City Council Zoning Meeting - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

I want to call to order the agenda for the City of Charlotte's run of show for our June 8th, 2026 meeting. And I want to have introductions. Let's start with our clerk. Ariel Smith, lead city clerk.

Andrea Leslie-Bite, city attorney.

Good evening. Dimple Ashmer, at large.

Good evening.

Victoria Watlington, at large. Joy Mayo, representing District 3.

Dante Anderson, District 1.

Let's see, who are we missing here?

James.

James, we'll have someone else coming in pretty soon. And I am Vi Liles.

Marcus Jones, City Manager.

Kimberly Owens, representing District 6.

Good evening, Luana Mayfield, Council Member-at-Large.

Good evening, J.D. Masueta-Arias, Council Member, District 5.

Good evening, I'm Renee Johnson, and I'm honored to represent District 4.

Okay, so I believe that's everyone else, and thank you all for attending our session. I hope that you'll be able to work with us and make things happier for all of us in this place. So let's go with this. We're now going to start off our meeting with the consent agenda items.

Thank you. And good evening mayor and council members. And as far as I'm aware, there's no, um, outstanding questions still on consent, but if there are, please let me know at this time.

This may feel this may feel, excuse me.

Thank you, madam mayor. I had some iPad issues over the weekend, so I'm trying to find the item because I left my book up. So we have where we're tonight. We have an item on where we have a hearing as well as a decision. And I had mentioned previously that I have concerns when we have hearings and decisions on the same night versus yesterday. having a hearing, hearing from the community, and then having the discussion for whatever that item is. I'm double checking it. I think it was...

Item six and seven, and that's in the chamber public hearing, not the consent, but yes, ma'am, it's public hearing.

Not in the consent, but I wanted to make sure to acknowledge that, that... We need to have a conversation about having a public hearing the same night where item A is opening up the public hearing and item B being to approve whatever that project is without having enough time. for discussion and for the community to be engaged in the process. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right. Thank you. Before we take, before we, I may have, Mr. Driggs has come in. And Mr. Graham, I think I just didn't see you.

No, I just came in too.

Okay, thank you. I didn't even wonder if it was something that got in. How's the new babe?

She is doing fine.

I think you and Ed should work together since you both have girls. Uh-huh. That's it. So thank you. And now, Madam Mayor, if I may, if there's... If we can have a motion to approve the consent agenda items 29 through 53 with the... Ms. Mayfield, did you want an exception?

No.

So let's go with all of those. Second. We have a motion. And a second. And a second. Any further conversation or anything else to say at this item? If not, all in favor, please raise your hands. I believe that's unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think wait a minute. Knock on wood. There we go. I want to make sure we have that. All right. So now do we have, we don't have anything for a separate vote as I understand it. Is that correct? Madam chair? I mean, Madam Clerk? Okay, we're good. All right, so the next thing that we're going to do is introduce our city manager.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council. And the action preview tonight, we have two items, two items that have really had a lot of work been done on them, and it's good to be able to be here tonight to move them forward. We will have the MPTA interlocal agreement update. And we'll also have an update on red light cameras. So, Mayor, unless there's any questions.

Are there any questions for the manager or any questions or concerns regarding those two items? All right.

So then, Mayor, I'd like to turn it over to Council Member Driggs for the introduction for our guests who are here tonight.

Mr. Manager, you look so doubtful, just sending you short. All right. So, colleagues, I just wanted to preface our discussion of the MPTA agreement by saying that the working group consisting of myself, Council Member Owens, and Dr. Watlington spent time discussing walking along as these negotiations took place, ensuring that the council received updates and was aware at all times of what kind of things were being discussed. And I think we've landed in a good place. That's the important thing. I will emphasize, for one, as you know, there are phases to this plan. So from July 1st until, and forgive me if this is going to get repeated, I'll try to keep it short, but from July 1st to January 1st projected, CATS will continue to be operated by the city. The employees will continue to work for the city. But all of that is pursuant to an agreement with MPTA because the PAVE Act provides that as of July 1st, coming up, CATS Transit belongs to and is controlled by the MPTA. And so what we're doing is for six months, we have an arrangement, an agreement, which is this document you see. pursuant to which CATS will continue to be operated by city employees, will continue to be a city function, but pursuant to the terms of an agreement. After that, in phase two, the intention is that the employees will move over to MPTA, that it will take responsibility for the operating of CATS, but there will be a lot of continuing involvement by the city because a lot of the debt, for example, that is secured by the assets was issued by the city. And so we're gonna have a kind of a symbiotic relationship with the MPTA for a while. I will just note, and Ms. Owens, I hope you'll speak in a moment, but we looked at considerable detail at some, I think, critical issues for the council. And one was, in brief, and again, we'll hear about it, but no employee of CATS will be worse off as a result of this, the simplest thing. There was a lot of conversation about indemnities and liabilities. But there again, the short upshot is that essentially no general fund money will be used in order to pay for CATS, but nor will CATS benefit from any of the sales tax money. So all the sales tax money will be used for transit, no general fund money will be used for transit. And I think, amazingly, those were the biggest issues, although there was a lot of detail around them. And I do appreciate the work that our staff did, and a bunch of names, I'm not gonna try and mention them all, but also our cooperation with MPTA. So we got deep into a number of issues. They had concerns, we had concerns, and I think the way it was all worked out is a credit to them and to us. And that's my brief synopsis. Council Member Owens, would you care to comment?

I'll just very briefly say I too took away a deep and abiding respect for the people who worked on this and the hours that went into really a proof of concept that was put out without the requisite timing to really accomplish it, these sorts of things. I think those of us who've been in the business community as many of us have, can well appreciate that you don't want to rush something of this import, but because we were put in this situation, I think we did a phenomenal job under those circumstances, and I'm very pleased to cede the floor to Council and have you give us further walkthrough.

So actually, before you start, one last remark. This is the last time we will all discuss this, okay? This thing has to be effective on July 1st, and right now we're on schedule to vote on it on the 22nd. Next week is a zoning meeting. So I just emphasize that because if you have any concerns or you think there's something we need to talk about some more, we have to do it before the 22nd. Otherwise, the PAVE Act becomes effective, all the transit belongs to and the cash goes to the MPTA and we have no basis for cooperation with them. So we really need to get this done on the 22nd. And having said that, I'm pleased to hand over Catherine to you.

Thank you. Thank you for always showing up for this.

It's my pleasure. It really has been our pleasure to work with you all and staff. And I'm joined today, I want to note, by my colleagues Shalana Pirtle and Scott Leo from the Parker Post Charlotte office. As Councilmember Driggs said, this is really your time to comment and weigh in. What I hope to do in a presentation is to give you some visuals so that you can put into perspective if you're a visual person what Councilmember Driggs said about the phases, how this transition will roll out, and then focus on just four provisions. That gives you, I think, some additional facts that you might be most focused on from what I've understood of the conversation so far before you talk to each other and with me. And just a reminder, the last time I was here was May 7th. We had before you a draft, a proposed draft that was in progress. There have been a number of changes since then. What you have as of today is a draft that attorneys who've worked on it and staff would recommend for your approval, but of course it needs your comments. The changes that have been made since May 7th have also been provided to you in a summary form, and that's been added as an appendix. But there are a lot of those changes, so I want to walk you through on a high level the ones that I think I've heard you express the most concern about, and then hear comments and questions to any provision. I'll start again with the visuals. This is really about a phase transition. Three phases, the first being what we're referring to as the transition period. What these visuals show you is basically who's doing what during phase one. The city will, of course, CATS personnel are still city personnel. The city still maintains debts, all assets, will be operating the system, which means there's risk that comes with operating the system. The operating revenue will still flow to be collected by the city, and then the city maintains the fund balance. The ones that you'll be most concerned with are, of course, the debt reserve that you need to have in order to maintain your ratings and the operating reserve. But there are other fund balances. There are many fund balances. And all of them... to be maintained at this time. The NPTA, so again this is July 1st, will take over policy and governance. That's similar to the relationship you had with the MTC, but of course a much broader scope when the NPTA takes over. Sales tax revenue will begin to flow to the NPTA. That green arrow shows you that some of the sales tax will flow back to the city, and by back I mean forward to the city, to pay for CATS personnel, debt service, all assets, any of the money that's needed to pay for assets, operations, and to cover the legal risks that come up either before this agreement starts or during phase one. Operation Control is with the NPTA. the way that you are able to operate while the mpta has operational control is through the interlocal cooperation statute this is a a legal provision that local governments take advantage of all the time when needing to jointly undertake some kind of task so you will be able to jointly operate with the city maintaining the operations and the mpta maintaining control the public transit. The NPTA is also responsible for all of the transition activities that need to happen in order for the transfer to occur. That's phase one. That starts July 1st by statute and will end our, the goal timeline is January 1st. What you should know is that if there are some services that have to be maintained by the city after January 1st, We have created safety nets within the interlocal agreement to be able to address those issues and timelines and schedules for determining what those are so that you may enter into additional agreements as necessary with the MPTA for those kinds of services, back office services that might need to remain with the city after January 1st. In phase two, you're in this sort of shared services period. Policy governance has, of course, remained with the NPTA. CAT's personnel become NPTA personnel as of the first day of phase two. The sales tax revenue is still flowing to the NPTA. It flows to the city to the extent needed to pay your debt service and to pay anything related to the encumbered assets. operations now are with the MPTA, they retain transition activities, they are now paying for the legal risk of the system, and operating revenue unencumbered assets are now with the MPTA and the fund balance transfers to the MPTA. I'll take a moment just to give you a little detail on how all assets suddenly split into encumbered assets and unencumbered assets. What that means is an unencumbered asset is something that still has some debt related or grant that couldn't transfer, and the city has to retain it by law. Anything that's not covered by debt is going to go to the NPTA. And in phase three, you start the ongoing relationship of having the MPTA fully running the public transit system, paying off debts as they become prepayable, and then all of those encumbered assets that remain with the city during phase two are slowly starting to become unencumbered assets as the debt's paid off and they will transfer to the MPTA. I want to focus on four provisions so you know where we landed when it comes to these four things that I believe we talked a good amount about over the last few months. Employees, Councilmember Driggs I think summarized it perfectly as you wanna see on the slides. In phase one, the city is remaining the employer of record through phase one, so you will maintain the same consistent policies that you have in the past with respect to those employees. Hiring and other kinds of natural order events that occur in the fall will occur in conjunction with the NPTA's notice. In phase two, the NPTA is hiring all full-time CATS personnel as of day one. And here's the important parts, I think, the most important. Compensation and retirement benefits are no less than the base offered by the city at the time before CATS personnel transfer. You will note there is a difference in language for when it comes to benefits, comparable benefit plan cost. That does not mean that the NPTA is expecting to provide anything less than the current benefit plans. The issue there is In order to have a benefit plan, you have to negotiate with some third party. And so contractually, what the NPTA can agree to do is aim for the comparable cost, though it's going to look different just because of, or it may look different just because of who the provider might end up being. Let's also talk about how phase one operations are going to happen while the city maintains operations and the NPTA has operational control. The NPTA is going to enter into any contracts that are related to the transition activities. The city, on the other hand, is going to enter into all operational contracts. Those operational contracts include things like capital projects you might be thinking of. Here's the process we are going to go through in order to make sure that the city can move forward with an operational contract without it touching policy. I think this was a big item of discussion and concern. There's some operational contracts that the city will need to approve or consider to approve that also might touch on policy aspects. good number might not, but a few might. So the process we have proposed is that the city will provide a list of contracts that need council approval to the MPTA. Say, here's our plan for the fall. The MPTA is going to identify those contracts on the list that they think they are is some MPTA review needed, whether it be policy or otherwise. The city will seek council approval for contracts where the MPTA has approved or otherwise there's no approval from the MPTA needed. Here's the important part. In all cases, that NPTA review will not impact, impair, or negatively impact operations, meaning the timeline has to be worked out so that NPTA review happens before your scheduled time for review and approval. Let's talk a little bit about legal risk. We've broken this out in phase one, phase two, and phase three. I think the most important thing that should catch your eye is what it says at the bottom of each of those phases. In any case, in any phase, there will be no CATS liability that falls to the city's general fund. That's how it currently is now. You run a public enterprise that is the public transportation system. All the liabilities of that separate public enterprise stay with that separate public enterprise. And that's how it will be maintained through this agreement and in the future. Just to note for everybody, the words CATS liability continues to mean liabilities of the public transportation system even when the liabilities transfer to the NPTA. So you will continue operating CATS in the fall, but the NPTA funds, so the CATS funds that you hold on hand will be what pays that legal risk, and you are restricted from expanding beyond the current commitments you have. So that would mean you're not taking on new debt or grants related to the assets of the NPTA. The NPTA is, in phase two, going to take on all operations, all legal risk they'll be paying for, and there will be a time, probably in the future always, where the city and the NPTA have to work together to determine where there might be shared risk or shared liabilities. properties that maybe the city owns and there's CATS infrastructure currently and vice versa. And you will have to work through how those shared liabilities and shared risks are addressed. Those are probably going to be addressed through separate agreements and we've written a provision in the agreement to address that. And then in phase three, the NPTA is remaining fully responsible for CAT's legal risk, which means the public transportation legal risk. All the final debt, grant, and asset transfer issues will be resolved. And again, there's no impact to the general fund. This is my final slide. The obligations in phase one break down like this. The city is going to pay for CATS operations using the transit funds on hand or the sales tax revenue that flows to the city. And the city is maintaining 100 million of operating reserve that you currently maintain. In terms of debt service obligations, the city is maintaining the $30 million debt reserve that you currently maintain, and the NPTA will transfer funds to the city for debt service as that's due. As long as you maintain debt service, you will maintain that debt reserve. Payment obligations are that the NPTA will provide to the city sufficient funds to pay operations without using operating reserves, meaning at all times you are able to pay those operating expenses as they come to you without needing to dip into the reserves that are there to protect the city's debt and bond ratings. believe that's it from me. What is contained in the appendix are the differences between the May 7th draft and the current draft. I'm happy to go into explanation and detail into any of those, but I want to make sure that you all have the time to discuss and give comments. So I'll stop there.

Microphone here, and I'm sorry I want to say thank you for what you've been doing And I want to say thank you to a number of people that have been taking this time and making it work our own ed And I think about all of the mayor's in the north and towns and what they've done the county commissioners We've done this well, and if we continue to do this as well as you've outlined it I think we're going to be in okay and So, I want to open questions if there are any other comments. Ms. Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I appreciate the update. Just a couple questions. You mentioned that the employees that are transferring over, they won't be worse off as it relates to pay and benefits. What about any perspective on career pathing? Has the MPTA thought about adopting similar career pathings? Has that discussion happened at all?

That is not a discussion that we have had. The MPTA, of course, will be responsible for all their personnel policies that they've adopted, but that's not something that the city has weighed in on in this agreement.

Okay. Just really interesting, as we are in this in-between space where we're both operating, it's a joint combination between the NPTA and the city. It would just be interesting to hear their perspective on that. I know they're going to be working on this over the break in July, so when we come back, perhaps we'll get an update on that. And then as you talk about the legal risk, and I appreciate that on slide eight, but just from an overall, and I also appreciate the fact that there's no CATS liability that falls on the city's general fund. But what about, for example, I'm just going to, pick something that's really, really sort of out there, but what about like a seer level five event that heaven forbids happens on our lines within phase one or phase two? Who would be the person running the lead or who would be the lead on that? Would it be the city sort of facilitating an extraordinary event and doing all the public relations or would that fall on the NPTA or some combination of both?

The best way to answer that, I think, is to recognize that the city and the NPTA are starting a relationship with this agreement and all future agreements, and there are so many of those types of issues that you will want to develop policies about, communication about, and coordination about. This agreement does not address that type of situation.

Gotcha. I think that's something we should think about because this is the legal framework for risk and this is absolutely needed. But when we think about risk mitigation and just over the last five years, the events that have happened on the light rail or with the with the with the trains and bearings and things of that nature, just the overall risk mitigation from an operational perspective. I think we need to have some conversations around that and keep that top of mind. That's it, Madam Mayor. Thank you.

All right. Ms. Johnson, and then following Mr. Graham.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And Council Member Anderson, I loved your question. So we did say that the employees wouldn't be harmed. But if an employee works for the city, there's lots of opportunity for advancement, just being an internal employee. So I think if we could think about the employees that are being transferred, if they have some type of priority for hiring in the city, if they would apply for a city job, maybe the first two years or something like that, if we could think about that, because while they might not be harmed currently where they would be harmed is not having the same opportunity or the same priority as an internal. applicant would with the city. So for career advancement, if we could consider those quasi employees or something so that when they apply for a city job, they have some type of priority.

Just my suggestion.

Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments? I'm sorry. We had Mr. Graham.

No, just a comment, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to thank Ed and Kimberly for kind of scrubbing the work for us. And I had an opportunity to attend two or three of the sessions that was held. internally and certainly i think this is where we need to be for sure so i certainly support where we're at lastly the word that keeps coming up over and over again is relationship relationship with the new authority and i think we should be very intentional about establishing a strong foundation working relationship with the authority because again, this is beginning of a marathon, not a sprint, right? There'll be more type of these type of conversations in terms of how we interact with them. So I think this is a really good first start and we're grounded in great legal advice. So thank you for the work.

All right. Ms. Mayfield.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also want to thank the committee members for all of your work on this and staff. I had a chance to, sit with staff and council member Owens earlier and council member Anderson, we actually had the conversation about risk mitigation earlier and thinking about what would that look like? And council member Johnson, I appreciate the question that you asked or the manager, because understanding that once the MPTA is fully set up, it, all of cats will be under that authority. The only role that council will have from that point forward is our appointment of seven members. So we have to, and future councils have to be very intentional. So I think we have an opportunity prior to that first two years. And some have two years, some have four to think about what the qualifications are that we want to, have an appointment, whether it's a reappointment and or appointing of new. But Manager Jones, we're thinking about what Councilmember Johnson just mentioned. For the employees, the challenge that I could see is our retirement system. So if NPTA is now its own entity, pretty much a governing board like we are, if an employee were to transfer back into the city, do they lose their seniorship? So your best that after five years or seven years or whatever within the city, your best that when you're with cats and you have a retirement system, would they be starting over new or would they roll in?

So I'll make sure I'm correct with this, and I'll ask Catherine. Clearly, you lose nothing when you go from the city to the MPTA. You're asking a question that I don't think has been posed to me. So if they came back, Catherine, what's the impact?

The employees, so the NPTA will become a member of the local government employment retirement system maintained by the state. So you probably already have some shared agreements that employees who are transferring from other local governments will step into those same retirement benefits. It would be the same if they're coming from an elder's local government unit.

So, and my apologies for not thinking about that question when we were together earlier, but just wanted to make sure that again, say they've been with the city for 17 years, been with working with cats for 17 years and they have an opportunity to come work with the city. Does that 17 get accounted for, for their 30 years or making sure that they don't have to start all over? And that will be, I think that will fall more on our end than on the NPTA's end. Since, again, once it's a separate authority, even though they might, the employees will be, will have access to the retirement system, just thinking about how we would do transition.

Thank you. All right. Do we have another question? Mr. Drake's.

I just wanted to comment, the Chair David Howard of MPTA came to TPD, and I think almost all of us were there, but it was interesting to note that particularly based on his experience as a member of Council, albeit a few years ago, I think he responded very well to some pointed questions that you asked, and I think your observation is very much on target. This is the beginning of a relationship, and it's important for us to get off on the right foot, We need to recognize it's a partnership. This is not an arm's length transaction. And therefore, we're going to have to proceed on the basis of an element of trust. They need to trust us. We need to trust them. And we need to look forward to advancing the interests of Charlotte together. The other thing we talked about with Mr. Howard was a program of ongoing visits, reports, engagement. So we haven't worked out the details of that yet, but he acknowledged that there would be regular occurring kind of briefings to us by members of their board so that we can stay informed about what they're doing. Thank you.

All right. Mr. Jones?

Thank you, ma'am. Mayor, members of council, I echo what Councilman Rodrigues said, and I just want to make sure that I'm also putting it into the record. The relationship with the officers of the MPTA and the staff and the council is so important, and this isn't easy, but if we don't, we need to start off looking at this as a partnership and not a negotiation, because we'll be together for a long time. So I'm just really appreciative of how council has handled this as well as staff and i look forward to in two weeks moving this forward

All right. Any other comments or questions? Hearing none, thank you very much. I do think that we're really doing a really great job, and I think when meeting Mr. Howard is just a great person and really wants to make this work, and I think it will. Let's just all keep our fingers crossed. Okay. All right. So, Mr. Jones, what's our next step? Thanks, Catherine. What's the next step? Okay.

