olleague rinetta allston's uh resignation or I guess I should say I think um the city clerk can correct me but I do think we are supposed to vote on that um and so we'll try to remember to do that during this meeting I think that's something we have to be in any event um I wanted to share with uh charlie excuse me one second let me stop you right there and ask the attorney um what is what is our obligation here do we vote on that vacancy tonight since we had the I mean not on the vacancy do we vote on the accepting resignation tonight you do yes mr mary you should vote on that pursuant to the charter provision thank you and if we don't all agree then she can't leave well yeah no she that's a good trick okay do I have a motion that she can't leave no all right thank you madam attorney uh charlie sorry to interrupt you go ahead that's okay as long as everybody remembers we got to do that before we get off the call um so um at the direction of mayor shul uh and in consultation with each of you and after reviewing thoroughly the provisions in the city charter and the council procedures manual about a vacancy of the city council member I prepared a proposed timeline for conducting the process to fill this this upcoming vacancy in the city council and shared that with each of you and senior staff at the city uh last week uh towards the end of last week and um let me walk through the dates there and then talk about some of the issues and then obviously we'll have a good discussion about that as the mayor suggested today the first step in that timeline is tonight and it is the thing we'll probably do at the very end of the meeting because I think we'll all want to put it off as long as possible and that is the vote to accept the resignation of council member allston effective um as I understand it thursday april ninth um 2020 at just before midnight uh can i get a thumbs up on that council member allston does that sound correct that's great great um and um the next day friday april 10th uh the city clerk would post what's called a notice of vacancy a draft of which we have seen uh that she shared with us last week um the city clerk would make the application uh for um candidates to want to apply for the vacancy as well as the questionnaire uh that we developed as a group uh two years ago the last time we had to do this um and uh those would be made available um starting that friday april 10th 2020 um and concurrent with that the city of Durham would obviously send out a press release indicating that the vacancy has now occurred and that the process for choosing a successor to council member allston has begun um the i'm just now getting a message from our city clerk uh um that uh friday april 10th is good friday um which i should have known but did not um and so we'll obviously have to make some adjustments to this timeline as we uh go forward in this process but i'll i'll give you what i originally came up with and then we'll figure out how we need to change it um the council procedures manual requires 10 days uh that the application process be remain open uh although as a council we can um change that timeline if we decide that's the appropriate thing to do um maybe we want to do that now that we know that friday april 10th is a holiday i don't know we'll talk about that in a bit um but assuming we had a full 10 days and assuming we could start on february on friday april 10th the application and questionnaires would then be due on monday april 20th um my proposed timeline has us during the council work session on thursday april 23rd um voting to identify three to seven finalists again that is consistent with the process laid out in our procedures manual um and then um after identifying the finalists on monday april 27th um at a special evening council meeting called for this purpose the council would conduct interviews of the three to seven finalists um and then the on thursday april 13th um four days later um the council would then vote on the appointment and our new colleague would be sworn in either that day or um at our monday may 4th uh council meeting and obviously the details of the swearing in have to be figured out uh to do it at appropriate social distancing and all that good stuff um and i think um that's the timeline i put together and there's certainly ways that we can tweak it to cut to account for the fact that friday april 10th is a holiday but before we talk about the specifics let me talk more broadly about the process uh and why i think it's important for us to proceed we um the city charter requires us to at least attempt to fill a vacancy created in a member of the Durham city council the city charter is really clear the word used is shall not may uh if it says shall there's one exception and that is if we can't do it if because we have an even number of members we can't um and if we fail to do that then within 60 days a special election is there thereby called um and uh the the idea that we would allow a special election to go forward without trying to fill the vacancy um seems uh difficult to understand especially given that that would mean that the residents of ward three in the city of Durham or without representation on the council for approximately eight months um when our new colleague could be sworn in uh in december and so uh for that reason um because i think there are some uh challenges in terms of how representative the council will be without award three representative because of the fact that i think the charter requires us to go through this process that i'm advocating uh that we go forward the other thing is we've got 60 days we could take 60 days to do it my concern there is that if the clock starts running um on friday morning april 10th that puts us at about june 8th or ninth as the deadline for appointing that person and obviously we hope to be voting on a budget very shortly thereafter and i think that's incredibly unfair to our whoever our future colleague may be that we would ask her or him to weigh in on that budget uh so quickly after being sworn in i think if we follow some version of the timeline that i've proposed uh that that will bring our new colleague online on board um on or about may fourth and that that person would let them be allowed be able to go through the process with us um alongside us and um and then be able to cast a meaningful vote for against the budget when the time comes i know that i personally would have to vote no if i was sworn in seven days before we voted in the budget because i couldn't possibly figure out what's in that and know whether or not i wanted to support it um so those are the those are some of the issues more broadly i will note um that just prior to this meeting we received a resolution uh from chairman umar bezley of the germ committee and the first black people who and the the committee is asking us not to appoint a successor uh and to allow um a special election to go forward um and obviously uh i think that's um not the not something that we can do i think we have to at least try um and if we fail to do that then a then a special election will be called by operation of law um i guess the last thing i wanted to say is that um this is much like the budget it's not really fair that we have to go through this right now um you know in a perfect world uh we would be able to take uh the amount of time the same amount of time that we did two years ago to appoint a successor to um uh mayor schul uh as in his at-large seat we would be able to have in-person um public comment periods where people could come to a microphone and tell us to our face what they thought about the various candidates about us about whatever they wanted to talk about about this process um but uh because of the coronavirus and the various mandates that we're operating under that's not going to be possible at least as far as i can tell that means that it's going to be hard but it also but i think in that case we just have to do what's hard um and uh i think we will bear a specific a particularly heavy burden uh to collaborate together and with other community leaders and organizations to try to come up with robust forms of public input and comment that don't include um going to showing up at a city council meeting in person and delivering remarks at the microphone but i think we're up to that challenge i think durham's up to that challenge um and i think it's um it's really important that we move forward so that's my proposal um obviously we're gonna have to tweak some of the dates if we decide to move forward because the holiday um but i've probably talked way too much and i'm interested to hear other people's thoughts thank you mr. Randall absolutely you did not talk way too much i thought that was a great presentation i thought you covered a lot of the really important uh ground charlie uh councilmember risa thank you so much for doing the work and i really appreciate you uh reaching out to all of us individually it was very helpful to have a heads up uh before the meeting so thank you all right i'm going to now open this up for discussion and uh hear what folks have to say about the proposal that councilmember risa has made uh any thoughts that anyone has uh questions comments go for it i don't see any hints mayor pro tem thank you um quick question when the thing about 10 days the application period being 10 days that we can adjust that can we adjust that in either direction absolutely um the that portion is not in the charter it's in our procedures manual um it was a requirement we created last time around and um that particular paragraph includes language that it could be a different period of time that the city council wants and then at the very bottom of that section that deals with vacancies there's a kind of a catchall provision that says that the council can change this process through its procedure um in the interest of expediency or some other language so we can move it either direction if we want yeah thank you any other questions councilmember milton thank you mr mayor can you can you guys you can can you yeah yeah we can hear you thank you mr mayor and let me uh thank um my colleague councilor risa who always does a yeoman's job and stuff like this his attention to detail and just uh thoroughness uh always comes to whatever task he's given so i want to really thank him for the work he's done and thank him for the conversations we've had as counselors individually about this most sacred and important decision that faces us right now as a council and that is filling one of our seats that is ultimately owned by the people of this city and i want to assert the ownership of these seats um from the city ownership of these uh seats about the people of the city a councilor risa alluded to a statement that we received from the Durham committee on the affairs of black people i thank him for mentioning that on record and i do uh want to to challenge my colleagues i want to just have a heartfelt conversation about um the process and and what we face filling the seat under the circumstances that we are um i want to appeal to the council to indeed fill the seat by special election and i will i will address um some of charlie's comments counselor risa's comments about this being compulsory on us um this this plan and the timetable is an adoption adaptation of a plan uh that was conceived and adopted implemented under regular order and during normal times and i don't think there's anyone in this city that thinks that we are operating under regular order or normal times perhaps the most dramatic illustration of that is the way we're having this meeting tonight we can't even have it in our own chamber all of the shells that guide our country have been suspended the federal government has pushed back the date to file taxes uh we're not cutting off uh utility services you can go down the list of shells in our country that because of this pandemic we are not facing and if we are if this is the one carve out is if this is the area out of all the areas in the country that are being upended that we must engage in then i'd like to challenge us in considering some things um i believe uh if we implement this plan under emergency orders that we are potentially uh inviting a master class on what it looks like to have privilege insulate you from hardships a master class in it and by that i mean the people who we spent a lot of time talking about who we most who we are most