Good evening. I'm John Martin, past president of the Interneighborhood Council of Durham. Thank you for joining the Interneighborhood Council and the League of Women Voters who are cosponsoring this forum. Both the INC and the League are nonpartisan and do not endorse candidates or political parties. I would like to thank Durham's own television, DTV8, on Time Warner Cable for producing and broadcasting this event. First captioning is provided courtesy of the Durham Chamber of Commerce. At this time, please turn off your cell phones and refrain from taking pictures or videos of this forum. Please hold all applause until the end of the forum to save time for more questions. The participants in the forum tonight are candidates in the November 5th general election for Durham Mayor and City Council Ward 2 and Ward 3. While council members must reside in the ward from which they are elected, all Durham voters vote for candidates from all three wards. The Ward 1 candidate, Councilwoman Cora Cole McFadden, is running unopposed and therefore is not participating in tonight's forum. If she's here, I'd like to introduce her for the benefit of those watching. The candidates for mayor are in the order in which they will appear on the ballot. William V. Bill Bell, Sylvester Williams. The candidates for Ward 2 are Omar Beasley, Eddie Davis. The candidates for Ward 3 are Pam Karakor and Don Moffitt. All questions will be asked by the moderator and all candidates will answer the same question. Each candidate will be allowed one minute to answer each question and the buzzer will sound when the time has expired. The candidates are asked to observe the time limits. The first question will start with Mr. Bell. The second question will start with Mr. Williams and we will continue to rotate the questions so that each candidate has the opportunity to answer first. If audience members have questions you wish to submit, please see the representative over there on the other side of the room, Dick Ford. First question for Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell, how are you different from your opponent? In other words, why should we vote for you rather than the other candidate? Well, I don't want to differentiate myself from my opponent. I would just say that I think I have a track record as an elected official in Durham having served almost 40 years, 26 years on the Board of County Commissioners, 12 years as Mayor of the City of Durham, served in leadership positions, 12 years as Chair of the Board of County Commissioners and on the Board of County Commissioners and obviously as the leadership position and as the Mayor of Durham. I think my record speaks for itself, I enjoy the position, I work hard at it and I certainly would appreciate the support of the voters as we go to the polls in November. Mr. Williams? First of all, I'd say that I am a pastor and I do believe in my faith in the Lord Christ Jesus. It should be something that should guide us if we are truly to our convictions and one of the things I think that separates me from the other candidate is that I have 30 years' background as a financial analyst and my experience as a financial analyst, it forces me to stay abreast of the financial arena of the economy and to know what's going on right currently in this country, a third of the jobs, I mean the jobs as far as the jobs are being lost in this country are being lost in the areas that are going to be significantly affecting the City of Durham and if we don't know what the financial arena is, we don't know how the economy is affecting us as a people then we're going to be pretty much suffering going forward and so my differences in my financial background, my faith in the Lord Jesus and also my care, my concern for all people in the City of Durham are not just a special group. Mr. Beasley? Good evening. The difference between my opponent myself, I say let's start with our strengths. My opponent was an educator, a long time educator here in Durham, well respected and admired for being a successful educator. I have experience when workforce development, housing as well as public safety and in parks of recreation, those are skills directly have something to do with what City Council has to do as a job. That's the difference between my opponent myself. Mr. Davis? Well first of all, I want to thank the League of Women Voters and the Inland Neighborhood Council for sponsoring this event. Also want to thank the candidates for being here and giving of themselves and their time and I also want to thank the candidates who went through the primary, particularly Franklin Haynes and Dale Madioli, both of whom who have endorsed my candidacy. I've spent 37 years in public education, I've worked 21 years at Hillside High School, I've worked real hard with the Student Council. We worked on lots of different issues that focus in on issues of equity. Worked with a group of students that ended up lobbying the General Assembly and getting them to make a small change in the United States Constitution. Also served on the State Board of Education where I helped to develop a budget, the budget every year for the K-12 education system in the state. Thank you. Ms. Carricker? I do appreciate the opportunity to come tonight and I have to say for all the candidates that are here, just the willingness to serve speaks highly of everyone that ran in the primary and is here on the podium with me tonight. I would have to say what separates or differentiates us is I was born in Durham, I'm third generation Durham girl, which gives me a unique perspective, I think, in the city. I served for 15 months as a county commissioner. I was appointed to take Commissioner Herron's place when she stepped down. I have 20 years of service volunteering in this community, in educational, in civic and faith-based endeavors. I was a foster mom. I have 16 years experience as a mortgage processor. Mr. Moffatt? Thank you. Like everyone else up here, I want to echo the thanks from the people that organized tonight's event and the people who are running. Some of the things that people will want to know about me is that I have experience. I serve on council now and I'm running for another term. Along with that, I serve on 12 different boards and commissions and I spent six years on the planning commission working on the issues of faith Durham. My education is a bachelor's of architecture and a master's of business. In business, I ran a division of a major corporation, Whole Foods Market. I spent 18 years there building it from one store to 85. And now I'm helping build a community-owned grocery store with over 1,250 people who own it, who live in this community. I have a daughter in third grade at EK Poe. I work in community organizations, both on boards, people like Habitat for Humanity and the Polly Murray Place. And I support smart growth and equality for all families. Thank you. The next question will begin with Mr. Williams. Is there a serious problem in the Durham Police Department? If so, what is it and what should the council do about it? I think that we should have a citizen's review board. Derrick Walker was a friend who was a friend of mine on Facebook. And he was one that I was corresponding with. And when I saw what happened downtown Durham, it really bothered me. I think there needs to be a citizen review board for any action, especially when there's deadly force being used. And the citizens have a greater say in the matter than what they currently have. There is current citizen review board, but I think there need to be some where the citizens have greater impacts as far as what's being said. And the reason why I say that is because, number one, what it does, it shows, okay, that there is no single group being singled out by a police department. And when the citizens of Durham do not have the, do not feel safe with their own police department, then there is a problem. And I think by having a citizen review board, they have greater input as far as this goes on, then I think that also, too, that the citizen will feel better assured that they're getting the best protection they can possibly have. Also, I think, too, that with Chief of Police, I think they need... Thank you. Mr. Beasley? Yes, sir. Well, I'm not going to sit up here and say there's a serious issue with our police department here in Durham. The issues that we see here in Durham are pretty much nationwide, they're nationwide issues. Like Mr. Williams said, I would definitely like to see a citizen review board, but I think it should be comprised of city workers from different departments that would be able to come to some kind of solutions or recommendations for complaints that are lodged against different officers throughout the city. And then that could be presented to the city manager or the chief or even to the council. Mr. Davis? Yes, I think there is a problem, but I think the biggest problem is the problem of explanation to the community. I was at a PAC meeting on Saturday and there was an excellent explanation given by one of the top officials of the police department. And she explained, through lots of questions and answers, about the recent shooting on the plaza. And she answered questions about whether there should have been shots made by rebel bullets, whether there should have been shots to another part of the body rather than a shot that many people call shooting to keel. What she referred to it as was shooting to neutralize the crisis. She did an excellent job and I would hope that there could be more explanation like that to the citizens of Durham so that they would understand the protocols that the police department used. Thank you. Ms. Kerker? I think overall, we are not having a serious problem. There are some problems, however. We have an excellent police force and they care very much about the community. There are some statistics that are troubling as far as the percentage of African-Americans that are being pulled over and searched as opposed to other parts of our community. And I think that needs to be addressed. And