First of all, happy new year, since this is the first meeting of the new year and also happy new decade. Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the city council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you wish to speak on any agenda item, please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak. For those of you who wish to speak, please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium. Please speak clearly and into the microphone. Now, each side, those speaking in favor of an item and those speaking in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present for each side. The time will be divided among all persons wishing to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative. So if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. Also, and for your information, this is being broadcast on Spectrum, AT&T Uverse, Frontier, and Google Fiber. It is also live streamed on the city's YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. So needless to say, we are live. Thank you. May I have the roll call please? Commissioner Williams? Present. Commissioner Morgan is requesting an excused absence. Commissioner Johnson? Present. Commissioner Bryan? Present. Commissioner Durkin? Present. Commissioner Alturk? Here. Vice Chair Busby? Here. Chair Hyman? Here. Commissioner Miller? Here. Commissioner Kenshin? Here. Commissioner Santiago is also requesting an excused absence as is Commissioner Baker, Commissioner Lowe? Here. And Commissioner MacGyver is also requesting excused absence. Thank you. May I have a motion to excuse an excused absence for Commissioner Morgan, Commissioner Santiago, Commissioner Baker, and Commissioner MacGyver? So moved. Second. Motion by Commissioner Bryan, second by Commissioner Miller that we provide excused absences for the individual's name. All in favor of this action, please raise your right hand. All opposed? Thank you. Are there any? Well, I'll go for approval of minutes and consistency statement from the December 10, 2019. Do I have any objections to the minutes? Well, can I get a motion then? So moved. Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Lowe, second by, who is that in my ear? Commissioner Alter, thank you. That we approve the minutes and the consistency statement from the December 10, 2019 meeting. All in favor of this motion, please raise your right hand. Thank you. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? Good evening, Grace Smith with the Planning Department. There are no adjustments to the agenda that the staff is aware of and we would like to say for the record that all advertisements and notices have been carried out in accordance to state and local law and the affidavits are on file in the Planning Department. Thank you. The chair recognizes Commissioner Bryan. Madam chair, I would like to have a few minutes under new business for a brief announcement. Thank you. May we have a motion to approve the agenda with the adjustment to new business? So moved. Second. Motion by Commissioner Miller, second by Commissioner L. Turk that we approve the agenda with an adjustment to new business. All in favor of this motion, please let it be known by raising your right hand. Thank you. I think we are ready for our first public hearing. Chairwoman. I would like to request that I be recused from voting on this request due to an existing working relationship with the client of the applicant. Thank you. And Chairwoman, hi. I would like to recuse myself as well due to an ongoing existing relationship with the parties involved on this application. Thank you. Commissioner Williams and Commissioner Johnson have requested a recusal from the action, the upcoming public hearing on NCCU Student Center. May I have a motion? I move that we, at their request, disqualify Commissioner Johnson and Commissioner Williams from consideration of cases A19, Triple 014 and Z19, Triple 035, the North Carolina Central University Student Center case. Yes, motion by Commissioner Miller. May I have a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Busby that we recuse the recusal from this. Disqualify. Disqualify. Commissioner Williams and Commissioner Johnson and you may leave the, at this time, all in favor of this motion, let it be known by the usual sign of aye. All opposed. Thank you. Now we're ready for public hearing on item number A19, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 4 and Z19, 0, 0, 0, 3, 5 NCCU Student Center staff report please. Good evening. I'm Jamie Sonjak with the Planning Department. I will be presenting case number A19, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, Z19, 0, 0, 0, 35 NCU Student Center building. The applicant for this case is Jay Smith from O'Brien-Atkins Associates. The properties are located on the north side of Cecil Street, just east of Fayetteville Street is located within the city's jurisdiction. The site is 1.48 acres. The request is to change the zoning from residential urban to university college too. The properties are located currently within the medium density residential future land use designation and there is a request to change this designation to institutional to match the zoning request. The proposal in this rezoning is for a student center. As shown on the aerial, the properties are located in red. They are within the urban development tier. There are a series of photos that are included as part of the staff report. The state of North Carolina owns all of the properties included in this request. They range in size between 0.143 acres to 0.285 acres. They were previously a mixture of single family and two family units. But as you can see from the aerial, previously those properties, the buildings have been demolished. As noted in the staff report, the site is located within the southern portion of the North Carolina Central University campus. It has been included as part of a larger development area to house a student center in accordance with the college's 2017 master plan update. To the north are additional NCCU campus buildings. To the east, there is a trail easement for the Peterson town trail and some single family homes. To the south is a mix of single family and duplexes. This slide shows the existing and the proposed zoning. As mentioned on the right, you can see the property is proposed for the university and college zoning district. This slide shows the future land use designation. On the right, the proposal is to change from a medium density residential to institutional to match the zoning request. This slide shows the 2017 master plan and the property in the area is highlighted with a yellow star. It's designated as a campus grounds and the request expands upon the surrounding institutional amenities, including the Miller Morgan building and the student center. This is the development plan which shows the building and parking envelopes, the site access points and the 75 foot transition use area. There are additional text commitments on the cover sheet of the development plan, including constructing a bus pullout and concrete pad and shelter along the east side of Fayetteville street adjacent to the site. Included also in the staff report is the site plan and major special use permit which was approved on August 5th, 2019 which included to construct a 2.5 story student center building totaling 105,000 square feet on a total of 8.99 acres which includes the nine parcels as part of this request. In terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan, the properties are currently designated medium density residential. And as noted before, the request is to change that to institutional. This would be consistent with the college master plan and the build out map, both of which have included in the staff report. The property is located within the southwest portion of the NCCU campus and it expands upon other institutional uses that are currently there. And staff notes that existing infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer capacity are sufficient to accommodate the potential impacts. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. We're going to open the public hearing. I do have four individuals who have signed up to speak for. I do not have any individuals who have signed up to speak against. I'll start with, who is the applicant? North Gellin Center University. Is there someone who wants to speak for the applicant first? The first name I have is J. W. Smith. Okay. All right. Good evening. My name is J. W. Smith. I'm with the Brian Natkins Associates at 5001 South Miami Boulevard Durham, North Carolina. So we represent North Carolina Central where the designers of the project and we've assisted them in taking the project through this rezoning. I've signed up to speak in the event I needed to should there been any others that had wanted to ask questions? And I think that's the case for each of my colleagues here in regards to transportation or the, with NC Central themselves. So I believe that would conclude all I need to say. Thank you. Andy Cole, does the same go for you as well? Thank you. James Griffin, okay. And Diane C. Brown. Okay. Well, I do not, I will check to see if there are any individuals in the audience who would like to speak against this particular item. If not, I'm going to close the public hearing and then give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions. All right, let's go. Questions? I have two. Okay. We'll start with Commissioner Miller. So would the staff help us out here and explain this is the first case since I've been on the planning commission where we've dealt with the university college zone, which could somebody explain really quickly how the transitional use line works in this case with the significance of it is? Jamie Sanyek with the planning department. So my understanding and others can speak as well, but my understanding with the transition use area is to have a staggered building height so that there's a transition to provide compatibility with the surrounding area. So this is applicable in the perimeters of the university college district. So I'm looking at the development plan submitted with the application. Maybe it would help if we could display that. So there's a building and parking envelope which we're familiar with and then there's a 75 transitional use area line. What can go in the north of that line that can't go south of that line? Do you want me to pull up that map? Just for illustrative purposes. And maybe Jay can help us. So the applicant is represented from the applicant is here to help answer that question. Again, Jay