll give you some clarity, Mr. Mayor. He knows about parks.

Good afternoon, Council Mayor.

Good afternoon, sir.

Currently, right now, if you're in the Parks and Recreation program, and we got football going on, so we practice, kids will practice, or soccer, they'll practice from normally 6.30 to about 8.30, 9 o'clock, so the lights will be on for people in the program. You have rental environments where people come and rent the lights, $25 an hour, they'll rent the fields. Generally, that's the way the program's running at. If you're at the tennis center, they can request and we can leave the lights on. Pickleball, we can leave the lights on. I think what the mayor is asking council to consider is a general policy so that the requests don't have to come in. Our heavy use areas, we just leave them on from whatever dawn is for a couple hours.

Yeah, so I just wanted to make sure I understood. So I think you said the same thing. So the heavy use ones, would be extended. Yes, sir. But not across the board.

No, they would be by request. No, hold on. Let me take that back. I think that's what the mayor is asking.

Is that what you're asking me?

It is. I didn't want to have council change a blanket policy change for areas that are underutilized or may not need it, because that runs additional expense. But this analysis would say, hey, you got heavy use at this place, this place, and this place, and it makes it available. And then people may, let's say it's pickleball, they know that the tokay would have extended hours, and so a pickleball player that couldn't make it to one of the other ones could consider tokaying. So that was the kind of analysis. Data-driven. Data-driven.

yeah i understand let me add one thing mr mayor yes sir it is data driven but it's also competitive we want to be the sports hub here in fedville if we want to win we got to make sure we have our residents has availability to all these centers uh in a timely manner when they need to so when they do have these pickleball tournaments or tennis tournaments they will come out and win but that's a bigger conversation that we'll have in policy man thank you

all right so council just uh if there's no further question i'll look to you before you vote and this will send us the policy and work with parks and rec on that all right miss jennifer can you clear it okay councilmember mcmillan green all right all right thank you council all right council moving to the next item is councilmember mcnair i'll turn it over to you ma'am

Thank you Mr. Mayor. On this item, I am asking for or requesting research on how to encourage or compel owners in private streets and parking lots to be repaired. And what this is about is I propose the city staff to study private streets and parking areas. Actually, I sent you guys an email out earlier. You can go back and check. It's kind of lengthy, so I won't be reading that. so in areas to see who owns them and how well they're kept, come back with clear, simple ideas to fix or manage them so emergency services stay fast and safe and so streets are fair for everyone. What will happen, staff will make a complete list of private streets, parking areas, who owns them and their conditions, Check which laws applies to the rules that should change, if rules should change. Create different ideas, incentives, rules, and small pilots with rough costs and timelines. Talk to people who are affected. asking staff bring back a full policy plan in the month about a month of December 2026 okay let's talk about why it matters so important streets are privately owned and not well maintained which can slow emergency responders and city work the city needs a clear plan we do not have What will be delivered? A report on ownership and condition, notes on relevant law, several policy ideas with costs and timelines, a plan to engage stakeholders, consideration on how to implement a fund and fund any plan, I really talk about a timeline. December 2026 costs talk about cost for now mainly planning in analysts. If a program move forward later they could be ongoing costs, but no big upfront spending yet. Risk and how they would be handled. Legal issues involve the city attorney early, public opposition, do proactive outreach, budget limits, base decisions on solid data, consider pilot implementation, use a step-by-step plan with a clear lead department. And next step, Start data collection and legal scoping now. Create draft policy ideas and outreach plan in four to eight weeks. Meet with stakeholders and prepare for December briefing. And this is my presentation.

And actually you guys are in question.

And I have e-mailed you all you can go back to the e-mails little lengthy with more detail. So if you have any question now, I can ask the city attorney.

I don't think we get any more details than that. All right. You do have a couple of questions. Councilmember Green and hair.

Yeah. Hair and green. Thank you, Mayor. I do understand this I really do I do understand at least with the parking portion maybe even some lighting but especially parking portions because I have turned some items in in some commercial areas but at the same time I do appreciate all the details that you gave they very much needed I would love to see us to move with patience and guidance. And with this, you're talking about private owners. They're already stripped down now, making them pave or whatever. I mean, we have to proceed with a whole lot of caution in how we handle the private business owner and putting that additional weight on them. But i i do understand i know some areas right now will not call out that i have sent in myself uh concerning uh parking lots that need to be parked in front of in front of restaurants so that's it i want to use up all of your your time all right thank you councilman mcgreen

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member McNair, can you give me, without calling out a business name, can you give me a street name or a location like what you're... I'm having a hard time following exactly. Are we talking about something like... what we were what was brought to our attention off Bragg Boulevard where the old King Theatre was where it was a private street that everybody utilized as a public street because the owner allowed it or are we talking about something different I'm just a little bit confused I want to make sure I understand I can give you an example of a particular street up across Strickland Bridge you said Strickland Bridge

yes apple cross on for trickle break yeah is that a private street is it's got a grand time yes sir no that's one of the streets that's a good example okay that's a good there's another good one too yeah so i've been dealing with that since 2022. um the residents there in y'all hear out please

Well, I was going to.

Do I get three more minutes?

No. So I'm trying to see, did Council Member Green get her question answered? Because you got it.

I just gave an example.

Attorney Michael.

I'm not familiar with that. So I'm still struggling a little bit. So I guess I'm just trying to get in my mind. what the ask is specifically around. I get what she explained. I understand that. I'm just trying to visualize it.

So I think what you're saying is staff would analyze it and if it met a certain criteria, right? There are certain private streets rather than the one that I may have called Colvin Lane that runs to my backyard. It's only used by me. versus something like Apple Cross that has a number of residents served. So you're asking for a differentiation.

Yeah, we just don't have a count on how many streets in the entire city.

Yeah, and I thought we should because we addressed this. We don't have any of that stuff. Okay.

So I got one maybe that I'm familiar with and maybe Council Member Honduras can help me because this one's in his district. So the street that's right behind yours, why am I drawing a blank?

Farm Brook.

Farm, yes.

What's the name of it? Farm Brook. Off of Morganton Rd.

Yeah. It's a private street. But I'm sure that trash trucks go down it, and the sanitation goes down it. So that's what we're talking about, correct? Got it. Thank you.

Emergency vehicles. All right. City vehicles. Council Member Hodgson-Jones.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member McNair. I like it. I agree with Dean Herr. I could think of a lot of examples where this would if done right, have a positive impact. I could also think of, if not done right, where we can maybe create a solution that's worse than the problem, maybe. But my recommendation, or my request of you, if you're willing to consider a friendly amendment, because we all serve on the business economic development, yourself, Dean Herr, myself, and Councilmember Davis, to have staff look at it but if we bring it through committee so the committee can work with staff and then we'll bring it back to council um because um I think there's some um I think we could make some positive impact if we do it right again because to your point Farm Brook private streets if if the if the private street or property is at a minute you still got until Councilmember Jones all right

I mean catch up with you know just this quick just what Councilman here I mentioned for me I would just want to with the staff doing to give if approved to make sure that we were definitely look at that private rights private property rights

uh aspect and and really really leverage that because like i said i can i can see some potential harm but i definitely see the benefit in that that's all i want to say thank you mr mayor all right so councilmember mcnair i think that i respond to yeah you got 26 seconds okay um actually i think i do believe that the community development and revitalization committee also um is looking at this can look at this So I don't know which one but we would because the but he is with each other with what was the deal in that.

Well, I think when you have it is that staff will assess it and categorize some that I'm more have you used in others, you know for the city vehicles go back to service 25 residents that's different than one. And so I think you know you've got public safety got services and so you're asked to get it to the next point which is yes, but in the report point X okay. all right so council um saying we've had discussion is there uh can we take a consensus vote to uh send this item to come back to us with a few options did you want a policy you want to say yeah i'm sure it's going to be you're good with that policy working with staff Councilmember McNair this is your call did you want a committee to read to analyze this working with staff or did you want this to just go straight to staff policy I wanted to go straight to staff right now

So I mean, they won't be.

Yeah, I think policy may let you work through some of the nuances. It policies policy.

Oh, yeah. I was talking about this. Okay.

I was talking about this economic development because Councilman McNair is on there.

Whichever way said it again.

Just need to get to some clarification.

I don't think you're on policy committee. I was saying business economic development because Dean Hare, yourself, myself, and Councilman Davis on business economic development.

That's the reason I suggested that one. I don't know that this only applies to businesses because this could be residential.

So I think policy- Economic development, right?

Right, but I think policy covers, it's an adjustment to the current.

Can I get input? It's your call. I would like to get input from the attorney and city manager on this one because it's getting a little complex here and it shouldn't be.

