It's crazy to me how long people would wait. You do not look old enough to have been working for this week for 30 years. That's for sure. So anyway, you'll help us. I know you'll help us. Do you have a specific question for me? Are you prepared for it? Yeah, what the heck? Is that good enough? That is. I will have an answer for what the heck. Good evening. We'd like to call the Durham City Council meeting to order on Monday, the 6th of March at 7.01 p.m. I'd certainly like to welcome all of you that are here with us this evening. We just take a moment for silent meditation, please. Thank you. I would ask Councilman Davis if he would leave us in the pledge. Madam Clerk, can we call the roll please? Mayor Bell. Present. Mayor Pro Temp, Cole McFadden. Councilmember Davis. Councilmember Johnson. Councilmember Moffitt. Councilmember Reese. And Councilmember Shul. Thank you. Let me ask first are there comments by members of the council? Yes. We recognize Councilor Davis and Mayor Pro Temp, Councilman Moffitt in that order. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My family and I have spent a considerable amount of time discussing the 2017 municipal elections in Durham. With a careful consideration of many factors, I want to take this moment to announce that I will not be a candidate for re-election. Although I continue to enjoy the work of the council immensely, I am looking forward to the pursuit of several civic, personal, and family projects over the course of the next few years. With almost five months before the opening of the filing period, I want to alert potential candidates at the next war two contest will not include an incumbent. Even though I will not be a candidate for re-election, I want to assure my colleagues and the residents of Durham that my continuing work on the council will be conducted with the very same rigor as a candidate who would be seeking re-election. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for allowing me to make this announcement at this time. Well, you're quite welcome, and I would have to say it comes as a surprise. We serve this council and the city admirably during the time that you've been there, and we all wish you the best. And I'm sure you've made a decision that fills in your interest and your family's best interests, but I certainly have appreciated your service with you. Yes, we are shocked by that news, but I know Harriet will keep you busy. This is what I wanted to say. I wanted to thank, where's Beverly? Beverly and all of her staff for the outstanding work they did on that magnificent state of the city address and program. It was wonderful, and Mr. Mayor, we were just honored to be a part of that. Also, I want to congratulate the Chief on receiving recognition honors to Sundays in a row. I was at a function yesterday because I was on program celebrating Women's History Month, and she was one of the honorees. So Chief, we have to congratulate you. And then last Sunday she was among honorees at Antioch Baptist Church. So you're well known in this city, county, state, country, world. Congratulations on your work. And I was glad that I was able to participate in the event yesterday because there were about 10 black boys serving as ushers, a part of the Thomas Mentoring Program. And so they actually escorted all of the honorees in, and I was escorted by one of them, and I had a chance to give all of them warm fuzziness, and that's what we need to do with these boys. And I think that's it, Mr. Mayor. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, recognize Councilman Moffitt. Yes, thank you. Councilman Davis, Eddie, I'm saddened, and I know that you would have approached the decision with careful thought, powerful thought, and I honor that. But I've enjoyed working with you, and I'm glad that we'll be working together for another year. I also want to thank the, I'll take a moment to thank the Chief. I was at the Durham Can with a number of my colleagues were there as well. The Durham Can meeting on immigration yesterday, and I know that your presence and the leadership that you're providing the department speaks volumes to the immigrants in our community that this is a city that welcomes everyone, and that it's a city where we honor all of our brothers and sisters. Thank you for that. I want to also just appreciate Durham Public Schools and all the students there who participated in the evening of entertainment. On Friday night, I'm embarrassed to say it's the first time I've been there, and it was so much fun. There were elementary school students, middle school students, high school students, and if you've ever seen the television show Glee, they've got nothing on evening of entertainment. It was a great time. Finally, I need to ask my colleagues, I'm not sure if I've missed a council meeting today, but I'm going to do it in style. I'm going to miss the Coffee with Council at Pack 5, the work session on Thursday, and the Coffee with Council at Pack 4. I hasten to say I've already asked Mr. Chestnut to forgive my absence, but I would appreciate an excused absence for those three meetings. So move, Mr. Mayor, if that's appropriate. I'm about to move a second. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Open the vote. Close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. Thank you. I'm sorry to miss all those meetings. I have a couple of other jobs and one of them is pulling me out of town for the weekend. Thank you. That vote was 7-0, I'm pretty sure. Okay. All right, thank you. Are there other announcements? Actually, I was at that event and I forgot to mention the talent in the Durham Public Schools. The kids were awesome.  The youth and teens were awesome. Well, I don't normally talk about everything I've been doing during the week and I'm sure all of us have done a lot of things, but I think that was a special shout-out to the Durham Public Schools. It was an amazing program. And then Saturday, over at Hay-Tow Heritage Center, I know I was there and Councilwoman Johnson was there, students from Southern High School in conjunction with work they had done at Duke University, another display of really amazing talent. So if anyone has any doubt about the value of arts in our schools, you just need to see what's happening in the Durham Public Schools. I talk about good things happening in our community. Good things are very much happening in Durham Public Schools, especially when you look at the type of activity and performances that our students are able to give. This morning I worked with Mills on Wheels. And on the assembly line were students from the University of Georgia who are in Durham for a whole week and their focus is on food justice. It was just amazing to see how they worked this morning and it was amazing to see how much energy is expended in that assembly line. And then I did go out and help to serve four or five citizens as well. And they're expecting at least three more of us at some time in the future. That's it, Mr. Mayor. Are you sure? I'm not really sure. I'll try that if you want to. Well, I just want to share with the council. I have a letter that I have prepared for the Senate of the Burger and it relates to a recent bill that has been introduced, Senate Bill 145. And it was supposedly introduced because of some comments that have been made by law enforcement agents. They don't say who the law enforcement agents are. Speaking about the fact that cities such as Durham have made public statements casting doubt on their willingness to buy by the law relative to an enforcement of the applicable federal and state laws regarding immigration. And I just felt it was appropriate that we set the record straight in terms of what the city of Durham has done and has not done. In particular, since it was issued as a press release and one of the so-called reasons for the law of SB, the state Senate Bill 145 was because of actions taken by the city of Durham. They included two other cities. I can't speak for other cities, but I can definitely speak for Durham. So this letter will be going out tomorrow and all of you will have copies on it when it's sent out. Having said that, we'll move to the agenda. I'll first ask are there prior items by the city manager, acting city manager? Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. I do have one priority item this evening. The administration recommends that agenda item number five, the establishment of service area and service area fee for the Farrington Road waterline extension be referred back to us for further work. Yes, sir. That is all. Entertain a motion on the city manager's prior items. It's been a proper move in second. Madam Clerk, we open the vote. We close the vote. The motion passes 7-0. Likewise, recognize the city attorney for any prior items. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, no priority items. Likewise, City Clerk. No items, Mr. Mayor. We're perceived with the agenda as printed. And the first item is the consent agenda. As you know, the consent agenda consists of items that may be passed by single vote. If a member of the council or member of the audience pulls one of the consent agenda items, we will discuss that later in the agenda. And I will read the heading of each consent agenda. Item one is approval of city council minutes. Item three is the last mild agreement between the city of Durham and the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Item four is contract amendment number one was center grow for biosolids, the watering, haul and disposal land application associated services. Item five is establishment of service area and service area fee for the Farrington Road waterline extension and that's being referred back to the administration. Item six is state contract purchase for replacement HD video cameras for the go Durham buses. Item seven is a bid term contract for sodium chloride, which is a road salt. Item eight is bid term contract for aggregates. Item nine is the corporate purchase for replacement street sweepers. Item 10 is FY 2016-2017 second quarter financial report. Item 11 is human resources agreement with the Mercer Group Inc. Item 12 is contract SW 68 2017 sidewalk repairs with brow construction company. Item 13 is utility extension agreement with Clara and Sally Hackens individuals to serve 4129 Old Road. Item 14 is environmental systems research institute software maintenance service agreement. Item 16 and 17 items that can be found on the general business agenda. And item 18 is an item that can be found on the general business agenda as public hearings. I entertain a motion for approval of consent agenda items with exception of item five. It's been properly moved in second. Madam clerk, we open the vote. Close the vote. The motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Thank you. We move to the general business agenda item 16 2016 annual crime report presentation. I recognize Chief Davis. Good evening everyone. This report will cover the department's six performance measures. Part one index crime, violent crime, property crime, clearance rates, response time to priority one calls and staffing. Additional statistics and fourth quarter highlights and activities are also included in your accompanying document. Before I get started, I know we've done some restructuring and reorganizing in the department. So what I wanted to do is just put a face behind some of the responsibilities in the department right now. So I brought the leadership with me. And tonight we have Deputy Chief Rick Pendergrass who is over operations who's very familiar with operations. Raise your hand, Rick. Thank you. And Deputy Chief Anthony Marsh, who is not here. He has historically taken on many of the administrative responsibilities, but he is also taking on administrative and investigations bureau as well. Assistant Chief Service, Investigations Bureau, Assistant Chief D.C. Allen, who is support services bureau. Assistant Chief Todd Rose, patrol services bureau. Captain Mary Ann Bond, she is the executive assistant to the chief. And Will Glenn, who is our public affairs manager. And not to leave out Mr. Burwell, who has a very important role in the department. He is over our budgeting and fiscal, over administrative services bureau. Thank you. I'm going to start with part one index crime, property and violent crime. Part one index crimes consist of violent crime plus property crimes. Overall part one crime was down by 4% in 2016. Crime was down in four categories. Aggravated assault, larceny, burglary, and overall part one property crime. Part one index crime, part one violent crime per 100,000. As you see in the purple, the upper band was down by 9% in Durham since 2000. Part one property crime in the blue area per 100,000 was down by 49% in Durham since 2000. This is a historical low for property crime in the city. The aggregate total of crime victimization in Durham through this period continues to be on the decline. Violent crime was up by 2%, driven largely by a 17% increase in robbery. A robbery task force was formed in early November to focus on the uptick in these robberies throughout the city. The task force focuses on commercial robberies and robberies committed with firearms. Investigators work closely with the crime analysts and investigators from other agencies throughout the triangle. Since November, task force investigators have charged 46 suspects with more than 60 charges. Several have been charged with multiple robberies. The task force has taken in over 200 cases in the last three months. 