Smith with a Brian Atkins, 5,001 South Miami Boulevard Derm. The transitional use is a 75 foot dimension measured off the center line of the street to the inward to the site and no structure can exceed 75 foot in height. So it's a one to one sort of triangle that you would draw going up so anything proud or forward of that line could not exceed 75 feet in height. Anything beyond that line or deeper could incrementally go up as long as it didn't impede that angle of that line if that makes sense. It does, thank you. And while you're there, I have another question if I may, Madam Chairman. So I'm looking at this same map and help me out here because I'm not sure I understand. There's an area shaded green, which says it's a 20 foot landscape buffer, but that same, the Northern limit of that shaded green area is also called the 25 foot setback line. And I'm having a little trouble understanding how it can be 20 feet and 25 feet at the same time. Well, the 20 foot refers to the landscape buffer requirement and the 25 foot suggests that no building can be forward or pass that line into the public right away. I understand that, but on the map, it looks like it's the, how wide is that green shaded area? Is it 20 feet or 25 feet? 20 feet for the landscape as I recall. So, but it's also identified as the 25 foot setback line. So if you look at the map, it's 25 feet in one place and 20 feet in another. Looks like a straight line to me. Staff would suggest that that just gets modified on the map as this application proceeds forward. All right, thank you. That was my own question. A clarification. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Elder. Thank you, Chair. I had a question for staff. So was this rezoning case require meeting with the neighbors or having a neighborhood meeting to explain the changes? Yes, because this application involves an amendment to the future land use map, there is a requirement for a neighborhood meeting. There wasn't a neighborhood meeting held. There was. Okay. And I guess so the applicant can, was there any concern about, because as we know, as in the staff report notes, you know, there are residential units to the south and to the east. I'm just curious if there was any concern from nearby residents about construction or about traffic or anything like that. During the major special use permit process, they were engaged and we met with them and they had expressed some concerns about parking and traffic congestion. Our traffic consultant was able to answer all their questions though. Right. If I may, just one more question about the traffic estimates. It, you know, the staff report and I guess based on the TIA notes that there will be maybe 2,700 extra trips per day. That actually seems like a really high number for me. You know, when I think about a student center, I don't think that there's going to be that much traffic. I mean, I know that there's going to be, it's open to the public, but I can't imagine that there will be that much traffic. Can you address how you got that number? I assume most of that is being used by the students that are, you know, and that are really nearby or something. Thank you. Dianne Brown, Davenport, 4600, Marriott Drive, Raleigh. The numbers were used based off the square footage of the potential building minus the square footage of the existing building. And we use the ITE manual to generate that traffic. We coordinated with the city of Durham Transportation Department to modify what the TIA, we're not the TIA, the ITE manual suggests versus what they will want. They wanted to see square footage versus student population. I see, okay. So that was based on student population as well, or that was taken into account into estimating the number of trips. No, the student population was not. It was based off of square footage and the formulas that ITE manual gives us. Yeah. Thank you. Colleen Thomas, Transportation. I just wanted to add to that within the staff report. I did not deduct the number of trips from the existing student center site. So in reality, there is not, there is about 1,636 new trips that are generated versus the 2,667 that you see in the staff report. So I just wanted to provide that clarification. Okay, thank you. That's all I had. Okay, thank you. Are the other commissioners who would like to speak? Are there questions? If not, I think we're ready to entertain a motion. Madam chair, I move that in connection with case 819-00014 that we send this forward to the city council with a favorable report. Second. Motion by commissioner Miller. Second by which one was the fastest? Subitioner Alturk that we send item A19-00014 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. May we have a roll call? Vote please. Commissioner Bryan. Yes. Commissioner Durkin. Yes. Commissioner Alturk. Yes. Vice Chair Busby. Yes. Chair Hyman. Yes. Commissioner Miller. Yes. Commissioner Canchin. Yes. And commissioner Low. Yes. The motion passes 8-0. Thank you. May I have a motion for the second portion of this? Mr. Chair, excuse me, Madam chair. In connection with cases E19-00035, I move that we send this forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Okay. Second. Motion by commissioner Miller. Second by commissioner Busby that we send item number Z19-00035 in CCU slip center forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. May we have a roll call please? Yes. Commissioner Bryan. Yes. Commissioner Durkin. Yes. Commissioner Alturk. Yes. Commissioner Busby. Vice Chair Busby. Yes. Chair Hyman. Yes. Commissioner Miller. Yes. Commissioner Canchin. Yes. And commissioner Low. Yes. And this is 8-0. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Adios. May we have the second staff report please for the second item, which is a list of the number. Royal extension item number Z19-0013. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Jamie Sanyak with the planning department. I will be presenting case number Z19-00013. Royal extension. The agent for the applicant in this case is Bryan Harris. He's a consulting engineer. The location of the properties is 2622 South Miami Boulevard and 2120 Brunson Road. It is located within, I believe the county's jurisdiction as typo. The site acreage is 7.627 located within the suburban tier. The property is currently located within several zones. The industrial light zone, commercial neighborhood zone and the residential suburban 20. And there is a request to change this to industrial light. No development plan has been submitted as part of this request. The property is currently located within the industrial future land use designation with a small portion in the recreation open space. There is no change to that designation. As noted in the development plan, the applicant is requesting all permitted uses within the industrial light zoning district. This is the aerial map. It shows the properties located in red. The properties are again within the suburban tier. The Western property is the 2120 Brunson Road. It includes an existing warehouse and light industrial use with one building, asphalt parking and a fenced storage area. The Eastern property is heavily wooded. That is funding on South Miami Boulevard. It contains an existing dwelling that appears to be abandoned. There are a mix of light industrial and warehouse uses along Brunson Street, including the subject property, tire facility and KSE scientific. To the West is SCM metal products whose access is located off of a wreck drive. It appears that Brunson Road may have extended at one time into that subject site. However, as you can see from the pictures, there's a chain link fence that prevents access to connect those properties. Also located along South Miami, there are gas stations, convenience stores, retail uses, medical offices and a kennel. To the North, there's properties undeveloped and heavily wooded. This provides the existing and the proposed zoning. The proposed zoning on the right is the IL zoning district. This slide shows the existing feature land use designation. The property is highlighted in red. There's no change to this request. Staff has reviewed the request and determined to find it consistent with the UDO requirements. So no development plan was submitted. There's no means to offer proffers or text commitments for the site. A list of the permitted uses within the IL zoning district has been included in the staff report. And for informational purposes, this slide provides the dimensional standards for the IL zoning district. We'll just skip forward here. The properties are currently located within the industrial future land use designation, which is consistent with the future land use map. The purpose of this request is to develop a parcel that is currently located within the suburban tier. It serves as an expansion to an existing business and will provide for additional employment and activity to the area. While there's no permitted, I'm sorry, no committed uses, it is consistent with the appropriate uses within the suburban tier and consistent with the future land use designation for the area. As noted, there are already a number of variety and a number of light industrial and warehouse uses. So expanding the IL zoning district brings the site into conformance with the existing farm. And it also seeks to reduce that leapfrogging, split zoning, zoning existing condition that exists today. There is existing infrastructure, such as the roads, water and sewer sufficient to accommodate the site. And staff also notes that there is existing transit service provided along South Miami. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances. I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you so much. I'm going to open the public hearing at this time. I do have one individual who has signed up to speak for, and that is Brian Harris. I don't have much to say. Just wanted to say that this is conformed with everything that the future land plan uses. And yeah, that's basically all I have to say. You start by stating your name and your address for our listening audience so that they know who you are. I'm Brian Harris, engineer with Harris Engineering at 512 Borough Circle in Raleigh, North Carolina. The address is 2120 Brunson that we're talking about. And just for, that's all I'm gonna say. Thank you. Thank you. So do I have anyone else who would like to speak to this issue? I only have one name. If not, I'm going to close the public hearing and give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions. So, all right, I will close the public hearing. Commissioners would like to speak on this issue. To my right. Commissioners who would like to speak on this issue. Oh, commissioner Miller. Okay. Why don't we let commissioner Johnson go first since he, I did look, Mike, thank you. I'm sure I'll be less verbose. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. I resemble that remark. It's a compliment. So this is just a question for staff in regards to the permitted uses under the requested light industrial on grounds. So if this request is granted and whatever the applicant decides to do under this zoning change and flume change, or it's a zoning change, I'm sorry, with the notification have to go out to per, you like, like we typically do if you're in a certain radius that you'll need to be, right. No, Jamie Sanyak with the planning department. If this zoning request is approved by city council then the site would be changed to industrial light and the applicant would have the ability, I'm sorry, by board of county commissioners, not city council. This, the applicant is not seeking annexation. So it would go to the board of county commissioners. The applicant would then have the right to develop the property and conformance with any of the permitted uses in the IL zone without any further notification. Thank you. Follow up. Yes, please. To a representative from the applicant, were there any requirement, required like neighbor meetings with property owners around? And if so, like, have you gotten any feedback on what you're requesting? Is there any pushback or regarding? It was my understanding that there was not a need for any neighborhood meetings and so we did not conduct one. And so with that response, am I correct in assuming that you really don't have a general idea of what the neighboring property owners, how they feel about, and I know it's in conformity, but just understanding what's the permitted uses that's allowed. Yeah, you're correct. I'm unaware of this. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner Busby. Thank you, madam chair. I've just had two additional questions for staff building off of commissioner Johnson's questions. The first is really minor. The staff report says the existing jurisdiction is the city, is that? Okay, so it- That needs to be corrected. Yes, okay. Okay, so it's the county. Thank you. And then the second, just to make sure I understand this, is that the existing zoning is three different zones and the industrial light zone currently could be for any of these permitted uses as well. So at the moment, the one part of this site that is industrial light could be any of these uses and then if this is approved as a rezoning, all of it would then be the industrial light, but it's still any of the permitted uses. Is that accurate? Okay, thank you. That's accurate. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. My question concerns what appears to be floodplain at the back of the western edge of the property. Can you tell me what the code provides with regard to what can be built in the floodplain or whether or not it has buffers or protections? The applicant can correct me if I am wrong, but we did not receive a stream determination so I don't know what the regulatory buffer requirements would be that's not requirement of the application. And since there's no development plan, associated, I don't have an existing conditions map. However, the area is located within the recreation open space future land use designation and there's no request to change that designation. So typically we would not allow any development within that area. Yes, that is correct. There is no stream determination on this. We already have that determination. There is a FEMA floodplain that does come onto this and we are aware of it. Rick Rawls, the owner of this land doesn't plan on developing that area at all. In fact, I believe there was a 10% tree protected area that's required in this area. And we're assuming that any future development that's where it was gonna go is to protect that floodplain zone. Thank you, that's all I have. Thank you. Are there any other commissioners who would like to speak? If not, I will entertain a motion please. Chairwoman, I move that we move forward case number if I can find it. Z19-0001342 city council with a favorable. Board of County Commissioners. Oh, Board of County, ah, I had two Board of County Commissioners with a favorable recommendation. Second. Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Johnson, second by Commissioner Brine, that we move item number Z19-00013 royal extensions forward to the County Commissioners with a favorable recommendation. May we have a roll call vote please? Yes, Commissioner Williams. Yes. Commissioner Johnson. Yes. Commissioner Brine. Yes. Commissioner Durkin. Yes. Commissioner Alturk. Yes. Vice Chair Busby. Yes. Chair Hyman. Yes. Commissioner Miller. Yes. Commissioner Cajun. Yes. Commissioner Low. Yes. 10-0 passes. Thank you. We are ready for the staff report for the next item, public hearing, text amendment to the Durham, I'm sorry, text amendment to the Unified Development ordinance item number TC-18-00010 NPO revisions. Thank you very much. Michael Stock with the planning department and I'm really excited that I got up here at six o'clock instead of 10 o'clock, which is my normal time of appearance in the past meetings. It's really exciting. Let's do it. Let's see if we continue to be excited based on how much time it's been. Yes, that's right. Thank you. Absolutely, I've heard that. So text amendment TC-18-10 includes revisions to neighborhood protection overlay process, primarily focusing on revisions to process initiation. These proposed revisions were reviewed by the Joint City Planning Committee as part of a previous Omni-Bus text amendment and it was also heard by the Planning Commission and at that time, it was TC-1802, the Planning Commission requested that that NPO section be taken out and we followed that recommendation and set up the separate text amendment. The proposed changes are intended to clarify the request process, codify existing guidelines and then also streamline the process for governing body determination, whether or not for the request of whether the NPO should be initiated. So staff did bring this item back to JCCPC back in February 2019 and at JCCPC, they recommended moving it forward and they recommended adding three additional items to the draft ordinance, which are found within the ordinance before you tonight. The first one is to post signs within the neighborhood while the application is under consideration for initiation to allow the neighborhood to present to the JCCPC prior to the elected body action on initiating it and then also if initiated, the item would be referred back to JCCPC for their consideration for the department's work program, which is within JCCPC's purview. Staff would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Could you check to see if we have someone who has signed up? No, I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We do have one individual who has signed up to speak, Ellen Pliss. Yes, hello, good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I know that I sent an email out to all of you earlier today, but I simply wanted to follow that up by appearing this evening. I will be repeating some of what is in the email. I apologize if that is inconvenient. I don't mean for it to be. My name is Ellen Pliss. I live in Forest Hills and throughout 2018, 2019 and now 2020, I and my community have been actively involved with the current NPO process in Durham. It should be noted that even though Forest Hills has the most recent extensive experience with Durham's NPO process, there is no mention of Forest Hills or its experience in staff's report provided to you. Having been an actively involved member for Forest Hills NPO team, I am not in favor of the proposed changes before you this evening. Furthermore, I am decidedly in favor of keeping JCCPC's role as the prioritizing body for NPO's. If there has been a change in state law requiring, in fact, that it is the governing body, i.e. city council specifically and only city council that must initiate NPO's, I would like to have that visited more specifically in this arena. Staff's report appears to indicate that JCCPC's decision-making authority unduly slows the progress of NPO's in Durham. I do not feel that JCCPC has been responsible for any slowness in the Forest Hills NPO process. Rather, it has been one of the most consistently supportive decision-making bodies we have engaged with. For example, number one, on August 1st, 2018, JCCPC thoroughly probed into the proposed text amendments for omnibus changes 12, which included language creating a retroactive dating maneuver that if adopted would have effectively negated the properly submitted NPO application for Forest Hills. Our neighborhood was truly grateful to JCCPC for their oversight that they brought to our process. On December 4th, 2019, JCCPC voted to reprioritize our NPO application. That decision streamlined our process and saved the neighborhood from having to go back to square one and commence the application process again, which would have been a waste of time, neighborhood resources and goodwill. From my perspective, JCCPC has not been an inconvenience in the NPO process, but rather a facilitator, which is why it seems quite odd that they are being removed from decision-making authority in the current proposal. All Durham neighborhoods have the right to pursue an NPO. All Durham neighborhoods have this right. The revisions proposed hereby staff number one will politicize the NPO process too early on, even before the text and parameters of the NPO have been developed. That is not fair. That can be a significant NPO damper as council cannot fairly judge something that is not yet formed. And as council may be under pressures from agents, including developers who are openly opposed to NPO's. In 2018, the Triangle Community Coalition openly declared that they were quote, over the overlays. And it is interesting that some members of that coalition were on the EHC practitioners panel and that one of them presented an expansive, privately initiated UDO text amendment to JCCPC just this past month. For reference, that amendment is TC-19, quadruple-04. As for what Triangle Community Coalition had to say about Durham's NPO, it says here that they are over the overlays. They go on to congratulate themselves for organizing a opposition force for the old West Durham NPO when it was heard by this body on March 13th, 2018. That resistance was successful here. What's