City Council - workshop

All right, thank you. Welcome everyone, welcome to Durham City Hall. I hope everyone is well and staying healthy. And not getting sick and having to recover like I have been the last couple of days. The weather change has been interesting, but I am so glad that fall is here. So glad, summer was brutal. But welcome, meeting is called to order. And let's see if I can, pardon me one moment. Can I see that real quick? Here's your order. All right, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Rivers, let us know he's running late.

Thank you. All right. All right, council, are there any announcements? I'll start on my left.

Good afternoon, Council. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you all for joining us today. Colleagues, just wanted to raise two issues. I'm not introducing anything today, but I will be coming to speak with you about two different items. One is an encampment policy. that I've been working on with a group of people that I'd like to talk to you about. And the second item is about vacant properties and vacancies in Durham and putting in a request to staff to do a study of vacant properties in our city. Again, I'm not introducing anything today. Just wanted to put that on your radar screen so that yo

Thank you. I look forward to that coming to my desk. Thank you. Mr. Kobach.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Hello, Council, staff, residents. Thanks, everyone, for being here. Just what's on my mind, I got off a plane about an hour ago from New York City for Climate Week, and it was a great experience to hear from, you know, folks around the country and around the world, you know, entrepreneurs with cutting-edge technology, Representatives from the government of Nepal who are facing some of the greatest impacts we've seen from climate change with the catastrophe that happened with the floods not too long ago. major companies shifting toward regenerative agriculture communities

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I will be brief. I just want to say that yesterday, several of us had the opportunity to go to the Museum of Durham history to celebrate the securing of a 30 year lease. And that securing happened because actually the city was the one who leased that property out. I'm really happy that the museum will have at least a semi-permanent home moving forward. If you haven't been, that museum is located on our downtown loop, right in the entranceway to downtown on the west side. And it is an amazing museum. I said yesterday, which people thought was funny, that it

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Good to be with you all. Just a couple of reminders. First is before our next meeting, we'll have already started our week without driving. That starts on October 1st. So I just want to flag for folks because the next time this body meets is October 5th. October 1st is our week without driving. I know many of us have taken the challenge historically and plan to do so this year. And so if you are able to get on a bus, roll, walk, ride a bike, whatever you're able to do, even if you can't do the whole week. Sometimes I can't do the whole week because I can be

Thank you all so much. It's great to be with you all. Spent the week after some panels on small business and just local economies across the country, spent some time in D.C. talking about that. Also represented Durham with mayors of Philadelphia, Austin, Texas. in Kansas City as a keynote panelist at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Folks are really interested in what we're doing here in Durham. You probably have seen many of the accolades come across social media. Folks are paying attention and they wanna know how is Durham doing this? And I really accredit folks that are j

Apologies, I also want to shout out, because you mentioned our community safety department, a really great story in NPR around our community safety department and the work that they're doing and lifting up as one of the top departments in the country doing this work and leading this work. So I want to remind folks of all the incredible things that the city of Durham is doing every single day.

Thank you so much. All right, as we are getting into this work, Durham has quite the engaged populace in regards to public policy, and I just want to continue to uplift the very complex work that we do as council members and just try and protect the integrity of this work. And I look forward to us tackling tough things that are coming, but I'm grateful to be in a city that the nation is watching. All right, that being said, we'll go to our public comment period, and I'll start virtually. Oh, yeah, that's right. Sorry about that. Mr. Manager.

Thank you. The first one is 12, right? Yep. All right. I'll entertain public comment, consent agenda, and then I'll go to that item. All right, Madam Attorney.

Thank you very much. Madam Clerk? You need this, don't you?

All right. At this time, I'll go ahead and do the public comment period, and then I'll go into the consent agenda. First speaker I have is Karen Boswell, which is virtual. Can you hear me, Karen Boswell? Do you see her online? Okay. I'm in. Hi there. Welcome. You have three minutes.

Ms. Boswell, if you will, please also email your comments so that we can hear all of them, so we can read all of them. But your time is expired. All right. That is the only virtual speaker I have. The next is in person, Ms. Victoria Peterson. Madam Clerk, in case Ms. Boswell didn't hear, maybe you can send her a message to let her know to email. Thank you. Welcome, you have 30 minutes. Welcome, Council Member.

All right. At this time, Councilmember, did you have any comments that you welcome? Thank you, Mayor.

Glad to be here. I do bring greetings from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. My first meeting there, so we are well represented there, and it's a pleasure to serve.

Thank you. Thanks for taking on the hymn. I miss it already. What is this?

All right. At this time, I'll read the consent agenda. Item number one, Mayor's Hispanic Latino Committee appointments. Item number two, Durham Housing Authority Board of Commissioners appointments. Number three, am I on the wrong Durham City Council work session?

Yeah, that's what I am. Now I see, all right, cool deal. Thank you. Council Member Kopach for kindly letting me know that's not the one. All right. Item number one, we've heard, which was Ms. Karen Boswell. Item number two, Citizens Advisory Appointment. Item number three, Durham Board of Adjustment Appointment. Number four, Renewal Contract for State and Federal Lobbying Services. Number five. One poll number four, please. Okay. Number four has been polled. Number five, fiscal year 2025-2026, fourth quarter financial report. Number six, cooperative group purchase contract change order to thre

Number nine is pulled. Number 10, consulting contract for compensation and classification study.

