thursday september the 10th 2020 and i want to welcome everyone here today um my colleagues staff members and those others who are listening in various forms to our meeting i want to welcome you uh and i'll now ask madame clark will you please call the roll mayor shul here mayor pro tem johnson near here sorry thank you thank you councilmember caballero here councilmember freeland here councilmember freeman present councilmember middleton i'm here thank you and councilmember reese here thank you thank you madame clark i want to welcome councilmember freeland to his first city council work session and i want to say that we're getting awfully close unfortunately to manager bondfield's last city council work session mr manager mr mayor this is this is probably my last to participate in lead the next work session we will transition to uh wander page since he will be handling the council meeting on october the fifth but uh yeah this may be my last i will be present at the 24th and participating but not uh leading from the city manager's chair mr manager i've i've i've done a little off the cuff math i know you've been in city government for more than 40 years i was multiplying 40 years um times 26 work sessions uh and uh well i came up with a lot and um i'm just uh we'll have plenty of chances again and at our at uh at a soon to express our gratitude but i don't i think that this is where the work really happens um we all know that that the the monday night meetings are important and especially for public hearings but we know how much of the work gets done in these work sessions and you've just done an amazing job leading them and helping our staff set us up for these work sessions they're a they're such a great uh strong institution and uh so thank you mr manager you're gonna lead i want to thank you mr mayor i'll have more to say another night but thank you very much yeah mr mayor if i could real quick sure council member um this is interesting this is the occasion of the council member freeland's first work session and tom's last one in the city manager's chair and it put me in mind and i know the city manager will remember this very well my first actual work session uh back then when i joined the council i sat beside the city manager at our at our little table um and uh i know the city manager will remember this and i'm quite certain that the public works department will remember this i was um not thrilled uh with a particular item and i began uh asking a staff member questions about this and at a certain point in my questioning the city manager reached over and gently laid his hand on top of my arm as if you say perhaps a pause would be an order so that we can address some of he didn't say anything out loud he just reached over and gently places me in my arm and i have endeavored ever since that day not to work myself up into quite that much of a lather um and i think i've mostly succeeded uh so just wanted to commemorate this special day with that um not terribly charming story about myself but uh but a lovely reminder of how much i have personally relied on the city manager's guidance uh from my very first moments uh as in my service so thanks a lot time thank you councilmember riz i had forgotten about that but i'm glad to know that uh even the gentlest of reminders can be effective sometimes and we've all needed those reminders time all right uh thank you all and now we'll proceed to announcements by the council and um i'm going to call on councilmember caviaro i think actually mayor pro tem johnson mayor pro tem have you all right weren't you gonna say something first oh yeah i can say it but i think maybe you should do the thing i should do the thing okay i'm going to do the thing if i could have hired if we were in person i could have hired mariachis i would have today happy birthday councilmember riz it is your 50th birthday it is a big day uh so we felt that we had to uh make a little bit of a spectacle for you thank you very much colleagues happy birthday councilmember 50 is a good year happy birthday drink now finally exactly i say that 50 is a good year but actually i can barely remember 50 i'll be honest with you all right well that was an awesome birthday celebration and um we'll now now move on to further announcements by the council i believe uh mayor pro tem you have another announcement i do thank you mr mayor um i just wanted to request some time at our next council work session to um start discussing implementation of the race equity task force recommendations um there are about 13 of them that i think we could move forward on on our own without really needing any staff involvement things like um federal and state advocacy the creation of new boards and commissions um formal apologies for some of the historical errors of um of past city administrations and so i'd like to bring those things um for discussion at our next work session and i'll have a few um draft resolutions drafted by then as well thank you very much madam mayor pro tem um and thank you uh and for our new colleague um our practice is that uh we really try if we have something to bring up at a work session to give everybody the two weeks notice and so much appreciated madam mayor pro tem and thank you also for your work on the um the excel spreadsheet you sent around about the task force recommendations happy to thank you mr mayor everybody good with that in two weeks got some thumbs up thank you very much are there announcements by members of the council all right i don't see any so i'm going to move on now to priority items by the city manager mr manager uh thank you again mr mayor members of council good afternoon everyone uh priority items this afternoon agenda item number 10 which is the installation of signalized pedestrian upgrades is an item that we request to be referred back to the administration agenda item number 21 under citizens matters arian cheek uh that uh citizen will not be appearing today but mayor shul has authorized jessica sheffield to speak in lieu of uh of miss cheek agenda item number 24 beverly hudgens under citizen matters uh additional person will not this person will not be appearing today as was well and then agenda item number 26 uh franchise with duke energy carolina's llc uh right now we've slated this for a 20 minute presentation item uh the supplemental item has been added which is the actual presentation agenda item number 27 shannon road culvert replacement uh there is a supple this is a supplemental item that has been added to the agenda uh since it was published and then finally under the priority items you'll notice city manager priority items uh you'll notice information has been added related to city manager search firm findings which the mayor asked us and asked the uh the mayor and council asked the human resources department to conduct that work uh several weeks ago and uh this report is presented and uh the members of the human resources department who put the work together are prepared to discuss that at council's convenience either at this meeting or a future meeting those are my priority items thank you mr manager uh i will now accept a motion on the manager's priority items move approval okay been moved by mayor pro tem seconded by councilmember caballero that we approve the manager's priority items benna clark can you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freeland hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton how about that councilmember reese hi thank you thank you very much madam clark the eyes have it and the motion passes seven to zero thank you mr manager um as we go through the uh items uh after we go through the items why don't you and i uh confer a little bit about the order of the presentations maybe you could advise me on what you think would be best be fine thank you mr mayor thank you madam attorney um good afternoon uh do you have any priority items good afternoon mr mayor members of city council the city attorney's office would request that council go into closed session pursuant to ncgs 143 dash 318 point 11 a1 this is a different exception than we typically use but it is to view uh custodial law enforcement recordings which north Carolina general statute 132 dash 1.4 a deems to not be public record so i would ask that the council pass into going to close session at the end of these proceedings thank you madam attorney could i hear a motion to accept the attorney's priority item so moved i can move by mayor pro tem and seconded by council member reese madam clark please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i vote aye councilmember reese aye thank you thank you sorry uh thank you madam clerk the eyes have it in the motion passes seven to zero madam clerk uh do you have any priority items today good afternoon mr mayor and city council uh the city clerk's office has no items thank you thank you madam clerk and madam clerk um thank you for the excellent job you've got a lot of meetings to to run today and we appreciate it um you've done a great job with these digital meetings and we continue to today we're adding back some public comment and we continue to move forward i just want to appreciate you and your staff and the tech technology solution staff as well for making these digital meetings uh better and better all the time thank you mr mayor we'll now move to our administrative consent items uh item one the city clerk's office approval of city council minutes item two affordable housing implementation committee appointments um i want to uh pull that item um item three carolina theater durham board of trustees appointment item four durham city county environmental affairs board appointment item five durham homeless services advisory committee appointment item six durham housing authority board of commissioners appointment item seven mayors nominee durham performing arts center oversight committee appointment i want to just point out that uh in the title to the this item it's actually wendy brown spaulding is the correct name i just wanted to point that out under departmental items budget management services department item eight international city county management association local government management fellow interlocal agreement under city council's office item non long-term homeowner tax deferment program under department of transportation item 10 installation of signalized pedestrian upgrades and that's the item that has been referred back to the administration item 11 contract to support transit community engagement and performance management with texas a and m transportation institute mr mayor pull that item this item 11 short uh item 12 under department of water management generator maintenance and emergency repair services service contract award to national power corporation item 13 sanitary sewer flow and rainfall monitoring comprehensive service and maintenance awards to ads llc under the public works department item 14 alpine road culvert replacement sd 2020-04 amendment number one under presentations budget management services department f y 115 f y 2019 24th quarter financial report under the police department item 16 shot spotter presentation under public hearing city county planning department item 17 consolidated annexation nc highway 55 abc store item 18 consolidated annexation sikes property under 19 unified development orders text amendment development agreement tc 2000 0003 under citizens matters to be heard at one o'clock item 20 ellen flats item 21 arian chic and i believe miss chic does still want to speak i see in the chat but is miss hudgens perhaps is giving up her spot to miss sheffield i'll check on that minute item 22 christina benson item 23 nancy cox item 24 beverly hudgens item 25 vanessa thornberg under supplemental items public works department item 26 franchise with duke energy carolinas llc and that's presentation and item 27 shadow road culvert replacement sd 2021-02 mr manager the items i have i see pulled are items two and item 11 and i believe that the presentations are items mr mayor yes councilmember i don't know if you can see the chat but i have noted in the chat that