So, Mayor and Council, the The last item that we have on the agenda preview is an update on red light cameras. And before I turn this over to the chair of our safety committee, Council Member Anderson, again, this is something that I had an opportunity to come through the committee. I do believe after a bunch of fits and starts over the years, we're at a very good place to move forward with the red light cameras. So with that said, Mayor, I'd like to turn it over to the other Jones, Charlie Jones.

I'm not so sure. You should be thinking about this a little bit longer, right? Yes, yes.

Thank you. Would you like to say a few words about it?

Absolutely. If I could, Madam Mayor, I just want to give a brief introduction. First of all, as many of you may recall, the mayor issued a policy referral to the Safety Committee back in late March, posing the question of whether the city should reinstate a red light camera program. And first, I want to acknowledge my safety committee members who have CM Ajmera, CM Mitchell, CM Graham, and CM Driggs who are on the committee. And they do great work with me. I thank you for serving on this committee with me. But the committee got right to work on this referral, and we voted this particular item out of committee in May. And as you're going to hear from Mr. Jones here, staff are prepared to move forward with a red light. camera pilot program. This effort is responsive to the concerns that we all, all council members, have heard across our community. It directly aligns with our commitment to our Vision Zero policy addressing traffic fatalities, and serious injuries throughout the city streets, with an emphasis on the city's high injury network intersections. And so Mr. Jones is going to walk you through a lot of the work that has come out of committee, and then we'll have a Q&A session. So there you are, Mr. Jones. Thank you.

Thank you for the introduction, Council Member Anderson. I'm Charlie Jones, Deputy Director for the Charlotte Department of Transportation. Jump right into it. Just a quick refresh on the policy referral. It began as a referral from Mayor Liles on March 25th. We provided a high-level overview at the April 6th committee meeting and then went into additional details at the May 11th, 2026 committee meeting. Much of what we went over at that meeting is included in these slides that we'll get to here in a minute. But at that committee meeting, there were two recommendations that were forwarded for council consideration. establish a red light camera program for a period of one year as a pilot, and then coordinate with the intergovernmental relations team to explore a local act authorizing a program with Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. So tonight's discussion are really around those two items. Just a recap of the existing legislation and ordinances around these programs. So a lot of what the programs are governed by is at the state statute level. Um, and we also have local ordinances that are on the books from our previous red light camera program. Um, so with the assistance from the city attorney's office, um, we found two avenues to reinstate a red light camera program. And since the April committee meeting, we actually learned that we have a local act that would allow us to increase our fines from our current ordinance limit of $50 to $75. So we should counsel. So choose during the committee meetings, there were several questions about, um, advanced warning. insurance points. So what we wanted to do tonight was review the statutory requirements for red light camera programs and some of the details regarding those programs in North Carolina. So cameras camera equipped locations must have advanced warning signs. Citations are issued to the registered owner of the vehicle. And the statute requires that we provide provisions so that if someone's car is stolen or if someone lends their car to somebody and they weren't the driver, there has to be a process in place where that driver can fill out some paperwork and basically say, I was not driving that car. And they can assign that responsibility to whomever was driving their vehicle. Photographic citations are non-criminal violations, so no points are assigned to your driver's license for a red light camera citation, and no insurance points can be assigned to the driver. And that's at the state statute level. And we also have to establish a non-judicial administrative hearing process, so if someone would like to challenge the citation, there's an administrative process that they can go through to challenge those citations. Looking at red light camera programs across the country, there's approximately 350 communities that have active programs. And what we looked at were the programs that were more successful in that they were reducing serious and fatal injury collisions in their communities. And we found those programs had these common elements. They align with their Vision Zero goals using data to select and identify locations. They prioritize their high injury network intersections. They use crash type, frequency, and severity to guide the deployment. And so the crash types we tend to look at for these are angle and left turn different roadway collisions, angles we all know as T-bone crashes, left turn different roadways, you're turning off the side street at the intersection. And so red light cameras are very effective at reducing those types of collisions. And then the other thing is just a, elevated number of overall collisions. Final best practice that we found amongst the peer cities and other cities we looked at was data transparency and frequent reporting. So the committee asked us what would a program look like? How would we pick locations? So we started with just that high level identifying all the intersections in the city with fatal collisions. So we identified 39 intersections within the city that had had fatal collisions in the past five years. We then added additional data to get that down to a list of about 10. And we looked at higher percentage of angle and left turn different roadway collisions, pedestrian and bicycle collisions at the intersections, and then a higher number of overall collisions. We came up with a candidate list that I'll say is an example of what a program might look like. These 10 locations had 1841 collisions over five years, 26 fatal and serious injury collisions, 220 angle and left turn different roadway collisions, and then 24 pedestrian and or bicycle collisions. I'll read through the list of locations with the caveat that this is a preliminary list to see what 10 locations may look like. As we move forward with the program, this list may change. We want to make sure we're using the most current data and have a good handle on we're putting the cameras at the right locations. So I don't want anybody to get too excited and say, we're going to get a camera at this location. The data may point us to a different location. And that's part of the whole goal of using our high injury network is to follow the data and use the cameras. But the two locations we identified for this were Graham Street and Norris Avenue, University City Boulevard and I-85 northbound ramp, Steel Creek Road and Westinghouse. North Tron Street and University City Boulevard, Central Avenue and Sharon Amity, WT Harris and North Tron, South Tron Street and Arrowwood Road, South Mint Street and West Boulevard, Central Avenue and Kilbourne, and 36th and the Plaza. One other reason why we don't want to set this list in stone just yet. There may be projects coming soon to some of these locations or projects in development, and we don't want to have a vendor install equipment that we end up taking out because of a roadway improvement project. So we want to make sure we've isolated locations that we're not going to have improvements that would disrupt a camera thing or a camera location. One of the things we covered was engineering countermeasures. You know, why can't we just build safer intersections? And so we look at countermeasures that are common nationwide. And a lot of those are low cost. LED signal indications, signal timing adjustments, and reflective back plates. I'm not sure what a reflective back plate is. I brought my little handy dandy visual aid. And it's basically a thing that goes around the signal head raise the visibility of the signal to a motorist. One thing here in Charlotte, we've done a great job. Most of our signals already have LED signal indications. That's a brighter light that you can see better. All of our signal timing is done based on industry standards. And it's done across the entire system. And then we have reflective back plates at many of our signals. And that's one of the first things we look at at intersections when we do have a fatal crash or some type of other crash pattern. High cost improvements are what we mainly think of as dedicated turn lanes, full intersection reconstruction, and or site distance improvements. Those projects tend to cost more than half a million dollars or more and can take multiple years for planning, right-of-way acquisition, and a lot of things that don't immediately address safety issues while the planning and construction are going on. So based on that, we looked at a financial analysis for 10 intersections and assumed that based on feedback from several vendors that approximately $5,000 per month per intersection would be our program cost, so the annual program cost would be $600,000. We used the $75 citation amount as just a benchmark and assumed 500 citations per month per location based on Peer City research. It would result in $4.5 million of annual revenue Of that 4.05 million, we go to CMS. That's their required disbursement from civil citations. And then the city share would be $450,000. That leaves around $150,000 gap in revenue versus program costs. So I mentioned $150,000 gap. Whenever we start looking at safety benefits, a lot of those high-cost projects, we're not going to do an intersection reconstruction for $150,000. We're looking at millions of dollars. So we wanted to see what the safety benefit of red light cameras would be. So annual crashes at those 10 intersections without treatment, we expect to see around 1,600 collisions. 1.6, one and a half serious injury fatal collisions annually, and then 44 angle and left turn different roadway collisions annually. With the Red Light Camera program, based on industry research and tools from the Federal Highway Administration, looking at about a 25, 30% reduction in total collisions at those intersections, less than one serious injury or fatal collision, It's hard to get to zero because there's so many factors that go into a fatal collision, but it does take it by almost half. And then 27 angle and left turn different roadway collisions versus 44. Those angle and left turn different roadway collisions tend to be your most serious and violent collisions that result in serious injuries. Gets us to the program funding. The pilot program would be a city-funded program using the existing statutory approvals. The city would pay all the program expenses up front and distribute 90% of each citation to Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. The city would retain 10% of each citation for program expenses. Looking at the future, ideally we would have an interlocal program, but that requires general assembly action. In that instance, the city would provide all the revenue to Charlotte Mecklenburg schools, and then we would invoice them for our program costs and be reimbursed after the fact. So next steps. Establish a pilot program. Staff will develop an RFP to select a program vendor. Council would be asked to approve the contract at a future business meeting. The goal is to have a pilot program begin by early 2027. And then at a future date, we would introduce an ordinance amendment to increase fines. And that would be at a future business meeting. And that would increase the fine from $50 to $75. And I'll open it up for any questions or feedback.

So, Madam Mayor, if I can just add one more point. Thank you, Mr. Jones. When we discussed this in committee, we had Ms. Smith, Debbie Smith, come and join us. And she mentioned that the funds that are needed for this particular pilot program are already baked into the Vision Zero program. So there are funds that are already available to execute this pilot program within Vision Zero today. Yes. Thank you.

I'm trying to figure it out and, um, let's start with Ms. Ashmira and then followed by Ms. Mayo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, Mr. Jones, thank you so much for bringing this, uh, with a very quick turnaround. I appreciate the work that your team has done. Uh, also I appreciate Debbie Smith and her team for, uh, for a quick turnaround on this. A couple of questions that I have. Did we explore an idea that was floated by Councilmember Owens about having this cameras rotating across the city so that we can get more benefit for just 10 cameras?

That's something we could put into the RFP. We're not entirely sure what the different contractors' construction looks like. If it's a permanent that takes quite a bit of construction to actually install the camera, it may be a challenge to move them. There may be vendors out there that have a less permanent camera system. So that's something we can definitely explore during the RFP process.

Yes, I would like us to explore that option, because I was looking at the high injury network. If you go to slide number seven, where you got 39 intersections with fatal collisions, and if you only have 10, for 39 intersections, we got to be more creative with our solutions. So I support Council Member Owen's idea. I think that was brilliant, where we can get more benefit. And then also, she had suggested having sort of like a sign that says that there is a red light camera. Just the sign will prevent people from running red lights. Have you explored that idea?

Not completely. We don't want to get too many signs before we've got the program up and running, but that is something we'll also consider.

Yes, I think I would like to see both of those ideas being implemented because how can we save more lives with this pilot program? You know, when I look at this red lights camera, I don't look at just the cameras. This is really a public safety issues. We have seen how many lives that's been lost recently to red light running. There have been few young lives that's been taken. And we are talking about pedestrians. We are also talking about cyclists. We are also talking about car drivers that follow the rules. And they get hit by someone who chooses to run a red light. So this is a serious issue. This is a public safety issue that we need to invest in. So certainly this is something I will support. So this pilot program, it is for a year. And I appreciate that there will be some clear metrics on a dashboard, if we can have public-facing dashboard, so that people can see the performance metrics. They can also see outcomes and also more transparent reporting. So people know this is not a money-grabbing program. This is certainly about public safety and eliminating traffic fatalities, especially major crashes on our intersections. So that's all I have. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Could we go to slide five, please? So just wondering if later you can talk a little bit more about this non-judicial administration kind of process. Just wondering who would be standing that up? Would there be a cost associated with that? Has that already been baked into the budget that you've already outlined?

Our previous program relied on city staff to do that, so the vendor would provide that to city staff, so it would likely be city staff that would provide that service. As far as the cost, it would really just be the cost of doing business. We wouldn't have to pay an outside group to do that.

Okay, thank you. I have another question. Could we go to slide 12, please? A 12, please. Thank you.

Sorry.

You're fine. Yes. Just wondering if we can have potentially mismanaged or think of some stipulations. As a former teacher, I'm excited that CMS will be getting some of these funds, but wondering if we can be thoughtful of how Um, we can influence maybe how some of those are going to be used. I know that we are providing a million dollars for some workforce housing for CMS. Are there other instances where we can think through, you know, this potential, I forgot where the slide was. It talked about how many millions of dollars that they'll be getting from this. Oh, sorry. That's slide. Um, So yeah, $4.05 million is quite a good amount of money for us to think through. I think we have some common goals with CMS to think through how do we support our workforce. I would be interested in maybe seeing if there's some stipulations of CMS, would it all be interested in that? So how do they help not only their teachers but bus drivers? custodial staff, you know, all of the people who allow us to have a robust community. Yeah, I'd be interested in that. Not sure the logistics, but I know you can negotiate that for us. Thank you, sir.

All right. Our next speaker is Ms. Mayfield, and Ms. Owens will follow.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Go to the next slide. So we're anticipating... Might be towards the end that this will start in 27. Why by early 27? Why do we need a year and a half to get this pilot up?

So that would be approximately six months, six to seven months. Early is kind of nebulous, I know. But we do have to go through the procurement process. There is going to be a period developing the contract, negotiating the contract. And additionally, whatever vendor we select, we'll have to install and provide the equipment. And so we wanted to make sure we didn't set an unrealistic goal. We've all experienced parts shortages and difficulty getting things, so we would hate to say we're going to stand this up in September and the vendor can't get the equipment. So we really need to go through that procurement process and then work with the vendor to get the equipment installed.

Okay, and when we go back to slide 10 where we're looking at the financial analysis for the intersections as well as looking at So when we're looking, I want to make sure that I can explain it if someone asks. When we're saying the total estimated expenses, what are we actually calculating? So we're saying approximately $5,000 per month per intersection. We're saying that we think that's going to be the cost at each intersection for having the light there?

Yes. So based on feedback we've got received from vendors, most vendors offer turnkey solutions now. So you pay them $5,000 a month per location and they will operate a red light camera at that location and issue the citations and do all the back office parts of doing a red light camera program.

So manager, I would like to, make a recommendation. We have a strong relationship with National League of Cities. We also have a number of partners through National League of Cities that actually do this work. I think it would be in the city's best interest for us to utilize some of those relationships because contractually we might be able to identify a reduced cost based on the work as well as the expertise. But it's an opportunity for us to really utilize that long term partnership that we have with National League of Cities and looking at who our potential partners are. Because I seem to have remember at more than one conference at having representatives share and some of them didn't necessarily look at what our out-of-pocket costs, there are some companies out there that actually have cost sharing. So there might be a way to look at the revenue if there's a way to help protect. Because the other thing that I don't think we ever really talk about is along with injury and loss of life when these accidents happen, the debris. that's left on highways left on streets from the accident, the vehicles that aren't picked up immediately that trigger other accidents. So, um, I'm salty right now cause accident happened on 45 on Saturday morning. And whatever the debris that blew off from the vehicle blew out my front tire. But more importantly, it blew out the front tire of two 18. They blew out tires of 18 wheelers that was coming up behind me. So when, once you made it up past exit three, there was at least three other vehicles that was sitting off to the side. We drive around and they are bumpers and other things that we constantly see. But, and in my dream world, along with catching those that run lights because people have been acting like a red light is a suggestion, not an actual command to stop lately, and it is disheartening to see. In my dream world, them cameras might actually catch some of these people that keep opening up their car door and putting their whole bag of garbage out on the street. as well. I don't know if we have the technology to capture that, but um, these, because we have a beautiful clean city, it is not as clean as it once was, but that is due to the individuals riding around our city and thinking that the street should be the trash can. Thank you.

That's Johnson. That's good. Not a mayor. I believe you said it was me.

Ms Johnson.

Okay.

And then I did Ms Owens and then follow that Ms Johnson. Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor.

So thank you, Mr. Jones. I appreciate the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. Could you get back to the slide that has the entirety of the high injury network? I think that was slide seven, maybe? Yeah, so I note in slide seven, I just need to be able to speak to my district about this, that we've got eight locations that are along the high injury network, but we are not going to get any of these in this immediate pilot. I'm assuming that is because while we have eight discrete locations that have had identified fatalities, the totality of fatalities is not such that those were prioritized. Can you confirm that?

Without getting diving deeper into the data, that's probably what happened. These are intersections that had fatal collisions. What we're looking at more specifically for red light cameras is angle and left turn different roadway collisions. So those intersections in your district may have had a fatal collision at the intersection, but it may not have been one that's readily addressable by red light cameras.

Excellent. Thank you. I've had a lot of interest in these out of my constituents, and I just want to be very clear with them that this is a pilot that you described as being fluid. Is that correct? So as you have stood those up, there is the potential that some of those could be moved to other locations? No.

Not only that, but the list of 10 is just a preliminary list. As we start working through the RFP process and analyzing the most recent crash data, there may be a location in District 6 that rises to the surface.

okay no thank you i appreciate that um just another question that i had um around the um you know i have not done a pilot before this is my first opportunity to see that and so what is the normal cadence that we can appreciate i know you said that there would be some transparency but how will we know if it is working is there a routine time that you come back and report to us or what does that look like

Ideally, we would have a dashboard for red light camera violations and the collision data at those intersections. And with crash data, you tend to not want to compare weekly numbers. But I think at the conclusion of a year long pilot, we could have some this is working or we need to rethink this approach.

Okay, and if you know, just one follow-up question, and this may be for the city attorney as well. Is there an intention to have the cameras run for a period of time before we go after the piece with the General Assembly? So are you needing to or wanting to show some efficacy of the cameras before we go and ask the question? And do you know what that time would be that you would go to the General Assembly?

So the intent was really we understood council's desire to stand something up. We know the state legislature is busy. They're in short session. And so the opportunity to get something before the state is that window is very tight. And so the earliest opportunity I think we could have the delegation work on something would be later this year when they go back into session. And so it could be. more than a year before we actually get to that interlocal agreement if the state legislature agrees with that approach.

I appreciate that. I think I just wanted to also put out into the room, I would really like for us to stay on top of the things that we want to add to our legislative agenda. I think sometimes we get to those meetings and there's, oh gosh, we said this here or there. I think this is really one that provides a wonderful opportunity for us to work in partnership with our General Assembly and get them on board with this, because I think it eminently makes sense and it affirms a court ruling to that effect. So thank you, Mr. Jones.

All right. Our next speaker, next speaker, our next, J.D. Yarez. Oh, Ms. Johnson. Ms. Johnson, sorry about that. J.D., you didn't look like her at all.

I think I just need glasses.

Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted some history, if we could. So it's my understanding this was at some point we had red light cameras in Charlotte. I know I think it was 2020 or 2021 when I was on the safety committee. I know Council Member Eggleston was the chair. I don't remember who the vice chair was. It might have been Council Member Ashmear or Watlington. I can't remember, but we talked about this. and there was a barrier into implementing it. Can you give us a little history? What's changed? Are we more progressive now? Did something happen with the law or what happened?

One of the biggest changes has been the willingness to spend city funds to fund a program to reduce serious injury and fatal collisions. In the past when we had a red light camera program, there was no capital program for Vision Zero. The funding wasn't there and it would have required general fund dollars to run the program. Thanks to you all and the voters approving bond packages where we have Vision Zero funds, I think what's changed is the calculus on relatively small investment I know $150,000 isn't relatively small but from a road construction and building things it is a lower amount and so to have that vision zero funding that's available that we can stand up a program that can potentially reduce or eliminate fatal and serious injury collisions that's really what's changed and favorable court rulings allowing cities to partner with the school boards to basically turn the program into a net neutral for everybody involved. Those rulings came out in, I believe, 2022, 2023 timeframe. So there's been kind of a growing shift in the way we view safety and then, of course, favorable court rulings.

Thank you. So the money has to go to CMS, is that okay? Yes. Do we, are there any reports of how many cars are currently running the lights? Have we done any preliminary reporting?

No. Okay.

And the reason I ask is if it's $5,000 a month and the tickets are $75, there's a minimum that we have to make in order for it to make sense. I think it's like 66 cars. I'm sure we'll meet that. But I was just wondering if we had any preliminary numbers. Okay. And how will the public be notified?

So, of course, we'll have signs posted at the intersections. We'll, of course, use our social media presence. We'll rely heavily on our media partners. So this would be one of those campaigns where there's a push to notify motorists throughout the city, hey, this program's coming. I know in the past when we stood up our speed camera program, There was a two- to three-week grace period where citations were mailed at no charge just to let people know, hey, this is here. In two weeks, you're going to have to pay if you continue this behavior. So there's different ways to get that message out, but we will definitely use city corporate communications and other partners to get that message to the public.

Okay, if we could really get this word out, because this is a change of behavior. Some people, if you say, you know, what do you do at a yellow light? People speed up, right? So it really, really is a change of behavior. So if we could get that information out, maybe post it at the DMV and just really begin to change that behavior. I also like the idea of capturing people who are littering. Is that an option?

Not that I'm aware of at this time.

Big brother.

Okay. Well, I mean, I think it's a, okay, all right. That's what I wanted to know. Okay. Well, if it is, can you research if that's an option?

I will definitely look into that.

Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I have.

All right. Ms. Owens would like to have a follow-up question, I think. Anybody else? Yes, there are more people, but I thought you wanted to be.

Just to that point, my apologies. I forgot the question that I had. I know that we've seen that some vendors are doing both the noise cameras and the red light cameras. Could you speak to that in the same vein of the question that was just raised?

So one of the vendors that we've been in discussions with actually has the noise camera systems as part of their suite of tools. I believe CMPD is currently working through that, and the attorney's office are working through those issues. There could be the potential, should the legislature grant us authority to that, where there would be – economies of scale by having a vendor that can provide all those different camera enforcement solutions. There are cities such as Alexandria and Washington, D.C. that have a whole host of noise, stop sign running cameras, red light running cameras, and they tend to use the same vendor that provides all those services.

Okay. J.D. Arias?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Jones, for the presentation. I want to first start off by thanking the Public Safety Committee. Thank you so much for taking this on, and especially Sustained Charlotte and their advocacy efforts. Personally, to me, because I have gotten the opportunity to visit families across Charlotte and those that have been impacted by traffic violence since I've been sworn in such as who is a young bicyclist and is now paralyzed due to traffic violence such as red light passings and traffic violence. Just most recently in my district, which continues to be the district with the most traffic fatalities, One of Manolo's Bakery's employees, Angelica Chicas, a young lady who started to work there two months ago, died this past weekend attempting to turn onto North Sharon Amity off of Central Avenue. And so this is extremely important. And of course, as I mentioned earlier during my term, my friend Lance Sotilo, who I went to college with, who passed away and Plaza and North the 36th Street. And as well as myself, I got in a car accident a few weeks ago. So this is extremely important and I'm so glad we as a city and all of our colleagues are taking a proactive approach in addressing this. I have a few questions. So financial concerns led to sunsetting the program the first time in 2006. What financial protections, risk mitigations would we be leveraging to ensure that this pilot is a success and we don't find ourselves in that situation again?

So I think at the end of the pilot, should the cost escalate beyond where you as counsel aren't comfortable And we, as the capital program managers, realize that maybe there's a higher and better use for those dollars than funding this program, especially if we don't see the reductions in collisions and reduction in fatal and serious injury collisions. I think that's when that metric comes into play.

Thank you. So the citations that will expect to generate revenue, how do you expect the city to see those funds be transparently tracked, reinvested, and reported to the public? So what mechanism do we expect to use to kind of see where those taxpayer dollars are going to?

So as far as the program, we will be paying for the program. We'll receive an invoice from the vendor every month, and we can show what we're paying on those invoices. And then as far as CMS's share, I'm sure there's a way monthly we could have a report of what's been sent to CMS.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Jones. To my colleagues, I think That should also be essential and part of the interlocal agreement that we will potentially be a part of is making sure that we have that data transparency and reporting transparency. The other thing I would add to staff is, as I've been contributing to the revamping of the Vision Zero data dashboard, thank you so much for the work that you all are currently doing. And thank you, council members, Mira, for bringing that up earlier. I think implementing that into this dashboard, I think, will also be crucial moving forward. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right, Mr. Driggs.

Thank you, Mayor. I, too, am a survivor of traffic violence. I believe you may remember having had an encounter with a car. I was lucky I had a dislocated shoulder and got banged up pretty good. I made a huge dent in the car.

I just want you to know.

So for one, Ms. Mayo, I really like your suggestion. I'd like to explore that a little bit. This is a proposal that yields $4 million a year to CMS and costs us money. So I wonder if we could have a friendly conversation with them and maybe talk about having the proceeds committed to a fund of theirs, right? The purposes of which we would agree on with them, right? I mean, we can't interfere with their conduct of their business, I get that. But before we actually commit to this, if we just say, hey, we would like to know, we'd like to feel good about what will happen at CMS if we do this as part of our deliberation. The past thing, by the way, I remember the discussions about that, and the feeling was that we did not appreciate the fact that we couldn't cover our costs. That was an issue. But also the narrative at that time was that the reduction in those side impact collisions was offset by a lot of rear-end collisions, more rear-end collisions. And so at the time, it seemed like the net advantage wasn't necessarily that great. And then if you look at the reduction in fatalities in relation to the cost, even though you don't talk about human life and money terms, there are possibly other ways you could spend $600,000 and save more lives than this. So I just put that out there. Personally, I think this is something we should do. We should pursue the opportunity with the General Assembly to get full cost recovery and Bear in mind, too, that this is a pilot, right? If we like the way this goes out, the goal will be to leverage it, expand it, and at that point, the money that CMS gets is even bigger, right? So maybe you and I could talk about that, or we'll see what the constraints might be in terms of trying to partner with CMS. Thank you.

All right. Ms. Anderson, do you want to wrap? Is there anyone else that would like to comment before Ms. Anderson wraps this up?

Okay, Ms. Anderson. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, colleagues, for this really great, robust discussion. I think from the tone of this conversation, we're in a pretty good place. And I like all the added dimensions that you all have brought to the table on this. I think at the bottom line of conclusion, we're saying this is 10 intersections out of 39 intersections within our high-injury network, which is approximately 25% of intersections within high-injury, right? And so that's a pretty good number to have within a one-year pilot. that could potentially yield the benefits that we see here. The other thing I've heard, a recurring theme around data and being data driven. And Mr. Jones, we'll have to vote on this as a council, but if successful and if we move forward, I think a part of our RFP process should be around, when you think about these turnkey companies that can provide reporting, How can that be resident facing to the public, but also then potentially fit into our ERP system so it can be a part of our reporting suite for municipal activities and operations as well. And since we're upgrading our ERP system, I think those are salient questions you can ask through the RFP process. And lastly, we've talked about the dollars and how much that could potentially generate. for CMS. Again, if it's 20, 25% of the intersections, just back of the mat, back of the envelope calculation, you know, um, four times that, that 4 million, I mean, that, that's looking like, you know, if it's city wide, it could be 16 million or north of that, that CMS could get if this is a successful pilot. Now we do have to, of course, city manager, And city attorney, look at the constraints of the law within the General Assembly and the statutes. But I think some really good perspectives, CM Mayo and CM Driggs on that. So more to come, of course. This is the first action review, and it will be back in front of us to potentially take an action. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Pertanko.

Thank you, Council. Mr. Jones, thank you. Let's head down now until we can start our city council meeting. Ms. Mayo? Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Let's head down.

Are we going downstairs? Yes, ma'am.

Yes.

Okay.

Bye. ¶¶

Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for attending the Charlotte City Council meeting. I want to call this meeting to order and appreciate what you are doing to help us understand what's important in our community. I want to begin, though, with a call to order. We're going to have introductions, and we'll start with our clerk.

Billy Tons, Deputy City Clerk. Andrea Leslie-Fight, City Attorney. Good evening, Dimple Ashmura, at large.

Good evening, Victoria Watlington. I have the pleasure of serving you as a member at large.

Good evening, Joy Mayo, representing District 3.

Good evening, and welcome to District 1. Dante Anderson, District 1.

Marcus Jones, City Manager.

Lai Liles, Mayor.

Good evening, everyone. James Mitchell, Mayor Pro Tem.

Good evening, Kimberly Owens, representing District 6.

Malcolm Graham, District 2.

Ed Driggs, District 7.

Good evening. Luana Mayfield, Council Member at Large.

Good evening. J.D. Masueta-Arias, proudly representing the Eastside, District 5.

Good evening. I'm Renee Johnson, and I have the honor of representing District 4.

All right. Thank you, everyone. I think everyone is in their seat and ready to go. We begin our meeting with an invocation, which is an expression or inspiration, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. The invocation is intended to solemnize our proceedings. We celebrate the religious diversity of our community, including those without a religious faith. Tonight, we would like to ask Councilmember Mayo to give our invocation. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

As we begin tonight's meeting, I'm reminded that innovation is not simply about embracing new technologies. It's also about challenging and creating thoughtful policies to help communities navigate change responsibly. Tonight, we'll consider important items, including our proposed budget and a potential moratorium on new data center development. While these may seem different topics, they both ask the same question. How do we prepare Charlotte for the future while protecting the quality of life that makes our city strong? The proposed budget reflects investments in public safety, affordable housing, small businesses, mobility, and our workforce. These investments help ensure that opportunity reaches every corner of our city. We'll also discuss the proposed data set and moratorium. This conversation is not about being for or against innovation. Rather, it's about taking the time to understand the potential impacts of a rapidly growing industry and ensuring our policies keep pace with that growth. A temporary moratorium will allow us to study important considerations such as energy demand, water consumption, noise, infrastructure needs, land use compatibility, and potential impacts on nearby neighborhoods. It would also provide an opportunity for meaningful public engagement as we develop appropriate guardrails and standards for future development. Innovation works best when it is paired with transparency, accountability, and community trust. My hope tonight is that we approach every item before us with curiosity, respect for different perspectives, and a shared commitment to Charlotte's long-term success. Thank you, and I look forward to a productive meeting this evening.

Let's have our Pledge of Allegiance, if you choose to, please.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,

Thank you very much. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to recognize our city attorney, Andrea Leslie Fite. Attorney Leslie Fite has been recently honored by the North Carolina Bar Association as a recipient of its Leading Legends of Color Award. This prestigious, really prestigious award recognizes attorney of color, whose leadership, service, and achievements have made an undeniable impact on the legal profession, and whose accomplishments may have helped pave the way for future generations. Throughout her service to the city of Charlotte, Attorney Leslie Fite has provided exceptional legal counsel, thoughtful leadership, and a steadfast commitment to public service. Her professionalism, integrity, and dedication have earned the respect of colleagues across our organization. So on behalf of the City Council, congratulations on this well-deserved honor and we are grateful for your service and proud to celebrate this remarkable achievement that you have made and helped us be a part of something really special in this community. Let's all raise a hand.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. You want to say a few words? Yes, thank you. I'm deeply honored and surprised I didn't expect that.

Well, thank you very much.

I think, how long have you been with us now? Seven months.

Seven months.

Seven years.

It might feel like seven years, right? Mr. Graham has noted it as well, so that's it. Let's see, I want to go ahead and start. We're going to start with our public hearing, and we're now going to open the public hearing on the Average Express Incorporated Business Investment Grant. Madam Clerk, we do not have any speakers.

Move to close. A second.

We have a motion to move and close. Any discussion? Mr. Driggs.

No, I'm rooting in favor.

All right, so all in favor of the motion? Anyone in opposition? So thank you all for that. I do have that motion. We are going to close that and approve the city's business investment grant to the Everett Express. Oh, I'm sorry, Everett Express here. All right, we're going to open the public hearing on Capital Group Companies, Inc., Business Investment Grant. Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers? No, ma'am. All right, do I have a motion to close the public hearing and to approve the city's business investment grant to the Capital Group Companies for a total amount not to exceed $1,038,565. Over the five years.

Approval for A and B, Mayor.

We have a motion for A and B and a second. Any further discussion? Is all in favor? Ms. Mayfield? Did you want to have a comment? Ms. Mayfield?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I mentioned it earlier, but I do have a concern when we have a public hearing and decision on the same evening. We had started this conversation back in February, on February 23rd. is when it's a closed session, which we need to do when we're having discussions of potential investment, but to have a public hearing today in June that gives little to no time for a community to actually know that we're having a discussion and actually come down for the public hearing to understand why we will be making this type of investment the total amount for the investment, because even with the last one, we didn't identify that this Part B is asking for us to approve the business investment grant for a total amount not to exceed $1,038,565 over five years, but we also don't discuss the reality that when we approve these grants, it is noted that that if the company were not to meet the anticipated goals that they would need to return any and all funds, but also that taxes that I do from the capital group companies must be paid before the grant payment is made. So I think there's an opportunity for us to not rush certain conversations because we're in June. Council had this conversation in February. to have on any business agenda opening a hearing and approving the grant basically in a single motion is concerning. So I will be, just as with the last one, I will be voting against this one as well.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Mayfield. Anyone else to comment? Okay. All of them. Did I hear someone? Maybe upstairs. So we now have a motion to close this out. All in favor? All in favor, please raise your hand. And we have one person in opposition. Thank you, Ms. Mayfield. All right. So now we're going to move the next item to the policy section for our agenda. City Manager, do you have any updates for council this meeting?

I do not.

You don't have any updates from.

So, um, if I may mayor, um, I, I need to have a little bit of clarity on when this is appropriate, but I would like to revisit an issue with respect to the mayoral selection process. I know that it is not on the agenda that we had discussed with council today, that if we were to make a tweak to that, I'd like to put forward a motion that we modify the approach so that we can have a virtual participant. I think it's come to our attention that some people, because we chose a date and then went out with the date, we haven't had that opportunity.

So at the conclusion of your agenda, you can make a... I'm sorry.

She's answering my question as to when I can do that. I wondered if I could do it during the city manager's report, which is what I was told.

Pursuant to your rules and procedure.

If we could... She's responding. If we can have the city attorney give us

Since this item is not on the agenda, at the conclusion of the agenda, there can be a motion to add it. to the agenda and council would need to vote on whether this topic can be added to tonight's agenda for discussion. Absent a unanimous vote, it would need to be added to a future agenda.

I withdraw that because I know I can't get to unanimity. I had discussed it with your office and they thought that we could have a vote on it, but that's fine. That differs from your advice. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you. Ms. Kimberly.

All right, so next we'll move to the policy section of our agenda. City Manager, do you have any updates for the council this evening? Hearing none, all right, our next policy item is the fiscal year 2027 operating budget and fiscal year's 2027-31 capital investment plan. This represents our most important policy document I would like to first and almost always say that I'd like to commend the council on the diligence in this process to get to tonight's vote. The manager has proposed to us a very solid plan for each of you to review, and then you brought forward your ideas for adjustments on May the 18th meeting, and then reviewed and discussed each option on June the 1st with the straw votes meeting. You've collaborated and done a lot of time and work with us. These are tough decisions to be made, and we all understand that, but we have to continue to move forward because the citizens declare that we have to work hard together and do this collaboratively. So I hope that we will be able to make the adoption for the budget this year, right, I mean tonight, and that would be great. So I just want to make sure that that's where we are. Mr. Jones? We want to have a motion. We need a motion.

So moved.

So motion for a second and a second. All right.

Madam mayor, before we proceed, I'd like to make a motion to recuse council member Mayo on action. Number eight, recuse, recuse, recuse action. Number eight, please.

I think that what I had is that she is recused and you've already, do you want to make?

Yeah, I can make the motion.

No, no, not the motion. I just made the motion. So I second. Okay, we have a motion on the second. And all in favor of recusal, all in favor, please raise your hand. That is unanimous. Thank you very much. I think I saw everyone down there. All right. So for Item 9, is there a motion to adopt 2027 Appropriations and Tax Levy Ordinance, the FY2027 Compensation and Benefits Recommendations, and other items related to the Annual Budget Ordinance Adoption? Do I have a motion? We'll move. We'll have a motion and a second. A motion and a second. Ms. Anderson?

Do you go to Graham?

Mr. Graham. Right. We have that. Ms. Mayfield has her hand up. Ms. Mayfield.

I was putting it up for when you got to the discussion, ma'am.

All right. So do we have a motion? And we have a motion. All in favor, please raise your hand. We have to do all of this other things. All right. Mr. Graham, you're the business person here right now.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, members of council. First, let me start off by thanking the manager's office, the budget office, all the finance team, and the department heads. for their participation in preparing the budget. I think this process started in early January, and here we are six months later getting ready to pass what I think is a very challenging budget that reflects the needs of the citizens. Let me also thank the citizens for their participation in the surveys that we sent out earlier this year, the workshops, the public hearings, and providing their feedback on this year's operating budget. I just wanted to share with the council that the budget development process include input from the communities, city departments, the mayor and council. We have three budget workshops and governance meetings, February 5th, March 5th, April 6th, and two budget workshops on February 23rd and March 23rd as well. The fiscal 27 budget is structurally balanced with a two year lens that preserves core services. advanced public safety, advanced and transformational mobility, and maintain reserves. The tax increase all goes to public safety, which is 1.89 property tax increase dedicated to enhancing public safety, some of those items basically is increased for fire and police. It adds 35 cars to the police take home vehicle program, promotes recruitment and retention of police and fire police, and the public safety pay plan across the board pay increases. It provides funding to advance and complete animal care and control satellite adoption for the center project and invest in small business and neighborhoods with $600,000 for business direct organizations and main street programs, supporting our quarters of opportunities. $500,000, these are, again, budget highlights to expand youth internships at the city. with $1.5 million committed to expanding the Road to Hire program, which is a great program that the city is investing in. It matches the historic 2024 transportation and neighborhood bonds at $300 million, which includes $60 million for strategic investment areas, $22 million for Vision Zero, $50 million for sidewalks, $10 million for bicycle facilities, $2 million for a new orphan roads program, and $100 million to deliver seven mobility projects by 2030. Uh, in addition, the budget also includes, uh, 20, uh, 27 general fund for financial partners, Carolina youth, uh, community culinary school, crisis assistance, housing, collaborative parent, child roof above, et cetera. Uh, obviously there's always more projects than funds, and there were several projects that we were not able to find, um, the greater enrichment program. for the struggle, hard for the invisible, just do it movement, as well as others are not included in this fiscal 27 budget. The committee, the council has agreed to revisit our process for how we review uh, financial partners moving forward. Uh, and so we will take that into consideration as we move forward to, uh, distinguish, uh, and to discern how we will, uh, work with and improve the process or amend the process if necessary for, um, nonprofit organizations, um, uh, seeking support from the city. Uh, this is a good budget. Uh, it's not a perfect budget. but it reflects the values of our community, uh, and investments in public safety and investments in housing, uh, neighborhood development, um, core services, uh, that our community demand, um, demands of us. Uh, and I just refer the budget to you and thank the manager and staff for, for his preparation.

Thank you, Mr. Graham. So the next site, next policy item is, Oh, we're going to start. Is this okay? We're going to start with the council members. We're, I'm making their comments. We'll start with Ms. Johnson and go all the way around the dais. Ms. Johnson, please kick us off. And not literally.

I'm happy to support nonviolence, right? And I'm also honored to sit on the council tonight and to vote in favor of a balanced FY27 budget. that makes historic investments in Charlotte's future while heavily prioritizing our frontline workers. By securing a full 10% pay parity for both CMPD and CFD firefighters, we are proving that public safety is our top priority. Lifting our city employees to a $25 per hour minimum respects the dignity of those who keep our city moving, and I'm incredibly grateful that we fought to restore funding to organizations, but also we must acknowledge the real strain that this budget puts on our local taxpayers and grassroots partners. While a property tax increase is necessary to build a safer city, it's painful to see vital community organizations left out, and I look forward to improving our policies so that we can take a more equitable approach. I'm honored to sit here tonight, and I look forward to supporting the budget. Thank you. JDRS.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, colleagues, and thank you, Chair Graham, for the work you and the committee put into this and into staff. I will be supporting the budget tonight. There's a lot of great things. things that are included in this budget, including $600,000 to business district organizations across the Queen City. That includes organizations in our main corridors across the city, such as Charlotte East and District 5, historic Weston partners and other organizations that will be included in this programming and mainstream programming as well. And also very proud of the efforts that Councilmember Graham, Mayor Pro Tem Mitchell, and some other colleagues on this dais, it was a collective effort to include funding for a new international relations manager position for the city of Charlotte. As the 14th largest city in this country, for us to be the only one not to have a dedicated office or department for international relations is really an opportunity gap, particularly when it comes to the multi-billion dollar transit mobility plan. that will put a lot of folks to work, but we saw in one of our recent reports that there's going to be a workforce gap there. I could get political and say why there's a workforce gap in construction for obvious reasons, but I think this will help us identify those opportunities as well as encourage more foreign direct investment that really are going to bring jobs and help us compete with our other peer cities and make us a world-class city. As my colleagues have already reiterated, it is not a perfect budget, right? I think it is one of the natural consequences of not um raising the property tax for six years right um and and we have to do this as we are continuing to grow as a city edging now a million residents as well as some disappointments in terms of some really good grassroots uh organizations such as for the struggle prospera and other organizations that weren't included in this budget which I think I'm encouraged and looking forward to improving our financial partners process and really proud of what we did last week as this council looked two weeks ago, or I believe it was last week. I don't know. It feels like a year already. when it came to pay parity for our frontline workers, right? It's essential. You know, we need our men and women in blue uniforms as much as we also need our firefighters, right? They're typically the first ones on the scene when it comes to the public safety issues that arise in the city. So I look forward to supporting this budget. As always, I think we can always improve and be better. So thank you.

All right, thank you. Ms. Mayfield.