Number 10. Number 11, approval of amendments to the Citizens Advisory Committee bylaws.

Yes. Number 12. application for outdoor recreation legacy partnership program grant which will be addressed so i'll pull that okay yeah i think maybe we all uh number 13 utility extension agreement with setup now investments llc to serve fern street lots number four pull that one number 13. Number 14, Utility Extension Agreement with Family Building Company II, LLC to serve 2629 Harvard Lane, I mean, Harvard Avenue Lots. Number 15, Utility Extension Agreement with Rafael Darro Lopez and Alona Perro to serve 1900 and 1902 Andrew Avenue. Number 16, 2026 Second Quarter Crime Report. Number 17, co

17. Number 18, Triangle Region Transit Survey funding agreement. Number 19, interlocal agreement for bus mobile ticketing software and hardware. Number 19 has been pulled. Mr. Kobach. Number 20, purchase contract with Gillick LLC for eight buses for Go Durham. It's been pulled by Councilmember Wrist, Mr. Wrist. Number 21, contract amendment six to the Professional Engineering Services contract with Hazen and Sawyer PC for the East Durham Water and Sewer Rehabilitation and Belt Street Regional Stormwater Improvements Project.

Number 22, construction- I want to pull both these.

21 and 22. Thank you. Number 22, construction award to TA Loving Company for the Elizabeth Street Water Replacement Project. 21 and 22 have both been pulled by Mr. Baker. Item number 23, consolidated annexation MIS Durham Headquarters 2. Number 24, consolidated annexation 3815 Wake Forest Highway.

Madam Mayor Pro Tem, can you read the items that have been pulled?

Yes, I have items number four, number nine, number 10, number 11, number 12, we need to suspend the rules and vote on, number 13, number 17, number 19, number 20, number 21, and 22, and I have item number 16 as a presentation.

All right, well, Madam Clerk, I'll let you know if we need to order dinner.

It's not on the financials? It's not a presentation?

No. Do you want to pull it? No, it's okay. It's fine. Okay. No. Item number five is just an item, and it has not been pulled. Is that correct? Okay.

Correct. Okay. Thank you. Let's not talk about it. All right. Colleagues, instead of in order, I am going to start with item number 12. All right. Item number 12 is the Application for Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program Grant.

Do you want to entertain a motion first?

Yeah, and then I'll open for discussion. So I'll entertain a motion to authorize. Actually, I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules to address item 12. So moved. Second? Moved and properly seconded. All in favor? Aye. All right, now I will entertain a motion to authorize the Department of Parks and Recreation to apply for an outdoor recreation legacy partnership program grant through the National Park Service Land and Water Conservation Fund in the amount of $15 million. So moved. Moved and probably seconded. All right, any discussion? All right.

Thank you. Do I have anybody on this issue, on the?

Thank you. So just a couple questions. So of course, we're always in favor of going after more money and grant money. Not a problem there. But I'm a bit confused about why the budget estimate was so drastically different, especially because we put this out to a bond. And so I have a couple of specific questions in that. One, I'm just going to read the language from the memo, which says, the estimate did not include several costs necessary to deliver the project, including professional design and engineering fees. construction cost escalation project management permitting testing and other rela

I mean... i'm not sure that answers my question about maybe why um these are costs that we i would assume know that we would need to take on and so and we put this out and i think my extra concern is that we put it out to a bond and we told the public a general cost and obviously we can't we can't always um anticipate everything but these do seem like things that we could anticipate and so i'm just i'm wondering if there's any more information you can share on that

were initially included what professional services and so I don't have that specific information we'd have to provide that as follow-up yeah and I guess I'm concerned too about how much the scope can change after it's been put to a bond and and so those things feel unclear and I'm gonna maybe address those a little bit more but I have a couple more questions that I wanted to ask is this a grant that we're likely to receive

And if we don't receive the grant, is there a backup plan?

And then I'm not sure if this is a question for you or perhaps someone else. I don't know. But we've set aside about $15 million for remediation. And is that money being tapped into at all for this work? Or do we have plans to look at it?

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I see my colleagues have some questions too. I'm feeling, I understand the immediacy of the issue, and certainly I don't want to get into the way of grant requesting, but I am feeling uncomfortable with the fact that the scope of this has changed so much that we are having to look for an additional, I think it was like a million, 15 million, $15 million after we And we and I'm going to say week is all of us up here, I think, signed off on on publicity around this and went into the community talking about what we were going to offer for the vote of this bond. And it's it'

Mr. Mayor, were you going to address this as well? You stood up with intention.

Council Member Rivers, go ahead. Yeah, if you want to respond, yeah, and then I'll happen to jump in.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess I have a similar question. So when these original estimates were done, who was responsible for that? Was that like DPR? Was that General Services? Was that the Finance Department? Who was responsible for developing those estimates? Because I agree with Council Member Cook. Some of these things, or as you said, some things can change. But some of these costs around that, engineering and so forth, are probably costs you would expect to be included. So is it a question of one department doing the analysis, somebody else putting it on the bond? How did that happen?

Parks and Rec developed the splash and play, which was that piece and wheels and came to council in spring of 2023, I believe.