concerned about accessing government uh inclusion equity would bear the most hardship in accessing this process at this time i want to talk about our scorecard for equity when we're not under a pandemic think about it um participatory budgeting we had an excellent uh roll out of participatory budgeting 2.4 million dollars um tens of thousands of people voted 60 percent of those voters were white when there wasn't a pandemic that was our scorecard when we weren't under emergency orders and i know we're talking about we're going to really lean in and do a great job to make sure folks can access it uh people can't pay their water bill um we um are talking about uh instituting stipends for our boards and commissions because we recognize we don't have representation from lower socioeconomic strata and that's without a pandemic that that's under regular order that that's our scorecard for equity and and accessing government that's how we're doing under regular order um we came up with a plan for uh immigrant brothers and sisters who didn't want to give their address to participate in boards and commissions that required them physically coming in to the building and i can't i can't hear you anymore yeah lost mark anthony councilmember can you say something to us let's see now we've really lost him can the rest of you all hear me can you all hear me i guess all right councilmember milton say something is your um use your computer let me check a computer microphone do that again let's see anybody else any any tech person out there um from the city who might have some ideas i'm not sure if daniel's on the call i just send him a text to let him know we dropped him and suggest he try to sign back in okay i could drive over and take in my ipad um so let's think for a second um diana says his mute button is on but oh yeah it is on now it's off the mute button isn't a problem yeah it's something else mark anthony try signing out and signing back in okay well i i well i'm gonna use i'm gonna use um uh one of the deputy dc manager says in the chat that it has something it has something to do with his signal strength wherever he is okay well maybe when he signs back in we'll see what happens but i'm gonna use this time to think about dinner that i haven't had yet and very much looking forward to eating after the meeting me too mr mayor me too i didn't know y'all gonna be sadeg on long windy my fault you know how it is always always talking all the time exactly especially council member allston she's ganna she's chatterbox yes we've texted him i see from wanda can someone text him and tell him to sign back and sign back in i think we've done it have we not yes i did okay thank you thank you tunnel steve can we call like an official five minute break yes i think we can um let's call an official five minute break uh a recess i believe augmented maternity is that correct maternity can we take a five minute recess you may yes mr mayor you can recess the meeting for five minutes for people to all right thank you we'll take a five minute break and hopefully marcancy will be back on by then uh and we'll we'll reconvene in five minutes do we sign out and call back in or do we just stop our video no don't don't don't sign out we might never get you back there's marcancy up he tried there he's back marcancy are you back yeah i can't i still can't hear him mr mayor yeah i think his signal strength is just challenged okay i'm gonna fix itself all right so um well we said we're going to um recess for five minutes so five minutes we may have to reconvene to discuss this okay so one thing i want to be sure to do tonight is to vote to accept council member austin's resignation period we can reconvene for the other stuff period all right here we are hey folks i'm on the phone i don't know if i'm showing up on the screen marcancy you're not showing up on the screen okay but we are hearing you on the phone mr mayor he's down at the very bottom yeah that's probably the best we're gonna get if we're on the phone yeah he's got it you can see a cell phone number down there yeah on the little gray phone i think that's him yeah that's him doesn't look like himself doesn't really look like himself looks more like a gray phone but okay um mark anthony we're taking a five minute recess in as soon as um it looks like um i think council member freeman and mayor pro tem we'll just give them another minute okay mayor pro tem's here can you hear me okay yeah we can okay thanks council member freeman's back to apology i don't know what's going on um what uh what uh wanda says is in the tech people think that you just it's not about low signal strength and so um okay yeah um but um please go ahead you were speaking and i think we're we're now ending the recess everyone's back um so uh please go ahead thank you i i think i don't know where i drop off but my my my the thrust of my first point was that um all of the shells that that our nation's been living under have been suspended and and i'm i'm just i find it curious that the only thing we're compelled to do of all of the carve out i mean we i haven't voted on anything that's happened in the city as an elected official in you know in week and i i certainly support the mayor's exercise of emergency powers but but it's pretty much been ruled by ci so nothing the world is upside down right now so so that's one of the things that informs my um concerns about filling the seat my belief is that those folks that we're most concerned about uh in our equity work are the ones that will have the highest bar to clear to participate in this process um and when i said a masterclass on um privilege insulating you from uh harm um by definition those that will participate in this process will be one people who are not worried about paying bills who are not worried about unemployment who aren't worried about a a sick family member and i think that with all of our concern about equity and access that the folks who we are most concerned about are the ones who will have the least amount of access uh in this process um i also think that that as much and i believe we are well intentioned to to go out of our way and really meet this challenge to let folk in but i think our optimism is really the optimism of privilege though those of us that sit on this council um for the most part i you know aren't facing some of the things that other people are facing uh in our city and i think as much as we are well intentioned on making this process uh accessible it's hard enough when we're not under a pandemic i also want to say that that i i i find the ward three representation argument um a bit uh a bit curious particularly from those of us who know how this system works um those of us in particularly who sit on this council have intimate knowledge that we don't have a true ward system uh we have a a zip code diversity system in place we use the nomenclature ward system but we don't have a true award system we don't uh each of us doesn't control a pot of money that we have control over like an alderman system in our particular ward our udo our comprehensive plan doesn't carve out uh pieces that are ward specific or zoning issues that are ward specific ward specific and i wonder what the corollary of that argument would be would we say that if the seat we were filling were an at-large seat would we argue that we need to fill it because the whole city is lacking representation because one of our at-large seats uh isn't filled um i don't think we would argue that and if we did then are we suggesting that perhaps we should uh give some more special powers to ward seat uh perhaps give deference to ward representatives when there's a specific issue that we're voting on that is located in our ward and of course none of that exists because we do not have a ward system uh the system we have actually allows not only for a ward representative but there's nothing that precludes all three at-large seats coming for any particular ward so under regular circumstances a ward a seat could be augmented by all of the at-large also coming from that ward um so i i i just find that um that argument a bit curious since we do not have a true a ward system we are all empowered to to look out for the good of the city uh our vote it's one person one vote we don't wait our vote uh particularly for for any particular member of the council when it's you know when the when the vote is your main to our particular ward or neighborhood um i think so we so i i just find that a curious argument i don't i don't find it very uh compelling we have a fully functional legal form um on our council uh with the six of us uh we don't have to uh maintain a partisan majority uh like they do in the legislature so the dynamics for us are very different uh than other bodies so we can function i think the question before us is is should we do this under these circumstances and finally with respect to the ordinance and i certainly respect the letter of the law but but the or at least from my point of view the ordinance contemplates an election um for a reason i mean the fact that the ordinance allows for a special election and and i don't think it offers any editorial that an election is is inferior or less preferred um and i and i think we have to be careful about sending a signal to the to the people of the city uh i think it counts in place an election uh because it realizes there are exigencies under which we cannot fill the seat that is and charlie talked about some attempts and i agree with them if we make an attempt political gridlock uh may not fill the seat we may not see we have qualified applicants uh that apply or there could be an invisible pathogen sent from the pits of hell that are trying to kill us all and and and i think that's an exigency uh that is before us right now um that that that at least asks us i think compelled is actually to consider an election i think the best way to assure that ward three is represented is to allow the people of war three to vote on the seat uh that the people of this city uh own um and i think we have to be careful also and i know it's not deliberate that we somehow suggest that an election is is is inferior or less preferable to the selection process um elections are sacred elections are good thing that's how we're elected officials that's how we all got our seats uh and i think um whatever price we pay if if we if we make the election in november or pay for an earlier election i think that's the price we pay to maintain the ownership of the seats um of the people of the seat uh so i i think uh until we can play basketball again until we can go see hamilton until we can eat in the restaurant until we can physically come into city hall and pay our bills then i don't think we should create a higher bar or then already exist to sit on this council uh for folk who may not have computer access who are worried about who would have failed out an application but are worried about employment right now or worried about bills worried about whether they're their real job of the job that actually pays the bill that's going to be there um but i think to to to date ourselves into thinking that we can meet the challenge of making sure this process is is open and fully transparent when we struggle with that under normal circumstances again i think and i'm including me in this this is the optimism of our privilege i think uh if we want to uh involve ward three and make sure they're represented we should let them vote so i respectfully and umbly uh ask my colleagues to consider uh filling this seat during an election because the world is turned upside down nothing is normal we are under emergency powers right now we're having this meeting right now because nothing is the same and i don't think it's realistic that folk who struggle under normal circumstances will really have full access to this process as it exists so thank you for that i whatever the council decided of course i will go with it and i know we'll have a robust discussion and filling the seats but this is critically important and these are challenging times and and i think uh that we should uh let this seat be filled by election thank you mr. mayor thank you colleagues thank you thank you very much councillor meadowton and um i appreciate you hanging in there with the technology thank you sorry for there no it's not your fault thank you for hanging in um other comments other comments anyone else