We can, of course, take it to any committee that the council chooses. This is likely going to be some type of assessment like you have in other areas of the policy committee as reviewed. the some of the same considerations that came up in the last item about streetlights are going to be magnified here because unlike streetlights where you have a private street let's say Applecross the owners are out of town and the tenants are local and so how do you make improvements to that are charged to the tenants but not the owner and stuff so we've got a got some substantial work we need to go through yes i will be happy to drop it to either one um but When we've done this before, and Byron covered some of this, we talked about paving of soil streets some time ago. When Dr. Hare was on, it's that time I think as well. You've got to be able to state the public purpose, and typically for like Applecross, those are apartments, I think, or condos. And I don't know that our trash trucks go down those. But again, we'd be happy to take a look at it. Staff can come back if there's some within 30 days with an outline and then y'all can decide. But policy, community, business. It's your request, ma'am. Okay, we'll send it to the policy committee.

Okay, all right. Thank you. So, council, this is a vote for policy to review and we'll come back with their recommendation. All right, look to you for your votes. who's working the boys okay all right councilmember McMillan green all right motion carries good job councilman McNair yeah we'll recess this meeting and pick it back up at uh eight point Well, good evening. Good afternoon, everyone or evening will call our meeting back to order. We were on recess, so we had the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the meeting. So Council will pick back up where we left off. This portion of our meeting includes announcements and recognitions, which we have several very important guests in the audience tonight that we look forward to announcing and recognizing their presence. And so we'll we'll get to that and so with that uh we'll ask that mr daniel edwards and the director of solid waste and the assistant director and staff and spiffy would please come to the podium

The City of Fayetteville Solid Waste Division launched its mascot contest on September 16th, 2024, inviting local K through 12 students to help create a character that could make solid waste education more engaging and memorable. The contest received media coverage from WRAL and offered $500 scholarship to the winning student. Student Iris Nyang's creation, Spiffy, was selected as the winning design. On February 10th, 2025, Fayetteville City Council recognized the contest's top 10 students who each received awards, with Iris receiving the scholarship as the overall winner. The announcement of the winning design The announcement of the winning design also received coverage from WRAL. Following the contest, Spiffy began the transition from student created concept into an educational ambassador for the solid waste division. The character was developed. into a cartoon version and incorporated into the division's website outreach efforts creating a recognizable and approachable way to communicate with residents about solid waste services and environmental responsibility building on that foundation the division took the next step in bringing spiffy from screen to scene by transforming the character into a full-size mascot SPIFI will support community events, school visits, and educational programs, while helping communicate important messages about proper waste disposal, recycling, illegal dumping, and community pride. What began as a student's vision has now developed into a long-term community engagement and education tool for the Solid Waste Division. As Spiffy begins making appearances throughout the community, he will help strengthen the connection between residents and solid waste services while encouraging everyone to do their part to keep Fayetteville Spiffy clean.

Well, Spiffy, I see he's a man of few words, huh? All right, well, let's, yeah. Spiffy, if you don't mind, let's get a picture with you.

Uh-oh. Mayor, I'm going to have you come to the side here. Perfect.

All right.

Perfect.

Three, two, one. Stay there. All right. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Pause right here. Pause. Oh, the student. Sorry.

Can't do without the student.

Thank you.

All right.

Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Stay there.

Well, thank you again to Director Edwards and to, hello? Okay, thank you. Thank you again to Director Edwards, to Ms. Iris for the design, and to Spiffy. And just a reminder to the community how important it is to recycle and to make sure that we all work together to keep our city clean and presentable. So thank you to our team. They work very hard every day. uh but of course none of this partnership would be possible without the residents so remember if you see illegal dump sites or when it's time to throw something away or if you can help us tremendously by cleaning up around your immediate area if you see trash or plastics particularly here or near around the storm drain that helps us out a lot if you can uh put that in the recyclable and the blue can is for recyclable so thank you again Council, at this time, we will move now to very special presentations. So we will start with the Terry Sanford High School golf team, who are champions, and I'll turn it over to Council Member Green.

Fayetteville Office of the Mayor. Whereas the PGA High School Golf National Invitational is an invitation-only championship organized by the National High School Golf Association, bringing together the nation's most accomplished high school golfers to compete in a rigorous 54-hole stroke play tournament that celebrates excellence, dedication, and sportsmanship. And whereas the Terry Sanford Bulldogs, demonstrated exceptional skill, discipline, and teamwork throughout the tournament, building an early lead and securing a decisive 12 stroke victory. Led by team members Nate Horn, Hughes McCarthy, Walker Worth IV, Ryan Hedgeco, and Charlie Horn. With Nate Horn, Hughes McCarthy, and Walker Worth. each finishing among the tournament's top individual golfers. And whereas this remarkable national championship crowns an extraordinary season in which the Bulldogs also captured the 2026 North Carolina High School Athletic Association 6A state championship. Established a new North Carolina state scoring record and earned the distinction of being ranked the number one high school golf team in North Carolina. Solidifying their place among the nation's premier high school golf programs and whereas the accomplishments of the Terry Sanford High School Boys Golf Team reflect the unwavering commitment of the student athletes, coaches, parents, faculty, staff, and the supporters. whose dedication, leadership, and encouragement helped make this historic achievement possible. And whereas the city of Fayetteville proudly recognizes that the lessons learned through the game of golf, including integrity, perseverance, respect, teamwork, and relationship building, prepare young people for success. success both on and off the course while serving as an inspiration to future generations of student athletes throughout our community. Now therefore, I, Mitch Colvin, Mayor of the City of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and on behalf of the City Council and over 210,000 residents, do recognize the eighth day of September in the year 2026. in honor of Terry Sanford High School Golf Team. And witness whereof, I have here unto set my hand and cause the great seal of the city of Fayetteville to be affixed this eighth day of September, 2026. Signed, Mitch Colvin, Mayor.

So I have Councilmember Honduras up here with me tonight because he reminded me that while Terry Sanford is in my district, I am not a bulldog because I would be a golden bull. So anyway, so he's gonna give me a little hand tonight and we just wanna tell them and express to them how proud we are of you. This is a huge accomplishment and I wanna read a little bit of the stats for you that were not read in the proclamation. So when they started out, they set, North Carolina high school record books by setting a new scoring record at the boys golf championship they posted a remarkable two-day team score of 558 which was 10 under par to claim the state championship during the national championship in the opening round they had a 14 under par team score building a commanding eight shot lead Leading into the second day, Nate Horn led the individual field with an outstanding seven under par 65, earning the first round individual lead. The Bulldogs went on that day to continue to be dominant, and the final round they posted another eight under par team score, and they finished the tournament with an impressive 22 under par, capturing the PGA High School Golf National Championship by 12 strokes. so you golfers in the room know what it took to accomplish that so we are extremely proud and we have a certificate and um there is a lapel pin on here for y'all i have also so just don't mix it leave it walker worth Congratulations. Dianne Henshko. Akil Onan.

Did I kill that name? Okay. Close. Sorry about that.

Congratulations.

Ty Court. Who's the fourth? Jonathan Keith.

I do want to acknowledge Coach Moorhead and Coach Micah Vigrinik. I was trying not to slaughter that one, too. But anyway, I have your other players. Some of the players could not be here. Some of them have gone on to college. So they are not here with us tonight. But just know that they had had a very successful year. Thank you.

All right, next we will celebrate 50 year anniversary for transit. Miss Tiffany Neal, is she in the audience? Come on up. The proclamation reads, whereas the Fayetteville Area Systems of Transit, FAS, proudly celebrates its 50th anniversary, marking five decades of dedicated public transportation service that enhance mobility, strengthen the local economy, and improve the quality of life for residents throughout the city of Fayetteville. And whereas FAS was established in 1976 when the city of Fayetteville assumed operation of the transit system from a privately owned operated Cape Fear Transit Bus Company. Continuing a tradition of providing reliable transportation for the community while laying a foundation for future growth and innovation. And whereas what began with a fleet of 23 buses operating seven days a week between Fayetteville and Little Rock Fish and Hope Mills has evolved into a modern transit system that now provides nearly 1.6 million passengers annually, connecting more than 6,000 riders a day to employees, health care, education, shopping, recreation, and other essential destinations. And whereas, throughout its history, FAST has served as a vital public service and economic driver by expanding access to opportunity, supporting workforce development, reducing transportation barriers, and fostering a more connect and vibrant community. And whereas, through tremendous growth in advancement in transit services, FAST has remained steadfast in its mission to provide safe, reliable, affordable, and accessible transportation while meeting the evolving needs of Fayetteville residents and visitors with professionalism and excellence. And whereas as FAST commemorates 50 years of service, its legacy stands as a testament to the vision, dedicated, and commitment of its employees, leaders, and community partners, inspiring future generations to continue building a transportation system that connects people, creates opportunity, and move Fayetteville forward. also let me say tri-transit they're going places now therefore I do hereby honorably proclaim the year of 2026 as the celebration of Fayetteville Area Systems of Transit 50th anniversary and witness whereof I here to set my hand and cause this great seal of the city of Fayetteville to be affixed this day 8 September 2026. Give it up for our transit.

Congratulations.

