Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Everyone. This is the July 6, 2026 public safety meeting. Today, we're going to get an update on public safety from Lauren Freeman, our district attorney who is moving on to bigger and greater things. And I'm really excited to see what all she's accomplished during her term. We're going to get an update on the town of Wendell in the fire tax district. We're gonna get to see Wake County's new command post vehicle, and we're gonna be updated on the fact that we got emergency medical award for our cardiac response in this county. So can I get a motion to approve the minutes?

So moved.

And I'll second that. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Minutes approved. Lauren, would you like to take us off?

Good morning, and thank you very much for having me come speak to you all. I have about six months left in my remaining term, and so it is possible this will be my last opportunity to present to you all, and I hope that today what I accomplish is just to flag some issues that I have certainly seen over the years of me being here that I think would be appropriate for you all to kind of have on your radar as we move forward and trying to collectively keep our community safe and a great place to live. So if you want to start with the next slide. Just wanted to give you all a little bit of an overview and a reminder. First of all, I'm going to try not to bore people with statistics today, but that, you know, we have a large court system here in Wake County, over 100,000 cases that go through annually. Remarkably, these numbers have remained relatively steady over the 20 years. My first eight years as the elected clerk and most recently, 12 years as district attorney attorney. And with about 10% of those cases being felonies. And we have seen, at least as of May of this year, we are seeing a slight increase in the number of cases that we are having come through the system with the about 105,000 filed as of the end of May. The thing I really wanted to point out, though, is that we are back to disposing of, and we've managed to dispose of, and that's when we bring a close to a close, about 110,000 cases. as of the end of this month. And so, you know, one of the things certainly that I have kept a close eye on over the years is, you know, how are we doing in terms of being able to move cases through the system? And there are a lot of different factors that go into that. But two of the major challenges that I have faced while being district attorney is clearly all of us lived through the pandemic of 2020. Courts were shuttered for some of that time except for central functions and we did maintain at all times a courtroom running but jury trials certainly came to a halt and so it has taken us a little bit of time to work through that backlog but I'm happy to say that we largely have managed to accomplish that And then in 2023, we were one of four pilot counties statewide to introduce electronic filing and the e-court system, which came with a lot of hiccups in the beginning. But we are now kind of back to operating at a level of efficiency level. similar to what we had prior to going live with that. And certainly, you know, bringing our court system into the modern day era where people have access to records online, more transparency of what happens here in the court system was an important accomplishment over the last 12 years. Next slide. So this just, again, some numbers about, you know, kind of how long it is taking us to move cases through the system. And you see different numbers reported in the media at various times, but on average, our cases move through in about a six month, a little more than six month period, obviously. As you look at more serious cases such as homicides, we are seeing that those take in the range of about two years. And there are a lot of different factors that go into that. But we still are running a relatively efficient system here in Wake County. And that takes a lot of collaboration working with the county, our sheriff, and then certainly here within the court system itself. Next slide. So I think one of the things I always try and point out to people as I talk about the state of public safety here in Wake County is that despite what has been a very significant increase in our population over the time period that I have been here, the number of arrests in our county has remained relatively steady. And there are a lot of different reasons that go into that. Certainly we have seen a little bit of a change in the makeup of who's coming through the court system in terms of the seriousness of the offenses coming out of COVID like many districts across the country. We did see a slight uptick in violence that has tended to trend back down over the last year or two as we continue to kind of move through time here. We also have seen a real change in the way law enforcement is policing in our community. And I'm proud to say that there are a number of different factors that go into that. But we certainly have pushed for nonviolent offenses for law enforcement to issue citations. in lieu of arrest when people don't have a reason to be arrested and can appear in court based on a citation. So we've seen more of an increase in that. We also have seen, and y'all are familiar with, a myriad of efforts of really trying to push behavioral health issues in different directions instead of arrest and processing through jail. And an example of that, of course, is Raleigh Police Department's creation of the ACORNS unit And then that transition into a program I think they now refer to as Raleigh Cares, where law enforcement and social workers really try to address situations of people being in crisis short of taking people into custody and taking them to the jail. And a lot of those different factors have led to us being able to keep a relatively steady arrest rate over the years. Next slide. And so that culminates, and I think it's important for us to just step back and think for a few minutes about the size of our community and the relatively low overall violent crime rate that we have. Clearly, our job is to try and eradicate any violent crime, any crime, and to keep our community safe, and so we don't rest on this. But it is important to point these numbers out, especially in the context of some of the things that we'll be talking about in just a couple of minutes. But Wake County, if you look at crime statistics reported to the FBI, uniformed crime statistics, we standard rank number six in the state, but consistently over the years per capita. have had a relatively low violent crime per capita rate compared to, for example, Mecklenburg County or a Durham County, Mecklenburg County ranking at 91st in the state in terms of safety and Durham at 100. And so there are a lot of factors that go into that, but I think part of that is the quality of life care that you all put into trying to build a community that has the supports in it to try and help people who may be in crisis. And so we're grateful for that. Next slide. And so certainly, you know, one of the things that goes into our public safety here in Wake County has been the court and county collaboration. And so while Commissioner Adams and I very much appreciate the opportunity to be able to come and talk about the things that I feel like we've managed to accomplish on the court side, I really wanted to use this opportunity. you know as an opportunity to thank you all for just the amazing partnership that i have experienced over the 20 years that i've been a leader in our local court system and the support from the county and this is just one example i often am the envy of district attorneys across the state because of wake county bureau of forensic services The fact that y'all have been willing to consistently invest in this as a laboratory and a crime scene analyst for our community has meant that we have been able to turn cases around quicker. And we are so excited that the DNA Lab will be coming online shortly. As district attorney, I am one of two people who help to oversee the White County Bureau of Forensic Services along with your county manager. It's designed that way by statute. And y'all certainly have been very generous in your support of them, both in adding a firearms laboratory and a DNA laboratory. Right now we are waiting about 18 months for the state crime lab to turn around items that are submitted for DNA testing. And so we do expect that this will be a significant assist in our ability to move cases forward and also in making sure that we are in fact prosecuting the appropriate people when crimes have occurred. Next slide. So there's been a lot of talk recently, especially in the media, about our need for additional resources. It has been my position over the years that I really wanted the state to step up and fulfill its state mandated responsibility, which is to fund positions within the court system. We in Wake County are one of 43 districts across the state. A unified court system historically has meant that the state legislature