Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

good evening everyone packed house tonight tonight is Monday October 12th this is our regular session our first regular session for the month of October and we will start I'm gonna read the public charge in the land acknowledgement and then I'll ask Commissioner Jacobs to lead us in the pledge okay all right and then we'll get moving here 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 or resident fail to observe this public charge, the chair w

All opposed, please use the same sign. Pass unanimously. Next item on our agenda, the agenda adjustments. Agenda adjustment. Are there any changes to the agenda? If not, I'll accept a motion to accept the agenda as presented. It's been moved and properly seconded. We approve the agenda as presented. All in favor say aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. Passes unanimously again. Next item on our agenda are the announcements. Clerk Wallace.

Thank you, Clerk Wallace. Next item on our agenda is the, I'm sorry, additional announcements from commissioners.

Thank you, Chair Lee. I just only have a couple of, well, three announcements, real brief. First, I want to give a really, acknowledge our colleagues, Commissioners Wendy Jacobs and Commissioner Stephen Valentine, as well as our sheriff, Sheriff Clarence Burkett, for serving on a panel last Wednesday night sponsored by the Durham branch of the NAACP. It was really, really great. I don't know if you wanna talk more about it, but talking about mental health and criminal justice, our youth mental health and the HEART program and how we can collaborate more. So I'm really grateful that the Durham

Thank you, Commissioner Burton. I want to echo that it was a great conversation at the Zafa Temple about how we can collaborate, and I believe that we can work together to ensure that people who are experiencing a behavioral health crisis in our community are able to get directly connected to the mental health resources they need and to get the care they need and deserve during that moment of crisis. So I appreciate that acknowledgement and also to the family firefighter broker who's a true hero and has paid the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of all of us. And I also want to send sympathies to t

All right, thank you. And I do apologize. I had... On my other computer, I make notes on my agenda, and I had to do a moment of silence before we started our meeting for Firefighter Andrew Broker. So as we get into the meat of the meeting, I would call for a moment of silence for Firefighter Andrew Broker. thank you all right next item on our agenda is the approval of the minutes dated september 28th 2026 our regular session i move that we approve the minutes from september 28 2026. second It's been moved and properly seconded. We approve the minutes dated September 28th, 2026. Any further dis

All opposed, please use the same sign. Passes unanimously. Next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. We have one item that needs to be pooled for two public comments. And that is, it's actually the last item on the agenda. consent agenda, which is 260538. That is the approval of the property tax releases and refunds for September 2026.

Go ahead. And Chair Lee, I also wanted to pull, because I had some questions, 26-0525, and I also had a suggestion of something to be added to 26-0530. Just amended for that, the resolution.

So we're pulling 0538, 0525, and 0530. Is that what you said? Yes. Yes, that's correct. All right, let me see. not the uh early childhood okay so we will do the agenda consent agenda approval absent the items zero five two five zero five well let me just make the motion so i'll accept the motion to approve the consent agenda with the removal of items 0525, 0530, and 0538. So moved.

All right. There's a motion on the floor. It's been properly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye.

All opposed, please use the same sign. passes unanimously so the items we will let's do the one with the public comment first get it out of the way and then at the end we'll do a motion to approve the three items all at the same time okay all right so the item that has the public comment is 26 0 5 3 8 we have two public comments we'll do three minutes each We have Randy Cohen and then Pablo Friedman.

Oh, no. That's perfectly fine. And, Mr. Colett, we have your information here. We'll make sure that Mr. Doyle gets this and reaches out and makes sure he can answer the questions you have.

Well, we'll make sure that. or if his staff reaches out and make sure he answers all of your questions to make sure. But also, I would love the staff to see, you know, to work with Mr. Coley to see if there's any of the programs that we do for assistance.

Oh, yeah. There are some challenges with that. It's not gospel. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Were you going to say something?

Yes, this is not directly related, but I did want to make sure that you knew about our long-term homeowner tax relief program. You're aware of that?

Oh, I'm sorry. We have a special program for residents like you to help with their tax payments. I just want to make sure you know about the program and there's been an evaluation to see whether you qualify. Do you know about this program?