Yeah, so I understand, obviously, as projects evolve, as you find bedrock, so things do change, right? But I think there is, I think we continue to face this challenge of this kind of communications political challenge with our residents. We went to the residents and said, this is a big plan, we want you to invest in the bond, and now we're saying it's going to cost a lot more. Also, we also, I know on the streets and sidewalks, said this is shovel-ready stuff, we can do it in a couple years. Now we're saying 29 on this thing? Have we pushed the timeline out on the delivery of the two parks?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that, and I appreciate staff being creative to find other sources of funds. Federal dollars are certainly always appreciated. I guess my question related to that, and this comes out of some of the transit work we've done, like does applying for these funds, and also does it sort of like relying on the state, the pre-regulatory landfill program, does relying on those funds or budgeting those funds, does that also push the timeline out further? Because this has happened on transit stuff, where we sort of are waiting for federal dollars, we have to push back. I think that's

Are there additional sort of like approvals we need on sort of whether it's environmental or different sort of approvals that can also slow it down? That's the other thing that happens sometimes with different pots of funds. There's different sort of levels of authorization.

Thank you. I just want to thank my colleagues for asking a lot of good questions. I think what would be helpful is to have an analysis because raised grants for transportation or transit projects may operate differently than this type of project. I think it would be helpful to have an understanding of, because it's federal dollars, there's a lot of oversight and what we've concluded at least on a lot of the projects that are smaller in scope and whatnot is we're just not applying for them. We are just going to have to use local money and if it means it's less projects at least we got it delive

I want to thank my colleagues for the comments and questions which I associate myself with. Just a couple follow up questions from my understanding. So in question of the soft costs, were those included for the splash pad, but just not for this expanded scope that came through all the additional community engagements?

Okay. And is that typical practice from the front end of budgeting or when we're thinking about bonds, about what gets included and not included? Is that standard practice or does it vary?

Okay, I think that'd be helpful. Follow up question to just for my understanding. Um, then you mentioned the park contamination, which is a limiting factor as well. Just remind me in terms of the timelines here. Was that information known at the time or did that information come after the bond?

Okay. Yeah, obviously, I think the questions about potential limitations are really important ones, so I'd like to know the result of that inquiry. If those limitations aren't there, obviously, if we can get federal funds through this grant program, that would be beneficial. How much can we redirect from, so I guess like, if we were to get this 15 million, then it allows us to redirect 15 million to other projects that are in the pipeline? Or is this just going toward the overage, unless we value engineer it back down to something closer to the original estimate, which maybe isn't possible bec

Okay. And then allows us to go from a splash pad to a much more informed and, you know, a concept with a lot more amenities for the public as well.

So is it then more the remediation and just like the time cost of the delay of it taking longer that are mainly contributing to the gap, if the amenities are the same as what was originally envisioned, plus the soft costs?

Thank you. Yeah. And I don't want to belabor this. And this is not, I know y'all are in the hot seat. It's not about y'all. I think that everyone up here wants to ensure that it just is working well moving forward. I think for me, additionally, with what Mayor Pro Tem Caballero said, other things that would be helpful would be a breakdown of where these costs are coming from. Because I hear you saying a couple of things are kind of carrying the weight. But again, the memo sort of includes all of these different things. And several of them were absolutely predictable. Like, we absolutely knew t

Okay. It is listed in the memo as something that's adding to the cost, so maybe that in the cost breakdown would be way more clear. And then the other thing is, to go back to Councilmember Rist's point, and I just want to ensure that we're having sort of collaboration among departments, like, what is that collaboration looking like, and at what point

Because, I mean, we've had you and your colleagues standing up here as we've berated you on other deliverables, right? And I do want to make sure that there is that conversation happening. It's happening early enough. Yeah, we don't get here.

Thank you, I appreciate that. And look forward to whenever we get that information, hopefully sooner than later, as a work session agenda item. What are the processes that have been examined? What are the, you know, do a forensic analysis, show us where the hiccups are, bring it back to us so we can understand it, and bring it back to us if there's a budgetary implication on, actually, we need more staff to do this thing. We can't make decisions the way we are making them right now. So I get it. Like, sometimes you need more staff. You need more project managers, right? But at the end of the d

And Mr. Mayor, so we're being asked today just to approve application for the dollars, right? Correct. So if I'm not mistaken, if we receive the $15 million, we'll also have to have a motion to receive the dollars. So if it turns out there's additional red tape or timing, we can at that point then address that, right?

Yep. Okay. Thank you. So I... Right. Are there any other comments on it? Okay, and I think everything's pretty much been said as I was listening to my colleagues. The public is not going to break down the technicalities of this. They're just going to trust us to be able to deliver in the simplest form what they've asked for. And hiccups like this makes it really difficult to communicate. And we are living in a time where people will take very unsettled information and manipulate it. don't feel like you have to like you know baby it up for us give us the details give us the technicalities so th

All right, that was item number 12, that's addressed. Back up to the first one, item number four, was it? All right, item number four, we do have resource individuals online for this. All right, renewal contract for state and federal lobbying services. All right, Mr. Baker, you pull this.

Yeah, so we operate within a very broken, larger system. I think lobbying is important. The apartment association has lobbyists, the home builders association has lobbyists, the bankers have lobbyists, local government should have lobbyists too. So I'm curious, just a few questions here. So the payments, so we pay about $10,000. The contract amount that we have in front of us is based on $10,000 at the state level, $7,000 a month.