has the responsibility for funding these positions. I was very proud to lead my conference of district attorneys as the chair for a workload formula study back in 2022 that were with working along with the National Center for State Courts. set up and went through a methodology that is nationally approved. And in as much as y'all are going to anticipate, face more and more requests for consideration of funding of positions within the court system. I wanted to, without getting into the nitty gritty of how this methodology works, I do think it's important to think about this from the standpoint, there's a lot of comparison between us and Mecklenburg. And while we have a similar number of cases going through our system and is a very different system. Mecklenburg had over 100 homicides last year, whereas we averaged about 40 for the last couple of years each year. And so, you know, certainly in as much as it takes more resources for a prosecutor to handle a violent crime case than it does a seatbelt violation. I think when y'all start to think about the types of standards and the appropriate way to assess what the need is here locally for the prosecutor's office, I hope that you will adhere to the National Center for State Courts workload formula as you evaluate that. I had really hoped today to be able to report to you all that the state budget had been passed with positions in it because the Conference of District Attorneys following the workload study having been completed has gone to the legislature and pushed for an increase in prosecutors statewide, starting with those of us who are at the lowest end, which we are now The lowest end in the state in terms of prosecutors. to caseload. Unfortunately, we were not included in the state budget. I am hopeful in working with the business community and some of our local legislators that we're going to be able to get that corrected in an upcoming bill, but certainly something for the county to keep an eye on if it wants to continue to partner in the area of public safety. We are going to need the resources as we move forward. I think y'all recognized that last year and pushed forward including in your budget and passing a budget that included two legal assistants. I'm happy to say we were able to add those to our domestic violence felony unit and our special victims unit that handles child sex crimes and child abuse felonies. Those were very needed positions. And so again, another example of the great partnership that y'all have provided to me and my office over the years and providing those two positions. Very grateful for that. Next slide. So one of the things that I've come and presented to you all before on is the great work that we were able to do. Wake County was identified as a learning site by the National Organization Advancing Pretrial Policy and Release, and many of y'all will remember me presenting about that before, so I'm not going to belabor that today, but I did chair that stakeholder group back in 2022 and 2023, in which we made a number of adjustments to to our pretrial release policies. I'm proud to say that we are part of a district and part of a community that do not want to keep people in custody, that do not need to be there. They are able to be out safely in our community, working, going to school, going about their lives while their cases are pending. That's where we want them to be. And so that was a joint effort A lot of different voices in that stakeholder group that really tried to revise the way that we were looking at pretrial release. Our jail population, as y'all are very aware, unfortunately has continued to go up. The numbers as of today are actually even higher than this slide. reflects at 1780. And that is a significant thing that I know that the county will be looking at and that over the next six months, I'll continue to work on as we try to wrap up this particular term, but I know it's something that's pressing and very much on the minds of the board. And next slide, please. So in addition to kind of the increase in the actual population, we are also starting to see an increase in the length of time that people are spending in custody. And I think it's important to note that this has happened after a long period for the longest time in this community. The number of people we had in the Wake County Detention Center had remained pretty steady. And there are a number of factors that go into this pretty sharp increase. Next slide. So a couple of the different things that we have been able to do, and again, just want to express my gratitude to you all for the support of the project that we put in place from the APPR learning site, but specifically as to your support of the pretrial release program and electronic monitoring devices and the inclusion of those things in your budget. Those have been important tools in our ability to allow people to remain in the community as their case works through the system. And so we also have been able to add a public defender at first appearances. That is a real need that I hope that the board will consider as they move forward. I think that some additional resources for the public defender's office are Again, they were not included in the state budget. And as you all look at ways to try and solve this crisis that may be developing in terms of the jail population, that's certainly something that I would encourage you to keep an eye on is the need for them to have people who can go to first appearance and make the case as to why people should be let out pending trial. Next case. Next slide, please. So this is just an example of, and you can see how the pretrial reform effort and pretrial services program really did expand with your support over the years. Many of you are familiar with the Arenas Law. That is really what we are seeing, you know, have a large impact right now on the jail population passed as a result of the horrific murder that took place in Mecklenburg County. It does require that certain individuals be kept without conditions of release being set based on the offense that they committed. have committed until a presumption that that occur be able to be rebutted. And so next slide. I'm proud to say that we are working, um, you know, with a number of people here locally in the courts and the county to try to see if we can find ways to make our system more efficient to be able to address what we see is this increase in our jail population. Part of that, again, is another example of the funding and support that you all have been able to provide recently, which was enlisting the School of Government to conduct a study of evaluating who was in custody and who we are holding in custody. And this was just a couple of the findings from the 2024 study. In the interest of time, I won't get into these. I will say that at least back in 2024, these findings were Overall, I believe, reflect that largely we are pushing people through the system fairly efficiently, that we are keeping people in custody that, you know, certainly at least have an underlying offense that would warrant them being in custody. But there is work to be done on evaluating this study on evaluating how we can make sure again, that people who can safely remain in the community are able to do so while not jeopardizing public safety. Next slide. So just as we have worked through the last 12 years, I think some of the initiatives that have just shown really wonderful partnership between the county and the court system really revolve around the issues of behavioral health. And specifically, you know, I was asked to chair and did share for a great part of the last eight years a group called the Director's Group. Various ones of you, including Commissioner Sollings, participated in that group. We made some great strides in the area of standing up resources both within EMS with our Behavioral Health Crisis Center and other ways of trying to find ways, again, that when people are in crisis and suffering from underlying mental health issues that they have resources that don't require law enforcement intervention. That is an effort that I hope certainly will continue as we move forward. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to run in five general elections in this county and consistently what I heard from our folks in our community was a real desire that we get to the root of of what was causing people to end up entangled in the criminal justice system. And with your assistance and with the assistance of, you know, nonprofits such as Southlight, who we've run a deferral program with for 30 years, we've been able to do that. There's still always going to be work to be done, but I appreciate very much and will continue to be grateful for the just phenomenal partnership. I was thinking over the weekend, I have worked with three different county managers, three different directors of general services administration. But I'm very proud of the work that the county and the courts have managed to do together. And I appreciate very much the opportunity to come today and speak to you.