Thank you, madam mayor. Thank you. Chairman Graham and the entire committee for that represent our budget committee as well as manager Jones for presenting us another balanced budget. I have been a extremely vocal advocate for our fire department. I appreciate the fact that in our budget we have kept the funding for our burn center. There are other items in the budget that I have concerns about. Unfortunately, I think about, even though we have had a number of meetings, we have a very short window where we have those meetings and we spend a lot of our time on, we spend a lot of time on financial partners, which is 0.01% of the total budget. We had around 6 million in financial requests that came in this year. We had less than a million that was actually available for allocation. I appreciate those that are here that are advocating for the struggle. We also have the opportunity individually to donate and support. One of the challenges that we have talked about for years in creating a system is, one, an organization is going to be able to come and apply for financial partners. We decided out of between five to seven years. If this administration didn't teach anything, don't rely on government because government got limitations in funding. One of the biggest challenges for a lot of our nonprofits is there was a lot of federal money that was available that has been eliminated under this administration. The other challenge is council approved a process for staff to adhere to. So if we got to have a conversation about our process with how scoring is done, because this is the second budget year where I said, if we're not going to stick to the process, then stop making staff go through it and just pick out the organizations that you want to fund. Because at the end of the day, we have a responsibility with limited funds to try to figure out how to invest the best way that we can. We had, if you have a score from 100 and we had scores as low as in the 30s, how do we, and what staff did, I support. They picked from the money we had, if we were the fund, At full capacity, we were able to fund seven projects. If we had additional monies, then we would have been able to do more. But for me, it was very difficult to have an organization that scored a 96 to skip everyone that was 96 down to 89, skip everything in between to jump to another organization, no matter how much I might like the organization personally. Greater Enrichment does amazing work. They didn't show up. to the meeting. It was one mandatory piece, and the meeting was online. No, I'm not going to support later a conversation about having our interim mayor discussion online because you're not phoning that in. If you can't make the time to get here, I'm not understanding why you put an application in. That's a whole separate piece for me. But I also have concerns when we think about our water and sewer. Yes, Charlotte is the lowest when we look at impact, but the individual impact. So if we move forward with the proposal that we have currently in the budget, because again, we spent a lot of time on a small piece of the budget. We didn't go into breaking down the actual increase and the way that works out for solid waste fee. Residential curbside, currently that's $120.30. What's proposed is a 13.51% increase, which would take it to $136.55. If we look at water and sewer and we say what the average user weight is, I don't know what the average rate is based off of when we have town homes as well as single family homes. But what we have noted is currently is $921.60. The proposal is a 5.74% increase. stormwater, $129 and 84 cents. The proposal is an additional 4.44% increase. So when we look at over the years, the city has not passed a property tax, even though I had recommended that we had at least had real conversation about incremental so that we wouldn't have a large tax, which now we're looking at a 6.95% increase. at one time, but we have consistently because it's baked into the model when we look at solid waste, water and sewer that that has been a consistent increase. We have to recognize that we have residents in our community right now that have experienced layoffs and those layoffs are not there out of work for 34 weeks. People have been out of work for a year or more. They are not bouncing back in. Our big partners, the banks, have been laying off. And when they lay off, they lay off hundreds at a time. When some of the corporate investments that we have made and those companies lay off, there's not a transition plan that's getting these people back into the workforce at the pay that they were making. So you have someone that was earning $27, $28 an hour in a field for 15, 20-plus years now being offered $18 to $20 an hour. That's a considerable cut to the cost of living, so I have a challenge. I don't know if I'm still playing on the fact of whether or not I can raise my hand for the budget, because we have the full budget and we don't break the budget out. But we have some clear line items throughout the budget that give me concern, because I own... That in our last budget, I did not speak up to some fees that were going to be instituted regarding uptown parking. I had an individual conversation with the mayor, but I did not bring it to full council and I did not speak to it out loud. That has caused tremendous challenge. That has caused challenges for our workers, whether they're in hospitality or they work at one of our event spaces that once had access to parking after six o'clock. That is no longer the case. You also have a two hour limit. We were just talking over this weekend. People came to visit. You can't even... expand your parking for 4 hours you need to physically get leave wherever you are and try to find another parking space Council approved these parking spaces years ago when we approved developments in Uptown when we approved multifamily developments we negotiated parking that we then turn around through a budget request through Center City Partners to move access to those parking spaces to be listed under Park it and have a fee to have constant turnover. That's fine for the people who come in and visit. But are we creating obstacles for our own residents to enjoy their uptown because it's not accessible. We're working on a better transportation system. We will soon have the funds and I pray that we do that MPTA does the right thing because it will soon be out of our hands to create a more robust public transportation system. But the majority of us drive. And if I have to drive in uptown, this is one of the last places that I'm going to try to have a meeting because I'm not paying $25 a parking because y'all don't pay me enough for that. So I want us to be transparent in our budget. We have some really great investments in our budget. We have some really good opportunities in our budget. but I also want us to be cognizant of when we vote, it is not just the impact that we're paying in Texas. Our community is feeling this impact, and our most vulnerable, as well as our workforce, is feeling the impact of a 6.95% increase, a 13.51%, a 5.74%, a 4.44%, It might not sound like $5.76 additional is a lot, but $16.25 is a meal. So that going from $9.21.60 to $9.74, $52.92, that's not only a meal, that's a meal and a bill for some people. So I want us to try to figure out how to really look at the impact of our decisions as we move forward and we go through this budget cycle or figure out a way for us to try to have more budget conversation and not get stuck on just the financial partners, which are important, but that's 0.01% of the entire budget. When we're looking at the impact of our fees, and the residents residential versus corporate impact to those fees. I want us to try to be more intentional with how we move forward. I appreciate manager us not being redirected and thinking at the 125 million for the housing trust fund. I had great concern of an additional 16 cents being added to try to get to the $200 million for a one-time bond allocation and what that financial impact can look like. But I think we also need to figure out how we can start preparing now on how to help our residents that when that tax bill comes out, That $650 you get from the county is not enough. We talked about this previously. We need to look at what is the real impact of that new tax rate, and is that going to cause displacement or hardship? Because if I bought my home 20 years ago for under $100,000, and that house is now valued because of the market and because it's now valued at $600,000, $700,000, This new tax bill is giving me an over $2,000 tax bill. We need to make sure that we figure out a way to help those residents the same way we help our development community when it comes to allowing them to take those taxes to turn into subsidy. Attorney Leslie Fite, what could the language look like and will we have the legal ability to look at a subsidy for our residents that potentially will face hardship. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Mr. Driggs.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So as a retired finance professional, Mr. Manager, I want to commend you on the outstanding preparation and presentation of your budget as usual. I expect you will win the usual award. And that matters a lot. I mean, it's a very professional look for us and I think it reflects well on all of us. You also did a great job, I think, of taking on board the input that you got, diverse sources of input, identifying where there was priority and incorporating that into your budget. I appreciate the fact that first responders are getting an increase because it's good that that's one thing on which we can all agree. We need to take care of those people. Safety is a big priority for us and we need to invest there. I do have two concerns. One of them is, in my view, as a retired finance professional, I believe that we are stretching our capacity to spend and to borrow. We had to dip into a couple of reserve funds in order to accommodate some changes in the budget, so I believe our cushion is thinner than it was in the past. It concerns me. I hate to think we end up in a place where we can't manage without another tax increase. The second thing is the tax increase itself. This is not just a partisan issue. The fact is that tax increase for a lot of low-income households that matter the most to us hurts. And there are many people on both sides of the aisle who are fundamentally opposed to a tax increase. And I think I have an obligation to them not to support this budget, even while I express my appreciation for its qualities. Thank you.

Okay. Ms. Kimberly. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I appreciate the opportunity, and I won't belabor points that have already been mentioned by my fellow council members. One of the things that I want to commend the city manager and the budget team on is the raise of the minimum pay to $25 an hour. I think that sends a message. to communities and to our corporate community that we're trying to lead by example, and I appreciate that immensely. I'm hopeful that we also, and this is something I'd love to take up with the city attorney, is whether we can also adopt a responsible contract partner. plan that really looks at things beyond wage and our requirements that we know we're limited to, but that we can build on that leadership that we're trying to show with the way that we engage our contractors. So I look forward to opportunity and engage in that. Another point that I will mention, and while I have deep and abiding respect for Chair Mayfield, I really am disappointed that we didn't get to $200 million on the Housing Trust Fund. I think that housing is such an essential part component of one's lived experience in Charlotte, and I am disappointed, but am thankful that we got to the additional 25 million. I do appreciate that. The third item that I'm deeply thankful for, and I think that this reflects Chief Patterson's well-articulated three priorities, is that we have been able to fund take-home vehicles for CMPD, the 10% raise that's already been addressed, but also the dash cams. And for me, those are things, again, that do feed into that narrative that Chief Patterson really wants to focus on recruitment and retention of officers. We as a community have had a lot of focus on public safety, and I think an appropriate focus on her priorities is definitely something I'm proud that we were able to deliver. And then I'll say that another more creative item of the budget that sort of came up and we discussed, and it still needs to be scoped within committee, but the funding that's made available for a transit model that was brought to us by Dr. Watlington, I'm excited that we can potentially go forward with some ideation around what that can look like, but I will caution, and this will come up in my comments later on data centers, that a whole lot of the energy that is in this space is, paradoxically for some, in the AI space, and it is around, you know, optimization models that computers can run that we cannot, so there is always that push-pull between our different priorities, and we'll discuss that when we discuss the moratorium. And then finally on the financial partners, I will second the comments of Councilmember Mayfield, and I do want to take a moment to explain how I personally approach nonprofit funding in this year's budget. This is my first budget to go through, but I know that many residents care deeply about fairness, transparency, and how we divide public dollars. This year, as I understood it, the city required every nonprofit partner to go through the same standardized application and scoring process after, of course, as was said, a mandatory financial partner meeting. I am personally happy that that meeting had a virtual option because I think any meeting that we have that enables folks to participate virtually can address accessibility issues, and particularly when we schedule things without adequate notice, perhaps there are times when people cannot attend. And so I'm I'm appreciative that we made that possibility available then. This year, the city required every nonprofit partner to go through the same application process, and that included our longtime partners, our new applicants, and folks like Safe Alliance that have historically been funded through the crime reduction PAYGO dollars. And we did this to create a clear and consistent record, a transparent record, of how each organization aligns with city priorities. demonstrates impact, and manages public funds. The scoring rubric was applied equally to all applicants, and some organizations scored very well. Others did not meet the threshold for funding. As a council member, I believe it's important that we respect the process that we ask staff to run, and that means honoring the scores, even when we personally admire the mission of an organization. At the same time, I want to be very clear why I continued to support funding for Safe Alliance. Their work is directly applied and tied to violent crime reduction and victim services. Core public service functions that the city has historically supported through our crime reduction pay go budget. Domestic violence is one of the highest volume violent crime categories of CMPD. And Safe Alliance is a critical part of that response system that keeps survivors safe. So while they participated in the process for transparency, their funding source differs from that for the financial partners. And so that is the distinction that I personally made, and I owe it to District 6 to explain that process, and I hope that I've done so. I am proud to support this budget, and I appreciate the leadership that was evidenced by its creation. Thank you.

All right. Miss Anderson.

Thank you Madam Mayor and thank you City Manager for presenting us a balanced budget that really leans in and underscores our priorities as a city and as a council. I'm excited about this budget this year although we do have a tax increase. But as you all know, the city of Charlotte is steadfast on not increasing taxes if we do not have to, which is why we have a multi-year track record of not increasing the tax rate for our residents. And this year, we're in a different position due to a variety of different things going on. But our city is growing, and I hope that you see when you look at this budget, that we are investing in the things that really and truly matter for our city. Housing has increased to $125 million with our housing trust fund. You see pay parity for our first responders, which was number one in their book, to have pay parity across the board, as well as a $25 minimum for our own city employees. But then you see investments that we're making as it relates to infrastructure. And understanding that as a city, one of our main goals is to provide good and accurate services to you all, to the residents of Charlotte. And there is some increase in investment in those spaces, but Charlotte is growing. We are growing as a city. Our approach to services is becoming more nuanced as the footprints grow and expand our city bounds. And so I'll leave it at that. I'm not going to say too much more. My colleagues have said a lot. I will be supporting this budget this year, and I look forward to us advancing our journey of becoming a world-class city and advancing on that list of being top 15, number 14 in the country. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right, Miss Mayo. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I won't speak long. Just want to pretty much agree with my colleagues on many of their points regarding this year's budget. You can really see that priority really was for public safety and thinking about our employees, which I think is so important that we're able to retain employees, great employees that we have at the city, as we know that The public sector and the private sector, you know, there's a huge difference. And they could go other places and I'm sure make much more money and not have to deal with headaches from us council members. So just really want to just thank them for their time and their effort. And I hope that this budget really reflects the respect that we have for them.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I won't rehash the points that my colleagues already made. Many of you are familiar with the highlights of the budget. Certainly, I was pleased to initiate the motion for pay parity, and I'm so happy to stand with my colleagues to have supported that. At the end of the day, there are a lot of great things in this budget, but I'll repeat what I've been saying for years. We need to take a much deeper dive into our budget because we are growing rapidly, and our needs are growing. uh accelerating and we understand that while we're making investments in the future which we absolutely have to we want to make sure that as the number one fastest growing city in the nation that our current residents are not just paying it forward but are seeing dividends today that improve our quality of life and so that's what my focus is as we go into this year and into this next budget cycle is how do we make sure that our dollars are not only going for future residents but our are impacting and improving the lives of current residents, whether that's pay parity for our first responders, or that's workforce development investments, or that's smart infrastructure investments that help us to relieve congestion and overages on the systems today. So I will be supporting the budget tonight, and I hope that as we continue to sharpen our pencils going forward, that we roll up our sleeves and do a deeper dive. Thank you.

Hi, Ms. Ajmera. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree with some of the comments that's been made by my colleagues. I agree with Chairman Graham. This budget is not a perfect budget because of the higher tax increase in this year's budget. I've heard from a number of residents, especially who live on a fixed income, are senior citizens, citizens with special needs. They have expressed concerns about being displaced. And I think we need to look at our incentives to see whether we are subsidizing large organizations, large corporations on the back of working people, and how much is it costing our community. I agree with Councilmember Mayfield. Our most vulnerable is feeling the impact. I talked with some of my neighbors in East Charlotte, in Far East, who are struggling with trying to keep up with the property tax bill. On top of the sales tax increase that's going in effect in July 1st. On top of the number of fee increases from water and solid waste. And I know it's not going to stop here. I certainly appreciate that the county manager proposed the budget without any property tax increase. And I would have liked to see further reduction in a property tax increase, but I also appreciate the work that the budget staff had done to increase our employees' minimum wage to 25 per hour. That shows that we lead by an example. We need to take care of our own. I also appreciated how we made significant investments in public safety, especially our police and fire as we are trying to recruit and retain our officers and our firefighters. I often hear from our community where priority two calls are not meeting the benchmark that it should. So when someone calls 911, the response time should meet the benchmark. Unfortunately, our priority two calls when it comes to CMPD are not meeting that benchmark. And I hope with this increase, we are able to meet that benchmark because that is certainly our core services that we must provide. I came into this budget process with two priorities. Support the people who serve our city, which is our employees, and protect the people who pay for our city, which is our taxpayers. We've come a long way. I think during the budget adjustment process, we did ask the city manager and the budget staff to go back and look at all of these adjustments without any additional tax increase, which you have done that. So thanks to you, Marie, and the entire budget team, and Mr. Jones for your leadership on not introducing additional tax on all of these adjustments that the council proposed. We did strengthen firefighter compensation to Councilmember Watlington's point. We invested in public safety to Councilmember Dante's point. And we maintained our commitment to neighborhoods and mobility. And throughout this process, every single Councilmember never stopped asking how we can do more while asking taxpayers for less. And I think that's responsible government, because every dollar in this budget belongs to the people of Charlotte before it belongs to the government. So with that, I will be supporting this budget, but I, look forward to doing a more deeper dive as we discuss next year's fiscal year budget process, because we will need to make sure that we are taking our most vulnerable population very seriously. And we are reviewing our subsidies and how much it is costing our communities, that we are not introducing subsidies to large corporations on the back of the very people we are trying to protect. That's all I have.

Thank you. Mr. Mitchell.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I'm not going to belabor it. I think you've heard from our colleagues who share why this budget was so important to them, and we truly know the impact it has on our citizens. So I am just going to highlight first, I'm going to start off by saying thank you to the city manager and to the budget team. Councilmember Ashmere Point, we challenge you more than one time to go back to sharpen your pencil so we can make sure we have the minimum impact we can have to our citizens. So that I say thank you. To our CMPD and fire department, I think this reflects our priorities. By giving you the 10% raise for both departments. City Manager Jones, thank you for sending a message to our city employees that a minimum we're going to raise $25 an hour to continue to lead and hopefully other corporations will follow what the city of Charlotte is doing. And I have to thank my colleagues. We put some new this year with business district organization. Council Member Graham, Council Member JD, Council Member Mayo, and Council Member Anderson. This started with a meeting we had with our business district organization that really challenged us to say we could be more impactful if there was additional funding for us. And so to my colleagues, this council, $600,000 will be going to our business district organization. Thank you. Charlotte is growing fast, 14th largest city, and I do think it's time that we invest more in our international relationships that we currently have. And so I'm proud to say I will be supporting the new position that we have in this budget. And to all the citizens, I think you need to know that we receive your emails. We hear you loud and clear. We know there's a struggle. But the challenge we have is how do we continue to move this city, keep you safe, making sure that we continue to do the important things, pick up your garbage, provide good water. But more importantly, we still have affordable housing challenge before the 14th largest city in America. And so thank you, city manager, for putting $125 million. That's more than we've ever done before. It was always $100 million. So thanks to all. Thanks for your emails. And thanks for this council for all the hard work to get us here today. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. I think that everyone has had an opportunity to speak, and I really appreciate the kindness of understanding how difficult it can be to do something in a company like this. And government is important, and the people along this dais are working very hard to be a part of what we can do and to do it better for our city. So right now, do I have a motion? Is there a motion to adopt?