mayor pro tem i think um council member cubby was raising her hand but it was disappearing into the background no okay i had my mic on and i moved to turn it off okay okay all right sorry okay great then i'll go next thanks um i want to appreciate um council member rice for putting the schedule together um and for his um work to put together a process that i think meets um a number of our goals and also um you know i i hear council member meadowton's um concerns and objections and um it is true we are in a very um unprecedented time and an unprecedented moment in our city um i don't however believe that that removes us from the responsibility of doing all of the things that we can do um to hold to the um procedures that we govern ourselves by and the charter that governs our community and we can um appoint someone we're not prevented from doing that by this pandemic we are simply challenged to um to build a process um an inclusive process by which people can give us feedback um in a in a virtual a more virtual world in the next phase i believe that we can do that uh the majority of the input that we got during the appointment process that added council member caviero to our council was um via email we got very few um people coming to city hall to discuss the appointment process but we received a lot of email um and letters and i think a couple of phone calls about the appointment process so that's a way in which our residents are already um used to engaging with city government and have engaged with an appointment process in the past um this appointment would be for an even a slightly shorter period of time um than council member caviero's uh first um first chunk of a term right it's just a little over a year and a half um and to to put city resources into a special election for one out of seven seats for less than half a term um especially in a time where we know that our resources are are going to be limited does not feel to me like um like a good choice i think that we can and will be able to create a process where people can have their voices heard and can be included and that that's what we should do and we should move forward with an appointment um i have a couple uh logistical suggestions regarding um member Reese's uh proposed schedule um given that uh the 10th is good Friday if we were to um just move the notice of vacancy posting until the following Monday April 13th um we can make the applications and questioners due by 5 p.m on Tuesday April 21st so give people a little bit of extra time it's a little bit less um than the 10 days it's eight days um but i think that that is enough time for people to do a short application and a questionnaire and we'll um be able to review those we'll have about a day and a half to review them before our council meeting on the 23rd where we would id finalists so that's my proposed scheduled tweak thanks thank you very much um anyone uh council member caballero yeah thank you mayor um thank you to uh my colleague council member reese for putting this uh forward and also for uh mayor put him and council member mental times comments uh while we are definitely facing you know unprecedented times our roles are still um very active and if we were to suspend everything um until this pandemic was over we would not be having this meeting this evening we would not be losing our council member colleague austin because the reason we're losing her so quickly is because she's getting sworn into the general assembly which begins in short session on April 28th so they are actually moving forward we are in the hard predicament of having to move functions of our city forward including our roles as council members who will be taking up votes potentially virtually later this month because our past work session that was canceled that we were meeting that we were we're going to vote on and then this upcoming one we'll be passing those work sessions which means we'll be passing all of those contracts virtually later in may and we are still excuse me later in april and we are also still beholden to pass a budget by june 30th so to think that we are not undertaking the work of governing while this pandemic is happening is not true um i am particularly concerned about the cost of an election when we just heard from our budget director about the potential um really challenging fiscal issue that we're going to be facing with this budget and to have an election in november for a seat that will then re-opt in 2021 just doesn't not seem um like the best use for our resources and while this is challenging and i think that ideally we would have a different choice we are not faced with that choice we lose our colleague i'm actually also concerned that we have to pass the budget and what happens if we are gridlock 3 3 with a budget in june and that's why this is a seven member board and that's why i believe we need to move as quickly as possible uh to make sure that we are a seven member board and i'll leave it at that thank you thank you council member any other comments any more comments miss racky and see if anybody's raising their hand but i'll yeah i'll certainly yield if other college one of the comments yeah council member freeman is i'll get back to you though council member melton council member freeman is raising her hand and uh council member freeman go ahead thank you mayor and i also want to echo uh the thanks for council member reese uh delving into this task and coming up with a timeline in a few days um i do want to take a moment and just note that i what i'm hearing from council member melton is specific to actual representation not in the form of um engagement and so i'm i'm i would like to hear more um around how you make sure that uh folks we talk about being you know inclusive with are involved in this process as actual applicants not just as a voice to say whether they like or don't like it's not about i'm not i'm more concerned about how heavy this this uh board is on people who aren't working full-time jobs and don't have the the mixed um priorities or responsibilities around holding the job and and being council members and how the timeline is shortened and so it looks like i got to take time off from work and it looks like a lot of very heavy um privilege conversation around what this looks like and pushing it through in a month and so i'm really concerned about moving fast and i know very well that i like to go slow to speed up and so i like to make sure that we dot our eyes and cross our teeth as much as possible i'm very cautious about um about the decisions we make as far as as far as a council member being added and as far as the budget and so just noting that the comment was a little off-putting of um council member cavillera about a three three split i mean i think as the mayor has said in the past we've been 95 percent of the like the budget has been an agreement so i don't know that there would be an issue on whether or not there'd be six of us to make the decision i think we can all see that these are extraordinary times and we can come to agreement on what the priorities need to be covered which would be the residents of this community um and so i'm not as concerned about that i um i know that the work that has to happen has to happen with staff involvement and i am very concerned about pulling on staff to do any of this of this process and i know how much it took the last time around and just how hard it was to have people engaged in both the application process and in the engagement and i and i really do appreciate council member middleton pointing out uh just how flat uh we can be without the pandemic and so just noting that the complexities of adding the pandemic and all of the health related issues that come along with it i'm just i'm just really concerned that we're making this a priority over the fact that i mean there isn't even any place for folks who are who are on shelter and living on the street to shower and wash their hands and that should be what we're focused on you know pushing forward and figuring out how to solve like there's a lot um it's just a lot i know i spend my time uh coming up with solutions around um trying to find ways to support families with young children in this community and i'm i stress this to council member recent that i felt like it was a value judgment to say that that we were not holding or we were not holding up our end of the of the responsibility and and actually performing performing some effort around um creating an appointment process and going through an appointment process when you know that there is a a crisis at hand i think it would be more responsible to actually push this out a little bit and making sure that we're past this this peak because i'm i'm also very concerned about the fact that we haven't taken up anything to to address short term rentals and all the folks who are coming to the city um from other areas there's a there's just a number of of areas that i haven't heard tonight that weren't even touched or weren't even covered and i don't i don't know that there are answers to those questions there probably are and i haven't heard them i haven't had a chance to sit down with the city manager nor the city attorney i mean there's there's there's just so much moving right now and i think the fact that there are folks who are on council who aren't working have time to focus on that is great but i want to make sure that when you're moving forward in the process we actually have um people who are engaged who would not normally be involved in this they're likely to be working and i want to make sure that we're as open to the to the people as possible thank you thank you councilmember councilmember meadowton thank you mr american you hear me all right yes yes we can thank you colleagues so much i really appreciate the the spirit uh and the and the substance of this debate i i just want to be very clear um and i i did not at any point and i'm sure the record will reflect and say that um we're not doing anything as a government uh what i said was we are a government that is operating under emergency footing um depact is closed our parks are closed our businesses are closed and i didn't vote on any one of those things none of us voted on that those things were issued by scott by our mayor using emergency powers which i support so the fact of the matter is the government is functioning but it is functioning under emergency powers and this is what it looks like um the mayor is pretty much this is the closest we'll get to and i know my my political uh uh sophisticated friend they're gonna hate me using this term this is the closest we'll get to looking at what a strong mayor looks like under emergency powers where executive directors are simply being issued and we haven't voted on anything college so uh the government's functioning but it's we're functioning under emergency powers i just want to be clear about that i'm secondly i remember a pretty full room during the uh uh selecting process that that gave us uh fortunately gave us a council of caballero uh a full chamber the night when folk were speaking to us and i remember robust audiences during the time when we interviewed people in person so yes it was very internet intensive but there was definitely some face time to spoke as well and to be clear i'm not talking about the people who will have input about the process i'm talking about people who may actually want to sit in the seat who may actually want to apply to be on the city council who by definition will now have to do it by computer because our building is closed and what if they don't have internet access i'm talking about the people who actually want to serve on the city council who won't be thinking about filling out an application because they're going to be thinking about their paycheck they're going to be thinking about whether they have a job or not those the people i'm talking about those who will actually sit in the seats or who could potentially sit in the seat not just those who will give us input or guidance about those who will sit in the seat and finally we absolutely can do this that's not my issue my question is should we do it do we have to do it can we do this in a way that if we have a choice of doing this in a way where we have more inclusion or less why would we not choose more if we can do this in a way where we have more access than not why would we consciously choose less we have