Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

regular session the board met in closed session before this session no action was taken but direction was given to the staff okay and so now we'll open up our regular session thank you all for being here today is already September 14th 2026 and I'll start with the public charts and I'll ask a vice chair alum to read the land acknowledgement and then Commissioner Valentine to lead us in the pledge. The Board of Commissioners asks its members and residents to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the Board and fellow residents. At any time should any member of the Board

Thank you, Chair Lee. As we convene for the Durham County Commissioner's Meeting, it is crucial to recognize the painful truth of our history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Catawba, Eno, Okanichi, Shikori, and Tuscarora peoples, whose deep connections to this land predates our arrival. We acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their homelands. Their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and spirit. May we humbly honor the ancestors and elders of thes

thank you vice chair alum and thank you commissioner valentine i will note that commissioner jacobs is she online all right she is online with us she is remote today and so we welcome her to be here virtually the next item on our agenda is the agenda review and approval or agenda adjustments. Are there any changes to the agenda? Okay, I'll accept the motion to approve the agenda as presented.

Second. It has been moved and properly seconded that we approve the agenda as presented. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. All the polls, please use the same sign. It passes unanimously. Next item on our agenda are the announcements. Clerk Wallace.

Thank you, Clark Wallace. Are there any other announcements from the commissioners? Okay. Very good. The next item on our agenda, the approval.

Okay, can you hear me now? Yes, yes, we can hear you.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. And I will be here participating for as long as I can. I'm actually at a conference in Toronto, Canada called Impact Transit Plus Community. And I'm learning so much from this incredible city where 50% of the residents are immigrants and refugees. 121 languages are spoken here. 400 people a day are moving to this city, which is the fastest growing city in North America. So I'm learning so much that I can't wait to bring back and share. with Durham County. I just wanted to add to the announcements that I hope people will take advantage of the exhibit that is at M

Thank you, Commissioner Jacobs. Hearing none, no other announcements, we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, which is the approval of the minutes on 2026 our work session meeting minutes so moved second it's been moved that we approve the august 3rd 2026 work session meeting minutes any further discussion all in favor say aye aye all opposed please use the same sign passes unanimously next item on our agenda are the ceremonial items

Thank you, Director Sheila. I did not know, you can sit wherever you're comfortable, how long your tenure has been with the county. So thank you so much for your years of dedication and service, not just to Durham County, but to one of our most vulnerable populations here in Durham. And also serving some of our most vulnerable population from other counties that are sent to Durham County. Knowing now how many years you've been with the county, I'm just really excited to have you in this new role. Thank you for sticking with us. Thank you to the entire team that worked to build up leadership fr

Thank you, Chair Lee. And I, too, was so impressed with your dedication to Durham County government and how many years you have worked for the youth home. And because that takes real dedication to work with young people, particularly young people who are going through some severe challenges. So thank you, thank you so much. I am looking forward to working with you and learning more from you. And also I know we're going to take a tour of the youth home because that's a concern of all of us up here. We want to make sure that no matter what the circumstances our young people are in, we know that

Commissioner Valentine. Thank you, Chair. So Ms. Pratt, congratulations on your promotion. Generally, when you think about promotions, people think that you are elevated to more responsibility because of your past accomplishments. But in fact, you're being promoted because of your ability to move the organization forward. And we're looking forward to your contributions, particularly in support of our young people in our community who need it the most. And so I look forward to working with you in your new capacity. in the days ahead. Congratulations again.

Okay, and thank you. Thank you so very much and welcome. All right, our next item. I got one.

All right, and welcome. Okay, the next item on our ceremonial items is a very special one here. We have a resolution from Ms. Carrie Zimmerman Matthews, 95th birthday. And we're gonna have Commissioner Burton read the resolution.

Resolution in honor of Ms. Carrie Zimmerman Matthews' 95th birthday. Whereas Ms. Carrie Zimmerman Matthews was born September 19, 1931, attended primary school in Wilson County, North Carolina, before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from North Carolina Central University, NCCU, formerly known as North Carolina College at Durham. She earned a Master of Arts in Education from NCCU, whereas Ms. Matthews was a reading instructor and undergraduate advisor at North Carolina Central University for over 45 years. and served as a United States Postal Office Clerk. She has also served her community w

Okay, so we'll take a picture here. I really like doing those. I really, really. That's right. Okay. All right, where are we here? Okay, the next item will be the Proclamation for World Alzheimer's and Dementia Awareness Day. This is, oh, there we are.

thank you any comments from our commissioners okay thank you very much the next item on our agenda is a proclamation for diaper need awareness week 2026 diaper need awareness week 2026 the board is requested to proclaim september 14th through 20th 2026 as national diaper need awareness week in durham county and raises awareness of diaper need as a public health and economic issue affecting local families. The proclamation also recognizes the work of the Diaper Bank of North Carolina and its community partners in providing diapers and other basic necessities to families in need throughout Durha

Okay, thank you. The next item on our agenda is a proclamation of a fifth annual North Carolina Black Alliance Rooted in Wellness Day.