there have been some tragedies this summer as far as Mr. Walker shooting and Mr. Oskampa. But all of those, that's under investigation. And I think a citizens review panel could be strengthened. But I think, again, communication is probably the first and best step. Thank you. Mr. Moffatt? First, I want to agree with Ms. Kerker in that we have, I think, a lot of really fine people working for the department. But disparities do exist, at least statistically, both across the country and locally. And I think that that deserves consideration and that consideration is underway now. The SBIs investigating the department shooting and the Human Relations Commission is working on the issue of disparities. And so it's inappropriate for me to actually take a stand one way or the other until they have a chance to do their work and then present it to council. So thank you. Mr. Bell? I would say that within an organization, there are challenges and certainly there are challenges with the police department. I would also indicate in terms of evaluation of police department, the police chief told us at our last city council meeting that the police department was undergoing certification and was expected to receive the highest level of certification that awarded to police departments. That's from an outside reviewing agency. In addition to that, obviously there are issues that have been raised by the community. I think the council has taken the appropriate step to step outside and to ask the human relations to look at those concerns that have been raised. And I think at the appropriate time, once the Human Relations Commission has made this report, then I as a mayor and hopefully the council will be in a better position to evaluate the results of that Human Relations Commission study. Thank you. Next question, we will begin with Mr. Beasley. Also, this involves the police. Does the police department need to devote more resources and more officers to enforcement of traffic laws, including speeding, yielding to pedestrians and sharing the road with bicyclists? If so, where will those resources and officers come from? Well, to answer your question is absolutely yes. I had a problem in my neighborhood several months ago where cars were passing a school bus and kids from my neighborhood were getting on a school bus and they were just flying by. And so we contacted some officers and they began to sit and watch that area. So I think the resources are there because the police officers do have districts that they're supposed to survey, so surveillance and everything. So when they're there, they can easily, in the morning time, watch those areas where the school buses, the bicycle lanes and make sure and assure that citizens of Durham are safe. Thank you. Mr. Davis? Yes, I think that there should be much more discussion in the city of Durham about the roadways, the traffic, including the bicycles. Two terrible incidences have occurred recently with the deaths of bikers and we need to make sure that the citizens in Durham understand sharing the road. The bicyclists are just like people operating other motor vehicles and they have a right to that road and I'm hoping that there can be much more dialogue about that. Also, there should be much more discussion about traffic laws because we end up losing too many lives through traffic accidents, particularly with young people and sometimes with the abuse of alcohol and other kinds of issues like that. Ms. Kerker? I think this is a problem in Durham. I think it's more than just a law enforcement issue though. We definitely need to emphasize that with our officers and make sure that they have the resources they need to enforce the laws that are out there. I think it's also a community endeavor that we need to, at the PAC meetings, that communities need to feel like they can call the police and address issues that are happening. I think we also need to talk about this though as a city, as far as making sure that we have the bike lanes, that people understand the laws and also another huge issue is pedestrian safety, that there are crosswalks and sidewalks because there are a lot of major thoroughfares that have no sidewalks whatsoever. Thank you. Mr. Moffat? Thank you. One of the things that studies have shown is that people drive what the road allows rather than the posted speed limit. And there are resources there, like the police have come out, for example, and run operations on crosswalks. But the real issue, there are two actually major issues beyond policing, which is infrastructure. Sidewalks has been mentioned, but also making the roads so that they're less friendly to speeding, speed humps, road diets, traffic circles, creating bike lanes. The Bicycle of Pedestrian Advisory Commission is meeting right now upstairs. I'm on that commission, but I'm here. And this is something they work on, we work on month in, month out. And the other thing is information, things like the fact that cars already yield the pedestrians in crosswalks. Getting that information out and helping people be more neighborly in the way that they share the road. Thank you. Mr. Bell? I would support the comments that have been made by our Councilman Moffat. Additionally, in terms of resources, you probably should know that our police department is staffed at the level that they've asked for in terms of sworn officers. There may be a question of how those officers are deployed. And certainly I would be open to listening to the community in terms of their suggestions as to what we might be doing to more efficiently and effectively deploy those officers to minimize the issues that have been raised. Mr. Williams? Does the police department need to devote more resources and more officers to enforcement of traffic laws, including speeding, yielding to pedestrians and sharing the road with bicyclists? If so, where will those resources and officers come from? My response to that, you know, initially my thought was, are you serious? We have young people being slain, being killed. When we have a police department that whose salary does not match what salaries on our college campuses are, we're talking about bicycle lanes. Are we really being serious? Do we really understand the issues here in the seat of Durham? Do we really understand what's happening here in Durham? And I think oftentimes we don't understand what's going on.  And you can't just throw sweet water and think it's gonna be better. I think what we need to do, we need to address the issues for what they are. Resources to give our policemen better training as far as conflict resolution. So when I have another incident, what happened on the plaza? We need to give them better salaries so they can have a vested interest here in the seat of Durham and know that the people in Durham care for our police officers, but also that our police officers care for the citizens of Durham. This is where I think the resources should be going. This is what I think should be done. Thank you. Next question, we'll begin with Mr. Davis. Recently there has been criticism of the Historic Preservation Commission. Are they doing something wrong? If so, what and what would you propose that they do differently? Well, I don't think the Historic Preservation Commission is doing anything wrong. They are doing what we want them to do and that is to talk about the history, the legacy, the heritage of the buildings and the people of Durham. I know that there was a big issue about the Liberty Warehouse. There were issues about the other issues in terms of some of the buildings that have been proposed and approved. However, that commission, like all of the commissions, are advisory. They do the very best that they can to advocate the positions that they see fit, but that the ultimate decisions on those kinds of issues do come down to the city council and in some cases the county commissioners. But I think that the Preservation Commission is doing a good job and they should continue to stand up for the outstanding heritage of Durham. Thank you. Ms. Keraker? I would agree that they're doing a good job. There are a lot of beautiful buildings and we've already lost some beautiful buildings in the last recent years. So I think it's good to advocate for that. We also have to listen very carefully to neighborhoods and to individual homeowners or individual property owners and make sure that we're making the best decisions for everyone. Thank you. Mr. Moffat? Thank you. The Historic Preservation Commission, a lot of the work that they do is to review what are called certificates of appropriateness. These apply to structures that are in any local historic districts or more and more local historic districts. And the commission is dealing with an avalanche of certificates of appropriateness. There's a lack of guidelines, particularly for what are called non-contributing structures, which are structures within the districts, but which are not actually considered historic themselves. And the second problem they have is not everybody who lives within all of these districts that are all over the city actually know that they're in such a district. And so there is also a catch-up work that goes on. So I think within the structure that they have, they're doing a good job. The fact that there is some controversy from time to time indicates that they're probably doing something right. And it's something that we're looking at now to see if we can help them do a better job. Thank you. Mr. Bell? I wouldn't want to characterize what they're doing is being wrong. I think there's certain areas that probably they may be moving a bit beyond their bounds. I think certainly they've got to balance the historic preservation of buildings, restoration with economic development and what the total impact is on our city. And there have been few instances in my opinion where maybe they've gone a bit further than they should be in looking at historic issues and not balancing economic realities and the positives that some of the structures they evaluate and could have on this community. Thank you. Mr. Williams? I think there needs to be a greater value in front of the community as a whole. I was in a long conversation with a person who works with strong preservation side here in Durham. And one of the things that this person was telling me is that there are a lot of things that's in Durham that they were not aware of. They did not know the history of Durham. They did not know a lot of the facts surrounding Durham. Me being a Durhamite, having lived all of my life, I know some of the issues facing Durham. I know some of the historical places here in Durham. And here was a person that she was not aware of any of those things. So I think there need to be a greater buy-in from the community as a whole. I think they need a greater input as far as understanding what should and should not be preserved. And I think that anytime you got a person who's been paying taxes for decades here in the city of Durham, I think you should really consider very how you talk about displacing or removing those people for a bigger or greater development, as they say.  