There was only a motion and a second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please raise your hands. Anyone oppose? Ms. Mayfield and Mr. Driggs. Thank you, everyone. So let's just move forward to our next item. Our next policy item is a temporary moratorium on the new telecommunications facilities, storage facilities. For item 10, is there a motion... to adopt an ordinance to impose a 150-day moratorium on the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications for new telecommunications and data storage facilities within the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and its ETJ pursuant on General Statute 160-107. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. All right, now we want to have some comments about this as well. And so we started this way, we'll start this way this time. Thank you. Ms. Esmira. Okay.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. First, I just want to recognize individuals and organizations that have helped us with getting us to this process. I wanted to give a shout out to my neighbors who are here, Susanna, Gustavo, and Charlotte East, Greg Ashuto, and the entire crew who is here. Thank you for speaking up for our communities and our neighborhoods. I also wanted to give a shout out to Robert Dawkins, Action NC, and the entire team for providing us white paper. on what regulation should look like. I certainly appreciate it. I want to also give a shout out to Tony Mingle and neighborhood leaders like Reverend Jeanette Garner Mullins for speaking up for neighborhoods from University area to West Charlotte. I certainly appreciate the work. Many experts who had reached out to us over the past several months from Clean Air Carolina to Catawba Riverkeeper to all other organizations who have helped us get to this point. So I just want to be very clear because the question before us today, it is not whether data centers are good or bad. The question is whether Charlotte has the right policy framework in place to manage them responsibly. So today I believe the answer is that we need to do our homework. And we need to make sure we put guardrails and safeguards in place to protect our taxpayers, to protect our residents, and to protect our health. So This 150-day pause gives us the time that we need to do our homework. A 150-day pause today can prevent years of unintended consequences tomorrow. And a 150-day pause so we can get this right. I also want to thank the attorney, Andrea Leslie-Fight, and your team, Terry Hagler-Gray, for your... due diligence on this. I think your staff led on this issue, and I certainly appreciate that. And I also want to highlight the work that's been done by Heather Bollick and her team and Allison and her team. With that, We need to move forward, and I hope that this action tonight is unanimous, because it will send a strong message to our community that this is not a partisan issue when it comes to protecting our neighborhoods across the city. This is not a blue or red issue. This is an issue about quality of life. This is about clean air, clean water, and good neighborhoods. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you all for coming out tonight. I have to say, y'all, I'm proud of you because we're on a roll. And what I mean when I say that is that we are showing up, whether you are a member of the business community or a neighbor or you're an advocate for clean air or sustainable solutions, this is what it looks like when people come together. This is what... policy work is at its best, is that people who have totally different experiences, backgrounds, and in some cases even values are willing to come to the table and have a conversation so that we're not having to make false choices here at the dais. I absolutely support the 150-day moratorium to do exactly that. We are facing new issues that we have not had to face at this level because we are growing so rapidly. And I think that's a great thing because we have the capacity and the capability in our community to do exactly that. We've got to dig deeper. We've got to really understand not only the Legal framework, but also the technical information whether it's the data itself or it is the the scientific basis behind the impacts to our Communities when we can agree on the facts then we can talk about good policy and I think that that's exactly what this 150 day moratorium will do is give us an opportunity to come to the table together and to review and understand and align on the facts and then decide what's best for our community because ultimately we determine how it grows we are growing there is no mistake about that but we need to do it intentionally and so I look forward to reviewing the policies and co-developing the policy with you I look forward to seeing how that informs our economic development incentives how it informs our infrastructure investments going forward and frankly how it how it informs our housing policy going forward it is it is far reaching far beyond one data center or two data centers so i look forward to building the city with you thank you miss mayo thank you madam mayor um very appreciative of dimple and her leadership and others on council for really spearheading this um i think this is so important for us

particularly when we think of land use in our policies. So I too will be supporting this as many of my colleagues. Really, oh, thank you. As someone who works at an environmental nonprofit, my real job, or not, this isn't my real job, but you know, it's part-time slash really full-time. You know what I mean. You know, sorry. But yeah, just that I know how important it is for us to really be forward-thinking. At my job, we always talk about the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And wow, I know we've heard a lot about Maybe we should have thought about some policies in 2020 or 2023. I'm really proud of the work that we're doing now. And also incorporating community into those conversations. So I continue to support these conversations about how we can be better stewards to meet the needs of our community. So excited to continue to work with you all.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank all of you all for coming out and having a continued level of engagement around a variety of different topics. This topic of data centers is something that is not new but has bubbled up in a very meaningful way over the last several months, not only here in Charlotte but really throughout the entire country as we're looking at the proliferation of hyperscale data centers and different types of data centers that we haven't seen traditionally. I think it's important to know as we ask questions through this process and staff that provided us information, we have data centers in our community here in the city of Charlotte that have been around since 1990. Um, and so that's what I mean when I say it's not a new issue, but what we now have to see is we are operating in a 21st century and with the advanced technologies that really advanced on an exponential level, because that's the way tech works. We have to understand what the impacts are to communities. We have to understand what the impacts are to the environment, the impacts to small children. and having these facilities close approximate to K-12 schools. And so that is, I hope, part of the work that we'll do during this moratorium. The other thing that I think we can do is be very savvy about what the General Assembly allows us to do here at the local level. So looking at the types of data centers that might move forward, looking at the technologies where there's a closed-loop system Whether it takes advantage of chilling the chips right there on site rather than having a large water chilling system. Whether it's having what is called behind the meter strategies, which means that all of that electricity and all of that power source is right there on that site and not pulling from our municipal utility and then therefore having an adverse effect. on your rates that you pay as regular citizens. So a lot of that work is going to be done. I commend our staff on immediately standing up an interdisciplinary team to look at this. There's a lot of newness to it. So as you all advocate, I just want you all to extend some grace to staff as we're navigating through this, because there really is no rubric around how you actually specifically deal with this. We are learning as we go. We're learning from others who might be a step or two ahead of us. And we're trying to be nimble to make sure that we're taking care of your needs, our residents, and making sure that our city is safe. So, of course, without saying, of course, I'm going to support this 150-day moratorium while we do all that heavy lifting that I just described. Thank you all.

I would like to take a moment. I have one question for you.

Does this include... Sir.

Sorry.

Sir. Sir, you can't yell out.

I want to know, are you going to stop them?

Officer? Sir. Sir.

I had the first one to call. Yes. She wanted to. So before. No, thank you.

Too late.

So I wanted to say this, sitting up on the top is one of our former city council women, Nancy Carter. I had the opportunity to spend some time with her and the Clean Air group over the weekend. And I want you to always understand that we believe in people. And, of course, people like Nancy, they've stayed with us. They've made it possible for all of us to be here today and to actually think how do we do this better. So, Nancy, thank you for the work that you do. Stand up. You've got to stand up and give a round of applause. Allison, where's Allison? Al Austin. Al, where are you, Al? I can't see you. Stand up, please.

You don't have on shorts on today, you good.

Ignore that, ignore that. Al also is the chair of his community, and I think he said that he is actually working harder. than he did when he was elected so i just want you all to know you can come and be really really a part of this community and make it well i mean make it get better and so thank you al all of you and the people that are here i just want you to know it's because of what we are all able to do and accomplish when we do it together when we do it collaboratively. Thank you very much.

All right, so you're going to, I don't understand why he has not been removed from the meeting. We need consistency. Are you going to take comments? No.

All right. Thank you, Madam Mayor. In recent months, I've listened to our residents and studied the facts and sought to understand the full impact of this issue. Data centers play a vital role in our economy. They power the systems we rely on and bring investment to our region. However, these facilities can be large, consume significant energy, and operate continuously. Their size, water use, energy demands, and effects on nearby neighborhoods, noise, light pollution, and land use conflicts, they pose real challenges for our community. And over time, we've learned that many function more like industrial uses than office spaces and should be located accordingly. We've also learned that not all data centers are the same. A small facility is one thing, but a sprawling hyperscale campus is another. And our current rules do not reflect these important differences, and I feel that that must change. However, let me be clear. We do not have the legal authority for projects that have already been approved, and they will move forward unaffected by the moratorium. This pause. This pause is about shaping the future. These 150 days give us a chance to step back and ensure our policies are right. During this time, I will ask the city manager to direct staff to carefully review project scale, tailoring rules based on facility size and impact, neighborhood buffers, setting safe distances from our homes and from our schools, water and energy demand, assessing what our infrastructure can support or should support. Equity impacts, protecting vulnerable communities from unfair burdens. Costs and incentives, balancing fairness for residents and business. I also would draw attention, this has not been spoken to the room, but I do have a concern about some of the storage tanks for diesel fuel. Backup generator fuel is often necessary for these, and I'd like to have our folks be focused on that as well. AI is already changing transportation, housing, and many other sectors. At the recent Housing Innovation Summit, nearly every proposal involved AI. I've spoken with small businesses using AI to compete in new ways, getting help with HR, compliance, and marketing tasks they couldn't manage before.

I don't know that you all are listening.

Even our own traffic optimization project is going to rely on AI. This shows that data centers and their infrastructure are key to our future, and that's why I ask all of you to be involved. I ask homeowners, the alliance, the small business community, and all stakeholders to join in our effort. Their expertise is essential to creating a balanced and thoughtful approach. I will be supporting the 150-day moratorium so that we can take further input from all of those stakeholders and make a decision that works for our community and our economy. Thank you.

Before we take the next step, thank you, we're going to have the city attorney provide us some information.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The projects that are exempt by state law include those projects which have a valid building permit, any project for which a special use permit or application has been accepted and completed, any development that has a site-specific vesting plan approved by statute, Also, any development for which substantial expenditures have already been made in good faith reliance on prior approval. Also, any... project that has a complete application for developmental approval. This is not a city council policy. This is state law. Any attempt to apply a moratorium to any of these projects that I have just listed would be a direct violation of state law and subject not only this council to an overturning of its action, but also exposure to liability and frankly taxpayer dollars associated therewith. And so this is not a city council policy with respect to exempt projects, but it is state law.

All right. Mr. Graham.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I too will be supporting the moratorium for the 150 days. I think it's extremely important that we speak, tell people what they need to know versus what they want to hear and that we have a conversation based on truth and honesty about what we can and what we can't do. Certainly, Council Member Anderson is correct. A lot of the framework will be shaped by state legislation in terms of how they perceive this issue. So I would encourage everyone here to also talk to your state representatives and your state senators in reference to that's where a bulk of this thing, the framework, the guardrails that we will work within will come from. So I won't delay it any longer. I think we need to take 150 days to pause. And even for me, I've learned more about data centers in the last six weeks than I ever knew, right? And so even for this 150 days, for me to be better educated about what we can, what we can't do, the impact, certainly the number one goal is protecting neighborhoods and communities, right? That goes without saying. But there's a balance there, and I think that we need to figure out collectively together where that line is. Thank you.

All right. Mr. Driggs.

I look forward to joining my colleagues in support of the moratorium. I think there are undeniable national trends in data science, and we need to reconcile those. with our concerns about the welfare of our community. So we will have 150 days in order to educate ourselves, to hear different points of view, and to work out what is best for Charlotte. Thank you.

Ms. Mayfield?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I appreciate that we're having this discussion. I would like for Council to start being more proactive instead of reactive. When the first part... Well, we received the proposal over the million square feet back in 2023. And I asked questions then and shared information then regarding the potential impacts of data centers

Because we've always had data centers, but not at the scale that we're seeing now.

We're in a drought. We're not the only ones in a drought. There's a drought throughout the nation that's happening. Without having language in place that mandated or incentivized heavily, and for me, making the cost for the access to our water being cost prohibitive, That's how you incentivize internal cooling systems or location. It should be nowhere near schools. I speak all the time about the fact that we are losing manufacturing areas. Manufacturing is the place where it needs to go because of the constant hum that has not only a physical impact to us, it is having an impact on our wildlife, on bees, on certain insects. There are a lot of environmental, so you think about the fact that we passed the conversation around pollinator, but these buildings have so many other negative impacts on environment that will be long-term for us. So I appreciate that there's a lot of conversation now, but honestly, all of you that are... Sharing your thoughts very loudly. I need y'all to consider why we need you to be engaged. Because this isn't new. We're in 2026. We've already passed a couple of them. No, we can't backtrack to 2023. But when that information was out there, when we were having conversations about it, We didn't hear from the community. And our biggest challenge is when we don't hear from the community, even when we try to outreach to the community, and the community is like, I don't know, we all use AI, so it must be okay. And then you learn information later. We need you to help us. We want to work with you, but we got to hear from you. So us having this moratorium now is a step, but it is not going to... retract what was already approved and the two largest potential facilities over a million square feet. One of them, which 2023 is outside of city Charlotte limits. It's actually in the county. Yet, we need to hear from y'all. We need to know that this is a concern. This moratorium is going to help us do more research and hopefully get us to a place of policy language. But as my colleague mentioned, the North Carolina General Assembly understand the rules. They set them. At any time, the General Assembly can decide what is going to be the policy language for all 120 counties across North Carolina. So if the right person gets to them and say, hey, we want access to put data centers wherever we want, they have the legal ability to do that. What does that mean? Go out and vote. Don't complain about it. Just go vote. That's how you do it. I appreciate that you all think that we have more control and ability than what we do. We serve at the pleasure of the North Carolina General Assembly. So as we move forward and try to create language that's going to benefit our residents, we cannot say I cannot say that they are going to be no data centers, but what I can commit to is working with staff for us to figure out where is the best location as far away from students as far away from my elders as far away from residents as possible so that we can try to minimize and what can we do to ensure we are protecting our water source so that we don't end up like other communities that don't have access to healthy water and so that we can try to make sure that the cost of running that facility 24-7 for all of us that like to use chat GPT and cloud and AI and everything else, we're going to use it because that's a reality. The question is, can we do it? Do I come to your job and start messing up? So that's what I'm asking you not to do. So when we look at the impact of data centers, the question for me is where data centers are going to be located, how large is that data center going to be, what access to our natural resources are you trying to get access to, and do we have the legal ability to not only limit our natural resources from being utilized that way and or eliminate our natural resources to be eliminated. I'm looking forward to the conversations we're going to have regarding the impact of data centers and what legal language we can put in place. The attorney and I have actually already started this conversation. She's only been here seven months, so I think I gave you the first 45 days. to let you get situated before we started having the conversation so that we can look at what can we do within the legal constraints and how can we interpret the language that is out there in a way that's going to benefit our community. I think this moratorium is going to help us move that conversation a little further. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Tonight's vote on a 150-day moratorium I do believe is more about data centers. I think it is about the kind of city we want to build and who we believe should have a meaningful voice in shaping our city's future, whether it's those who make profits at the expense of our community or the people, the community, the workers who are helping make those corporations the profits in the first place. And as my colleague just said, we should have done this years ago, particularly when my colleague council member Mayfield sounded the alarm on this two, three years ago. And when I think about this decision, I think about the people of District 5 who are facing a potential data center in their backyard. People like Gustavo Toro, who is up there, a father fighting every day for his son with autism, navigating the systems that are already stretched thin. And when we talk about land use, infrastructure, energy, and environmental impacts, we are not talking about abstract policy or money. We are talking about families like Gustavo's who feel the consequences of our choices in their daily lives. Data centers have real impacts, a simple Google search would help you identify that. On our environment, on our water supply, on our energy grid, on noise, on heat, on the long term sustainability of our neighborhoods. And I believe this moratorium gives us the space to ensure that growth does not come at the expense of the people who already live here. And we also have to be honest about the corporate reality in front of us. The corporation who is petitioning for rezoning in my district to build a 40,000 square foot data center already has in holding approval for a 10 000 square foot center if the rezoning is denied because of what you just heard from the attorney and my other colleagues the state legal environment we live here in north carolina such as down zoning restrictions and by right state statute that allows this to happen without city council's approval that tells us something important They have options and they have flexibility. My colleague just said, Council Member Mayfield, this is your time to hold other public institutions accountable, to hold our state representatives accountable, to make your voices be heard. Because listen, I think I've said this to many of you in the audience, as much as I wish we could live in what New York City is experiencing right now, We do not live in that reality in the good old state of North Carolina. So our work is cut out for us. We can if you elect representatives to our state legislature that represent your voices. So... I am reminded of what Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens recently reminded corporate leaders. We cannot attend to corporate needs if they can't attend to societal needs. That is not anti-business. That is a reminder shift that I believe partnership must be mutual, not one sided. We also have to confront the policy framework we are working within. Our unified development ordinance gives far more flexibility to developers than to residents, allowing data centers by right and seven zoning districts. And because of state down zoning restrictions and by right zoning enabled by state law, our ability to protect those neighborhoods is very limited even if this moratorium is passed. So this is a moment, as I said it before, to understand the power that the state has over local jurisdictions. This happened in 2019 when the city of Charlotte wanted to pass municipal IDs to residents that didn't have documentation here. The moment the state legislature found that out, they passed a state statute that prohibited every municipality, every local government in the state of North Carolina from protecting those residents. So, It is a moment to say clearly that local governments need the authority to make decisions for the people who actually live here, not just those who profit here. Passing this moratorium is not the end of the work. It is the beginning of a broader conversation about all types of advocacy, about restoring local control so we can protect our neighborhoods, our infrastructure, our quality of life. And if residents have to be asked to conserve water during drought conditions, if families can be asked to reduce energy during peak demand, then corporations, especially those with massive water and energy footprints, should be held to the same standard. Especially... Especially when Duke Energy is pushing for higher rates and when our residents are already facing property tax increase and service fee increases. If we are going to ask more of our people, we should expect at least as much from those folks that are petitioning for data centers who can afford it. I want to express my gratitude to the people and organizations who have been relentless in raising awareness and demanding accountability. Action NC, the District 4 Coalition, PSL Indivisible, and East Charlotte Residence. and the law and academic experts who have helped us understand the implications of not only state law, but also our unified development ordinance. Your advocacy is the reason why we're here tonight. Your persistence is the reason this conversation is happening. Your voices, your noise must continue. This moratorium is not about anti-growth. It is smart growth. It is smart development. It is people-first policy. It is a pause, a necessary pause, to ensure that Charlotte grows in a way that protects our neighborhoods, respects our infrastructure, and honors the people who call this city home. So let us not be lost in this moment because this is not isolated. There is more work to do, more advocacy to pursue, more voices to uplift, and tonight we take a step forward to make sure that Charlotte, where the development is happening, serves the people, not the other way around. Thank you.

Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I won't belabor the point. I think you all know that I'll be supporting the moratorium. And I want to thank Councilmember Ashmeir for your leadership on this, bringing this forward. Also, I want to thank the city attorney and Tony Mingo. She's in the room. She's the one with the sign, University City Lives Matter, too.

Thank you.

She's the original chair of the Council District 4 Coalition, and she's been on this for a long time. I want to thank you, and as well as your predecessor, Juan Uvin, and the coalition. Action NC, Dr. Ariel White, just thank you. This is a huge moment tonight. I know it's not perfect. I know it's not everything that we want, but you all have to realize the moment that we're in right now. There was... Last year, this time, we wouldn't, I used to call moratorium the M word. We wouldn't have mentioned this. And so this is huge. This is a huge step for our city. I think what you're seeing is people first leadership. So give yourselves a hand for your engagement. And we are really, give yourselves a hand. You have to know, I think the rule, Andrea, what's the law that mentions the exception? 160C? Is it 160C?

Council Member Johnson, it's 160D-107, subsection C.

The exempt projects, right? So the exempt projects. We've had long discussions regarding the exempt projects. This is where our state legislators will be able to help. You all reach out to your state legislators. I'm going to be meeting with the state legislators and also the county, and we'll take a look at this from an intergovernmental perspective, but we need your help. But you just have to know that you've got some fighters on this council. We're going to do all we can for the Morse Chapel and the powerhouse. But there may not be, you know, it's already passed. So just know that. But we are going to be, I think, more proactive from now on. Council Member Mayfield and I voted against this in 2023. We asked questions about health. We asked questions about the capacity. But there was not the... public knowledge of what data centers were. There wasn't staff knowledge of it. So now we know and we're going to try to do better. But we are going to take a pause during this 150 days to implement policies that will be beneficial for the city and the residents and I look forward to supporting it. Thank you.

Let's go ahead and call for the vote, please. Let's go ahead and call for the motion. We have a motion on the board.

Madam Mayor, I just wanted to make sure. I'd be remiss if I did not recognize June Blotnick and her crew of climate leaders. Please stand for pulling together interdisciplinary teams. All the experts from air, water, health, to quality of life, I appreciate you, and the white paper you have given us. We'll continue to keep that in mind as we develop regulations. Thank you, Judy.

All right, so now let's go to our city attorney.

No, we're going to go to... Let's go with the vote. All in favor?

Anyone opposed? All right, thank you. That's unanimous.

The people united will never be defeated! The people united will never be defeated! All right, if you want to continue,

If you would, it would be very helpful so that we can get everybody to have their opportunity to have their conversation with the council. But our next policy item is a discussion on council rules and procedures. If you'll recall from our last business meeting during the council topics, council voted to add this.

This was not specific. I told you it.

I need to add to the agenda, the council chamber at the quorum. Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, as you recall from our last business meeting during council topics, council voted to add this item to tonight's agenda for the discussion to open up the topic. It would be good for our city attorney to give an overview of current rules and procedures.

Madam Mayor, members of council, thank you very much. For the benefit of council. I don't think we can hear it all, so maybe let's just give it a moment. Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of Council. For the benefit of Council and the public, I would like to briefly explain how items are placed on the City Council agenda. The process is governed by the City Council's Rules of Procedure, not the City Charter. This means that the Rules of Procedure can be updated pursuant to Council's own processes. Currently, the Rules of Procedure provide, and actually Rule 4D of your Rules of Procedure, which you have before you at the dais, that any member of council may request the city manager to place an item on a future agenda by making such a request at a council meeting. Unless a council member or the city manager objects, the requested item shall be included. If a council member or the city manager has an objection, the item in question shall not be included on the future agenda unless a majority of the council votes in favor of including the item. At this time, this item has come back before council, certainly on the last motion that was made, and I will say it is my understanding that there was an earlier referral of this question to committee several years back, and it has now come back before the full council for consideration. There is nothing in your rules of procedure that would prohibit consideration at this time, nor any referral process to committee as well.

Thank you. Ms. Sajmira.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Madam Attorney, thank you for clarifying that. I just wanted to thank Council Member Johnson for her leadership on this and for advocating for it to be added to the agenda. I'll be supporting the change. Thank you.

All right, Miss Johnson.

I'd like to make a motion. All right, Miss Johnson, you're recognized. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to modify 4D. That includes unless the majority of council votes in favor to reduce that threshold to four council members.

Second.

Do I have a motion and a second? Any discussion?

Terry notice. I'm just a question. I'm looking at four D. Can you, can you tell me what it would read?

The council member or the city manager has an objective objection. The item in question shall not be included on future agenda. unless four of the council members votes in favor. Thank you. Thank you. Of including the item.

We've got a majority.

Okay. Any other comments?

Is there any other item you're trying to amend while we've got this open?

Ms. Mayfield?

We have a motion and a second on the floor.

Yeah, I do. Second.

We have a motion on the floor. I'm sorry. I got another question. Okay. And it might be what you were just saying. I know that there was the whole decorum thing and I saw that land in our email box. Right. It would seem that this discussion is a part of that, but I just want to, yeah, I'm just wondering if your motion, Council Member Johnson, is separate from what may come after it or if you were waiting to compile. That's all.