the item for the public arts black artist celebration is missing we just needed to get an update of the council around the 58 000 shifting from the public i'm sorry from the participatory budgeting to the actual public arts project okay thank you let me ask the administration is that something you all are prepared to talk about today no mr mayor i know we were aware of that but i don't think the department of general services has that in this cycle i think that's in the next agenda cycle all right thank you mr manager thank you councilmember and then item nine i was asking for that one item nine as well okay that is a long time homeowner tax for a group so items two item nine and item 11 um and then um mayor pro tem it looks like she has her hand up mr mayor mayor pro tem yeah sorry mr mayor i just wanted to also um say we need to refer item six back to the city clerk's office the Durham housing authority appointment why don't you explain why thank you yes sure yes um this item was misadvertised we have already appointed a member to the housing authority with uh the financial experience that's um that's noted in this advertisement the position that's open is for a dha resident um and so we need to re advertise for dha resident as well as one additional board member um there are two vacancies currently but this one has already been filled so thank you advertise it yes i forgot that and thank you for bringing that to our attention so item six will be referred back to the city clerk's office item 10 will be referred back to the administration uh items two nine and 11 are pulled and we have presentations our presentations are um the uh or the city from the city manager's priority item which is the city manager search uh the shot spotter presentation the the duke franchise presentation the budget presentation and i believe that's all is that correct mr manager correct mr would do have a quick question sure thank you sir good afternoon everybody could uh with staff confirm that the presentation on violence interrupters is is that going to happen in the next work session cycle i was under the impression that i was going to be presented today uh councilman middleton that is a presentation that we're working with Durham county to prepare and present and i don't have an exact date i know it is to be it is coming in the next cycle or two when they are ready but that's not one that our staff is presenting that's coming from the their staff and so i need to work further we get a firm date with the county manager we've discussed that we actually have it on our agenda to talk about at our regular meeting next monday afternoon our joint managers meeting to get a date specific very well thank you so much thank you this man thank you councilmember um mr manager with those i believe are the four presentations and i wondered if you had an order that you would particularly like to see them in mr mayor i would i would like to suggest and recommend that one we handle the pulled items i think those can be handled fairly quickly and then maybe go ahead and knock off the fourth quarter financial report because i do expect that the uh the franchise discussion duke duke energy franchise discussion and the shot spotter discussion are going to be fairly extensive and then depending on uh how the time frame of those go i know councilmember reese maybe has to leave at some point for a birthday celebration we understand but i then decide if you if you want to still have the um the city manager search discussion in light of the need to still have the closed session so i would i would suggest maybe those two items go to the end but then you can judge time and availability depending on how the other two presentations and discussions go associated with duke energy and the shot spotter okay so budget a fourth quarter budget presentation first followed by a shot spotter duke franchise agreement and uh city manager search right and then do the pulled items first yeah well thank you uh councilmember reese uh i had a lot of brave talk before this meeting about trying to get out in time uh to do something with my family but i think i'd rather stay and um and participate in the conversations we have ahead of us so don't don't let that figure into your calculations okay thanks all right colleagues um now we're going to move to uh citizens matters to be heard at one o'clock uh and i will let me just um get to that before i call on this plus i'm going to just look at the chat here and make sure that i see it looks like that jessica chef he'll be speaking in place of christine benton that's fine all right uh we will begin with miss plus um madam clark can you please make miss plus available to be heard miss plus are you with us i don't see miss plus do you all see miss plus anywhere colleagues uh yes hello can i be heard yes you may thank you miss plus we're glad you're here and you have three minutes excellent thank you kindly good afternoon mayors shul and members of council thank you for this opportunity to speak and for resuming the democratic practice of citizens matters in your work sessions uh greetings also to our newest representative for ward three councilmember freelon yesterday i sent an email to each of you titled engagement process and government accountability and i hope that you have had the opportunity to read and consider the content durham is experiencing a growing divide between the narrowing land rights afforded durham citizens and the expanding land rights extended to the privileged developer developers and their lobbyists have extensive direct contact to capture thought process and policy development the wall between civil government and industry can blur regulatory capture becomes a risk and it can be enabled by those who ignore it tolerate it accept it encourage it or enter into contracts under it it damages the public trust and is not in the public interest engagement process and government accountability is the second highest ranking priority for residents of durham as expressed through the engaged durham process like a neighbor who asks for soup or shampoo it should bother us that duramites of all the things they could have prioritized when asked what matters most put engagement process and government accountability right up toward the top it speaks to an unfulfilled or under fulfilled basic need in civil governance and a sober realization by the public that they are being planned over rather than planned with on may 7th engaged durham published the listening and learning summary engagement process and government accountability received 325 votes which placed it in the second rank when compared to the 70 other topics offered and it was featured in staff slide titled top shared topics on august 5th in preparation for the next phase of goal development jcc pc received a comprehensive plan update in which the topic of engagement process and government accountability had disappeared altogether other top 10 topics disappeared as well including growth and development infrastructure and gentrification and displacement all excuse me all of these disappeared topics relate to planning development and accountability it is concerning that 40% of the top ranked topics of public concern have disappeared in the most recent iteration of the comprehensive plans potential goals and that no explanation is offered for their omission it is bizarre that the second highest ranked topic of concern engagement process and government accountability is not being demonstrated more directly at the present time as certain unique udo text amendments and associated zoning cases move forward during a time when risks of regulatory capture appear to be of concern shouldn't government accountability and public engagement be paramount your public has clearly told you that they should be i respectfully request here on the record that all correspondents from the public dated from july 10th 2020 onward which pertains to any udo text amendments be provided as soon as possible to Durham's newest council member so that he may have ample time to fully incorporate the public's concerns prior to voting on any udo text amendments thank you again for this opportunity to address council that's it thank you miss plas appreciate it and we did get your email besides i did i'm sure my colleagues did as well i have read it now we'll look forward to hearing from staff at the appropriate time in response but thank you very much all right uh we'll now move on to our next speaker and that is arian cheek miss cheek are you available to be heard can you hear me now yes we may uh let me just before you start let me just say colleagues the next several speakers as you know from having read your agenda are are interested in speaking about black matter ridge and the zoning of black matter ridge i just want to assure colleagues that this is not a public hearing item before us um as you all know we don't uh hear speakers on public hearing items outside of the public hearings um unless the except circumstances are exceptional um this is not a public hearing item however and so uh we're going to go ahead and hear from uh these residents so uh miss cheek thank you very much for the opportunity to speak um i just want to make sure you can hear me now yes we can okay great so i am here to impress upon you the urgent need to correct the zoning of black matter ridge we submitted to you maps and diagrams showing the massive scale of the proposed development and the fact that there is no development plan for pdr this body city council approved a change to very low density rs 10 for these parcels back in march of 2012 at that same time the corresponding zoning map change was placed on hold only because of concern that it could impact the appraised valuation of parcels during ongoing negotiations for their preservation it is well past time to finalize this intended zoning and it is urgent to do so now now we represent a large i on behalf of a large and diverse group of citizens and asking council to take the lead in reactivating this zoning map change that was fully supported by the planning director planning staff planning commission and indeed this council the reason it's urgent now is because of what is confirmed in the memo you received from planning director sarah young as she explains a planned development residential zoning district requires a development plan but the record shows that such a development plan does not exist for these parcels and therefore the current and these are her words pdr 6.2 zoning is not valid that narrow issue is on appeal to the board of adjustment and given the record they are likely to invalidate the current pdr zoning throwing these critically important environmentally sensitive parcels into zoning limbo to avoid that chaotic result we implore you city council to start the process now of making it clear that the actual zoning what the actual zoning should be there's no downside to doing so as to the extent the developer has any legal vest legally vested rights those would already be grandfathered in regardless of any rezoning and if the board of adjustments finds he does not have vested rights then we need the actual correct zoning to be made clear as was intended back in 2012 thus we ask that you not allow this issue to linger any longer and instead to take action to protect black motto ridge and west point on the eno river park and the river with the correct zoning that has been intended for this land since the scrapping of eno drive years ago thank you very much for the opportunity to present this to you today thank you very much miss cheek uh we'll now move to uh christina benson christina benson will be speaking next miss benson you have three minutes and colleagues if i refer you if you've not read it but you probably have already through the staff memo that miss cheek referred to which is uh under her public comment miss miss benson welcome can you be heard i hope so can you hear me yes we're glad to have you and you have three minutes thank you and um this can count on my three minutes i just want to confirm that jessica cheffield of the eno river