next? They go on to encourage their membership and anyone who receives their information that the vote is expected at the May 7th city council meeting and that individuals should contact city council to quote, let them know that overlays are not good for our growing neighborhoods. This is what our developers think of NPO's. This is what we are up against. This is active, this has lots of money and this is at play in Durham. Secondly, these revisions proposed by staff also foster an unbalanced playing field where Durham requires its neighborhoods to seek the grace of city council on an embryonic rezoning action when Durham does not require the same of developers. And number three, these revisions appear to provide a mechanism or could provide a mechanism for city council to choreograph whether NPO's will proceed in Durham and if so, in what order? That is a top down movement of power where the NPO was specifically designed to be a mechanism where power moves upward from the neighborhood. It is one of the only citizen led tools available to us normal people in the UDO. And under these revisions, we risk turning that citizen led tool into a council led political device. It is unclear to me why these changes are necessary now prior to the development of Durham's new comprehensive plan. I am very concerned that this rewriting of the game rules for NPO's could result in a substantial diminishment of neighborhood rights for all of Durham's neighborhoods. I do have a couple of questions. I don't know if I'm permitted to ask them. The first I would be curious to hear about is the one that I alluded to earlier, which is any and all details related to any state authority that specifically designate that city council and only city council can initiate NPO's. And number two, for those neighborhoods that are in national historic districts already, given the text in this ordinance that is proposed here, it is unclear would those national historic district neighborhoods still be allowed to proceed with developing design guidelines in accordance with North Carolina's session law 2015-86 or has the ability for design guidelines in national historic districts been taken completely off the table. If so, I would ask the city of Durham to please design a device that permits such guidelines and protections for national historic districts to proceed. Thank you so much for bearing with me through all of this, I appreciate it. Thank you. Are there any other, I do not have anyone else who is signed up to speak. Are there any other individuals who would like to speak to this issue before I close the public hearing? If not, we're going to close the public hearing and give the commissioners an opportunity to ask questions. I will start to my right. Are there any commissioners who would like to speak? I will then move to my left.  So my biggest concern with this and I believe that Ms. Ples has is getting at what I see as the problem here, but I can't agree with everything that she has suggested. I know that in connection with the Forest Hills NPO that her neighborhood has had a fairly favorable experience in front of the JCCPC, but I think that's just an accident of who's sitting on it at any given time. I'm much more interested in essentially coming up with a reasonable and fair process that doesn't, it isn't what I call a witch's broomstick, where the wizard says, yes, Dorothy, you can go home, but first bring me the witch's broomstick because that's what we've been doing with NPO's. We create all kinds of procedural hassles. We have to appear in front of that body and this body and you have to have this meeting and that meeting. You have to do all of these things, but what ultimately happens is that it's not prioritized in the work plan and it never happens and it goes away. And it seems to me that if that's where we're headed, we perhaps ought to consider getting rid of the NPO device as we envision it and coming up with something simpler. But in any event, I believe that we need to come up with a procedure that is simpler, that does not require ordinary people to jump through a whole bunch of hoops and I believe the sophistication of the process can be a barrier that favors neighborhoods that have the resources and discourages neighborhoods that don't have the resources or the stamina to go through this. So it's a question of not only for all neighborhoods, how much work has to be done. It's also a question for me is that it favors some neighborhoods and discourages others and I don't think that's fair either. I get because of changes to North Carolina statutes that the ability of someone to apply to rezone or change the rules on somebody else's land has changed over the last few years. And now in fact, you cannot petition to zone somebody else's land without their permission. The city can do it though in a city-initiated rezoning and so that's where some of this is coming from. The city essentially has to be, understand this whole idea of politicizing it, but under the current state statute, you have to do it. The city council has to initiate this. My problem with it, and here's my question if someone can answer it, is essentially this procedure envisions two paths for creating an NPO, the ones where the citizens initiate it. And the other one is, is that the city council can take a notion at any meeting and say, well, let's create an NPO. They don't need a neighborhood petition. They don't need to hear from citizens. They could just decide to do it, right? I mean, ultimately, yes, I'm sorry, I'm Michael Stockwood, the planning department. Ultimately, the rules, if in the way they work now and as they are proposed here would be that the city or board of commissioners, depending upon the jurisdiction, would be the initiating entity. So right now it works, it's initiated through the work program. It's when the work program's adopted, that's how it's initiated. So it's a kind of a convoluted path to getting there. The current, the way it would work now is, yes, whether it's proposed by a grassroots request or it comes up with an idea from a council member, both would have to be initiated by the city as the rules work or initiated by the jurisdiction. So if I lived in Forest Hills, I could jump through all the hoops and get it in front of the city and then continue to jump through the hoops to get on its way to approval. Or I could just go to my friends on city council and lobby them one by one and convince them that they ought to initiate an NPO for my neighborhood without the hoops. What would be the process if the city council at a meeting voted four to three to initiate an NPO? It wouldn't go back up and down back and forth. It would be just like a rezoning. It would, the staff would work it up. Any city initiated rezoning, the staff would work it up. It would come to the planning commission and then it would get, then it would go to the city council and they'd vote on it. I'll actually kind of take back what I said a little bit earlier. There's process built into the code that requires a specific application and an application process. So if a council member wants to go through that application process, that's fine. Or a commissioner member, that's fine, but they don't get to get out of it. Now, of course. You're saying the city council actually has to fill out the forms? Well, the city would fill out the forms. Yeah, we fill out our own forms for city initiated applications. We absolutely do. So there's code, there's requirements that if you read through it, it lays out what you need to meet, the parameters, what needs to be done, neighborhood meetings that need to be done. That doesn't get the city out of it. All this is saying that it's taking it to the governing body for them to, as a whole, consider the request for initiation. So it's the same process as you're telling me. It's gonna be the same number of steps and hoops to jump through, whether the city's telling the staff to do it or whether it's coming from the neighborhood petition. Yeah, so it would be the same process, yes. But what we're trying to do is trying to get out of the current process of this kind of repeat, rinse and repeat cycle of being stuck into work program consideration. This is the second time that they've been hit up with, well, we're prioritizing it quote unquote, but the merits really haven't been discussed, but they got in the door, so we're gonna prioritize it and we're gonna discuss it for the next round of work program and whatever happens then, it might get on the work program or it might be a third year. And that's what happened with Old West Durham. They were stuck in that process for a number of years before we were able to dedicate resources to getting it done and then it wound up taking around two years to get done and you're familiar with that. So what we're trying to get at is instead of Farce Hills wondering what's gonna happen with their MPO, let's take it to the governing body that's gonna have the authority to approve one and let's get them to provide that feedback of whether they want to initiate one or not and move on from there. And if it's initiated, then yes, it does have to go back to JCCPC because they buy in a local agreement, I believe and UDO have to consider the work program but that would be it. And they added in the request that even before they initiated or consider the initiating that a neighborhood if they wished could go before JCCPC. So if they wanted to build in that extra time and process they're more than welcome to but we wouldn't normally just take it directly to the council or board of commissioners. So that step is an optional step. Correct. And automatically go on the JCCPC schedule. It's up to the neighborhood if they wanna do it. It's up to the petitioner. Absolutely, petitioners, yes, yeah. All right, I understand better and I really appreciate that. This is problematic to me. I mean, if for the same piece of land a private developer wanted to come along and apply to a rezoned industrial, they wouldn't have to do any of this. I mean, it would be a much more straightforward process but when ordinary citizens want to get involved and be the initiator it becomes trial by ordeal. And I appreciate that this is marginally better but I still don't like it. So I'm inclined to vote in favor of these changes. I do understand better now in a way that I had not contemplated before and I appreciate that. But I still think that with a city initiated action there ought to be a simpler process. One that still gives everybody a crack at it but I agree with Ms. Pless. I don't