68% of robberies involved guns. 63% were of individuals and 23% were commercial. There were four bank robberies included in these numbers. Part one violent crime. Aggravated assaults were down by 6%.  The number of total aggravated assault incidents were down very slightly. 41% of 2016 aggravated assaults involved multiple victims, firearm incidents down from 44% in 2015. 42 homicides were committed in 2016. We count 43 but one of those homicides, the individual homicide was resolved, was committed in one year and the actual expiration of that individual occurred in 2016. Three were self-defense. Two occurred in prior years. 38 of these cases involved firearms. Six were domestic violence. As for the disposition of homicide cases, arrests have been made in 21 cases and three ruled self-defense. There are currently 16 open cases from 2016. Seven cold cases were cleared in 2016. Six were from 2015 and one was from 2013 of those cold cases. In addition to forming the Rombering Task Force, the department began holding weekly crime abatement meetings as opposed to the monthly crime abatement meetings to have more of a handle on crime trends in a more real-time fashion as opposed to discussing crime trends after a 30-day period. This has helped us to deploy officers and make adjustments to our strategies, our crime strategies as we see crime trends occurring. Investigators also during the holiday season wore uniform and I was reminded that I was supposed to report on that 60-day initiative. During the 60 days, during that period when officers were in uniform, there was a reduction, an additional reduction in property crimes. However, our violent crimes remain the same. We still feel like that is a very positive and strategic maneuver anytime we need more visibility and we will continue to implement our holiday plan with the officers in uniform. Part one property crime. Chief, are you going to give us those numbers in that 60-day period? I don't need them now if you have actual numbers. I can absolutely get them. Part one property crime in burglaries were at a 20-year low in 2016. We have continued our residential awareness program which is a RAP program initiative which focuses on burglary prevention. The program's success is attributed to the use of prevention and awareness strategies. Our community resource unit has been active in crime prevention, activities, residential surveys, and other initiatives to prevent property crime. We're using our crime mapping data and social media platforms such as Next Door to get the word out about crime trends and get our community members more involved in their neighborhood watch programs. We continue to urge residents to join neighborhood watch programs and call 911 to report suspicious activity. There are currently 185 active neighborhood watch programs throughout the city. The active and engaged eyes and ears of the community has undoubtedly contributed to the reduction in property crimes. Part one property crimes. Burglaries were down 19%, 82% were residential. Most stolen items and burglaries included television sets, electronics, computer equipment, and tools. Larsenies were down by 1%, 41% of Larsenies are auto parts from vehicles. 28% of Larsenies involved shoplifting. The most stolen items and burglaries included phones, money, purses, and computer equipment. Motor vehicle thefts were up by 15%. Honda Accords continue to be the most stolen vehicle in the city of Durham. Approximately 15% of vehicles during 2016 had the keys and the ignition and the motor running. Let that be a crime prevention tip. Chief, Council Member Johnson does have a Honda Accord. Shores me she did not leave the key and the ignition. You might want to get rid of it. Motor vehicle thefts have been on the decrease over several years, but for some reason this year we saw an uptick in motor vehicle thefts. We continue to get the word out about, especially during the winter months, when we saw uptick individuals want to leave their cars, run and get them warm before they go to work or whatever. Just not the thing to do, just stick it out, put your muffins on and everything. So crime reduction strategies during 2016, supplemental patrols. Our heat teams are now our slide units which supplement our staffing. We have been using lap salaries to pay for supplemental patrols when needed and we have the new slide unit to ensure we have officers available in the most needed areas. Directed foot patrols in high crime areas has also helped. Weekly crime abatement meetings, as I mentioned before, we also do bi-weekly conference calls in the morning to discuss, be a conference with commanders what occurred over 24-hour period or 48-hour period so that we can stay on top of our crime trends and issues that we might need to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Uniform deployment, I mentioned that, playing close staff. We plan to expand that not just during the holiday, but we are working on a scheduling plan now to deploy more of our administrative staff. I mentioned that in the retreat. Tomorrow we'll have a presentation to discuss what that looks like and we're hoping that by expanding our arms just a little bit we can get more out of our staff and have more visibility during the times that we need it. 9-11 and CAT-TEX were also implemented. What we have done now is all of the commanders, captains, deputy chiefs, assistant chiefs and all critical staff members are now receiving CAT-TEX real-time through their cell phones so that instead of waiting for a watch report, they receive information about critical incidents real-time and I have to thank our 9-11 system director Succup who sat with us to talk about how we could facilitate that, make that happen and his staff has done that and has been very helpful in getting real-time information out to these individuals who know how to maneuver and make things happen when we see critical incidents. Targeted special operations focusing on aggravated assaults and robberies in the most impacted areas have also been quite beneficial. We have run two 60-day details in the last six months that basically targeted the areas where we've had the most upticks in some of the districts where we've seen repeat trends. Clearance rates. During 2016, the Durham Police Department's clearance rates were above the FBI clearance rates for similar sized cities and homicide rate, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and part one property crime. The FBI clearance rates are for cities the size of Durham with populations of 100,000 to 250,000 residents. We feel that possible causes of lower violent crime clearances as the change in trend, the number of robberies to be quite frank, our suspects are quite clever in the manner in which they commit commercial robberies, not in motor vehicles, leaving a scene of a commercial robbery on foot and being transported at another location. So some of the maneuvers and the strategies that our current suspects are utilizing, we're having to adjust ourselves and our visibility in certain areas so that we can be in commercial corridors and more visible. This has been impactful, but we still have work to do as it relates to our robberies. And we realize that the robbery task force has been very critical in helping us to solve some of our robberies and not just arresting individuals, but those individuals have been associated with bans and robberies that have occurred in other cities in the area as well. Priority one calls for service and response times. Our desired target of responding to 57% of priority one calls in under five minutes was not met. However, 51.2% were answered in under five minutes. And we are working towards that 57% goal. We're unable to meet our 5.8 minute average citywide response time target. The average response time was 6.3 minutes. DPD experienced an 8% increase in priority one calls for service in 2016 over 2015. Priority one calls have increased 32% since 2014, which is significant. We have begun discussions to further examine beat redesign and alignment to improve response times and service delivery. Supplemental patrols in our new slide units have been assigned to ensure beat integrity when and wherever needed so that we can improve upon our response times as well. Our staffing level sworn staffing at the end of the fourth quarter was 89% with 59 vacancies. Current staffing is at 504 with 43 vacancies. We gained 16 sworn officers. We added 15 COPS grant positions in December 2016 bringing us to a 547 authorized positions. 36% of sworn officers live within city limits during the fourth quarter. A BLET class of 11 graduated in February. There is currently a BLET class of 23 recruits which started in February. We will start our first ALEC class first time in five years in a few months. This is a faster way to get experienced North Carolina certified officers on the street through an abbreviated academy. People are stealing from us so we plan to steal back. So we believe that new recruiting bonuses including paying incentives, assigning bonus, relocation bonus, as well as the annual 5% increases for officers will encourage longevity in our department and encourage officers to make a career with the Durham Police Department and stay here and serve this city. We're also working very hard to identify homegrown recruits, Durham grown. So we plan to look at our explore programs and even extending the age range from 17 to identify individuals that haven't made it to college yet that are contemplating what their future will be and give them opportunities to come into criminal justice. So we also have implemented a shoe bonus. Believe it or not officers weren't provided their shoes in the past so now along with their uniforms we have uniform shoes as well that might not sound like much but to them it's a big deal. Non-sworn staffing was at 89.5% with 13 vacancies. At the end of the fourth quarter there are currently 17 non-sworn vacancies in the police department. So fourth quarter highlights patrol officers receive the first take home patrol vehicles in October. These marked units are being assigned to patrol officers who live within the city of Durham. The department hopes the cars will serve as an incentive for officers to live within the city limits and be engaged in their communities to foster safe neighborhoods. Take home cars also benefit the community as a potential high visibility crime deterrent. The department plans to assign 28 more vehicles in the next couple of months and 34 additional cars during each of the next two fiscal cycles. The robbery task force already mentioned which I discussed earlier was formed in early November and focuses on the increase in robberies has proven to be a critical asset to the criminal investigations operation. These investigators are highly talented and have done