All right. Go ahead. I'm going to go to Commissioner Burton first and then I'll come back in.

Thank you, Chair Lee. And so I want to go back to this meeting that Mr. Freeman talked about. I believe Vice Chair Alam had made the request about the board of equalization review minutes to be put out on the website. And I believe, you know, county manager wanted to talk more about it. We were going to discuss it more. I think that's my recollection. I don't think we said do this. I believe vice-chair Olam had made a request. So I just want to make sure that's put out there. And then also, just wanting to understand more about... because I want us as a board to be transparent, right? I believ

And I appreciate that. I am just gonna put this on the record that was my first year as a county commission and I have the utmost confidence in our tax administrator, Mr. Doyle. We had an enormous task because there were so many new properties that had been built in Durham County from 2019 all the way to 2025 and there are a lot more new properties that are being built and the values that went up on a lot of the properties were unprecedented, particularly at the residential level so and we want to make sure that we are transparent and we're doing the job of the county and making sure our resid

know open and respecting state statutes so thank you commissioner jacobs i think commissioner burton i don't need to repeat what she said i was going to basically say some of the same things i appreciate you raising the issue mr freeman But I do recall that we did direct the manager to come back to us just explaining what the process would be. Because I think it's like something like 10,000 pages a minute. So the reality, or maybe it was more. So it's just the reality of what the work that staff has to do. um it's going to take time and whatever the process needs to be done to make sure that w

All right, the next item that was pulled was 0525, and that is the budget ordinance amendment. Commissioner Jacobs, you wanted to pull that.

Yeah, I just wanted to raise this kind of a bigger picture. I've already talked to the county manager, but just the reality that this is how much it costs for us for one month to provide health care in the detention center and the youth home. is very concerning and that I especially would like for us to be able to dig in further as we move forward with looking at other options for care, especially around the youth home contract. I know after being there, I read through the scope that's in the draft contract, and it lists a lot of different staff people who are supposed to be providing services

Okay. Okay, so that's 0525. The next item that was pulled off was 260530, and that is the approve the resolution, amending the resolution establishing the Durham County Early Childhood Task Force and approve the task force members. Commissioner Jacobs.

Yes, thank you. I just had one suggestion. I had emailed the county manager and the county attorney earlier about this, which is I know in the resolution, it says that the task force has up to two years. I was going to suggest that we include some wording about reporting to the Board of County Commissioners within that two-year period. So in consultation with the attorney, I was going to suggest every, at least every six months, a report to the board of County commissioners, just an update. So that was going to be one of my suggestions of what, how to amend the language. Um, the other, and you

And did you consult with Andy Miracle at all? I'm thinking about some of the companies in RTP.

Well, we don't have to make an amendment now, but if there is the opportunity... for somebody a business representative to actually serve on the task force please do come back to us to have them appointed because i do think there's a difference between actually serving on the task force and being like a decision maker versus a subcommittee it does make a difference so i I'd love to get that level of commitment from a representative from the business community if the opportunity is there, because ultimately we are not going to solve this problem alone with the public sector. This is going to ha

Thank you. You're welcome. So I guess I would just like to amend the resolution to add that where it says that there will be a two-year term, the maximum length of the task force is two years, just to add language that reflects there will be a... minimum a six month every six months reporting on progress to the Board of County Commissioners so that's my friendly amendment do you have any comments about it all right so you can you can make that motion okay I'd like to make a motion that we amend the language to also add that the early childhood task force will report at a minimum of every six m

Okay, we have a motion of an amendment with text. Well, I'm sure somebody wrote that down. Has been properly seconded. So we're just gonna vote on this one separately and then we'll vote on the other two together since we have an amendment on it. And this is for item 0530. So the motion for the amendment to the resolution, that is amendment to the resolution, has been properly moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. It passes unanimously. Okay, you good? Good. Okay, so now we need to vote on the two items left, which is 260538 and 260525. I'll acce

Second. It has been moved and properly seconded that we approve the items that were pulled from the consent agenda as mentioned previously in the motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed please shoot the same sign. Those items pass unanimously. And that concludes our agenda for tonight. I'll accept a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. It's been moved and properly seconded. We adjourn. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you all.