We have the National Recovery Month before that.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I missed, I didn't see that at the bottom here, the proclamation. All right, well, since I started with that one, I'll just finish and then I'll come back to the one I skipped there. Proclamation of 5th Annual North Carolina Black Alliance Rooted in Wellness Day. And we do have someone attending virtually for this proclamation.

Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. We have it here and it is in our agenda and it can be, more information can be found in our agenda here. The next item is a proclamation for National Recovery Month.

All right, thank you, thank you. Comments from our commissioners? Okay, Commissioner Burton.

Yes, thank you. If you could just repeat when the event will be.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. all right let's see make sure i'm not skipping anything don't get called out here okay i think that's the end of our ceremonial items and we will move on to consent to the consent agenda now there's two items that we're going to need to pull because we have public comment on the two items one is the adoption of the cultural roadmap plan pending modifications and considerations by upper management. Yeah, that's the item there. And then, now that's 260448. I think we have eight speakers on that. And then we have the, what's that, 260479, which is the vi

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda barring those items. Second. Second.

It's been moved and properly seconded that we approve the consent agenda absent of 260448 and 260479. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. Passes unanimously. The consent agenda, that is the consent agenda passes unanimously.

The next item technically is the other business but we're going to handle the consent agenda items that were pulled off like we just mentioned so we have 260448 which is the cultural roadmap item and we have eight oh no six sorry we have six speakers we'll do three minutes Call three up at a time. We have Aya Shabu. We have Katie Wyatt. And Trish... Lemon? Lem, okay, all right. I wasn't sure there, okay. You can just line up over there. We'll put three minutes on the clock for you, and welcome.

Thank you. The next three speakers on this topic is Margaret McNabb, Tim Walter, and Yvonne Coleman.

Thank you. That was the last public speaker on this topic here, the 260448. We'll go ahead and vote on this one. Did you have any comments from the commissioners?

I had to leave the work session, so I wasn't able to share comments. But I just wanted to first take a point of personal privilege to congratulate Ms. Coleman on being cancer-free and for going through that journey and for her healing. Thank you. Congratulations and thank you for being dedicated to Durham County and continuing your service through the Cultural Advisory Board and also, you've left us now, but the Memorial Stadium Authority Board and so many other ways that you serve Durham County, so thank you. And I'm really excited that this is coming forward to us and I know we're reading th

Wonderful. No, that's wonderful and great to hear. And also maybe like in those conversations related to the guidance counselors within DPS and like building relationships there around like healing and restorative work with our youth of helping them cope with, you know, stress, anxiety, learning in different ways through art as well. Agreed. Thank you.

Yes, thank you so much, Chair Lee. And I just wanted to piggyback on what Vice Chair Alam said with regards to our youth definitely partnering with Durham Public Schools. And I know the DPS Foundation gave away grant. They give away grants. But I remember one year, I believe when I was on the board, they gave a grant to Hillside High School where the students painted a beautiful mural of Pauli Murray. So, yeah, I like that idea of really working closely with the schools but I wanted to ask manager Hager I know that we're supposed to do like youth grants and things like that and I was wondering

Yes, and I'm really excited about the cultural roadmap, so thank you to the cultural roadmap team, and thank you, Rebecca, for all your hard work, so thanks.

Yes, I just want to say thank you again to the Durham Cultural Roadmap Committee and the time that they have put into this endeavor. I would like to just say that I think that we don't truly know the economic impact with respect to the arts. And so I look forward to the implementation. The question that I have, however, from one of our speakers, they talked about the proposal not being publicly available. Can we have someone speak to that point to give me a little bit more context?

i just was reminded of another comment from commissioner burton uh mentioning dps foundation i have to highlight i'm sure this is already going to be part of y'all's programming but like integrating with the dps a night to shine which is usually in the beginning of the year every year that highlights uh durham public school students they put on an amazing show of singing um the last time i went i definitely i cried i It is beautiful to watch these elementary and middle school students perform. And if you even come to my office, they weren't selling them, but I nagged and nagged them until they

The presentation, yeah, no, this is the plan. This is the plan. The presentation and stuff will be in our agenda. You'd be able to find it in our agenda.

all right very good yeah yes actually i do see it here you had a resource page yeah okay very good uh any other comments no i see the resource page i see the presentation in the reports is the but sorry we keep asking you to stand up is the budget in one of those presentations is can you upload like a standalone budget document

Very good. Okay. I'll accept the motion to approve the cultural roadmap. Go ahead. You can make the full motion.

I make a motion for the board to approve the cultural roadmap plan for Durham County and City.

Second. It's been moved and properly seconded that we approve the cultural roadmap for Durham. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye.

All opposed please use the same sign. It passes unanimously. Thank you all. Thank you. Okay, the next item that was pulled off of the agenda was 260479, and that is the Violence Reduction Working Group Resolution. And we have one public comment. Thank you, thank you. One public comment, and I apologize, I can't, the name. Kalila. Yeah. We have very good, Kalila Donahue. Please come forward. And we'll do three minutes as well.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, that was the only public comment on 260479. Are there any other discussion? Is there a discussion on this? Okay, I'll accept the motion to approve the Violence Reduction Working Group Resolution. So moved.