phenomenal work since the inception. The department continues to move forward with our reorganization. We have implemented the new slide squad which which shores up our staffing and lastly during the fourth quarter numerous sworn non-sworn employees reached out to the community with various and numerous holiday initiatives you can read more about those initiatives in the written report. Some of the new technology in training the Durham Police Department is striving to be a leader in community policing and we realize that cultivating a force of highly trained and skilled officers is essential to our success. We're providing extensive training related to fair and impartial policing including classes focused on procedural justice and de-escalation. We're also participating in a new program called ICAT Integrating Communications Assessment and Tactical. This particular program is a national model that helps officers think in terms of other alternatives to force. We're evaluating other courses to bring the Durham including those focused on leadership development and practical skills training. We're also excited about our new reality-based simulator. This is a photograph of it and I encourage anybody who has who has not been over to see it to come out and try it out. This simulator presents officers with various types of scenarios for them to make quick decisions about what is most appropriate to do in critical situations. Every situation does not necessarily require equipment. It does not necessarily require the officer to use anything on his tool belt. Sometimes the scenario requires the officer to use commands, various types of commands and keeping in mind the escalation of force is something that can be managed by the officer through training and through constant practice evaluating various types of scenarios and this machine is one that presents just a myriad of scenarios for officers. During the last couple of months and during our Citizens Police Academy the members that graduated were actually able to be the first to try out the simulator. We also allowed our news media on media day to try out the simulator as well as our opening experience for them. In January the Durham Police Department lodged this new police to citizen online service. This is automated service where citizens can actually go online and fill out police reports that would have otherwise been dispatched to a police officer. This is a way for us to better utilize our resources on the street, keep officers responding to calls where there really requires an officer's presence and if a person requests an officer they can absolutely have an officer respond but this is an option for citizens to be able to fill out police reports for larcenies and other minor types of police reports to free up our police officers. We plan to have a more expanded campaign after we get done with our pilot. We're trying to iron out the keeks and make sure that the technology is working the way it should and do a full-blown campaign as it relates to the police to citizen program. We launched our body-worn cameras in December currently patrol officers in District 1 and investigators with the traffic and crash team are wearing body cameras. We started outfitting District 4 just a couple of weekends ago with cameras during the last week in February. Improving community relations, our new liaison positions, I mentioned them before but these officers, our LGBT liaison and also our Hispanic liaison have been very involved in the community. These are critical times where it's important for the police department to have boots on the ground that specifically address the concerns of the very unique communities in which we serve. We're introducing performance metrics as a good way to help us track our community outreach efforts as well. UN50, we work with this organization which gives presentations about citizens' rights and police protocols. UN50 has been all over the metro Durham area and has done presentations at Merck and at corporate businesses, at schools, at churches and we have been in attendance with our community services folks to be there to answer questions that participants may have about UN50. Coffee cops and conversations, we participated in these community events and we appreciate the support we've got from council. At those events a good way for commanders and officers to get to know community members and address any concerns or issues. And recently we began lunches in McDougal Terrace, one of our captains, captain Edwards who is over that district has actually began to participate in conversations and lunches in that district. And I believe this is my last side, some of the future focus is our police athletic league enhancing that, staffing our gang and gun task force and currently consistently working to enhance the relationship with our federal partners and that would be the ATF because the alcohol, tobacco and firearms agents are working closely with us to try to deal with the surge of weapons that we're seeing on the streets. And that surge of weapons is not just here in the city of Durham, it is all over the country and much of that is associated with gang violence as well. So the gang and gun task force will be working closely with these other federal agents so that we can get our arms around some of the individuals and groups that come together for the purpose of committing violent crimes. And that will be the community outreach. I mentioned that. We plan to deploy and satellite our citizens police academy so community members don't just come to us. We can go out to the community and hold various types of instruction which will be beneficial and educational, not just for citizens but for our police officers as well in churches and communities. We plan to expand our social media network next door, Twitter and try to get the word out about what we're doing in the Durham police department in a myriad of different ways to include printed material that is not just in English but also in Spanish so that we can communicate broadly to various audiences. And at this time that concludes my report and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you chief. Questions, comments from recognized councilman Shul. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Chief, great report. I think that I just want to appreciate in general before I have some specific comments and questions but your emphasis on trust building and the kind of activities that you've done appointing the liaison officers for the Hispanic community, the LGBTQ community those are important outreach and trust building efforts and I thought you were just did a great job at the Durham can meeting the other night, the other afternoon where I think it's already been mentioned that there were probably many of them there and many of them very fearful given the concerns about immigration enforcement at the federal level and I just thought you did a great job of expressing our city's position I think you made the right call on the checkpoints and I'm appreciative of that and I think that those are hard decisions but I think you've done a great job of making those decisions and I'm really appreciative I also want to say that I think that I'm really glad that you all have introduced the procedural justice training I think a lot of people don't understand procedural justice and know a lot about it I know that it is geared towards making people feel like the criminal justice system from their first contact with but all the way through the system they're treated with fairness that the process is fair that their voice is heard that they are respected during any encounter and that their humanity is recognized that they can be a part of what is going on and that they are respected and I think that's so important that I think that's just important for our whole criminal justice community that you all have introduced that training for our department and I think it's a great step thank you it will be ongoing that's great you mentioned we have a lot of initiatives that the bonuses the pay raises the take home cars and so forth and just in particular you mentioned the percentage of our officers that are living in the city now 39% okay and do we know yet if we had any effect that you can tell yet of the take home car and the bonus and that sort of thing for living inside the city if we had any effect of that at this point well it's still relatively fresh seven cars are out there right now of course there's a lot of responsibility that goes along with a vehicle that the officer can take home we plan to find ways for the officers not just to enjoy the benefit of it but to engage in the community as much as possible it's a huge benefit and I mentioned at the retreat to even find ways to come back, support programs in the city on the weekends and become more involved just having transportation to do that is a huge incentive great I'm looking forward to the long term trend on that and I hope that what we've done will be helpful I think the next 28 vehicles which will go out in really less than 60 days 28 vehicles in the city that's going to be huge great and the McDougall terrace the lunch is there that's already started and are people coming to meet Captain Edwards and I asked Captain Edwards he says some days are light some days he has larger crowds but they plan to continue he's working really closely with the housing authority on that initiative that was an initiative that he came up with with his staff great I wanted to mention the report, the larger report there's so much in it I encourage anybody who is interested in these things to read the report the long list of difficult crimes solved and bravery as well as the tremendous amount of outreach that's going on and the exceptional community involvement of some of your officers and one of the things I wanted to mention and Mayor Pro Tem mentioned this not long ago but the CIT officers who are involved in the homeless outreach I have heard now a couple of times from the homeless advocates that they are so in such a good alliance with your officers who are doing that and the nonprofits that are doing that work have said to me now a couple of times just in passing how great it is that that relationship exists I hope you'll pass that on thank you that's good to know the officers that are assigned to that team that are out there on a regular basis just my interaction with them they have a passion for that work which makes a huge difference in how they're received so I'll make sure that I let them know I noticed one thing just from the longer report on page 24 cocaine seized in 2016 was 22 times the amount that was seized a year earlier 22 times more is there something going on in Durham is there something particular to Durham that's making that happen or that's a those are federal thank you those are federal seizures so because they're task force officers working with the federal government they may not have been seized here in Durham isn't that correct or is that just here in Durham it's here in Durham so those are operations sometimes long term operations that occur with the federal task force so it could be somebody on I-85 though or something like that absolutely what is you and 5-0 it is a group that have come together retired chief of police Chalmers and retired deputy chief BJ council who came up with the concept they have a very good understanding of you know law enforcement operations what's the position of law enforcement should be and a very strong interest in the community and young people in the community to help them have safe encounters so their presentation goes over really well with not just young people but with adults as well great and then my last question is about a year ago or maybe a little longer in that we had the report from I think it was the IACP yes I'm not sure I have those initials right but we we had a lot of ideas for reform in that and it was maybe a little before you came to Durham and I'm wondering are you all using that as you know is that offering you any useful guidance at this point absolutely it is we've already actually implemented some of the suggestions some of the