Hey, y'all. Come on, turn around. Let's face counsel. Let's let them see who we really are. council 50 years ago 50 years ago transit was taken over from a small private transportation company and i think the idea was to obviously keep our community moving so fast forward you like that fast forward to today we are still here through the good the bad and everything in between it's because of the men and women you see standing before you that we are able to still keep our community moving through covet through hurricanes, through protests, through even the devastating losses that we've experienced in the last 90 days, we are still keeping our community moving. Because of your support, because of our city manager and city leadership support, we are excited because it's only up from here. We are excited about new buses coming in the fall of next year. We are excited because of you. We have modernized bus stop amenities coming throughout our service area. All right. We are excited because we partnered with FSU even to upgrade their stops and to add new stops in their area. And we are even more excited that we are going to expand service in West Fayetteville. That's what I'm talking about. So you want to ask me, you want to know where Trans will be in the next 50 years? Let me just say this. With the men and women standing before you, I encourage you to come ride with us because we're going places. Thank you. I like that.

Appreciate you guys. Thank you.

Y'all good. Appreciate you.

Thank you. Have a good night.

Our next proclamation is our Day of Remembrance. This is our 9-1-1 celebration. Let us be reminded, this Friday, we will have a celebration at the ASOM directly across the street beginning at 9 AM. And our fire department will also have a stair climb at Segra Stadium starting at 7 PM. I hope you can take time to join us. The proclamation reads, whereas the city of Fayetteville and the citizens of our great city join with our fellow Americans across the nation in honoring and remembering those who lost their lives in that terrible morning of September 11th, 2001. And whereas we continue to offer support to the family and friends who've lost loved ones in the devastating events of that day. And especially our firefighters, police, and first responders who continue to step forward and serve our communities with dedication and vigilance. And whereas in the year since September 11th, 2001, American troops have served and sacrificed around the world to protect America's people. And whereas, in honor of all those lives who was lost 25 years ago, in honor of all the heroes who have given their whole souls to the cause of this nation, every moment since may today not only be served with solemn remembrance, but also with renewed resolve. Now therefore, I'm Mitch Colvin, Mayor of the City of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and on behalf of City Council and the 210 residents, do hereby honorably proclaim September 11th, 2026, National Day of Remembrance. And witness whereof I here to set my hand and cause this great seal of the city to be affixed this day, September 28th, September 8th, 2026.

Thank you guys, ladies.

No comments from chief, fire chief, police chief?

Well, if I'd have known this was happening, I'd have fixed my hair before I came up here. You know, 9-11 was 25 years ago. Holy cow. I was a young fireman. Didn't know what was going on in the world. But I will say that the world was a lot nicer place and people were a lot nicer. And I would urge everybody to think about that and try to go back that way.

As Chief Dove, I was also a younger man as well. I actually was at the Pentagon when that plane struck the Pentagon, and I remember that day like it was yesterday. And I'm sure many of you all also remember that day. But it was definitely one of those situations that actually brought our country all together. And it's unfortunate when a tragic moment like that does that. But hopefully again, we can continue working together just to make our day in terms of being safety and out there and just making sure that we keep our country safe. So we are working always to do what we can with our partners, fire, and all our federal partners to keep us safe. So thank you. Thank you, Chief.

Our next proclamation is for our Blue Star families. As Chief just mentioned, those who deploy and give their lives for the safety of our country, they leave families behind. So we want to recognize them today. Whereas Blue Star families seek the empowered military families by connecting them with their neighbors, individuals, and organizations to create vibrant communities of mutual support. And whereas Blue Star families annual designates this week beginning the fourth Saturday in September and concluding eight days after a Blue Star Welcome Week. And whereas during the week we recognize 600,000 military families who move to new communities each year. Whereas only 39% of military families respondents to the 2024 military family lifestyle survey reported that they feel a sense of belonging to their local civilian community. And whereas a sense of belonging is essential to the well-being and readiness of military families. And whereas we commit to ensuring that military and veteran families feel a strong sense of belonging to their local civilian communities. And whereas we express gratitude for the sacrifices made by the service members and their families. And whereas we continue. We encourage community members nationwide to do their part and welcome military and veteran families into their communities. Now, therefore, I, Mitch Colvin, Mayor of the City of Fayetteville, North Carolina, on behalf of City Council and 210 residents, do hereby honorably proclaim this day, 8 September, as you were, September 26th through October 4th, 26th, as Blue Star Welcome Week. In witness whereof I here to set my hand and cause this great seal of the city of Fayetteville to be affixed this day, 8 September 2026.

Thank you, good evening. I'd like to thank the mayor and the city council for recognizing Blue Star Family's efforts that we have going on and the support we've had from city staff as well. We did bring you all a Welcome Week t-shirt. The goal of Welcome Week. is to engage, provide resources, and welcome military families that have recently PCSed to Fort Bragg. And as the proclamation stated, that starts on the last Saturday of September through the first Sunday in October. Denise is joining me this evening, Denise Langdon, our program director here for the Greater Fayetteville Region chapter. We have an entire week. programming and resources planned for those military families who are new to Fayetteville and to Fort Bragg again thank you for the support always and if we got the wrong t-shirt sizes you know how to reach us and our last recognition is our biggest

RECOGNITION.

SO AS IN COUNCIL MEMBER ANTONIO JONES COMES, PASTOR CAMPBELL, I SEE YOU ROLLED DEEP, MAN.

ALL I NEED TONIGHT IS A CONTAINER.

But I will turn it over to Councilmember Jones, but certainly on behalf of myself and the City Council, we want to make a special presentation to you and your lovely family, because you can't do this without good backing. And so if she would be invited, your wife, Ms. Campbell.

Thank you. I just want to read something about this great man. Pastor T.W. Campbell has been a stabilizing force and a source of hope in the area for more than 50 years, serving not only as a man of faith, but as a beacon of resilience and unity. His work has directly addressed some of our most pressing challenges, violence, food insecurity, family instability, and the erosion of community trust. Through his hands-on ministry, food and clothing assistance, youth mentorship, crisis intervention, Pastor Campbell has consistently filled the critical gaps these areas. Over the years, he has personally responded to families in moments of tragedy and violence, consistently providing safe spaces for young people seeking help, supporting residents who have felt disconnected. His sincere efforts have strengthened the community bonds, stabilized families during difficult times in their lives. More importantly, for the city of Fayetteville's long-term vitality, Pastor Campbell's ministry has helped cultivate a sense of belonging that encourage residents not only to remain in our city, but to invest in our city. With intentional development, Pastor Campbell has demonstrated his sincere desire to invest in areas that then empower residents to take pride in their community. By improving the quality of life, restoring dignity and creating a supportive environment for families. His work contributes to his further healthier neighborhoods and ultimately our city's impact. Whenever any of our communities feel safe, supported, and connected, they grow. And Pastor T.W. Campbell has used quality, faith, and he has quietly did that for years. I know this was not expected. I know you do things behind the scenes, as I like to say, but this is very well deserving.

Bless you.

You can't...

The mayor will present the key to the city to Pastor T.W. Campbell. And Pastor Campbell, again, on behalf of the city of Fayetteville, 210,000 residents, the mayor and the city council, our city key, our highest honor is proudly presented to you, Pastor T.W. Campbell, in grateful recognition of your devoted interest and unwavering commitment to this community. Thank you.

I wish I had $20.

may let you know what all counts to go with all counts. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

We owe you, Pastor, we owe you. You got that right.

But I will leave a cash out for you. Brother Hare, I will. I owe you will not work. It will not work. We can't put that in the bank. But on behalf of myself, my family, thank you Councilman Jones for doing this presentation tonight to our mayor. Thank you so much. I want to thank our church family. The Refuge Community Church. We are the only church on L.A. Donham Road. Amen. I didn't say we were the only church in Fayetteville, but we're the only church on L.A. Donham Road. Amen. And I come tonight, I want to continue doing what we've been doing down on Person Street. I talked to Councilman Davis and we're going to continue to do that because there's a huge need in that area. And I want to go back and do that again to feed, clothe, whatever we can do for that area, then I'm here for that. I thank you again so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And only because this is Tuesday night. And we don't have midweek service. You know, we'll be on Zoom. But nobody brought me a container where I could receive this offering. So I'm going to be okay. Thank you again, Refuge.

Thank you again. Thank you again, Pastor Campbell. Thank you, Council Member Jones. Thank you to Refuge Church and to the Campbell family. We were told that you want to announce an event you have coming up.

Yes, sir.

What is coming up?

I just celebrated a birthday. And Mr. Mayor, September is designated as Legend Month. Now, I have a couple of people in the church that, you know, have a problem with that. They want to take September out of the calendar. But I'm praying for their strength. I really am. But we will celebrate our 144th homecoming the second Sunday in November. We also have a tailgate on that, in September, I'm sorry, on the 19th. If you're all in the area, come by, we'll feed you. Hey, we won't take up any money. But we will celebrate our tailgate. This is in honor of our homecoming. So we invite you to come by and share with us, if you will. Councilman John, would you come and let me take a picture with you, if you don't mind. I'd like to put this, could you do that for me, sir? All right, yeah. I'm telling you, they smoothed this thing over on me, so I don't normally let people get nothing on me.

But they got me this time.