we leak we have a fully functioning quorum with six folks we did it before council cabrero joined us and and you know we we worked out just fine um i find the prospect of a potential three three vote when this council historically is almost voting unanimously on a whole bunch of stuff i find the prospect of a potential three three vote far less compelling than the prospect of having a process where we can have more people involved than less that's what compelled what's compelling to me i absolutely agree we can do this process the question before is before us is should we and i think we should not thank you mr mayor and oh final i'm sorry we have an election coming up in november of november there's an election schedule we're going to be voting for president and a whole bunch of other stuff so we can piggyback on that election that we're going to have anyway in november and if we choose to have a special election i think we should consider that the price of ownership of these seats that's the price we pay to ensure that the ownership rights over these seats of the people of derm are assured this council certainly has not been afraid to spend money on a whole lot of things i think there are far less things far less important things we can spend money on the election that ensures the ownership rights are asserted over these seats thank you mr mayor thank you council member council member austin thank you mr mayor i feel conflicted about weighing in on this process at all but i'll kind of give a very very brief uh two cents just on the equity argument um and i really i recognize kind of this council member melton has laid out but the the paradigm that we're working under is different um than it ever has been uh for us and for so many people um i do just want to say kind of under perhaps different circumstances i think the argument could be made that um an appointment actually and this is difficult with covid but uh an appointment actually is a more accessible way to inter-elected office and so far as if someone has to go through a special election even for a municipal election um there are expenses involved there's you know typically you know campaign fundraising that has to take place there they're there are oftentimes more barriers to folks having access to a political campaign than than to an application um so you know i don't state that as a preference again i i i want to kind of err on the side of leaving that to the six y'all to decide what the process is but i feel concerned about leaving the seat open um any longer than it has to be i do think that our procedures lay out a strong process that i think gives fuel room and latitude to make changes to make it more accessible under the circumstances and i'm concerned that a special election would in in reality be harder for folks who are um lower income or who have are having difficulty accessing finances or fundraising networks who are unemployed um to actually participate meaningfully in that process so i just put that out there thank you very much any comment any other comments okay um council member premium i appreciate that um council member austin and um i think that's why i'm i'm specifically concerned about the that 30-day turnaround and uh recognizing that that's really uh a heavy burden to put on anyone thank you okay other comments anyone else have comments mr. mayor thank you i'd like to associate myself with councillor austin my distinguished council we're going to miss tremendously i'm going to associate myself with her comments and say yes elections are prohibitive and and it does you know you do need to raise money and do all those things um and that that is hard when there's not a pandemic and and i think that's my point in any process whether it's a selection process or an election carries with the challenges now take that process under normal circumstances and add a pandemic to it and add uh you know this emergency situation to it i'm not suggesting that elections are perfect i'm not suggesting that you know they they're they're a panacea to equity by all means but at least you have a you know you have you have uh the opportunity to go ask people for money um this process they've got to add six people for their votes who they can talk to only through a computer if you have a computer they can't talk to us in person they can't be around us uh city hall is closed and and my point is that everything that that even represent or or or to some degree represents normalcy is topsy turvy donald trump's federal government has moved the due date for tax buy that's how upside down the world is right now so so i i you know i i hear you and i agree with you that elections by in and of themselves have barriers i just think it's much harder for any election or selection process to be undertaken while we're facing an invisible enemy that's trying to kill us all um so for that reason i think we have the wherewithal this is just a principal decision i i think we can choose to to uh uh take the path that would allow more people access people who want to weigh in on the process and people who actually want to participate in the process and again uh whatever the the cost of an election whatever the cost of a special election is i'm certainly won't exceed two point four million dollars and i think it's far i think an election is far more important for these seats these seats are the property of the people of durin what price can you put on it thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember um any other comments so um we have in front of us a schedule that councilmember rice has proposed um and uh i would like to try to decide tonight how we're going to proceed it looks like your schedule has the april 10th problem uh no matter what we decided so um and i i'll just say that i don't think that keeping the i think the 10 days is personally i think is the minimum for uh the applications to come in i don't think cutting that down by a couple days is a good idea i see our attorney has some thoughts um mr mayor i i just wanted to point out that your council procedures provide that um applications shall be submitted within no more than 10 days um so it's a council procedural rule um and i also want to correct an earlier comment that i made so the requirement that you all vote to accept councilmember allston's resignation is actually also in the council procedures it's a rule 2.8 thank you very much you're welcome all right anybody want to make any comments on this schedule then we can decide if whether or not we want to adopt this schedule or not councilmember race one thing we could do um is have applications and questionnaires do thursday april 13th which is 10 days after monday april 13th um which will the clerk confirm for me that is not a holiday the monday after easter i don't think it is but um while while that's coming through um and just move everything forward one step in the calendar so um hi madam clerk hello hi the 13th is not a holiday fantastic thank you thank you and just move everything forward in one step so the so the applications would be due on the 23rd application of the questionnaires do the 23rd at the monday we would have a special meeting on april 27th monday for the purpose of identifying three to seven finalists um on thursday april 30th we would have a special meeting uh for interviews and then on monday may 4th and by the way at the end of that meeting on april 30th we could vote um on our selection have them sworn in on may 4th or we could um roll the decision forward to that meeting and have the person sworn in after we vote um and take uh their seat on the dais and participate with us in the meeting um or we could do uh yeah i think that's probably those are our options mayor pro tem you are still muted madam mayor pro tem working okay great thanks could you just say all that one more time uh basically the if if you can pull up the email that i sent last week or um you can just pull up the chat function where i've pasted this calendar in here yep the currently we have the um the um put notice of vacancy being posted on friday april 10th because that's a holiday i would propose rolling that forward to having the notice of vacancy publish on monday april 13th the application of the questionnaire being made available at that time um by the way i have already volunteered i'm happy to volunteer anybody who sees the notice published in the newspaper for example and calls the clerk's office and says i want an application and a questionnaire but i don't have a computer i will wear gloves and i mask and drive it to them um i volunteered to do that in my email that's perfectly fine that would i would love to do that um and so roll that forward 10 days from the 13th is thursday april 23rd um at our regular work session that's when the applications would be due at five p.m that day then we would hold two special meetings the following week which is actually already in the process monday april 27th 2020 we would identify three to seven finalists then on thursday april 30th uh we would conduct interviews for the three to seven finalists and neither at the completion of that meeting or at the beginning of our monday may 4th council meeting we would vote to um appoint uh the successor for the word 3c all right i'm going to see if i can stay that make sure that we all understand it if we're going to vote on this uh would be uh that uh on on monday april 13th the clerk would post a notice of vacancy and make the application questionnaire available online city would send out the press release and so forth on thursday april 23rd the council would identify i'm sorry the applications would be due applications and questionnaires would be due by 5 p.m on april the 23rd and on april the 27th the council would identify three to seven finalists for the appointments at regular council work session then on april the 30th the council would interview final finalists at a special evening council meeting and then that night could make the appointment or could also decide to hold making the appointment until monday may the 4th that i capture what you said the reason i the best argument for having the vote on monday may 4th is that after the the interviews will obviously be in some format similar to this and that will give members of the public who weren't watching it live to go back and watch that to to let to talk to folks about what they heard and to contact us for input into our decision okay so the appointment will be made at the regular council meeting of monday may the 4th i think that makes the most sense all right okay um any other comments at this point council member freeman just noting that a council member of middleton is still not visually on the line i just want to make sure he understands uh the proposed 30 days to appoint someone to the seat uh yes i i'm not visually on the line i i'm here uh can you hear me can you guys hear me yes yes we can and i'm watching on television you guys look great and and yes i'm and i understand the 30 days absolutely okay thank you thanks for checking thank you very much all righty um i'm going to now ask uh if there's any more discussion and if not if someone would like to make a motion on this item i would be happy to accept that mr mayor as a matter of course should we accept the resignation first or we don't do that last or not or never at all or not at all that that's that's a great question i'll leave that to the city attorney to ask if there's any priority with that um mr mayor you really only have to vote to on the resignation itself there's no requirement that you vote for a timeline um for how you want to proceed with the vacancy okay but can we vote i think i would i would do as council member middleton is suggesting which is to actually vote to accept the resignation which then creates the vacancy that you'd need to fill okay and when would your resignation be effective again is that april the ninth is that what we said i believe it's in the written resignation that council member allston has tendered to the clerk April 9th i believe that's April 9th 12 a.m. uh 11.59 thank you all right then uh i'll accept a motion that we accept with reluctance so move to adjourn is there a motion to that effect i'll i'll move that but only because you added with reluctance okay is there a second second it's been moved and seconded that we accept council members allston's resignation with reluctance let me i'm