Thank you. Mr. Beasley? All right, well, first and foremost, we're talking about a volunteer advisory commission. And they are designed to reserve a historic integrity of Durham, which is a great thing. I think a lot more people want to see that, see that held to in here in Durham. But the communities that are directly impacted by some of their decisions should be able to weigh in on those decisions before they're brought to council or even the county commissioners before a decision is rendered. Thank you. The next question will begin with Ms. Keraker. The Periodic Rental Inspection Program, or PRIP, was established by the city to inspect rental housing in specific areas of the city, which have a large number of substandard units. It has been suggested that the PRIP should be revised. Should the council revise it? If so, how and why? Well, I've been in the news a little bit about this recently. I did say that I thought that the PRIP should be reviewed. Obviously, we want all housing to be up to code. And I totally support what the PRIP is trying to do. My concern is that we are at such a deficit with affordable housing right now that I want to be able to bring in landlords, developers, builders, plus the community and find out ways that we can make this so that it works and it will not discourage property owners from wanting to rent. But I totally support the program, the especially making sure that everyone has safe and affordable housing. That is my passion, is making sure that everyone in Durham has safe and affordable housing. Thank you. Mr. Moffitt. Yes. First, let me say it's the proactive parental inspection program, which is an important distinction because most of what the city does is complaint driven. And that puts a tenant in the spot of having to actually complain about their landlord to the city. But because this is a proactive program, and we have people who go out and look at rental housing throughout and districts across the city in zones, 65% of those units have problems that need to be addressed. Things like missing smoke detectors. These are basic safety items that absolutely should be addressed. The PRIP does not add a single regulation to a landlord. It simply makes sure that they're doing what they are already required to do. It does help provide safe and decent affordable housing. And I think that people that live no matter what their income is or what kind of housing they live in, it needs to be safe and it needs to be decent. Thank you. Mr. Bell. I'm certain to support the PRIP. I think it's doing what it was set out to do. I think it's important to understand that when it was first established, it was established almost city-wide. And through feedback from relatives, property owners, the city council decided to reduce the scope of the area that it'll be looking at so that we could be able to sort of determine how effective it is doing. And I think it's doing a good job. Obviously, something can always, it's open for review for changes, but by and large I think the goals that it's set out to do is meeting those goals and I think it's doing it very effectively. Thank you. Mr. Williams. I work with the Southside residents and one of the things that will come up from time to time was that they'll use code enforcement to put people out of their homes. And I think when we're looking at safe and affordable housing here in the seat of Durham, why would someone who's living in dilapidated conditions anyway, would you use something such as code enforcement to have that person put out when they can't afford to go anywhere else? And I think that we need to look at the whole program, look at everything that's involved in it to make sure that code enforcement not being used to put people out of their homes. I mean, because where else will they go? Where else can they go? And I think there are some that believe that this is intentional, that code enforcement is selective, that they're not really trying to look at all the houses in Durham, but in certain areas that they want developers to come in to develop those areas. And this is what I would be opposed to. If you're gonna use it, use it even handily across all this seat of Durham and not be selective. Thank you. Mr. Beasley? Yeah, I support the efforts of the prick. I support the efforts of bringing all rental homes up to code, particularly for their renters. If there are code violations that need to be addressed and the program sees them and deems them need to be addressed, they need to be addressed. But like Mr. Williams said, the violation should not put the renters out of their home. You know, the owners of the home should have time to address the issues, fix them up, and allow the tenants to stay. Thank you. Mr. Davis? Well, I support the program and would like to make sure that we put a little more teeth into it, actually. I think that in many of these programs, they appear to be voluntary and there are some housing units, some rental units where there needs to be some more enforcement to deal with code and also to deal with making sure that the renter and the rentees doing the kinds of things that they need to do to protect the property. There needs to be a balance. We know a lot of people who are renters who may not always do the kinds of things that they need to do to protect the property that people are renting to them. Thank you. Next question is related to both of the last two. Does Durham have a gentrification problem? If so, where is it a problem? And how is it a problem? Gentrification, of course, is when people start moving in, when people have been living in a community for a long time and then other people see the property values there as being something they can capitalize on, move in, fix up, property taxes begin to rise and people can no longer afford to live there. And I think this does happen in areas across the city. There are, the Durham Community Land Trust is one organization that is working on solutions that where people own the structures but they don't own the real estate itself underneath it and it's owned by a non-profit that are protected from the tax increases but they can still build wealth. And I think that's an important consideration. Probably places where this is going on, we see it in Cleveland, Holloway right now, property values are risen substantially over the last few years, but that's gonna be more and more communities that are adjacent to downtown. I think we'll see that kind of pressure and it's something that deserves careful consideration. Thank you. Mr. Bell? I'm not sure that we have a gentrification problem as we define the gentrification. I think what we have is an opportunity to help revitalize some of the neighborhoods. The city has taken the lead in some cases, the private sector has taken the lead in other cases. By the same token we're also mindful of the fact that there's a need for affordable housing in this community and I think the city has taken the appropriate steps. We're probably the only city in the state of North Carolina that is dedicated at least one cent of the property tax to affordable housing in Durham. That means about $2.2 million that will go towards affordable housing. But I wouldn't say we've got a problem. I think what we have is a combination of private sector coming in, the public sector coming in and still being mindful of the fact that we've got to have housing for persons who can at least afford and that's where the city has stepped in with this affordable housing effort. Thank you. Mr. Williams? I attended a Durham community on the behalf of the Black people meeting and we had a Department of Transportation official come in and one of the things she said that what they wanted to see done in Durham is the same thing they've done in Charlotte. Well, if anyone who's been a part of Charlotte and seen the transformation they've taken there, you realize that Charlotte's gone from being predominant in Black downtown to almost predominant in White. They say they want the same thing done here in Durham. Is that by design or we're seeing that there are some people that are expendable that do not have a root here in Durham, the shit not live here in Durham. So I think that when you look at that and you consider Southside once again where I've heard reported to me that they were saying, okay, we'll give you $20,000. People living in Southside, you buy one of those houses. There are buildings in the Southside area. Well, these houses are $160,000. What is $20,000 gonna do towards them making those payments to live in that area? Yes, they are being pushed out and anyone have to say they're a blonde and they can't see what's happening in the city of Durham. We know what's happening in the city of Durham and this is why in every community I go into I fight for the citizens of that community because I want them to realize and understand you have a vested interest in the city of Durham. No one should just maybe come in and push you out. Thank you. Mr. Beasley? Yes, I