They don't have much work one month. We're still paying them. If they have a lot of work the next month, it's the same amount.

Okay. And then... I'm curious kind of where the roles and responsibilities begin and end between our lobbyists and our local delegation at the state and federal level, organizations like legal municipalities. Are they supporting one another? Are lobbyists serving a critical role that those other entities and organizations are not able to serve?

Are we kind of tracking what we're spending versus kind of what we're getting, like our ROI? I think that's probably really challenging to calculate, but do we have some sort of way of keeping that accountable and tracking that?

Thank you. I just want to provide some history for folks. Actually, it was former State Senator Woodard who actually really, really leaned in hard on the City of Durham since 2018, at least when I joined this council, to hire lobbyists. It was his belief, and he said it at many delegation breakfasts, it was his belief that we were leaving dollars on the table. And it was his belief that we were one of the only large cities at that time that did not have hired lobbyists. I also want to just think at the time, the legislative committee, it was a decision to hire two different lobbying firms beca

All right, and excuse me. I joined the council during those conversations, and I know understanding the nature of the federal and state level politics is very different than what goes on inside of our rooms. There will be some that say, hey, we're a progressive city. Why are you hiring Republican folks or whatever? I think at the advisement of our delegation, they advised us to bring on a lobbying firm And what we did actually, fortunately, we brought on the top ones, the top rated lobbying firms at the state level and the federal level. They're scoring very high at the very top. And our issue

Hello. Sorry, I know I saw your name and I was like, oh, he's going to be thrilled. This is going to be so, so quick, but actually slightly in line. I know, really. Famous last words. In line with the last questions, which is that I know that this is based off of a study from 2021. I know we're going to have costs that we don't anticipate, but some of these costs we can anticipate, like repainting and these other things. So can you talk a little bit about

And this is the second amendment, right? Correct. Okay. And so will we be able to finalize?

Okay, and then I asked this question of Director Egan when this came up previously, but In as we're thinking about parking as a whole And we're sort of setting aside money to repair these garages What kind of are we also like looking at a more holistic? i see looking over are we looking at a more holistic picture of downtown parking um i know we're also like this fund is short um we're now offering free parking which is going to short us on this fund even further and so what are we doing and where are we in this like more holistic picture and looking at parking i'll take it um

Thank you, thank you for that. And I look forward to finding out kind of where we are in the life cycle of some of these garages, because I think we're probably towards the end of some. Are we working with Housing and Neighborhood Services thinking when we do that repurposing piece of it, when there's some pretty key important lots that could be repurposed, especially for housing? And so just want to make sure that that housing plan is coming forward and we're not losing an opportunity to connect back to that. So that was just the one thing I wanted to make sure. And I know that the other thin

All right, thank you so much. Next item.

I think it's 10 and it's also me, but it's not Chris, so that's good. Everyone's happy. This is the compensation and classification study.

Thank you, Director Miley, and thank you for this. It was interesting to read about the responses to the RFPs. This is a very quick question, which is that I'm assuming you've already done sort of an assessment about cost of hiring somebody to do this in-house and having access to the resources. I know that there's some data that's not necessarily accessible, but the cost of having somebody come in-house to do that work and having access to that data versus expending the 400,000 on a contract. I'm curious because it seems to me that compensation and classification is gonna be a thing that we n

And when you say that it's going to take us a really long time in-house, I know we don't have that person currently, but even if we were to get an expert in this field, it would still, just because of resources, take a very long time in-house?

Okay. Thank you. Those are all my questions.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Just one quick question. I appreciate that this is pretty detailed work, and I understand it probably would take someone, as you said, it could take a decade. So having someone to do this deep work makes sense. I know this is both a compensation and a classification study, which is sort of related, but different things. I just had one question since I just got back from my first meeting at the League of Municipalities. And so they did reference there is like a salary survey and a fringe benefit survey the League does. And I'm just curious how, like, how valuable that would b

Oh, reading your handwriting here, I see.

Sorry. Didn't tell you it was going to be neat.

Thank you. I just have a really quick question. A lot of our boards and commissions, as they've updated their bylaws, they've changed it so that they can provide recommendations on their applications to council. And so I was just wondering if we could include that, because a lot of times they have a better sense of what is it they might be missing on their board or commission that council may not know. And so that was it, just giving them that opportunity. It's just a recommendation. It doesn't have to be what we honor or who we vote for, but it is helpful to get that extra information. I thin I don't know if colleagues had an opinion on that.

One other thing, and this may be less for Braden and maybe more for the clerk's office. So I did note on this one that part of the changes here were like locations and times of meetings. And it seems like, I don't know what kind of advice we're giving boards and commissions on their bylaws, but it seems like that level of detail of bylaws that would need to be changed every time you change your meeting time and place is not an efficient way for either the boards or the city council to do business. So I don't know if there's advice you're giving, because I think having more general language pro

But again, I mean, time like the day of the week. And so it seems like a level of granular detail that probably.

All right. Thank you. Next item is item number 13, Council Member Roost. I can see it.

