City Council - Regular Meeting

go ahead and call this meeting to order. I appreciate everyone being here this evening. We have a uh a good agenda with a couple of very important uh business pieces that need to be you know discussed publicly and then we also have uh three items for close session. So we will be here a few minutes after uh we you know release everybody else. But with that welcome everyone glad to see everybody. Let's begin as our tradition with an invocation followed by the pledge of allegiance. We'll be led with on invocation by leader our fire chapl. Good evening everyone. Good evening.

Let us pray. Our father and our god we thank you for this moment that we can come together with the meeting of the minds. Father we need your assistance. We need your help in all the decisions that need to be made. I ask you to bless this council that they'll use their wisdom and their kindness and everything that they do. Father, Father, we thank you for the constituents and we thank you for the people of City of Goldsboro as we grow together, God. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Please join me in the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Uh, madame clerk, if you would please conduct a roll call. Mayor Gayler, present. Mayor Pro Tim Weekes, present. Councilwoman Jones, present. Councilman Boyette, present. Councilwoman Taylor, present. Councilwoman Matthews, present. All right. And uh Councilman White is attending to a personal matter. We certainly wish him success. We look forward to seeing him back in the chair in the very near future. Uh with that, we will move to the adoption of the agenda item three. Uh council, excuse me, uh Mr. uh Mr. Livingston. Are there any additions or changes from staff at this time? Uh no, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Council, are there any requested changes to the agenda as presented? Hearing none, we'll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as presented as the business order of the day. So moved. Motion's been made and properly seconded to adopt the agenda as presented. Uh madame clerk, if you would please put up the vote. Mayor, voting in the affirmative. I'm having some.

Okay. All in favor, please uh vote by show of hands. All oppose. Same sign. Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. Perfect. anytime that's an issue, please just notify and we will as always keep the meeting rolling. Let's begin uh our uh the substantive part of our agenda with item uh 4.1. Uh Mr. Livingston, if you'd please brief us and then call for the preserve.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um as the board is aware, one of the biggest priorities the city council had coming into the office two years ago was uh reducing violent crime, part one crime as it's called. Um and and that was a a serious issue, remains a serious issue, but uh through community policing efforts and initiatives uh we've been addressing those issues and working proactively to try to uh build the community up and try to get our community policing and our crime down. And so that's what this is. It's an update and also on community policing and updating some of our numbers for the past year. You can see where we've made some progress. We've still got a long ways to go, but uh made tremendous strides in our community policing and overall safety of the community. And we'll have our presenters come up at this time.

We're feeling pretty safe and secure in here with you guys. It's a good feeling. Um Mayor Gayler, um our honored council members, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Lawrence. Um, thank you for allowing this opportunity uh to to give you overview of community policing here at Gbor Police Department. Um, and this direct correlation to our crime statistics uh for 2025. I have with me corporal artist um a staple um in this community at the Gwell Police Department for nearly three decades um and also SRO Schultz um at Wayne Middle School. Um we have a presentation we put together. Um at this time I'm going to see to uh corporal artist to give you an overview of community policing.

Good morning Mr. Mayor and council um for you all and the audience. I'm Corporal Nick. Uh I've been with the police department for a little over almost 26 years. Uh and I'm glad to be here. Um I know council you you all know who I am. Um, but I want to thank you all for the opportunity uh to discuss something that's fundamental to public safety and the community here. Now, you all know me. Y'all know I like to talk, but I'm going to keep it brief. But tonight, we we're we're here to talk about a philosophy that's transforming how our the police department has built trust and reduce crime. But it's more than data and statistics. It's about relationships. Um I think sometimes, you know, everybody looking at data, data, data, and data is good, but it's about relationships for us. In my almost 26 years with this police department council, I've seen firsthand and how the community policing works. I've seen the genuine partnerships between the officers and the residents, how they create a safer neighborhood and reduce crime and build that kind of trust that makes everyone including the police and the community safer. This has been a uh this has been my baby, I should say. I' I've been doing this a long time. Um I've worked uh in patrol. I worked in on the housing unit that we had for years. Um, I worked uh as a school resource officer in our schools for many years and then I transitioned to uh work the parks. I was the park police and now I'm working in our community policing uh division as a corporal. So, I don't take this lightly. Uh this is my heart. This is what I do. This is

me. And it it means it means a whole lot to me as it's here. um what community policing means to us our department. It means being neighbors first and officers second. It means listening before enforcing. It means seeing the person before the badge and solving problems together rather than imposing solutions. I'm not going to uh take away from this PowerPoint here. Um I got officer Schwarz here. He's going to walk you through the community policing overview and our crime trend data. He brings firsthand experience in community policing and engagement and he understand both strategic importance in the real world impact of these initiatives. This isn't theoretical. It works and it requires a commitment from all of us. Let's roll short. I'll turn it over to you, sir.

Oprah Lordis, Major, thank you both. And feel free to be seated if you don't want to stand through the same the whole presentation. I appreciate it. Uh Mr. Mayor, Council, uh and every other honored guest. It's an honor for me to be here. Uh not too long ago, I stood in front of uh some of you and swore in. And what we're going over today is a high overview of our community policing and what it's accomplished over the last year. So the purpose is basically to give you all of some of the highlights and how it's worked so far and how we're going to continue to make it work. So community policing at Goldsboro Police Department, it's not a single program. It's a philosophy. Whether we are talking to the public, which we have to do every day, whether it's a call for service, a traffic stop, or even a speak with officer that comes in, we have to make sure that we are building these connections with our community. Not only in each one of the events that we do, in everything that we do in the daily aspects of patrol, throughout our command, and especially our community policing. So, we initiated. I'm not sure if that was me, but it looks like we skipped quite a bit ahead.

Yep. We're going to back it up. Give us There you go.

Appreciate it. So, some of the key programs that we went over some activities with the public, our school resource officers, and making sure that we're connecting with the neighborhood for problem solving. We've done some things with the faith-based, our neighborhood. Uh we've gone to some of our community watches and this could also go back to our patrol officers who are out there every day and might interact with each one of our neighbors business and have to give them some type of solution to a problem that they're having to help them with whether it's blight or an actual crime that they're facing. I apologize. I'm not sure if it's

Do you mind seeing if we can get assistance on the pointer? We may have we may have batteries batteries running out. So, if anyone if anyone from it is watching [Music] Give us just a moment. I want to make sure we get I could skip the the PowerPoints and just go through it if we'd like.

Okay. Because we also have it on our uh we also have it in the agenda packet that was released for the public as well as in front of us. If you have printed copies with you, feel free just to go and we can follow along with you. As soon as this is back up, obviously we want to get it back up as well. Okay.

Understood. I appreciate it. So, if we could back it up to the community engagement snapshot, the which basically brings us to Shop with a Cop. The Goldberg Police Department, we had the privilege of doing Shop with the Cop. Not only did we expand it to three different stores, we expanded it to 50 children. So, one of the highlights of my career was being able to do Shop with a Cop, not just this year, but last year, and seeing the joy that it brings to the children and the connections that we get together with it. Out of these 50 children, the majority of them when we're shopping with them, they're not worried about getting something for themselves. They're worried about giving something for their brother or their sister, their mom or their dad or their caretaker, which is just an amazing event that we are so privileged to be part of. Over $8,000, almost $9,000 was spent to be able to fill the carts for these 50 children. On top of that, we were also able to go and do some shopping for a few that were sick, load them up, and be able to deliver them to the uh individuals that were supposed to be at shop with the cop, but unfortunately when you're sick, you don't want to be in public. But we were still able to take care of them as well. We also had the opportunity, if we could go on to the next lot, to do our 42nd annual National Night Out, and we raised almost $13,000 for this event. and we had over 70 vendors on it. And if anybody saw some of uh what went on in the event, we had uh competitions for pull-ups that were there. We had uh one of our state troopers that also is part of our community come in. Uh and I think he danced the entire time. [Music] The next slide, please. We also raised money for our Special Olympics and we've done the