feel that there is an issue of gentrification going on here in Durham. My friends that grew up and a family member stay over there in northeast central Durham and a lot of people are buying homes over there and fixing them up and people being moved out. You look at the housing developments that we had here in Durham. The Fable Street housing projects, you look at Southside even though the city has taken a lead of addressing that issue with putting affordable homes in the Southside project and rolling hills but the perception is that it's gentrification going on and perception is everything. Thank you. Mr. Davis? Well, I think as Omar said, perception is in many ways what is reality for lots of people. I don't know that we are suffering from the development that we've had here in Durham, particularly downtown. I think it's a good thing when people come in and they revitalize neighborhoods and they are able to start and restore businesses. What I would like to see is for that model to be replicated in lots of the different communities in Durham, there ought to be ways that we can look at the Fable Street corridor, oh, hey, Ty, we ought to be able to look at the West End and the East End and other parts of Durham to make sure that some of those businesses are put together in a way that might be able to utilize the skills that come from North Carolina Central from Duke University and to do what people complain about being done in some places, they ought to be able to do that themselves. And I think that we can do that. Thank you. Ms. Carrick? I think we all want to see neighborhoods revitalized. I mean, that's a good thing. When people are moving in, when young families move in and when people are fixing up their houses and cleaning up their yards, that's all a good thing. However, I think we are beginning to see a problem with gentrification as far as people not being able to afford the houses in the neighborhoods that they've grown up with. Because our home ownership is historically low, that's a problem, there are people that are renting that have been renting for years and years who are being pushed out of their houses. I've seen a study recently that says the shortage in Durham there, we need at least 450 houses affordable in a range below 150,000 to meet the need. We need 3,500 apartments in that range. And while I really appreciate that the city has the penny for housing tax, and I think that's a really good start, it's not something that the city's gonna be able to accomplish by themselves, and it's a serious problem that we need to address. Thank you. Next question, we'll begin with Mr. Bell. How will you weigh the rights and interests of developers and existing homeowners when considering infill development in established neighborhoods, especially those near downtown undergoing revitalization? I guess I refer back to the comments I made earlier. Certainly I as a mayor of the city of Durham, and I think council understands the need for affordable housing in this community. We also understand the need for the revitalization of certain neighborhoods. And what I would see is, depending on what is being proposed by a developer, and how does that fit into the overall plan that Durham has for providing more affordable housing, providing neighborhoods that have mixed incomes. And I think an example of that, and I'm not gonna say what we think, I'm gonna tell you what we're doing. I think a perfect example of that is what we did over in Barnes Avenue in Eastwood Village, where we now have mixed income ownership units all driven by the city of Durham. I think you're gonna see that in Southside, and you're seeing that in Rowland Hills, where we've got mixed income affordable housing, and I think it fits into the structure that we're trying to do in terms of revitalizing neighborhoods by the same token, mindful of the opportunities for people to own, and also to rent. Thank you. Mr. Williams? Yes, how will you weigh the rights and interests of developers and existing homeowners when considering infill development in established neighborhoods, especially those near downtown undergoing revitalization? Well, I'll tell you what my response was when I was speaking to the Kensington Heights residents as far as all developers coming there and wanting their property. I see, and I think that it's shameful the way that sometimes developers come in trying to offer the residents pennies on the dollars for their homes. I think that if a house is tax-valued at $40,000, $50,000, you're gonna say to this person, I'm gonna take your house, I don't want you to move someplace else. Well, give that person, especially the elderly person who doesn't have a mortgage, give them the money, the resources, where they can go somewhere else and still be mortgage-free. If it's under $60,000 or $80,000, where the average values of homes in the city of Durham, then that's what they should get rather than giving an elderly person pennies on the dollars and asking them to go and start all over again with so little. And so, I think there could be a better, because we want development here in the city of Durham, but we also must consider the people who built Durham, the ones who've been here for decades paying the taxes in Durham. Thank you. Mr. Beasley? Yes. Well, with the developers that are coming in to do the infill development, we have to make sure that we're not disturbing the integrity of the community that's already there. I think that's important, but when we look at the new development that's coming in, we have to make sure that it's a live and work environment. That everything that we're putting up is accessible. You wanna have housing that's close to, that includes some commercial development. So, you don't wanna really destroy the integrity of certain communities, but you also wanna make sure that you have places to work where people are putting new development in. Thank you. Mr. Davis? Yes, I think the first thing that has to happen is that there needs to be a thorough set of dialogues that occur in those communities. That there are to be ways that people can recognize where we may be going, what might be the potential for the development and how can people who are there now, who've been there, who have roots there, will be able to be sustained or if there are going to be ways for them to move into other communities. I think that we really must be able to deal with the mixture of development in a way that people who have moderate incomes can maintain the living ability that they have in those communities while looking at ways that the community at large might be improved. Thank you. Ms. Carrick. I don't think there's an easy answer to this. We're gonna have to do it very carefully. We're gonna have to move slowly and make sure that we're taking care of everyone. Durham should be able to do this. I mean, our history is that we've always had different neighborhoods of different socio-economic levels side by side. So I think our community is probably better equipped to do this than a lot of cities. However, as Durham becomes, because Durham is such a wonderful place and there are great things happening here, as people come in and as we do see these new developments closer into downtown, especially the high density ones, we have to watch very carefully that they remain mixed. If they become very popular, they may be kind of gentrified so that it becomes impossible for lower income people to move in or it could be that people with higher incomes will avoid them and they'll just become projects. So we have to be very careful. Thank you. Mr. Moffitt. Well, I heard the question as developers of redevelopment versus residents and this comes into play with rezoning cases in particular. I spent six years on the planning commission. I chaired it for three. I actually heard hundreds of cases and the issue is the same, whether it's near downtown or it's in the suburbs. It's a most decision. It's a balance of the needs of the whole. It's balancing the needs, things like making sure the community is livable. It's walkable that we also are expanding our tax base because that impacts everybody in the city and we're using principles of smart growth. Each case is unique and that's part of the work of city council, it's work I'm doing now and it's work I look forward to continuing. Thank you. Next question will begin with Mr. Williams. Recently the planning commission voted not to rezone land for an office building and then the city council voted unanimously to reverse that decision. Is there a problem with the planning commission? Some would say there is. I think that with the planning commission, it's the people that are on there. I mean, you have to say they're okay that they're concerned for the citizens of Durham and anyone who wants to take the time to do what they do, you have to understand where they're coming from but also understand to the city council, you have to ask the city council who are your vested interests? What are your reasoning for overturning what recommendations have been brought to you? And I know I'll throw this out. I know that there was an issue that came up with same-sex marriage here in the city of Durham. City council voted to say we're not gonna have any discussion from in the city of Durham. We're gonna vote seven to zero about any input from the citizens. How can you have a city council that are representing the citizens when they don't want to listen to what input from the citizens, what they're saying. I think that we should listen to them, that we should have greater input from our citizens. We shouldn't take such a capital attitude towards any recommendations that have been made. Thank you, Mr. Beasley. Yes, sir. Once again, like I said earlier, the Planning Commission is a volunteer advisory board. Although they thoroughly review every proposal that comes before them but what they do is recommend to the council what should be done. I'm sure that the council took seriously into consideration what they recommended but they probably saw a better benefit in approving