suggestions were obvious as far as reallocating man power to certain areas looking at our beat alignment looking at the department structure as well we are absolutely using that document right okay well chief thank you very much again I just want to appreciate the emphasis on the community outreach that you personally do and I see these folks everywhere I saw Captain Bond gosh probably five places in the last week and just really think that that is just a great way of operating and I think the community knows it and appreciates it and so I just want to thank you for that thank you they're a great team thank you councilman other comments recognize the mayor pro too thank you for your report I would like to congratulate you and your team on the difference that you're making in my conversations with the community they have the utmost respect for you and your team and all the officers out there trying to be guardians rather than warriors sometimes we have to be warriors when we're dealing with warriors but we're trying not to be warriors that's correct I think that's just my categorization how are the kids doing though the young people well you know there's been a lot of discussion about our youth and our young people and various programs we have some ideas in the police department about outreach and how to reach out to some of our most underserved community members those kids that are vulnerable to some of the environment that they're exposed to and we have a great interest in trying to establish programs and relationships and exposure through our police athletic league so that we can deliver the attempts to divert some of the negative influences that they're exposed to but we're only one entity I know and I know that it is a community responsibility to do something to save our kids our responsibility and we cannot look to you and your staff to raise them to discipline them and we've got to be positive role models and haven't taken interest in them through our churches sororities, fraternities other organizations that we're a part of if we don't we're going to continue to do so thank you for your work and your team thank you for your work I'm reminded of my son when I see captain Sarvis and deputy chief penegrats because they are his classmates and so it's good to see how your lives have evolved over the last however many I won't say how many years but thank you if there are no further questions chief thank you I'm 17 as proposed storm water permit modifications and associated ordinance revisions good evening this item is on GBA tonight at council's direction there is no formal staff presentation but a variety of staff are available to answer any questions council may have thank you I don't know if Steve asked what to be on the GBA that's why I was looking to you thank you Mr. Mayor so I thought this was complicated at the work session and then we got another memo from you all I wasn't sure if it made it more complicated or less complicated but could you explain the import so when we were let me state my understanding and then you can tell me if I'm wrong which there's a 100% chance that I am but my understanding is that the Chapel Hill and other phase 2 ordinances were about had been issued before shortly before our work session and that those ordinances had or those permits rather had deleted department DEQ state DEQ had taken out references to nutrient controls and that we were therefore going to have an ordinance that was different than everyone else's and the staff was asking us to be in compliance with state law and state regulations and to essentially have an ordinance that was like everyone else's in that regard but then as I read this new memo Chapel Hill and the other localities received a between the work session and today received a new version of their permit which does still include these nutrient controls and so interested if that is a correct understanding and if it's not you're not going to hurt my feelings but also what guidance in light of that you all will be offering. So your timeline of events is correct there was discussion at the work session of draft language that had been seen on the the EQ website however as staff reported accurately at that meeting that had not been included in any permits on Friday the day after the work session similar but not identical language did show up in the Chapel Hill permit I believe we since verified is also included in the Burlington permit to have that correct. The language is was not immediately consistent with language that we are familiar with in other discussions of the Jordan Lake rules and so at a meeting that the senior deputy city attorney Don O'Toole attended last Thursday we attempted to get clarity he attempted to get clarity from DEQ officials as to the potential intent of that language and as he reported on an email that I believe has been shared with council the officials he spoke with were not immediately familiar with that language and therefore were not able to provide guidance as to what it might mean I think what we feel is of note for the council is that this language is not in our permit and we currently are not engaged in an effort although this item before you could begin an effort to revise our permit but we have not had any communication with DEQ that indicates that this language is forthcoming for all permits staff noted prior to this meeting that language has shown up in phase two communities we are a phase one community so there is another differentiation between those two so the consensus analysis on the part of staff is that it is unclear what impact that new language might have and there is not sufficient direction or guidance given to us to indicate that that language may be forthcoming in our permit so we are not comfortable advising council that we believe the language is forthcoming or that we at this point can fully specify what that language would accomplish so does that mean that your guidance is that the same recommendation that you were giving us at the work session then? That is correct although I think I would like to clarify that the recommendation we gave and the recommendation that is before you this evening is to authorize the city manager to pursue changes in our NPDES permit to eliminate the conflict with state law that is as far as the recommendation went at the time we did include in the council packet draft changes to the ordinance that would accomplish that however I would like to clarify that the ordinance is not under consideration the ordinance could continue to be a point of conversation as would any content in the NPDES permit so at this point tonight the only direction we are seeking is whether or not council authorizes the manager to begin that process and if council wanted to provide specific direction as to what content we saw or sought in that NPDES permit we could still definitely be open to do so. Thank you. That gives me more comfort because it honestly it's really hard to understand this stuff and it didn't get any easier this week when we got the new language and I read the new language and let's just say it's barely in English so I think that you know I am definitely comfortable supporting the staff recommendation that we begin this process if that's my understanding that we authorize the manager to begin the process of the ordinance revision is that your recommendation? Okay. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Could I before I move you Don go back to the information that Steve spoke to from Chapel Hill could the only difference that I saw and this related to post construction that Chapel Hill article had in it and the only difference that I saw and what they had initially and what they added on the 24 was a statement that says documentation shall be provided where it is not feasible to use storm water control measures that reduce nutrient loading that's the only difference that I saw and I don't know if anybody could speak to that I don't know what kind of documentation what all that meant but when I compare what was in the article section of post construction runoff controls which leads starts off by reading pursuant to 15 blah blah blah blah and ends by saying fulfill the nutrient loading reduction requirement and then when I look at what the language they had the only difference in the two was the statement that I just read documentation shall be provided where it is not feasible to use storm water control measures that reduce nutrient loading while we keep public works it is somewhat unclear sometimes when they make vague references like that they're referring to the chance that you might not be able to implement storm water control measure that's specifically proficient at removing nutrients or soil conditions or site conditions that might preclude a development from doing so in other aspects it might be referring to well in that specific regard that's most likely what they're referring to but again we're somewhat uncertain as to what that may specifically mean sometimes it can mean other things what those are is only in the mind of the person that wrote that particular you just shared that with us because you said something at one time and now you're saying here's the latest information you have is that why you gave us this addendum it's the latest information yes in terms of what language was put in their permit but does that doesn't impact what you're recommending to us no okay that's what I want to get clear with okay let me move to councilman martin um so Mr. Mayor if I'm wrong please forgive me I think there's three layers here the first layer was in the memo that we received for tonight it says that there was language available in draft permits then the next thing that the memo says is that the information that we received which is the information the staff had was that Chapel Hill's permit didn't include that language did not include it at all and then they went forward and said actually the final permit which was issued on Friday did include the language with the small revision um when you talk about phase one versus phase two community and to be clear for people that are watching we're talking about stormwater discharge permits but that are national permits and our federal permit requires us to meet standards that state law forbids us from enforcing so we have a conflict between federal and state law and um which is what they're trying to work out but when we go to phase one phase two communities can you explain that just a little bit somebody phase one communities were the first communities that were brought into the system where a federal permit was issued back in for Durham I believe 1994 for cities over 100,000 phase two just signals the next phase of that type of permit being issued to smaller communities and I'm trying to make sure that it's under 100,000 uh for those types of municipal for communities 100 under 100,000 I should say sometimes those permit requirements are different recognizing that larger communities may be able to have more resources to deal with issues and generally larger communities have larger more complex issues in smaller communities so so typically if there was a difference between a larger community, a smaller community permit a larger community permit might be a little more stringent more requirements sometimes in terms of monitoring that sort of thing um so tonight now I wanted to make sure what you're looking for is our guidance whether to ask the division of environmental quality in CDEQ whether to allow us the city to revise our NPDES permit is that right? correct and um if we don't do that then that permit is going to renew next spring early spring and we'll be looking at all the language in that even as soon as this coming fall September 1 that's when we'll submit for our renewal correct okay so and um just so that I'm clear if we say okay go ahead and ask DEQ the next step is to go to DEQ and say we'd like to revise our permit this way is that correct? correct and until DEQ signs off on that we won't be revising any ordinances is that right? that's correct and um I do want to say that um one of the arguments I've heard about this is um that we don't have