going to have a roll call vote i'll call each name and you can say either i or nay or yes or no whichever you prefer uh and and i will uh i'm going to just do it on the order on my i'll i'll call on uh i'm gonna i'm gonna start with myself i mayor pro tem i council member allston council member freeman i council member reese i council member caballero i council member middleton could you repeat the question yes do we do we do we accept okay thank you um the the uh it's the vote was seven to zero madam clerk uh to reluctantly accept the resignation of council member allston all right uh now if there is a motion on this process we can decide whether or not we would like to do this i'll make that motion mr mayor this is the process you've described hang on one second council member freeman let me ask if there's a second on the process and then we'll have discussion second all right it's been moved and second that we accept the process as described council member freeman just noting that the process and a vote um all in the same night doesn't seem um um like we're doing due diligence but i i mean i understand that you all want to move forward so i just want to make sure i just note that i will not be supporting it all right thank you any other comments before we vote yes mr mayor council member middleton i will i will vigorously uh participate in the selection process of our colleagues if it's the will of this council but i will also be voting uh no i think uh we can do this more inclusion so i'll be voting no i look forward to participating thank you very much any other comments before we i call for the vote okay the way i'm going to do this y'all is i'm going to call myself first i'm going to call mayor pro tem and i'm going to go right across my screen just like i did a minute ago okay uh so uh we'll now have the vote uh i vote i madam mayor pro tem i council member res i council member austin i council member freeman no council member caballero i council mayor middleton no all right thank you uh the motion passes five to two um i'm going to uh council member race as the head of our procedures committee i'm going to ask you if you will continue to work with our attorney clerk to uh move the process forward as we've discussed uh thank you so much i will also endeavor to have both forms uh prepared in spanish as well um so that we can have that uh promulgated on April 13th uh in those two languages thank you so much um council members i don't believe there's any more business to come before this meeting we we stuck it out until almost 11 o'clock and i want to thank you all in other very difficult circumstances i do want to offer one other uh we've talked a lot about staff tonight and thanking everyone i just want to thank our city attorney which i neglected to do earlier when we were talking about everything around COVID-19 kim you have done a great job under incredible stress and uh unbelievable hours and i hope you'll pass on to your staff our appreciation as we expressed earlier to our as to the city manager and his staff you all have done a fantastic job and just so appreciative of you thank you thank you all righty uh council member freeman thank you along those lines i also want to uh thank our admin staff who've been so phenomenal and answering all of the onslaught of questions that have been pouring in by phone and by email um and um making sure that i recognize that uh if not for them i wouldn't know all of the questions that were all coming in and all the concerns that were raised over the last two weeks or last three weeks i should say thank you very much thank you for bringing that to us absolutely super important all righty uh there being no other business to come before this body i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at 10 48 we will have a um a work session at one o'clock on thursday so i will see you all virtually as well thank you everybody thank you thank you good night everybody good night good night thank you good night


Try not to. OK. Try not to. Hello, YouTube. OK, so today I made Tony sit down. And I made Tony sit down. I mean, he made me sit down. And we've been talking about one of our friends who recently had a quadruple bypass.  Your heart has its own arteries that supply the muscles of the heart. And that's when they are mostly blocked. And they cannot support the tissue. Your body is actively rejecting itself most of the time. Well, that suggests an autoimmune condition. And that's not true. Tomato, potato. But it could be kind of whatever. So heart problems. I'm sure everyone knows someone with heart disease or who has died of heart disease frequently as a coach. It's something that comes up with people that I work with. It's usually one of those hidden reasons that people really want to lose weight, like lost their dad early or something like that. And you don't want to do that to your kids. Like, that's a very common thing. And with Rufus, Rufus is a really good friend of ours. And him being sick in the hospital and having heart surgery was a really, really frightening time. And we're all very glad that Tony brought him to the hospital. And hit him with my car in the parking lot. Allegedly. I would like to clear the air here on the official story on this before you hear whatever happened by Rufus. So this started on the weekend of, was it cervical? Yeah. I think so. It was a weekend of cervical. And I remember, yeah, lead taft and bill, we're going to do a pre-talk. Yeah. And Rufus' hand, we're just missing some fingers here, was like swelling up. No, it was a good hand, actually. It was swelling up. And it was actually like traveling, which is universally a bad sign. And then Bill was just like, OK, you need to go to the hospital. It's been like that for a while, at that point. So what we didn't know was this, is that we found out later at the hospital, he was having, was it unstable angina? So he's having referred pain for six to eight months. And was like, I'm going to just tough it out, because. He has a history of orthopedic injury, shoulder, knee, ankle. Like his ankle doesn't bend at all. His knee doesn't bend at all. It's always swollen. And he just thought that his arm pain was just more joint pain. And come to find out, whatever, three years in the making of that, that was not the case. I mean, it was unreal. And he ends up, I ended up taking him to the hospital. And I'm in a rush. I just came from working out out of my tank top and shorts on in winter. And we drove him up to the hospital of the ER door. And as he's getting out, he's pulling out his cane to the side. My mind's in like eight different places.  And then I start backing up the car when I realized was he didn't close the door. So the side of the door clips him in the shoulder and just starts dragging him a little bit.  And I just hit my half crippled friend with my car door. And so I close the door. And then I go find the parking spot. And he goes into the ER.  And what they found out was his blood pressure was 250 over 180. I didn't realize it was that high. It was, it's high. So the nurse goes, why is it high? Like, do you have any previous conditions? And then I walk myself in. And I'm all tattooed up. And then Rufus goes, with his double finger, he goes, well, that man tried to run me over in the parking lot. And the nurse had this blank smile, like mm-hmm, as her hands silently went for the silent alarm underneath. But we started explaining it. And then he gets put to the ER. And they're putting him on meds and everything like that. And it's going to be a long night because he goes and goes, well, who's your emergency contact? He goes, this guy. And then he goes, well, do you have your doctor? He's like, yeah, Dr. Hartman. That's Bill. Bill is a physical therapy. Not even a doctor physical therapy. And I'm so happy, by the way, that we can laugh at this now because the whole experience is just classic Rufus. If you've ever met him, he's a character and a half, the type of person that, when he leaves, everyone in the hospital remembers him. Not as Grant Gardis, his legal name, but Rufus. His wrestling name. Yeah. And I don't know, that was a scary time because I ended up, since I'm the lucky officer manager at IFEST, I set up all this stuff for the course. So I stayed in the hospital overnight with Rufus on the bed as he tried to leave the bed and sets off the hospital alarm that someone rolled out of the bed. And he gets an army of nurses running in. I jump out of the couch and, what's going on? And then Rufus is like, I don't know. I tried to get up and pee. So you were in the bed with him? Oh, no, let's be very clear here. That's what you said. No, so I have to choose my words more carefully. So there's a fold out food time. So the beds have a weighted alarm. Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't realize that. And they ended up warning him, like, hey, listen, just don't get out of the bed. Like, here's a urinal, here's everything like that. You'll need to roll out. Because if you do, the alarm goes off. He was OK. He goes, promise? All right, promise. No go. He stepped out. Like, the loudest alarm ever. I'm up at like four in the morning. Like, I kip up. I'm like, what's going on? I have like nurse, nurse, doc running in. Like, what's going on? Rufus goes, I don't understand what's so wrong. He's got to go up and pee. He's like, why'd you wake him? And he points to me. He's like, why'd you wake him up? And yeah, that was the first night.  Oh, man. That's amazing. So the reason that we're telling you about Rufus is because, well, we had a, I guess, Tony had to come to Jesus' moment and decided that it was time to help him eat better. And dude doesn't know how to cook mac and cheese much less anything. And Tony's going to, Tony's offering a hands-on approach this weekend. It's the only approach I know how, if that's it. That's true. He's not trying to foo-foo this person into being a better eater or thinking differently about food. He's going to physically take him to buy groceries and make him cook his food. Yeah, I told him I'm going to keep him alive, whether or not. And Rufus is very matter-of-fact. I'm going to do that. No, I'm not going to do that. As you can tell, with these stories, this dude who just keeps getting up out of bed, even though the nurses who care about him not dying, tell him not to, right? He's stubborn and you need to be so hands-on to accomplish what you're trying to do. And can I say this for one thing? It's like, when he just got, and I think this is amazing, is that when he got the heart surgery, like he's been walking around with McCain for, like I got the IFAS for that point for like a year so far. And he's been walking around with McCain since I was an intern for like two years at least tops. And like he was slimping, everything was swollen. And then as soon as he got the heart surgery, like quadruple bypass, he was moving around. He was jogging, he played a game of spike ball for it. And like this. He heard for a while after that, I remember. Yeah, quadruple bypass don't play that very dynamic things. But I mean, but he was like moving around with McCain. No, his overall mobility and function improved in ways that I would have never thought that somewhat just from addressing the limitation that you're dealing with in your cardiovascular system. Like that's, I wouldn't have thought that would affect your movement system so dramatically. Yeah, and that's the thing too, is that he had an awesome support system after that happened, because again, you have friends, you have family, everyone from the gym, after the first day of circle, we had like 15 people in his hospital room. The nurses were like, oh, you must be here for Rufus. And then they just tell us all in. But like he had such a great support system too. But then eventually everything goes back to normal, right? It's like, okay, so now you're out of the woods and everything like that.  