torch run to go along with that. And when we look at all of this in a snapshot, [Music] it reiterates the fact that we can't do this alone. Again, it goes back to the philosophy that the only way that we are going to to succeed at bringing down the crime rates in Goldsboro is to do it as a community. Many community concerns involve quality of life issues rather than serious crime or approaches focus on blight, nuisance complaints, reoccurring neighborhood concerns. So that's where not only our community policing comes in, but the daily interaction of our patrol officers is very important. Now, let's talk about our successes. So throughout our community events, uh we had our flag football team, which once again went undefeated. Uh and this is volunteering time by a lot of our uh police officers who are not in the community policing, but again, it's our philosophy to get out there. So these patrol officers, the investigators are out there spending the time with our community children and youth and making sure that they understand that there is a human behind the badge and making that connection where we can help together where if crime does happen, they can come to us to help us solve it as well. So when we look at our crime trends, that 28% decrease from 24 to 25 and then we look at the numbers from 2023. It proves that our theory in practice works. We're just getting started. Each one of you helped us bring in more law enforcement

officers. With more law enforcement officers, we were able to have more connections with the community and lower our crime rates. When we talk about these crime trends for part one, these are violent crimes or property crimes where we have an actual individual as the victim. This is a high-level year-over-year comparison of the crime trends over the past 2 to 3 years. The data is presented for the context only and intended to complement not define our community policing efforts which remain focused on a long-term connection with our community. In closing, our partnership with the community and the core strategy of the Goldsboro Police Department is to get engage with our neighbors, whether it's on patrol, at events, in council meetings to make sure that we build a connection that not only can deter crime, but also solve it when it happens. Thank you all for your time. Council comments, questions. I know that a lot was presented. I'm sure there's some specific questions about either data points or different events that happened over the last year.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes. I don't I I just um have a comment. Um I would I would like to thank each of you for coming and presenting to us tonight. And I would also like to thank Corporate Audis who is very active in district one with uh our crime watch and he meets with us uh quarterly. He has taught us what to do, what to look for. He's done some extensive training in that area and I would like for him to continue it. Uh we we didn't do it the last two months because of you know scheduling was was bad but um I would like for you to come back because it it does help and there were a lot of questions posed and you were able to answer some of those and so I just I thank you for that and we want to continue to do our crime watch.

Thank you. Yes. A couple questions. Yes, ma'am. Please.

Um, hi. So, I have a couple of questions, but I also would like to thank you guys for everything. Um, corporal artist, you you're great. You come to our meetings. You're always there when we have questions. Um, but I do have one question. So um when we have meetings or neighborhood watches or connection meetings or whatever you want to call them in the housing authority um apartments um I have had some people ask for a housing authority officer um to attend the meetings as well um because some of the questions they had were better you know. So my question is, is there someone available that you guys can get us put on the books to maybe um also attend when we have the neighborhood watch meetings that are in housing authority locations?

Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. That's not an issue. Just of course we need a heads up. Um and so um how about what a week or two, a month ahead? Couple of weeks. Couple of weeks. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Yeah. Um you remember the last meeting that we had um a lot of the the questions were pertaining to housing authority issues and uh just to figure out um West Haven uh housing authority.

Yeah, West Haven. Um they're uh neighborhood watch group. They have started major. So um whenever I do those, you know, uh officer Elliot's been uh she's been with me because they they've requested that as well. So she has been she has that's part of our 2026 objectives and goals. Okay, great. Is marrying community policing in the housing division um to get more active in the housing community. So yes ma'am that's part of our goals and is not an issue at all. Um just a couple we say

and so whenever the housing authority um officer comes with you so what is the process like? Who does she take that information back or does she take that information back to your department or how does that work? It's usually just submitted department or just depending on what the issue is. Yes, ma'am. Um it typically um despite what the issue is, it's departmentwide. Um okay. You know, at any given time, any given day, anybody department could be dealing with the issue at hand. So it's best to send everybody.

Okay. Um, I just want to say thank you all for for everything. We're all glad to see the numbers improving. Counciloman Jones, I believe you had a follow-up. Yeah. Um, this isn't about housing or anything. This is about the unhoused and I um when it's really cold and um there and and you see an unhoused person, what is what is your protocol if you're making your rounds? Uh I heard something good and I want you to tell me what you guys do.

I think it's uh dependent on the officer. Um to be honest with you, um we always try to find resources whether it be somebody is going through substance abuse or unhoused or a mental health crisis. U we try our best to find resources. Um oftent times um there's none available right at the moment. Um I can tell you I personally go to my house. I live here in the city and going and got old coats and pants and shirts and stuff and giving it out to the unhoused. So it's officer specific. Um, a lot of the officers were reaching their own pocket and buy meals um and get clothing and things of those natures, but we do our best to try to get them resources.

Yeah, that yeah, that was um my concern. I do uh want to thank the officer. I don't know who it was, but um in my district there was a lady sitting out around 12 o'clock um last week and he was able to find a place for her cuz it was very cold and she was sitting on Walnut Street on the bench and so that made me say well what you know what else do you guys do? I wanted to pull that out and find out.

We wear many hats as police officers. Many hats. Um, we really do. Um, we all try to do our best. Um, we all have good hearts for the most part. Um, it's tough when you can't help somebody, but we do. Thank you.

I appreciate you guys, you gentlemen being willing to come forward and speak this evening. I thought this was a very timely. We needed to do the public disclosure of data, but we needed to humanize that data. You know, allow it to be seen exactly what it is and why. uh if you'll allow me one follow-up on the presentation. Um there was some bullet points around technology support. It's something that I have viewed as both a double-edged sword but also something that I've strongly encouraged. What sorts of technology tools do you see being deployed and do you think we ought to consider if you're willing to get into that? Sure.

So we've got several different uh uses of technology. So, one of the things that's said all the time is we shape technology, then technology shapes us. So, some of the stuff that you see on the map is just pretty simple that's been around forever where you could take the scatter plot and you could figure out exactly where these part one crimes are being committed and send resources out to it. We also have uh speed with that we've been using for a long time, which is a program that we can put keep checks in. So, some of you might be involved in businesses where uh it's in an area that may have experienced some of that part one crime and we could put it in as a keep check where every two, four, depending on what's put in, we have officers not only patrol it, but it has to be entered in both 911 dispatch and then entered into speed that we've done that keep check. Uh on top of that, we do have other technology here that allows us to respond faster to uh shot spots or shootings that just triangulates the the sound that comes out to get us there as fast as possible uh when there's a shooting that's occurred uh in the city limits of Goldberg. Uh on top of that, as we get more and more technology, uh we can add uh the cameras, we can put out the the popup uh radar detectors to slow down traffic. So each one of those can be a tool for us to improve our job and also give us more time for community engagement.

Right. Perfect. Thank you, gentlemen. Council, any uh please.

Uh yeah, Mr. Mayor, I just just want to let you know we um we've been working really hard um uh with not just the neighborhood watch groups, but the downtown merchants. I I know y'all familiar. We're having meetings monthly. Um, we've been serving and doing the best we can do and we want to thank y'all for the support and some of the shop with the cop and some of the uh the events that we have done. We wouldn't have been able to do it without the community help these partnerships with the businesses the stakeholders that has really sewn into us. uh we we wouldn't have been able to do some of the things that we have done if we didn't have the support coming from you all but as well as the uh the partnerships that we have outside. Well, I don't think any of us are rosecolored glasses or naive to the point that there are still issues at our doorsteps, but I think that the qualitative conversation and the quantitative chart that is put I think suggests that we are aiming in the right direction that we are at least going about it with the right philosophical components. Um, again, I think every one of us wants to see improvements. We're committed to improvements. We're committed to uh standing by, you know, the allocations that have been done so far and and ensuring that we don't lose ground. But for me anyway, what you've shared this evening is both reassuring as well as uh uh makes me comfortable about how we're going to address things next year to continue going in this direction.