Thank you, sir. Bless you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you again, sir. Thank you again. We're going to leave so you can go ahead on to the next one. All right.

Yes, sir.

I'll see you again. I'll have that for you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we thank you again to members of Refuge Church, Pastor Campbell, and to those who have come to support him. We certainly recognize him and all of those recognized tonight from our FAS to certainly 9-1-1, Terry Sanford Golf Team, and the Blue Star and the great work that they're doing in our community and all of those who are recognized. At this time, we'll turn it over to Dr. Doug Hewitt, the city manager for

some announcements thank you mayor um that was that was awe-inspiring to hear about the birthdays you know i've got one coming up 142 days and um i don't know if y'all track that kind of stuff but i track it for you so you don't have to forget But some exciting news and an early birthday present for me, but really a present for the residents along the Murchison Road corridor, for the city council for all your hard work, and really to everybody in the city of Fayetteville. As you may have heard last week, Dr. Hare, from the shouting that you and I probably were doing across town, the city was awarded a Murchison Choice Neighborhood Grant. The city and the housing authority were awarded $25 million through the FY25 Choice Neighborhood Implementation Grant. 25.115578. Leave it all in there. Leave it all in there. This is a historic first for our region and advances the next phase of the Merkerson Choice Transformation Plan, a plan built together with residents and partners. The federal investment leverages more than $530 million in public and private investment. For people like me from Empire Road, that is over half a billion dollars. That is significant investment, historic even. While replacing all 60 units of the 56-year-old Murchison townhouses, one for one, and creating 323 new mixed income apartments across the Murchison and Elliott property sites. Additionally, the program expands supportive services for residents and funds physical improvements throughout the surrounding neighborhood. Mercantile Choice will be led by the city's Economic and Community Development Department, the Fayetteville Metropolitan Housing Authority, with Penrose serving as the housing lead and Urban Strategies as the people lead. Maricopa and members of council, your leadership and support made this possible. You remember when we were tramping around D.C. and we didn't know if it was going to pay off? Did it pay off? It did, it did, it did. I also would like to acknowledge the work of the city staff, federal metropolitan housing authority team for the dedication and work and executing this plan. And to the residents of the Murchison Corridor, thank you for helping to shape this vision and staying engaged throughout the process. And finally, where are my ambassadors? I see you there. The Merkerson Choice Ambassadors, your voice, advocacy, and commitment to your community, our city, is nothing short of amazing. This is a reminder of what is possible in a community. It's residents and partners work together toward a shared vision. And tonight, I'd like to take a moment to recognize and acknowledge some individuals who are here who made this possible. Could the Merkison Choice Ambassadors, the ECD Department, the Federal Metropolitan Housing Authority staff, please come up, and also, council, if you would take a picture with them to mark this historic milestone. Chris and team, any words you'd like to share? Come on up.

Yes. I can't talk to you right now, buddy. I'm going to talk to you.

Mr. Colley. Yeah, I'll be brief because y'all have already had a long evening and got quite a ways to go. I just want to echo what the city manager said. My team and the housing authority team did a lot to put together a strong application, but... I didn't come up with $531 million in leverage. That was this community. That was everyone from the school system and the county to the university, Fayetteville State University, to city council and the millions, tens of millions that city council has put into this area in the past couple of years. Without all of that, I don't know that we would have won. And there's one thing that we haven't put in a whole lot of press releases. So the folks from the Housing and Urban Development, the Choice Team called us up the other morning to congratulate us personally for winning one of four grants in the country. And also to let us know that we were the top scoring grant in 13 submissions nationwide. We had a couple of things right there at the last minute. As y'all remember, there was some question about whether this grant was still gonna be around or not. We had to rally the troops there in the last 60 days to get it done. There was also a lot of questions about how things were really going to come together, getting meetings with some really important folks at the last minute where I think every single one of y'all leaned in a little bit to help make that happen. I know the mayor leaned in quite a bit to help make some of those happen. So thank y'all. I appreciate it. This has been quite a six-year journey to get to here, and we got eight to spend this money, so let's do it. Thank you.

Thank you again, Mr. Colley, Mr. Manager, Ms. Leakes, the Ambassador, and Housing Authority. I was going to invite you. Did you want to speak on behalf of Housing Authority? Okay.

All right. He did, and so did the... our city manager thank you so much um i usually shoot from the hip um by the way i'm cynthia leaks i live in the murchison corridor but this time i decided to just write things out because there are quite a few people to thank that aren't here you know we started what six years ago and I want to give a shout out first of all to the grassroots supporters our citizens because we had citizens when we started off that didn't want it or didn't know what it was so we did a lot of convincing and and you know you know true grassroots talking meeting people where they are to get the point across so i think we're all excited about it And I want to thank the North Carolina chapter of American Planning Association because you remember in 2023, we received the North Carolina Marvin Collins Award. You know, remember that award solidified the hard work that Chris, Nelson, Alex, Derek, and the ED team and the city ambassadors accomplished for the city of Fayetteville. in the advancing equality category for the Murchison choice neighborhood plan so we were well on our way to receiving this grant. And I also want to thank Adam Rosa and the team with Collabro Planning. You all remember that. We worked hard knocking on doors and doing all those surveys. We had up to 30, 40, sometimes 50 people on the surveys to get to this point. The former economic development staff, Dominique Ashley, she was great. Michelle Smith-Riordan. Taurus Freeman Ebony Sampson and Jackie Bell they all have come and worked and moved on the former city manager Kelly Strickland former city council member Kathy Jensen Chiquilla Ingram Mario Benevente they were here when we started that. So hats off to them. And last but not least, the academy, Grassroots Academy, came down from A&T University and they coached us all the way. So we were out here implementing what we were learning as ambassadors. That would be Dr. Michelle Ely and Dr. Theresa Lee of Cooperative Extension at North Carolina A&T State University. And last but not least, my ambassador buddies. Only one is here, Sharonda. We walked and we walked and we walked. We got some letters you in the play. And Johnette Henderson's not here. And I think she's a little under the weather. And Kimberly Williams, they worked hard with us as well. And I just want to thank you for allowing us to be the voice of the citizens in our community. And I want to thank each one of you for all the work that you put into this wonderful work.

20 million.

I wanted to say 50 because the first one was 50, but this one was, it's just, I don't know what to say. It's the first step in revitalizing Murchison Road, and I just can't wait. I can't wait to be a part of it. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being here.

All right. Thank you again to Mr. Cawley, all of the names mentioned, to Ms. Cynthia Leak and all the members of the neighborhood and the community that came together. So excellent outcome for what it looks like when we work together. So thank you. Thank you to Ms. Weeks as well, Ms. Dawn. So let her know that we appreciate all the hard work her and the Federal Metropolitan Housing Authority. So we're looking forward to seeing some shovels in the ground. Yeah. And so we'll look forward to the transformation. But thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hewitt and your team as well. Council, with that, we will conclude our announcements and recognition section. Now, as we move to 8.0, is the public forum. city council policy 120.9 per city council policy. This is a time that residents may have an input and a voice in what goes on in their city. The public forum will not last any longer than one hour. Each speaker is limited to three minutes each to address the city council on issues related to the city of Fayetteville. No time will be yielded to any speaker by another speaker. Any remaining speakers at the conclusion of the public forums list that did not have an opportunity to speak and address the council will have the option to have their name placed at the beginning of the next scheduled public forum meeting. All non-residents will be placed at the end of the list Individuals unable to attend in person may mail written comments or email publiccomments at FayettevilleNC.gov. Written comments will be summarized by the city clerk during the meeting. So before the city clerk calls again, We welcome all of those who have pressed your way down to sign up to speak tonight. We hope to have a great opportunity to allow you to say your piece. Please maintain the quorum of the room, and that we will have an excellent time to hear one another out. So with that, Madam Clerk, please call the first speaker.

Mayor, we have 30 speakers. The first eight are rollovers from the last meeting, and we have two written comments. Our first speaker is Ms. Cheyenne Dos Santos. And I know we have some that are still in overflow, so. Ms. Cheyenne Dos Santos. Not present? Our next speaker.

Overflow can hear us though, correct?

Yes, but it's delayed by a couple of seconds.

Oh yeah, they came in, they came in.

Okay, okay. Our next speaker is Mr. Nick Klein. Mr. Nick Klein, oh, here.

Good evening, Mr. Klein. How's it going?

Wasn't actually prepared to speak today. I was supposed to speak, let's see, August, July 6, there we go. Consistent things that I've seen from both Cumberland County and from Fayetteville City is that across the board, Y'all were not prepared for a data center, but someone agreed to it. We can't specifically say who, but we have a pretty good idea. It's not going to contribute to what you think it is. Data centers are literally just massive building versions of computers. If you think of a liquid cooling system inside of a PC, that's what you're looking at in these massive scales. The same way that you have to change out that PC liquid, they have to do it in a blow down. They still don't have those regulations set down either. They even built into their business plan to get around all that. But you guys already know that. Just preaching to the choir. I know business is made off of gray areas. I'm saying let's make this a little bit smaller, because we've already got a federal regulation from 67 in DuPont versus West Virginia. That's when the precedent was sent for 0.0004 parts per million. Excuse me, trillion, because it wasn't million. It's supposed to be million, but they presented it as trillion so they could get it passed. If you want to fact check that, they can go all the way back to the lobbyists. Recently, they overturned, can't think of it. I'm blanking on what the exact official adjudication was, but it overturned the right to corporations having the benefit of the doubt. That means that we can offer our own proposals and they won't immediately side with the corporation. But if we give them the right to build without our input, we lose that. No, that's it.