parity currently with our neighboring communities that um that we require stricter standards than anyone else in the in the state right now at least in the region is what I'd understood correct um and um so you know and I understand that argument when we get to a place where we're saying well we're not a phase 2 community you know we might have less stringent standards I could see us I just would be I would say in advance I will be a little wary of that argument um if we achieve parity I'm not sure we need to go beyond that but um certainly asking DEQ what their intent is regarding our NP-DES permit and you know whether they would permit us to modify it or modify it to what extent I I agree with my colleague sure that that certainly doesn't seem to be a problem the other advantage that I see is that there's a 6 month lead time as I understand it so if you didn't do anything we would be required to look at it in 2018 but if you're going to do something they're suggesting that you try to do it at least 6 months before that and that's why we're back into the September date I thought that's what I'm seeing here otherwise we we're back where we are until 2018 even if we don't propose any changes recognize Councilman Schultz Mr. Mayor um so that brings me to the question of what kind of timetable would you all be on in terms of a rewrite or a suggested rewrite of our permit or the questions that you're asking DEQ or what kind of timeline would that be on same time frame as we indicated at the work session we fairly immediate that we would approach DEQ Paul to remind me what that is I'm sorry I can't remember that time frame um I'm sure it's in my memo here thank you I see it now yeah Shea Bullock Public Works we originally proposed to submit it after work session um went on to City Council so we would propose to submit it initially after we get guidance to move forward and so and okay so my understanding is what we'd be doing is giving you all guidance to discuss this with DEQ and think about any ordinance rewrite that we might want to have am I right on that well we would propose along with the permit revisions to submit ordinance revisions that go along with that to DEQ as well okay I thought I had understood from Beau that these would be that the manager would be looking at ordinance revisions we can be coupled at yeah and I would want to clarify I mean I don't want to um I don't want to hide the fact that reopening this question has the potential as was frankly intended to come into compliance with state law and by doing so uh to shed some of the regulation that is currently in our ordinance so I don't want to suggest that we will have the ability to negotiate some separate and more stringent package with DEQ that is in conflict with the state law that was passed what I do what I did intend to apply is there is interest on the part of council and frankly on the part of staff to understand the language that we have seen show up in these new permits and should that language be something that DEQ intends to make available to municipalities who are interested in mirroring that language or potentially enforcing that language we would be happy to at council's direction with the consent of council to see if that language is appropriate in our permit and to reflect our ordinance accordingly what I don't want to to sidestep though this process could also as originally we assumed it would to eliminate much of the language that currently provides regulation in the Jordan Basin because state legislation was passed directing us to do so so I don't want to soft pedal that if that is a potential outcome I don't want that to come as a surprise I appreciate that I think that was clear and I appreciate it but what you were saying about the opportunity to improve our ordinance and that is what you refer to at the end is that what you're referring to then at the end of the memo that you added between now and the work session I think it was similar language about that I think what I feel like we have the flexibility to do in approaching DEQ is to get further clarification from staff who have drafted the permits that we are referencing that includes the new language that we didn't have at the time of work session to see what their intent was for that language and then to craft an ordinance that responds and incorporates their intent should that give us the opportunity to enact some new set of regulations that does in fact comply with state law I think what precipitated this was our being out of compliance with the state law okay okay thanks I recognize Councilman Moffitt and the Mayor Pro Tem let me since Don you spoke let me go to Mayor Pro Tem and then Councilman Reeson and come back I'm always anxious to hear the legal opinion on the subject so I want Don how to I know we have to Don I'm told from the city attorney's office give us your opinion on this well I think what Bo just said is exactly right if what I'm hearing from Council is to go to DEQ given that we have a permit that incorporates ordinance provisions that DEQ and the EMC approved in 2012 so that that was deemed as being in compliance with the state law and then in 2015 a law was changed that basically said no local government should enforce the Jordan Lake new development so that's what started this process concern that the city's existing ordinance was out of compliance with state law I will say that you know I know the Mayor has focused on the first part of what's included in Chapel Hill and Burlington's permit but if you look at the second part that seems to imply that the language there that refers to a TMDL well Jordan Lake has a TMDL and there seems to be some effort on the permit writer's part to incorporate some obligation to do something Jordan Lake related so I'm I'm still curious about the new language that Chapel Hill and Burlington has how that's in compliance with the 2015 state law but I think I think the direction that Council is giving to staff is great because I think at the end of the day it would be good for the city to go to DEQ and tell us what should our permit look like so that we're in compliance with state law in your opinion thank you for that recognize Councilman Marie thank you Mr. Mayor Don can you come back up and we'll talk to you some more if that's what you're asking us to do I don't understand the directive from staff here if what I'm hearing from you is a little bit of what I've heard from everybody else tonight I'm perfectly comfortable having staff sit down with DEQ and figure out what a stormwater ordinance would look like what are a proper permit would look like for Durham to bring us under state law I'm less comfortable removing important protections for Jordan Lake that are currently existing in our permit that is currently valid that was approved and so especially because the packet that came to us at the work session and the packet we have here tonight includes specific ordinance revisions that would remove those protections that's right so my assumption and I don't know how many other folks thought this was true was that this vote was to move forward with that is that not the case are we gonna after if everybody voted to approve this tonight or enough of us to move it forward would the city councils at some point later also vote on a set of ordinance revisions for the city of Durham? Correct and to be fair I think this item has sort of more slightly as the discussion has gone on the ordinance provisions that were put together which by the way took a lot of time on the part of staff the goal of those ordinance provisions well thank you for doing that that's great the goal of those provisions was to try to develop code provisions that seemed to comply with state law and so this was then presented at work session to seek council's input on whether they wanted staff to present these to DEQ and then if that happened presumably DEQ would change the city's permit give the city the blessing to adopt those ordinance provisions and then those would need to be adopted by council but I do think what I'm hearing tonight is more just to open a discussion with DEQ to point out that we have this 2015 session law Durham has its existing permit that incorporates its current code provisions and DEQ tell us what you want us to do given that you are in charge of this permit so that the city can comply with state law. If that's the purpose that you're coming to us tonight then why do we need to vote on that? You're talking about sitting down with DEQ to find out how to bring ourselves into compliance you're not asking us to do anything then are you? The recommendation in the memo was to begin the permit reissuance process and so I would say that is a slightly more formal step than just a discussion with DEQ and the reason that was part of our recommendation is because the impetus for this item coming forward was we had exhausted all other opportunities to get clarity from the state as to how we should handle this disconnect so our recommendation was to start that process and the ordinances that were attached at work session are not adopted by this but they were to show our staff's best work at how that would come into compliance thus my previous comments about the fact that that could be a potential outcome and if we start the renewal process that they may just eliminate the language that currently provides those protections in Jordan Lake that is certainly one outcome. However given this new language in Chapel Hill and Burlington we see an opportunity and I think council has seen an opportunity that there may be a path that DEQ is making available to us for some other protections and so I think what we're the revision between last Thursday and Thursday morning tonight is saying we can go into this process specifically focused on that language exploring that language creating a new and different ordinance than what you've seen tonight. If council's direction is not to start the permit reassurance process we can do that as well and still ask those questions but those would be two different actions the recommended action based on our desire to resolve the conflict was to was to start the process. Okay that's councilman Johnson. Thank you Mr. Mayor I'm just wondering what happens if we do nothing? We would continue to operate under our current permit until next summer when we would start this process because our current permit is expiring. And we're required to go through the permit renewal process every five years. And then if we didn't do that we would not have a valid permit or we would continue to operate under the if we were to move forward tonight with reopening the process we would be in advance of the five-year expiration. The five-year expiration will happen next year because of the state law that was passed last year our proposal in an attempt to resolve this was to start that process early we would actually have to go through the process again next year even if this is approved is that correct? Yeah the process would essentially be going through this process twice. So to answer your question we would continue to operate with the conflict in place and how we have dealt with that since the state law was passed as we continue to honor our permit and enforce our permit. And to be clear the state law requires us to allow development that might pollute the lake and we can't really do much about that. The state law was specifically written to say that a local government could not enforce any rules that among other things they included a category that said any rules that were in abeyance. A previous state law had put the Jordan Lake rules into abeyance therefore essentially the outcome of that and Donna if I didn't describe that correctly enough but you know the net effect of that was they instructed local governments that you should not be enforcing these rules. We have continued to enforce the rules because we have a federal permit. Thank you. Thank you. So sitting here and listening to my colleagues and thinking about this that make sure I understand the state law says that local municipalities cannot enforce the Jordan Lake rules. That's correct. So when a community has storm