Yes, sir. Council, any closing comments from anyone else? Yes, ma'am. Please question. Sorry. Um, so, uh, shot spotters, it rang a bell. I have a question about that. So, are the locations of the shot spiders, is that public information? Um, not sure to be honest with you. I want to speak out terms. I'm not sure. Okay. I'll find out back to you. So, because I have some constituents that are asking um, are there shot spotters? shot spotters in certain areas. Um, so if it's possible, could you get me a list maybe of where those locations are at in district three? Um, or if that's possible. I I'll follow up on

So, and who is in charge of where they go at? I'm just based on crime data. So, do they move locations? No, they're they're there and they stay there to move or expand the system. Um, it's pretty static when you put it out. So, in order So, you're saying there's a a large long process in order to get a shot spotter in a certain area if it's high crime or not necessarily a long process, but a cost is a cost. Okay. And so is that something that has to be approved um in the Tell you what, if you would um if it is something that can be disseminated publicly,

then let's do a map, a coverage map just to simply be able to show how much of the city does have the acoustic uh coverage and uh if there is a percentage of the city that does not uh know of a process that's coming up where that that may be a conversation. Understood. Is that fair? I didn't mean to cut you off. I was just adding to that, but that's that's that's great. Um, but I do have a couple of areas in my district that I'm concerned about and that I would like to talk to someone concerning. We can make that happen.

Yeah. Just going to make a comment or two and I'm I'm glad, Mr. mayor that you mentioned about um being able to look at the shot spotter and expansion possibly of that program. It is budget time um which is what Mr. mayor was alluding to. And I certainly would like to see us um look and and consider what our needs are and whether it be cameras, whether it be expansion of of the Shot Spotter program and sort of speaking to the budget committee on that regard in that regard to to definitely consider that in. And I just wanted to say thank you to you guys for the presentation and um thank you for all that you do. This this community values and appreciates each and every one of our public safety personnel and uh we we couldn't be here without you and things are trending in the right direction. We got still got a ways to go. I know we're still not staffed up yet, but for you guys to be able to have accomplished what you've accomplished so far gives us all hope that we're going in the right direction and things will continue to get better and that's because of you guys and all of our public safety team that that helps us.

Thank you, Council. Any other closing comments? All right. Thank you. Thank you'all so much for being here. Y'all be safe out there. Thank you for your time. All right, we will be now begin uh item five on our agenda, which is our public comment period. Madame clerk, sorry, we'll let them exit. She said there was no one on the list. There is no one that has signed up on the list to speak. All right, then we will close our public comment period.

What the uh if you would All right. Yeah, go ahead and bring forward the list and then you know we have on other occasions allowed someone to sign as it was going. So if you would please just come and uh sign in, get a name and then we will proceed with our public comment period. Usually there's that last opportunity when uh when Miss Yet is getting up to walk over there. So we'll do our best to remain consistent. And we may [Music]

council Sir, uh, I would like to start off with apologizing before I I go ahead, but, uh, I'll just get into it. Uh, good evening, council. My name is Clayurn Smith. Uh, some of you may already know me. For those that do not, I'm a realtor in Goldsboro. Uh, the past two years, I've taken part in a friendly fantasy football league with some of the best realtors, lenders, and real estate attorneys Wayne County has to offer. For those of you who are unfamiliar with fantasy football, the key element in any great fantasy football league is the punishment. Typically, the last place team has a punishment decided by the league. Uh the punishment can take many forms from spending a day in uh at your favorite bar to talking in front of city council during public comment section.

This does need to be related this does need to be related to city business in some way. Okay. Pull this back to city business or I'm going to have to ask you to stop. Okay. Okay. Yes, sir. That's all. Okay. Wow. I'm sure he appreciates that. Mayor, is there anyone else to go? All right. Mr. like to speak. You're fine.

I'm Glenn Barbwick and I have two things. The place particularly on Center Street have done an excellent job. We eat on center street a lot and now you sit there for a few minutes, a police car comes by, somebody walking comes by and we have had absolutely no problem there in the last months and months. So they they did an excellent job. And while I'm here, I have to ask one of my pet questions. Why can't we get the light back on the fountain? if you will allow me because I don't know the answer to that. Okay,

let me let us get an answer back to you on exactly what what issue is going on or just simply resolve the issue and then follow up with you. Well, it just never has the light on it now and uh I think we get a lot more advertising on TV and that kind of thing at night with it on and so thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Lucy, just make a note the public. Thank you. All right, with that, no further uh public comment. We will close the public comment period, and we will move to uh item six, our consent agenda. Mr. Livingston, if you would please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We have three items on the consent agenda. One of them is donation of uh personal property. It's essentially our fire hoses that uh have gone out of compliance for our standards, and we'd like to donate them to Wayne County Fire Department's Association. So that equipment is in your uh agenda packet. We also have a operating budget amendment, pretty typical for this time of year uh halfway through. And then your departmental monthly report. So uh I will attempt to answer any questions if there are any on any of those three issues on the consent agenda. Those being things that are not inconsistent with what we have seen in previous years. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved, Mr. Mayor.

Motion's been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and properly seconded to approve the consent agenda as presented. Please vote electronically if possible.

Are they going through? Waiting on one. Okay. All right. All votes have been cast. Motion passes uh unanimously on a 60 vote. All right. The consent agenda is approved as presented. We will now move uh to item seven, old business. Uh we'll begin with item 7.1 an update on uh the saving union station effort. Mr. Leon, do you have anything to brief prior to our speaker? Just welcome Julie. Thank you sir. Thank you for being here. Good evening.

Good evening. Thank you uh for allowing us time on the agenda. We'll be very brief. Uh I just happen to be in North Carolina this week so this timing worked out great. First I would like to reintroduce you to my fabulous Saving Union Station team members. Um we started in early or November I guess it was and the original member Doug McGrath um and Mark Musler who could not be here tonight and myself and somewhere along the way I don't know when it was and how it happened but we had the the great fortune of picking up John Peacock who has been super helpful um and bringing in some extra passion um and hands-on work to make this happen. Um, so I also want to acknowledge two other people that are not here tonight. Um, but that were super instrumental. Um, and that was Mr. David Perry and Mr. Adrien Warlong along with his wife Selena. um when we came up with this plan, even before we came before you in November of 2023, we went to them and asked them um if we were crazy and uh and if they would have our back um and they both gave it to us enthusiastically and I think that gave us the extra confidence we needed to move forward and be where we are today. So I wanted to thank them and they were with us not just in the beginning but also in the end as well. So, um, also, um, just want to just very briefly hit the highlights to remind everybody as to why we're where we are right now. But in November or early fall of 2023, some of members of the NCO Tail Division came to Goldsboro and visited Union Station and they were alarmed by its condition. They contacted me and I just happened to be in Goldsboro at the time and who are now the Union Station uh, Saving Union Station team members. we went down this to see it ourselves and we were also alarmed. Um, and we started to try to figure out a way to address it and come up with a plan and as we've discussed before in the past we had been so focused on the bigger picture, the who, what, how, and when.