association is here to speak and whether she can speak in beaverly hudgeon slot on number 24 there was some confusion if then i'm going to give her my three minutes now it's it's fine miss well she can do that thank you wonderful thank you all of you i can't thank the council enough for being willing to lend us your ears and uh let us put this issue in front of you um we really especially appreciate um sarah young and her staff putting together that background memo for you guys um hopefully it helps uh make clear that there is a very interesting zoning issue on these particular parcels but as miss cheek just so eloquently explained um everyone has been on the same page since back at the time that um the entire community including council took wonderful leadership back in 29 to 2012 um city council was on board the planning director the planning staff and a huge swath of the community the eno river association all rose up together to acknowledge that this is incredibly special land that it is environmentally sensitive and critically important to the eno river and to the west point park and the development of the whole park system margaret niggard made this one of her big um issues and at that time it was very clear that everyone agreed because eno drive was being scrapped for environmental reasons that these parcels needed to be down zoned to um very low density to houses per acre and the council approved that for the comprehensive plan and again the only reason that was not crossed over into the zoning change was because there was an ongoing uh annexation of those parcels into the park that required a financial appraisal and they were concerned that changing the zoning would impact that appraisal unfortunately uh when the development did not occur and the annexation to this uh you know parks didn't occur their their ball was dropped and it was the loop was never closed and so we're asking i feel like this is kind of like penny wise the clown in the uh you know steven king movie about it that you know he goes dormant and then he comes back and rises again after we thought we he had been defeated and so uh we're asking you to close the loop finally and i just wanted to reiterate we're not asking council to get involved with or interfere with any aspect of the board of adjustment appeal rather we're saying that if that appeal goes the way everyone expects it to because the record shows there is no valid development plan here to support a pdr 6.2 then these parcels will be in complete limbo and without council acting to resolve that limbo and put on the record what is the appropriate zoning then uh it will put the these parcels at severe risk so we ask that you please while that appeal is on going back proactively to um take action to down zone these parcels and it will not affect the develop the current developers rights whatsoever for you to do so because he's grandfathered in on any rights that he might have thank you again for your time and um we appreciate you listening thank you miss benson uh we'll now hear from nancy cox um madam clerk can you make miss cox available to be heard hi i believe you can hear me yes hi miss cox hello i'll launch in so i have lived just north of the park now for four years and i'm very concerned about development in this area in general and especially as it relates to impacts on the enos capacity because i have seen firsthand the increased flooding and commensurate damage in fall 2018 infinity had to close for several weeks the three big rain events this year not hurricanes rain events have flooded infinity between vantage point in kenwood the culvert under infinity on this stretch is being eroded all this water flows to the eno i'm really worried about when the two properties the corner of roxboro and infinity and lotta and gas are eventually developed in terms of the impact on the eno and flooding i went to the park after one of these rain events where the flooding and obvious damage and it was really scary to think that the mill could have really been damaged each perspective development is like a puzzle piece which now includes the new northern high school right across from this proposed development but we have to treat the region in a comprehensive way that is a reason for a comprehensive review versus the administrative process there's plenty of evidence both past and current showing that government and other groups acknowledge the environmental importance of these parcels especially as it relates to water quality increased flooding and a course loss of flora and fauna so it only makes sense that there would be a comprehensive review in doing my research i was reminded of the active role mayor bell played in brokering a compromise on road construction projects that ended up protecting these parcels and given the strong public engagement then i just can't fathom pushing this forward without the public's full knowledge and opportunity to engage in the process especially because of the value this community places on the park and i urge council members to engage with the community most directly affected it appears that the council would be on solid footing based on past assessments of these parcels to move forward with the comprehensive review i understand that development in northern dorm is essential lack of the proposed you know drive worried folks back then that northern dorm would lag behind but i think we can all agree that there's a burst of business and home development that seems appropriate for this geographic region which we must acknowledge has to be managed carefully given it is home to three drinking water sources lake mickey the reservoir and falls lake falls lake is of course fed by the eno river and tributaries honestly i want these parcels to be preserved my hope is that we can work with the landowners and all bested groups to ideally make the land part of the park this development as proposed has an unacceptable density at the bare minimum this has to be reduced and so i hope that you'll take the matter under consideration not do the administrative review and definitely engage in a comprehensive review process thank you thank you miss cox it's always good to have former public officials in the room we're glad to have you and thank you for your school board service oh thank you all right uh miss uh sheffield uh madam clerk can you please make jessica sheffield available to be heard i'm here mr mayor can you hear me yes we can uh miss sheffield welcome you have three minutes i appreciate that i think everyone for working with me to get me on this schedule um so good afternoon mr mayor manager bonfield members of council and of course a special welcome to councilman freelon and now we know happy birthday wishes are due to councilman wreath again thank you for offering me the chance to speak today i just wanted to uh echo the community's concerns uh my name is jessica sheffield i'm the executive director at the eno river association here in durham you likely know of us uh since 1966 the eno river association has worked tirelessly to conserve the lands along and the water within the eno river and its many tributaries in durham we're one of your favorite squeaky wheel advocates speaking up for parkland and natural area protection water quality preservation and community planning that incorporates efficient and environmentally sound land use water use and transportation systems our goal has been and continues to be increasing public appreciation for the environment public awareness of environmental threats and to work hard to change outcomes that would otherwise threaten important natural areas in the eno watershed and that's why we're talking together today so we're working to protect the watershed now from one more such threatening project we need your help um we ring your bell when it's important and this is one of those times so the proposed development that you're hearing about is on a critical 50 acre parcel adjacent to west plan on the eno which i think we can agree is the gem of the durham city park system certainly the historic corridor is very important to us and so this development concerns us deeply you've heard of the black meadow ridge parcel time and time again the past conversations about the ill-fated eno drive project were anchored here and back in the early 2000s the entire durham community rallied they thwarted this development through north durham near the eno well the facts haven't changed in the years that have passed since then the durham community was right about such big development in that particular area and that argument still stands any construction on such a sensitive natural area must be small and it must be thoughtful a big and bright and busy development is just simply not the right fit for that location next to the park and next to the eno the current black meadow ridge development proposal a proposal which we surmise must only have been allowed to get this far because of a misreading of that former zoning record is entirely too dense a housing development for this steep site running downhill straight to the park to the river the negative impacts on this adjacent natural and human environment far outweigh the benefit of having a few more houses per acre to sell we need you now that again that's why we're here today speaking in this public comment section we need you to rectify that misinterpretation of the past zoning record we need you to please remember that the community is already successfully lobbied city leadership to protect these very same acres we need you to steward these lands going forward in a sustainable way we cannot simply forget and forego the work of our predecessors this area of durham was slated for protection and we need to uphold that decree thank you very much for your time thank you missha field and now we're here from vanessa thornburg uh madam clerk is vanessa thornburg present i don't i don't see miss thornburg i don't either unless that's the phone call number i don't know um i will allow that person to talk okay miss thornburg are you with us apparently not madam clerk thank you very much colleagues uh you have heard the speakers and you can of course uh read the staff response i'm i very much appreciate the speakers on this issue it has been festering for many years um it's gone through lots of different iterations as you know it's now you know there's a board of adjustment hearing uh and i know we will be hearing uh from staff about potential action that we can take and i want to thank this the the speakers today all right um councilmember reese mr mayor you said at the end you think we can count on staff to come back with uh with a proposed course of action is that something that you've heard or just something you're assuming right now that's my assumption um is it would you rather hear from staff that we'll be hearing some advice from them i see the city manager go ahead miss yeah i'd love to be able to ask a couple of questions of our planning staff about this if they're if they're around all right i think miss young is available i know she's written some communications i believe has been shared with council members but certainly uh could probably answer some questions for you today as well thank you miss young is here go ahead councilmember thank you mr mayor thanks for some manager um good afternoon miss young thank you for being with us uh really appreciated your um staff memo on this item today um and truly grateful that you took the time to work to put that together for a public comment matter um because i think this is you know during the covid times uh this is one of the one of the only ways that we that residents can get this kind of responsiveness from the government uh in this kind of public setting so i want to thank you for that and ask you specifically about um the last paragraph under request one and that is on page two of your memo council has the ability to initiate a zoning map change um what would the what would that process look like thank you for that question council member reese mayor members of council uh for the city to initiate a rezoning um i think all we would need