regulations that do enforce the state rules does the state law say they have to revise them? I'm sorry. Does the state law say that municipalities whose stormwater regulations do follow the Jordan Lake rules? Does it require them to revise the rules or simply not enforce the parts? And what I would say is the 2015 session law I don't think the legislators realize that there may be federal permits that had already been issued that were in conflict with the state law. So if we were to revise our federal permit the federal permit were not an issue. We couldn't revise it. It would have to be revised by the Department of Environmental Quality. Thank you for that clarification. The Department of Environmental Quality were to revise our federal permit, our NPDES permit. Would the why aren't... So here's my concern. Somebody got a session law passed that said the rules are in a ban. You can't enforce them. We have a permit that requires us to do it. We change the permit. Then we change our regulations and then the state law is revised again. Why don't we just leave our regulations alone and enforce the parts of it that state laws allow us to enforce? Because our city code provisions, our stormwater performance standards are actually incorporated into the permit. The federal permit. So the federal permit says we shall enforce the ordinances as written. Would Chapel Hills permit have that same provision? Could the NPDES permit exclude that provision? And I'm not trying to be difficult, but the way the Jordan Lake rules are incorporated into the city's stormwater NPDES permit are through our stormwater performance standards that have been approved by the Environmental Management Commission. Basically, DEQ looked at the city of Durham's proposed ordinances that were submitted into 2012. And DEQ checked off that these ordinances comply with both the falls, Jordan, and new rules. And then those rules were submitted to the Environmental Management Commission and they gave their stamp of approval. And then those rules are now incorporated into our federal permit. And what's true is every different jurisdiction, whatever their stormwater performance standards, those are incorporated into their permit. So we all have different permits. Okay. All right, thank you. Councilman Shul. I'm sorry. Well, I'm trying to go in order. I'm trying to allow people to speak. I'm trying. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I guess my understanding of this is that if we have a, we have developers that develop in the Jordan Lake Basin, they are they are noticing that our permit is out of compliance with the with state law. Is the issue here that we're going to be sued by developers who and successfully so by developers who notice that we're out of compliance with state law and don't want to pay the extra money that we're requiring them to pay to to come to compliance with our permit. I can't speak necessarily on behalf of developers, but I would assume that there is an expectation among the development community that the city will comply with the state law that was passed. And that's been the challenge here is that there was I think an assumption in 2015 when the law was passed that now we know that those Jordan Lake rules won't be enforced. And it was at that time that the attorney's office said, not so fast, you've got a permit for the newly passed state law that has to be addressed. And the attorney's office, particularly Donna Tull and the staff attempted to get that address with DEQ and the prior administration and I'm paraphrasing here there was a, you know, yes that's quite the conundrum city of Durham and wow, thank you for bringing it to our attention and that's all the direction that we got. I may not even be paraphrasing that. That's pretty close. Well that was actually awesome, Patrick. So I will just say that I am comfortable given what I see, given that explanation and the work that you all have done of which I'm very appreciative and I know it's incredibly complicated and given what I see here as the kind of second part of the Chapel Hill new permit about which I believe Don just mentioned or maybe not sure about the total maximum daily lows that language which I think actually does as I read it give us some hope that we would have this introduced into our new permit given that I'd be in favor of going ahead with the discussion but look forward to any ordinance coming back to us ordinance changes coming back to us which I know they will so that we have the second shot at this. I'll be supporting that and cautiously optimistic that with the new people at DEQ that we may get a better outcome than we had with the past administration so thank you all for your work. Recognize the mayor. Recognize the mayor. My hope is that we will be in compliance with state law number one because I know they communicate with the federal folk as well so whatever we do we need to make sure that we are compliant so that we are not sued because I'd hate to see taxpayers money tied up in a lawsuit. Thank you. Thank you. I'll try to make this my last comment. Here's my question. When we talked at the work session you had an idea about what the federal permit should look like since then we've seen language that's been included in Chapel Hill and Burlington's permits. When you go to seek changes with DEQ will you be seeking changes with or without the language that's included in the Chapel Hill permit? First and foremost I would seek clarification on what the language in the Chapel Hill and Burlington permits mean and when I met with DEQ staff last week that was one of the issues I addressed. The people I met with were very high level and none of them were familiar with this permit language but they did understand that there are potential problems even with the language that have been inserted into both Chapel Hill and Burlington's permits in that they appear to be including Jordan Lake like requirements in the permit. So if it all gets ironed out and the language or something similar to it is included in the Chapel Hill permit would staff be seeking a permit similar to that or without that language? I want to know because what we heard on the work session was without that language. I think truthfully if you're asking the city attorney I would be asking DEQ to issue a permit to the city of Durham that is in compliance with state law. That's what I would want them to do. I'm going to entertain a motion on this item. I support the staff recommendation. I want to get it on the table because I do have one question to ask but it's not necessarily pertaining to all of the stuff we talked about but entertain a motion on item. That's so moved. It's been properly moved in a second. The question I have refers to the proposed ordinance changes in the document that you gave us and it's pretty clear that you've pretty much wiped out Jordan Lake but the question I have is the question I raised before it has to do with detention partners and to maintain some of them and who's responsible. If you go to the proposed ordinance changes and section 78-744 remedies for violations and the last section section C injunction, nuance, cost is lien. What I'm trying to understand is can we force the persons who are not in compliance with these detention partners to either have us correct them and they pay for them? I mean can we do that? That's what isn't clear. It says the city may institute an action in court of competent jurisdiction for injunction or abatement or any other equitable remedy not prohibited by law to remediate the violation of this article. The city may also maintain an action on GS to remediate condition presidential to the public health and safety, cost of corrections and sustained by the city may be assessed as a lien against property. Does that mean the city can go in and correct upon itself and then put a lien against those property on us? When all other measures fail, we do have that course of action. Yes, sir, we can do that. When all of the courses fail? Yes, not something we want to do or want to entertain because we're not set up to do that, but we give them the opportunity and we go through a notice of violation and enforcement process and that's our last recourse. Well, I'll tell you again, what drives me is that detention upon over the Renaissance center, which is horrific, it's terrible. I don't know how we let it get that long along the way and it's in plain sight plain sight that that upon is mud. It's mud and that's in the commercial development and I don't know why we haven't taken any action to make that happen. I heard what you said before, but I'm just concerned that there are so many other pawns that we have around this city that we've permitted that are in similar situations and we're not doing anything about it. So I really have a concern that we take strong action that appears we've taken to date to go out for these violators and correct them and if we have to correct it at our price, then make sure that we can recuperate what we've done. So I just wanted to understand this last injunctions and this ordinance changes. That allows us to do that. I guess you're telling me. That's correct. Okay. Recognize. I was restricting my comments to questions before and I didn't have a chance to actually speak on the measure. I wanted to first of all thank the staff so much for your hard work in putting this together. I know it's been a long task. I know that DEQ has not put an easy path before you to try to figure out how to reconcile these two issues and I know that the purpose of having this on our agenda both at the work session and at the council meeting today is to ask the council for our guidance about how staff should proceed to try to resolve a conflict that is basically unresolvable under the current situation. We have a valid federal permit that is good through February of 2018 somewhere in that range. We will need to submit a new permit pursuant to the five-year cycle sometime in September of this year and for at least a year between now and February of 18 if we do nothing we will not be in compliance with state law but we will be operating under a valid federal permit that is good through that time and so to my mind the issue is one of litigation risk we have a valid permit we can go forward on that permit and enforce it as Beau said and the risk that we run is a developer would come in and say no City of Durham you're not permitted to enforce that otherwise valid permit because of intervening state law and I don't think I've heard from anyone a good estimate about whether or not those claims would be successful but I do appreciate the fact that it is the City Attorney's job to limit our risk in that area and the staff to provide guidance to us about what they think we ought to do. Having said that I intend to vote against the measure but I do appreciate all the work that you did. Thank you. There are some developers that are being impacted now based on these rules that may be in favor of the type of development they're proposing to do but I'm not going to have any more discussion on it we've had a motion and a second I'm going to open the vote and please vote and close the vote. Motion passes. It fails. Okay it failed four to three. Let's move on to the next slide. On the public hearings we have public hearing on 2017-2018 budget and FY 2018-2033 capital improvement plan. Good evening Bertha Johnson director of budget and management services this is a public hearing to receive comments on the fiscal year 2017-2018 budget and capital improvement plan a second public hearing will be held on Monday June 5th after the city manager has presented the proposed budget which will occur on Monday May 15th I'm happy to answer any questions. Are there questions by members of the council? If not we have persons who have signed a speak on this item and as I call your name if you come to the podium to the right each speaker has three minutes and if you just state your name and address Kimberly Smith Regina Lewis Jenny Saito Beth Messer Smith Darryl Brunson Allen Freer Irwin Rutherford and Ryan Johnson Robin Davis Larissa Savel Sandy Dermis Becky Wonders Wilma Liverpool Selena Mack