Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

good afternoon good evening everyone good evening all right prior to well first of all welcome to our regular session for today monday september 28th 2026 which happens to be my dad's birthday so if he happens to be watching which i'm sure he's not happy birthday all right the board met in closed session prior to this meeting no action was taken but guidance was given to staff all right given that i will start our meeting i'm going to read the public charge um commissioner valentine would you be open to doing the land acknowledgement and then um Vice Chair Alon, would you be open to doing the

Land Acknowledgement. So as we convene for the Durham County Commissioners Meeting, it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Catawba, the Eno, the Dokonichi, the Chicory, and the Tuscarora Peoples. Excuse me. whose deep connection 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 anc

All right, thank you very much. The next item on our agenda is the agenda adjustments or agenda approval. Are there any adjustments to the agenda as presented? Hearing none, I accept the motion to accept the agenda as presented. So moved. Second. It's been moved and probably seconded. We accept the agenda as presented. All in favor say aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. Passes unanimously. The next item on our agenda are the announcements. Clerk Wallace. I'm not hearing anything.

that concludes the announcements published in tonight's agenda thank you clerk wallace all right the next item uh are there any other announcements uh we'll go to commissioner burton thank you chair lee um i just want to share on this past saturday i went to the digital empowerment day that was held at the chesterfield building It was sponsored by Digital Durham. Digital Durham is a non-profit that really is trying to close the gap with community members with digital awareness, technology, things like that. And it was a really, really good really learned a lot about AI and how it's going to af

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Burton. And as a follow-up to what you said, I know at our next work session we are going to be getting an economic update, and I would like to request some of the numbers that have been proposed are something like a two percent levy or a three percent levy and i think it's important for our board to know but also for the community to know that what kind of impact that would actually have on durham county's budget um and what we would how that would impact impact our revenues and our ability to fund the current services that we provide so if that could be included

thank you um and then also i wanted to share that on october 7th commissioner valentine and i along with sheriff burkhead have been invited to participate in a panel at 6 p.m 6 p.m at the zafa temple at 2312 south austin avenue and i really look forward to the opportunity to have a conversation with the community. It's being also hosted by the NAACP, and it's going to be focused on conversations on homelessness, public safety, 911, and other county solutions. So I wanted to let people know about that. And then I was, always good things happening in our community. Saturday I was at the 30-year

All right, thank you, Commissioner Valentine.

Yes, Chair. I know this is actually directed to the manager. We had talked about previously bringing before one of our work sessions an update on the drug treatment court. I just want to make sure that we don't get lost in our conversations moving forward. Make sure that gets on the agenda.

Yes, I just wanted to add on to Commissioner Burton and Commissioner Jacobs' comments about the property tax amendments. There is a really good resource out there that Carolina Forward has put out. I think they published it just like two days ago. It's actually a calculator where you can see the impact to your community, Like, for example, they have Wake County listed, or you could choose whichever county you live in and how much the county would lose for every one cent in reduction of tax revenue, as well as who also benefits, and showing when we lose that tax revenue on the local level and h

Okay. Are there any other announcements? All right. Very good. So next on our agenda are the ceremonial items. We have three proclamations and two—well, no, no, no. We have four to be recognized. We have a proclamation and two resolutions. Oh, minutes. We've got to do the minutes. That's right. Okay, before we go to the ceremony items, we have to approve the minutes dated... Hold on one second. August 24th, 2026, September 8th, 2026, and then September 14th, 2026.

I move for approval of all three sets of minutes.

It's been properly moved and seconded that we approve all three sets of minutes. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. Passes unanimously. Okay, now on to the ceremonial items. A proclamation, I'll be reading a proclamation for the Duke Hospital. You have two of them, Commissioner Valentine, would you like someone else to read?