Um, and it just seemed so overwhelming and so we decided to skinny it down and narrow the focus on just the stabilization just so we could make sure that the station had a future for us to decide on all those other things later. Um, and so we came to you and we pitched this crazy plan with the um, proposal that if you would put in $375,000, we would go to the county and ask them to do the same. And if both of you agreed that we would we would secure the additional $750,000 needed to get to that $1.5 million budget that we came about together with NC DOT rail division staff to address those most immediate needs. Um, for the past two years, the SUS team has been working very passionately on this project. Um, and that passion really comes from a lot of different sources. For me and John, probably most, it comes from years I'm working on this. We've been working on this since 1999 in some form or fashion along with its its its um, I guess counterpart project, and that is the passenger rail development from Raleigh to Wilmington going through Goldbrow. Um, and it it comes from the fact that we worked with some of our greatest champions and community leaders, um, including David Quick, Sandy Corson, uh, Jimmy Edmonson, Chuck Allen, Al King, um, and Judge Charlie Gayler, who was probably the most passionate about it, um, of all of us. and he actually chaired the railroad task force that really started to make the shift happen in the state and really closely look at eastern North Carolina as a as a good choice for um continuing passenger rail service throughout the state. Um and so those things gave us a source of passion but also like stories from Mr. Wheel who shared that he went down there as a kid with his dad to watch FDR's body um be transported to Washington DC upon his death or the fact that Babe Ruth came to Goldsboro because of the train and because of Union Station. And so Union Station is really important. Um the railroad is the the reason that

Goldsboro exists. The station embodies a lot of our memories and and um our pride and in our community is is housed in that building. And so we've been working on that. I wanted to share really briefly. Um it's a really quick video that um John Peacock and the staff of the DJDC put together to promote what we're doing um and the passion behind it and to to try to solicit um donations from the community to to bring our uh drive home. So I'm going to hit start or is it going to hit start for me? I think money.

Oops. Sorry. I might have done that. Sorry, it can you hit that again?

My name is John Peacock and I want to tell you a little bit about Union Station. [Music] People came from around the region to get on the train here. For us, it became the equivalent of an O'Hara airport or a JFK or RDU. This is where travel uh began. This is where travel ended. But what's the significance of this? We want the citizens of Goldsboro, Wayne County, and surrounding area to be part of this program because that gives them ownership. And we're seeing that already. We've had people that have donated $10, $25, $1,000, whatever someone's comfortable with. The route's already been chosen for passenger service from Raleigh to Wilmington that will come through Goldsboro. That's already in print. That's going to happen. They're not building them like this anymore. For anyone that has questions about donating, go to the downtown Goldsboro website. 100% of the money that you give will go toward the stabilization of this building and it's all 100% taxdeductible. Not only is it part of our past, but it's part of our future, too. But it's also a privilege to be part of this community and be part of this effort to make things happen. So that video was released just several weeks ago and there's been others that have followed. Um so if you'll recall we were just here in October of uh 2025. Um you know the budget of $1.5 million. The city activated their funds 375 this past fall. We are in the process of design for phase one with the design builder team led by TA Loving. Um we have been meeting monthly with them. things are um progress is going as expected. Um the county of Wayne had uh committed $375,000

as well, but they wanted to wait until we raised our 750 before they put that into play. We secured um a grant of $612,500. The DGDC thankfully put in the 5% required match of 375 which left us with a just a little under $90,000 in October. Um, but thanks to the uh passion of the team, I'm happy to announce that Union Station has another great date that it will remember in its history, and that is today, January 20th, because I'm able to announce that we have secured all $750,000 and 179 on top. So, so we've secured the funds, we're ready to go. I did let TA Loving know last week um just so they could start planning strategically about u folding in all the other what could have been different phases and um so we can be a little bit more efficient with those funds and effective with the timeline. Um and I hope that um we went to the county today um and shared the news with them. Unfortunately, the timing just worked out that way. Um but they voted unanimously to again support their and commit their 375. So, I'll leave that to however you all decide to work through those logistics. But, um, I just want to remind you that I'll still be involved. I'm going to still be on that design builder team monthly meetings just to make sure things are going as smoothly as possible. Um, and I'm here to assist as much as possible. But, um, I think that, you know, the next step is really actively soliciting interest in this building. I think um you know a lot of people would not know that there's opportunities and for investment or other uses in this building that this the city is willing to at least entertain them. So I think that's probably the next step so we can see what's available um and and and go from there. But we just don't want to we want to make sure that we're not in the same place 10 years from now and that we've lost focus of the of the commitment and the energy and the the momentum that we have now behind Union

Station. So any questions from me? Council comments, questions. Congratulations. Thanks.

I do want to thank there's some key people here in the room that were significant donors. We had a handful of those through this community and I will tell you is remarkable. Um but Judith and Glenn u they were among the first when when the call to action came a year ago. Um Jeff Haltz rallied. He's given multiple times through the last two years. He he he made a birthday, you know, request from all his friends who really rallied and supported them as well. Um, and the worlds as well as David Perry came through at the very end, too. And we were, it was getting tough to to to get those. You know, donations ranged from $20 to $20,000. We had overund I think 126 individual donors. Um, donations came from four different states, 26 different towns. Um, so it was it was, you know, they ranged like I did I tell you 20 to $20,000. So, um, there were some underage 21 people that gave. Um, so it was it's it's been a really great project and it's been, I think John will tell you, he's been kind of the point person for offering tours for people that were interested in donating but just didn't know. They wanted to see it first. Um, so he's heard a lot of great stories firsthand and and the community has really rallied. So, I think I think um Judge Gayler would be very proud, very delighted. I can hear him laughing now um at the fact that his community and his friends rallied behind him. So, I'm really happy for that. So, it's been a privilege to do this.

Council, any other comments?

U Thank you. Uh just on a very personal level, thank you also as mayor of the city, thank you. Um, I truly mean I truly mean it because I believe that there are cornerstone components. There's footholds, if you will, in different parts of our city. I believe that the event center and the golf course, that is a that is a foothold. That is a that is a cornerstone right over there that proves that this government is committed to life and quality of life right there and in those neighborhoods surrounding it. The downtown main street center street can be said for that. I believe this building Union Station will be that. I believe there are others that our manager has in mind that we can discuss when the when the time is right. Formerly known as Edgewood. Yeah, that is these are examples of getting capstone or keystone tenants. Sorry, my words are a little failing me at the moment. Of getting these anchor tenants, if you will in different parts of town and showing every corner of this city that it matters to this government and um I think that the future is bright for that corridor. I'm excited to work with my partners, you know, Wilmington, Burgal, um all those mayors are Wallace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All those all those mayors know my opinions already. And um I I look forward to seeing if this is yet another asset that we can bring for the people of Goldsboro and Wayne County. Um I I want to say publicly how grateful again on a personal note as well as as the mayor of Goldsboro to our partners with the county. This is another example of the county and the city deciding

deliberately and intentionally that we are going to work together on something that supports both because the economy of Goldsboro is part of the economy of Wayne County. When you grow Goldsboro, you grow Wayne County. They are not separated. Um, obviously Wayne County extends beyond the limits of Goldsboro, but Goldsboro is entirely in Wayne County. And I appreciate um our county government seeing it that way as well and wanting to be invested in this particular project. Um so with that, I will stop my comments, but I I really do appreciate the work that you everyone that contributed on this project um our friends at the state level as well that they have really come forward trying to show the people that every corner of the city matters and this is a capstone example of that. So, thank you.

I think I think we all agree that we're definitely grateful for your team for everything that they did, every single donor, every single giver, every single video, but um I think I speak on behalf of all of us when I say, Julie, um you know, you sacrificed a lot and you didn't have to. Um you didn't have to come back to North Carolina, especially back to Goldsboro, but we're grateful for you. Um hard work and sacrifices and it paid off. and congratulations to you. Congratulations to all of you, but thank you that you did come back and that you had a passion for this and we hope it does move forward and definitely I think this gives the project huge momentum. So congratulations.

Mom and dad would just tell you I was stubborn. Appreciate it. Hearing nothing else, we'll allow this and thank you again and safe travels back. Thanks. All right. Next, we will move to another very, very exciting piece that this council chose to fund and chose to stand behind. Our community residents survey, Mr. Livingston, at the risk of stealing any thunder. I'll yield to you.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. As you said, this is a significant u study that we undertook to try to determine what the residents desires and needs were and how they felt about city government and the services we provide. It was kind of a bold step for us because um you know this hasn't been done before and we really didn't know what to expect. We we knew we weren't going to pass everything with flying colors. We knew there would be some strengths and certainly some weaknesses inherent in some of the things that we've been doing, but we felt like we needed to know where we stood and and that's what the goal was to establish a benchmark and to find our strengths and weaknesses and use this as information going forward with our strategic planning with our budgeting and and things like that. So, um we have our consultant here this evening that's going to introduce the overall findings. Uh this is another issue we're going to delve into at the retreat uh to kind of brainstorm about how we can um improve in areas that we feel like are the most vital to us. And I'll just u let the consultant uh take take it from here. Thank you for being here.