People have other people they need to worry about. And Rufus is an adult. You can take care of himself. He has, to my argument, not as well as you should. But we care about him. And it's one of those things where if we can help him at least guide on certain things and just say like, hey, listen, he is a coach first and foremost. I think he would sacrifice his other good hand to continue to coach longer. Is that if I can show him like, okay, this is gonna give you more energy. So you're not falling asleep in your chair at the gym anymore, like, hey, listen, let's do something where it's gonna have you coach more. Or at least that's where I'm gonna try to frame it. What are you, what are you, what all are you gonna, are you planning on doing Sunday with him? So my first order of business is going food shopping. So I already talked to him about the budget because he has M.A. Tupperware. So I figured it to be a good, who of us to be like, okay, let's buy a lot of Tupperware. So that way there's no like, hey, let's, I have to prepare some things. What was really nice is I talked to him and apparently he eats a lot of this stuff. Like he eats a lot of, yogurt has a lot of berries, which is, I'm trying to put him on the MediShred diet but that might be some type of plan that's like pretty simple to follow. Good book. I'll link it below. So what happens is that like he eats that stuff but he, it's very sporadic. Like he actually doesn't eat a lot and he's decently overweight. Forgive me for saying that, Rufus. He's gonna watch this. I don't know why he's gonna murder us. Continue. Tupperware. So Tupperware and the thing is that he already cooks the yogurt stuff. So if I can meal prep some of the simpler meals, like there's like the Fenway Park, which is pretty much just like chicken sausage, onions, peppers. So if I can cook for him or what Lance, it was the idea was make him cook.  And I said, man, you need, this dude needs to learn how to cook. He's 63-ish and needs to learn how to take care of him. How to prepare his own food. So this, you teach a man to fish, do you feed him for a lifetime or something like that? Yeah, two in the hand, one in the bush, something like that. And that's the plan though, is just like a lot of this, I talked to him about his diet and he says like, he doesn't eat that much, again, which is surprising. You see someone over there, it's like, okay, it's an old reading issue.  And then- Well, yeah, yeah, that's huge too. And then has like, okay, I'm gonna get up and then there's nothing in my house. I'm out yogurt, so I'm gonna go and get Thai food because it's healthier than Burger King that I had last week. So I'm just gonna have all the stuff that's slathered and like in sauce, but you know, there's rice here, so it's healthy. And maybe it's healthier, but you know, if we can even show him- Re-framed it. Yeah, yeah, but- Show him, exactly. I mean, just to come back because we're coming up on 13 minutes of rambling about our buddy, I hope that talking about this person reminds you of someone, I would imagine you know someone stubborn, maybe someone in your family. And I'm hoping that these tips can kind of give you some ideas on what to do with them. Don't leave them any option, like whatsoever. Yeah. Yeah.  No, there's not. But yeah, I was about to say for the next video of programming for your roommate's girlfriend, that that's what I've been doing. You're welcome. Yeah, but yeah, it's just like, even when they're like stubborn like that, or it's like, yeah, it might be healthy, it might not, like, I'm gonna just demo for him for a week exactly like what he needs to do and make it as easy as possible. And my goal is like, okay, hopefully he reaps the benefits and gets reminded like, okay, this is why I'm doing it and give him that context where I want you to stay a coach.  Yeah. Hopefully that does a decision to get him a little bit more down that right track. Yeah. I mean, I love it. If you guys have questions, leave some below. I'm gonna let Tony go to bed.  It's been great talking with you. Goodbye. This is Anthony Giuliano and Lance Quakey.


Good afternoon. This is Kevin Burkett with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. I'm a regional extension agent working in the area of commercial horticulture. Today was going to touch on the green sector within commercial horticulture and our agribusiness team was doing some programming related to economic outlooks for different sectors of agriculture and and the thought behind these videos is if we can provide some data and Maybe some insight and analysis into these different markets producers Operators business owners could take that information Hopefully use it to make good decisions for their business and be successful So like I said was going to touch on the green industry with this video So when you say green industry some people may have a pretty good idea of what that means But just a touch on it briefly It would be the landscape services the ornamental Floriculture and turf production that happens within the state so if we think about all of the products and the services and the people and the activities that make Those things that make our yards and our landscapes and our businesses and communities look nice Those are the things that make up our green industry About five years ago. There was a economic impact survey done relayed to Alabama agriculture and at the time they Recorded some job information related to these type businesses and as you can see Green house nursery and floor cultures about 7,000 jobs Retail lawn and garden centers about 3,800 jobs in landscape services the biggest sector at 18,000 jobs So at the time it was about 29,000 I think the industry has continued to grow and expand since then so it's probably Close or past 30,000 maybe at this point But when we're talking about The green industry a lot of times there's not a lot of data out there that we can look at and This is true for Within the state think within the southeast and just just true in general There's not a lot of information out there So we look to some other indicators and some other markets to anticipate how It will affect the green industry businesses So it's strongly tied to our housing market and both the green industry and the housing market would be Tied to our overall economy and and this would kind of make sense. Like if you think about When the economy is doing well when houses are being built people are going to want and spend money on green products and services and As such you can imagine The great recession that happened 2007-2008 and that was strongly precipitated by The housing market crisis It greatly affected the green industry and we'll look at that There's a couple points of data. We'll look at and you can see there was like a there was a strong correlation there So to look at the housing market a little bit there they have what they call the housing market index and This is where they go out and they survey home builders And they say what is your business outlook? Currently and maybe what do you anticipate happening within the next six months or so are you anticipating new business new customers? so anything over the level of 50 is considered a positive outlook and Since about 2014 it is it has been above that level and has continued kind of on an upward Path of growth you might say You'll notice maybe at the end of 2018 there was a there was a downward trend. I Did see a graph the other day that indicated it had Reverse and was more on an uptick So but overall is still above the level of 50 indicating a positive outlook and home sales have increased nationally within the last couple years and Know within Alabama Home sales were up 7% at the end of 2018 over where they were in 2017 so so that's good Dr. Charlie Hall is someone I talked to To get some information and maybe some insight Into this area. He does a lot of work on the economics of the green industry he provided this slide and a number of Some graphs and data for this presentation so Wanted to make note of that and I would encourage you if you're if you have Continued interest in this area Visit his website and maybe keep track of some of the presentations and publications. He would put out during the year but To look at this This is new private housing units authorized by building permits and and kind of follows that same trend of Recovery since 2009 it has been on a positive Growth path. I think at the end of the year there were 1.3 million new starts and something contributing to that is So they talked about the millennial demographic. I think is or is close to being the largest age demographic in the US right now and there at a stage So anybody from the age of 23 to 38 they're at a stage where They finish college Maybe have been out for a couple of years and are starting into more of those career type jobs and also to the to the point of Wanting to make Maybe getting married starting a family wanting to make that first time home purchase so Millennials catch a lot of flak for a lot of different things but I guess moving away from the nest and and finally Getting started on some of that but So that's contributing on the demand side On the supply side, there's a couple things that may be affecting that Lumber prices although I think they've decreased recently had Had been more expensive had been increasing in price There had been a shortage of Both existing homes becoming available on the marketplace and also a shortage of lots to build on And in the same way that we talk about labor in agriculture construction and home builders had Have been dealing with a shortage of labor as well So there are a couple factors that are affecting the supply side of the housing market and With that You know, you could imagine well if I can't purchase a new home Or move into a new home. Maybe I'll just remodel what I have so remodels are up 7% and With a stronger demand and a little bit lower supply side. We're seeing the price Kind of continue to increase with these homes Just to touch on the overall economy for just a second There is the conference board leading economic index and This is where they'll take 10 economic indicators and combines it into one to create this Indicator so It's intended to reflect what might happen to the economy say in the next six or eight or so months and so if it was on a positive upward trend that would it's It Indicate like an expansion or growth period if it was on a a down tick That would indicate a Retraction or a session area type period So it's interesting because you can see there in about 2005 2006 it did Start on a downward trend and then we see Just a short time later Is when we experience the housing market and the great recession so There have been times where it turned down maybe to indicate a recession and That did not actually occur, but there is some Accuracy to this graph and and being able to predict certain things But as of now you can see it's been on a positive upward trend so indicating Economy has a positive outlook. I would encourage you with this graph and maybe the Two or three that we've looked at previously You know at the end of this month Maybe in the next month or two go back and look at those and see Did it flatten out? Did it? Stay on the same upward trend or What was there a downturn? so just kind of being aware and continually being aware of What those things are indicating? some data that we Can find Is the personal consumption expenditure data for flower seeds and potted plants So just like we talked about What happened with the Great Recession we can see that effect here Where it it fell off in 2008 and 2009 it took it a couple years to recover But it has since that time And we don't have all the data But it does look like as far as 2017 That was the highest levels that it's ever been at about 34 billion dollars so Obviously, that's good people are Willing and are purchasing these products and it has made a strong recovery since that time But again, we think about the the economy is doing well People have a little bit more income Probably going to make these purchases and then the performance of the nurturing garden stores within the US so The Dotted blue line is the revenue of these businesses and then the solid red line is the growth of these businesses revenue recovered since Great recession years has Hit pre-recession levels and maybe even exceeded those a little bit although we can see it's not It's maybe flattened out just a little bit recently In the same way with the growth since 2009 we've had positive growth at Sort of varying levels in the last year or so it's been One first less than 1% So there's some thought that there may be some Some changes with Within the green industry and there may be a couple things affecting that So baby boomers You know, I think each day so many thousand baby boomers are retiring and they're at a stage where They've maybe got more disposable income than