see it as being legally avoidable. The city council has to, when they initiate something they have to initiate it by voting on it and then that's gonna come down is they're voting on something that nobody can describe. We're gonna initiate something but we don't know what it's going to mean in this case. I know that the same sort of devices in other cities are more set piece. You know, if you wanna get one, this is what it looks like. It's a thing in the code. It's not handcrafted. I like the handcrafted idea but gosh it does make it painful. Yeah, and I mean, you bring up very good points and what's unique about an MPO versus someone coming in and like you heard earlier, wanting to resume their own property, you're writing code with an MPO and you're involving multiple residents or property owners within a neighborhood who have various opinions on sometimes what you might think are the simplest, yes or no matters. So, and once they might agree to certain ideas or principles but when you start writing what it means they'd be like, oh, that means that or you've been involved, you've seen how it works for at least Old West Durham and when I was doing the Tuscaloosa Lakewood they took care themselves. They said, Mike, don't move this forward. We wanna go door to door and make sure everybody understands what this code means and they did a lot of back and forth just like the Old West Durham that back and forth negotiating or talking about what the different provisions meant and changing things around. It's a different animal than a request just to go from IL for your own property that's surrounded by IL, that kind of thing. So, it can be, it is tougher. Grass roots getting a whole neighborhood or a majority of a neighborhood on the same page on a whole bunch of self-regulating new development standards for your own properties is in itself can be a tougher task. Yeah. As we move forward, because I think we have big changes in our comprehensive plan and our zoning code coming in the next years, I think we need to look at those processes and those provisions in our codes and our plans that build in real meaningful citizen involvement. This is one that has not been working. I suspect even under these new rules will not work well. So, I hope we will keep trying. I see this as, and although I hate to disagree with Ellen because she actually knows more about this than I do having lived through it in a way I've not, but I do believe this is procedurally incrementally better, but it's still, I just can't believe there isn't a better way but having not having something concrete to suggest I'm going to vote in favor of this. Thank you, Commissioner Miller. Are the other commissioners, yes. Commissioner Johnson and then Commissioner Buzzfeed. Thank you, Chair Wallman. So I'm hoping that staff can help walk me through some of the content that was provided here. So on page four, in regards to part of the process that requires, I guess the existing process that requires the minimum percentage of property owners right now, like it says, it's the 51% threshold or something like that. And so here's my logic and correct me. And so what is being stated here is saying that that should not one be the sole metric for determining interest and since it's artificial and arbitrary. And so you're saying that we should look at factors more than that, beyond some number of owners who signed and supported this. And then when I look on page the second section of this thing, page three, part of the new requirements or the revised or enhanced is section three. So it's three C under establishment of overlay under 4.6.2, 3.C is saying C2, it's a lot here. It says a petition of support signed by property owners and residents within the proposed area is a part of the additional submittal requirements. So the question that I had when I read that was, is there a threshold to this petition of support? Because under number five, B2 it says that there has, in the governing bodies, I guess assessing or making a decision on the action that they'll take, it says that part of this assessment will be whether there is a substantial level of support by residents and owner and property owners. So I say all that, so it seems that based on my interpretation of this, that you're saying that, one, a majority of property owners and residents doesn't have to, shouldn't be the sole metric for determining the support for this. And then I'm reading, but there needs to be a letter of some petition of support from property owners and residents, it doesn't state what the threshold is, but then it states that as part of this determining the action that it'll take, the governing body will take into consideration whether there is substantial support. So how should we think about the mindset of the logic of the substantial, what the letter of petition of support should entail? It just seems a little unclear to me, so. That's understandable. The, we didn't put in a specific number because as you said, it's an arbitrary number and the two previous MPOs didn't have anywhere close to a 51%. There were, these, this whole process was kind of born out of right after the old West Durham where we heard comments and we tried to take, after any major initiative like that, we'd take a step back, see what worked, what didn't and the process changes was kind of born out of that and it was a number of residents that really wanted that hard number there and we're like, that's gonna be different for every neighborhood. And it's also not necessarily an accurate representation of what's going on in the neighborhood. So we didn't put in a number. The only thing that, the reason why that's written that way is just that it was a framework for council members to think about things that we weren't necessarily ignoring a petition and that it should be considered. You can say, you see that it's considered. It's not that they need to do anything with it one way or the other. It's just giving them some basic framework to wrap their head around any petition that comes to them. That's the extent of it. So, and all the MPOs have always had petitions of some sort. They've always had resident slash property owner signatures to it. Whether I believe Forest Hills has well over 50%, the past two that have adopted were from what I remember, under 50%. So, quick follow up. And so based on everything that's been shared, comments and responses to Commissioner Miller and what should you share here? Am I correct in that we're, even if this is adopted, that there's still no certainty beyond NPR requests being initiated that it will actually get to the finish line with some decision one way or the other. Right now it still could get called up in limbo once it gets to the back to the JCCP, whatever. And then the work plan stage, it can still get called in that limbo of when will we get to it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, any new project that's put forward to the planning department has to work within a work program that's considered every year. And unfortunately, a vast majority of the planning department's work program is a fixed requirement of reviewing cases that come in, whether they're administrative or rezonings and such. And then there's a limited bandwidth for lack of a better term of what additional items there's resources for to take on projects. I would imagine that if there's an MPO that is initiated that gives it a certain weight to it whether that means that it could be initiated within that immediate work program. It would be at that time determination of whether there are staff resources to work on it or if there are other work program items that can be held off in order to work on in a more timely manner and initiated MPO. But that would be a consideration of what's going on at that time. And they do that at JCCPC. And then going forward to the elected body is for their approval, consider all that every year. Right. And so that terminal nature of under my understanding of the current process is like, it's like almost like three cycles or whatnot. Like we'll make it to it this year. If we can't, we may get to next year. And then at a certain point it falls off and you have to start over. So that's still part of- That actually wouldn't be part of it. And that's another benefit of kind of revising the process now. Right now we wait until June for any and all applications that come in and we batch them together. Well, as it comes right now, if Fars Hills would submit it now, then we would start consideration of it right now. We would take a look and get it moving through a initiation request right now and not wait until June. So it gets that process moving even faster too. Okay, thank you. Thank you, commissioner Vasfi. Thank you, Madam Chair. So Mr. Scott, it'd be helpful for me if just really quickly you could just walk through from start to finish under this proposed revised plan. What are the mandatory steps that need to be taken? I understand there's some voluntary additional stops at the joint city, county planning committee, but just start to finish. What are each of those steps to work through the process? Well, prior to a neighborhood or an individual of a neighborhood or a group of individuals actually submitting an application, they would be going through a pre-submitted meeting and they would do that now. We kind of spell it out in more clarity for you. To go over the process, to go over any potential issues that we foresee that we can't, you know, that are real red flags. And such and then there is a neighborhood meeting that would have to be held by those who are requesting the MPO and that would be held and then they submit it and we review it against the criteria that's in there and then we would have most likely have discussions with the applicant. Do they wanna go to JCCPC? Here's maybe some concerns we have with the application kind of talk through and then we go from there go to JCCPC if they wish. And otherwise, I would imagine right up a report for the elected bodies and get it in front of them. It's not an immediate within a month kind of thing but I would put money on it that it's a lot quicker than what Far Stills is going through right now and what Old West Durham went through previously. Great, thank you. And I know from my personal perspective having served on this body when we looked at Old West Durham and then I was the Planning Commission's representative on the Joint City County Planning Committee when the Forest Hills MPO proposal came. I think this is moving us in the right direction. I understand from the