that plan than what they recommended. So I believe the council did their homework as well and I would hope made a great decision. Thank you. Mr. Davis. Yes, like the Historic Preservation Commission that you talked about earlier, the Planning Commission, even though it does a great deal of work and deals with a lot of so-called in-the-weeds kinds of discussions, the council ultimately makes the decision and in its counterpart, the county commissioners, they make the decisions ultimately because they are the elected body for the county and the city. The Planning Commission is a much larger group so the ideas may be more diverse but I think we respect the work that the Planning Commission puts forth and they do good work and they make good recommendations but the ultimate decision comes down to the city council and all the county commissioners. Thank you. Ms. Carrick. I don't believe that there's a problem with the Planning Commission, no. In our recent history we've had some situations where there's been sort of a little bit of an adversarial situation between the city and the county as far as the leaders are concerned. This is unfortunate and I think we really need people that will work together. Since I've had the experience as a county commissioner and I was appointed to serve as a county commissioner during a very contentious time and I was able to have a very cordial relationship and a good working relationship with all of the people that I was serving with. I've also had a lot of experience, six years with the Citizens Capital Improvement Panel with the city. So I would work really hard to build the relationship so that we're able to work together and make decisions that are good for everyone. Mr. Moffat. Well, actually the chair of the Planning Commission is doing a great job and there is no distinction really between county and city appointees of the Planning Commission. They work well together now. Mr. Davis is correct in that the decisions, almost all the decisions of the Planning Commission are advisory. One of the things that I experienced when I was on the Planning Commission is that frequently the case when it arrived at the city council was different in the case when it left the Planning Commission because developers are revising their proposals, they're making additional proffers and the council listens very carefully to the recommendations of the Planning Commission. In the end, the buck does stop with the council to make sure that it's livable, it's walkable, that it's helping build the tax base and that it's appropriate for the fabric of the city. So it's not surprising that from time to time there's a disagreement. It doesn't mean that there's something wrong. Thank you. Mr. Bell. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Planning Commission. I think we've got a system in place where we've got checks and balances. The Planning Commission does this job. Ultimately, the city council's responsible for the final decision unless it goes to the county and county commissioners is responsible for that. So I don't think there's a problem with it. I just want to re-emphasize again the questions that we've been asked. 10, 15 years ago, nobody wanted to come to Durham. Now we're talking about what's happening in downtown Durham. How do we deal in field development? 10, 15 years ago, no one was talking about re-validizing northeast central Durham, south side community. And I would say, in all those projects, no homeowner was forced to leave. In Rowland Hills, no one's asked to leave. It was a willing buyer, willing to sell it, the same thing on Barnes Avenue. So I don't see where homeowners are being forced out of the areas where they're being redeveloped. Ken and the Heist, the people were begging to be bought out. So I just differ with some of the comments that have been made relative to people being forced out of their houses and the whole issue of gentrification having that type of an impact. I would say that we understand that and we're gonna have a vision planning commission looking at downtown Durham. Thank you. Thank you. Next question we'll begin with Mr. Beasley. Recently, the county commissioners voted to cut nearly $85,000 from the city county planning department budget in retaliation for the city council cutting a similar amount of money from another program. Will this be a problem for the planning department? What, if anything, should the council do about it? Well, I'm a bail bondsman, a lot of people know that. And the monies that the city council cut from were the warrant control system. I thought it was a bad decision because the workload that they had took on it reduced the workload of our officers. So I thought it was a bad decision to remove those funds from the budget of warrant control. As far as the money for the planning department, I'm hoping that they can come to an agreement where they can put back the money in the warrant control system and the county would in turn do the same for the planning department's budget. Thank you. Mr. Davis? Well, with elect officials who have authority and those authorities vested in them by the citizens, sometimes there is a discussion between the city and the county officials as to who has the most authority and these kind of contests go on and you read about them from time to time. I think it's unfortunate though when we get to a point where there can be punishment or there can be retaliation given because both of those programs are very much needed. The city county planning department needs the money to do the kind of work that needs to be done for the long-term future of Durham and the warrants need to be served by the sheriff's deputies and others along the way as well as the police department. So we need to make sure that the county commissioners and the city council are able to iron out those differences and if I get elected to the city council, I will be one that will talk about the conciliatory responses that ought to be made from both those bodies. Thank you, Ms. Carrick. Well, this was exactly what I was referring to in the last question. I think both issues were not exactly clear cut. I understand why the city voted to reduce the warrant program. I'm not sure I agree with it but I do see why they did it. And as far as the county is concerned, I also understand why they did what they did. The planning department has, if you compare it to comparable cities surrounding us, a very large budget. And I think that they could definitely prioritize to make sure that the things that we needed to the study, because I think it was about transit and affordable housing, to make sure that that is a priority for the planning department. So again, I say that I'm the kind of person I want to talk about it. I want to be able to compromise it. I don't want to have it be a adversarial situation. Thank you. Mr. Moffitt. I wanna remind folks that we first got into this when we were trying to close a budget hole in the proposal was to increase bus fares. I met with the sheriff's office. I met with the Durham Police Department. I met with several of the command structure, including the Corporal of the Warrant Squad. We have a warrant control office at the city. And what our Durham Police Department said was this does not have an impact, except for one thing, printing out the warrants. They had to get a printer. It was the right decision, but I understand the county commissioners being upset because this was made without notice to them while we were trying to balance the budget. It's unfortunate that it's become a matter of retaliation. I think there are a lot of financial issues that cross over between the county and the city. And the great program is one example. And we need to talk about all these issues together, not one at a time and not tit for tat. The Planning Commission has two, I mean, excuse me, the planning staff has two separate functions. Thank you. Mr. Bell. I can add much more to what Councilor Moffitt has said. I would say that if it appears to be a problem with the Planning Commission, the planning department being able to do its job, then I'm willing to support adding additional funds if that's what it takes. The county commissioners have freed up some dollars since they aren't putting money into the planning staff now. They could use those dollars to further support the warrant program if that's what they choose to do. But I haven't had that discussion yet as a council. I don't know if they manage it, but at the appropriate time, if it feels to be a problem, then I would be willing to add additional resources to help supplement the planning staff. Thank you. Mr. Williams. I think that's one of the things that I will bring to the office of mayor. One thing for those who know me, for those that will get to know me, one thing we know that I'm a person who love to bring people together. There should not be an adversarial relationship going on when you're impacting the lives of people. You should learn how to come together and say what's best for the city of Durham rather than what's best for my office or where I am. And that's one thing that I would bring because that's what my whole life about is as a pastor, as a leader in the community, bringing opposing parties together and being able to reason together. And that's one of the things, you know, one of the things characteristics and traits that I would bring to the office of mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Next question will begin with Mr. Davis. The council voted recently to fund trash collection through a user fee rather than a property tax increase. How should the council decide which source of funds to use for particular purposes? Well, I think there needs to be lots of discussion, but I was particularly opposed to the user fee. I think there was a combination between the need for material, money for the solid waste department as well as the bus fares. And I just think that those kinds of things should be utilized through the normal budget process and that would be better off if indeed we did not