they've ever had they Might be spending time traveling or want to spend time with their grandkids Maybe they've got a little bit older. Maybe have some health limitations. And so they say they're Maybe trending towards more services then going out and purchasing like I would write I'm at the stage where I would rather pay someone to come and take care of my lawn to come and take care of my plants Then me going out purchasing and doing it myself So there's some thought that there's more of a shift to the service industry Another thing would be The online retail and of course you think about the Walmarts and the Amazons going more and more in that realm and Maybe see less and less people visiting brick-and-mortar stores and that you know What kind of role does that play for our nursery and garden? businesses so positive Overall the economy has been good. I think we kind of know that We've had a stronger housing market. You might like to see the supply side just a little bit stronger Obviously it's good indicator that people are purchasing the green products Like we said maybe have that disposable income and they're going out and wanting to buy these things and then train trends like urban green spaces, so a Couple of examples would be like New York City with their high line. I think in Atlanta it's the belt line but Areas where they've incorporated green products like into these communities and into these areas for the benefit of You know they say we want a nice area where our employees or our residents can go spend some time And not just if you go downtown. It's going to be all concrete and all buildings, but we want to have Some nice areas where people can enjoy like flowers and plants in a nicely landscaped area so The more and more of those things gain traction obviously that would be a positive thing for this industry So just like we talked about positives with want to point out maybe some some potential obstacles as well So Up until just recently Fuel had been increasing although that's kind of slowed and had maybe even Become cheaper recently But the fuel was contributing a little bit to the additional freight costs but with freight and they're also having a Electronic logging mandate that they're having to comply with and I think that's adding some additional costs as well as Again we talk about labor with freight I Think they say you know there's a shortage of about a hundred thousand truck drivers now and that's also contributing to some additional costs So a lot of these products there things that aren't exactly local They're gonna have to travel say a little bit at least maybe within the state if not within a region or nationally and then We do talk about labor quite a bit in agriculture and in the same way it affects our green industry both on the production side, but then also on the services side and something I learned in Developing this presentation was that our H2B program 50% of the H2B visas allocated each year are used by the landscape industry However, that only contributes 5% of our landscape industry employment. So Know there's been talk of expanding that program or streamlining that program or making it a little bit easier to access and It seems like it's pretty heavily utilized already by this industry, but if Some changes were to take place. Maybe It would be used even more so By our green businesses and they would potentially stand to benefit from that but right now Maybe they feel like we still don't have the labor that we would like to and then natural disasters I Know with a number of our greenhouse and nursery businesses there in the lower half of the state and We think about that as an area that in the last couple years has dealt with some natural disaster type events and Obviously, that's not something that you could predict or plan or Prevent But something that obviously could affect those businesses and affect the industry On the flip side if they were in an area where they were less affected or could recover quickly Possibly they would stand to benefit in that they would be providing the products and the services that Communities and businesses and homes would want when they're going through say a rebuild so Just something again that you can't Really control it any sort of way, but obviously something that could have an effect on the industry There's an economics professor at Virginia Tech. Dr. David Cole that you know He likes to say that it's not the tough economic years that can get farms into financial difficulty but it's the good years and I think his meaning behind that is when things are going well, we might have a tendency to relax and feel like well Things are going good. We don't really have a lot to worry about right now And it may be at a time where we could Invest or expand our business, but we just encourage like smart and strategic investment And so say well things are going well You know, maybe we just hold a little bit of cash back into the business because we understand that In two or three years it may be that there is some kind of downturn in the economy and we want to Like pat our rainy day fund a little bit. So just being aware and in general If the business could respond to the what's happening say with the housing market what's happening with the overall economy Maybe the more resilient that business would be so just is there a plan like in the next six months if we continued on kind of a growth or expansion phase is there a plan for that or Vice versa if there was some kind of a downturn or recession in the economy does the business have a plan in place for that as well and Something in talking with dr. Charlie Hall he mentioned that a lot of times he'll Bring it up or encourage producers to think about is Focus on some of the functional benefits of what you're providing so you think about some things like We hear about pollinators and be health a lot recently and so When you're selling some of these products and services can you incorporate that and say hey when you use these things you're contributing to a pollinator friendly habitat or It's contributing to your natural resources and reducing erosion It contributes to people's Overall health and emotional well-being and things like that things to wear if there's a downturn in the economy They don't feel like well I'm just purchasing a pretty plant or pretty flower, but I'm actually getting some kind of benefit out of having these things Wanted to touch on this so we talked a lot in this presentation about labor and some of the issues with that so this is a It's it's a neat thing. It's a partnership between extension Auburn horticulture the Green Industry Training Center the Alabama Nursery and Landscape Association and the Alabama turfgrass Association, but if you think about some Job sites like indeed and LinkedIn that try to match up both employees and employers Like an employee can go post their information and employers can post potential job openings This website is along those lines, but specifically related to the green industry within Alabama So would encourage you to check that out if you have interest if you'd like more information Maybe contact the Alabama Green Industry Training Center John neighbors is there at the center he Colleague of extension I'm sure would be glad to talk to you and Would just encourage you to reach out there just wanted to acknowledge some of the Sources and the people that did provide information for this so dr. Hall. It takes the same in Advisor perspectives provided a couple graphs John at the Green Industry Training Center dr. Hake at University of Florida The economic survey that was done in Alabama and then a monthly report by Acre Research So thank you for your time and attention. We wish you a successful 2019 If you have any questions or comments about this presentation There's my contact information and as always extension is here to be a resource for growers and producers and want to Be a help in any way we can so thanks again and hope you have a successful year


The Russian authorities are forcing residents of Ukraine's occupied territories to renounce their Ukrainian citizenship. There are speculations that Russian police might even be given the right to inspect whether residents in these territories secretly retain their Ukrainian passports. The newly adopted law is against the international law and also violates Russian laws as a second citizenship is banned in this country. Earlier, Russia adopted a law stating that Ukrainian citizens receiving Russian passports will automatically cease to be considered Ukrainians. At the same time, Ukrainian legislation provides for a procedure for renunciation of citizenship. The relevant petition is signed by the country's president. The Russian authorities ignore this procedure by introducing their new law under the document. Upon becoming Russians, residents of the occupied territories must refrain from exercising the rights and fulfilling the duties of a citizen of Ukraine. Advisor to the head of office of the president of Ukraine Mikhail Podoliak condemned the forced passportization of Ukrainians. Russia is forcing the Ukrainians to obtain their passports in the temporarily occupied territories. This testifies to the violence exerted by the invaders on the Ukrainian citizens, Podoliak said. The Russian Federation despises its own passport and citizenship to such an extent that they're temporarily seizing other people's territories. It immediately tries to sell documents and force them to citizenship, Podoliak wrote on Twitter. In his words, such policies indicate that Russian passport is a synonymous to violence and brutal coercion.


Hi everyone, my name is Steph. This is Little Bookish Teacher and today I'm going to be sharing a review of a recent release picture book called My Epic Dad Takes Us Camping. This is the second picture book by Danny V. The first book was My Extraordinary Mum, which is a delightfully hilarious story and this one was no exception. Danny V is a podcaster here in Australia. She is fantastic and this book was illustrated by Marina Verola and it was released on the 1st of February 2023. This is the story of a dad who has grand plans of taking his kids camping. He wants to take them out in nature and they're going to have the best time and he's planned it all out. Until every possible thing that could go wrong does go wrong and poor dad ends up with bumps, bruises, insect bites, you name it. The poor guy goes through the ringer and despite it all his kids have the best time. They think the entire trip is fantastic and amazing and it really is one of those stories that showcases that just because everything goes wrong doesn't mean you cannot have a good time. You can plan everything down to the tiniest detail but that doesn't always mean it's going to be the best but sometimes just embracing the chaos can really work. So I really love this had a very similar tone to My Extraordinary Mum. It was really fun and funny and engaging. It has a fun lyrical rhyming narrative through it. You can tell there is a huge amount of humour and joy in the story just by reading it. The illustrations are bright and bold and funny. The whole thing is highly relatable particularly if you are not a person who likes camping, like me, because everything that happens I'm like that's exactly why I'm not going camping but it is a celebration of being with family, going and sharing holidays and experiences with each other and just enjoying that time that you have. In terms of using it in teaching I thought it would be a really great mentor text for prompting students when writing about experiences they have had with their family on trips or even just with friends. It's also a really great text to explore rhyming and language and how to inject humour into your storytelling. So thank you again to the author for sending me a copy of this title. I was so excited to pick up Danny's second book. It was just a really delightful time. In the comments I would love to know if you have read this book or if you have read Danny's previous work. I will leave a link to where you can check out all the information about this book, her previous title and her podcast if you are interested and if you want to let me know that you're here but you don't want to leave a comment feel free to leave a camping emoji down below. I hope that wherever you are in the world you're staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.