is for you all to um make a motion i'll defer to the attorney's office is to the particular method um to do that um but once you all initiated that then staff would be obliged to process it just so i understand the situation and i think i've got it now i think i'll understand if the council say today or next week uh were to direct staff to initiate that zoning map change it almost certainly wouldn't come back before us before the board of adjustment issues it's ruling on the appeal is that correct probably not i will say that um without discussing the the case um we are working through whether or not um case can be heard in person um because it is a very contested case um and some parties involved have asked that it not be conducted virtually if that cannot be accommodated that case may be on hold until such a time as it can be heard in person so that's why it's actually difficult in all honesty for me to answer that question i know that that makes a lot of sense i appreciate you um explaining that that subtlety maybe a more fundamental question is um we heard a couple of the folks who spoke in the public comment period just now explain that if the appeal is successful then i think that means the prior the previous previous planning director's determination would be overturned is that right that is correct but i do want to clarify that um there was a statement made um that the zoning is then invalid and that is not true the zoning that pdr 6.2 is still in place what would be overturned is the former director's interpretation of what specific conditions were tied to that pdr um from his read of the of what he interpreted as a development plan and so um that was going to be my question is about the the zoning limbo i think was the was the phrase that i heard used by some of the residents um so it would go back to the it'd still be in the pdr designation but that but then we would have to the city would continue to have to try to find the actual development plan which my guess my my reading of the record is we've had a hard time doing that yeah typically what we do when we can't find a development plan which happens from time to time we have some really really old zonings um and our files don't necessarily go that far back for whatever reason so when that happens we search the record we listen to the the recordings from any meetings from the the council or the governing body we searched the minutes of the governing body that proved it to try and find what the governing body thought they were approving at the time and if so we usually place those conditions on the property if we can't find a development plan and then we default to whatever the base in the unified development ordinance stipulates for that zoning district so that is normally how we proceed when we cannot locate a development plan what would that look like in this situation to be honest with without um i can say that there are some things that were mentioned in the minutes particularly about a buffer that we would likely enforce however there are many other things that the minutes were silent on and so it would default to the for instance um the dimensional standards in the ordinance normally a pdr for instance would set setbacks um but in this case since there is no pdr plan to look at um we would default to the base in the ordinance and i can't recall it off the top of my head but um okay um i guess that's i think those are the questions i have for you miss young thank you for i know this goes back a ways appreciate the work that your staff has done to try to use various archaeological tactics to try to unearth what the the various intents were at this time um mr mayor um i'm not quite sure what to do about this but i think the residents and our staff make a pretty persuasive case that if we want to act we can without prejudice to the current property owners vested rights um and while i'm not sure that what will happen in the appeal is sustained can be characterized as zoning limbo um i do think that we have an opportunity to move forward promptly to try to prevent any misunderstanding about what the city thinks the proper designation for this property is uh and so um so anyway that's what i that's what i had to say about that mr mayor else remember i agree and uh i want to just uh suggest that uh we've got the the board of adjustment hearing ahead of us um and you've heard about this dilemma about the potential of the in-person or the non-in-person uh in how that is or is not going to happen um and you know with the situation with witnesses needing to be called and that kind of thing it's a it's a sticky wicked that i know that our staff is working hard to try to figure out in the meantime i think maybe it would be wise to uh ask miss young to let us know give us advice on how the council might proceed should the once the both both the the method and timing once the the board of adjustment has made its ruling and uh you could bring that back to us miss young what are your thoughts yeah we're having to follow back up after the hearing once we know what the outcome of the of the scheduling of the hearing is going to be and once the hearing is able to be held we can certainly return back to the council thank you very much sure mr mayors that good for you i'm i kind of want to hear from the mayor proton sorry today quick i don't feel entirely clear on what us rezoning this property does to the current petition um because it seemed like from our staff memo that even if we rezoned the property that the developers would be able to develop it with the proposal that they are giving us so i'm not clear what rezoning it does miss young i see the cavalry has arrived in the form of dono tool so would you like mr otul would you help us sure uh dono tool city attorney's office as sarah has said what is going to the board of adjustment is an appeal of the former planning director's interpretation that doesn't change the fact that there is a base zoning for this property and since there is a current site plan application there likely would be a strong argument that the developer would have or the property owner would have for vested rights under the current zoning and and we have received indication um that the property owner would likely make such an argument so thank you don't so does that mean that us rezoning it essentially does has no effect with respect to this property owner and this application and sarah maybe you can chime in um given that there is currently a site plan under consideration i would assume that if the appeal is lost the applicant could revise the existing site plan and it's it's still considered as as the same site plan is that correct yes the the site plan could be modified in process to comply with whatever determination we make as to what the base zoning requirements are without that former interpretation from the director got it so whether this development can move forward or not depends on the interpretation of of what the base zoning is and if it's not what the planning the the former planning director stated then what is it so the ordinance has standards for a pdr in general and typically when we can't find a development plan we default to the general standards so again without me having the record in front of me looking at the specific discussion from the council at the time that the pdr 6.2 was approved i i do know of some aspects like the buffer that was discussed that would be required um but generally it would default to the the base standards in the ordinance so i have not been able to do any due diligence in terms of comparing their current site plan to what how it might need to be amended to fit that type of a call so um that's about as much details i can offer right now that's great thank you thank you mr mayor thank you mayor pro tem council member riz no we have a lot of agenda to get to and i promise i'm done very soon um miss young do i interpret the conversation we've heard so far uh to correctly if i were to say that we could the city council could change the zoning all we want but that doesn't impact what this developer can do what this developer can do is impacted by the board of adjustments determination and then your office's determination if the if the previous decision is is is deemed to have not been correct then then your office's determination about what the minutes from that meeting indicate would be allowed that's what that's what could be built there that's correct as long as the applicant maintains a live pending site plan application they would be vested to that and could continue okay uh all right i think i don't have any more questions i have concerns but i think i guess mr mayor my my my perspective here is that if there were something useful for us to do i'd like to do it but today's conversation has left me um not particularly optimistic that there is something constructive that the council can do today but i hope that the folks who spoke today will continue to talk to us if they have other ideas i had the opportunity to spend some time talking to them via zoom last week and i know that they are eager inventive and have the time to put into it so i suspect we'll be hearing from them soon so i'll stop talking i thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember yeah i mean i think we don't know enough yet and um we'll hear more from uh these constituents and i already see some miss benzin has added something in the chat but i know that we'll hear from them but we'll also be hearing from our staff you heard that miss young is doing her due diligence and once the board of adjustments has taken its actions or if she believes prior to that i know that she'll be in touch with us about our options so thank you everybody mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um i just had one final comment which is that i feel like we often hear these sorts of arguments around density that the that the environmental impact of density in this particular area is such that the density shouldn't go here it should go elsewhere um and i'm very skeptical of those arguments generally because i i think people often believe the density shouldn't go here it shouldn't go elsewhere but i feel like in this particular case it's true that the density should go elsewhere i just wanted to make the point that um i i remain skeptical of that argument but in this case i think it's it's valid and that we should move forward thank you mayor pro tem and um we'll get some guidance from our staff all right um colleagues will now move to item nine the long time homeowner tax deferment program and this item i'm going to hold item two which i pulled until we do all the appointments at the end uh but item nine the long term homeowner tax deferment program was pulled by um council member freeman who i know is thank you i'm trying to be at the meeting while she's on route go ahead council member yeah i just wanted to make sure that we explain again how this will impact those those homeowners that were getting the south south side grant and the northeast district grant just so there was some clarity but like i was not going to be able to give um answers the folks who were asking me some questions but i was just hoping that staff could help me with that thank you council member um so this this program is the one that we agreed that we would join with the county for people at 30 percent of the am i or last under the county program would be county wide um the program to which you're referring um is a program which we have previously approved that the the program for uh was passed in our budget uh that the the the the long term low income homeowner program that we had uh for the city remains in effect for those neighborhoods that you mentioned mr mayor thank you yes i just would point out i don't know if anybody from community developments on but uh that program did have a um a pilot period i believe we're we extended the pilot period one year so we're in the i think the fourth year of the program the program and then we're going to report back to the council on the results for your evaluation and consideration of any further