Chair, I'm actually going to read one and then just make brief comments on the other.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, that'll work. All right, so our first proclamation is Duke Regional Hospital's 50th Anniversary Recognition Day. Okay, and I'll read that one. Okay, so Durham Board of Commissioners Proclamation, Duke Regional Hospital 50th Anniversary Recognition Day 2026. Whereas Duke Regional Hospital has faithfully served the residents of Durham County and surrounding communities for 50 years, providing exceptional health care services and advancing the health of our region. And whereas since 1976, Duke Regional Hospital has been an essential health care resource for Durham County residen

um and we look forward to continue to steward uh 50 more years ahead so thank you everyone thank you thank you very much any comments uh go ahead commissioner jacobs um yes jason thanks so much for being here i'm sorry i won't be able to be there i appreciate the way you are celebrating this anniversary with the whole community and um and just the important role that Duke Regional plays in our community, and also the partnership with Lincoln Community Health Center as well. So thank you so much. Vice Chair Long.

Thank you, Jason, and to the entire Duke Regional Hospital team as well as the board. I'm really excited to be able to, I know I'm going to be stopping by for the beginning portion because then we have to run to Pride as well. But I really appreciate the intentionality that the team put this event together with, with including the community, but also part of our conversation, we were talking about how to make sure that the community is able to access it with public transit and for folks to know that there is, you know, Durham's bus station at Duke Regional Hospital, which backs into the stadiu

Anyone? Commissioner Valentine? Yes. You're moving on to the next? Yes, Cooper. No, I have one comment about it. Okay, go ahead. So I say this. People have probably heard me say this before, but Duke Regional holds a very special spot in my family's heart. All three of my kids were born there, and that is our first stop whenever anything goes wrong. There's nothing against Big Duke, but we deeply appreciate – well, back then it was Durham Regional, but we appreciate Big Duke, but we – Durham Region was our first choice. in all aspects of everything and we just really appreciate that being ther

Yes, I also would like to congratulate our partners on 50 years. And so Duke Regional is actually our hospital for our community, where I live, or have lived for many years. And so your partnership with Lincoln also is- relationship that is at the very essence of our community and so i'm looking forward to another 50 years where duke regional partners with lincoln to make our community very best it can be so thank you so i'll hand it over to you okay so the board is requested to honor the legacy and impact of white rock baptist church as they celebrate a hundred and 60 years of faith, resilien

Yes, I just wanted to thank all of the members of White Rock for being with us tonight and to say congratulations on this incredible milestone, 160 years being in this community, virtually being here along with the founding of the city of Durham. And you have been a part of Durham's history, as is mentioned, all the leaders in our community and institutions that are rooted in White Rock. And I want to say also, all of the institutions that are continuing to serve and have been leading the way, what comes to mind to me are things like the White Rock Child Development Center, which has always be

Thank you, Chair Lee. And congratulations, White Rock Baptist Church, on 160 years of faith and worshiping God and serving God and serving the Durham community. One of the things I want to say is when I come to White Rock, one of the things that I love about that church, not only the warmth of the people, but that beautiful organ. It is amazing. It's just amazing when you hear it play. And I remember, this is many, many years ago, my aunt came to Durham and we came to write rock because she's a musician, a pianist, and she wanted to hear music. the organ because it's so beautiful and she plays

Yes. Thank you, Chair. And so resolution honoring the life and contributions of Professor Charles Edson Smith. And so the board has requested honor the life and contributions of Professor Charles Smith. And I want to just give you a brief introduction into who he is or who he was in our community. And so Professor Smith was a professor of law at the North Carolina Central School of Law. And I had the distinct pleasure and honor to walk in those hallowed halls at the time where he presided in the classroom. I might say held court for those who knew him. And I stand here today saying that I star

Ms. Lindsay, I believe that we're all better for having had your father come this way. So thank you for sharing him with us.

Any other comments from commissioners? All right, thank you, thank you. Okay, the next item on our agenda, we have... proclamations to be acknowledged a proclamation and resolution to be acknowledged so the first one is the proclamation for fire prevention week 2028

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Jacobs.

Thank you so much for this proclamation. I just have a follow-up question. I know it's mentioned in the resolution about charging devices. How often are you seeing in Durham fires related to chargers and batteries and things like that?

Thank you. I think it's important that we As you're doing today, raise awareness about some of the fires that we're seeing today from the technology that we're using in our homes. So thank you.

Any other comments from commissioners on this resolution? Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. That was a proclamation. All right, the next item is a resolution that's recognized in Prince Hall Day.