Yeah, thank you Matthew. Um Mayor, council, thank you for having me here tonight. Um it was fun driving through North Carolina today on my way down here. Um but as you said, I'm Derek Harvey. I'm a project manager. I've been working with city staff for like um about the last six months on this project ever since they reached out to us. Um a little bit more about ETC Institute. We're one of the uh nation's leader provider of market research for local government. Since 2012, we've done about 1,200 community surveys worldwide. And in the last two years, we've done surveys for um in all 50 states as well. We also do quite a bit of work in North Carolina. Um, we do the city survey for Rally and Durham. Um, we do Durham County, Meckllinmberg County. I think we've done surveys for Wayne County and Wilming Wilmington as well. So, we are familiar with the region. Tonight for the agenda, I want to talk about the perceptions and ratings that we u measured on the survey, the major city services, we looked at public safety, city maintenance, and finally city communication. And at the end, I'll leave time for questions as well. Um, for the purpose of the survey, we wanted to objectively assess city programs and services. We wanted to gather input from residents to help city leaders set the priorities. And of course, we want to help identify areas for improvement for the community. The way we did this is we administered a survey by mail, phone, and online with follow-ups with text, email, and social media if we had that to a random sample of residential addresses. The sample is designed to ensure results are statistically valid and representative. The way we did this is we took your GIS shape file of the city. We took all the residential addresses that were in that shape file and that's what we selected the random sample from. We do this for one or two reasons. Um one reason is to make sure everybody has the same percentage chance of being selected to receive a survey and two it makes sure that we hear from

all areas of this community. By doing this we uh received 526 completed surveys. Our goal was 400. So we did receive 126 over our goal, which is very impressive. By doing that, that gave us a margin of error of plus minus 4.2 uh% or 24% at the 95% level of confidence. As we were designing the survey, we also wanted to make sure we heard from enough individuals in each council district so that we could compare those districts to that. We wanted at least 65 from each district. We ended up with at least 71 from each district and we were able to provide those crosstabulations in the full report. When we looked at the survey results, um the I pulled out a couple items here on the left. 64% of the respondents rated the overall quality of downtown Goldsboro as excellent or good. 49% rated the overall quality of life in Goldsboro as excellent or good. and 47% rated Goldsboro as an excellent or good place to live. Um, when we looked at the perception of perceptions of downtown Goldsboro, those perceptions are extremely high. When we looked at our benchmarking and our national and regional averages, downtown Goldsboro is significantly higher than both. Um, when we looked at major services, the results were varied, but Goldsboro performed well in key areas such as fire and police. Um, maintenance of city streets and sidewalks were seen as weaknesses on the survey. And of course, we wanted to help identify opportunities for improvement for the city. Um, we designed the survey that way, and I'll get into the design of the survey in a little bit, but maintenance of city streets and sidewalks and grow and planning for growth and development were areas that were highlighted as improvement areas for improvement. There we go. When we looked at the distribution of responses, this is the GIS shape file that I talked about earlier of

Goldsboro. The dots on the map are the respondents to the survey. They are located to the nearest block level. That's why it looks like a few of them are right on top of each other. They just corresponded to help keep respondents anonymous. Um, but as we are conducting the survey, this is something that ETC is measuring on the back end. We're looking at the distribution of responses to make sure we're hearing from all areas of the community. We're also measuring demographics on the back end. We're looking at race and ethnicity. We're looking at the age breakdown to make sure we're hearing from all age groups. We're even looking at owner versus renters in the community as well to make sure we're hearing from renters knowing that owners are going to respond better to the survey, but we want to make sure we hear from renters as well. Really good. There we go. When we looked at perceptions and ratings, um, we looked at overall quality of life items, um, as you can see, the top rated item on the survey was that overall quality of downtown Goldsboro at 64%. It was followed by quality of life at 49, as a place to live at 47, and then as a place to raise children at 36%. I pulled out those three on the uh, left there. I called the big ones. Those are the three items I typically look at first. When I look at survey results, um if I look at those, I can kind of take a look. I call them report card grades, you know, math, English. If you those are your report card grades for those subjects. If those items are um rated higher, we typically see results that are higher. If they're in the middle like these are, we're going to see results that vary that on the survey as well. Um when we go down the survey as a place to work was one of the lowest rated items and overall value that you receive for your city tax dollars and fees. That one I'm not shocked to see at the bottom. When we do community surveys, um, that one always goes to the bottom there. It's just something when you ask about tax dollars and the value you receive for them,

residents and respondents always rate that lower. Um, when we did take your GIS map, we also provided a breakdown of the responses by council district. Um, I'm using the overall quality of downtown since it was the highest rated one. We have shading done by council district. As you can see, on an average, all the districts gave the overall quality of downtown a good rating when we gave this question. I wanted to point this out as because as an example, this one is a good one. As we go through the survey, you'll not probably see some other areas you want to take a look at. We can also using these GIS maps, we can see districts that rated items differently. And I find that helps when you're asking questions about why an area rated one item higher, why an area rated one higher lower. When we looked at benchmarking, ETC Institute has a regional and national benchmarking database. Um, for Goldsboro, we provided our Atlantic average and our national average. Our national average is from a national survey we do every summer to 5,000 residents nationwide. And then we have our Atlantic average from that survey, which includes uh North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and the Washington DC area. in that when we compare it to this benchmarking as you can see the overall quality of downtown is leading the way in that category. It's almost 20 points higher than the national average and 14 points higher than that regional average. As we go down the list as a place to live is slightly behind those averages and as a place to raise children overall quality of services as a place to work they are lagging behind those averages but the overall quality of downtown Goldsboro is leading the way.

Good question on this side. Um, I don't know that it matters. I'm certainly not trying to discount the fact that we are notably behind the regional average uh at all. Quite quite the opposite. I'm very much taking that to heart. But I'm curious in like the regional averages and the national averages. Is that like size cities or is that across the board? Across the board. Okay. Yeah. Good. Well, I mean, in fairness, when someone's choosing a place to live, they're looking across the board. Absolutely. And so, I think that's the right way to do it. I just wanted to know what I was looking at. Yep. We also can provide averages to peer cities that are of the same size. We can look at that on the back end. Um, we can go through our entire database of communities we've surveyed and look at similar size communities if that's something the city would like to look at as well.

That's I'm not necessarily requesting that. I was just I just wanted to make sure that I knew what I was looking up. Yep.

When we looked at major city services on the survey, uh, more than half of the respondents were satisfied with three out of 13 areas assessed. Um overall quality of fire services led the way at 80% satisfaction. Um city customer service at 55% and police service is at 54%. Um parks and wreck followed closely by there and so did the city's parks and greenways were also right there. As we go down the list, um overall management of storm water runoff, enforcement of city codes and ordinances, management of planning and growth and development, and overall maintenance of city streets and sidewalks are at the bottom of the list. Um I do want to point out the overall maintenance of city streets because that is a trend we're going to see on the survey as we go through. Um as we will see here in a second um when we looked at the benchmarking um fire services are above the national and regional averages. Customer service is above the national and regional averages. Police services are above the national averages. City parks are on par with that national and regional average. Um as well as effectiveness of city communication with the public. Um, and then we have the others that come in and are lagging behind those averages. But about half of these, you are on par with that regional and national average or leading the way. When we designed the survey, we wanted to set it up to set priorities for the city. The way we did this is we asked that overall satisfaction question with all the items listed. The next question we asked immediately after that is which of these items do you think should receive the most emphasis from city leaders over the next two years? Once we asked this question, a clear top two in the major city services came up. The overall maintenance of city streets at 50%, not surprising. That's typically the top item in most communities I survey. And then the overall management of planning and growth and development. Those were followed by a second tier there where there's about five or six items that all receive between 20 and 30% followed about another three or four that were at the bottom there.