Hey guys, real estate gaming here today.  Oh god, what was that?  Let's go buddy. Okay, as you guys can see we're having a dance party in the kitchen table I wonder the mommy of the game doesn't get mad. Okay.  Let's go see the killer is I got out of school today. What do you mean? You got out of school? Oh my god, you just left or what? Hey, what's up? We got okay? So we got a lot of people in here you guys we got Optimus Prime Robbie Rodden that cool pro came the red machine mass car ever locked in Zach Wow, we have like six people here. That is insane.  Oh god the killer's coming Everybody's both attracted. Oh my god Oh god, he's right behind this. Oh my god. He's after Robbie. No, right, dude. Oh God Okay, where's he at? Okay, I think we're safe Are we safe? We're going to keep me high. Oh, he's over there. Oh, no rest in peace coming rest in peace George For sure. Hey, that's my old shirt man. Hey look at Robbie. He's a mountain dude. He's MLG. That's why Hey, what's up, Kane? Oh god. No, get away from me killer What killer is that if you guys know tell me in the comments because I really want to learn all the killers.  He doesn't give up Okay, where is he at?  Oh Look computer lab. Can we watch some YouTube here? Oh my god, look at Dominus. There's a Dominus Look, oh my god. Look at that you guys.  Look at these guys. They're trying to get it. I think it's a badge, isn't it? Oh, no Roblox. We're blocking Zach is stuck in there. Oh god, okay Let's see one of these computers. They're all the same screen Hey, we got another person joining us Superman Let's go. We got the whole squad here. I mean you guys can join me whenever you want you guys Whenever you see me playing just join up man. I don't mind you guys. It says don't touch me I dare you to touch it touch it. Oh wait, nothing happened to him touch it. Oh That thing just killed it. Okay, let's try it. Don't touch me. Oh my god Oh, oh god, everybody's jumping to the to the painting. Yeah.  Is it that is it that scary game with the ice scary game girl? I think it's her Oh, it is the girl from the way. I think it's called I right this that one scary game We're just like a floating head, and it's a girl. Okay. I'm a big fan. Thank you Oh my god, rest in peace baby faces here rest in peace for her you guys. Oh Rest in place RG to rest in peace Robbie. Oh god get away from me. You floating head. Oh my god How can I don't a Rubik's here? You don't have to bro. It's okay. I Actually have to be giving you guys robux. I'm actually gonna probably start thinking about doing like giveaways or stuff like that you guys because you guys help me a lot and I want to Show you guys that I appreciate you guys for the support and stuff. No Okay, but I'm sorry. I haven't done any but I'm pretty sure in the future. I would definitely do some just for you guys Because I love y'all. All right. Okay. I Been realistic friend. Oh god. Where's the floating head?  Oh god. Oh optimus landed on top of the door. Oh Yeah, look you guys. There's like a secret room over here. Did we? Yes, okay Look you guys follow me. Oh, hello. I oh what Bob's game passes. This one doesn't have game passes It's closed. Oh my god. Look at this evil guy. Look at his eyes. They're like you see that red stuff coming out Boogie I'm outside you guys I'm outside come outside. Oh you guys will catch me out here man. Oh right here y'all What's up you? What video is that? Oh my god. Come here you guys come here. Come here. Look. I want to show you a secret Wait, who is that? Oh? That's Superman. I thought it was oh god. I thought it was that other guy one of my other friends Okay, who's a killer? Oh? My god, what are those things? Oh? What why is my screen red? Leave me alone. You oh my god. What is happening to my screen? My screen is turning red am I dying? I think those guys okay. We're safe now.  Oh my god. What is that? Wait? Is that a player? They turned into a killer ghost abomination. Oh my no Those things are scary. They look like cockroaches with like Floating like with needles and stuff Wait all those players No, they're not so they're called ghost abomination That's such a whole I mean that's a horror name. I was gonna say horrible, but horrible. I mean hard get away. No Oh god What's up, Robbie? Oh dude that thing doesn't leave me alone stop following me. I'm gonna cry if you don't leave me alone This is new this oh, yeah, that was just an update on this game. That's I played. I'm like hey There's an update. Let's check it out right Bob's game passes So I think they updated this for sure well for sure this is new to the update I think they also added some killers and they definitely added as you guys can see how the screen is the stuff is right here Now and now they added stuff that you can actually get with the point So I think before it was different like they actually had a shop thing, but you have to go to the shop RG Yeah, there's a badge over here. I have some news. Oh no that things behind the wall Look at it. I see you lurking man. I see you mister. Look at that thing. He looks so hideous. Oh God, what is that? Okay, I just got the goosebumps you guys. I got the chills.  I'm here you guys come I think he wants to show oh Who's a killer? Oh my god What killer is that? What is that thing? Why is it watching? Oh, I was about to say why is it walking slow that it just killed me? Hey, what's up red machine? What are you doing here, bro? Are you hiding? Oh? Okay, we got the bad stories. There's a bad there, too. I didn't get it before RG up here. Oh Go I know where Okay, where is that killer at? Oh God.  It looks cool. It's scary at the same time. Oh my lord.  Oh my god real drink me. Okay, let's drink this mountain do right here go Okay, not where I'm LG gamers, right? Yeah, oh God look at this. Why want to get on top of there? No, leave me alone killer. Oh, I was trying to jump on that guy's head Okay. Oh is it coming? Oh God, excuse me missy You were G or I think you meant to say yo RG Follow me. There's a hidden badge realistic Hopefully it helps you man Sorry guys, I'm just replaying to the to the comments because they're going crazy calling me out and I'm not responding. Hopefully it Works out Okay, do you want to play booga booga? Actually, I'm not a fan of booga booga. I tried it I played it like once on my channel didn't do I mean, I don't care if I got views on it And I just I thought it was kind of boring.   Maybe that's why I didn't like it as much Followed me gaming. Oh, there's another badge, bro. Oh my god. My man is picking me up. Oh We got the key award. Wow. I'm so blind you see that's why it's good a friend have cool friends like mine Because they show you where the things are Join me and realistic.   Why do you see a chat? Hey real real y'all, can you play a xc? Oh, I'll check it out. Yeah party xc Party xc. I remember that I did one real in realistic form. You want me to do it in realistic form. Oh My god, he wants me to do a realistic Role play. Oh, there's a ghost coming watch out. Mr. Boots Bob Okay, from the original game realistic come real Okay, be careful you guys there is a ghost around here. Okay, guys. Well, let's end this video. Thank you for your flashlights Want me to record? Okay. Uh II was a wave. I'm sorry. I just forgot because all this chat has been going insane What II wave? All right, you guys. Well, thank you guys for watching say bye Twitter There you go, buddy. All right you guys. Well, thank you for watching Thank you guys for the amazing support as always and I will see you guys next time


So, you wanted a full demonstration of the entire guilty gear animation process from start to finish in a single video. Not a problem. Alright, today I'll demonstrate the whole workflow on this missile. But the process is literally the same for everything. Bodies, clothing, weapons and hair are all gonna go through the exact same pipeline no matter what the shape. So, here we go. Once you've completed your model and topology, the next thing is to square up the UV maps. Once you've done that, you'll open the UV editor and create a new image for your color map. Save it, press the X and repeat the process to create an image for your ambient occlusion detail. Change mode to image editor and switch view to paint. Set the brush to bucket and turn the entire AO map white. Save the image, then open the shader editor and depend the anime material that you can download completely free from my art station. Change this image to your color map and change the second one to your ambient occlusion. Once you've set that, you can go ahead and close this window. Switch to your color map, click your object, tab to edit mode. Select the areas that you want to color, go to paint mode, activate the mask, pick your color and just dump the main colors right onto your model. Repeat this process until you get all the base colors mapped on. Switch to your paint brush and outline all the UV islands in black to highlight the edges. Then switch to UV mode, edit your object, select everything, turn off the arrows and slant or paint the edges of the map just a bit to simulate that imperfect hand-drawn look. Then switch to your AO map and draw in the extra details wherever you think they should go in order to add a bit of detail in the areas you want to pop out. Afterwards, go to materials and add the outline material that also comes from my art station and under tools, add the solidifier modifier. Under materials, set it to 1, check flip in high quality and give it a negative threshold until you see the outline expand out. And finally, to add the artificial normals for total light control, go back to modifiers, data transfer, set the source to your simplified proxy. Mine is just a smooth capsule, check face corner data, custom normals and nearest face interpolated normals. You're done. Congratulations! You now know everything you need to simulate the Guilty Gear style anime shading. Feel free to try different modes to see which one works best for you, but otherwise, that's really it. I really hope that helped, but as always, hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you around.