Mayor, next speaker is Ms. Vanessa Reed.

Good evening, Ms. Reed.

Hello. Hello, my name is Vanessa Reed. I am a county resident. I'm a simple woman, and I'm sure you are all much smarter than me. I mean, you all are sitting up there as representatives of thousands of people. So it genuinely confuses me that so many of us show up to these meetings month after month and it feels like we have to beg and plead with y'all to do the right thing for our community. It's all given me pause and made me mad and sad at a time that our national and state politics look and feel more like a circus than a force of stability. The fact that the same nonsense has trickled down to our local government in this way and at this time is maddening. Like I said, I'm a simple girl, homeschooled, turned foster, turned adoptive, mama of five. When my family decided to serve some of the most vulnerable members of our community by becoming a foster family, one of the most humbling and centering things we learned, like etched in our soul learned, is the act of centering the actual most vulnerable person in a situation that they didn't ask for, cause, deserve, or want. However, they carry the wounds of the situation the most profound way, and that would be the foster children. I mean, how was I supposed to get along with the family who made choices that brought that child to my home? And how was a mama supposed to trust a complete stranger to care for and be gentle with her baby, her heartbeat living out of her chest? not knowing me, not to mention everyone else in the constellation of care, social workers, supervisors, judges, siblings, attorneys, guardian ad litems, it goes on and on. How are we supposed to be on the same page working toward the same goal? By centering the child. As a foster mom, I didn't have to like biological parents and biological parents certainly didn't have to like or respect me. But because we both loved and cared for a child and we were working for their best interests, we could get past a lot of the sloppiness that came along when emotions run high. Being a small part of the reunification of families in this county is one of the most humbling and transformative experiences of my life. So why am I talking about all this? Well, it's because I want to ask each and every one of you, while looking in your eyes, who are you centering with your vote on these UDOs? and ultimately with the data center. Are you censoring those you took an oath to serve and represent, people like those of us that have shown up here over and over again and those who are not here for a myriad of reasons? Or are you censoring a faceless corporation with shallow promises or an ultra wealthy business owner who lives anywhere but where a data center is being built? Or worse, are you censoring your own personal bottom line because your nine to five business will come into a windfall? when or if this happens. Because we, the mamas in this room and the mamas in your district, would like for you to do the right thing for our community as a whole, especially the residents of Eastover, because surely they are considered the most vulnerable in this situation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor, our next speaker is Ron Peter Pintak Davina Garcia. Mr. Pintuck, Davina Garcia. Not present? Our next speaker is Miss Jeannie Dees.

Hey, Miss Dees. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Colvin. Good to see you. Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening. My name is Jeannie Dees and I'm speaking on behalf of my husband Dale and myself. We live on Custer Avenue about a mile from a proposed data center site as the car goes and about three quarters of a mile as the crow flies. This area is currently outside city limits but within the established area in which the city of Fayetteville can annex and they do in fact have an annexation request. Because we are not city residents, we are not allowed to input on the makeup of the council, whose members can make decisions that have an immediate detrimental impact on our quality of life. This is both unfair and un-American. Government interference without government representation. Since we first met over 40 years ago, Dale and I dreamed of the home in the country we hoped to have one day. Through decades of hard work and careful saving, we achieved that dream 15 years ago. We are modest people and our home is modest as well. But it affords us exactly the type of quiet country lifestyle we sought, surrounded by natural beauty and wildlife. Deer, coyotes, river otters, owls, hawks, flying squirrels, fox squirrels, pileated woodpeckers are some of the lives that share our properties with us. A blue heron regularly feeds in our pond. We still see fireflies in the evening. This is an increasing rarity in our world and in Cumberland County. But wildlife would be driven away by the pollution and noise of a busy data center. My farmer neighbor's livestock would suffer right alongside their owners. Parts of our wetlands would be destroyed. A delicate ecosystem forever damaged because such damage cannot be undone. The Army Corps of Engineers, 53 miles of flood mitigation, built in Eastover 80 years ago would be irrevocably damaged as well leading to flooding in my neighbor's properties flooding that the city of Fayetteville would not have any obligation to do anything about because while they want to annex the data center they don't want to annex us and provide us services we're expected to deal with the problem while getting nothing in return I have real concerns of the ability of our local resources infrastructure to support this type of venture. The water demands alone will strain our small rural community, a community already in drought. On a personal level, my property value would decrease as few people would voluntarily live near the noisy, dirty, ugly industrial complex that a data center is. Thank you.

Mayor our next speaker is Mr. Dale Dease.

Good evening Mr. Dease.

Thank you, thank you. We didn't collaborate any at all. Mine's going to follow pretty much hers but honest to goodness we didn't speak about this. It's just we live together, we've been together for years and years so our stories are similar. I want to thank some of you on this city council route the bad number, not a great speaker summit to use some things here to help me. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Jones, Miss Green, Mr. McMillan, and Mr. Honduras appear to at least be willing to listen to us and put some type of effort into looking into this little bit deeper. Instead of just what appears to be like a headlong rush. into establishing a data center out there. We've been married a long time. The first house we bought was a Jim Walter home. We rented it. I don't know if you remember those or not, but they were pretty much prefabricated homes. When you shut the door, the whole wall would shake. We had electric baseboard heating, which we couldn't afford to use. In the wintertime, our deodorant, which was the roll-on type, I don't think you'd find that anymore, would freeze. We worked hard our whole lives. We bought this place out in Eastover. The house is what we liked, or what is the house that we like. But it was the land, it was the location, it was the scenery. Some evenings when we come home after dark, our headlights are shining across the front lawn and there are deer, a herd of deer in our front yard bedded down.

It's that quiet and it's that peaceful.

It's a wonderful place to live. and we love you guys that are on our side or at least willing to help us we're trying to love the rest of you we really are but you're making it hard because in our view you're willing to either destroy or let it be destroyed our homes the places that many of them have lived out there for generations we're new we've been there 15 years but it's still our home and we learned uh to love these people that are out there they're our neighbors And we're just pleading with you to slow this down a little bit, just a little bit. And we understand this is a five-five split right now, so I'm gonna appeal to some of you that are on the other side to join us. And Mr. Davis, I would direct this to you. I understand you grew up out there, graduated from Cape Fear High School. We just need a little bit of time, a little slower pace to look at this carefully because there's a kind of a fury growing out there. I know you guys can feel it. You can tell it. This is not one of those meetings, but the other ones, it's come out very strongly. And people are extremely upset. I'm upset right now. My voice is a little bit shaky because you're willing to destroy my home. And I can't let that happen. And nobody out there is going to let it happen either. Thank you for your time.

Madam Clerk.

Mayor, our next speaker is Miss Paula Thomason. Miss Paula Thomason. Not present. Our next speaker is Miss Samantha Wyand. Miss Samantha Wyand. Not present. Our next speaker is Taylor Welch Randall. Taylor Welch Randall. Next speaker is Marlee Palmer Marlee Palmer Next speaker Miss Felice Lockamy Good evening Miss Lockamy Good evening how are y'all

I'm here. I know you probably don't want me here, but I'm here. Don't feel bad. I can take rejection. I'm sensitive. I'm going to state some of my things, and I'm open. I'm stating things that have happened to me, and I see things have happened to other people. It's hard to stand and hear people in their plea with you. And I know I got pleased too. You don't listen and you feel like you don't care. You sit and you look at us, you get those looks, you don't listen. I got a sign on my street that says, trucks entering highway. It's a residential zone. And what did somebody tell me? Well, I didn't see it. It's 50 feet big. Everybody's telling you about things that they don't like, things that they're concerned about for their neighborhoods. Do you care? You live on this earth the way we do, all of you. But sometimes we start thinking, are they from earth? Are you from earth? Do you think that you got to breathe the air, you got to drink the water? you live in a neighborhood where you're begging them don't bring heavy industrial in our neighborhood don't bring that horrible dust don't drive your trucks up and down our road put it in your neighborhood see how you like it if you like it thank god you can have it all we ask for treat us like people remember your people too You gotta breathe, you gotta breathe the air. And when things happen and people say things to you that's not very pleasant, I can't say anything, but I probably feel it too. And I've seen those of you who stand up for us, and those of you who are in positions who don't. I know life can be hard for everybody. but you got to think you're making it look like you're 50 you're from another planet not earth you're a person just like we are okay think about that when you start passing these judgment things and making these decisions and pushing us to decide whether you're a lawyer the mayor All the hot shots, whoever you got, remember, when people said they voted for you, they did it on a trust. And don't betray them. Thank you, Ms. Lockhart. Like you do sometimes. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.