It has been moved and properly seconded. We approve the Violence Reduction Working Group Resolution. all in favor say aye aye all opposed please use the same sign passes unanimously thank you the next item on our agenda we move into other business we have 45 minutes allotted for the durham county community health assessment county-wide survey results this item for those For all the millions of people watching, we didn't get to this in our work session, and so we moved it to our regular session. This is why we're having a presentation like this tonight. Dr. Jenkins.

All right. Any comments from commissioners? If I share alone.

Thank you all so much for all the work and effort you put in. Really got to see the different ways that you've been engaging with folks outside of just the traditional come into the public health department and service, which is really great because a lot of times people don't even know we have a public health building or social services building. So really glad to see you out in the farmer's market and everything. Wondering also- And what is the time periods that you all conducted this survey?

And is it usually like your surveys are usually in that same time period, or do you vary on like what time of the year you're conducting?

and to complete the survey i'm just exposing myself that i did not complete a survey myself um do you have to like does a county staff member you all have to be present for a person to conduct the survey or is it like available if somebody goes on the public health website and they can fill it out themselves yeah um so because we wanted to keep it to people that were only at the events we went to we handed out qr codes little flyers with qr codes and we didn't see as much of a response rate with those but people did complete it online Okay, now I was just wondering more curiously if it had to

maybe like there's a lot of other community clinics also out there but in the future if we have like an option that's just simply like community clinic um that could kind of capture linking community health public health department and the other free community resource because i think that is separate from a primary care practitioner because of the challenges that you'll face at Lincoln Community Health is you're probably gonna have longer wait times or issues just because it is a publicly funded resource that we're trying to put as many resources into than an individual who has access to a ty

Thank you. Thank you so much for this report. It is really relevant. I'm reading a book, well, I'm almost finished with it, that talks about the working homeless. And these same kind of issues come up because they're working, but they're working jobs that are low pay, trying to secure housing, but they're not caught up in the point of time count because HUD has a specific, definition of what homelessness is so you could be a person you know you know going from home to home with relatives or friends etc and you're not considered homeless right and it's stressful and it takes a toll in many peop

Well, thank you for that, Dr. Jenkins. And I'm also thinking about now with the, you know, SNAP rules, we're already seeing people being affected by that. And then also thinking about Medicaid and those rules, you know, with the 80 hours of work requirements, volunteering, trainings, all those additional burdens that are coming down the pipe out probably will impact what you shared with us. So I guess we just have to keep working, figuring out solutions. You know, I'm just gonna say this. We really need to increase the minimum wage in this state and in this country to make sure that people mak

Commissioner Valentine. Yeah, thank you, Chair. So I just have several questions. Thank you. This is hard work. You had talked about changing your methodology. In the past, you've worked with volunteers and you moved to contractors. The information that you provide here indicates that you were able to capture more data. What was actually the impetus from the very beginning for changing your methodology?

Uh, you also, uh, made a point to share with, uh, share with us around selection bias. And so moving forward, how, how do we deal with that?

and just just for awareness with the selection bias it's about going to diversity of events right so you know instead of going to all the 5ks races you go to the farmers market you go to you know center fest right where people aren't exercising right so you get the diversity there so i think That sounds like it played out in the methodology as it is there, so maybe kind of filtered out that selection bias.

You also mentioned the listening sessions, and so you also, if my mind serves me correctly, at the moment you talked about the places where these listening sessions occurred, or was that generally the capturing of data? Can you share with me about these listening sessions? I just want to know more and understand exactly what's happening at these listening sessions.

and finally two two questions i'll give them both to you at the same time you had mentioned that uh responses from the community were around dorm being safe a safe dorm and opportunities can you encapsulate what what that means

And lastly, this is for you, Dr. Jenkins. And so as we gather all this data, how do we integrate that into sort of larger policy goals and aims?

Thank you. thank you all for this I am one for statistics I appreciate a good presentation with lots of numbers and data and all that but I am curious so the the survey questions were essentially direct questions is question answer and that's good and we saw a presentation we saw information about that But what can we as leaders infer from what's not being said? Okay, and here's why I'm asking. There was a slide where it was a food insecurity, I think, graph. And at the bottom, the blue got bigger with the lower income, right? So when I look at, especially with this hat on, I look for where ca

Thank you. Thank you. But thank you all for this presentation. Yeah, thank you. Very good. We have monitors right here. I was kind of glued to that. I love statistics. I love seeing that. So thank you all very much.

Absolutely. Thank you very much. Is Commissioner Jacobs still with us? No? Okay. All right. Thank you all very much. That is the last item that we have on our agenda tonight. So I'll accept a motion for adjournment. So moved.

I think we all want to stay here. Second.

It's been moved and probably seconded. We adjourn. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.