have user fees, particularly user fees that would be regressive, that there ought to be funded through the normal taxation process that we have. Thank you, Ms. Carrick. I pretty much agree with Mr. Davis on that. I think there are definitely services that the city offers that fees make perfect sense and should be utilized, but most people consider trash a core service of a municipal government. So I wasn't particularly happy that we were going to charge a fee. However, I do have to say, I understand that when you compare our fees to most cities, comparable cities, that it's much lower. But as Mr. Davis said, it doesn't seem exactly fair to people who are lower income, that they have to pay the exact same thing that people who are in a much higher income range would pay. Thank you, Mr. Moffatt. The question was always, who pays and who benefits? Again, we were trying to close a budget hole and we had different tools we could have used. We could have raised property taxes across the board. That didn't seem particularly fair either. The use of these funds is to pay a portion of the solid waste capital costs. We looked at our sister cities across North Carolina that have similar sales taxes as well as property taxes and the solid waste fees run as high as $18 a month. So this is a very much smaller portion of that. It does not have an impact on all citizens. For example, rental apartment renters who would eventually pay property tax increases don't have to pay for this because the trash isn't hauled by the city. The city does a great job with solid waste. And again, this is just to pay a small part of the costs attached to that. So in any fee, we have to look at and that includes bus fares, who pays and who benefits. And thank you, Mr. Bell. Well, I think Councilor Moffatt has explained a lot. We went through a budget process. It was least the opinion of the majority of the council that we did not want to raise property taxes. There was also a question of whether or not we wanted to raise bus fees. And as went through the process of public hearings, the biggest outcry that we heard from the public was not to increase bus fees. So what we did is basically shift dollars that normally would have been going to the solid waste. We shifted that to allow us to not have to raise increase the bus fees for data bus drivers by the same token, we were able to not increase property taxes and we were able to impose a user fee which is not unusual for cities like Durham throughout this region. And it's been indicated we probably have the smallest user fee for that service that we provide plus the law provides us to do that because it's an enterprise system. And with enterprise systems, you use user fees to pay for an enterprise. And that is what we did. Thank you. Mr. Williams? Can we be honest with our citizens? A user fee, it's a tax. When you look at the budget for the next five years for the city of Durham, it is a projected deficit for each year for the next five years. How do they propose to make up that deficit? We're one time touting and beating our chest about our triple A rating. Tell my heart what a good rating we have. And you're constantly raising fees on people or a tax that can least afford it. What kind of city are we becoming? We've got to look at those who are the most impacted by these user fees and say, well, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Is there a better way? And right now with the deficit that we have projected going forward for the next few years, how do we address those kind of things? That's why you need some of the financial background. Someone who understand the financial markets. Someone who understand what a triple A rating truly is and what it is not. Someone who truly. Thank you. Mr. Beasley? Yes, sir. Like Ms. Carricker said, waste collection is one of our core services.  Thank you. Next question, we'll begin with Ms. Carricker. Do you support consolidation of the city and county governments? Why or why not? Well, yes, but with a caveat. I don't think this is something that we can do very quickly. I think it's something that we should start in investigating and moving towards. We're already sharing some services as far as planning and tax collection. I think we should continue to look for ways that we can consolidate and work together. And I'm not sure that honestly that we'll ever be able to totally consolidate and merge the city and county, but I think there's a lot of ways that we can work together more closely and consolidate services and it would be a benefit to citizens of the city and the county. Thank you. Mr. Moffitt. Well, sure, I would support it, but we shouldn't expect financial benefits from it. Studies have shown over and over again that ultimately the county and the city, where they can work together, as Ms. Carricker said, they are working together. But for the most part, they're providing very different services, social services by the county, for example, streets and a solid waste by the city. And so there's not a huge financial savings here. Efforts have been made several times over the last 50 or 60 years, the last one in 2000, and tremendous amount of energy expended all comes to naught. So I think we need to be careful about where we're spending a lot of time and energy and make sure that we're really serious about it if we move forward again. That I do think that we need to have a separate taxing district for the urban area so that the entire county doesn't wind up paying the same tax, where some people have access to parks and recreation, for example, and some don't. But one big benefit is people understand where their services are coming from. Thank you. Mr. Bell. I've been down that road. I was chairman of the county commissions when we merged many departments that emerged now. The city of this county had just recently in the past year asked the two managers to come back with recommendations as to which departments could be consolidated or work together. They were not able to come up with any. In my sense that merger takes place generally when you have a crisis. We don't have a crisis of management of either two cities. Merge is going to require the support of the people. And if it happens, it's going to happen, in my opinion, from bottom up, not from top down through a referendum. And if there's sufficient support bottom up to have a referendum on merger, I would be willing to look at it. But I'm not in a position where I'll be willing to expend energy trying to merge two counties, a city and county where there really is no issue. And the financial savings has all been alluded to. There's going to be very low financial savings for merger. If there's any city, county that's a candidate for merger, it is in Durham because we're the only county that has one municipality. Thank you. Mr. Williams. I agree with Mayor Bell as far as support from the people and possibly having a referendum to make that kind of decision. And I also think too that I think that there's something that eventually will happen. We start looking at the being fiscally responsible. We start looking at the city and the county and the duplication of services. Then you realize that eventually it's going to happen, but I would not want to be one of the ones pushing that button, saying that what happened to my watch. Thank you. Mr. Beasley? Yes, sir. I would support the combining of governments with the independent study. They say there's been studied to show if there were be any savings done by the city government and by the county government. They show that there isn't going to be. I would like to see an independent study that would give us that answer. Because to me, working in law enforcement as a bail bondsman, you see the police department, the sheriff's department, there's a lack of communication there, that's one department that I know that would benefit directly from the combining of governments. So like I said, with a good feasibility from an independent contractor, I would like to see if that's something that would be good for Durham. Mr. Davis? Well, if I get elected to this position in Ward II of the city council, I will be following in the footsteps of Howard Clement, who has been one of the strongest advocates for city county merger over the years. So I think that it would be a good thing to happen not only because Howard has advocated it, because it could avoid some of the duplications of services that we have, and also perhaps it wouldn't be in the issue of trying to decide on warrants versus planning department. There could be lots of things that could be done. However, with that said, I know that it would have to come through a voter referendum and frankly, I don't have much confidence that that would be approved. Thank you. I'm going to turn to some questions that have come directly from the audience and I'll read them as I have received them. We'll start with Mr. Moffat and this is obviously a perennial question. With a widespread crime we have here in our area, what strategic plan would you put in place to address or to try to curb this serious issue? This is the other side of the coin of what we talked about earlier and the police department, I go to Comstat meetings. The police department holds Comstat once a month. They bring in all the department commanders, all the district commanders. They actually put up photographs of the people they're looking for. They talk about what's going on. They talk about the initiatives. They're very focused on crime and Durham. The result is is that crime in 2012, we don't have complete statistics yet for this year but in 2012 there were 8% lower than the prior year which was 6% lower than the year before that. Now, what's different is is that we no longer give up on Northeast Central Durham. It used to be that we had more crime in my neighborhood, for example, because we're now actively policing in Northeast Central Durham and we're no longer like saying it's okay as long as you do it in one place as long as you don't go to another. So we're seeing more crime across the city but less crime and we're seeing more crime in some parts of the city, but less crime overall. Thank you, Mr. Bell. I don't have a magic solution for reducing overall crime in our community. I know it's gonna continue to take the support of the community to do that and we're trying to reach out to the community as much as we can. Law enforcement isn't gonna solve this problem by itself. I think we've shown that we can make strides in Northeast Central Durham by the concentrated effort that we've put there. At the last meeting, the police chief didn't feel that because crime was going down and Northeast Central Durham was being pushed into other parts of the neighborhood but of course that's what the police department was saying. I just think it's gonna take a concerted effort, continued villains on the part of the community as well as the police and trying to reduce overall crime in our community and it is going in the right direction and it isn't going fast enough but it's moving in the right direction in terms of crime being reduced in our community. Thank you. Mr. Williams. To address the crime problem in Durham, we've got to look at our school systems. Are there studies that say that 75% of crimes committed in this country are committed by our high school dropouts.  