Before we start questions, I just got a text from Commissioner

um evans that she's grayed out she's a viewer and not a participant commissioner mile yes uh thank you so much uh lauren for uh being online with this morning and bringing us a wonderful update and of course the other part here is i want to thank you for your service to the people of wake county I think you and I go back probably about 15 or 20 years or so. And you swore me in when I was on the board of election. But more importantly, just want to thank you for your service and the information that you brought to us this morning, because it tells us that a lot of good things going on in terms of the stuff that you've been able to accomplish there as a clerk of court and now as our DA. So again, just thank you for your service.

Is there any other questions? I had a comment. I'm really surprised at your total caseload. It says last fiscal year, it was 109,000. That's like 10% of the population of Wake County. Is that Wake County residents? Are we just bad boys? I mean, how did... I feel like I got the song playing to think that 10%, that one out of 10 Wake Countyans has some... That's assuming it's only one per case, right? Has had... cases of some variety in our court system.

I think if you go back to slide number two, and when you have a chance just to review that, that what you would see, Commissioner Adamson, is that while we do have that many cases going through the system, the vast majority of those are traffic offenses. The district attorney in North Carolina is somewhat unique in that we handle everything from seatbelt violations up to and including homicide. And so we've averaged only about 10,000 felonies per a year of course more than we want um but when you think about that in the context of the overwhelming number of those being traffic tickets of course yes they also include people passing through wake county on the way other places so when people say we don't know how to drive your numbers uh prove that we we spend wake county's residents spend a lot of time in traffic court so uh i guess that's a that's a

So I guess your statistics prove what would people say that people in Raleigh drive crazy. Or Wake County. Well, look, I just want to thank you for your dedication. It's been a pleasure. I know you've got six more months. I know you've got a lot to accomplish in those six months. And we look forward to seeing what's next. So I personally hope you're not retiring and retiring. at some beach somewhere because we definitely need you in wake county fighting the good fight and thank you for your service thank you if there's no more questions we will move on to the town of wendell fire district mr alfred how are you doing today very good i think commissioner evans has her hands up oh sorry commissioner evans sorry

Sorry, I was late finding the right button to click, but I just wanted to also thank you to Lauren for her excellent service and for joining us today and all the partnership, you know, that has happened over the years that you've been in the clerk's office and the DA's office. And, you know, we've made a lot of strides. We've made a lot of really good strides. A lot of that is credit. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. And I wanted to say thank you, especially for sharing with us today the workforce formula calculations, whatever that is. And because I think that's really helpful as we have to engage in these conversations with the legislature and others about our staffing, but it's good to know that just gross numbers are not the only consideration. We have to look at our reasons for and what our cases are, like we just talked about with a lot of them being traffic cases. That is definitely a different type of situation than violent crimes in terms of what the demand is for that. So anyway, just appreciate that information. that will help us moving forward in understanding how we need to advocate. And I too am disappointed that certain things seem to have left Wake County out of the budget, but hopefully we'll be able to get some of those resolved and let us know if there's something specific that we need to be advocating for. You know, I'd love to know exactly how is the best way to accomplish that. So if you want to send us an email with that information, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. If there's no more questions, we will move on to Wendell and town of Wendell and the Wendell fire merger. Mr. Alford, I hear we had a very busy weekend with the fire service.