Lanier Bloom Anyone else that wants to speak on this item is going to public hearing that it's not if you do, if you go to the clerk's desk to my left and sign up Smith I guess everybody knows there's a clock in front of me. Thank you. My name is Kimberly Smith and I reside at 300 North Queen Street and my family and I are currently living at a wonderful shelter called Families Moving Forward as rent and Durham increased housing options for my family became less accessible we were forced out of one side of town and out of a family home in that year we lived in three different houses we were displaced a lot of times now that we were living in a part with a town with higher crime drug activity smaller living quarters I struggled to keep my spouse whose health is plummeting horribly and my daughters whose one of them is disabled housed and with basic needs we again were forced out of our home two more times into complete homelessness we had little to no help or support before coming to families moving forward coming to the shelter gave my family and myself the ability and courage to believe in community and love for so many families in Durham although the specifics are different the struggle and the outcome are the same we need the help and support of people and the city where we live a home is something that is so important to children to family and it is something that a child should never have to worry about losing or wonder if they will ever have as I look back and see no matter which house we went to there was always the same common factor and that was that the rent was too high the houses were even more to heat and maintain and the landlords knew that I had no way to change my situation we need to find a way to bring the high cost of renting down to an affordable maintenance so other families like mine do not enter down the road of homelessness thank you Regina Lewis good evening my name is Regina Lewis I live outside of 300 North Queen Street and I also live in families moving forward I have three children two of them excuse me two girls that are residing with me and families moving forward I am currently new to Durham I love the state but once I moved somewhere in a good neighborhood the rent increased so I need to move December 7 into families moving forward I have goals I have dreams of continuing to be a resident of North Carolina in Durham as excuse me as I've been residing in families moving forward there's been an agency that's been helping me and a lady by the name of Luisa and she I signed up for a home owners program which I'm trying to become a home owner within one two years from now and right now I'm asking if the course in need can support not just for me I'm asking for the city to support people like myself and to better housing affordable housing for the children and for the other women that resided the shelter and their children thank you Janine Sato good morning or good evening my name is Janine Sato I resided 4-1-2-5 Livingstone Place in Durham I'm a nearly 20 year resident of the city and I'm a mom of two DPS kids and I'm also a North Carolina moms rising member to the opportunity to comment on the budget I'm here today to request that the council consider paid family leave in the next fiscal year budget and I'm going to tell you two brief stories about why I believe this issue is so impactful to our families the first is personal as a parent when I gave birth to my first child I worked for what I thought a good company and thought I was eligible for Family Medical Leave Act it was an unpaid leave but unfortunately I found out that many people in America are not eligible for FMLA and so that left me with very few options and I was asked to return to work after six weeks I was grateful for that although that certainly wasn't enough time for me and when that organization told me that news I felt pretty honestly blindsided by it and betrayed as a good employee and I went back but as soon as I did I started looking for another position and fortunately I was able to change jobs and find another job that offered paid family leave and I specifically sought that out so I had a really interesting exit interview with that organization and told them that specifically why I left they'd actually given me a big raise before I gave birth and I said I'd give the money back if you would only had given me some time with my newborn child it was a compensation package and something that I wouldn't consider a job without at this point so from a business perspective I feel like paid family leave is not only just a competitive decision it's the right thing to do for families and it also supports families in our community the second part of my story is the second job that I took after that oh I'm timed out I worked for Durham Connects for years I came back to work just days after giving birth for seven years and that's our community members and I think that this is a decision that will reap rewards for all of us as a taxpayer I encourage you to suggest and consider it thank you Beth, Mr. Smith Good evening My name is Beth Mr. Smith I live at Seven Beach Slope Way in Durham I also have the privilege of serving as the state campaign director for Moms Rising 42,000 Moms, dads, aunts, uncles and grandparents who are working to build a more family friendly state and nation and I'm also here to encourage you to take up paid parental leave as something that you offer to Durham City employees as an organization that focuses on family economic security we've been thrilled to see a number of other local governments including Durham County, Wake County, Cary Greensboro and the town of Rollsville join the employers who are providing this important benefit it's incredibly important right now as many as 65 percent of working mothers nationally aren't eligible for or can't afford to take advantage of the Family Medical Leave Act which provides 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave one in four moms returns to work within 10 days of giving birth and nearly 12 percent are back at work within one week that's simply not acceptable there's so much time that families will lose they could be bonding that they'll never get back and it also creates financial shortfalls at a time that families really need this type of support health impacts have led the child fatality task force to study paid parental leave the child fatality prevention teams to make this a top recommendation and it's also the perinatal health team to include this in the draft perinatal health plan in studies we've also seen that this has significant impacts for business you all might have seen the news and observer article yesterday talking about how many businesses here in the triangle and statewide are providing this type of benefit to their employees those include Blue Cross Blue Shield Duke Energy Bank of America Wells Fargo and many more among these reasons that they cite are increased competitiveness, decreased turnover and increased loyalty amongst their employees the citizens of Durham there's a great staff that works for the city of Durham and they deserve this kind of benefit as well so that they can help families when they need to thank you very much for your consideration you're welcome and I have handouts can I give them to the clerk Darrell Brunson good evening Darrell Brunson 1515 Tindall Drive and on the behalf of the city workers union and I emailed y'all afford y'all the council but but after hearing some of these stories I think the main thing that we do need to address is four months paid parents leave for people that you know have children or adopted children also 2500 across the board wage for all city employees progressive health care premiums where the employee contribution for their premium is based on their salary 50% discount on parks and recreation programs and classes for employees and their spouses and children a fair grievance procedure with an added civil service board hire long-term temp employees into full-time permanent positions and a reforms civilian review board as well as a formal meet and compare resolution all these things that I've mentioned it's just a summary but it goes into more detail so I just wanted to save time to give other people opportunity to speak thank you Darrell you said you mailed something emailed it to city council I haven't received it I'll make sure you you didn't I'll make sure you did thank you Allen for you good evening I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all my name is Allen Friar I wear two hats tonight I reside at 401 north gregson street here in Durham I'm also the director of workers rights at the north carolina justice center and I'm also here representing the peoples alliance Durham living wage project and I want to talk about two things very quickly I want to follow my friends and colleagues who have talked about the importance of paid leave paid parental leave for Durham city workers as you know the federal family medical leave act provides up to 90 days of unpaid leave for workers to take time off to care for their families and bond with their children and recover from pregnancy and birth unfortunately too many workers can afford to take unpaid leave and so that's why there's been a growing number of private employers and local governments that have taken it upon themselves to provide this important benefit to their own workers to make sure they have these crucial opportunities to fully recover and bond as family members and so I'm gratified that you all have shown interest in this proposal and I would urge you respectfully to include it in the next fiscal year's budget it is really good news for employers not just for the workers themselves but there is a significant and growing body of research by professional economists I am not one but I read their work and it shows that increasingly this type of benefit is crucial for improving employer productivity it reduces turnover and the story that Jeanine shared too many folks end up leaving their work because they don't have access to this benefit women employees in particular also have the opportunity to use this it increases their attachment to the labor force over the long term so what this means is that you're able to keep your most highly skilled female employees when they would be otherwise more likely to leave I have 10 seconds apparently I might speak a little bit over I'm also here representing the Durham Living Wage Project my understanding is that they have submitted their proposal to you all already to ensure that the living wage ordinance that you all have already passed would be expanded to include work-time workers and my understanding is that this actually is not terribly expensive for the city they don't think it would include more than 120 folks and wouldn't cost much more than about a half million dollars so I would urge you to include that proposal as well in your budget thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you you're welcome I have Erin Rutherfoot and Ryan Johnson is that correct my name is Erin Rutherford this is my husband Ryan Johnson I'm from 21 DeMaria Street in Durham in the 1960s the Loop Project was sold to the city administration as a way to remodel the city into a mall completely free of traffic hazards and interference and providing the comfort, convenience safety and delight of the pedestrian shopper unfortunately it seems to have accomplished quite the opposite the project seems to have created a barrier to downtown a moat of cars if you will compromising pedestrian safety and disabling residents from conveniently walking because of high speed inappropriately scaled one-way roads in the end 1,778,000 square feet of area was cleared 229 structures were raised to the ground the cost in 1972 was just over 13 million dollars which is the equivalent of about 76.3 million dollars today as part of a citizens advocacy group working to encourage the city to transform the downtown loop by restoring the historic grid structure and making the loop a two-way street in its current form the downtown loop is still unsafe for pedestrians an inefficient use of valuable downtown land and a dead zone for retail and