extension so i just want didn't want to leave the impression that it's forever in place thank you mr manager any more questions or comments council member freeman no that was all thank you thank you very much our next item is item 11 the contract to support the transit community engagement performance management with the texas a and m transportation institute and this would be pulled by council member reese thank you mr mayor appreciate you uh giving me a chance to talk about this um mr egan good afternoon long time no see um happy birthday thank you uh i sent you uh an email um that had two parts one was um from a local advocacy organization sort of at the bottom and then in between there was an an email from um i think one of our peritransit drivers i wonder if you could address the concerns raised in both parts of that about this item specifically around why um why the texas a name transportation institute um is an appropriate vendor for the service why the item please explain why the item didn't go through uh the process some other contracts go through with respect to the equity inclusion department um uh for for compliance with the various programs that they administer um and more broadly how this particular uh work product would advance the goals of equity and inclusion uh for the the folks who use our local transit system certainly uh good afternoon members of the council uh sean egan director of transportation or the city uh so i'll start with the uh recent transition in peritransit we transitioned for go Durham access to a new contractor um and at that time um the contractor uh initiated a process for uh background checks and screening for all of the employees and all the employees just like with employment at the city of Durham have to pass an employment screening process and two of the employees who went through that process did not successfully pass that process so they were not retained by the new vendor but all of the other employees were retained through that process so and then getting to the question of the texas transportation institutes particular expertise uh their tti has staff who have experience working in public transit agencies um and particularly on the performance management side working with transit specific data sets uh that are um very um complex and in order to do effective performance management we have to be able to gather data sets on automatic vehicle location automatic passenger counter fairbox data maintenance management system all of these different data types that live in silos right now and so what we're looking for was um experience pulling together all of these different information systems and being able to integrate them and provide timely high quality information to decision makers and then to the public as well and that skill set is not widely available typically there's understanding of transit operations and industry or there's an expertise in data integration but it's very rare to find the combination of the two and so with tti we found staff who have expertise in both the transit industry and operations as well as the the data integration and visualization aspects so if i may speak kind of more broadly to the the transit equity campaign concern i want to start by just applauding the transit equity campaigns focus on the needs of go Durham riders and we're excited to partner with the campaign in particular to ensure that the Durham county transit plan update prioritizes investments that will benefit communities of color and low wealth households with limited transportation options the campaign press release that came out last week reminded me of the budget presentation i made to this council in February when i shared some key demographic information about go Durham riders more than 80 percent of whom were people of color 75 percent of whom have household incomes less than $25,000 and more than two-thirds of whom live in zero car households in the final budget presentation to council in may i concluded with the recommendation that given the demographics of go Durham riders there's no better transportation investment to promote equity than improving go Durham services and infrastructure such as the 15 minute service frequency on the go Durham route five on the entire quarter that will go into effect next month the development of the Fayetteville and Holloway transit emphasis corridors access to transit plus speed and reliability and other initiatives we secured funding for to advance through the county transit plan my department has embraced the equitable community engagement blueprint and partnered with neighborhood improvement services to utilize community rude partners to ensure that transportation plans and projects benefit from the input of communities historically excluded from decision-making and i have also raised inconvenient questions about transit projects such as the commuter rail when they have not embraced robust and equitable community engagement so in the contract before you today the very first bullet in the scope under task one discusses rider demographic information and we will use this contract to emphasize to a broader audience the arguments made before this council that investments in go Durham service infrastructure provide an opportunity to intentionally direct resources to advance equity in our community thank you and please let me know if you have any additional questions thank you Sean first of all I just want to thank you for your response I have been struck since you joined the city and took leadership of the transportation department that you have been focused like a laser beam on serving the communities that rely most heavily on our go Durham bus service I agree with you that it's difficult for me to imagine a place to put public money that makes more of a difference in the lives of the our most vulnerable communities than in our system of public transportation it is a true lifeline we saw that during the COVID-19 pandemic especially in the early months when our ridership declined far less than almost any other peer system because our riders have come to depend on our service and you and your staff engaged in some herculean efforts to make sure that the system remained up and running and that that lifeline continued to be in effect so I just wanted to thank you for that and for your commitment especially as it relates to the to the Durham County Transit Plan you and I have been working for a while now together to try to make sure that our partners at the county understand clearly that this is should be the top priority for the Durham County Transit Plan if we're talking about Durham County Transit this is the system that delivers almost all of the transit that Durham County residents use and so there there will be plenty of money for other types of projects as you have said but we need to make sure that first and foremost that go Durham is well supported and I'm proud that the most recent budget of the city passed during a difficult time continue to make those investments can you talk a little bit about what the work product is from this contract because I'll be honest with you it's not 100 clear to me what that looks like I think maybe because there were two pieces described in the memo and I only heard you talk about one piece today that kind of data analysis data integration from the various data silos into this kind of performance management system I think is very kind of that that's a very high level technocratic type of work that I totally get but the strategic communications document is one that I think maybe raised some eyebrows for folks in the community that we were going to have a bunch of folks from Texas explain to the to the transportation department in Durham how best to argue in the community that our transit system is worth investing in and I think that's the piece that kind of turned my head a little bit and I wonder if you could talk about that son sure so what we're really looking for and that the communications piece is a small share of the overall contract value it's about 20% of the overall contract value so the bulk of the work is on the performance management piece but really what we're looking for technical assistance with is putting together a visually appealing document and set of documents that we can share through the public engagement process that but the content from those documents is really going to come from our community and so I've already had discussions with the transit equity campaign about some of the narratives some of the storytelling that they've done on their website and their outreach materials I think you'll see that same type of storytelling coming across and what we're looking for is some professional support to be able to pull those materials together and present both the data and the narratives the content in a high quality engaging way for our community but we're committed to working with key stakeholders in terms of the right making sure we have the right content to put into that format and the consultants will be helping us put together a really professional looking document that is appropriate for our audience and really helps us to tell that story in the most compelling way possible so who are the key stakeholders so I think our bus riders absolutely are key stakeholders so we're going to be talking about the types of input that we've gotten from bus riders the types of input we've gotten from the community through the engage Durham sessions what we've heard over and over again from the community is that there's that the bus stop facilities and access to transit is inadequate that they're looking for service that's more frequent and more reliable so those types of the feedback that we've gotten through the move Durham plan and other public involvement efforts that we've done as a department pulling that input that we've gotten through community engagement through the work we're done we've done with the community rooted partners pulling that together and making sure that we really tell a compelling story about how the how improvements to the go Durham system will really impact the lives of the people in our community Sean would it be possible to revise the scope of work exhibit a to include a specific description of who the key stakeholders are here specifically including go Durham riders especially those who live in communities of color and low wealth communities yeah we can do that great um oh one other thing um and this may be a question for a different staff person but in the staff memo this was a sentence that I that generated some concern amongst a couple of folks who reached out to us is that this it reads this intergovernmental contract was not reviewed by the equity inclusion department for compliance with the equal business opportunity program and small local business program ordinances are you in a position to talk about why that is is so because of intergovernment because of the structure of this is an intergovernmental agreement governments aren't eligible for UBE certification or small minority business certification processes those those are only available to private sector firms so that's why an intergovernmental agreement wouldn't include that but what I certainly can share is we've asked for the demographic information about TTI's employees and we can certainly submit that and make sure that that's part of the package so that you have that clear view and understanding of the diversity of the workforce just like we would with other contractors for the city on that would be that sorry that would be very very helpful I really appreciate your willingness to reach out to that and I assume we'll see that updated in the agenda as it goes forward that's correct right mr mayor I don't have any other questions Shawn thank you for this and for everything you're doing to help uh help our transit system be more robust thank you thank you very much councilmember Freelon thank you mayor um and uh yeah thank you for the presentation um I just wanted to build on some of the things councilmember Reese was talking about and forgive me if I'm absorbing a lot of information