It's separate. Okay. This might be a good time to talk about it, but yes, it is a separate issue. Okay.

Thank you. Any other questions? Oh, no, I'm just ready to act. Okay. Ms. Anderson?

I just want to be clear here that on 4D, we are the third sentence in. If a council member or the city manager has an objection, the item in question... shall not be included on the future agenda. Where's the strike through here?

Right here. Unless four. So instead of majority, it would be four.

Yeah, changing the language majority to four.

May I, in plain language? So that's always... If we bring something up on the agenda, it doesn't get done unless there's a majority because anybody can object to it and then there had to be a majority of council to get it on the agenda. This way it would only be for council members to get something on the agenda if anyone objects.

On the future agenda.

A future agenda. Now, currently there's a unanimous vote that's required to get something on a current agenda. There was some discussion on that, but I don't want to get too complicated today. Go ahead.

Thank you, Councilman Johnson, and Councilmember Mazzuera. That is actually overlapping with your charter, and so this is different. It could be a future agenda, but the charter specifically says that for the same night, for something to be added to the agenda that it requires.

Thank you for that clarification.

So we have a motion on the floor. Any other discussion? All in favor of the motion, please raise your hands. Anyone? Okay. That passes. Thank you. How many are you going to oppose? All right. Who is there? Did we have someone opposed? All right. We have two, two opposed. Okay. Thank you. All right.

The next item on our agenda, Madam Mayor, or can we, go ahead. Sorry, Madam Mayor. Can we talk about the decorum that I just sent people via email that the decorum committee has been talking about as well. I like to make a motion. To pass that.

All right, we have a motion to put in the email. We have a motion to discuss it. I think I think you have a motion to discuss it. Yeah, can we do that? Yeah, I just had this with that. It's in the email. I'm sorry. There seems to be some confusion about who's doing what. All right, Miss Mayfield.

So for clarification, Marin, I'm just asking an attorney. We have the agenda. For tonight. for this business meeting. We're on item number 11, which is discussion on the council rules and procedures, which was specifically what we just voted on in this book. The conversation for the quorum is not, we need to go through the business items. Because is this a night where we don't even have council topics on the agenda? That's where that would come up, is in council topics. We have to go to item number 11 according to our agenda because the decorum discussion is not a part of the rules and procedures. So, attorney, am I... How is it not a part of our rules and procedures? Our next item for discussion is item number 12 because we just discussed number 11 and voted on it. The decorum conversation can't be brought up in this conversation that we're having right now.

So two quick things. Rule 4C of your Rules of Procedure provide that any item that is not on the agenda can then be taken up at the conclusion of the agenda.

At the conclusion.

Correct. And with respect to item number 11, Discussion on Council Rules and Procedures, My recollection of the request and the motion by Councilmember Johnson was specifically with regard to item 4D of the Rules of Procedure with respect to changing the number of required votes to add something to a future agenda. And so that is the basis of my conclusion on this evening is based on that.

So we got to continue with the original agenda.

Point of order. I have a question then. Because we don't know necessarily, and this is maybe a general question, but this is an example. We don't know what motion would have come out of the discussion associated with the quorum. It may have resulted in a change to the rules of procedure. And there's no rule that we can only make one motion on a particular topic. So to me, this is absolutely germane to the agenda topic that's at hand. Because just because Councilmember Johnson, we knew she was going to talk about that specific thing, the agenda says a discussion about rules and procedures. And so I'm not understanding why that doesn't fall clearly within what was just discussed.

I would agree as well. I mean, on the agenda, it's very broad. It's not very specific about exactly what we're talking about. So I would say we could add this, but I mean, I'll go with the majority. I'll leave it to the chair.

I'm just, I'll leave it to the chair. I'm sorry. I'll leave it to Madam Mayor. What do you? Whether it's in or out of order. What do you decide?

She wants you to decide if it's in or out of order.

No, I can't. I had three people talking to me at once. Okay. What did you say? I was saying I would leave it to Madam Mayor to decide whether it was appropriate to, based on the agenda topic. Okay, great.

Heading.

All right. All right, so we're going to go to the next item. So I'm sorry, can you rule on that please?

Was it in or out of order? It is in order.

It is in order, so we can talk about it. You can talk about it, yes. Sorry, I couldn't hear.

So the attorney ruled that it's in order, so now we're waiting for it. We just voted on it, so we just voted and closed item number 11. Wouldn't there have been an additional... An amendment to the first amendment. If we close item 11, which was the discussion on council rules and procedures. Now, what I'm hearing, and I want to make sure I'm hearing it correctly, is an introduction of a new topic. But according to our rules, that can be added after we complete the agenda.

Point of order. The chair of the meeting just said that it was in order and a part of the topic that was discussed. That motion closed, but the topic didn't close based on what she just ruled.

Madam Mayor, I'm going to withdraw my motion, and we'll just go based on my email, and hopefully we can vote on this later. So I apologize. I did not mean to open a can of worms.

Apologies. It is not a can of worms.

Okay. All right, so I think we have... Okay, now let's go into the business section to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager as its designee to negotiate and execute a grant.

Move to approve A and B. Second.

We have a motion for A and B. Any discussion? Me.

Me.

Yes.

Hello, thank you. I did want to, thank you, Madam Mayor, sorry, want to call down Debbie Smith from CDOT to answer some questions, please.

Yes, both.

Hi, good evening, Council, Mayor. Good to see you. Debbie Smith with CDOT. And I've also brought with me Samantha Miller, also from CDOT, to be able to answer your questions.

Thank you, Debbie and Samantha. So, as we know, I first want to go to Council. You all have a one-pager of the East Charlotte Connector in front of you. It is a proposed active transportation network that seeks to improve connectivity and safety for vulnerable users, increase job diversity, employment opportunities in the east side. So think of it kind of like the South Park Connector.

So which page is it on?

It is a one-pager.

It's a handout. It's a handout. It's a handout.

So I do want to ask some few questions regarding this because I've had community members raise some concerns. So I'll just go one by one. When did we initially apply for these funds to fund this project?

Yes. So we actually applied for this in July of 2024. They were not awarded until January of 2025. and we needed to wait for FHWA to get back to us for a kickoff meeting, which did not happen until October of 2025. And at that time, we can work on an agreement with them, and we needed to be sensitive to the fact that it needed to go through their headquarter approval to ensure that all of the funding would come to us as had been prescribed. And that actually did not happen until May of this year. That's a seven-month process, which is actually pretty speedy for our federal agreements. And so we were pretty pleased with that. But we wanted to make sure that everything was in place before we brought it to this council.

So would you say that there was a delay in the funds being released?

Yes.

And then accepting the funds and then there was a delay with the kickoff meeting or what did you call it?

So we had to have a kickoff meeting with FHWA and where they talk about the agreement. There was a lot of agreement language that they were changing during the process. There was a lot of things happening. And so they were trying to get all of their information correct before we executed the agreement with them.

Thank you. And when was this all settled?

So May 1st of this year.

May 1st of this year, OK. And how much community feedback have we gotten on this framework? I saw that a framework has been released. And the concerns that the community brought up is that those initial stakeholders, particularly those in the east side, were not brought into the conversation to come up with the final adoption of the framework for the East Charlotte Connector. So could you walk me through that timeline, please?

Yes, so we did have a robust communication. There were several events in 2024 with stakeholder agreements, open houses, and a logo and branding survey. And then we came back to the community in March of 2025 with a full public meeting to give some of the updates that we have. We did seek to get this planning grant so that we could continue that work. And actually, as part of that grant, one of the deliverables will be increased and more extensive public engagement that is all part of the process of what we need to give back to the federal government so that they can understand that we have engaged the public properly.

Perfect. So when was the last time city staff checked back into the community?

So that would be March of 2025, and we've just been waiting. The community said to us that they wanted us to come back with more information, and we wanted to wait until we had that information to share with them in a more better fashion.

So, and just to be clear, what we're voting on today is more so a formal procedural vote to go ahead and accept the dollars, right, rather than finalizing and adopting the framework plan, because the framework plan is still going through revisions, and as set forth by the grant guidelines, more community engagement will be done.

Yes.

Yes? Okay, great. Thank you so much. I greatly appreciate it. You're welcome. And please keep me appraised of the community sessions that you'll have, and please use me as an active working partner to bring those stakeholders along.

Absolutely, we certainly will. Thank you, Councilman.

Thank you so much, Debbie and Samantha.

Do you want to make a motion?

There was one and there was a second, so I'm ready to vote.

Ms. Ajmera? Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. So my question is related to overall infrastructure investment program. Over the weekend, staff shared this performance metrics for us. It's a long PDF. And that was a really good document where we have performance measure for each department. And I looked at the transportation and miles of new sidewalks, miles of new bikeways, and there are other infrastructure projects where we are far below our target. So I just want to highlight that. concern, not specific to East Charlotte, but just throughout the city. We are not meeting the target where clearly there is progress needed, but I think we need an action plan to improve to ensure that we are meeting the benchmark. Our target should be 10 plus, but right now the data shows we are at 4.54%.

which is not even half.

So that means we need to do more progress on investing our dollars into our infrastructure, where we promised timely delivery. We are certainly falling behind on that. And this performance metric specifically calls out sidewalks and bikeways. There are more, but I'm not going to go through every single item. But I just wanted to highlight that. That's all I have. All right.

Real quick.

Yes, please.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Manager Jones, more so of a suggestion and direction. When it comes to projects like these that require community engagement, as a district representative, I really would like to be made appraised of those conversations and dialogues so we can help connect the dots. Um, as we've said, I think we've gotten a, a, a slogan this term on council, which is be proactive and not reactive. Right. I want to make sure that I'm not finding about this project from my constituents. Right. I want to make sure that I'm ahead because I think we want to build that public trust where, Hey, East Charlotte connector. And as a district representative, if I go to my constituents and say, well, I had no idea and they know more about it. Right. There's clearly a disconnect between communication and, um, dialogue from residents with their city council representative or the Institution that is the city of Charlotte so we can find a way to perhaps create a community engagement process that is more That that includes the district rep at least in my perspective right i'm not going to speak for my large members because they represent the entire city but for at least the district reps since we're at the first line of defense um in those conversations so thank you all right thank you thank you so we have the motion and the floor and all in favor

I think that's unanimous. Anyone opposed? But I'll look around and see.

All right, so there we go.

Our next business item is the general obligation bond referendum for item 14. Is there a motion?

13.

13, sorry. May I move to approve A and B, the federal funding of the Roswell Fair mobility path, adopt the resolution as well as adopt the budget ordinance?

Second, Mayor.

We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Anyone opposed? Okay, thank you. Now we can go back to item 14. Was there a motion to adopt resolutions authorizing staff to proceed with the necessary actions to conduct a general obligation bond referendum on November the 3rd, 2026? So moved, Mayor. Second. And a second. Is there any discussion with that? Yes.

Pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 168-75A, I must recuse myself from this vote. All right. Do we have to?

No, but on that, just accept it to the record.

So Ms. Watlington is excused, recused from this, okay? From item 14. From item 14, right. Okay. Everybody square on that? And our next business item is the. Do we have a vote for it? All in favor? Second. Anybody object?

No objections.

Let's go to the next item, which is 15. Our next business item is for an amendment to amend it and restate it at least for the Bank of America Stadium for item 15. 15, is there a motion to authorize it?

So moved, Mayor.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?

Mr. J.D.

Torres.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can I get a member from city staff to talk about this?

Good evening.

Good evening. Hey, Sean. Thank you so much. I just would like for you in lamest terms to describe to the public what we're voting on in terms of this restated lease agreement for the Bank of America Stadium.

Of course. This is an adjustment to the lease that was executed in December of 2025, and it's a scenario that was contemplated as far back as October of 2025 when there were discussions at the committee level about the opportunity for a fully private sector funded performance venue adjacent to Bank of America Stadium on city-owned property. In the last couple of months, the North Carolina Department of Transportation has conveyed a very small piece of property, .244 acres, next to the stadium to the city of Charlotte. And as discussed with the committee in October, the aspiration for the team is to have part of the performance venue straddle city-owned property and what was previously NCDOT property which is now city-owned property that we are seeking to tuck into the lease that was executed in December of 2025. And no additional taxpayer funding is needed for this amendment, correct? That's correct. This will be a purely private sector funded performance venue with a seating capacity of approximately 4,400 with an estimated number of performances between 80 to 100 per year. So the job creation and tourism benefits associated with that asset will require no investment whatsoever from the city of Charlotte, no financial investment. Thank you so much, Sean.

Thank you, Ms. Rayfield. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Sean, for clarification, since this is city-owned land and we are talking about leasing, are we generating any revenue from this lease?

So no, we are not generating any revenue from the lease, but in exchange for including this in the lease, all of the jobs and tourism benefits associated with the venue will accrue to the city of Charlotte.

What does that mean? So it benefits hospitality and tourism and hospitality and tourism tax. But what we are adding, we're expanding to include this corner into the current lease for them to build a venue on. which is gonna generate income for them, but generate hospitality and tourism taxes for us.

Yes, this will be less than 1% of the total amount of property included in the lease.

Thank you.

all right miss flatlington uh thank you madam mayor shank i just wanted to understand was the land conveyed from ncdot for the purpose of us transferring it to um the stadium

So the land was deemed surplus by NCDOT. So the deed was handed over to us with no restrictions or obligations associated with our use of the property. So we received it free and clear. There are no restrictions that would prevent us from including it in the lease.

Or anything else.

Correct. Correct. And this is a piece of property that it's in our long-term interest to have this as city-owned property as it's been that little tiny .244 acre property. triangular parcel within a much larger piece of city and land for quite some time. All right.

Is there any more? Are there any more questions? Ms. Johnson?

Thank you. So we're donating the land so that they can build the practice facility, right? Yeah. So this is not, I'm sorry. Are there any allotted days in the, in the venue to the community?

So if we were to find ourselves in hopefully the very unlikely circumstances that after the 20-year non-relocation period associated with Panther Stadium that the team were to leave, then in that instance, there would be five city use days associated with the performance venue.

After 20 years?

In what is hopefully the unlikely event that the team leaves the stadium, then there would be city use days associated with the performance venue.

And what's the size of the lot?

So it'll be approximately two acres in total, almost all of which was previously city-owned land. It's only this little .244 acre parcel that was previously owned by NCDOT that is relevant to this proposed amendment to the lease.

were there any miss watlington unless somebody hasn't spoken i think that we had no no one indicated have we had any conversation as far as community benefits associated with i mean it would seem that we could just call i'm sure they would be amenable to some community days but before we vote on this it would seem that we would at least have that conversation

So I think it goes back to the conversation that we had with Jobs and Economic Development Committee in October of last year. And then there was a vote by full council subsequent to the committee meeting that contemplated the construction of a performance venue next to the stadium. We needed council to allow us to include that in the negotiations with the team that were completed in December. So the conversations we've had around community benefits really revolved around any scenario where the football team were to leave after 20 years, then there would be certain benefits, including a rent payment and city use days associated with the performance venue.

But only if the team leaves. As long as the team is here, there is no community benefit?

Correct. Well, I think the way it was discussed in committee was by allowing for the performance venue to be on this small piece of property. Well, but for that, there may not be a performance venue was essentially the way the committee discussion was.

So... Is this time sensitive? Because I would much prefer to, if it's the will of the council, to at least have a friendly conversation. I would hate for us to... miss an opportunity to simply say, hey, if we're providing this land so that you can build for this amenities, yes, we understand there's gonna be some level of jobs and some tax revenue, but that tax revenue goes to the Housing and Tourism Fund anyway, which we just learned is restricted for anything that actually benefits residents. Okay, so we'll get the property tax, that's fair. But any sales that go there will be associated with the Tourism Fund. I think it would behoove us to at least have a conversation about community benefit days or anything of that nature. That doesn't seem like a tall order. So if this is not time sensitive, I'd love to see us come back to that just after we have that conversation. And like I said, I would expect that the Panthers there, they are a great community partner, that they would be amenable to something.

So the way that we've worked on the timeline, we've given ourselves a little bit of latitude in the month of June. I will say that all of the conversations around the performance venue We're really contemplated in the negotiations we had with the team leading to the execution of the lease in December of 2025. So I would want to make everyone aware that staff did have conversations with the team around the value proposition. We did have conversations with committee about the value proposition. It's been a number of months since we had those conversations, but I just want to make sure that was on the record.

And does that mean that that has already been executed?

So while the existing lease was executed in December, what's being contemplated here is really just one adjustment to allow for this little piece of land to be included in the lease.

So then we've got time to have this conversation about this piece.

Okay.

Ms. Watlington, the manager would like to address this.

I thank you, Mayor and members of council. So as Sean had said earlier, this had been contemplated, and I think it's just been a while since council has had the conversation, a little bit of a refresher. I believe that the option on the table now is, I guess, try to use the right words, almost easier than some of the things that were contemplated over the course of the agreement. So Sean, can you bring everybody up to speed about what was contemplated versus where we are now, and I think we're in a better place, but please.

Yeah, there really is a long history on it, so I don't want to go back too far in time.

Yeah, no need.

Yeah. Where we thought we could end up as of six months ago was that the team could actually have control of the parcel and then where it landed obviously was NCDOT ultimately decided that this is surplus property that was warranted to provide conveyance to the city of Charlotte. So with us having control of the property, it's much more beneficial to us in the long term. Mr. Manager, I'm not sure if that was the specific scenario you were referring to.

okay madam mayor all right that's miss johnson thank you yeah thank you miss johnson miss mayfield did you already have a comment i have a question yes okay a question miss johnson thank you i have a question thank you sean and and mr jones the challenge for us is to it it may seem like a little bit of land two eight two acres but it's not we have we have vendors that are being displaced, they're no longer able to, you know, to, uh, provide business or do their business in front of different shops and Noda and different locations. And there's restrictions. I think of truck parking, I think of affordable housing. I mean, there's just opportunities for land, maybe not here, but two acres of land is two acres of land.

So when we asked for community, well, land is land.

So we asked for, when we asked for some type of community, benefit. I think that that's reasonable. I think that what council member, uh, what Dr. Watlington said is reasonable. If we could go back to the bank of America stadium folks and, and see what we can come up with. I mean, these are taxpayer dollars that we are stewards.

Thank you.

Especially since it's the, the, um, Tourism fun. And, you know, we're being told, you know, kind of hands off. We are just, we just need to be stewards. So if this is an opportunity to do something for the public, we need to really be asking these questions.

Mr. Driggs, Ms. Mayfield.

Thank you. Sorry. Thank you, madam mayor. So I want to clarify because what the manager just noted is yes, we started this conversation back in December, 2025. Mr. Heath, what you noted was when we started this conversation, it was under a premise that they were going to be purchasing it. So we were saying, okay, yes, we'll support the idea of a venue. When that conversation shifted, There was an opportunity to have come back to council before bringing us a decision tonight for us to be able to ask these questions. Because once it was shifted that they were not going to be the ones purchasing the land, that the land was going to be conveyed to the city, I agree with my colleagues. We had the opportunity to then look at where are the community benefits. We can have all these venues uptown, of which I'm pretty sure when we first started, They had this conversation, I was in no vote, because we have multiple venue spaces around the city, that our residents can't even attend because of location and cost. So when, I don't understand when the conversation shifted to ownership of this land by the city, that the first question wasn't, what are the benefits? Because I know I'm going to have to go before my council and my council is going to ask me, how does this benefit the community? It's a given that that's going to be the question that comes from at least three people from around this diet. So manager Jones helped me get to the place of why once the conversation shifted, Bank of America owning the land to the land being conveyed to the city, why that didn't trigger a conversation prior to coming before the night coming before us tonight as in the form of a vote.

Yeah. Thank you. Council member Mayfield. I think part of the, and I appreciate the conversation we're having and I think waiting for two more weeks is probably a good thing. Um, Having the city have control of this 0.2 acres is much better than having a private entity having control over 0.2 acres if they were ever to not renew the lease in the next 20 years. So that was one of the, that's why when I was saying to Sean earlier, I think we're in a better position being in control of that 0.2 acres than not being in control.

And I agree with you that it's a better position for the city to be in control of it. The challenge I have is it's not benefiting the community for the city to be in control of it. So if our having control is still just going to give them the ability to build and develop how they do without there being a community give back. And I'm not talking about the holiday giveaway that you do actually at Carowinds, which is on the South Carolina line. I'm talking about actual impact to what we have here within the city limits. So I agree that it is in our best interest to own this piece of land uptown. That does not answer my question of why we didn't think that was the opportunity to go back and have a discussion on how this can benefit the residents of Charlotte. I'm not, I was thinking that Dr. Wallington was going to do a motion to defer So I will move to defer since we didn't have that. I don't think, Billy, did you get?