Sorry about that, sorry, thanks. Director Young, so this is, these are three utility extension agreements, different properties, but these are all in that Goose Creek outfall area, right? Correct. And so I guess my question is, as I understand this, I could be wrong on this, but I understand on this first one, item 13, they would extend water and sewer once the improvements are completed, right? But for 14 and 15, they can connect now. So I just want to understand, like, what's the level of analysis going on to determine who can connect now, who connect later, just so I understand that.

I appreciate that. Yeah, I just wanted to understand better, but I appreciate your sort of being sort of creative and helping folks to move along, even if they can't connect. So I just wanted to confirm the process, but that makes sense to me. I appreciate the thought that goes into that.

Thank you. This is number 17. This is the contract with UNC.

I hope this will be quick. DataWorks closed almost a year ago. And so I know some of these are yearly, but not all of them. Some of them seem to be more regular data updates in the community training. So who has been doing that for Compass in the meantime?

So was there something that was happening more regularly when DataWorks was in operation that we've sort of seen tailor off? Or is there really just this sort of once a year?

okay i just i think that what was interesting for me was that in the memo it talked about how important it was to have continuity in the cycle and i understand obviously like having the actual data maintenance is probably the most important thing but it sounds like we have lost a bit of continuity in terms of the engagement and some other sort of community partnerships but i assume then that unc will be picking up Sort of where that got left off? Yes.

Council Member? Thanks, Mr. Raven. So just one question on that. I'm having a hard time as I read through the contract. So the contract's with UNC, but the work will be done by the, this is the Center on Urban and Regional Studies at the Department of City and Regional Planning.

Right, so yeah, the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, it's a center at the planning school. Correct, within UNC, correct. Right, exactly, yeah. So they'll do the work. That is correct. Even though the contract is with the university, but like, KERS is going to do the work. Because they're well-respected, they do good work, so.

Okay, all good? All right, next item, Council Member Kopach. 19.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Director Egan. I'd just appreciate if you could speak to what this agreement is, kind of offers us and what it commits us to into the future if we do want to enter into partnership with other municipalities in the region around this kind of fair collection system? MR. Certainly.

Yeah, thank you. Um, there's a 24. Yeah, my monitor water.

Um, thanks, Miss Regan. So, um. I know this is a complicated one, I know there's money from the MPO, I know we flex some funds, I don't understand what that flexing means, but it's something around moving funds around. But I just, on this issue of buying diesel, I know we're gonna buy five electric buses.

three electric five diesel so on the issue of buying diesel buses when i saw the pop-up i was like and i know we we approved a couple years ago i think maybe in april i think cip right is this the same issue or is this a separate one i mean we council approved a purchase contract for 10 diesel vehicles in april of this year So just on the diesel issue, so like obviously the diesel market, like price of diesel's gone through the roof, right? So like diesel's now becoming much more expensive, maybe a more volatile market going forward. So as we think about buying buses that are gonna last for 20

So I appreciate that and I understand that some of the, as you described, some of the compressed natural gas, like that market is changing dramatically as we speak, right? And I know that currently our wastewater treatment, is Don still here? Because Don and I have actually talked about this, may not support right now renewable natural gas, but there's also, there's a market for that, right? And I've got an industry publication from Energy Vision talking about how, like, the economics of R&G have actually, like, increased dramatically. So I just want to make sure that we're thinking about this

That'd be helpful. Yeah, and I don't know if we can, you just said that we've, you know, we don't want to operate buses too long, but can we possibly delay a couple years while we sort of figure out this complicated market of diesel? I mean, it's, you know, again, we don't want to be in a situation where we can't operate the buses because diesel, we just can't get it.

All the more reason why C&G potentially could be one option for us as well. I know that Don wants to come up and speak to this one. I will also say that even if we don't have like enough supply at our wastewater treatment to fuel our buses. It also, I know right now, as I understand, we're still kind of flaring off that natural gas from the wastewater treatment plant, so it'd be better to use that somehow than just kind of flare it off, right?

I appreciate that. And as I understand, there also are new tax credits, right, for renewable natural gas production. And I know that we're obviously not a taxpaying entity, but are there direct pay credits for cities that are doing renewable natural gas production?

Well, I appreciate that. Anytime we see like more diesel buses, it's just not, you know, both again, cost, but also environmentally, this is not a great way to burn fuel. So, you know, anything we can do to reduce our consumption of diesel in the city, especially because we've got our own, we've got our climate action plan that commits our fleet. So it's, and I know we had to push back our achievement of our climate action plan because of this. So anything we can do to reduce our diesel consumption would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Councilmember, you may be the only other person I've met that's interested in this just as much as I am. I should talk about, well, you guys just had a very intelligent conversation about the power of our poop. So I talk about that a lot when I go to schools and how we produce renewable energy. What are we using it for now, the biogas?

Thank you. We're not using all of that, right? We're sort of... We burn off some.