I have a question. Yep. Um, I would be interested in knowing um what areas of the city did that growth and development concern come from. Yep. I think it'll give us an idea of maybe where that growth and development is needed um based on the districts that it came from specifically if that information is available.

Yeah, we can certainly take a look at that. Um we can yeah we should be able to provide that by district by doing the satisfaction and importance rating. It we were able to run it through our important satisfaction rating at etc. Two items received scores of a very high priority for the city of Goldsboro. Um not a surprise being that it was the overall maintenance of city streets and the overall management of planning of for growth and development. Um, what this rating takes into account is that importance score. If an item has higher importance and lower satisfaction, it's going to come to the top. If it has a lower importance and high satisfaction already, it's going to go to the bottom. Like the quality of fire services, it was the top rated item for satisfaction. Its importance was lower. So, it goes to the bottom here in the medium priority. That's not saying that we shouldn't uh be looking at. It just means we should be continuing what we're already doing there. Um, and as you can see, the top two, they were the number one and two most important ranks, lowest satisfaction. That's why they came to the top. When we looked at public safety on the survey, um, we asked about perceptions of safety. How safe do you feel in different parts of the city? Um, the top item, people feel safest in their neighborhood during the day. I think that speaks for itself. And then in your neighborhood at night, um, sees a little bit drop down from in your day, but I think that's just a perception issue. Most people feel less safe at night. Um, followed by in the downtown area of Goldsboro and shopping and dining areas, the overall feeling of safety of Gold and Gsboro and the city parks and recreation facilities was the last item on this. How safe do you feel? When we looked at police services, the top areas are response times to emergencies by police, the overall effectiveness of the Goldsboro Police Department, and the overall comp competency of the agency personnel, followed by fairness to people

regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or creed. The top the bottom areas there, the visibility of police and neighborhoods, the visibility of police and retails areas, and the city's efforts to prevent crime. Not surprised to see those. Those are also items that go to the bottom and all most of the other communities we survey. Um, but after seeing the presentation today, this is one of the items that I would be really interested to see trends for in the next couple years because it seems like there is progress being made and I'd be interested to see what those trends look like moving forward. When we looked at benchmarking, um, how quickly police respond to emergency is on par with that national average. Um all the other areas are lagging behind that regional and national average. Um especially those visibility of police numbers and the city's effort to prevent crime. When we looked at fire services um following the major services where fire was the highest rated item there, this section followed the same. Um all the areas assessed here received satisfaction scores over 50%. Um in fact, fire services received some of the highest scores we saw on the survey. um how quickly fire department responds to emergencies, the overall effectiveness, uh the visibility in the community, and fire prevention and safety programs. When we looked at benchmarking, we were only able to benchmark two items for fire. Um but in both those areas, fire is leading the way according to the regional national averages. um especially in the how quickly the fire department responds to emergencies. We also did the priorities for investment for fire and police. Um three items came up as a very high priority. It was that city's effort to prevent crime, the visibility of police in neighborhoods, the visibility of police and retail areas. Um when we did this, all the fire items were rated on

satisfaction higher. So, they went to the bottom. Police came up because of the lower satisfaction. Um, but city's effort to prevent crime is always a top priority for most communities we survey and the visibility of police in neighborhoods and retail areas. Um, I believe that's partly a communication education piece of educating the public where police are patrolling, where they're patrolling the neighborhoods and items like that because just because you don't see a police officer doesn't mean they aren't patrolling those areas. with city maintenance. Um the top areas were street signs at 43% mowing and trimming along city streets and other public areas and the overall cleanliness of city streets. Um when we looked at the bottom areas, the overall appearance of Goldsboro and the overall maintenance of streets also came back up again there. Um these areas did see um the lowest rated items on the survey when we looked at sections. Um, so when we go through the important satisfaction rating and the benchmarking, it wasn't a surprise to see these areas being um, lagging behind, but it does provide an opportunity for the city. Um, this is the first survey we're doing. We don't know what we don't know. So, we do have a rating now. So, when we do measure this again, we have something to compare it to, something to reach for. This isn't where we're going to end up. We know where we want to go, but we needed a starting place, and that's this for city maintenance. for importance for city maintenance. Um the clear top item was 65% overall maintenance of city streets. Um not a surprise to see that. And then we had to overall appearance, overall cleanliness of city streets and other public areas and then all the way down to the maintenance of street signs at 8%. And when we did our priorities for investment, five items did come up to that very high priority. not shocking with the low satisfaction numbers, but

it was that overall maintenance of city streets, appearance of Goldsboro, overall cleanliness, adequacy of street lining, and the city's efforts to mitigate drainage and flooding. And then the last area we looked at on the survey was city communication. Um, when we looked at satisfaction with city communication, the top two items were the usefulness of the city's website and your local government's use of social media outlets. Um, followed by the availability of information from your local government, efforts to keep residents informed, timeliness of information, and the level of public involvement. Um, the one thing I do want to point out here is the high neutral ratings on these questions. They are up in the 40%. Um, which tells me there's a big opportunity for improvement in city communication, especially with driving people to the city website and those social media outlets. Um, and we'll get into that a little later, but those 40% are very high. So, it tells me a lot of people aren't interacting with the government in that way and communication. So, I think this area is a big opportunity for the city, especially when we ask residents where do they currently get their information. Um, currently 67% of respondents said they're getting information about Goldsboro from word of mouth, friends and family, followed by city social media, online search, regional news, and the city website was the fifth option on there at 36%. Um, I think this is one of the reasons for those low uh satisfaction scores in communication. Um, I think especially when we ask residents, where do you prefer to get information? Um the city social media city website comes to the top followed by the regional news. Um word of mouth drops all the way to 30% on this. Um what we've seen is residents would rather get information about the city from the city. Um if talk to your friends and family the information isn't always accurate or relevant to you when you get that information or it's past

the time of the event once you hear about it. So I think it's an opportunity for the city to align their preference align with these preferences drive satisfaction with that and what we've seen at etc is once communication overall starts rising in satisfaction the rest of the scores city maintenance major services will also start to rise um communication is a big indicator for satisfaction on surveys. In summary um downtown Goldsboro is highly rated by the residents. You saw that with the benchmarking. It's way above the regional and national averages. Other areas received lower scores, were more buried. Fire services received high score. Police services received high scores, but city maintenance was seen as an area for improvement, especially those city streets. Um, and then the city has an opportunity to align communication preferences to residents. I believe that's the biggest area of opportunity for the city once looking at these results. And for next steps, the city the city should be transparent with the results. um share them with department leaders and residents. Um make sure residents know that these results have been shared. They've been shared to council so they know that their survey, they took the survey, it was um uh rep or presented. And then this survey should serve as a baseline. Um that's the most important thing about doing a survey for the first time is now you do have that baseline to measure against in the future. Um surveys should be conducted every two to four years to see if improvements are being made. Um at ETC we find every two to four years is about the right amount of time to see if new policies or initiatives are driving that resident satisfaction. Thank you. So this is this is fantastic. It's candid. It's harsh in some ways. You know it can hurt your feelings. In some ways, it can kind of make you a little bit disheartened, but it's also

incredibly important when all of us already know that there are issues. This just helps us confirm that our internal barometers match what our residents are, which also lines up directly with what we are doing in strategic planning and budget allocations. And so, I want to reiterate to the department heads that over these last, you know, 12, 18, 24 months have made tremendous changes in the way that they go. you know, we've we've had to make adjustments and we're going to continue making adjustments because we're having to change a culture. We're having to change an entire set of expectations. And um I I think this is is fantastically well that's horrible English, but it's very well prepared. It's very well delivered. Again, I don't think any of us are surprised at some of the results, but I'll stop talking and give council an opportunity. Anyone from council have any comments or feedback?