neighborhood perspective how it may feel concerning to have to go to the actual governing body at the very beginning to get approval but I also think it won't give a sense of false hope. I think the Joint City County Planning Committee is an important body that does good work. It's three county commissioners, three city council members and the Chair of the Planning Commission but it's also an odd body from my perspective to be voting as the official starting vote which may give some false hope to a neighborhood that it might be then greenlighting a process that's still at the very end of the process still has to go to the actual governing body. So, I understand Ms. Pless's concerns. I think it's a better more streamlined process. I'm sure we have to continue to improve it. I like that there's still a voluntary potential staff at the Joint City County Planning Committee. I think it provides useful input. It provides the neighbors that are the proponents to be able to make their arguments for why they think they want to move the MPO forward. The process takes far too long right now but I do think one of the problems that I've heard from the two that have moved forward and the Forest Hills one that there's a problem with the trains moving in a timing issue and then there is a little bit of this, maybe a little bit of a false hope where it's being approved and put forward by individuals that aren't actually the people that are deciding at the very end of the process. So, I'm gonna vote for this and as Commissioner Miller said, I think I hope we'll continue to look at ways to improve the process. I believe it's an important tool that we need to continue in our toolbox but I do think this is helping move us in the right direction. Thank you, Commissioner Elter. Thank you, Chair. Mike, can you explain or can you say more about the petition, the initial petition that an applicant needs before? So, I guess at the under section, let's see, 4.62E3, right, the submittal process. So, there's a petition to initiate a process establishment of the NPO. And so, the petition is, does it say, this is a process to initiate an NPO or what exactly does it say? Because I guess to me that's important because when I think about, I feel like we should make it relatively easy for people to start the process but then it should be more difficult for the city council or the county commissioners to vote for an NPO, right? And so, what exactly is on that petition or what is that, what are we asking people to sign right there at that point? I mean, really it's unique to each neighborhood. I mean, what is built into these codified standards are what are the current guidelines now that JCCPC adopted way back when? They provide the standard petition of residents that are interested.  A number of times that I know Forest Hills did, they actually provided very specific standards that they would like to see moving forward. Sometimes they're a little bit more nebulous but it's generally worked through but in the two previous ones, at least from what I can remember, there was still, the neighborhood still had to make an argument as part of their petition as to why this is necessary and what items they are considering revising to address their concerns. And staff is part of that in terms of meeting with the pre-submitted meetings. We met with, I think, Forest Hills at least three times, if not more, to go over their application and submittal. And I know Old West Durham met a number of times and I can't remember with Tuscaloosa Lake when that was back in 2007 and they were the guinea pigs for lack of a better term. But it's gonna be somewhat unique to each neighborhood because each neighborhood, if they feel they need one, have their own set of concerns. Tuscaloosa was very different than Old West Durham which is very different than what Forest Hills is looking to do. But I guess it's not a petition to just say we want to study whether we should have an NPO, right? Because, okay. Yeah. Because it seems to me like if we could, if we could, if a neighborhood just said, well, we're kind of interested, we're only interested in studying the issue. And then at that point, if 50% of the neighborhood said, we just want to look into it. We're not gonna tell you exactly what we want, right now and then at that point, we could say that the governing body, it's okay for the governing body to be involved early on because they can see that there's a majority of the neighborhood that wants to just initiate the process, not necessarily, there's no specifics at that point yet. So I don't know. I guess one way to address Ms. Pless's concern seems to me like it would be to have this a percentage because that would actually give more clarity, right? I mean, I, because at this point I, you know, we're saying, well, we're not gonna give a requirement of a percentage as you say here in the staff report, but doesn't that make it a little bit more murky at the beginning? No, I would say that it's really, from my past experiences, it changes from, you know, having something, just doing a study is actually kind of a top down way of doing it. We, the neighborhood really needs to identify to the elected officials what those, what are the concerns that they're dealing with and what are, and how they're thinking about at least with meeting from staff, how they're thinking about doing things. I think with Old West Durham and what happened with Old West Durham was there were some ideas that went forward and then once it became more concrete, it went back and forth. It was a consternation of what this number meant and whether it should be at a certain percentage or this certain percentage, there was support, there was vast support for some stuff and not vast support for other things. It's not a straightforward process, unfortunately. Far sales might be a little bit more because they came forward with very concrete, discrete items, but sometimes it's not that way. But I know, at least with Tuscaloosa Lakewood, they had more discrete items as they submitted. Some of them just weren't doable. They just weren't able to be regulated through the UDO and we went through that with them, but there were other things that we were able to work with them on that were supportable and enforceable. Okay. Chair, could I ask Ms. Pless a question? Yes. Can you please take me, invite her up to the podium and ask her a question? Thank you. So again, I think one of the things that you've mentioned and something that I'm also concerned about is asking the governing body to make a decision early on based on more or less incomplete information, right? Yes, that's correct. And so what would it take to make that process more clear to you? Or what would need to be in here for you to say, okay, well, I'm okay with the governing body being involved this early on? Because to me, what I was getting at with Mike is that I think more clarity early on, if we could say, well, if 50% of the neighborhood at least wants to initiate the process, doesn't mean they support it, but they don't want to initiate the process, then the governing body needs to go through, needs to vote in favor of initiating. I hear you. And I also hear Mr. Stock's response that each neighborhood is different. And I wanna be mindful of that as well. We understand that Old West Durham was a very different situation because I think almost half of their property owners were rental agents who were maybe not as interested in an NPO taking form. There was also a large rental population and it wasn't really clear what their rights were in an NPO. It was just very different. And so I'm not looking to discount any of the information you just received from staff. I actually think some of that was good. At the same time, I guess my concern is number one, is it crystal clear that only city council can initiate NPO's? Is it crystal clear that we have to remove JCCPC from that power at this point in time? Or could that wait for the comprehensive plan rewrite? Why is that absolutely required at this time? Well, what happens is that JCCPC isn't really initiating it. What it's doing is prioritizing it and then it's up for consideration for the work program. So it's a very round the valve way of even trying to get an initiation from council or the board of commissioners if it happens to be in the county jurisdiction. This A is not taking JCCPC out of the process, which is one of your main concerns from what I gather. In fact, JCCPC asked to put themselves back in as an option. So if the neighborhood really wanted to get input and feedback and talk to them about it in more detail before the appropriate governing body acted on it, they could in a more one-to-one way. Not that council or board of commissioners wouldn't do that anyway at maybe a work session item or something, which was what I would anticipate we would do. But it gets a little bit more certainty one way or the other from the body that's actually going to be voting on it and gets them in the know earlier on as to what they're gonna be considering or just a better sense instead of at the end where they're kind of caught off guard. They didn't really understand what was gonna be coming down the pike. Old West Durham went through that with theirs where they had to do some things that council members wanted them to do at the last minute, that kind of thing. So it kind of gets the initiating body in the know earlier on. I hear you and yet I do have concerns about the initiating body being involved at again an embryonic stage where we don't really have a definition as to what the MPO action is due to be addressing. Therefore we're turning to a political agency which I mean just came through a really expansive process with the EHC in the practitioners panel and everything kind of showing us what their priorities might be. Neighborhoods heard that loud and clear. We really did. And this is pretty much our only device and we're very worried at this point. And in terms of what operatively could be done I still didn't hear in that response whether or not JCCPC has to be removed as the decision-making body. They are not the decision-making right. They have to be removed as the prioritizing body. Thank you. Sarah Young with the Planning Department. I wanna clarify one thing that I think causes some confusion maybe and that is and I hear it a little bit tonight. I've heard it many times before. This idea that JCCPC is initiating and the standards are for them to prioritize. The reason that was worded that way very specifically years ago when this was first created was