That wasn't too bad. It was actually pretty safe other than a few things that occurred in the city. But I hope everybody had a great 4th of July weekend. And good morning, Commissioner Adamson and the other commissioners on. I want to just take a few minutes today to talk about the town of Windale and the Windale fire merger. I met with y'all back in early December in small groups to talk about this, have discussions, let you know that things were occurring. and wanted to give you an update today. Things have not really changed a lot, but we have some dates and some action items that will be coming to you, and we want to just get in front of those and let you know what's going on. Next slide, Whitney. So presentation topics today, just again, update you on the background, go over some legal items that have to be taken care of, and then give you a calendar of events, again, which will have some action items for the board later this year. Next slide. So quick background, just in case folks have forgot, what is the Wake County Fire Tax District? Well, the 1998 Board of Wake County Commissioners by resolution created a fire tax district. With that, they established a fire commission as an advisory or recommended body. They had a eight and a half cent self-imposed tax cap that we moved. That was just a policy that was moved up in June of 2021 to excuse me, to have a 10 cent tax cap. And we moved that up to 15 in 2021 as part of the budget process. Next slide. The reason we created the fire tax district was in 1994, a tribe data study was completed. And at that time, we had 22 not-for-profit fire departments with individual tax rates. And based on that, everybody was not getting served the same across Wake County. You had varying things in the east where even at a 10-cent tax rate or 15-cent tax rate, you could not produce enough funds to provide fire service equally across the county. Next slide. Wendell chose, as you can see here by the red circle, the town of Wendell was the only municipality that chose to have their incorporated limits as part of the fire tax district. They did that by resolution, and they have been in the fire tax district since its inception in 1998 and 1999. Next slide. So why would we talk about a Wendell and a fire unification now? Well, the first thing is the Wendell Fire Department is the last not-for-profit department that is serving a municipality. We all know that the town of Wendell is one of the fastest growing towns in the state, according to many publications. Under the current model, since they chose to join the fire tax district, you as Wake County commissioners have the taxing authority for fire service within their municipality. The town voters really have no vote other than through y'all on how their funds are spent, nor does the town of Windale's governing body. So really the town has no governing authority over how the fire department operates or spends its money. Town of Windale is the only municipality. You're okay, Brittany. Wake County. So Town of Windale is the only municipality in Wake County that does not govern the fire services. And under the current model, Town of Windale has no authority on how their citizens are taxed. Next slide. So we've been meeting Wake County Fire Services and the Town of Windale and the Windale Fire Department. We've been meeting and talking about this for the last four years concerning the unification and how the timing should work out. Windell Fire Department Board, their not-for-profit board, and the Town of Windell Council both agree, as well as the leadership within the Town of Windell, all agree that the timing is right now to begin this process. Next slide. So here's kind of what we've done so far. We've met with budget. We had this modeled out in our private tax district model. The county manager's office has been briefed and they're supportive. The Wendell town leadership is supportive. We again, we had those small group meetings with y'all back in early December. We have had actually had a formal presentation at one of their town council meetings and with their fire department board. We have briefed the fire commission on this. So now we're up to what are the legal processes and next steps with a proposed effective date of merger of July 1 of 2027. Next slide. So what is the proper process to remove the town of Wendell from the fire tax district? So in consultation with the Wake County Attorney's Office and Tiffany Campbell's on here and she has been fabulous walking us through this. We also had conversations with the UNC School of Government discussions with the county manager's office and the town of windmill leaders on what are the proper legal processes when we talked about this in the first of december i just kind of laid out to y'all you know what we're going to do and everything like that i'm not the legal person so nothing's really changed we just have a calendar events and things that have to take place next slide So what are their task lists and upcoming action items? So the first thing, and we have already did this, is we have documented, in order to remove the town of Wendell from the fire tax district, and Tiffany, jump in and correct me if I messed this up anywhere, but according to what we know now and the way that the resolution was performed before, there are certain steps that have to happen to remove the town of Wendell. So first is we have to document that the fire tax district from a lending institution does not have any debt whatsoever. And we've done that. We've confirmed that with the finance department, with Wake County, that there is no debt from a lending institution that exists for the fire tax district. Wendell will provide a resolution to us sometime August, September, that by resolution they are requesting removal from the fire tax district. That's not really a legal requirement, but we want to have that document in our hands and in our bag as we move forward. The county attorney's office will first, and I've got these a little backwards on the slide here, but the county attorney's office will draft a new resolution that says that we want to have a fire tax district with a tax cap of 15 cents. Nothing's changing. We already have that in place. We just have to redo this because we're removing Wendell. At the same time, a few days later, the attorney's office will also draft a fire tax district resolution that does not include the town of Wendell within that. Fire services, we've already got a report. It's in the attorney's office for review right now, a report that demonstrates the need for fire protection in the fire tax district without the town of Windale. Very similar to what y'all did last year when we were preparing to take the Hook area of Wake County in there. We have to provide that report that's available to the public to see. Next slide. So public hearings are required for these actions with proper advertisement of four weeks and that you have to do two board actions that we just talked about, but these can occur on the same date. So at this point, the town of Windale Council is set to provide us a resolution either August or September asking for removal And then Wake County Board of Commissioners will remove the town of Wendell from the fire tax district by resolution and reestablish the fire tax district without the town of Wendell by resolution at the same board meeting in October of 2026. When you talk about this, think about a puzzle. So think about the fire tax district as a puzzle. And when you remove that town of Windale piece out of there in order to make that puzzle all fit back together, you have to reestablish the whole thing. So that's really what we're doing right here. There's a resolution that takes the removal. We have to make sure the tax cap stays the same. Don't we have to have to do a whole lot of other stuff? Tax cap remains the same. And then by resolution, you readopt the fire tax district without the town of Windale. All these items would have an effective date of June 30th of 2027 to ensure that tax bills aren't sent out. And at that point, the town of Wendell would be their own tax and authority and the town of Wendell fire department, excuse me, the Wendell fire department would move under the town of Wendell and be a part of their governing body. Next slide. So here's our anticipated calendar of action for dates. We've talked about all this as we went through that presentation, but these are things that where the general statutes have told us what we need to do. And then we have our dates inserted there. And again, Tiffany and I, especially Tiffany has worked through this and provided all this. And we feel like we have this product ready to go. We just want to get this before y'all, before the Public Safety Committee. This same presentation or something very similar will go before the Fire Commission at their next meeting, but they were briefed on this topic during the budget process when we had our meeting in April. Tiffany, do you have anything to add? Did I miss anything?

No, Darrell, I think you did a great job. The only thing that I would add is this looks very complicated and convoluted because it is, but that's because there's no statutory way for a municipality to leave an existing fire tax district. That's why we are having to go through each of these statutory steps. It's a combination of a couple of different processes. So it's just a matter of juggling all of the required notices, and then we can just do everything in one public hearing and one meeting.

And it'll actually be two actions at one point here. Correct. Next slide. I think that's it.

I do have one question before we move on to discussion. What happens to the equipment? Will there be a transfer of physical assets and how does that work?

Yes, ma'am. So we have, every time we do one of these, remember this is, we did a Wake Forest, Garner, Roseville, all these over the last couple years. We're using the same consultant. He puts together a product where all the equipment transfers and things like that take place. The thing with the town of Wendell is that the county, in this particular case, owns all the equipment and stations with the exception of their downtown station. So we will do a memorandum of understanding where they can use all our equipment until the replacement cycle comes up and then we'll cost share on the purchase of the new equipment. So if you think about it, their money helped buy it anyway. We were taxing within the town of Wendell, so their funds helped purchase all the equipment there.

Thank you. Is there any questions? Comments?

Yes, good morning, Daryl, and thanks for your great presentation. It sounds like you guys are doing some great work out here in Wendell switching this over. I know there's been a long time coming, and so trying to make this adjustment, I think it's going to be a great benefit, especially with the new station that's going to be coming online down there. So can you talk a bit more about that new station?

Yes, sir, so the new station two that is out on Riley Hill Road is a co-location with Wake County EMS. It is actually a Wake County EMS regional facility with a fire component on it. Moving that station to the east a little bit better serves, based on our response models, will better serve the community of Riley Hill and the fast growing areas of Wendell as they expand out towards Ammons Acres. That particular station, we have saved money. That is a cash purchase for us. So Wake County will retain ownership of that along with the Windale Falls Station.

That's awesome. Thank you so much for that update. Yes, sir.