other commercial activity it's time for the city to make investments necessary to improve the loop and to prioritize the creation of a restorative infrastructure design that corrects past mistakes improves pedestrian and bicycle mobility and reconnects people and neighborhoods by this opportunity our downtown has witnessed an incredible transformation over the last decade as Durham's 150th anniversary approaches in 2019 I hope that you will prioritize delooping the center as the critical next step towards building a strong and sustainable city thank you welcome Larissa Seibel good evening my name is Larissa Seibel at 2410 Park Place and I wanted to speak on behalf of the coalition for affordable housing and transit we support the requests that are being made tonight to help homeless families find safe stable homes and to fund repairs of rental homes that are in central Durham as well as to restart funding for our home buyer program which inspires so many people to try to buy homes and try to stay in this community but right now without those funds it's very difficult for first time lower income home buyers to be able to afford to buy in Durham and finally we want you to help homeowners stay in their homes both with home repairs to address health and safety issues like lead and mold leaking roofs heating systems and also to help people who have extraordinary tax increases and as we look forward to implementing your five year affordable housing plan we think all of these issues are so important and let's start this year with funding those most urgent needs thank you Sandy to mercy I can't write the last three last names Sandy Demery I live at 819 North Street here in Durham and I'm here to support DCLT's request for funding and it really is because I love Durham so much and the reason I love Durham so much is the diversity and I moved here from Raleigh and so I got the diversity and I was in the west end and as many of you know I was the president for quite a few years and became a DCLT board member and then I moved to North Street community which is downtown for people with disabilities and friends and then what happened in the city all of a sudden this gentrification went crazy and I've been over to the west end recently and guess what Miss Harris can still live there the folks who needed affordable housing can still live there even though some of the private market folks are putting up $500,000 buildings DCLT has the reputation for good cost effective use of your funds and great energy efficiency and well built homes we encourage neighborhood engagement in fact I've led a lot of that myself for quite a few years I'm familiar with affordable housing organizations and we're all good in the city and we all need funding DCLT offers permanent affordable housing and that's so important to me because I plan to live to be 120 years old in good health and in fact my husband and I are just changing our wills right now that we're planning to leave the two buildings that we have with five rental units to DCLT because how else are we going to keep the place diverse so please fund DCLT as much as you can thank you Becky Winders my name is Becky Winders and I live at 1304 Seton Road and Sandy just said a bunch of the things that I was going to say I'm here representing Durham Community Land Trust and I think like Sandy I volunteer for this organization because housing is such a fundamental foundational need and because DCLT is a reliable business like non-profit who's committed to managing and developing permanent affordable housing and I'm acutely aware that 15,000 of Durham's low income families are paying more than or households are paying more than 50% of their income for housing and that was as of 2012 and as we drive around town we see all these nicely fixed up houses and they and a lot of those houses are and the work that's being done is causing people to get thrown out of their houses or having to leave their house because they can't afford to rent so in 2016 Durham DCLT learned that a local landlord planned to sell 54 occupied homes on lots and we knew that market driven investors would demolish or renovate these homes and increase the rents and either way to displacing the families so in December DCLT borrowed 1.9 million from the self-help ventures fund to purchase these houses and saved these people from displacement but the houses are not in great condition and we need we now need a lot of help to just to make the basic things to keep the house safe and and then also we need to upgrade those houses to give them their 30 years of life Wilma Liverpool Good afternoon Good afternoon I am Wilma Liverpool I reside at 616 Nash Street lifelong Durham resident some time ago I was involved in a conversation with a group of seniors the subject turned to needs that we seniors faced and it came around to dangerous trees but a lot of times it seems as if those in my community are usually left with our dignity bruised when we consider things we have need of we are still able to safely live independently we agreed we needed dangerous trees seriously topped or trimmed but preferably removed due to living with fixed incomes we are forced to live in stressful fear whenever heavy wind or rainstorms are predicted I've been through Durham City and County officials but our needs don't qualify us for any services I've had the trees inspected on this group that I've been working with and I've gotten private estimates for the trees on my property $3,975 Durham officials have referred me to volunteer groups in Wake County to Urban Forestry around the Baptist Ministry and Trosa but none were in a position to help us I have pictures I want to leave with you but the oldest person in our group in her 80s had a tree break and fall one week part of it fell against her house the second time it came down and actually hit her house we have an incident of two cars being demolished because the trees came down and they were totaled we just feel like we are not being heard and we are not being really respected we pay taxes and we're not slackers Selina Mack Lanier Blum Good evening I'm Selina Mack the Executive Director of Durham Community Land Trustees 1208 West Chapel Hill Street as a general rule in terms of with regards to housing condition DCLT we don't ask our residents to live in housing conditions that we wouldn't personally live in ourselves as Becky indicated we acquired 54 units recently that are not in great condition and that is certainly not the current situation for these housing units but we're committed to improving the housing conditions of these units along with the quality of life of these residents and while the need is much greater than any single source and Lanier actually passed out of form a few minutes ago so you have some general idea of what we think what we're estimating the need to be at this point we realize that it is greater than any single source of funding asking for your help to the greatest extent possible the 2016 housing goals that were passed clearly indicate the need for permanently affordable rental units for low to moderate income residents particularly for very low income residents and DCLT would like to work in partnership with the city as a conduit for making permanently affordable rental housing a reality thank you next is Lanier Blum does anyone else that hasn't spoken and wants to speak on the sign okay you can set your name and address when you come forth and sign up Lanier good evening I'm Lanier Blum I live at 11 up church circle in Durham and I'm speaking tonight as a board member of the Durham community land trustees thank you very much for this budget hearing and the opportunities you're giving us to participate this year I think it will be great if the city does as a matter of routine talk to non-profit partners every year before the budget is presented and learn what all of the needs and projects on their boards are in the case of Durham we've provided a handout that lists our highest priority needs that we really need to do this year and we have a growing list of projects that we're looking forward to doing next year this is our 30th anniversary and then so we look ahead to the next one in five and thirty years we have some extremely exciting plans to share with you why invest in Durham community land trustees I'm going to quickly give you eight reasons one is that Durham community land trustees does have 30 years of solid steady strong standard for providing houses for low income people and also our homes are attractive assets for the surrounding neighborhood second Durham community land trustees makes the most of every city dollar by cost effective non-profit level budgeting when you look at the cost per house of these projects you see the benefits of preservation and you see the benefits of non-profit work at a local organization that provides jobs as well as housing in our community third when we budget we budget first for energy efficiency and durability so that our homes will last forever because they will be permanently affordable and we have to sustain them for the long haul and I have to tell you the rest of my life thank you good evening my name is Robin Davis I've um thank you for allowing me to speak could you give me your address please 1101 Spruce Street um I wanted to speak with you about budgeting for low quality low income housing I am now on the 16th of March will be in my house for a year through habitat prior to that I live nine years in a house that was so substandard that my electric bill was $700 a month I was taking antibiotics every other day because of the mold my children I have asthma I have I've been sick within this year that I've been in my habitat home however never to the point of being hospitalized whereas before I had to be kept in a emergency room for at least three days before they could even safely put me upstairs on the floor we need good quality housing um being low income I was stuck I was I wanted to do better I couldn't do better not paying $750 in rent then $750 in just the electric alone um I tried to look through try to go by looking at other options the houses that come up for auction well I never had the money and even if I did have a little money I felt like bigger corporations or whatever would be able to overbid me um Durham is the city of medicine no one should be living in homes that are in such disrepair that they're sick either financially sick they are mentally sick from the stress or physically sick um and you know you're worrying about your children you're trying to do better and you can't so I would love to know if there's any way that you all can set a part of like the houses that the city takes to put up for auction if they're behind an attack is there a way that some of those houses can be set aside for low income persons you're asking that's the question thank you let me ask is it anyone else that would like to speak that has not had an opportunity to speak this being the budget consideration if not let the record reflect no one else has to speak on this item I'll declare the public hearing to be closed and we'll entertain a motion that we accept the comments as part of the public record I move that we accept the comments as a part of the public record I'll second I have a comment you have a comment I want to thank folks for coming out tonight um in a lot of the comments tonight were around there were a lot of different issues that made notes and all of them but a lot of issues around affordable housing and this of course is a big issue facing it's the one that we're very much aware of and one I look forward to you know putting some real real underpinnings underneath the strategies and plans that we've been talking about so thank you all for coming out okay are you going to say something Mayor Prokka I just want to please the winner of the question oh okay are there no further items to come before the council meeting adjourned do I have another item on here oh I'm sorry I'm trying to get ahead too soon oh the vote oh the vote on the public hearing that matter open the vote close the vote the motion passes 7-0 alright thank you if not we adjourn at 9-12 p.m. thank you