Mayor, our next speaker is Ms. Demetria Murphy.

Even miss Murphy.

Good evening there. First man, thank you for supporting my daughter's fundraiser Malik and protein. Thank you for supporting the trip to Alabama. Appreciate you guys. Good evening, council members and mayor. You guys know my name is Demetria Murphy. I'm the founder of Hildeville, the founder of the Community Reentry Coalition, and the owner of Divine Infinity Therapeutic Services, POLC. I'm a current PhD student completing research for Cumberland County so we can finally have our own and stop borrowing from other cities' data. I stand here tonight with one clear message. Our community matters. I want to address something directly first. i expect to be respected for my work not judged by your personal opinions about me i am not in this work for likes i understand that i am very unpopular popular comments from leadership does not reflect the truth of who i am my outcomes or my commitment to this community i will not respond today with emotions but with facts mr city mayor The first fact is that some elected county leaders, community leaders, and some elected leaders, you also call me when you need help. And your loved ones need assistance. You reach out to me too. Some additional facts. Under the Hill DeVille and the CRC in my therapeutic practice, I support families in crisis and I respond in real time for over 18 plus years I've done this work. I receive calls when homes have been shot up 40 times, incidents that never appear in any official crime data because no one died. Call when loved ones are coming home. Calls from prisons and jails. I get referrals. Calls when there is a distress in the community or a home. Not the beloved organizations that you guys praise. I provide reentry and mental health services from a converted room in my home. People come to me because they feel safe and respected and they get real results. I set up meetings with law enforcement, city officials, and service providers to get families what they need in real time. And despite having no building, no city support, and no city recognition, I produce measurable outcomes. I also work with the Youth Detention Center, and I work with youth in our communities. When parents have no support for behaviors or whatever they're facing, when I see firsthand the needs of our young people, our issues is not just a county problem, a city problem, or a community problem, it's an everyone's problem. The question is who's going to stand and who's going to sit? I meet regularly with agencies such as Mid Carolina, the local reentry councils, and other organizations. We work together. We share information. We collaborate to address barriers. The issue is we have businesses coming in who don't even want to support reentry. My work speak for itself. At the end of the day, I've been doing this, and I'll continue to stand and do this. Whether you like me, you dislike me, or whatever it is, one thing I can tell you, as Chief Brayton said to us, we're working to mitigate crime. We'll never stop crime. But everything I do, I've assisted over 150 individuals in getting jobs, housing, and everything.

Thank you.

You will respect me.

Thank you, Ms. Murphy.

Mayor, our next speaker is Mr. Zachary Traylor.

Mr. Traylor. Good evening.

Hello there. I'm actually gonna have something that's a little bit less stressful. I coach kids soccer at Jordan Soccer Complex, and then I play in the co-ed thing. I just wanted to bring up, cuz I've been here for like five years with the soccer thing, and there's been issues with the soccer program. And to start off, one of the big issues is we don't have enough fields. I coach six and seven year olds, and they have games all day Saturday. And then Sunday, all day, the fields are used again, so The fields are not the best. I know there's a contract, and it gets complicated, the relationship between Methodist University, the city, and FSC soccer. But a huge issue is there is a big soccer community here. Fort Bragg has it. Terry Sanford offers games. Douglas Byrd. It's a huge area, and it's not utilized properly. And the FSC soccer program. they don't allow for people who work with them to help these other nonprofit soccer clubs. And so we've had the Carolina Crew, the Fury who closed down, a lot of these is because of the infighting that happens at Jordan Soccer Complex and at uh with the the company and the contracts and all that stuff and it's a real issue because there's only eight fields and only two of them are technically owned by the city that can be used uh any day of the week so i wanted to bring that up just because i love kids soccer i love the kids they're they they bring us to our last nerve but i love seeing them be able to just kick a soccer ball well and i wanted to bring it up because the season starts this saturday so if anyone wants to see some kids try their best to kick a soccer ball please come out to jordan soccer complex that's all

Madam Clerk.

Mayor, our next speaker is Mr. Jose Cardona.

Mr. Cardona.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council.

I hope you're all doing well today. I am Jose I. Cardona. I live at 233 Edison Street in the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina. It took for 1990 and beyond. to finally get something going in Merchants and Road. Thank you, Lord. Little too late, but still good. I just hope that the people who will be going into these apartments and everything, that they would keep it clean, serviceable, and they would also be able to share it with other people. Today, as I came to the last time in front of you about the data centers, I talked to you about five elements, remember? The main element was the fifth element, which is the children. We've got to look forward to the future of what the children must have, will need, and we could get it from these people that are trying to build a data center here. I'm against it. I'm against it from the get-go. It's always everybody that's coming here. In 2007, July, to be perfectly clear, the city of East Dover, they ran away from the city of Fayetteville. They took the things and said, we don't want you to do nothing with Fayetteville because Fayetteville was anything like crazy. Remember Marshall Pitts? You know that. During that time period, everybody was going bananas. I come tonight not to tell the people of Eastover what to do or the city of Fayetteville, but I'm going to tell you that Cumberland County already got the six month moratorium already approved. Not only that, they're already working on the foundation of where they're going to put this thing. Regardless if they put it in which they can't, and neither can the city of Fayetteville. It's against the law. It's against their constitution. They have a city council over there. And not only that, you have to go through Raleigh before you can get this done and approved. You don't have no basis of doing this to them. But there's a but in everything in life, right? But if you decide to go with the Cumberland County and decide to take over the land, there's two options that you have that are very popular. You haven't even thought about it. One, you could take the swamp land that they have. You could dig everything out of the swamp land, build the data center in the swamp, and then cover it up. Believe it or not, we have 10 of them in the United States. We could also find an empty cave or cavern in the city of Fayetteville or in that area of the East Oval and put it in the cave. They don't have to be in the open air. They don't have to be in nobody's backyard. They could be, hey, make a cave, dig a hole, bury them. The temperatures would be much cooler, get it? And they would keep themselves nice and cool. But again, my worry is the fifth element. Again, my grandchildren, which I got 11, I want to see their future. I don't want it to do like my children. They left.

Thank you, Mr. Cardona. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Mayor, our next speaker is Mr. Benjamin Hultquist.

Good evening, sir.

My name is Ben Holtquist from Strongtowns Fayetteville. Last month I talked about the need to lower speed limits within the city to a maximum of 35 miles per hour. This reduction in speed would have major impact on the survivability of pedestrians in a crash, especially in school zones. This reduction will also have many other societal benefits at almost no cost in time to the drivers and they will even save money. This speed reduction on most of our streets would require redesign to influence people to drive at the lower speed limits, though. However, there are some streets that are not designed for 50 miles per hour, but still have 45 miles per hour speed limits. Rim Road between Cliffdale Road and Rayford Road is two lanes with no shoulder and open ditches for stormwater. Driving north from Rayford Road it is 35 miles per hour but for no apparent reason it then changes to 45 miles per hour. The conditions don't change, the lanes are the same width, the shoulders don't widen, and there is the same amount of conflict points. There are two bus stops but no sidewalk or even a place to wait for the bus away from traffic. There is also an elementary school and a recreation center at the north end of Rim Road. This street does not need a redesign to be lowered to 35 miles per hour. A significant span of 71st School Road has the same conditions. Two narrow lanes, no shoulder, and storm water ditches, but is also marked for 45 miles per hour. Last November, Kenyon Johnson, an 18-year-old high school senior, was riding his bicycle to the 71st High School football game when he was hit by a car on 71st School Road and died. I don't know if the driver was speeding, but I do know that it likely doesn't matter. A person outside of a car has almost 0% chance of surviving a crash at 50 miles per hour. These are just two examples that I am familiar with. I'm sure there are more. However, most streets that I have encountered that fit this description are already 35 miles per hour. Hoke Loop Road, Bunce Road, Fill Yard Road, Shaw Mill Road and more are very similar to Rim Road and 71st School Road, but are already 35 miles per hour. These streets are the low-hanging fruit for improving safety in Fayetteville. These reductions can be voted on as early as next week and implemented by the end of the month at the cost of a few signs. The majority of you voted to lower the speed limit of a similar street from 35 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour last month so these should be a no-brainer. I look forward to safer rim roads and 71st school roads in the near future. Thank you.

Mayor, our next speaker is Mr. Sandy Pickard. Mr. Sandy Pickard, not present. Next speaker is Mr. Austin Wiley.

Good evening, sir. Good evening.