Is there any more questions? Commissioner Jackson.

Yes, good morning. Hi, Daryl. Thank you. I know you and the team have been working on this for some time and getting close to it. Can you share a little bit about any relationship with Wendell in this process and the increase in our fire tax rate that was in our fiscal 26 budget?

Yes, Pam, so part of your question broke out, but I think I got the gist of it. So we have been in conversations with the town of Wendell on how this works, and the town will move to what we call a cost share. So we have a cost share model where the population of the area they serve outside of the town is compared to the population on the inside, the call volume, the valuation. area, heated square footage, and all that's put into a formula. And you say, okay, with all these formulas, what should the town spend on the fire service and what should the county? So they will move to a cost share. So although it is a slight factor, financial hit to the fire tax district. We've been modeling this for the last two or three years, so we don't see it as a great concern. It hasn't moved the needle per se within the fire tax district as much as everyone would have thought. And again, it helps too, again, that they're going to be a cost share in any any money that we owe back to the county for debt on fire trucks remember i told you earlier there's no money for lending the institution we actually uh kind of borrow money internally for that uh the town of window will have to pay the county back as we're making those payments back to the general fund from the fire tax system that answer your question yes it does thank you yes ma'am is there any more questions or comments um

Daryl, has the town of Wendell voted on this? And was it a unanimous vote? And what are you hearing from the residents?

So we had a meeting at the town of Windale. We actually talked about this at a community meeting too when we were there talking about the Riley Hill Station. The town of Windale board voted unanimously that night or gave the thumbs up. I don't think it was a vote. They kind of gave a thumbs up at a work session for their town manager to continue moving forward and gave him the authority to negotiate and move forward as we did this. But they're all in favor.

Okay, thank you. Have you heard any negative comments from residents who are not comfortable with this happening?

I have not heard a negative comment from anyone about this so far. This is, if I failed to mention When you look at the firefighters, Chief Staples with Wendell has said in his exit interviews, the biggest thing that he has with his exit interviews is folks are leaving to go somewhere that's got elders. So as they move into the town of Wendell, they'll become part of the local government retirement system.

Okay. Thank you. Is there any objections to moving forward with this? I see none. I think we're ready to go, Daryl.

Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Stallings, your camera's on too. Oh, there you go.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that forward. And next, we're going to the Wake County Mobile Command Post. Mr. Patel. Good morning.

How are y'all doing? Good. Good. So thank you for the opportunity to talk about our Wake County mobile command post. This will be a great endeavor in modernizing our capabilities across the county. Next slide, please. So our current command post supports on-scene command coordination and communications. So it's a self-contained unit. It has its own power, has its own capabilities, short of a bathroom for various reasons. But it's deployable and essentially can become a office space in the field for coordinating emergency incidents or other things that may need some sort of kind of field command post for. And it also supports the multi-agency aspect of public safety in what we do day in and day out. It bridges our on-scene response with the ability to connect back with our dispatch centers as well as the emergency operations center. And then it also supports all of our public safety disciplines from law enforcement to fire, EMS, and emergency management, as well as beyond public safety, you know, some of our other partners as well. It's designed for both emergency response and large scale plan events here. So with the image you see on the screen is our current command post. Next slide, please. The current unit was placed into service back in 2006. And so it has been serving us well for the past two decades. And it was originally acquired through Department of Homeland Security grant funding, as well as some local dollars over the years to continue to maintain and upgrade the unit and things there. It is maintained by Wake County Emergency Management, though again, we don't call it our unit. We're responsible for maintaining it, but it does belong to all of our public safety agencies across the county because it was built and purchased for the specific purpose of supporting all of our partners. The ongoing operations are sustained through the Wake County Public Safety Radio System Fund. And so the subscriber fees that pay into that to maintain our public safety radio system, a portion of that does go to supporting this unit as well. It's currently housed at the Cary Fire Department and is deployed 24-7 by crews at Fire Station 1 just off of Harrison Avenue. So they have good access to Highway 40, 540, and because it's housed at a firehouse, like all of our fire stations and other public safety stations, they routinely check off the unit and then make sure that it's readily available for deployment so it allows it to get out the door as quickly as possible.

Next slide, please.