Thank you, Chair. And so I won't read the resolution. I actually had an opportunity on Saturday, September 26th, to actually read the resolution at the Prince Hall Day celebrated here in Durham County. But I would like to just say that the most first rule Prince Hall Grand Lodge of North Carolina is jurisdictions incorporated under the leadership of Grand Master James C Russell. In conjunction with the 20th District, under the leadership of District Deputy Terrence Sembley and the District Deputy Worthy Matron, Gwen Valentine, celebrated the life of Prince Hall as an abolitionist, as an educat

All right, thank you. Thank you very much, Commissioner Valentine. Any comments on that one? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to our consent agenda. Now we're gonna have to do this a little bit differently here. We do have a public comment on one of the items. However, he asked if we could do it early because he thought public comment would happen early in the meeting. So I'm gonna go ahead and do it beforehand and we'll just do the consent agenda approval as one, okay? Now the item So I'll have Jim Savara come up and speak. He's speaking on item 490497, which is the DFI item.

Thank you so much. And I think the options that DFI will provide will help us make those decisions there. So thank you so much for your advocacy, and thank you for coming to speak tonight. OK. All right, so now we have the consent agenda before us. It's for approval. Any comments about the public comment? Go ahead. We have some. I'll go to Commissioner Jacobs, then Commissioner Burton.

So there are some really big items on this consent agenda that we haven't seen before because normally these things would be on our work session, but they've come up afterwards, so this is the first time that we're seeing them. And I just want to make sure that we gave... proper attention to them and maybe could have staff speak a little bit about them, too, because I think they're so significant. One is 26-0497 around our contract with the Development Finance Initiative. And the other, I know we have staff here, uh, to talk about the, um, uh, which item is it? Um, I item 26 dash 0 5 0 0, whic

Let's consider those pooled. I don't want to make staff stay here longer. No, we're just going to approve the rest of the consent agenda.

We can approve them and then have the conversation after. That's fine.

Yeah, that's what I was going to do here. Okay, perfect. I know 1-0-5-0-0, 1-0-4-9-7, and I think what was the first one?

0514. All right. So I'll accept the motion to approve the consent agenda absent the three that we just named.

I think, Commissioner Jacobs, were you saying we approve even those three and then just have discussion on them? Yeah. Either way.

Okay. You guys good with that? All right. So then I'll revise my motion. Okay. I'll accept the motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second has been moved and properly seconded we approve the consent agenda all in favor say aye aye all opposed please use the same sign the consent agenda is approved and now we'll go into discussion a further discussion for these three items so zero four nine seven would be first if we're looking at an order

Well, I'm really thrilled about this and I really appreciate the way our board is working together with the school board and Durham Public Schools staff working together with our county staff on this. collaboration, um, this is huge because all three of these properties are very important sites and very valuable as publicly controlled land. And it's really exciting to think about, um, the opportunities that may come from very thoughtfully and an informed way and a strategic way. leveraging them to meet public priorities and public goals. And I feel really fortunate that we have DFI to work wit

Yes, thank you, Chair Lee. Yeah, I'm just going to echo what Commissioner Jacobs said. I'm really excited that this is moving forward because I've met with community groups who have been asking questions as to what what were the plans for these properties, what we're going to do, things like that. So I'm glad that we're moving forward with the feasibility studies. I wish Dr. Spahr stayed so he could hear what you just said, but, you know, alas. And I just had a question, really. Do you know how long it will take DFI to finish the feasibility studies, how long it will take for them to complete

And that's good to know because I know people are just really excited about the possibilities as to what could be done with the property, particularly Durham School of the Arts. So just giving, I guess, an estimate of how long it'll take to finish it. So thank you so much for your report and all that you do around this.

Any other comments about this item, the 0417 item?

Okay, go ahead. I know with us coming up on this trip tomorrow to Grand Rapids for the inner city visit, I'm also really excited for us to look at opportunities of, I know there's tours or spaces that they have in Michigan and Grand Rapids where they've utilized public spaces to provide affordable housing, child care, and other things like, what is it called, like public first housing, just like they also did in Southeast Raleigh with the YMCA partnership. And so I'm excited to see what type of ways we could possibly build these public-private partnership relationships to develop these into co

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right, the next item is 0500, which is the, just like the notice, the submission of written comments to the Federal Register regarding proposed rule changes to Head Start performance standards.