because we were anticipating that we were gonna get multiple requests at the same time and we knew that with a very limited staff there's no way we could do more than one NPO at a time. And so the JCCPC was set as the body who would say work, hey, you got three requests in work on this one first when you get done with this one in a couple of years then you can work on the next one or whatever. They were never intended to be the body that initiated. They do not have that power. That is not how the initiation works. So currently the way initiation works is if something is prioritized then staff looks to see where we can work it into the work program and present it back as a work program item. The other challenge is because of our cycles for budget and work program like we right now are starting to develop our work program for FY21. And so we're trying to open it up and make it a little more fluid as to when if we get clear direction from the elected bodies that yes, fit this into your work program, we can do that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess since I have the floor. Thank you, Ms. Bless. You know, again, I understand you're concerned about the governing body having to initiate the process early on, but I'm not sure that having the JCCPC at this point is also the answer. I think that what is proposed here makes sense in a lot of ways. I was trying to get a sense from you is, you know, what would it take for you to be comfortable with the governing body being involved this early on? And I'll just give you, yeah. Thank you, yeah. I would be in favor of anything that allows an NPO process coming out of a Durham neighborhood to gather as much momentum as possible as rich a backlog of momentum as possible before going to the governing body. And I worry that by, and I understand what we've heard is to the reasoning behind this, but again, it's easier to quash something when it's small than to quash something when it's gain some momentum and momentum takes time. It takes involvement and with an NPO, it takes a great deal of dancing. And I don't know that we can remove the dancing from the process. I don't have the answer as to how to do that. I wish I did, but I do worry greatly about, you know, in an environment where developers have a great deal of influence, I really worry about baby NPO's going forward in the political process very early on. Thank you. Thank you. I do understand your concern. It does seem to me, at least from, and again, I think I'll echo Commissioner Busby that the process here seems to be more spelled out than it used to be. And the chance for momentum to be there is actually not necessarily explicitly being squashed. So I understand where you may be concerned, but it, and I think getting buy-in from the governing body early on is probably a good thing. So I, you know, I was kind of torn about this still, but thank you for your responses, Mike. And yeah, thanks. Thank you, Commissioner Althorpe. Are the other commissioners who would like to speak to this issue? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion. Commissioner Busby. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would move that we send forward a case TC1800010 to the governing bodies with a favorable recommendation. Second. Motion by Commissioner Busby, second by Commissioner Althorpe that we send item TC1800010 in PO revisions forward to the, is it both? The city council. I think both. Both the city council and the Board of County commissioners with a favorable recommendation. All in favor of this motion. May we have a roll call, please? Mr. Williams. No. Commissioner Johnson. Yes. Mr. Bryan. Yes. Mr. Durkin. Yes. Mr. Althorpe. Yes. Vice Chair Busby. Yes. Chair Hyman. Yes. Mr. Ketchum. Yes. And Commissioner Loewe. Yes. Motion passes nine to one. Thank you. Thank you. We have no additional old business. We do have one item under new business and Commissioner Bryan has the floor. Thank you, Madam Chair. My present term on this commission ends June the 30th of this year. And I wanted both the staff and the commissioners to know that whether I'm eligible or not, I do not intend to seek another term on the commission. When we get to June the 30th of this year, I will have served off and on on this commission for more than 17 years. I think it's time to retire. I have been in the Triangle Township seat. It's Board Accounting Commissioner seat. So one of the other reasons I'm mentioning this tonight is if any of you know anybody that lives in Triangle Township that might have a desire to serve on this body, please tell them that there will be a vacancy coming up. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there any additional comments, any additional questions, any additional anything? If not, meets adjourned.


Now, the binary states Governor Samuel Orton has advised the national chairman of the People's Democratic Party PDP, sent to your chair to resign his position or drop his ego and plead for understanding. In an emergency executive council meeting held at Government House in Makori, Governor Orton made the statement. He noted that if a presidential candidate from the North arises, the party's national chairman had pledged to step down, saying that doing so was a question of honesty. There are two things. Is it that you resign or plead and beg the people to understand with you why you should continue as national chairman? Because you said it yourself. Nobody compared you. This is my position. The national chairman told the whole world that he will resign. And it is not a candidate to emerge. And today, it is not a candidate to emerge. So the point I'm asking is where is your integrity if you don't resign? But there are many ways of doing it. If you plead, if you beg, if you seek for the understanding of the people to accept you the way you are, so that we'll run towards a lecture. You have the honors to convince them. Not to say that your tenure is four years. So you cannot resign.


Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. This is Andrea here with Dental L Tutoring. I will be hosting a webinar this Friday evening, so that is tomorrow, depending on when you're watching the video, but this will be tomorrow at 8pm Eastern time. I'll leave you guys the link at the end of the webinar, or I should say at the end of this video on how to sign up for that. Everybody is more than welcome to come. This will be how to pick the best answer for when you take your quality assurance exam. The exam is not easy. It's not impossible, though, either. You do have to study for it, but I'm going to be teaching you guys how to pick the best answer, because on the exam, two answers are typically always going to be correct, but in order to get the right answer, you do need to pick the best answer. So think back when you were in dental hygiene college and you would have, you know, multiple choice exams all the time and you had to pick the best answer. It's basically like that. So if you've been out of school for a number of years, five, 10, 20 years, it doesn't matter how long, taking tests, taking exams will probably be very new to you. So I will teach you guys how to do exactly that. If you didn't know yet, I do have a quality assurance exam study course online. If you haven't signed up for that, you can. I offer you complete quality assurance exam prep. So I give you all the modules, everything that you need to study for the exam, so you don't necessarily have to buy a textbook again. But in the video today, I want to kind of give you two questions. So I just have two questions on how to pick the best answer, just sort of a practice test here for all of you guys, but definitely feel free to be a part of the webinar tomorrow night. If you want to hear more questions. So I'm just going to change my slide here. So this is a very basic question. They do get a lot harder, but I want to talk to you guys about this. If you want to read this on your own, then feel free to stop the video and then start it up again when you want to hear the answer. So the question is, are you required to report child abuse, even if you don't have proof? So let me read the answers out to you and then we're going to discuss why one of them is the most correct. And why the other one is still correct, but not necessarily the most correct. So A, so no, some form of proof is needed no matter how big or small. And then the next one, no under the Child Youth and Family Services Act 2017 you are not required but are strongly suggested to do so. D, yes, and then as a dental hygienist you are. D, no, you need something of reason. Okay, so you might be reading this you might be so confused already or maybe you do know what the best answer is.  So the answer is C. So it is highlighted right here. Let's read the question again. Are you required to report child abuse, even if you don't have proof. Yes, we are required to do so even if we don't have proof. So this is our duty as a dental hygienist. We're not talking about any other health care profession we're not talking about any anybody else here. We're talking about you yourself as a dental hygienist. So this is the best answer. If you know or if you didn't know under the Child Youth and Family Services Act 2017. So that is a real thing we are required to do so, even if we do not have proof it doesn't matter. We have a reasonable reason to think this might be happening we need to report it. So a lot of you so let's say if you were looking at a as the best answer here. Well that's just simply not correct because you don't need proof. The final answer is not correct. Be is not correct because yes, we are required to do so but it says no. The child youth and Family Services Act 2017 is a real thing, but this answer is wrong because in this act it says we are required to do so so having no in front of it is C is of course the right answer and D is just simply not correct because it says no yes is the best answer. Okay, because this is just what we have to do if you're confused on this question at all please send me a message let me know and I'm more than happy to explain it further for you. Okay, so let's go through another one here. Last one for the video today but I will be going through more questions in our webinar tomorrow night which is Friday, December 4 at 8pm Eastern Time, I will give you the link at the end of the video now to let you guys know how to sign up for that. So, can the dental hygienists so this is the next question, can the dental hygienists take radiographs when the dentist is not in the office. A very common question