Remarks by Javiera Caballero
61 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
- Play at 21:43
“Good evening, everyone. Buenas tardes a todos. I'll be reading the proclamation for Hispanic Heritage Month. I'd like to invite members of the comité to come up. Those who are being honored this evening, if they could also please come up, and then anyone from either Governor Stein's or the consul offices that are here. And if the folks who are being honored could be towards the front, that would be really great. And we don't want to, if you're being honored this evening, go ahead and kind of. Okay, thank you. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated annually from September 15th…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 34:01
“Thank you. And after folks take their seat, we have some performers here this evening who are going to celebrate with us.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 49:14
“Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for all my colleagues and their great comments. Pride was great. Lots of fun activities are happening right now. It is one of the busiest times of the year in the Bull City because cooler weather has finally arrived. I just wanted to share this very quickly. This is about voting against the amendments. It's also in Spanish, which I thought was excellent. And so this was a resident brought it during the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. And so I just thought it was great that we're seeing bilingual and other languages. We all know how dangerous…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:01:57
“Number five, it's been pulled. I'd like to pull number four.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:17:16
“THANK YOU. I APPRECIATE PEOPLE'S COMMENTS. I MEAN, WHEN THIS, SO FIRST OF ALL, THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE RAN AN RFP PROCESS. probably two years ago now. And so within that process, these were the two firms that were kind of brought to the front of the line. And then ultimately the legislative committee made a decision and then brought it to council as a recommendation, essentially. So it wasn't just willy-nilly, it was with actual research. And Checkmate was picked partly because of their relationships. There are certain legislators who don't love them either, right? It was a mixed bag. And…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:23:57
“Thank you. I do want to remind folks that legislative committee meetings are open, and everyone, whether you are on the committee or not, welcome to join, and then we can make sure on that committee that some of the updates that they're providing are getting sent to the full council. So that's the one next step that I heard, the ask around, and I just want to make sure that we're closing the loop on that. So for those members who can't, Council members who can't join because of the time, then we can make sure to send that information to everyone and just reminding colleagues that those…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:41:17
“Thank you. I would like to have, not here, but would love to have an analysis by staff about whether that goes beyond the scope of our power because of its base zoning. And it's just including a, it's going from an annexation. The base zoning is the same. So, yeah, if that makes sense.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:41:58
“I want to make for the record That's why some folks choose not to do that because the only thing they're actually asking for is annexation right and that's my understanding of it for many years a lot of times what we see most often actually are just one or two homes the folks just really want access to city water and And I just don't believe at the end of the day that we should be putting a lot of onus on those kinds of property owners. That's a fundamental belief of mine. If it's maybe a more affluent one, I'm willing to have that conversation. But I'm not interested in essentially taxing…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:42:15
“Thank you. That's a great question. So part of the issue, so there are identified corridors and projects. Unfortunately, this is not one that is prioritized very high. I will say that NCDOT is in a very, very financially constrained position. We are not doing the next step. Is that correct? Right. So STIP is the kind of next call for statewide projects. That, a few years ago, that got suspended. It is going to get suspended again. Why? Because there is not enough resources because of Hurricane Helene. They have to rebuild all of that. They do not have the money. And the federal government has…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:50:14
“Thank you. I have a question for Director Young, and I'm going to put you on the spot, and I apologize. So this is a case from several years ago, South Durham, next to the Aldi. It was one of the first people who kind of did an off-site sidewalk gap fill. And I just want to know if that project was an annexation or not.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:50:50
“So I think it was. I'm just going to go with it. Yeah, it was down 751. There was two that night. There was one that the Planning Commission recommended and there was one that didn't. And the one that the Planning Commission recommended didn't make any sense to me because it was further out. And the one that they didn't recommend was way closer. And that, that, um, um, That case passed unanimously. And I remember Council Member Baker, who often says no. voted for that case. And I think that was a unanimous vote. And I think it was partly because it was around the sidewalk. It was like, I…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:53:42
“Thank you. I will say that the piece around asking for more, that whole conversation, if we could only ask for more, if we were unified in asking for more. Our comprehensive plan is our document. It is our guiding star. We passed it. We did a robust engagement around it. We spent a lot of money to make sure that we got resident voice in there. It was not an easy process. And this applicant met 18 out of 20 of the relevant policies. So if we don't like the rules that we set up, then let's have that conversation. But let's not put it on every single applicant because we're responding to the…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 13:11
“Council Member Rivers, let us know he's running late.”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 17:30
“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…”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 20:58
“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.”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 36:50
“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.”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 37:21
“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.”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 49:09
“Parks and Rec developed the splash and play, which was that piece and wheels and came to council in spring of 2023, I believe.”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 53:35
“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…”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 1:06:25
“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…”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 1:14:27
“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…”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 1:23:30
“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…”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 1:28:56
“Sorry. Didn't tell you it was going to be neat.”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 1:29:08
“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…”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026
- Play at 1:29:36
“I don't know if colleagues had an opinion on that.”
City Council · Sep 24, 2026