Motion to defer you and Ms. Waller.

In my order.

Got it. So to defer to our next business meeting to give us a chance to have, to work with our partners because public-private partnerships are so very important. There you go. As an organization, they have given, and supported a number of opportunities, and this will be another yet great opportunity for them to show support to the local Charlotte community that supports them.

I'm so proud.

Okay, we have Mr. Graham.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. 0.02 acres? 0.244. A quarter of an acre. A quarter of an acre in close proximity to the proposed

Adjacent to the stadium, freestanding by the North Gate, correct? On land that's not currently being activated.

Not currently. And so it's in District 2, and Council can certainly have a perspective. My perspective is this is really within our entertainment district, right? It's a small swath. of land, and we do have a community partner that has invested in our community, travel and tourism, sports and entertainment. They're building a new music venue that seats 4,200, Charlotte soccer, Carolina Panthers, economic impact, employee workers. city controls it, works with our partners who, part of the Carolinas is on the North Carolina side too, so it's like in the middle, right? So depending on which side you stand on, right? So it's either or. But I think the bigger point is that they do have an impact on our community, and I think that I'm not sure you can hit any other usage there That's something that's not really consistent with the majority of the activities here, right? I mean, so I think it's very narrowly tailored usage that should be consistent with the surrounding compatible functions, activity, people moving around. And so I hope that we would... thought this was going to get no Brandon when I, when I read it through the weekend. Um, but I hope that we can, Mr. Man, you said two weeks, I'm ready to move it forward tonight, but if there's unreadiness, then I just don't understand why we need to do that.

I'm struggling to find out why we should do that. Mr. Drake's and then Ms.

So I have a lot of the same concerns as Mr. Graham. This is normally something we would pursue eagerly and they might in fact apply for hospitality fund support in order to create this resource and revitalize, energize that entertainment district. It's a vision that we had. It was part of the reason that we partnered with the team. It provides a lot of benefits. The people who go to those concerts will enjoy the opportunity to go. Many of them will come from out of town. It will provide jobs through economic stimulus. And the point is they haven't asked for any hospitality money. They could have. The fact that they didn't means that there will be hospitality dollars available to us for other uses. So I think it's unfortunate, in fact, that the team is willing to make the, is it $40 million investment to create this facility?

They haven't announced a particular construction cost, but it's a 4,400 capacity.

I heard a number, 40 some odd million dollars that they're going to invest in Charlotte with all of the jobs that go with that investment, creating a facility that will add to the appeal of our city to visitors and be a benefit in that sense. And it's a quarter of an acre. We have a $1.3 billion partnership with this team. This should not be something that we niggle about. This is something that we should sort of recognize is a benefit to us. I had the same feeling you did. I didn't see why this would turn into a thing. It's not a gift to them in that sense. We are making a small accommodation in order to realize a very significant facility that people will appreciate.

And I think they're giving us the gift, right? Because they're building a facility without any money.

Point of order. We already gave them $600 million.

Point of order.

There's a queue.

Well, they made a contribution as well. So it's a partnership. Point of order. That we're doing. It's a partnership.

Okay. I think that we have several people that wanted to speak. Ms. Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So my question is, well, I have a couple questions.

We're good around here.

We're going around. I have a couple questions. My question is, Mr. Graham, Was this item in the ED committee when you were the chair? Did this item come through committee?

This item was discussed at the October 2025 committee meeting.

I said that earlier. Okay. So when it was discussed at the committee, was there a vote on it at committee level? Or was it just an update on the modifications? Yes.

It was an update in advance of a full council vote on October 13th, which granted the city manager the authority to negotiate a lease that included provisions related to a potential performance venue.

So I vaguely remember when it was.

I just wanted to ask if there's a question. I thought that there was a representative from the stadium in that meeting. I think is it, do you recall it that way?

I don't recall, uh, who was in attendance at the meeting. I do recall the conversation being had at the meeting. And again, I don't have any meeting notes or anything. Um, but I didn't think that it was a whole lot of discussion about it.

Well, I, so, so I, I've remembered the conversation and I do think that there was representation in the room. Um, my, my perspective on this is I agree with the city manager that I think, I believe it behooves us to own this, this piece of land in the future of anything potentially happening. It is proximate to an asset that can be built in together yet can be leveraged here with the, with the plans that, um, that, that the Panthers have for this entertainment complex. So I don't have as much consternation. I respect the consternation that my colleagues have. I don't have that same consternation remembering that discussion in committee and understanding the intertwining of this, you know, years out in the future. I think this makes it less difficult and less complicated if we go about it through this process. So thank you. That's all I have, Madam Mayor.

All right. Ms. Ashmira.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, Sean, if you can help me understand, so was the amendment to a mandate lease, which is I'm talking about specifically .244 acre, was that in the committee? I remember the amendment, the first amendment. Right. But not the second, the one specifically.

no what was in committee was a specific conversation about the concept of a performance venue yeah i remember that yes because in june of 2024 there were discussions about a privately sec a private sector fully funded owner mandated project referred to as a stadium annex so that was a more generic concept right but i don't remember discussing the amendment to amendment

Correct. I remember discussing the concept, which we agreed on because it was all private investment. There was no public subsidy from hospitality dollars. So this is something new. I think what my colleagues are saying that this is something that we haven't discussed as the committee. Another question. So there is a two-acre piece, which was already signed into the lease, and then there is .244 acre. That is the new piece. That is the NCDOT portion that was given to the city so the city can do whatever they wanted to do, find the best purpose for the site. So I consider this as the general fund asset, not necessarily hospitality. tourism asset. Am I correct?

So the way you've described it, yes. The overall performance venue will take about an approximate two acre footprint of which 0.244 would relate to this triangular parcel conveyed from NCDOT. That's correct.

Yes. So I just want to make sure we are not commingling general fund asset and hospitality asset. I mean, I think consternation here that this is general fund asset, right? And I know that there was a recent state bill that was approved that said, hey, do not use any hospitality funds even for safety purpose. So I guess now that we are talking about general fund asset, even though it's a very small piece of property, what is the fair market value of this property, number one? And if you were to... put it out for a lease, how much would it generate, right? I mean, we are looking at general funds, so we need to be very good stewards of our taxpayers' dollars. This is ultimately a property tax revenue.

I don't know the fair market value of this particular parcel, but I would go back to the conversation in October, which really focused on what do we get in exchange for having a performance venue? That's a sales tax.

Yeah, that's hospital. I'm trying to figure out what are we getting in terms of fair market value of this small parcel? What would be the fair market value if we were to market it to an outside third party? And now that with this performance venue, maybe there might be a value proposition that this would generate a lot more in property taxes than maybe another use or if you were to lease it to another source. I don't know, but I think it's worth having a conversation around it just to ensure that we are not, our general fund, our taxpayers are not subsidizing a private, you know, a billionaire. That's all I think.

Understood. I would just go back to the conversation focused on, in addition to the $150 million, the team is required to invest into stadium modernization and the 421, $21 million. The team is required to invest in operations and maintenance during the 20 year non low relocation period and the city use days and the MWSB benefits that without any incremental city funding. the team is contemplating building a performance venue which would provide 80 to 100 events per year for up to 40 years in a 4,400 seat capacity venue. So that was how the value proposition associated with this very small, as I said, it equates to about, well, it's between a half and 1% of the total land that's being leased associated with the Panthers modernization efforts.

Yeah, I mean, that was a separate conversation for the renovation of the Panther Stadium. I mean, this is separate, right? This .244 acres was never part of that conversation when that renovation for Bank of America Stadium was approved. So this is different. This is a nuance. I do not remember, I do not recall discussing this .244 acre piece at all. I do remember the concept, but this was never in the picture. When did the NCDOT provide this piece of land to the city?

in April of this year.

Yeah. So that means this would not have happened before. So I think this is a new concept. We need to worth having. I mean, the council, I agree with Councilmember Mayfield. Since this is a nuance, it's worth having a conversation. And we need to understand. The impact on general fund. And that's all I have. Thank you.

So I want to make a suggestion. It's been a pretty long day for most of us here. And so I wonder if we should just take as, as I think Ms. Watlington suggested that we take a moment and pause on this one. and then come back in a couple of weeks and then there would be opportunity time for us to do and look up all of these differences because I saw it differently. I wasn't really sure but I know that they came by and I thought that they were part of participating. on some of this, not the committee for me, but for the meeting that I had with them. So my suggestion. If I may, though, because I was in the queue.

I was in the queue. And you got a second. I do want to say something here, though.

And I'm glad that you made the comments that you made, because I do think we're conflating a couple of different things.

I know that some of y'all were out when we started the conversation, so I just want to be clear about what I was talking about. I wasn't talking about even necessarily changing the use. For me, that wasn't a conversation about changing the use. For me, it wasn't about whether or not we should own it. That was not even a... discussion point. Um, as far as I was concerned, the only thing I was wanting to understand is because this is a separate part. Had we had a conversation about community benefits because of all the things that council member as Mira just mentioned. And so I just want to make sure that was clear for the record. Yep.

So this is a nuance. I think if we can just wait for those two.

Hold on for a while. So, Mayor, I made a motion to defer. We got a second. We just had discussion, so we just need to vote on it.

All right, so let's go ahead and vote on a deferral. Referral. Referral on this one. All in favor? Any opposed? Opposed. All right. Three, four, five. How many do I? Just four. Just four.

Four.

And then Dante? Yes. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Thank you, guys. It has been a very long day. We still have a few more. Nominations! Our next business item is... all right now nominations you guys get a chance to nominate people for various active various parts of what we do all the way from beckler arts all the way to unified development ordinance board so How did we do?

I'll read through all the nominations that received six or more votes, and afterwards, if you choose, if the council choose, then I'll need a motion, a second, and a vote to appoint these individuals. So for the Bachelor's Art Board, Hunter Widener received 10 nominations. We'll back amazing second.

Yeah.

Um, for the Charlotte Mecklenburg public access corporation, incumbent Faye Barnett shell received 11 nominations. Incumbent Tyler Loveless received 10 nominations. The niche bot received 11 nominations. Um, incumbent Sasha comma Syski received 10 nominations and Ms. Haggins received 10 nominations. For the Charlotte Regional Visitor Authority, Alvin Austin received 11 nominations. Stephanie Hand received nine nominations. Abigail Gravegard received 11 nominations. Tracy Montrose received 11 nominations. Incumbent Tripp Cagle received 11 nominations. And incumbent Marcy Kelso received 11 nominations. For the Charlotte Water Advisory Committee, Whit McLeod received 11 nominations. For the Community Relations Committee, Sade Cannon received 10 nominations, Nichelle Dunlap received nine nominations, and Michael Hoard received nine nominations. For the Keep Charlotte Beautiful Committee, incumbent Maggie Brackett received 10 nominations. Incumbent Martin Doss received 11 nominations. And incumbent Stephanie Griffin received 10 nominations. And for the Passenger Vehicle for Hire Board, Hamad Kashmiri received 11 nominations. We'll bring the Planning Commission back. Emma Allen, Robert Hillman, and Will Russell, incumbent, all received more than two nominations, but not six, so we'll bring that one back. For the Public Art Commission, incumbent, Nina Jackson received 11 nominations. And for the UDO Board of Adjustments, Devon Gangadine received 11 nominations, and that's it.

Move for acclamation, all nominations six and above. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. How much pizza is left? Move to adjourn. Second.

Thank you.

music music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't know.

so so Thank you. ¦ ¦ ¦ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, Thank you. Bye.

Go ahead to get started. How's everybody doing tonight? Listen, it's a Friday night. We got the weekend right in front of us. We're celebrating tonight. How's everybody doing? I love it. My name is Alex Giles. I'm an anchor over at WBTV here in Charlotte. I've had the honor of serving as the emcee for this event for several years now, and it is honestly one of my favorite events to be a part of. This is such a cool experience to see the men and women who serve our community get honored in front of their loved ones, their peers, and some of the elected leaders here in our community. I know we have 10 winners tonight, but I also just want to acknowledge all of the law enforcement in the room. Can we have a round of applause for all of our officers this evening? And I know these folks are getting up, whether it's in the morning, the middle of the day, or the evening, to protect and serve, and there are folks who are at home holding down the home front, and in some cases with kids, or family members, or elders. Can we also do a round of applause for the folks who are staying at home? The family members. It's a team effort, right? It's awesome when you guys are acknowledged by your peers or your bosses. But I think what makes this event special is that you're literally acknowledged by the community. I know as a news reporter, it's nice to get that good job from your boss. Hey, that was a good story. You did a good job with that. but it almost means a little bit more when somebody reaches out and was like, thank you for doing that story. The folks in my community appreciated that story. And I know you guys can relate to that because this is what that is for you guys. Somebody from the community saying, thank you for what you do in my neighborhood. Thank you for the initiative you started in my community. So it's really, really cool to be here. And it's awesome that you guys are being honored tonight. At this time, we'd like to start with an invocation from Reverend Sandra Gripper.

Thank you. If you just bow with me for a minute. The dignity, the understanding, and the peace reminds us of our mutual respect, our unity that makes us safer and stronger throughout the generation. The cross filter removes the desire to quit when it becomes difficult. Pressures reveal the strength, and life becomes difficult, but these wonderful people are allowed to go on. And God, we're so grateful they're not defeated, discouraged, or hopeless. They remain in their mind. They do not shrink. They do not back up. And we're so grateful for that. Continue to strengthen them. Continue to endure them. Continue to move them in faith. Faithfulness is developed when we continue to obey everything, when the pressure is heavy. And they go through pressure, but God, they know it's only temporary. It's only a discouragement. It's never permanent. The hobby still belongs to those who refuse to give up and quit. When we're tempted to quit, instead of continuing, we'll carry the cross across the finish line. In his name we pray. Amen.

Thank you, Reverend. At this time, we want to acknowledge some of the elected leaders we have here, whether it's the city of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County Commission, some other elected office. If you're an elected leader, please stand for just a moment. Appreciate them coming out. I know it's a fun time of year, budget season, right?

They're like, oh, yeah, okay.

We have a few people delivering opening remarks tonight, including Sam Smith, Jr. He is the chair of the Community Relations Committee.

Good evening, everyone. If you enjoy the food, let's tell the chef you did your thing. Well, good evening. My name is Sam Smith, Jr. and welcome to the 46th Annual Community Relations Award. I'm honored to serve as the chair of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee, and I would be remiss if I don't honor my vice chair, Mr. Emmanuel Maggot, who is in here with us today, because tomorrow he'll be walking across the stage getting his doctorate's degree, so shout him out. It's a privilege to gather here with you all tonight for such a meaningful celebration. This evening recognizes people who through their actions show us what partnerships truly look like. Tonight we recognize officers who go above and beyond the call of duty to build bridges, solve problems alongside residents, and serve with heart and purpose. The nominations submitted from across our community are a powerful reflection of how deeply this work is felt and appreciated. These awards are a reminder that public safety is not built by one group alone. It's built through relationships, listening, collaboration, and a shared commitment to the well-being of our neighbors. I want to extend gratitude to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee. And at this time, I'll ask if my CRC members that are in the space with us today, if you all could please stand and be recognized. I also at this time would like to ask the planning committee for today's festivity, if you all could please stand and be recognized. It's more than just Ms. Delores and Ms. Debbie. I want to thank the planning committee who was led by my second mom, Ms. Delores, and when she called, I have to answer my phone no matter what I'm doing. I want to thank them for their commitment each year to ensuring that this event is a success. And to our dedicated community relations staff, if you all are in the room, if you all could please stand. I know you'll be recognized again, but if you all could please stand and be recognized too. We thank you all, and we'll also thank everyone who took time to nominate each of our officers. And to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, thank you for your service, your sacrifice, and your continued commitment to protecting and serving our community with professionalism and care. To all of tonight's nominees, congratulations. Your work matters, and it does not go unnoticed. So tonight, let's celebrate the best of what partnership looks like in action. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Sam, did you train your daughter to record the whole thing like that? I'm going to look for that on Facebook later. We'd like to call up James Smudgy Mitchell of the Charlotte City Council. He's currently our Mayor Pro Tem.

Good evening, Charlotte. Good evening. Oh, wait a minute. We're the 14th largest city in America, and that's how y'all going to respond? Good evening, Charlotte. Good evening. Okay, that's a little better. Before I get started with my remarks, the theme is a team. CMPD has a team, and the city council has a team, and I would like to introduce one of my team members who's here this evening, Councilmember LaWanna Mayfield. Steve, please stand again. You know I was going to call you out. Thank you, LaWanna. Thank you. Then, I know we have a former elected official who used to serve in District 2, and I always want to pay respect to anybody who offers themselves up for public service. Will Mr. Al Lawson please stand and be recognized? On behalf of the Charlotte City Council and the Mayor's Office, I'm honored to join you for this special night to recognize individuals who represent the very best in our city. Charlotte is now the 14th largest city in the country, and we continue to grow, evolve every day. With that growth comes both opportunity and responsibility. The responsibility to ensure that our city remains not just bigger, but repeat after me, better. A truly world-class city is defined not only by its skyline or economic strength, but by trust, safety, and connection it shares between its people. So that's why we're here tonight. We are here to recognize those who go beyond the college duty to build relationships, foster understanding, and strengthen the bond between law enforcement and the neighborhoods they serve. Public safety is at its strongest when it's rooted in partnership, and those who we honor tonight embodied that principle through their service, their compassion, and commitment to Charlotte. Please join me in recognizing these outstanding honorees. Your dedication helps move Charlotte forward and bring us closer to the kind of city we want to call home. Thank you and enjoy this evening. So I want to do a special shout out. So with all the CMP officers, CMPD officers, please stand up at this time. All officers here. All, please stand up. That's right. Let's show them some love. Let's show them some love, Charlotte. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Mitchell. We also have a representative from the county, Elaine Pao of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners.

Thank you. So all these extroverts are coming up here, but I am the introvert. And I want to tell Alex Giles, he was the first reporter that I ever had to do an interview with. And I will never forget it, how kind he was. So thank you for that. Good evening. I am Mecklenburg County Commissioner Elaine Powell. I represent Huntersville, Davidson, Cornelius, North Charlotte, the ETJ area, Mountain Island Lake, Lake Norman, and part of the Catawba River. So I've had lots of different interactions with CMPD on behalf of my constituents, especially in ETJ. I have lived and worked in every County district in the County, but I have the most experience with North division and freedom division. And, um, I'm proud to know that one of our North division police officers is nominated. Officer Blake is here nominated. I hope he wins. Um, Chairman Jarrell asked me to give remarks, and when he called me, I was so happy. I said, there's so many times where I've been sitting in the audience where I want to talk to law enforcement to thank you. So I bring greetings from the County Commission and gratitude. And it's wonderful to be here. But I want to talk, I'm going to go way off script, because these are the things that I've wanted to tell you for a long time. So in the summer of 1993... John Burnett and Andy Nobles were coming up and down the street. They were community police officers coming up and down my street. I lived in Office Central Avenue at that time in 1993. John grew up across the street, and his baseball coach, Jimmy Edwards, from Garinger High School, was my neighbor on the other side. So I could see into the dining room of the Burnetts, and I had Jimmy next door. And the reason that John Burnett and Andy Nobles were coming up and down the street that day was not for family, it was for community. They were coming to get some old air conditioning units to take to people that didn't have air conditioning. And then there were children running up to the police car that wanted to talk to them and ask them what it was like. And I just remember the beauty of that, the beauty of community police officers. That was the summer of 1993. On October 5th, I was standing in my yard when police officers came to meet with his mother. And we knew something bad had happened. And for hours, we waited for Tricia Norkett to show up. I just knew it was bad. And I knew that the police officers that were there, and maybe some of you here were there, in our house, trying to comfort you without knowing what happened. We just knew it was bad. And I remember, like, the grief, the grief of the family, the grief that we felt, the grief of his baseball coach from Garinger High School. It was there every day. And I would say to Tricia, like, what can I do? You know, what can I do? And she said, never go anywhere without thanking a police officer. And so I have done that. I want to thank you all, like I want you to feel it, how important your work is, how noble the profession is, how important it is to the community. And then the other story is this year, probably many of you were there, where we had a regional simulated training exercise at Carowinds. I wanted to come to that. Emergency management is a passion of mine. And when I was watching from afar, and it was simulated, so whoever was there didn't have real weapons. But the first responders, of all the first responders, in a regional exercise, was CMPD. It gives me goosebumps now. It gave me goosebumps then. I needed some tissues. I was standing next to former Chief Putney. It's breathtaking to think about what if this was real. But in these instances where it is real, I love you guys. I love that you're running toward protecting us. And so I don't, I could talk for such a long time, but I hope you feel it. It is such an important, noble profession. Thank you for what you do. Sorry, I'm kinda sorry, but not sorry for going off script. because I really want you to know and feel my gratitude to every person that wears the uniform, to every nominee and awardee. On behalf of Mecklenburg County, I want to congratulate you for all your work. You all represent the best of our community, and I want to encourage you to take care of yourself. You will experience layers of crisis and think that you can handle it. It's a lot. And then there would be one layer where it's too much. So however it is that you take care of yourself, whether it's walking through nature or talking to a friend, please, or calling your county commissioner. Like, I will listen. I will walk with you. Whatever it is, please take care of yourself. Thank you to the Community Relations Board. Thank you, Chief Patterson. And thank you to all the staff. Thank you to the 911 dispatchers. Just thank you to everyone. Thank you for committing yourselves to this noble work. I feel the love of humanity for you. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Powell. At this time, we want to talk about the history of this award ceremony and its significance. I'd like to bring up Dolores Reed-Smith. She is the chair of the Police Community Relations Awards Planning Committee.