Okay, I'll come back to it. Okay, and Director, I see where you're going with the balance. I don't know how long this is going to last, but I think diesel is like seven something dollars a gallon right now. I don't know how more volatile that's going to get, but I do understand that the buses cost half of what the electric ones cost. So I do want to continue to electrify our fleet, but at the same time, I get the rationale for having a balance there. Are we operating beyond our means? I mean, obviously, we've made it very clear we want Ferris to be free. And I understand that even if we charge

Just one other question on that. And again, I appreciate the presentation. I appreciate the conversation, recognizing that we are so committed on this council to fare-free buses and having the state's best transit system. So all that is all true, right? As we think about how do we pay for and power the buses. So I wonder if your staff have done any kind of sensitivity analysis to show at what price of diesel Does it become more cost-effective to buy electric buses, even though they're more expensive, than to buy diesel as the operating costs go up and up? I mean, there's got to be some price p

Thank you. I know the upcoming year is going to be really tough budget-wise, and I know just a few years ago we were really aggressive in electrifying our fleet, and now we're making some shifts. So as soon as you can provide us some advisement so that we aren't caught at the last minute when it's time to do budget stuff. because we're going to have to make decisions. We saw the deficit in that fund this year, the transit fund, continuing fare-free and also diesel versus electric. We're buying more electric. It costs more, and diesel costs less, but costs more to maintain, mileage, all of that

Okay. Okay, so is it? So really quickly, the rows and columns, they're not necessarily aligned with the agenda number, correct? It just so happens this one falls on item 16, fell on line 16. Right. Okay, got it. Let's see. I'll not pay attention to what line item it is and just look at the agenda number. But it does say item number 19.

All right, so we don't have a speaker for 19. All right, so now it's items 21 and 22, Councilmember Baker.

Thanks for sticking around, I appreciate it. My question is, these are big, really big projects. Question about just mitigation of construction impacts. Can you just walk us through kind of, if I'm a resident who lives on one of these streets or in the general area, what am I going to see when this gets underway?

And then most of this is construction within the public right-of-way, so is a lot of this tearing up existing street pavement and then rebuilding? Okay. And then when we think about opportunities here, are we digging up parts of the curb as well, kind of curb and gutter? Correct. Okay.

Absolutely. And are we working closely with transportation to make sure that when we dig up a street, when we dig up curb and gutter, that this is a really unique opportunity? It's very expensive, infrastructure changes at a glacial pace for improving the public right-of-way for pedestrians and bikes, making sure there's traffic calming, all that stuff?

Yeah, I just want to emphasize two things. One is just making sure that we are doing anything that we possibly can to mitigate the impacts on residents that live in the area, small businesses. I think that's really important and thinking through that in advance. And I know that that's part of this work and you look in the contracts, there's engagement, all that. And then the second piece is making sure that we're taking advantage of this unique opportunity moment in time where infrastructure is being dug up and then being replaced, and not just replacing it exactly as it was, but replacing it

Is this the same for 22? Okay. Thank you so much. Colleagues, do we need to take a quick break before we get to the presentation? All right, we'll resume back at 3 p.m. We're in recess. One presentation. Yep.

All right, welcome to your inaugural report, Madam Chief. And welcome to the Bull City. Glad to have you. Looking forward to your report. Just know that the media across the room, your report comes on board. Good to see you guys. Thanks for being here. All right. It's on you.

Ms. Peterson I'll call you after the presentation.

Chief Martins, can you say again the calculation for clearance rates? It's the percent that have a charge filed?

Thank you so much, Madam Chief. This is great information. Colleagues. Yeah, actually let me address public comment first before bringing it back for the council. Ms. Peterson, you have three minutes.

Thank you. Ms. Peterson, when you say part two, you mean like quarter two or...

All right, we'll get an inquiry on that. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Madam Chief. Now we'll have questions from council or comments. And thank you for the report.

Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for your first report. I have a few specific questions and then I have one that I generally like to ask always. The first one is going back to the violent crime issue. I thought that you said that the number of shootings and victims per incident are down from last year. But we have also seen an increase of persons shot of 12 since last year. So I'm just wondering, were there that many more incidents? Or how do those two statistics work together?

Okay. I thought you had said that the number of victims per incident were down, but I think that I could have written it down incorrectly because it didn't make sense with the data. So the number of... incidents are wait sorry do it again do it again for me the number of incidents so like um numbers are down yes but because there are more people involved you have to count the number of people and so there are more people present during that one incident and so we are seeing more victims per incident and also higher more shooting per incident

And then on the recruiting, I just thought this was interesting. The most recent class, it was almost a 30-person recruited class, and you said 11 of them were Durham residents? Yes. So folks are driving in. from surrounding areas to come into work at dpd yes ma'am and we just we have a 35 mile radius for the take-home car policy was my next question okay and so we increased it as a recruiting tool and i think it it has been impactful okay that was actually my very next question um 30 35 miles yes and they just briefed me on that so i'm glad i could answer that one um And so I guess the kind o

And then I know that, as we see quite often, the – Firearms are such a huge target in so many of our thefts, but particularly in our motor vehicle break-ins. There was quite a lot of community education ongoing about securing firearms, and I was just hoping you could give us an update on sort of how that's going and if there's been any thoughts about more creative ways to get the info out there or how we get those firearms secured?

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate your sort of targeting that. I think it's a really big piece of this. Obviously, we struggle, I think, a bit to track where a lot of our weapons are coming from. I think we probably have more work to do in that space as well, but I think that the securing piece, so many of them are weapons that are legally owned right just not secured so um i appreciate that and and i also appreciate the moving into schools which is my final question and i um am wondering if you can talk a little bit about the juvenile statistics that we saw in this quarter

Yeah, and I appreciate that. We have in the actual report numbers of juvenile offenses, but in the past we've kind of talked about how those have shifted over time, and I might be just missing it in the report, but I was wondering if, and you might not know this off the top of your head, but just like what that looked like in this quarter as compared to prior quarters in terms of juvenile offenses. Yeah. And I'd be also interested in victims. And if you don't have that in front of you, I think a supplemental item would be great on that.