Austin Wiley, District 6. I want to talk a little bit about election interference and election integrity. We know the federal administration is feeling the threat of losing power in the upcoming midterms. This is evidenced by the widespread attacks on mail-in voting and not-so-subtle threats of sending federal agents or troops illegally to the polls, among various other threats. Let's be honest, this administration will challenge the midterm results, and no one really knows what that will look like or how that will play out. That puts us on a dangerous glide path already. However, what we can control is the preemptive response at the municipal level and up to the state level. As you may have seen recently, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kane, recently went on the record claiming he has no plans and has not received any direction from the administration yet to have federalized troops at the polls. Key word being federalized. That said, constituents are rightly concerned with a threat such as these. and the possibility of federal agents, ICE, Customs, Border Patrol, Marshals, etc., or federalized troops at the polls. Moreover, GOP nominee for the governor of Maine, Bobby Charles, said he would ask his bro, Tom Homan, the so-called border czar, to have ICE agents at the polls in Maine. There is a precedence being set in other locales, and we would like some reassurance there is a proactive versus reactive response in place. This is a valid threat worth considering and deserving of preemptive response. So this begs the question, how does the city plan to respond if the federal administration makes good on their threats to the citizens of North Carolina, Cumberland County, and, of course, Fayetteville? I realize the likelihood is low in our area.

Excuse me.

I also realize the various state and county board of elections bodies are responsible for carrying out the elections themselves. However, the citizens would benefit from knowing our elected officials have our backs and will not tolerate interference in our elections. To that end, as a representative of the Fayetteville Resistance Coalition, we would like to elicit a formal and public response from the council on what the city plans to do when the federal administration makes good on their threats, either before, during, or after the elections. And we kindly ask for a formal public statement to address these concerns to residents and constituents. I'd also like to point out that we have reached out to Attorney General Jackson's office, Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, and Fay PD with similar requests, since this is a multi-layered problem set. I also look forward to attending next Wednesday's Community Public Safety Board, where I will address this issue to narrow the scope with regard to Fay PD and how or if they are addressing this issue. Let's please not be dismissive and take a wait-and-see approach. Also, while you're at it, please pass the DAM data center moratorium already. Thank you.

Madam Clerk?

Mayor, our next speaker is Ms. Dawn Atkins Hurley. Good evening, Ms. Hurley.

Good evening, council members and unpaid peaceful protesters. I'm Dawn Adkins Hurley from District 2. Let's take a walk down memory lane. May 30th, 2020, a George Floyd rally started peacefully on Skybow Road. Mayor Colvin and Police Chief Hawkins attended. The rally moved downtown to the Market House where it became a riot. Businesses and property were vandalized. The Market House was set on fire. While citizens and business owners frantically called Colvin and city offices, Colvin watched the scene from monitors and told the police and fire department to stand down. July 2020, the Ville Voice, a Black Lives Matter offshoot, camps out at the Market House. One midnight, ATVs began racing around the Market House and downtown sidewalks. Citizens and business owners called Colvin and city offices. There were no response and no arrest. I observed the camp out, talked to the organizers. One man stood out, so I talked to him. He was sent from California offices of Black Lives Matter to assist and observe. He was the only paid protester I have ever encountered. The results of these actions by lawless thugs and Colvin's refusal to act was deterring citizens from coming downtown. March 2022, Dismissed Charities forced neighborhoods around Kane Road to accept a prison facility in their backyards. Local residents paid for a lawyer and fought the facility, only to lose when the argument went to the state appeals court. Councilman Hare, where the facility was posted in his district, commented, It's done. Just accept it. Then wait for them to do something wrong and we can do something about it.

calling individual members, okay? Because a lot of things you're saying are not true, but we can't respond to what you're saying. Well, but please make your comments without personal...

There you go. Thank you.

Are you going to give us a moratorium to protect us from the greedy thugs that want to exploit our city? Are you going to let our city burn with pollution and environmental disasters these data centers will bring? And are we supposed to just live with it? How do we fix the damage once it's done? Give us a moratorium. It's in your hands. History and the voters will judge you. Thank you.

Madam Clerk.

Mayor, our next speaker is Ms. Angela Tatum. Not present. Our next speaker is Fern Davis.

Good evening.

I was going to be cordial, but y'all kind of just upset me. So if you don't want to be called by name, don't run for office.

Yeah, no, we're not doing that today, sir.

I'm not calling anyone by name, Ms. Mayor, okay? Maybe it happened and I missed it, but this council owes a formal apology to Carol Olinger and the other protesters you kicked out during the public hearing last month. And I haven't seen it yet. So you all owe her an apology and the other protesters too. But honestly, I don't want to be here right now. Okay, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of talking about data centers and other issues this city has. I would much rather be at home right now, eating dinner, snugging up with my partner, pretending not to be interested in Grey's Anatomy. Thank you. It's a pretty good show, terrible writing, but I can't stop. Point is, we don't want to be here, okay? I'm tired of this. Pass the moratorium. You're already agreed, at least quite a few of you, and I appreciate you all for that. I truly do, okay? I know I can be a little confrontational, but I do truly appreciate those of you who voted to take a step back and think about what we're doing. That means a lot, okay? So I will say thank you to those of you that did that, okay? just taking a look back doesn't protect us okay waiting doesn't protect us passing another 180 day like sorry that pause come on y'all you'll put a moratorium on a moratorium what is that that's the silliest performative thing i think i've ever seen a city council do what are we doing pass the moratorium you already said at least many of you agree that we need a little more time to get this right I can't believe I'm saying this, but follow the county for God's sakes and just pass a six-month to a year moratorium, something like that, and take the time. That gives the city council, the staff, and the public time. And that includes not just residents, right? We talk a lot about residents of Fayetteville, but people in this county have a stake in this city. They should be heard on this. A chance to not just argue, but also to collaborate and get this thing right, okay? The second reason I think we probably should go for a year, give us the most time, is that I've heard a lot of talk about how, well, if we pass the moratorium, we're going to miss this opportunity. Good, any opportunity trying to be pushed down our throats like this is a boom and bust cycle, and we don't need any more half finished projects in this city. There's so many. And the third reason, frankly, it should be a year, is that it's an election year next year. And people don't forget when it's close to election time, right? But honestly, my thoughts are a little disorganized, but the last thing I'll do is I will say thank you to those of you who are obstinate and don't want to listen and want to scoff and want to treat people like our views don't matter. I lost my train of thought. You work for us. Don't get too comfortable in those seats. They're our seats.

Madam Clerk.

Mayor, our next speaker is Ms. Babette Augustine.

Hi, everyone. This is a new experience for me. I've never done this. So my name is Babette Augustine. I live at 1935 Partridge Court. And I was at the city council meeting in August. I owe the mayor an apology and so I've written something and I have to get my breath. I'm usually on the other side of the camera. I spent time reporting for years, actually for 32 years. I owe you an apology for a message that I delivered publicly that really was meant to be delivered privately. And that was sort of this message that my, well, let's call it my higher power gave me, right? And there's some other, you know, coincidences, but at any rate, you know, your vocation, Mayor Colvin, as I want to say, final responder, eh? I mean, to life, you put the role, I mean, you're like human wailing wall. I mean, the work that you do, and I did not mean to make light of that when I referred to the, you know, referring and taking poisoned bodies over the Rainbow Bridge. and and and i and but i was i was overwhelmed i have to tell you overwhelmed by the city council meeting it was my first one as like a sit here and wait the whole time i used to just come and take photographs and leave right you know i had a deadline to do um and I thought of all of the people in this community. I've met people in my short time here, victims of Agent Orange, or burn pits, or PFAS, or any of the other things. I mean, it hurts my soul. My soul was really pained. And I gave you an answer, and the answer came to me. So it's not about the pot of gold, it's about the rainbow, right? In the end, it's not about the pot of gold, it's about the rainbow. And so I was going to get all pissy and quote something from Tennessee Williams, but I'm not going to do that. So I'm going to be a lot more hopeful, because there was a lot of hope here tonight, right? And shoot. And I really want to respond to all of the really good stuff I heard tonight. So that gave me a lot of hope, right? And I'm wearing a scarf in honor of, God, I'm so nervous, Jane Goodall, right? This is the Jane Goodall. And it's all about hope. So I came back from East Providence, Rhode Island recently, and on their city hall, the big logo, it says East Providence, and the big logo is pro bono publico, for the good of the public.

Thank you, thank you ma'am.

All right, and then the last, the last, Latin lesson is, yeah.

Your time's actually up though.

Okay, well anyway, I want to thank you and I'm sorry, but we don't need a data center, we need time.

Thank you, thank you ma'am.

Mayor, our next speaker is Miss Jamie Gibson. Miss Jamie Gibson, not present. Our next speaker is Miss Jay White.

Good evening, Miss White.