Thank you, Alex. Good evening again, and thank you all for being here to celebrate the incredible work of our law enforcement officers and the relationships they've built across the community. In 1979, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee created this program to spotlight officers who go above and beyond to foster understanding and unity while ensuring our safety. The stories that we hear when we interview these officers is not the things you see on TV where CMPD is concerned. The noble things that they do out of their own pockets to benefit residents, students, and schools is just amazing. Since the awards program's inception, members of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community have nominated thousands of officers, and after this evening's program, we're excited to add another group to the more than 500 officers who have been recognized with a Police Community Relations Award. Will everyone in the building who's ever won this award please stand now? See, I thought I was going to have to call out Deputy Chief Browley for not standing up and stuff because she know that's one of mine so I can do that. The officers nominated for the 46th Annual Police Community Relations Awards have showcased innovation in solving neighborhood challenges and have exemplified the true spirit of community building. Let's take a moment to recognize all of the nominees for this year's annual Police Community Relations Award. Please stand if you are nominated. Thank you. Through a very thorough process, tonight's award recipients have been selected by our esteemed judges from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee. Each recipient will be recognized with a plaque and receive a monetary award. Now y'all know every year I tell y'all about the little part that y'all supposed to give to me out of that monetary thing. And so far I've not received my portion. As we get ready to announce the award recipients, let's give a round of applause to the family, friends, and community members who took the time to support, acknowledge, and nominate these exceptional officers. Your nominations fuel this celebration of service and sacrifice. I encourage you to keep shining a light on the extraordinary work happening in our neighborhoods. Together, we are stronger and safer. Thank you.

Thank you, Dolores. At this time, we want to hand out our awards. Are y'all ready? As Dolores mentioned, we only have 10 winners. All of you should be proud, and we're all thankful for the service you provide to this community. We have 10 officers who have won. We have one youth award we're also giving out tonight. This time, I believe Dolores and Sam are going to join us up here to pass out the awards. Here's how it's going to work. I'm going to read through the names for each officer who has won. going to read part of your nomination, what somebody from the community wrote about you, and then I'm going to read what you wrote about the profession and why you think community policing is important. We're going to go through each one by one. When I call your name, you can come up, get your plaque, take a photo, and please stand here while I'm saying nice things about you and smile for our lovely photographer here. Without further ado, Our first winner is Officer Anthony McGill from Community Services. This officer was nominated in connection with their work with the Police Activities League and the work they do to build trust and relationships with the youth in fun, encouraging environments. Officer McGill wrote, police community relations to me is about intentionally building and maintaining a bridge of trust, respect, and understanding between law enforcement and the people we serve. It goes beyond responding to calls. It's about being present, consistent, and genuinely invested in the lives of community members. Through my work with PAL, I focus on creating meaningful relationships with young people and their families. following up, showing up, and staying engaged so they know they have someone they can rely on. By being approachable, listening, and leading with integrity, I strive to break down barriers and replace uncertainty with trust. Strong community relations are built over time through authentic connections, and I take pride in being a positive, dependable presence that helps strengthen that bond every day. We have a round of applause for Officer Anthony McGill. I'm going to stay off to the side here. See, that's the bad thing about being number one. You've got to wait for everybody now. And they stuck you down there by yourself. Our second winner tonight is Lieutenant Reggie Jenkins of the Eastway Division. This officer consistently demonstrates a strong commitment to engaging with the Eastway Division community and addressing resident concerns in a proactive, solutions-oriented way. They regularly seek opportunities to communicate with residents and neighborhood leadership, provide updates and collaborate on safety initiatives. This officer demonstrates consistent accessibility, responsiveness, and a genuine commitment to building trust and problem-solving partnerships with the community. This is what Lieutenant Jenkins wrote. He said, to me, community police relations is about building genuine trust through consistent presence, transparency, and accountability. I currently serve as a lieutenant in the Eastway Division. I'm responsible for community policing efforts. My expectations are for the officers under my command to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the people we serve by having an open line of communication, mutual respect, and consistent engagement. I see it as creating partnerships where community members feel heard, respected, and safe engaging with officers. Community policing is about connecting with people and working to solve problems together. Congratulations, Lieutenant Jenkins. I've seen him before in the headquarters, and I'm like, I think he's taller than me. That doesn't happen often. Our third winner tonight is Officer Kiwan Harris, a school resource officer. You tell the kids you got nominated for an award? This officer has consistently demonstrated professionalism, sound judgment, and a strong commitment to community safety. His presence has been invaluable in situations that require both firmness and compassion. He has shown the ability to tactfully and prudently de-escalate tense circumstances, ensuring that interactions are handled with care, while maintaining the safety and protection of everyone involved. This officer is respectful and attentive in his approach and those he serves. He listens, communicates clearly, and treats community members with dignity.

This is what he wrote.

For me, police community relations play a very important role in today's society. I strongly believe that officers should be in the community developing positive relationships by having conversations with people, going to community events, getting out of the car and walking the neighborhood, speaking to the youth, volunteering to coach, etc. You do a lot. He said, I do these things and it builds trust within the community and we all need that. Police community relations also deters crime while being visible in the community. Police community relations is why I became a school resource officer. I wanted to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community.

Congratulations, officer.

Our next winner tonight is Officer Jasmine Nivens of the Central Division. Unfortunately, she could not be here tonight, but we still wanted to honor her and acknowledge her. We've got her picture up on the screen. She has helped strengthen trust between the CMPD and the communities they serve through sustained engagement, transparency, and responsiveness. Through consistent presence at community meetings, proactive engagement with stakeholders, and a solutions-oriented mindset, she has helped foster an environment where residents and neighborhood leaders feel heard, respected, and supported. She wrote that police community relations to me means the relationships I build and foster between the police department and the community. These connections are essential as they create trust, understanding, and collaboration between both. Have another round of applause for Officer Nevins. Our fifth winner tonight is Officer Samuel Rouse of the Hickory Grove Division. Thank you. He's also getting an award for best mustache tonight. It's a good mustache. This officer has demonstrated a strong commitment to building trust and positive relationships between law enforcement and the residents he serves. Through his approachable demeanor and steady presence, he has become a trusted resource for both individual residents and neighborhood groups. As he transitioned into the role of community liaison officer, he quickly connected with our neighborhood board, meeting with us to talk about meaningful ways to improve communication, connection, safety, and security within the community. He wrote, strong police community relations are essential to maintaining an effective and trusted police force, especially in today's climate. Without strong police community relations, it is the community that suffers. Officers routinely rely on information and cooperation from the public to solve cases and prevent crime. Police work can sometimes be difficult to watch. And too often, the court of public opinion is quickly influenced by clickbait headlines or short context free video clips. A consistent and positive presence within the community can help counter the constant flow of negative news and highlight the many good things officers do every day, even the small acts that often go unnoticed. Congratulations, officer. And I want to let you know, we're going to have this on the news tonight. And on the news tomorrow morning. Because the positive stuff does matter as well. And I know y'all have probably seen yourself in clips on the news for the negative stuff that happens. But we want to acknowledge the positive, too.

Congrats, man.

Our next winner is Detective Joy Emanuel of the Metro Division. Now when they gave this to me, they put six nominations. Specifically six nominations. this officer embodies the very essence of community service that this recognition celebrates for over a decade she has been a beacon of compassion and dedication in our community relentlessly working to forge positive problem solving relationships with residents just name a few i've seen her quietly purchase car seats and essential supplies for pregnant teenagers provide warm coffee for the unhoused buy groceries mentor, tutor, and coach at both Philip O'Berry Academy and West Charlotte High School. And that's just a snippet of it. It was the longest one. She wrote, the relationship between law enforcement and the community is incredibly significant to me. As a lifelong resident of Charlotte and a police officer for the past 10 years, I view law enforcement as a vital partner and collaborator within our neighborhoods. The role extends far beyond enforcing laws. It requires professionalism, building trust, and working alongside the community to deescalate situations and solve problems, all while ensuring fairness and equitable treatment for everyone. My passion for service began as a teenager when I volunteered with the CMPD's Community Engagement Division and was specifically inspired by Officer C. Ratliff. Since then, I have carried that inspiration with me throughout my career. Every day presents an opportunity to uplift the community, and even in challenging moments, I strive to exemplify respect, integrity, and compassion. Congratulations, Detective. And I like that you shouted out the person who inspired you. Because I bet in 10, 15 years I'm going to be up here and somebody might say the same thing about you.

You're welcome.

Our seventh winner tonight is Officer Peterson Jean of the North Division. This officer has served our school resource officer at Ranson for two years, and his impact on our students has been transformational. He has built positive relationships with our students and staff, resulting in improvement in our school culture and reputation. Moreover, he has been an agent of change by creating the Future Young Leaders Club at Ranson, a leadership and fitness program for the kids. Officer Jean works with our FYL students weekly, helping them improve their grades, their self-esteem, fitness, and confidence. Officer... Officer Jean wrote, I come from a diverse background that has allowed me to experience many aspects of life. These experiences have given me a unique perspective and strengthened my passion for supporting those in my community. Strong communities are built by individuals who create opportunities and support one another. This brings to mind the saying, quote, it takes a village to raise a child, end quote. That sentiment extends beyond children. It applies to all members who are willing to contribute to the village. Through these connections, I have gained valuable experience forming partnerships and have witnessed the positive impact we can achieve together. Congratulations, Officer James. Our eighth winner tonight is Officer Antoine Patterson. We have Officer Patterson in the house. We're going to acknowledge him. This officer was nominated in connection with their work with the Citizens on Patrol program. It is a cool program where community members help officers with crime reduction and community improvement. He wrote, to me, community policing means being present, involved and committed to building those genuine relationships with the people we are sworn to serve. As the volunteer liaison for CMPD, I help onboard individuals who want to contribute to our community and support programs like the Mayor's Youth Employment Program, where I work with 16 to 18-year-olds through mentorship and internships. One more round of applause for Officer Antoine Patterson. We have two more left. Our ninth winner tonight is canine detective Jonathan Sirdan of the airport division. Where's the dog? Not tonight? I'm sure. All that chicken. This officer delivered an engaging and informative canine demonstration for a community aviation program showing strong commitment and professionalism throughout. He volunteered to present during a weekday evening, communicated consistently during the planning process, and even conducted a site visit in advance to ensure a safe and effective setup. He repeated the presentation for smaller groups, tailoring each session to the audience's questions and engagement level. You're all about the details. The first word that comes to mind is impact. This is what he wrote. I believe you only get one shot at a first meaningful impression which will impact that person's outlook on you for the rest of their lives and the lives of the other persons involved. The other part is follow through. Get the job done, do it right. I am going into the job making a conscious effort to be positive regardless of the outside negative influences affecting our society. I make sure I acknowledge people as human beings first a simple smile or head nod or handshake. My reputation in every community I work in is very important, and I want the people I serve to know when they say my name, they immediately say, he is one of the good ones. He can be trusted. He will get the work done and do it the right way. Canine Detective Jonathan Sirdan, congratulations. Our final officer winner tonight is Officer Veronica Cruz Santos of the Community Engagement Unit. This officer has consistently shown her commitment to building positive, problem-solving, empathy, active listening, and cultural understanding, making youth feel supported and seen. Her presence as a Latina officer also serves as a powerful example for our students many of whom relate to her background and leadership. She is deeply involved in the broader community. Families often share that they see her at neighborhood events, school functions, and local gatherings, where she continues building trust through genuine, respectful engagement. She wrote police community relations means the public and officers are able to effectively work together toward a common goal. It allows a relationship to be built and for both parties to learn about one another. It allows officers to learn more about the people we serve and protect while it allows the community to learn more about the officer or about the department. It allows the community to see beyond the badge and the uniform.

Congratulations.

We have a round of applause for our officers winning tonight. We're going to do our youth winner, and then we'll get a big picture. Does that sound good? We do have a youth award that we wanted to acknowledge tonight. Dolores Hamrick. She is not here, but I'm told she's got a good reason. She's at senior prom. She was like, prom, awards with a bunch of older people, prom. She goes to West Charlotte High School. She's a battalion commander in the JROTC and a student leader in SGA. She leads with integrity, accountability, and a strong commitment to collaboration, earning the respect of those around her. She's extensively involved in programs such as Right Moves for Youth and Young Life. and it reflects her dedication to service and her ability to build trust, uplift others, and foster positive relationships. She was nominated for this award in recognition of her outstanding leadership, service, and meaningful impact on her peers and community. Dolores Hamburg, our youth winner. At this time, if the elected leaders want to get a big picture, if you guys don't mind sliding over.

Uh-oh.

She's getting complicated.

While they are doing that, I want to see something real quick.

All the officers in the room, do you mind raising your hand? Who here has been a CMPD officer for three years? Really, leave your hand up. The chief? Don't, don't, don't, make up your mind. If you've been an officer for seven years, leave your hand up. been an officer for 10 years. Keep your hand up. 15. 20. 25. 30. Do we have a winner? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Do we need to go until we get a winner? 31. Chief, are you still up? Are you still in it?

Congratulations.

How many years? Say again? Woo! Round of applause for that. At this time, we'd like to call up Chief Estella Patterson of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Thank you, Alex. Good evening, everyone. My name is Estella Patterson, and always I say it is my distinct honor and my pleasure to serve as your chief of police. I'm not only the chief for the officers, but I am the chief for the community. I'm here to serve you. And being here tonight, just looking around the room and seeing all the nominees, all those who received the award, just warms my heart. All week we have been celebrating National Police Week, And we started the week with a bicycle ride. We had 60 or so of our officers and community members riding, pedaling to DC in honor of our fallen officers, our brothers and sisters in blue. And then we continue the week with various events. But the most impactful events this week have been the award ceremony that we did on Wednesday, the command college graduation on yesterday, and then tonight the awards, the CRC awards, because truly this is what it's about. And I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that many times things are amplified that it's negative as it pertains to the police, the community, the crime, that kind of thing. But every single day, 10, 20, 30 times a day, our employees are doing magnificent things. They're doing amazing work every single day that you don't hear about. So tonight is that night to be able to celebrate their successes and hear their stories and the things that they're doing in their community. As the chief, I'm extremely, extremely proud. And so I want to say to all our awardees tonight, thank you for the work that you're doing. For all the nominees, thank you for the work you're doing. For my executive team that's here, thank you. I work you hard. I know I do. I stretch you, stretch you, stretch you. but you keep showing up. So thank you so much for that. And lastly, I just want to thank the CRC for being such an amazing partner, always with us, always working with us. Terry, you and I have many conversations. You're always so gracious when we talk about things, so thank you so much to all of CRC for what you do. And for our community members who are here among us, we are here because of you. It is our joy to serve this community. One of my pillars, coming back as the chief, is that we will make sure that we're building stronger partnerships with our community because we know when the community's on our side, there's no limit in what we can do to make Charlotte the safest city in the United States. Thank you all, and have a good night.

Thank you, Chief. To close us out, Terry Bradley. Thank you, Alex.

So, Commissioner Powell. I know your feeling about all the extroverts that have come up. We're going to follow suit, so I get your pain. So I'm supposed to close out, and I want to at least make sure that I do this in a correct fashion. We've been doing this, and I was sitting here looking at this sign up here, and I believe there was a one up here when I first started in front of this sign six. So it's been a while for us having these celebrations, 46 years. As we close out the 46th Annual Police Community Relations Awards, I want to leave a few things for us to reflect on. Tonight is not just about recognizing outstanding officers, it's about celebrating trust, partnership, and collaboration. In the ongoing work of building strong relationships between law enforcement and the community we all serve. The partnership between the Charlotte-Mickenburg Community Relations and CMPD has always been rooted in collaboration, communication, and transparency. When concerns arise in our community, we work together to address them. The CMPD can't do it alone. Community relations can't do it alone. We've tried to create a better path for everyone involved. We remain committed to bringing a community perspective that helps strengthen outcomes, improve relationships, and build bridges by listening. At the same time, this partnership is also about recognizing and uplifting the good work that we all do. When I say that, sometimes there are opportunities where the CMPD can't tell their story. And I think that's where we step in. We're able to highlight and uplift those stories. The good work that often goes unseen. Tonight we heard highlights of meaningful work CMPD officers do every day. We wouldn't know about it. And the lasting impact it has on our community members. This event is an opportunity to celebrate those acts of service and connection. I want to thank many people who made tonight possible. Thank you to the City of Charlotte, the elected officials, Charlotte-Mecklenburg County leaders, and the elected officials that are at hand. Thank you to the Community Relations Committee. Again, let's give them a round of applause. I want to acknowledge our Community Relations staff. Could you guys stand again? You guys can take a big, deep breath after this weekend. I know there's been a lot of work. I mean, they worked tirelessly behind the scenes to organize this event. But a special thing to two people I want to uplift today. And that's Dolores Reed-Smith, a.k.a. Cookie, and Diamond Davis. Could you take us... Diamond, this is, I think, her first year doing this event, and I think she did a phenomenal job. So let's give her a round of applause. Thank you for your leadership in planning and coordinating this event. Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations and took the time to recognize officers making a difference in our community. Please encourage others in your neighborhood to do the same. And networks to do the same. And nominations remain open all during the year, so you can start nominating now. And before I leave, I'll close with this little Friday night wisdom. Remember to smile, and I'm going to look at all of you, to the person that has the mic. It can be the difference between staying here longer or getting out a little bit earlier. Thank you all for being here tonight, and we look forward to seeing you guys next year. Congratulations to the winners.

I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you guys all. Congrats to our winners. Congrats to our nominees. Everyone have a wonderful weekend. If you won an award, please return to the front. We're going to get a picture.

Forensic interview is a specialized conversation with a child. It's meant to elicit the child's own statement about something that a child has witnessed directly or experienced directly or experienced indirectly, meaning if they have been a victim of any type of child abuse or if they've witnessed a violent crime. My name is Kelly Wood. I'm a director of response services at Pat's Place Child Advocacy Center. We are part of a multidisciplinary team of professionals who work to prevent, identify, and combat child abuse. At our center, it is the opportunity for children and their caregivers to come participate in a forensic interview. They will receive family advocacy services. They will also have an opportunity on site to receive a forensic medical evaluation. And then the family advocates will link the child and the family to therapeutic services. To ensure the integrity of the interview, to remove those influences, it's just the forensic interviewer and the child, of course, unless the child needs some type of communication assistance. Child abuse can be very scary. You know, as the child experiencing it and as the parent learning about it, because usually the majority of perpetrators who harm children are known by that child and that family, we are there to provide care for children and the non-offending caregivers. Another branch of Path's Place is linking parents, community members to trauma treatment. Parents can absolutely call directly and be connected to a coordinator who can provide those therapeutic linkages to them for their children.

For crimes against children, we investigate cases regarding juvenile sexual abuse and felony child abuse.

So whether it's rape, anything that's forced sexual assault on a child, we focus on the ages of 15 and under. This also includes sexual exploitation. So that can involve the possession of pornography. That can involve influencing someone online to send you messages that's underage.

The perpetrators try to like manipulate them. They will try to make the kid feel like it's their fault, like it's normal and it's not. Over about 90% of the perpetrators, they are people that we're close to. These like individuals, they try to become very, very involved in like a child's life.

Children who are possibly experiencing this abuse start to thumbs up, have bedwetting. Some of them are having trouble with memory or they start to lose the language that they've already acquired. The physical, I think most of us can agree that that's one of the most obvious, right? That's something that we can see. That's something somebody could say, okay, well this, I'm reporting it because I see this.

A lot of people, they feel like they cannot make a report to us because it could have been something that happened 20 plus years ago. But every single felony that we have as far as like child abuse, there's like no limitations on that.

I think the field is very difficult to work and it can be very traumatizing, but it's also probably the most rewarding one.