So again, the command post, which we call COM1, supports both public safety and governments across Wake County. So a number of our partners utilize it. Sheriff's Office utilizes it for investigations in the field or critical incidents. A number of our fire departments will use it for planned events as well as emergency response when needed. We've used it on things like very large fire investigations or just places where we needed a command post to be able to coordinate search and rescue operations. EMS may use it from time to time for some of their events as well. And then a lot of our municipal partners use it as well for public safety operations. It's gone out for public works operational support. So things like making sure our water systems and things are good, especially post-disaster, you know, things that may need to happen in the field like assessments or damage assessments and things, COMM 1 has supported those as well. And COM1 can function as a backup 911 center when it's required. So it has access to the radio system. It has access to our computer-aided dispatch systems as well. And we have used it for field dispatch as well for things like the state fair and other major events that happen across the county. And we've also had our state agencies utilize it for emergency incidents as well. So again, for the incidents that we call emergency response, those things that require that on-scene command or our planned special events, this unit has served us very well across the past two decades. Next slide, please. So just some of the deployments that it's been on, search and rescue operations. We do have to do that every now and then for looking for people in urban or wooded areas or doing lake or waterway based searches as well. It's been out on major accidents, major fires or fire investigations. It's been out to the airport a number of times to support their emergency responses as well. And we've used it for a lot of special events. You know, it was out for a number of our 4th of July events over the weekend, as well as things like planned events that we had done in the past. So, you know, we ran the PNC, at that time PNC Arena, now the Lenovo Center as a vaccine site for the COVID operations. And COM1 was out there to support all of our field activities in those parking lot areas for the duration of the vaccination event as well. It supports dignitary events as well. When we have the president or vice president or other protectees that come into the area and we need a command post where there may not be a physical location in the buildings or something, COM1 can be placed right outside of a building to be able to bring all the partners together in one place. Law enforcement has used it for barricaded subjects or hostage type situations. And one of the major events that it supports every year is the State Fair, which we all know brings nearly a million people into a pretty small space right here in the heart of Wake County. And so it goes out to be able to support the public safety operations of the NC State Fair as well. Next slide. So the new command post has been ordered. It is currently in construction right now. It is 45 feet in lengths, slightly longer, about five feet longer than the current COM1 unit. It does add dual slide outs this time, whereas the current unit only has slide outs on one side. So it'll give us a lot more space and flexibility to be able to use that space. It does integrate a lot of modern communications and technology systems to be able to aid in the support of our public safety partners that may use it in the field. And it gives us more workstations. So we'll have greater capacity to support backup 911 operations, search and rescue operations with mapping support and those things. And then it provides the same as we have now, a dedicated conference space and briefing space for unified command. This unit that we have purchased is funded primarily through ARPA funds. And we're going to utilize the same deployment model that we have now. Cary Fire Station is ready and willing to support the new unit. And we are looking at receiving this unit in late August. So short period now we'll be able to have this unit on site. Next slide. Just to give you some visuals, this is what the new unit renderings look like. So again, slide outs on both sides. We do have some equipment that's roof mounted. So a new piece of technology that's coming with this unit is we will have a tethered drone that's built into the roof of the unit. It'll be able to self deploy when it's out on a scene. And because it's tethered, essentially has unlimited flight time because it's getting power through the tether that's connected to the truck. And so at 150 feet, it essentially can be up in the sky, giving a bird's eye view back to those that are supporting the command post, or we can actually stream that to offsite locations as well. Oh, no problem. Go ahead to the next slide. And so again, the double slide outs, the new equipment, we've got a mast on the unit as well to be able to do things like communications capabilities. We have amateur radio capabilities in addition to our public safety. And then we also have the ability to do some newer emerging technologies for new threats, such as being able to have drone detection built into this unit as well. So if there are nefarious drones or folks that are not supposed to be flying in an area, we'll be able to coordinate with public safety operations to support that as well. Again, the expanded workstation will give us the ability for better connectivity and the ability for us to support backup 911 center or general command post operations as well. Next slide. So again, so a few more details here. Again, there's a lot here, but again, this is the rendering from the vendor that is building the unit. It's a flexible space. It's going to allow us to enhance what we've been able to accomplish over the last two decades to be able to put a new unit into service with better technology, better space, and better utilization so that it can support all of our public safety partners in the field. Next slide. So I'll pause there if anybody has any questions about the unit, about its capabilities or anything else.

Is there any questions? Chair Myall.

Yes, thank you so much for that great presentation. It just seemed like we got so much good stuff that you guys are bringing to us today. As someone that retired from the Department of Public Safety and Military, the command post is vital in terms of operations, you know, because you can't have enough stuff and you can't reach back home every time you need something. So able to have that command post on site is just going to solve a whole lot of emergency type situation that you guys may have. So I'm looking forward to seeing that new unit come on board. especially with the ability to expand because that's going to be right. It's going to give you guys unlimited opportunity to be able to put more people there on site. So congratulations. I can't wait to tour that once you bring it online.

Thank you, sir. We'll definitely be holding a walkthrough once we get it online and all the equipment moved into the new one and happy to host the commissioners that would like to come see it. Awesome. Thank you.

Is there any other questions? So that was going to be one of my questions. When is this going to be online? It looks like almost like space age stuff.

So we're expecting it in late August, as long as everything stays on target right now. So once it comes in, it'll take at least about 30 days or so to be able to move some equipment from the old unit into the new unit. And so we are expecting to have it into place by early October at the latest in time, hopefully for the state fair so we can be able to support the state fair with the new unit with the expanded capabilities.

That's great. Thank you. This is exciting stuff. You know, I love my mobile units. If if we end up. with another large public health crisis like we did during the pandemic. It looks like this is something that we could deploy and help with that as well.

Yes, absolutely. So whether it be, you know, even if it's not a large scale public health incident, it can be, you know, localized to an area of the county, a neighborhood, and we can deploy this unit to be able to support that as well.

Well, thank you very much. And I don't think I'm seeing any additional questions. Thanks for bringing this forward. Oh, Commissioner Jackson.

Yes. Hi. I look forward to this coming online and getting the tour and experiencing it. Can you share a little bit about what you would consider or what your team would consider like the greatest innovations? You do a good job laying it out, but it is helping to modernize what we've had going on. Where are the greatest innovations and capabilities with this new mobile unit?

So one of them is going to be that tethered drone. So, you know, looking at our capabilities, you know, a lot of our public safety partners have drones in the field. So we do have the ability to bring all of that data into COM1 and also send that over to the EOC or a municipality if they needed it. But being able to have the tethered drone means that, you know, 150 feet, we get a bird's eye view of all of the places that we're at. Our current units only got cameras on a 35-foot mast. So being able to go that high means we can have thermal imagery, we can have optical imagery, so we can take a look at situations that are unfolding while keeping our responders safe as well. So that's one of the biggest ones. And then the other one is some of the technology that we've included in terms of communications. So being able to support our dispatch operations in the field, we've been able to actually add in web-based radio capability. So no matter where we are, we can hit our radio system and be able to talk on that radio system as well as communicate effectively. So our dispatchers get a feeling of them being in the dispatch center, but still being able to have access to all of the right tools to be able to do their job. and support field dispatching, which is a huge, sometimes sounds small, but being able to actually sit next to the folks at the state fair or at a July 4th event and be able to route resources directly to where that person needs that help significantly increases our ability to be able to get folks the help that they need.

Awesome. Thank you.

Is there any other questions before we move on?

I'm assuming this means we'll have the best mobile unit in the state, right?

I believe we will, yes.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, this is very exciting to be able to deploy this. Because I know when we have, sometimes in Wake County, when we have big events, they are big. And I feel like I'm the old cranky citizen that says, oh, we ain't had a hurricane in a while, it's time. So, because I lived through Fran and any help is beautiful because it's, you know, I know it was difficult to get to everybody who was in a tough situation. And so I think friend is sort of my standard of what can we do to help? Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

We'll move on to celebrating EMS stroke and heart care. Dr. Williams.