and was looking over this memo without context as I was just sworn in last Thursday but um with TTI uh you talk about their like efficient skill set and the information gathering that kind of transit industry and the number crunching that they did really well in my reading and in what I've inferred from some of the feedback from community is that the the lack of the diversity and inclusion lens were how broad a net did you cast to seek out TTI and to what extent did the not using that diversity lens potentially you know prevent you from seeking out or identifying um you know a variety of other folks especially local folks who might be able to do this kind of thing and and I want to just add an addendum about that from something councilmember Reese said you know we're looking at a a hundred thousand dollar contract is what it looks like or not to exceed a hundred thousand you said about 20% of that would be around like a visually appealing document and some storytelling and when I think about narrative storytelling I mean I know that just locally complex creative for example did some great storytelling around our uh anniversary and so uh I'm just thinking about it you know really how difficult would it be to find someone who could maybe just do that piece and I don't know if I'm reading this incorrectly but you know if you have a hundred thousand dollars and 20k could go to a local business who could just do the storytelling piece maybe while TTI does the number crunching piece I'm just kind of curious to hear more about uh how that money will be spent and to what extent uh the the lack of that equity lens could have prevented some of these dollars from from supporting local black owned businesses for example sure so um you know what the the primary skill set that we were looking for is as you mentioned the the technical expertise in the data integration I think what we wanted to also take advantage of that is that TTI has staff who have worked very successfully on public information and communications documents and we think that there's an important linkage between the performance information and having a clear understanding of performance information because that that tells us what we need to improve and so we wanted these to be these team members to be able to work together to advance that document I can tell you that in a lot of the other projects that were that I mentioned things like the transit emphasis corridors access to transit we are working with and we're hoping to bring forward a contract soon to work with small and women and minority owned businesses on those types of documents those are much larger efforts you know more than 10 times the size of this effort and so we have been working to identify those teams and those skill sets among the minority women owned businesses in our community for these much larger efforts but for this smaller effort we wanted to look to the that very technical focused skill we looked at some of the local universities like the NC State Institute for Transportation Research and Education they have not done this type of work on major data system integration for transit specifically we looked at North Carolina Central University their public administration program has a faculty member who has decades of experience in the transit industry Dr. Pierre Rousseau Dr. Rousseau is a city staff member and is already working on this project for us in his capacity as the city's transit administrator so we did look to some of the local and historically black colleges and universities for opportunities to do that but the the clearest technical expertise the combination of technical expertise that we could find was offered by TTI okay thank you yeah I guess um thank you for that response it's good to know that you you looked at central and NC status and local folks and I mean you know a diversity and equity lens doesn't mean you you always go with the you know black company you go with the one that is best for the job and I understand that I guess in my reading of the of the you know the language and some of the feedback uh I don't know I was kind of getting the impression that a wide net was was not cast or or perhaps channels that we would typically go through in a rigorous kind of standard of upholding our values around equity and inclusion was not adhered to in this particular case um but uh one thing I want to just uh kind of close with and then I'd love to hear from some other colleagues is just thinking creatively around the the narrative storytelling piece and I know you're saying that this is kind of a smaller thing and at 100,000 it can scale up to 10 times as much it would be great to put those dollars in some local businesses um I'm not sure if this I don't want to tell you how to do your job either but I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing that could be piece mail a la carte but you know when I think about you know the visual storytelling piece as I mentioned taking the data and putting it in a narrative context I'd be curious to know especially if there is something lacking in the diversity and inclusion area if we could talk to TTI about you know locally sourcing the public information and communications piece of this contract so that some of the excellent eminently qualified storytellers you know and I mean I mentioned complex creative but there are dozens here in the triangle that I think could really rock that uh public communications piece and visual storytelling and infographic piece with adequate data um though I'm not sure how you know how that would work and integrating with the systems that TTI offers or if they're saying this is a package deal you come for the data you stick around for the infographic like I don't know if that's how how it works but um you know I'm just thinking about I'm looking at the number and and the percentage you said and thinking about what $20,000 could mean to a complex creative and to our and to infusing those dollars back into our local community through a local and business it will be curious to hear from TTI if that's something they'd be willing to collaborate with us on as a part of this contract um that's just an idea it's not a mandate or anything but uh that's where where my wheels got turning creatively about especially considering some of the concerns folks are having about why didn't this go through our traditional process um you know in our in our rigorous upheld to our rigorous standard of what we want in terms of equity and diversity so those are my thoughts. Thank you. Go ahead Sean. I'll just respond that we have significant needs for community engagement and customer communications and marketing for our GoDerm services and we're in discussions with GoTriangle right now about how we can get additional support and add capacity to do that work so this task is a very short time limited effort but as we move into a broader approach to improving customer communications and marketing for GoDerm I think we will certainly look to tap into the small local women and minority owned businesses in the community and I'm happy to come back and provide more information on that as those discussions develop but I think for the for the TTI agreement um you're adding another subcontractor at this point in the process would be a very significant change to the contract and I think we would have to uh restart the process so I would recommend that we proceed with this contract and then look to our small and local business community for future communications and marketing needs that I know we will have for GoDerm. Can I just respond to that real quick um you know you mentioned restarting the process uh that's actually what a lot of folks are calling for is restarting the process and starting what as we restart making sure we apply that diversity and equity lens you know maybe throw this other idea in there to at least to see if they'd be open to it um so I mean I guess uh I don't have the same reaction to restarting the process as a potentially bad thing especially if we can restart it on a on a pathway that's more aligned with our values um but you know I also don't know what a delay could mean for you know for for what you're trying to accomplish I don't want I don't want to delay necessarily to negatively impact the riders that we just spoke about for example so um but I just want to be clear I've got you know half a dozen or so emails and public comments for folks that are asking for just that is for us to restart the process thank you council member Sean any further comments no that's all thank you Mr. Mayor and members of the council yeah I mean I think that you know clearly this is a this is a contract that has very important time time timing needs we are using this as the way to advocate for our bus riders and position our bus system as a as a competitor for the Durham county transit funds and that's all happening now on a pretty you know on a tight timeline but I really appreciate um council member the um what you've put forward and um you know we're making these enormous efforts around our comprehensive plan and our county transit plan which are which are being done hand in hand with community-rooted partners who the city is paying to you know local folks to be out in the community as part of this big transit planning effort so we're making a lot of efforts along those lines and Sean I want to thank you for being integral to that but I appreciate what council member Freeland's saying and we need to continue to keep that in mind and we need to keep continue to act on it um and take every opportunity that we can any further comments all right thank you so much everybody um and uh Sean you're you're gonna uh you have a you're a couple things that you're going to add to the package when we get it prior to Monday night that's right some additional language on the communities that were prioritizing and then the demographic information about DTI's uh workforce thanks all right we're now going to move on to our first um presentation which is the fourth quarter financial report and um I'm going to uh I believe that we will be hearing from are we hearing from Mr. Allure yes good to see you Mr. Allure hello good afternoon I just want to take a second to share my screen can everybody see here we are yes good afternoon John Allure assistant budget director and I'm here to present the fourth quarter financial report um just as a uh as a setup here uh when we last met we gave the third quarter financial report that was back in May and we were looking back at um the period between July 2019 and March 31st 2020 so a long time has passed and certainly now we're looking in the rear view mirror for the full 12 months uh June 30th and obviously uh this summer a lot has happened and I can certainly in addition although this information only takes us to June 30th 2020 but I can certainly as we go along since we have some more financial data give you some updates about where we are right now because I think we all agree that that is important so we'll begin uh with as we always do with the general fund um in your packet for this item just for the benefit everyone is a is the PowerPoint presentation and and a an agenda memo that mirrors the um PowerPoint presentation and then a series of financial schedules uh and and we've only done this twice now but something that is kind of new for for many of you is the last item in that financial package is the tax settlement and the county city county tax collector assessor is available should anybody else have anybody have questions I will handle the general fund portion as well as the enterprise portion when we get to the enterprise funds but certainly um representatives from those departments those funds are available should people have detailed questions that I can't answer so I'll begin with the summary results for everything um overall for the general fund the department expenditures projected to be under budget by five point one million dollars uh they were under budget all departments uh came in under uh at the year end um at or under budget uh there was a slight revenue deficit