Yeah. Thank you. Those are my questions. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Ms. Mayor. Thanks, Chief Martis. Thanks for being here. It was a pleasure to be at your swearing-in ceremony. It's such an honor. I'm glad to have you in front of us today, so it's good to see you. A couple questions. On this juvenile report that Council Member Cook mentioned, I did have some more questions there. Actually, may I start with just saying, what percentage of homicides and aggravated assaults involve juveniles? Do you have that number? I think if I cross reference to the table in the report, it's only a couple, looks like homicide one, so it's.

but more juveniles involved in aggravated assault. That's what, when I follow Captain Packard's watch reports, it seems like there are increasing number, which is always a great concern for council, you as well, I'm sure your staff. I had a question about, again, on the table in juvenile offenses, I noticed that a large number of those were reported as all other offenses. I know that, as you mentioned, weapons offenses, larcenies are large for juveniles, but there's also this category of all other offenses. What is in there?

I think it's the largest number of the juvenile offenses in the table or all other offenses.

Colleagues, I will say that the community safety department has a lot of this data as well, the line of questioning that's happening right now. Yeah, and Director Smith is giving that update from the, we just had it actually from the, I don't know if it was the Vera Institute or one of them, but it's Durham specific data and it talks about the age demographics. 17 and under in regards to homicides, 11.4%. Victims, 17.3% suspects. But instead of me just reading this off, I would like them to give that to us. No, this is specific to Durham over the last fiscal year, I believe. But let's just request that from Director Smith as a supplemental item.

In the report, that's what I'm looking at. In the report, okay. And again, if you could clarify what's under all other offenses there in that table, that'd be helpful. Another question. So on that table that showed the violent and property crime rates, and there was that target, that hashed orange line, how do we get that target number? How do we arrive at that?

It's not the confidence, it's the. No? No, it's the one.

If you can confirm that, that would be great. I will. I want to make sure it's kind of like that sort of up-to-date current for Durham. Right. That would be great. And then the last thing is that we look a lot and we talk a lot about the staffing levels. And it's great to see in the most recent basic law enforcement training the big jump in candidates. I know that we, and you may know, a couple years ago we made a big effort to make sure our salaries were at market. And so would it be great, and we follow the staffing levels on every quarterly report. Right. Would it be helpful to have just over the last two, three years what the staffing levels have been like historically to sort of see any trends there?

Yeah, to see the data and see how our efforts increase pay does directly correlate. The last thing I know you mentioned in the recruiting initiatives, a lot of great things there, including with the events at the Durham Bulls. I just wonder if you'd comment on the fact that there was a tug of war between the fire department, the police department. At the recent game I attended, the fire department won.

I'm sure you haven't heard it all, right?

Welcome, Chief. Thank you so much. Congratulations. We're happy to have you. Can you just speak to a little bit more to what is behind that 100% clearance rate? What kind of numerator and denominator are we talking about here? And then what would go into such a, I mean, perfect clearance rate?

Congratulations on that. Yeah, that's important. Can you talk a little bit about the kinds of guns that we're seeing and how that, if there are trends there, if that's evolving? You talked about fewer incidents, more people being shot lethally and non-lethally. somewhat due to the kinds of weapons that are out there? Do those correlate with the kinds of weapons that are being seized? Can you just speak a little bit to that?

Are those modifications, are those being done through legal means? No. Those are illegal?

Is there any way of cracking down on that kind of thing?

Just two more questions. Coming back to something Councilmember Cook raised, I do think whatever collaboration is necessary, including across other city departments when it comes to education around securing weapons that people own or have, I mean, so many, I know so many people who just leave their cars unlocked because they're tired of fixing their broken windows because most of the time people break the window, go through the glove compartment, and then go away. Don't even take anything. They're just looking for weapons. So if there are other ways of capturing people's attention through oth

Thank you. And then lastly, so you're coming to us from very similar, pretty close by, Pier City. I'm just curious, this is probably not the location where we're going to get the most honesty from you, but first impressions in terms of what you... My wife just started teaching at a Durham public school and she came from Wake County. She's got all sorts of, oh wow, this is so much better and this is something where DPS could do a lot better. What are your, I'm curious if you're willing to share any first impressions in terms of what you think Durham is excelling at, and then regarding DPD, and

Well, thank you so much. Thank you for speaking to us today and congratulations on joining us and welcome and thank you to all of the sworn and unsworn non sworn officers in Durham Police Department.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Welcome, Chief Martis, to you and your team. Thanks for putting this report together and presenting to us today. Just a few quick questions, kind of building on some of what my colleagues have asked about. But first of all, going back to some of the statistics around rapes, you mentioned that a significant percentage are ones that have been brought forth from prior years. how does that percentage compare to say 2025 from prior years um you know is is the total percent of the um you know of the reports coming forward in this year is that like increased based on what's comi

It's a connection between the efforts to be more efficient and deal with those past rape kits and people coming forward to share their experience. Absolutely. Okay.