And that child drops out there more than like that child be involved with crime. So we gotta look at our school system, do what things we can do to support our school systems and what I'll be willing to do as mayor is go into the school system to encourage our young people. Let them know that there is a place in them because as a pastor and talking to a lot of the young people in the community I know some of the issues and challenges they face and if there's not someone there to encourage them to get them to get engaged in school then you're gonna continue to have this same crime problem. But when you realize that there are things that can be done at an early age to intervene in these people lives then you can find out that you can find, you can actually affect the crime problem that we have here in the city of Durham. Thank you, Mr. Beasley. Yes sir, I do a lot in the community with our youth. I'm a youth mentor and voluntary track and field coach. I feel the way we address this issue is being proactive. We have to identify non-profit agencies that do a good job at keeping our kids busy off the street and properly fund them. You know what we gotta do is take the resources, the kids away from the gangs. Once we do that, you know, you have these kids engage, the light bulb comes on and you keep them busy. And that's how we curb the crime. And the second thing is workforce development. Those that are unemployed, you gotta train them, find, you know, put trades back in the schools. We train these kids, give them skills, and you employ them and that will take care of our crime issue. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Well, I was pleased to be able to see the statistics that indicated that crime is going down and particularly in the areas of Durham that most often have been viewed as the most crime prone. However, we need to make sure that we are focusing in on the most immediate and the most damaging piece of crime and that is the homicides that we've had. And even though Durham statistically is not as bad as some other places, one loss of life is more than we should ever allow to take place in this community. This community has so many resources and so many smart people, people who can contribute to a solution that to deal with the root causes of what brings children and adults to a point where they feel that they can resolve conflicts by shooting and killing each other. We've got to make a community effort to try to go across Durham to solve this problem. Thank you, Ms. Carrick. I would agree with pretty much everything that said. One thing that I would also talk about, I think it's very important that jobs are a part of this, that there are legitimate good jobs that young people can attain after graduation. If they're not college bound, that there's legitimate internships and vocational training that will give them jobs that will earn them a living. I think that's very important. I think mentoring, as Mr. Beasley said, is very important that we are all stepping in and all working to reach young people and to give them perhaps the grandparents or the aunts and uncles that they don't have that as families sort of fly apart and they don't have the family relationships that we had in the past, that we're there as a community for them. Thank you. Another question from the audience, a number of the questions from the audience do concern the police department. We have had, of course, a couple of questions already about the police, but I will ask this one and I'll start with Mr. Bell. How would you prevent the police from profiling? Again, I'm not trying to evade the question. That was one of the challenges, one of the issues that was raised at the city council. That was one of the issues that we posed with the Human Relations Commission and I really don't want to jump into that. I want to wait until they've had an opportunity to fully discuss it and come back with recommendation before I try to deal with their problem. Thank you. Mr. Williams. First of all, I don't think that our city officials should talk down to the citizens of Durham when they're trying to get an answer to problems that concern them. I think that we are here to serve the citizens of Durham. One thing that I would say that what I think need to be done is that there need to be sensitivity training because we find that there are different cultures here in the city of Durham. And until you learn how to address those cultures, realize that just because a person dresses a certain way, a look at someone does not necessarily mean that person is a threat to anyone. And so one thing that I would do or recommend is try to avoid profiling to be sensitivity training for all on the police staff. Thank you. Mr. Beasley? Yes, sir. Well, I've been a victim of racial profiling many times here in Durham and other places while visiting. So it's a problem here, but it's a problem across the country, like I stated earlier. But like Mr. Williams said, I think there's other countries, I mean, there's other cities throughout the state and me throughout the country that have taken on racial sensitivity training with their police departments. And looking at the numbers that we've had that were shown recently in the paper, I think that wouldn't be a bad idea for our department to consider. Thank you. Mr. Davis? Well, I don't know what the department does and this goes back to the issue of how well the department, the police department, speaks to the people, the citizens of Durham. I can't believe that the Durham Police Department does not have some kind of racial sensitivity or sensitivity training in its toolkit of things that may be going on. But if it is happening, they need to share that with the citizens so that people won't bring this complaint. There ought to be some ways that we can show that in addition to the statistics that talk about what appears to be profiling, there ought to be ways that the department can say to the citizens, here's what we do, here's why we do it, here's what we are not trying to do so that we can indeed get the facts and not just deal with the emotions of this issue. Thank you. Ms. Garrett? One way we can work on this, it goes back to a previous issue is affordable housing. We need housing in Durham so that policemen, teachers, and even pastors can afford to live in the city. That's a big problem. When the police force doesn't really feel part of the community, I think that makes it more difficult for them to feel maybe the empathy that they would need for the citizens. So that's one issue. Racial profiling is a fact. It's not just in Durham, it's nationwide. I think we need to look at our drug enforcement priorities. We're not gonna be able to change the laws, that's not city council's job. But maybe we talk to the police that if there's ways that we can end the school to prison pipeline and save young people from being arrested and getting records, which makes their future very difficult. Thank you. Mr. Moffitt. Well, I think that Ms. Carricker has made a couple of good points there. One of the things, it's not unique to Durham. Other communities have worked on this and there are solutions in place that we need to carefully consider. Now FADE is an organization that's been working on this and they've made recommendations, including for example, working with the Racial Equity Institute. And as I said, that deserves consideration. The Human Relations Commission, the liaison to that board is working on this issue now. And so I think all of this comes into play when we start looking at the disparities in the way that traffic stops are made, disparities in the self-identified drug use versus the number of arrests and incarcerations that occur. And I think that the more that we, one of the things I wanna do is I wanna, one of the things I'm working on now is how to get affordable housing across the city so that it's not all clustered together so that we're all in community. Thank you. Another question from the audience and we'll begin this one with Mr. Williams. Is it possible to reduce the property tax? Yes, it's possible to reduce the property tax. You know, there are some zoning laws that we have in place that could be changed that would attract businesses here. I mean, you know, the skyline of Durham, I think that is great, you know, but there is no reason why we can't be a taller building than Durham. We've had cooperation, one corporation at least anyway, that decided not to locate in Durham, but also that there was not enough space to hold the company employees. And what I'm saying is that if we look at the zoning laws and then we could also look, if you change the zoning laws where things are currently set up, then you could also get greater tax revenues from those buildings that you're building