Hey, Commissioner Adamson. This is John Studnick. And right before Dr. Williams gets on, I just want to take a quick moment to introduce Dr. Williams, who has been with Wake County for a long time as our Deputy Medical Director, but at the start of this fiscal year, July 1st, He's transitioned into a new role as the EMS Medical Director, System Medical Director for Wake County. So we're super pleased to have Jeff in this new role. And a great way to introduce him to all of you and to the system, I think, is to share some good news today about our excellent clinical care, specifically stroke care and heart care. So thanks for taking an opportunity for having Dr. Williams speak with you today on this topic and introduce him in his new role as medical director for the system. So with that, I'll pass the slides on over to Jeff.

Thanks so much, John, and good morning, everybody. I realize this morning I'm wearing my uniform shirt in solidarity with our field staff today for our 50th anniversary proclamation to occur later. Thank you all very much for that. And I'm realizing that I'm so new that I still need a new shirt. It still says Deputy Medical Director, but we'll get that sorted out. I think I've met everyone on the call. If I haven't, I appreciate John giving you the wonderful introduction. And we'll just go ahead and jump right in here with some good news about EMS stroke and heart care. Next slide, please. Thanks, Brittany. So Mission Lifeline is an American Heart Association awards program that recognizes EMS agencies around the country for high quality cardiac and stroke care. Basically, there are certain evidence-based treatment guidelines that EMS agencies and also obviously hospitals should meet to improve heart and stroke care in their communities. And those things can be timeliness, metrics, or getting a correct EKG on the correct patient, or things like taking the patient to the correct hospital for cardiac or stroke care. And bottom line, the top level award from the American Heart Association is the gold award which recognizes EMS agencies that achieve greater than 75% compliance in those metrics throughout the entire calendar year and also show some level of sustained success by having received the same or similar award last year. We began or sorry the American Heart Association began in 2016 and Wake County EMS has met criteria for the gold award every year actually since 2016, since the inception of the program. Next slide, please. Again, just a little bit more specifically about heart attack and stroke, we are measuring things every day here at Wake County EMS that apply to these metrics as well as to our own internal Metrics on performance things like first medical contact to hospital cardiac intervention and having a short time there basically that means showing up in a timely way after the 911 call and getting EKG in a timely way, getting off that scene, getting out of that house in a timely fashion, and then getting to the hospital an appropriate amount of time to have that person get a cardiac catheterization within 90 minutes of their 911 call. We're very good at that metric. Actually, we're typically below 60 minutes instead of just the target of 90. And then stroke, as you all know, is a lot about recognition and about screening that occurs in the field and making sure that we're recognizing stroke when it's present, even if it may be a little bit subtle, and then getting the patient to the right facility that can take care of their stroke. As I mentioned briefly on the prior slide, Wake County EMS has not only met the 75% threshold, but is greater than 90% in all of those metrics.

Next slide, please.

This is probably the busiest slide that I have to show you. I want to make sure everybody understands the way we measure ourselves, specifically with cardiac arrest in Wake County. Our cardiac arrest care is certainly something that we pride ourselves on and something that certainly Mission Lifeline helps recognize as well. Cardiac arrest in the out-of-hospital environment, or really honestly, even in the in-hospital environment, is a very difficult condition to survive. When your heart stops and you're not breathing anymore, you really are obviously not in a good spot to potentially have a survivable event. and the national average in terms of people who survive after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is really only about 10 percent and that's only 10 of the systems that report these things our overall survival rate in wake county is about 15 percent um so you know a good uh several percentage points higher than the national average and it's been 15 or around 15 for a number of years One thing that we like to celebrate as well is when we sort of compare apples to apples or in terms of the most survivable patients who have cardiac arrest, and that's the bottom group there, those cardiac arrest patients who are witnessed to have a cardiac arrest, somebody helps them out in some way, they're found to have a shockable rhythm, which is the most survivable rhythm, those patients say still nationally only survive about 13% of the time But in high functioning systems like ours here in Wendt County EMS, they survive somewhere around 40% of the time. And that's survival all the way through to hospital discharge. One of the things that makes that possible is our relatively high bystander CPR rate. So we have a great rate of people in our community who want to help out their neighbor, help out their family by providing CPR or an AED if that's necessary in the setting of a cardiac arrest. Next slide. Here's our award certificate from this particular year. But I think the most important slide probably is the next slide, Brittany. And this is also busy, but highlights what I said early on, which is that ever since the American Heart Association has had this awards program ever, when they started, our system here at Wake County EMS has met criteria to receive those awards. So I think we said 10 years, but actually 2026 will be 11 total years where we have met or exceeded these standards for high performing cardiac arrest cardiac in general in terms of heart attacks and stroke care. Next slide. So we are very proud of our system here at Wake County EMS and you should be as well, specifically with our high acuity care. And wanted to reassure everyone that our care has been excellent for a long time and will certainly continue to be excellent. And one of my goals as your new EMS Medical Director is to make sure that excellence continues year after year. Thanks so much for your time today and I'm happy to take any questions.

First, Dr. Williams, congratulations. We don't do personnel. We're a policymaking board. But I was cheering for you behind the scenes. Because, you know, when my husband fell out at the event to celebrate people you had saved, you had to come and take care of him. So we joked for years that he got the best treatment. response time of anybody that he got about 30 seconds from an emergency medicine doctor and that was as good as we would ever get with him but uh but so i've experienced your care while he was still with us and it really is top notch and when you're in a situation with a sick loved one having you know competent very well trained people show up is is is what we want commissioner jackson

Yes. Hi, Jeff. Good to see you. Welcome. Thank you. These are wonderful numbers, performance numbers, and it's great to see that it's longstanding. It just brings to mind the recent budget that passed in the state where the General Assembly appropriated dollars to ensure a cardiac arrest plan is in place for public schools. So I wonder, What is our history? Well, number one, should they come asking for help and thoughts about how to put that plan in place? We certainly have the medals and the performance to contribute to that. But I wonder how much of these numbers reflect school-based cardiac arrests and what is our history of working with the public schools to have emergency preparedness programs?