Thank you. Really glad to hear that progress and that these agencies and systems are working together and people are able to come forward. In terms of the statistic around the 87% of vehicles stolen being recovered, you mentioned a couple ways that they are recovered, but what would you attribute this rate to? And I'm assuming the way you share it, that it's higher than what we've seen in prior years in terms of recovery.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'd appreciate that. And do we know how that compares to other communities as well?

Okay. Yeah, I'd like to know that. I know sometimes that recovery of stolen vehicles is sort of an incidence or a rationale for adopting license plate readers and flock cameras that can be used as a justification for that. And so it's just good to hear that even though we have policies as a city to not use these technologies, that it seems like we have a pretty high success rate at recovering vehicles. And so it's just good to understand better how it is that we do that and how does that compare to other communities. And then my last question gets back to staffing. You shared this, but I just

Okay. So does that mean that we are on track then or on a trajectory with this pipeline to having a much higher percent staffed rate?

Okay. All right. Thank you. Some important discussions coming off of the Summit to Save Lives with the Violence Reduction Plan. I'm sure this is a lot of what you're thinking about and digging into. It's what are the choices that we're going to make in terms of allocation of resources, both how people are using their time and using other resources to be able to really tackle some of our most serious challenges. And so I thank you for doing that work and speaking with us today. Thank you.

Thank you. Good to see you, Chief Martis. Thank you for the report. The only thing, I just had a couple of, and thank you to all my colleagues for their questions. With the homicide clearance rate, could we get just a breakdown? Because you did a really good job explaining. Sometimes it's because prosecution isn't moving forward sometimes, and so that we would have a better understanding of, I understand the bucket, but what are all the smaller pieces in there? in that statistic that would be helpful. And then as we're thinking about more responsible gun ownership, part of the issue is that yo

Thank you so much. Those were all my questions and comments. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. This was a great report. Really just, you know, we're getting this information today. I want to shout out former Chief Andrews, Interim Chief Tate, and now you, because what we're seeing is None of this stuff happens overnight, but we are seeing just the quality of our department. And I love to brag, and I just think that we just have the best police department in the state and probably definitely the country. Folks could learn a thing or two from our folks. So thanks for taking the helm and leading. And I mean, the clearance rates are just phenomenal. Those clearance rat

Okay. Almost like a dashboard or something. Durham does dashboards very well. But that could potentially just, I mean, you can maybe come in quarterly and give an update, but it'll allow us to see real-time data to make really good informed decisions as we are getting into this active actualizing the summit on saving lives recommendations. So that work plan is gonna come forth and having data in real time with the actual work plan will help us be able to fund it better instead of waiting on our, you know, given some, you know, random number to fund it and then not getting or meeting the expect

It's between us. But, no, thank you. I do have one question. This might be for the attorney. Considering... the United States' very intimate relationship with the Second Amendment and how it's hands off in many ways. Are we not allowed to make it an offense for folks not locking their guns properly?

Council Member Cook, is it? State issue? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can burn our resources all day. We can educate as much as possible. I do think it's important that we work with the Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department does a lot of education on this as well. If we can do it and we have our community engagement program. We can do whatever we can locally. But, I mean... there has to be responsibility and accountability where we can put it you know uh and and that's not me trying to arrest folks but if you're being irresponsible with the weapon then you play a part in that you know so um

Yeah, yeah. So in many areas, we're headed the right direction. As you are learning more about the department and about the city and all of the various resources that are available, we are a progressive city.

We have, I mean, for a long time we were resource rich and collaboration poor. We're now making significant investments to be more collaboration competent as well. I'd love to hear, give yourself six months and then I'd love to hear what your recommendations would be in regards of continuing the direction that we're going. as a city and I do know that police in nature is reactive, but I think Durham has in the past and can still be proactive in a sense where we're working to keep folks safe.

And I know a lot, you know, sometimes data can be overwhelming. But the closer that the data dashboard could be to your narrative rather than just a presentation would be helpful. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. It's great to have you. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Manager.

Thank you for that, Mr. Manager. Deputy Chief Tate, thank you for your service. I've always appreciated your counsel and conversations. And retirement or not, I'm sure they're going to continue. I'll be calling you, asking you questions. So thank you for your service to the Bull City. And thanks for being a product of the Bull City, born and raised. All right. Well, colleagues, I will be leaving here shortly and going over to the National Museum to see the installation of the Declaration of Independence. Is that Duke? Yep. You all are free to join and come see that.

So it's moving from the library to Duke, is that what's, yeah?

Yes, from the public library, main library to Duke University. And this is one of the original copies owned by Mr. Rubenstein, and he'll be there as well today. All right, well, that's what we have today. Yes, sir. Under other matters, if I could. Oh, I'm going to settle it. Yeah.

Thank you. Do you want to settle the agenda first? I have one item under other matters.

Thank you. I'll entertain a motion to settle the agenda. Second. Moved and probably seconded. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right. Mr. Wrist.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Sorry I missed the beginning of the meeting. I did want to request an excused absence for the next work session on October the 8th.

I'll entertain a motion to excuse absence. Moved and probably seconded. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right. Thank you all so much. I believe the next time we'll gather is on the inner city visit. And Councilmember Wriste, Kopach, and Mayor Pro Tem, if I could see you all at separate times after the meeting today. Thank you. We are adjourned at 4.16.