I think you first.

One thing I was going to say is I think it's extremely helpful how you have in the survey and the report, you've got it listed by by district in the back with the comments. I think that's very helpful for us as members of um council to know what are the priorities for our constituents in each district. So, I'm extremely appreciative of um first of all, everybody who responded. I think you said there were at least 70 75 per district. Um so thank you to all of them because now it's like we we are armed with knowledge um for each of our districts to to know what are the concerns of our constituents and how can we each address those concerns. So thank you for that.

Yes, sir.

Um I agree with Councilwoman Week's uh comments there. I I was especially encouraged to see in review of the executive summary the breakdown by district and the districts evenly offering input. I was also I like the fact that the comments were broke down by district as well because obviously what someone might be concerned about on one side of town might be completely different on the other side. But we as a council get to see what everyone's collective um experience is and things that they want to see improved. Um like was said a while ago, I uh it was encouraging to me to see the level of detail that came from the input. And it was also encouraging because the things that we as a council have already sort of arrived at these are the areas we need to work on are lining up with the wishes and and the concerns of our constituents pretty much across the board. um you know and I just to touch on a couple of those with uh public safety obviously that's important to everyone and we recognize and realize that we have a little bit to go on being able to be more visible in certain neighborhoods or or certain areas more so than others. but we're addressing that as we're staffing, trying to get staff back up. Um, so that lines up with what people are saying. Um, I also appreciated seeing that there were so

many people across the board that had concerns related to code enforcement activity because I I I've been preaching about that for some time now about trying to and so as Councilwoman Taylor addressing blight and being able to get into just cleaning up the city for lack of a better term and um our code enforcement team has been ramped up and they are doing a phenomenal job and um just every day there's compliments coming from one direction or another about their efforts. So we see that our citizens are expressing their concerns in that and we're already on it and that so when the survey gets done again then we have a benchmark and we can track people's improve you know what people feel like um that's improved on the same thing with streets. I mean, every resident or every person that drives through this city knows that we've got issues with our streets and we're working hard to to deal with that as most people know and trying to figure out how we're going to come up with $51 million to fix the problem. So, that's uh encouraging that we're really in tune with what I feel like is our our concerns of our uh constituents. And lastly, it did not surprise me to see that a lot the general consensus among our citizens was that like the water and sewer infrastructure and stuff didn't score very high in terms of importance. But I get that from a citizen standpoint because we as the elected body in charge of running the city so to speak, we know the importance of infrastructure and the importance of long range planning for development and all that. Whereas it just the our constituents and our

citizens if they're if their water works then okay fix my streets first. So I mean I I get that as well. I just was very encouraged by the uh the the results of the survey and um being able to think feel like that we're on the right track and what our citizens want to see us improve and so I appreciate all the work that was put into that because it was very thorough and I like the way it was spread out. So thank you. That's all.

Council, any other comments? Yes, ma'am. Well, I I hate to echo here, but I I do want to say that uh I like the very detailed I really like that uh it being broken down in the districts helped me in my district and what we need to do. I'm very glad I was very glad to see that people took the it appears that the people took the survey very seriously and you were able to come up with some very good data that will help us going forth and so I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Well, council, hearing nothing else, you know, this is um it is a a harsh, you know, condemnation. I truly believe when only 36% of your respondents say that Goldsboro is a place to raise children. And we're going to get that number up. We're going we're going to make investments in um in in in in programs and activities to support these kids. I I see the volume of people that are involved in PNR uh parks and recreation. Um my home son playing two basketball games. He has a double header tonight over the foster center. Um you know I I know how many and use it and enjoy it and we got to find out how to fertilize that and do more of it. So um again I think this is very empowering knowledge because now we we have a road map that is tested. It's not just our own assumptions and now it's up to us as we go into budget season to put our uh the money and the effort where our mouth is. So, thank you again, Mr. Livingston. Any closing comments from you?

No, sir. Mr. Mayor, I don't know if Kelly or they were really working behind the scenes to help make this thing happen. If you had any comments or Latoya or Octavius, I if I can just say council, thank you for your uh support of this and the and the funding of it. We all felt it was important to bring this information forward. Latoya and Octavius did a great job putting in all this effort and selecting this vendor. And so, as I just leaned over to Latoya, the work has just begun. So, step two of many. And, uh, you use this information. We're going to have dedicated time at the retreat for this, talk about it, see where you are all on it, and then we'll take it from there. So, good stuff.

Thank you. And save travels back. Thank you. All right, council. Uh, that is something we certainly wanted to reserve a lot of, uh, time for conversation. I think, you know, comments were able to be delivered, but this is a significant document. Take time to digest it. Approach Mr. Livingston, approach Mr. Arnold uh, with specific questions. If there are questions they cannot answer, obviously they know who to go to to get those data points. Uh, you know, we're being as public and transparent as we can be. You know, we're not hiding behind any illusions on this thing. We know that we have improvements to make and we are committed to making them. All right, that concludes much of the substantive part of our open session. We'll move directly to uh item nine. Mr. Livingston, your report.

Uh just a couple things, Mr. Mayor. Uh as you know, we have a retreat scheduled for our annual retreat. be very budget heavy this time around, very financial oriented, but we do have some team building exercises built in there too. And um we're trying to very much focus on some of the things we've, you know, continuously been doing and some of these projects that we've been uh talking about like like tonight and some of the other ones and community policing initiatives and things like that. That budget committee meeting uh before that also will be this week um to kind of set the groundwork for some of the retreat topics. Uh we're also in the middle of a a website re redesign. So I I think we'll probably see about you know taking some of this information and seeing if there's anything we can uh use the website for because there is very much a need as the consultant said for us to align our communications more uh with the public so that we're getting the information out and and they're they feel good about using the website. Maybe it's easier to access or any of our social media tools for that matter. Um also met a met had a meeting with Bob Taylor with the state uh discussing the Eureka agreement. Our goal there is to have a singular agreement with Eureka. If we merge our system with Eurekas, we um could be eligible for a $15 million grant. So that's that's a high priority for the staff. And um February 11th, we're going to have a base partnership meeting uh to talk about some of the opportunities for expanding our interlocal service agreements. And um I think that's it in a nutshell.

All right, with that we will move to item 10, mayor and council member comments. It is the uh second meeting of the month and so we'll begin um the end of the day to my left. Uh Councilwoman Matthews, floor is yours.

Um thank you, Mayor. Just want to send a couple announcements to district 4. Um thank everyone who's been joining me on Thursdays for um Thursday talk time with the council woman. and it's a platform that I created to really share um my own story of my experiences being a council woman, but to also share some things that are happening in the city. But we are kicking off this year with our conference call. We're starting those back up. Um our conference call is going to be Thursday, January the 29th at 6 p.m. All of the details and the call-in numbers um will be provided on our councilwoman page and I will ask the city if they could share it. Um, everyone is invited to come, but it's um, usually specific for district 4 and district 4 focused on what we have going on in the district. Thank you, Mayor.

Good stuff.

Um, I only had one comment. I just wanted to say yesterday was absolutely amazing at the MLK service at the first church. Um, some of the best music I have ever heard. The choirs were absolutely phenomenal. Um but there was one statement that was made that had a huge impact on me as I was sitting there and it was the statement um made by Martin Luther King but it was presented by Mr. Delo which was a student at um Tommy's Road Elementary and he said this he said if you can't fly then run if you can't run then walk if you can't walk then crawl but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. Um, and that is our prayer as a council for this city is that we move forward and knowledge is power. And I believe that this city of Goldsboro resident survey findings is um just the beginning. So I'm thankful for Octavius, for for Kelly, for Latoya, for everybody who played a part in this because knowledge is power and like um Kelly said, our work has just begun and we don't have all the answers. We will we won't have all the answers. We we won't get everything perfect and everything right, but as Mr. Delo reminded us yesterday, um from the strong, powerful, impact impactful words of Dr. Martin Luther King, we're just going to keep moving forward, moving forward.