Okay, all right. So Commissioner Jacobs.

Yes, I want to thank all of you who are sitting here. We have early years out here as well. And anyone else that I'm missing other than early years?

Thank you. And you, Kate, thank you for your introduction to this. And Ileana, I just want to thank you and everyone because the letter is so detailed and also the back-up. Um, you know, the second document that goes into detail, um, it is really overwhelming and concerning to see what all of the impacts could be of this legislation. It is really like a dismantling of what Head Start has become over decades and decades of trying to make the program stronger and stronger and better and better. and just literally chopping the legs off of it and, um, going against so many of the purposes that it

uh that we're submitting to our representative fushi and senators bud and tillis and also to send this information um to the superintendent for the board of education because we really need to be ringing the alarm about this thank you commissioner burton yes thank you chair lee thank you all for

going into detail about what's happening with Head Start and the rule changes and things like that and I concur with Commissioner Jacobs how do we get this to a wider and bigger audience because a lot of times you know people are not really understanding how these services are funded you know they they really just don't have any full understanding of it and how these rule changes will greatly impact how we can educate our young people, our little people. And thinking about the rules around SNAP and Medicaid, those are gonna start on October 1st, and I try to put it on my social media to sound

And I also think it's done on purpose to keep people scrambling because it's like, what do you do next? How do I get this? How do I get that? So I think it's done intentionally to keep people to not take action, if you understand what I'm trying to say. So thank you so much.

I just want to echo all of the compliments and lifting up our amazing team that we have here in Durham County from Ileana to Kate to Linda and her team and Durham Tech and all the partnerships we have. And I think it's also really important that we're having this conversation here in Durham but in North Carolina because one of the things that we constantly hear our legislators in Raleigh as well as at the federal level saying is North Carolina is the number one state for business but we also saw just last month or a few weeks ago that we were also ranked the worst state for workers and child c

Any other comments? Yes, Chair. And so thank you. I actually had on my list to have you speak about this tonight as well. But thanks to my beloved commissioner, she brought it to fold. And so here we are. And so these proposed changes are draconian in nature. And so this is just a larger sort of systemic change. attempt to break down our complete social safety network. And so these changes and this response is within a notice and comment period, correct?

Okay, and so if the agency takes a look at all the comments and decides to move forward, what would be the immediate impact on our community?

Yeah, this is very troubling, particularly in light of this board's commitment in this particular area with regards to doing pre-K. And hopefully, I think it's the plan into the future to eventually see this evolve to universal pre-K. And so this could be potentially a setback in our efforts. to make that a reality here in Durham County and I have often said and still will continue to say that the money that we spend and make a commitment to our young people is a dollar well spent and so every dollar we commit to our children particularly at the young impressionable stages of their life bears

all right thank you all thank you very much all right the next item we had to to pull off here was uh 260514 which is the establishment of the durham county early childhood task force good evening commissioners donna rewalt county extension director um interestingly this item and the previous item we just discussed were not originally aligned

Okay, I'm guessing we have a few. Go ahead, Vice Chair Lum.

Yes, first I want to say thank you so much to Ileana for championing this and really taking this idea that I brought to her, and I'm pretty sure like a rambly email, and bringing us to this point where we're about to launch this task force. none of this would have been possible to reach this point if Ileana didn't take the lead in bringing together so many folks. So I want to give her her flowers for the amazing work she does and also elevate that, you know, some of the conversations we've been having already as like a mini task force of bringing together the task force is also how we collect

Yes, thank you so much. I'm really excited to have this moving forward. I know this is something that our board has talked about for a long time over the past few years that we've needed to have this type of a task force, and I know you all have been working on this for a while at Cooperative Extension, so I really appreciate it. I want to put into the mix a number of things. One is, you know, there was an excellent Indy article recently that really delved into all of the issues around access to childcare in Durham. So, you know, we don't have to start over from scratch. There were a lot of im