of approximately six hundred thousand dollars um and overall uh one way to frame uh looking at this of the fifteen point nine million dollars uh budgeted to come from fund balance we will only need ten point seven uh million of that leaving us a positive variance of approximately five million dollars and we will get into uh some more details about why that is in the coming slides so this this is just an overview of our revenues and as you can see um the exception of property tax and I think I think the story here with with not only the general fund but a lot of the funds is that property tax came in greater than we expected if you recall fy 19 was a reval year it's very difficult to predict exactly where in a reval year the revenues are going to come in but I would say overall we um we realize more uh revenues than than we expected this of course is looking uh one year over the prior year for all of our major revenues um but when you see some of the other revenues you see they're they're pretty much flat or um almost neck and neck with the prior year which is not really what we want to see we usually want to see uh growth in in revenue and a lot of that I think can be uh attributed to the current economic situation we're in one thing I'll mention for everybody as we go go forward for the general fund property tax and sales tax represents approximately 70% of all of our general fund revenue 50% for property tax approximately 20% for sales tax so we are very very uh reliant on the um general fund on those two revenue sources so getting right to sales tax which is um probably the the hardest one to to predict because there's so many variables involved the the q4 report actual that you'll look at showed 55 million dollars but of course that only reflected 10 collection month payments and that's because there's a lag in the collection of three months so building through this um we were only at 11 months of actual collections when we built the report having to project the final month the the 12th month and the projection we came up with was uh based on 11 months of actuals was 67.2 million dollars with the final payment coming in in september um and we were lucky uh that payment came in a day earlier it came in yesterday it usually comes in on on the 10th of every month it came in on the 9th and what we can now say that is not reflected in this this report is that we ended the year um compared to budget collecting 68.2 million dollars uh compared to a budget of 68.7 million dollars so just just uh less than 450 thousand dollars than we budgeted um far better than we expected uh but still um i would say that not um i would say that the strong collections in the first three quarters saved us and and and still with q4 we experienced uh losses there's a lot of thought around and discussion around the state as to why this this might be including um the fact that the stimulus money was uh was was received in uh april and may the fact that unemployment benefits got uh somewhat of a bump in the spring all of this is to say that uh what a lot of people are observing is that um spending habits didn't necessarily go down they they were just changed and focused in different areas so i would i would say with sales tax we're cautiously uh optimistic but again what we know right now is is only through the 12th month is only through june 30th and um there's a lot of speculation what the summer months will look like of course we won't start seeing that until october 10th uh but right now that's that's where we that's where we stand property tax so this is um a reflection of um the the yellow are the budgets um the green and the uh blue represents the actual um and kind of looking uh year over year or where things were of course we as i said with property tax this year um i think when we looked at the end of the third quarter we felt we might come in um about a half million dollars over um we came we realized approximately three million uh more than that and um which is surprising uh we weren't expecting that however when when we were um when we were looking at where we'd land at the end of the year in march obviously there were just a lot of unknowns not a bad thing by any means sales tax uh i won't say anything more here we've already we've already talked about that utility tax and here is as we go through these we begin to see um a drop in revenue uh certainly uh less revenue for utility franchise tax um and had been budgeted by about a million permits were up meaning building permits etc which again was somewhat surprising but if you if you look around the triangle and the communities you you just see that um that that type of growth has not slowed um since since we began this process began the pandemic process in in march occupancy tax um down i'll have more to say about this at the end about particularly where we're going with where we see we're going with occupancy tax because obviously not only does this affect uh the the general fund but um our performing art center is is a reliant on an appropriation uh from from occupancy tax but i just want to reserve that to the end uh power bill um was slightly up the graph is not really wholly representative up by by um about seventy seventy thousand dollars compared to budget it charges for services as as we expected as as you know as in the spring as we slow closed rec centers as we discontinued programs we expected to see a drop in in charges for services and we we certainly did by about three hundred to four hundred thousand dollars compared to budget and this is just an overview from our financial schedules of everything we just talked about where um where we were projecting and where we landed of course turning to uh expenditures and departments i would say that all again our our departments were amazing in in being fiscally responsible knowing uh knowing that the situation we were in in in march and making sure that they were proven in their spending in a lot of cases you might also argue that they didn't have the opportunity to spend and that's certainly why we ended up with um spending less than five million dollars across across our departments fund balance and so just to walk you through these the fund balance picture so we began fiscal year uh 20 with 49.8 million dollars minus the projected use of fund balance of 10.7 not the 17 or 18 we originally projected but what we're actually going to use plus any encumbrances that were released um at the end of the fiscal year leaving us at uh at the end of the fiscal year the June 30th of this year with 48 million uh dollars in fund balance i would remind you that in the current fiscal year we budgeted between eight and nine million dollars in fund balance to offset anticipated revenue shortfalls so that that would mean that that number comes down to about 3.9 million dollars where we anticipate to land um now in under current conditions by the spring of next year and that our our policy level yes excuse me you don't mean 3.9 million dollars do you mean 39 million dollars thank you uh mayor i appreciate that i mean 39 million dollars um and if you kind of want to see the the level of cushion the the current policy is 16.7 34 of course at your discretion uh you're fully able to go below that but differential between the 39 and 34 is about five million dollars the last thing i'll mention because it because this comes up quite a bit and it is um is on the next uh agenda cycle and it it may affect your um decision making with this that in in these fund balance projections the sale of 505 west chapel hill boulevard the old police headquarters is not factored into this so any proceeds from that sale would be in addition to this this is just another way of looking at the revenues and with that i'm going to move on to the enterprise funds beginning with the water and sewer fund um overall we saw an increase in revenues um and um underspending by by about four percent a reduction in um transfers to two other funds those are primarily transfers for capital which meant that overall there was a positive um variance in the water and sewer fund to the tune of about 6.8 million dollars transit operations uh yes operating revenues were down um operating expenses were slightly down um but overall the total revenues for the year exceeded total expenses by uh approximately 700 uh thousand dollars and and this was due to some uh strong non-operating revenues particularly some grant revenues that we uh we realized in the fund and this is just the financial schedule expressing this solid waste fund overall the fund will end the year with a surplus of 647 thousand dollars um operating revenues less than originally budgeted and there's the 647 some um obviously some uh some savings there and operating expenses um and in all their expenditures actually stormwater fund um the year end results of revenues were up by 105 percent expenditures were down 94.25 percent um compared to budget uh which saw an overall budget variance of 1.6 million dollars so again uh again um positive the parking fund is one we certainly want to monitor um operating revenues had a shortfall of 25 percent reductions and operating expenditures helped the parking fund but nevertheless they they looked at the end of the year at a deficit of 800 thousand dollars and obviously so that's going to hit whatever fund balance would be available in that fund and we certainly um the experts in in in parking and transportation are well aware of this and um are available to talk to you should you have questions about what their plan of action is going forward and then the debt service fund um a positive value variance of 1.9 million dollars again tied to property taxes they received more property taxes um than we anticipated to the tuna 1.4 million dollars i'll go back so the the one thing i wanted to there are schedules on this but there's not slides on this and i did want to briefly talk about the d-pack and the d-bap to the ballpark fund and say with the d-pack fund uh there was loss if you'll see in the schedule to operating revenues of about 600 thousand dollars uh savings uh in operating obviously for an overall deficit of 381 uh thousand dollars the the d-pack fund has a healthy fund balance that should help them uh with that but it gets to the the question of occupancy tax we just received them some numbers for uh july and august for occupancy tax where we're typically accustomed in the summer months of receiving approximately 300 000 dollars a month for occupancy tax we we're now seeing numbers of 70 to 80 thousand dollars so a significant drop there obviously the the discussions are are not done on on what happens with the d-pack fund as we continue to be under these conditions and i think what remains to be seen is um you know the how how we proceed um with with the Performing Arts Center as we go forward i know Mr. Johnson in community development who over overseas um the management of that will be coming with you to you with an annual report so i would expect to hear more on that a similar story with the ballpark fund of course we didn't have just as we didn't have theater and performances musical theater and and you know live performances we we did not have baseball um however overall we saw a 400 000 surplus um revenues were were fine and and operating savings were fine but that's because the effects of of those revenues will not be realized actually until this fiscal year so this fiscal year is the year where we really need to be concerned with the performance with the ballpark fund and again i i think i think there's going to be a whole lot of uh discussion as we continue to analyze this hopefully more information when we come to present to you the first quarter fiscal 21 financial report in in uh in november so with that that concludes the presentation and i'm happy to uh to entertain all questions john thank you so much um let me just start by saying that um and john maybe you want to go ahead and take your screen down you may need it again but um this is a superb report from a superbly managed city the fact that we have ended the year that we did in the way that we have