I'm Reverend Jay White. I'm retired clergy from the United Methodist Church and founding board member of Organizing Against Racism Cumberland County. I mention both of those things because as a person of faith, I am entrusted to care for God's creation. I am also called to love my neighbor, all of my neighbors. Neither of these theologies allow for intentionally causing harm, which these data centers most assuredly do. I have listened over the last few months to impassioned pleas from concerned citizens from all walks of life, all levels of profession, and people whose lives will be impacted. You heard what they said today intimately. I have not heard any factual reason to plow ahead with the construction of a facility that will harm the environment and the people who inhabit this community. It makes no logical sense. And yet some of you have ignored your constituents. It seems the only people who will benefit from plowing ahead will be people who financially benefit from its construction. Mr. Davis, I owe you an apology for an email I sent after the vote around 7-11. I felt like the council was not listening to people then. But there's still time to do the right thing. I do apologize for my attitude. And at the same time, I'm asking you as a resident of District 2 to please vote for a moratorium so that we can get this right, so that people can get the facts straight about what this will bring to our community. Because at this point, I don't see any benefit except to line some people's pockets. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Miss Cynthia Leakes Our next speaker is Miss Brooke Carreros Good evening ma'am So I just had a few things to say when I was looking into all this and listening to all the comments that were made I noticed that a lot of the comparisons were to the Lounding County to their setup and so that got me to thinking and like everything so I'm one of those homes that were initially in the county and I got annexed into the city and so mine was the only neighborhood every other thing else so my rent went from sixteen hundred to twenty two hundred dollars overnight whoo-hoo lucky me and so when that happened I'm one of those houses that nobody knows who police are supposed to come, which fire station's supposed to come. I don't have city water, I have sewers, I have my own all outside the city resources. So that being said, so of course the data center in the city is going to affect now because they want to put me on city water. made me curious so Loudoun County I came from there that's where we moved here from in 2017 my kids we lived there my cities went to the public schools amazing public schools and then my daughter had to go to Jack Brett that being said um let's talk about it they get a hundred million dollars from their data centers We cannot compare that to what you're bringing here. We get no tax benefits. From my understanding, they have all kinds of mass tax resources. They use that $100 million to counteract the effects of the water, the electricity. And even now, they're putting on a pause. They don't want any more because of the damage and stuff that it's doing to their city. It's a lot, but they get $100 million in tax revenue that goes directly to their schools, their cities. That's the amount that they put towards after the cost that they put into fixing the water resources. We're not getting that. And as they already admitted in the last meeting, there's only like 50 jobs. So my question is, when I'm doing all these things, because in the military they talk us to do this decision matrix thing, why then would we bring one here? What benefit does it have for us, really? And so I started researching the company that is gonna build here. Well, of course, me and my nerdy little self, I'm like, well, let me see how this all fits together. Well, why can you not find any information on these people? You can't, they're invisible. Then I'm looking, and the last time they had a project this big, they had not secured the financing. So that was a whole other story. So now I'm going in and no, I'm not Chad GP-ing, I'm just doing my little research because I'm just a little old retired officer with nothing to do sitting at home with my dogs. And I'm researching and I'm going in and I'm going to the library and I'm trying to find out these companies and these people.

And guess what? I'm sorry, time's up.

They don't exist.

Thank you.

Mayor, our next speaker is Ms. Terry Thomas.

Ms. Thomas, good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Colvin. Good evening, Mayor Colvin and City Council. I'm Terry Thomas, I'm in District 4. I'm here tonight in support of the temporary moratorium on hyperscale data centers. And tonight I don't want to focus on electricity or water. Those concerns matter, but my question is even simpler. Why not pause long enough to just get it right? A moratorium is not a no, it's not anti-business, anti-growth, or anti-technology. It's simply saying, before we make decisions that could affect Fayetteville for decades, let's make sure we understand what we are approving and that our ordinances are prepared for it. Technology is changing incredibly fast. The computing demands of today may look very different 5, 10, or even 20 years from now. Advanced computing technologies including artificial intelligence, AI, high performance computing, and potentially quantum related technologies continue to evolve. I am saying we should just be asking whether the rules we put in place today are strong and flexible enough for technologies and the uses that may come tomorrow. Which leads me to another question. What ultimately are benefits? Who will these facilities serve? Who and what will be produced and accomplished inside of them? And most importantly, how will we the people of Fayetteville benefit from having them here? Will our local businesses benefit? Will there be partnerships with Federal State University, FTCC, Methodist, public schools, or workforce development programs that can allow our people to actually work there and thrive? What are the measurable economic benefits that will remain here in Fayetteville? Those are not non-anti-development questions, they are responsible development questions. Once we approve development of this magnitude, some decisions may be very difficult to reverse. But what we have now is extremely valuable. We have time on our side. We have time to study. We have time to ask questions. We have time to strengthen our ordinances. We have time to determine what Fayetteville should require in return, and time to make sure that whatever comes here doesn't simply happen to Fayetteville, but it actually benefits Fayetteville. So I respectfully ask those who remain hesitant about the moratorium, what do we lose by taking the time to just get it right? And perhaps more importantly, what could our community lose if we don't get it right? A pause is not stopping progress. Sometimes a pause is how you make sure progress is progress.

Thank you for listening.

Mayor, our next speaker is Mr. Stuart Williams. Mr. Stuart Williams. Not present. Our next speaker is Mr. Joseph Schwab. Mr. Joseph Schwab. Not present. Our next speaker is Mr. Joshua Reed.

All right, Mr. Reed.

You all already know me. I've lived in Fayetteville and now I live in Cumberland County. I have my whole life. And I love this place. I claim this city as my own because it is my home. It has made me and it has formed me. Which is why I am so passionate and so disappointed in some of you. I'm not going to call you by name. But some of you didn't like the word that I used last time. That word was corruption. I used that word because that is what I see. I see internal decay and I see a lack of consideration for the voices of the people who make this city run. Because we are the ones who make it run. And we are the ones who put you in these seats. Some of you sit there with pompous looks on your faces, but inside I know you are scared. Or is there another reason why at the last meeting there were officers with loaded ARs? Some of you are just cowards. You think that you are so high and mighty in those seats, yet you have betrayed the trust of the people who voted you into those seats. And shame on every single one of you. I am not the first person to say it, and I will not be the last. And I will also not be the last person to make a promise that if this continues, you will no longer have those seats. Because some of you frankly just don't deserve to enjoy the privileges of sitting in elected seats. Because it is a privilege to work for the people of Fayetteville, North Carolina. The people have spoken. You do not get to make the rules without consulting us first. And you certainly do not get to have your feelings hurt when I and others speak nothing but the truth. You are corrupted as officials and as individuals. You do everything you can to shirk responsibility. The people of Fayetteville deserve far better than what some of you are capable of giving. You have the day each of you deserve.

Madam Clark.

Mayor, our next speaker is Ms. Christy Davis.

Did you skip one?

Ms. Vanessa Reed spoke earlier. She was a rollover from last month.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Good evening, ma'am.

Good evening.

I'm Christy Davis. I live in Eastover. I was going to speak tonight to offer compromise. I am against data centers, but as I was a music teacher and I taught music theory to five year olds for over 30 years, and grown ups can sometimes get stuff a lot more complicated than it should be. When I was mowing my grass yesterday, a three step plan just came into my thoughts. The first step is just say no. The second step says follow procedures. the third step says have courage or as my daughter says be brave so point number one just say no I want to go further than the moratorium but it's still a compromise my main concern is against hyperscale data centers if the city and county are would ban these type outright, that would solve so many of the environmental and public impacts. So ban hyperscale data centers. Number two, follow procedures. We have industrial areas already zoned in the city and the county. There's all these factory buildings, good years getting ready to be available. So if you would build the centers like you went on tour to see, those office style and the medium sized ones, and put them in those areas, people already know that that's what the land is zoned for, so they wouldn't be so shocked and upset by zoning issues. So put data centers where they belong. Number three, have courage, be brave. I do not know or understand what promises were or were not made, but we should not be scared of Terra Nexus Ventures. If we call a halt to the project off of Custer Avenue, there may be repercussions. But I believe we have really smart lawyers around here who can help smooth out litigation. If Tarboro and Edgecombe County can tell them to go somewhere else, so can we. It's better to get out now before the building starts. And they piling it up over there off of Beard Road. They got motor graders and stuff. They are ready as soon as y'all vote a certain way. The public deals with governmental blunders a lot. For example, the fire station that has to be rebuilt or the performing arts venue that didn't work out. And our tax dollars are funding those little blunders. So I can say in funding a litigation against the data center, I will have your back on that because don't be scared to do the right thing. So that's my pitch. Just say no, follow procedures, and have courage. Now, I've been really scared and upset. the impacts of this data center near my home. And the only real authority I can turn to is God Almighty. And he told me not to have a spirit of fear. And he said, no weapon formed against me will prosper. And he said, let go and he will handle it. So either he will send discernment, courage, and empathy to our leaders, or he will take me home where I won't see it no more. And if it is built, he can still send a hurricane or a tornado to tear it all down. Either the invocations you hold during meetings mean something to you or they don't. And I did want to express my appreciation about y'all working on the UDOs and thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you, ma'am.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Hold on a second.

Mayor, we have finished with our in-person speakers. We have one written comment. The second written comment, Mr. Joshua Reed spoke in person.

Okay. All right. All right. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. At this point, I move that the council suspend its rules to add an item to tonight's agenda. That item is a motion directing the city manager and the city attorney to prepare a development moratorium ordinance on data centers in accordance with general statute 160 delta dash 107.

All right, there's a motion by council member McMillan. Is there a second to it? All right. Motion dies for lack of a second. All right, council, motion to adjourn.