Yeah, I can take that one. But first, for the previous one, I know DCM Jones told me for the child care facility that we have, I believe the RFP is being reposted. Perry and DCM Jones have been working on that. It's definitely, you know, goes to the conversation about the cost of running a child care center and the barriers that exist. And to the other piece, I do also want to ask clarification from Attorney Williamson on this, because we do have a list of folks that we compiled of different sectors that we have been, or folks as well as backups in case they are not available. We wanted to hav

Okay, wonderful. Yeah, because I think, yeah, when we had the conversation about if we're good to move forward on the 29th, I thought we were clear, but we will get you that list. I believe that, you know, myself, Ileana, Ramsey, and Kate were reaching out to each of the entities that we wanted to invite to see if who they would recommend and nominate we also asked the city of Durham the county and well the county we have Ileana as well as DPS to put forward staff members too so we're waiting for those names from city and DPS any other questions

Okay. All right. Thank you so very much. All right. All right. That exhausts the list that we had to pull out when we were speaking separately, and we already approved the consent agenda. So the next item on our agenda, we're moving into other business, and that is an update on nonprofit requests for proposals to support youth enrichment programming.

Thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. I am so excited about this because I know this is something that I was advocating for I remember when I first got on the board and I was trying to figure out, okay, how can we get money to so many of these great after-school programs to serve our youth? And it's now coming to fruition. So I'm looking forward to – there's so many really great community – programs out there in Durham who are really trying to serve young people, give them something to do, particularly after school, because we know that when kids, particularly in middle school and

well first thank you so much Julia for all the work that you put in to you as well as John but really for you know thinking through this to make sure that we provide this type of opportunity for programs that support our youth as Commissioner Byrne mentioned this is one of the areas that you know is really vital and important because when we talk about like you know the upstream analogies of really getting to the top of the stream of how do we provide programming and services so that our young people feel the love and care that we have for them at Durham County from the very beginning to give

all right uh commissioner valentine all right do you want to go yeah yeah so thank you uh you had said that uh there was a component and i guess it goes back to what the manager was just uh talking about with regards to being structured for success i'm always a little concerned about the technical assistance piece and ensuring that i know our partners are given the aid and assistance that they need to be successful i mean that's very important to me particularly around this monies and these grants around youth programming which is very much needed uh people in our community talk about it all t

Well, I don't even mention that, and you mentioned that these grants are only for a year, but you know, I think you would agree with this in the grant world, so if you're successful, the probabilities of you being successful in the future increase exponentially, and so I don't want to be in a position where a lot of our partners are not exactly sure what they don't know and fail as a result of that, and so any way that we can help assist in that regard, I think would be helpful. Commissioner Jacobs?

I'm very excited about this process. I really applaud all of you for developing a very quick type timeline. And, um, I appreciate that timeline. I know you're going to stick to it. And, uh, I read through the application. I thought it was a really good application getting at what we're really trying to achieve. Um, and you know, this, was a conversation that came up around with the Durham Public Schools and when we had a joint meeting with the school board and the city council and Durham County government around what are we doing to keep our youth engaged and active as crime prevention, right?

And do we have any specific goal in mind? For instance, with this half a million dollar investment, we're hoping to, at a minimum, impact how many youth? Has there been any discussion about that?

you nailed it no suggestions yeah and i think that you know in terms of you know commissioner valentine's comment about that you know this is just one year i think if we're thinking more long term about our violence prevention plan for instance and you know we heard loud and clear from the community that they want a focus on youth violence prevention i mean this may be what we one of the things that we want to prioritize going forward being a part of our violence prevention plan and what we want to make a commitment to. So I think I kind of feel like this will be a learning experience this yea

All right, and I did have a, well, I don't have a question. I just have a comment that I really appreciate the care that you all are going towards and letting people know that they will be reporting back on their progress up front. So you apply, you get your grant. There's no questions about you going to be setting your goals, you're gonna be letting us know what you're gonna do, and then reporting back after your year how did you perform against those? And should this go forward, we can use that information to filter out or to sort through what's being effective and what's not. I really appre

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. I think that's just an update, just information. All right, now the last item on our agenda, board and commissions appointments.

It's been moved and properly seconded that we adjourn. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. We are adjourned. And please travel safe, colleagues.