Yeah, that's a great question, Commissioner. I think that number one, we've always worked closely with the school system whenever they've had a need around EMS response, EMS care to include cardiac arrest. One of the things that the schools obviously have is AEDs in place at their schools so that they can have rapid response as well as trained responders. As you know, it's a requirement for high school graduates to be trained in CPR. That's typically something that the schools handle themselves in different ways. More than happy to help out with that if it's needed. To answer your question about How many cardiac arrests occur in schools? Fortunately, it's very few. Pediatric cardiac arrest is relatively rare compared to adult out of hospital cardiac arrest. And so the cardiac arrests at schools that we have historically responded to have sometimes been staff members. and or parents or adults that are at the school for whatever reason. There have been a few pediatric cardiac arrests at schools though, and just like any other sort of public or semi-public place, typically those responses are the ones that get the, obviously the fastest response, also usually with trained responders, and are some of the ones that might be considered most survivable. So we do have a history of thinking about that, and certainly given the new budget item If the school system wants to reach out and work with us on ways to look at that care or improve that care, we're more than happy to work with them on that.

Awesome. Thank you for sharing those numbers. Good. Glad to hear that the numbers are low. It's just such a sensitive situation that we want to provide the best for. And I was noticing the bystander rate was higher, you know, just how much higher it was. And I was thinking about those seniors. So thank you for sharing that context. Absolutely.

Yeah.

I know our Wake County public, I just want to say, I know our Wake County public schools do a great job, but it was just top of mind as that budget item passed. So it'll be interesting to see how we get even better and what's possible there. Thank you.

Chair Myall.

Yes, good morning, Jeff. Always good to see you and all the great work you guys do over there. Of course, I think last time you and I talked, we was at one of your graduations. Yes, sir. Thank you for coming. It's always a pleasure to see what you guys do over there. As a matter of fact, that's the question I was heading to. Could you give us a little bit more information about the graduation programs and the different training that you guys are doing. I know you're staying quite busy. You're producing and putting a lot of people out on the street to make sure we provide great service for the citizens of Wake County.

Yes, sir. We're very busy. We have basically three just briefly, three arms of our education programs that our fantastic professional development, Deputy Director Chief Stiluca is in charge of. And she has a great team out there. And we do basically three things. The first thing that we do, of course, is our continuing education on an ongoing basis to make sure that our paramedics and EMTs are up to snuff with the latest and greatest education technology medical literature reviews and that sort of thing to make sure our care is on point on an ongoing basis from a graduation standpoint the second thing we do is we have a new hire academy that we help hold three to four times a year based on need in terms of how many positions we need to hire for and that sort of thing. And that is a group of folks that comes from all over the country, really, to join Wake County EMS. And we are fortunate to be pretty well known and able to recruit from every part of the country. And as a large EMS system, we have EMTs and paramedics who want to come work for us who are from California and New York and Texas and obviously right here in Wake County and and neighboring counties in North Carolina. And so that group of people has to come together and understand how things work from a North Carolina EMS regulatory standpoint and from a Wake County EMS medicine and operations standpoint. And so that new hire academy occurs for about six to eight weeks or so depending on a number of different factors with education both in the classroom and in the field and then they graduate from that academy and it's a certainly an achievement that they've sort of become wake county ems providers and not just you know a provider from around the country who may not understand our local system And then the third thing we do is, I think all of you are probably familiar with this, with the commissioner support and county leadership support. Several years ago now, we developed an internal paramedic program here in Wake County where we take our interested sort of go-getter, cream of the crop EMTs who want to become paramedics, and we train them internally to become paramedics. And this is an accredited program just as if it were at a community college or other local educational institution within North Carolina. and they get trained exactly the same way to become a north carolina paramedic just as they would at wake tech or at jcc and we've done that to support all of the hiring that we also do externally and that is a win-win program for us because It takes folks who are already invested in the county, already are good employees who want to be here and want to stay here, and kind of moves them to that top tier of pre-hospital provider. That is a more efficient program for us. It takes about 10 to 12 months to do that. And then, again, they're already hired and already in the system. And so there are some efficiencies there. And I can't remember, sir, whether you've been to a couple of our graduations. You may have been to both an academy graduation and a paramedic program graduation but those those paramedic programs occur currently about once a year and we're actually just getting ready to start staggering those programs to maybe have them occur more like more like twice a year sort of on on an alternating schedule so very appreciative of all the support we receive for ems education and making sure our folks stay top notch

Thank you so much. That tells you you guys are doing a lot of great work over there. Keep it up. You know you have our support on this side. Y'all just keep working hard and we appreciate all that you do.

Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

Is there any other questions? I did have one additional question before we close out today. What do our vacancies look like? Vacant positions?

NEMS?

Yes.

I'm going to defer to Dr. Sednik on that one.

Yeah, I can grab that one, Jeff. Thanks, Commissioner Adamson, for asking. We just did a hiring review the last week of June. I'm pleased to report that our vacancy rate for paramedics is under 5%, about 3%, actually, which is fantastic. And our vacancy rate for EMTs is at about 9%. And we have a class of 30 starting the second week of July, which will backfill most all of those vacancies. And we started recruiting for our October class or our October Academy already. So we continue to have a very low vacancy rate in EMS. We do have turnover, which is natural and occurs. But we have great, as Jeff said, Academy program that brings new folks into the system, which helps us keep those vacancy rates very low.

Thank you. That's really good to know because I know we've been through periods where our vacancy rates was where we didn't want to see it. So it's good. So if there's anybody out there that desires to go into EMS, it sounds like there's a class in October and reach out and go from there. Thank you. If there's nothing else, then go to the order. I think we're done 45 minutes early today. And I don't know, maybe it's Monday and we're not very chatty, but we have a general meeting at 2 o'clock. And the agenda for that is online if anybody wants to see what's going on with that. And if there's nothing else, we will adjourn this meeting. See you at 2 o'clock or 1.30 for photos.

Yeah. Take care. Bye-bye.