actually. So, remember you have to pick the best answer, this one is a little bit trickier. So A, no they cannot, a dentist has to be present, the next one. Yes, a client specific prescription must be obtained for every radiograph taken, C, yes but not a panoramic x-ray since this is considered not client specific. Last one, yes only if at least one other staff member is present. Read through all of these please feel free to stop the video right now if you need more time to think about it because I'm going to go through the answer right now by switching the slide. Okay, so highlighted right here you guys. This is the correct answer so let's read the question again. Can the dental hygienists take x-rays, take radiographs when the dentist is not in the office. Yes, they can, but a client specific prescription must be obtained for every radiograph taken that is the best answer. So let's go through them together. A is not correct because simply the first part says no they cannot but yes we can. So we know A is not the right answer. What if you knew yes we can but you don't really know the specifics. So you might have thought okay C might be correct but we can't take a panoramic x-ray because it's considered not specific. Well is that true? No it's actually not I just threw it in there but if you didn't know you might be reading this and saying oh I don't know is that the case it sounds correct because sometimes you know you don't know right and then the last one. So this is not correct because yes we can take them but it doesn't matter who else is in the office. So if you didn't know you might be reading this answer and saying oh well that sounds right maybe we do need to have at least one other staff member. We always should for safety reasons that has nothing to do with taking x-rays and if the dentist has to be present. So does that make sense you guys. So here's the link please make sure to be a part of my group here on Facebook. I'm going to post the link about half an hour prior to our webinar Friday night in this group here.  I'll post the link to our webinar about half an hour prior so around 7.30pm Eastern time. I'm not going to send an email none of that I'm just going to post the link here. Okay you guys so what I'll be talking about at our webinar is more questions such as the ones that I have just done of how to pick the best answer and if you have any questions on the quality assurance exam please let me know there will be plenty of time for questions at the end. The webinar will be about one hour long it might not even be that long it depends on how many questions we have. And you know if there's any questions after the questions that I talk about it might take a little more time. But I do have everything booked for one hour for us to go through the best answer how to pick the best answer because this is a very common, you know, hard spot for a lot of people you might know what the answer is but then, but then if you go through the multiple choice answers and say oh my goodness they all sound correct, or maybe two of them sound correct. It gets very confusing. So let me teach you guys how to pick the best answer so you pass the first time your quality assurance exam so I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow at 8pm Eastern time I might have said 8.30 sorry did I say 8.30 I meant 8pm I might have said 8.30 earlier but it is 8pm Eastern time I will see you guys tomorrow and I look forward to seeing everybody there and bring along any questions that you might have because we want you to pass that quality assurance exam the first time. Okay you guys will thank you so much and have a nice evening.


Hello everybody. My name is Colin. My name's Peter. Yeah. And first of all, we would like to thank Ash Khan and the whole crew for this wonderful conference. It's the fifth time I've been here. It's a great experience. We'd like to tell you about some interesting news. Yeah. First of all, we'd like to trace out some of the background. We're going to talk about some new ideas we've had here. Now I've known Peter since he was this high. In fact, he was one of our very first customers at float away. Yes. And now we're working together on pop-up float. Back in 1999, I was an engineer and a designer. And I was looking around at the float tanks. And I thought to myself, surely you can do better than that. At that time I'd already been running a float centre for six years. And so I designed what became known as the tranquility float tank. And it introduced the idea of quality of design and also colour. And at that time I was expanding my float centre floatworks in London. And we used six tranquilities on new premises. Yeah. So I think we achieved what we set out. And then we added other products, cabins, round pools and open pools. Until in the end we were producing about ten different versions of the float tank. In 2006 America eventually woke up and rediscovered floating. So four years ago at this conference I met Dr. Justin Feinstein. And Justin wanted a round pool for research at the library institute for brain research in Tulsa. And I designed and built them. The research, as you know, validates what we as float operators have known anecdotally for years. In a word, hit reset. So as well as LIBOR we supplied dozens of countries around the world, more than 40. Last year though America accounted for half our sales. So this year we decided to open an American branch of our company called Flow2wayUSA and PopUp Flow and PopUp Flow. So to launch Flow2wayUSA we commissioned a new large round pool. It's ten foot in diameter, nine foot at the waterline. And we're making it in Tulsa USA. And gradually more products will come directly from there. PopUp Flow is also offering a range of inflatable pools with a round pool, an oval pool and a pod. Yeah, so there we are. Flow2wayUSA has pioneered the round pool for research and also for couple floating. Now it's very important in an open pool to do something about the air. And we felt that the air conditions are often a challenge for contractors because they're surprised for a demand for air at 95 or 90 Fahrenheit and at high humidity, 80% humidity. And as you know, that can cost a lot of money. So we're introducing a new product called Flow2wayAir. It stands in the corner of the room and it uses a fan to take air from the top of the room to the bottom and we measure the temperature at the right height for the floater. So it redistributes the air downwards. And this can be a total solution for an open float room with silent heating. You can also use Flow2wayAir with any of the PopUp open pools. Oh yes, indeed. So there's a very simple concept and we think it'll make a difference to the whole open pool idea which is particularly relevant for research and clinical use. So the PopUp float. It's a new concept. It's an inflatable tank that can be used anywhere, can be erected very quickly. It opens up some interesting new markets for our industry. The PopUp float uses a new material which is called Twin Wall. It goes completely rigid when it's inflated with air. So this thing arrives in a carry-on bag and when you inflate it, which only takes a few minutes, it becomes like a solid product. And we're introducing three here at the show today. We see the PopUp float products being really useful to take on the road. For training camps, remote communities, seasonal retreats, care homes and mobile rental services. In fact, we've been talking with Team Sky about supporting them next year on the Tour de France. So we also see a big use for this PopUp float for floating at home as well as for events and being able to put something up really quickly. You can be floating within an hour of arriving. PopUp float is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah. So that's our news today. We've got the float away from the USA, float away USA. We've got the PopUp float tank and a new 10 foot size pool. And what else do we have? Well, all of those products will be supported by a full customer support service which is already established. And air conditioning with the float away air product. And I nearly forgot to say by not turning the page that we're also introducing, we're working on now a thing we're going to call the float away portal, which is hardware and software support for hybrid sensors where we can integrate booking, data logging, reporting and all of this done with the best quality encryption, high security encryption so that we'll be able to support the internet of things with our new range of products. So we have this kind of summary. I don't want you to read the whole thing, but there's all going to be options for float centers, research users, medical doctors, companies and insurance companies. We're already talking to insurance who are very interested in the possibility that floating is going to be relevant to their problems. With data analytics. Okay, I'd also like to mention that a lot of people here run float centers. You're ideally qualified people to sell pop-up float products. So if you're interested in being a reseller, come and talk to us. And obviously it'll give you a second sell which could be very, very useful in your business. Many thanks. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Thanks for listening to us.


Mashups are something new from many things old. The contemporary spin on something vintage, the intersection of multiple ideas, identities, and innovations. A mashup is a real-time update to history's communal library, taking something from then, bringing it into the now, and seeing the next that it opens up. Faith is a mashup. Whether it's faith in religion, or science, or a universe that's rigged in your favor, it's something ancient that meets something future. Different beats and melodies that form a new and necessary rhythm and harmony in your life and in our world.


Hi, I'm David Banashtine of Libraries at Tulane. April is National Poetry Month and the libraries are celebrating. We'd like to invite all Tulanians near and far to join us. If you have a short poem that is especially meaningful to you, or if you'd like to record a video of yourself, reading or reciting a poem, and telling us why it's important to you, please check out the link below for how to submit. Poems can be in any language, and they can be your own composition. We look forward to sharing your contributions on our social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as our website, library.tulane.edu. Please join us in celebrating poems, poetry, and our Tulane community throughout the month of April.