Council, floor is yours. Um, I just like to echo um what a lovely time we had yesterday at the MLK. And um I also would like to just ask if anyone in our community knows of a um um meetings that that people that have lost children or loved ones can go to to please reach out to me. have had a few people mention that and I saw it was even mentioned in our um community survey that some people that are suffering from grief um would like to have someone to talk to and relate to. So if anyone out there listening has any ideas, please get in touch with me and let me know so I can spread the word. That's it.

Councilman Pier.

All right. Um just a few things. Um the manager and I had occasion yesterday to be able to attend the wall raising for the first uh residential unit coming out of the ground that uh McNair Heights was happy to be there for that and that that is just a phenomenal accomplishment for uh for that area and the redevelopment um that's just getting started and being able to bring that residential development. residential development brings commercial development and that's what we want in inside the the city in its core. And so it was uh it's encouraging and um I know that we've put a lot of money in into that as as a city. I think it's over seven figures of of money into that for the infrastructure and one thing another but it's it's just it's very good things happening in in that regard. also um had an occasion along with several of my council mates here to attend the Chamber of Commerce annual banquet this past Friday night. Congratulations to all of the award winners at that event, especially the few that were from my district and my constituents that won various awards. So, that was a a good event as well. Um I echo what's been said about the MLK event yesterday that was uh phenomenal. um had a great time there. Um today I had opportunity to go out to um uh Park East and do a little tour of the Alonza um plant that's coming up there. Um they're not operational yet. They're under under construction, but I had opportunity to do a little tour out there with uh some of our county commissioners today. Things are progressing uh pretty good there with that. Good things happening. I know I limit my economic development

comments sometimes to just that, but good things are happening and good things are are coming. And if people if anyone has a spare minute and nothing better to do one day, ride out through Park East. I encourage the public to do that and and ride ride in that park and just look around. You you can go down the main street which you can turn around and come back out. was culde-sac down there and you can't look in a direction and not see something happening. People moving dirt, buildings going up, one thing and another. We we're we're on the move and and good good things are are happening. Lastly, um congratulations to our fire chief um Stampion on 30 years of service. As I told him earlier, don't get any broad ideas and think that means you can retire. We we want to see you here for a long time. But congratulations on making it to 30 years. Also, congratulations to Captain Adams being promoted to our new deputy chief uh position and also congratulations to Captain Stein being able to be promoted to major. I want to give those two a shout out. That's all, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Councilwoman, floor is yours.

Yes. Uh first I would like to say that uh I am very excited about the success with Union Station. It is in my district. I echo some of the sentiments that uh Mayor Pro Tim Weekes said. However, this is a milestone of dedication and reflection of the neighborhood um and friends. And I you know had an opportunity you know to speak with the late uh Mr. Gayler and and he talked about and I'm just so glad that this is coming to fruition and I'm really happy about that. Um the second thing I want to talk about is the MLK. I would like to thank Miss Battle and the CCRD and Mr. Octavius and everyone who had a hand in it. The music was great. Um I like that we heard from three uh young men. I'll say young men because of uh Bishop Darren Moore so he won't think I'm calling him old but uh the bishop that spoke on O say can you see uh I thought that was u very good and the young Mr. Delo he he has got u something ahead of him he he is uh in a old he is a young man in an old man's body we're going to be hearing a lot from him and then lastly um Mr. Christopher Adams who talked about the framework and and something that really you know stuck with me is oh say can you see to really look at that person

that that was really good that was really good remma uh to look at the person and not the color of the skin or or the texture of the hair but to get to to know the person before you form an opinion and you might be surprised and so that was really good. the music was just really good. So, um I want to thank you guys for putting on a phenomenal event for us. Um and the last thing that I wanted to talk about it down here. Um, I want to thank all of the staff because you are extremely important and I look forward to working with each and every one of you this year and thank you.

All right, my comments. Uh, the the advantage to going last is sometimes you don't really have to harp on many things. disadvantages what you want to say usually already gets said and that is definitely the case this evening u Todd Walker Chamber board Wayne County Chamber of Commerce phenomenal event Friday night you've got so much talent and bench depth in the organization a um huge amount of congratulations to all of the award winners the new businesses the seasoned businesses those that this is their second or third goround uh understand that it is not easy to build something and it is even harder to do something in an award-w worthy manner. And uh to those of you that put yourselves out there and do the grind day in and day out, thank you because it is you that drives the economy, that drives uh that drives a community worth being part of. We need more of you. Uh one of the businesses um coincidentally last time we were in here actually uh commented about them as well. One of the businesses is a children's playground uh over on William Street. It's just a wonderful business. They were an award winner. There were others as well. World Contracting just across the street. But I also want to point out two other awards that were delivered. The Order of the Longleaf Pine was delivered to Mr. Henry Smith and I think that is so deserving. Uh could could not be happier for he and his family and and very much appreciative of what he has done, continues to do, and will continue to do for the city of Goldsboro, Wayne County, and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. And then Mr. Tommy Jarrett being awarded the cornerstone award. You're talking about someone who has got absolutely decades of service to this community as an as an attorney, as an advocate, as an elected official, uh someone who has truly put in their their time and their heart to trying to serve uh both this country as well as this community. So appreciative to every one of you. The uh our Martin Luther King Jr. event on on Monday, phenomenal work by those volunteers.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh those events simply do not happen without the work of the volunteers, without the work of staff member Mr. Murphy back there, uh without the work of the chairwoman, Miss Carol Battle. Again, thank you to the speakers that have already been acknowledged, but u just an incredible amount of work and 350 tickets, something like that, 370 something. Just a a phenomenal showing of support by the community. So, thank you again to all the volunteers that put in the time, the energy, and their talents to make that work. And then um going back to this resident survey for just a minute, fire chief Stampion, 30 years, don't get any ideas. Apparently, you're the uh the only department leading the way right now.

So, you know, please don't back off. Don't take your foot off the pedal. We got to keep you exactly where you are. But that's another department that has bench depth. they they've got there's a culture there and we've got to do what we can do to continue to support and and maintain that culture of excellence and then allow that to to permeate into other areas as well. So, thank you for what you have done, the previous leadership that have uh that have led our our fire department in the the recent past and the entire command structure over there. Uh you've got proof that you're doing things well. So, thank you for keeping that up. That concludes my comments. council. We do uh if it is the will of council, we do need to go into close session. There are three matters to discuss. One related to economic development, one one related to uh uh potential or pending litigation, and one related to personnel. So, if I could entertain a motion to go into close session for those three matters.

So, move. All right. Motion's been made and properly seconded. Motion made and properly seconded to go into close session. There's no debate on that motion, I don't believe. Uh, Miss Gats, would you like us to vote electronically or by show of hands? Electronically. Electronically. All right. You're all in favor, please vote by show of hand. All oppose. Same sign. Seeing none, motion passes unanimously on a 60 vote. We will move into the antie room. Those that are comfortable in their seats are welcome to stay here. It's going to be a little more than 5 minutes, but it won't be too long, right? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. We Yeah. We'll re we'll reconvene in close session at uh 10 after 7 uh for nature breaks. All right, we need to we voted, right?

Yeah, we're good. All right, so we're going into close session.

5:00 p.m. Uh, all matters on the agenda having been addressed, we'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So move. Motion's been made. Is there a second? Second. All right. Motion's been made and properly seconded twice. Um, the motion to adjurnn being uh not one for debate, we'll call the vote. All in favor, please vote by show of hand. All oppose, same sign. Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. Friends, we are journ.