up with this taller than the ones we currently have. And that could also reduce the dependence on tax increases. Have one for see, there are number of ways that could be done, things that could be done to decrease the taxes in the city of Durham. Thank you. Mr. Beasley. Well, I'm not quite sure how we would go about reducing our tax rate here in Durham, but I know we can certainly expand our tax base. We can be more friendly and inviting to the developers coming into the area and encourage more affordable housing projects here in Durham to expand our tax base. So that's what we need to do. We need to clean the streets up, make Durham a safer environment that would encourage people to want to stay here in Durham. I think that's the main piece. We have to encourage developers to want to come here and get Durham safe. That way we can expand our tax base. Thank you. Mr. Davis. Well, I don't know that we ever get a real reduction in taxes, I think we can hold a line and to make sure that the budgetary process is one that is efficient and effective so that we don't have massive increases in taxes while we still give wonderful services to our citizens. I just don't think that there will be any large scale reduction in taxes, but we can indeed make sure that we are business friendly and that we do everything we can to expand the tax base and to make sure that we get more entrepreneurship in many other areas of Durham where we may have deserts where there are not very many businesses that are going on. Thank you, Ms. Carrick girl. As county commissioner, we worked together to pass a budget that actually lowered taxes. It was very little, but we did actually pass a budget that lowered taxes. I'm very interested in making sure that we are running government as efficiently as possible, but having said that with things that are going on in Washington and with things that are going on in Raleigh, it's more and more difficult for cities to run the government in a way that they can lower taxes a lot. However, expanding our tax base is very, very crucial for this, that we get more people moving to Durham in all socioeconomic levels. We need housing for the businesses that we're bringing in for the corporate heads that they will not move to carry or Raleigh or Chapel Hill, that they will move to Durham. We need housing for them. We need more affordable housing so that all these lacks that I'm talking about, they become taxpayers. Thank you, Mr. Moffitt. So it's money in, money out. It's revenues versus services. So we can shift revenues to other sources. Property, excuse me, we can lower the property tax by shifting to sales tax, for example. This year, while the county had a substantial tax increase, the city, we held the line, it did not have a tax increase. But we did cut services like warrant control and look at the fallout from that. And that's the thing is that to hold taxes or to reduce taxes means a reduction in services. Now when we talk about increasing the tax base, it's really important to focus on the commercial because residential actually costs us more in services than we get in tax revenue from it. But when we develop in commercial development, that's when our revenues off of the taxes are actually less than the services we have to put into it. Our goal is to have safe, affordable, and sustainable neighborhoods across the city so that the entire city is that way. And that's what I'm working on in council. Thank you. And after you question, yes, it's possible to reduce taxes. All city council has to do to decide tax rate is gonna be something different. One cent brings in about $2.2 million. We can decide that we don't wanna provide $2.2 million worth of services wherever and we can reduce the taxes. So yes, to answer your question, yes, you can do it, but at what cost? I would also say that people are coming to Durham. Durham is now the fourth largest city in the state of North Carolina behind Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro. And we've grown, not by annexation, we've grown by, I guess, people are coming here. So to say that people don't wanna come to Durham, that's the fault is that people are coming to Durham. But we can reduce property tax, but we're also gonna have to either reduce services or we shift the burden somewhere else. And the three largest incomes for running city of Durham, property tax, sales tax, and service and fees. We can't raise sales tax unless we go to the general assembly to get authority to do that. But we can reduce the property tax, we can increase service fees, or we can do less. Thank you. We've reached the end of the time that we've allowed for questions. Now each candidate will be given the opportunity to make a one minute closing statement beginning with the last candidate on the right. And so that would be Mr. Moffitt. Thank you. What you know from my first term on council is that I work hard. I care deeply, I prepare thoroughly. I work across all parts of the city and I have the support of community advocates in North, South, East and West Durham. Early vote, it starts on Thursday. I ask for your support. The election is November 5th. Please pass the word. I have a website at donmoffitt.us. I have information outside on the table and there's buttons and bumper stickers to show your support. So I thank everybody for coming out tonight. I thank you for your time and attention. I think there's some clear choices to be made and I look forward to serving you for another four years. Thank you, Ms. Carricker. I too appreciate you coming tonight and I appreciate the folks that are listening on television tonight. As Mr. Moffitt, I was appointed to serve as the county commissioner for 14 months and but I really want to be on the city council. I think I can, I have the ability, the experience, the relationships that I can draw people from across all the city, all different types of people from our diverse city to work together to make Durham a better place. My website is www.pamcaricker.com. I would appreciate your vote. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Davis. Thank you again to the League of Women Voters and the Internewhood Council and let me just say one thing that since the last forum, we lost a giant, Ruth Mary Meyer, passed on and she was a wonderful statewide president of League of Women Voters and I really would like to do everything I can to honor her legacy. I also want to make sure that I thank the people who voted in the primary and who had the confidence in me and I really was pleased that it was a bridge to all of the different segments of Durham. I was very pleased to be able to reach out to people across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, sexual orientation, other kinds of barriers that often bring people, push people apart. I want to make sure that I continue to do that and as a member of the city council, I will work hard to build coalitions to all people. Thank you. Mr. Beasley. Yes, sir. Excuse me. First of all, I want to thank everyone who showed up tonight and everybody who tuned in. We talked a lot about crime tonight. For those of you that know me, crime is something that I'm passionate about and I know. I'm the candidate that's better prepared to deal with this issue. My 20 plus years as a bail bondsman in this community has blessed me with the opportunity to establish relationships with judges, attorneys, DAs, law enforcement, as well as the allege out here in the community. Those contacts have allowed me to put a finger and identify the issues that we have here in Durham and come up with new approaches and strategic solutions for those issues. There's another issue that I look at is the diversity that is bored. It's shaped up pretty well with men, women, black and white, but the youth has no representation on here. So I'm asking that you all will consider me as your candidate for war two. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Williams. Thank you for the invitation to be here tonight. One thing I'd like to say is that, one thing that for those who do know me, you know that I'm very vocal about things that I have a passion for. And one thing that you will have in me is me and the city of Durham, someone who will represent your interest. I believe that every citizen should be counted. Every citizen should have a voice and never believe a thing that you come to the mayor, the city of Durham, and you'll be talked down to. But it'll be an open platform for you to share your concerns, what you think and what you feel about the city of Durham. That's one thing that I offer. That's one thing that I bring. That's one thing that I hope that you will vote for me for because I think that Durham can do so much better with Sylvester Williams as mayor. Thank you. I would add my thank you to the league and in the neighborhood council for this and certainly taking the time to be here to listen to the questions that have been posed. I would only say I take the role of mayor very seriously. I enjoy the role. I think you can look at my track record as a leader, both at the county level and at the city level. I think if you look at the city where it is now versus where it was 10 or 12 years ago, it's much improved. And I'm not saying let's all do the mayor of Durham, I'm making that happen, but I've certainly played a part in some of the things, positive things that have happened in this community and I would certainly appreciate your support to allow me to continue as the mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to thank all of the candidates for coming out tonight. I'd like to thank the audience for coming out tonight. I would like to remind you as Mr. Moffat has already reminded you, but it's in my script so I'll go ahead and read it, that early voting begins October 17th and the general election will be on Tuesday, November 5th. This forum will be rebroadcast on Durham's own television, DTV 8 on Time Warner Cable. It'll be rebroadcast numerous times over the next couple of weeks and it'll also be on YouTube. So go look at it. Thank you.