financially just i think speaks volumes to the way we have managed the way you have managed you all have managed staff has managed our finances and the and also i think it speaks really well of our fund balance policies and all the things that have kept us safe this year when so many other localities around the country have not been so i want to start with that um i'm going to uh i see that mayor pro tem has a question in the chat about do we have slides on the ballpark of the dpec we don't but they are in the presentation i'm sorry in the exhibit um if you look in the exhibit um there are both ballpark and i'll try to shuffle through here but they're both ballpark fund and um the ballpark fund is about i don't know five or ten slides deep into the into the exhibit and the um the dpec fund is about three slides farther than that thank you yeah um which just couldn't find them in the presentation and the those slides are a little bit easier to parse yes they are i will go through the it looks like john is trying to pull them up now though oh great thanks john maybe john can magnify that i'm not sure it looks like maybe when you consider the two of them together it's kind of a wash maybe that is one way of looking at it yes i think that what i'm what i understood you to say though mr allure is that we in the coming year for both of those is where we're really likely to see the negative impacts i think so yes um i'm sorry go ahead mayor pro temp um to what extent is the city responsible for those negative impacts at the ballpark in the dpec i know we have very different agreements different management agreements with those two facilities and i don't feel i don't feel clear on like how worried i should be from from our perspective let me jump in real quick and then i don't know if david uh boyd is on the uh on as well david oh there is us him david can probably answer much more much more we've had extensive conversations with both the dpec operator and the the ballpark operator of course the the big factor is ultimately the duration of the downturn uh you know that that's a that's a bigger factor and and how quickly you know will there be a minor league baseball season next year for example we don't know but also the extent to when dpec will reopen both of the agreements are definitely structured to to give the city a lot of protection and we've taken some steps to to you know enhance that more david if you want to you know fill fill in the blanks of of where that is the the for example the the the one piece on the the dpec piece we have worked out an arrangement to actually in both cases worked out arrangements for any revenue shortfalls that would otherwise accrue to the city uh to to have opportunities for those to be repaid just over a longer period of time rather than just for this year but david you want to go ahead and comment about any detail yeah i think i'm david boyd finance director i think i'm on both funds john's correct that that next year is when we'll see the impacts revenue time because both of these agreements that we have have have both the bowls and the dpec operator making a payment to us this fiscal year's on our year's results so so next year is when we will feel the the revenue impacts um i would say that that there's much more on the backside than on the dpec side just based on the on the size of the of the funds we are in fact meeting with the bowls tomorrow to talk about the needs and the resources that we have um but the bowls are entirely responsible for all the operating the expenses and they just make a rent payment to us along with the percentage there to come so any of the operating expenses are entirely the responsibility of the bowls we pay for some debt service and the needs there similarly at the at the dpec the operator is responsible for for all the operating expenses and we make a share of the of the profits um so the expense side for operations is entirely on either the tenant in the bowls case or the operator in the dpec case um but i think we have a little concern about the long-term viability on on the dpec side and have more concerns on the part made of capital needs and once they're up and running again um readjust the long-term capital planning for for both facilities based on the resources thank you that's just mere pretend yeah and i know that we i mean we public health experts are still very unsure of you know the duration of the pandemic and especially the more severe outcomes i mean i can't imagine having any kind of significant mass gatherings next year at all given where we are now so um it's great that we're i i feel confident that you know we're we're gonna weather this with the long-term planning and you know strategic approach that we've had but definitely feel like we're in for a long haul in terms of how long the economic consequences are going to last we did have a briefing last week with the dpec for the end of year operations and they'll be coming forth i believe in october november like they typically do and certainly at that time hopefully they'll have more updated information as to what the future forecast of the restart might look like in the timing thank you madam mayor pro tem i'm going to call on council member freeman she's not uh she has um she and i have been talking in the chat so council member freeman um can you be heard i um i just wanted to echo your sentiments and acknowledge and i was completely holding my breath um and looking at these numbers and i felt some sense of calm acknowledging that we made it through this year and i want to thank staff for uh really cutting back i mean i think it was thought it was sewer and water it's almost a million dollars shave from from the budget there's there's a lot of operational adjustments that were made that i appreciate i just wanted to really come in staff on that and then just noting that i am i am concerned about our cast position and so i was hoping that there that we'll have future conversations around that but i just want to make sure you put a pinpoint in that thing thank you thank you council member other question i see council member middleton thank you so much uh mr. mayor and david and john good to see you both i want to echo uh the mayor's commendations uh to you and the staff for uh such a well-run city you know and we talked a little bit about dpac so if i can channel them is a little bit black and red are um um important colors and the conversations we're able to have as a city that's operating in the black is very different than the ones we would have as a in a red you know when we get to argue as a family about funding our values and what we should pay for that's a privileged conversation because we are in the black and we get to have those kind of debates some of those debates wouldn't even happen if we weren't in the black so i want to congratulate you and thank you for um doing such a great job i have a question about the flow the timetable of floating debt for the affordable housing a bond um bond issuance timeline and when we're actually floating debt what's the what's the landscape for that look uh look like in terms of when we'll actually start floating debt um so for what we've been working with community development uh and then we heard from from the housing authority this morning about the the timing of their um future spending and really wanting to make sure we line up um our borrowing with when we need cash and um also being mindful of the interest rate environment to make sure we don't miss an opportunity to take advantage of some some cheap debt but uh we right now don't expect to be issuing any debt in um i would say next 12 months i would say maybe late 2021 perhaps um to to do some borrowing um Reginald staff Reginald Johnson staff and i met a couple of weeks ago to talk about some additional cash flow analysis to see when uh if that will work um we can always you know uh float some costs with internal cash and then pay ourselves back with with money that we borrow in the future um so i would say right now a conservative timeline for actually borrowing money would be uh late calendar year 21 unless we see something that would lead us to believe that that interest rates are going to spike we want to take advantage of uh market conditions before then um but we'll know more i think Reginald i talked about um a a better picture of that um in later in october to to to see it some more of the their internal projections on well that that's helpful thank you and listen you guys are literally best in class when it comes to being gatekeepers and guardians of this type of stuff and watching what the market are doing i guess as if i do share with the city i'm i'm obviously concerned with what markets are looking like in this COVID environment and i know that we are already floating rfps for some of these projects and if we're going to have shovels in the ground on some of these projects before we've actually started floating dead obviously we want to we don't you know you can see where i'm going um and i don't know uh echoing what mayor pro tem says i don't know what the the prognosis is uh with this pandemic and what markets are going to be doing i just want to make sure that we're uh and you're the right folk to make sure we're in good position but that we're mindful and um just just dang vigilant as a city particularly since we're rfps are already out there on some of these projects um so that's it thank you mr mayor thanks guys thank you very much councilmember and of course you raise the important issue we'll be facing in the spring which is that the voters have uh voted to support us raising taxes for this we didn't do it this year when we were expecting to because we had the emergency and didn't want to raise taxes the COVID emergency but that's something we'll be facing um in the next budget season um so let's see and who else would like to be heard okay um i'll just add a couple of things um a question for you uh mr boyd since you're here um the the portfolio performance um i'm always interested in and the weighted the the the we're the weighted maturity of our of our investments where we're going much with much shorter duration and can you explain that to me i'm not sure i understand how that works and i think i asked this every year sure um so for the past several years um and more specifically in the past 12 months there hasn't long-term interest rates have been only slightly higher the short-term rates and for a certain portion of the year long-term interest rates were lower than short-term interest rates and so there was really no value in buying a long-term security if you were going to get equal to or less money than what you get on a short-term um because when the short-term stuff turns over you can then reassess what the market's doing and place it longer if longer rates have gone up if you tie your money up longer and then rates structures do change you your money's stuck out there and you gotta look forward to mature for you can you can move it to something that's got some higher yield so so shorter term rates came up um they've since gone back down and you can see you know our return has has gone down um but as i've said to many of before our our investment pool is very boring intentionally we are primarily focused on on safety um as our very first consideration of liquidity and then yield so unlike you know those out on wall street who are put yield first we're making sure we're protecting our investments first we don't actively trade the portfolio um and all of our investments are extremely safe with very very very little risk to principle but we also give up some some yield intentionally for that purpose thank you and thank you for that annual explanation i appreciate it one year i will remember and i won't ask it uh councilmember caviano yeah overall i will say that i breathe the sigh of relief i know that we're still waiting we for potential bad news but that we did end in a on a better ground than i was expecting um i do have a question about the water and sewer fund it looks like we ended higher than people were anticipating is there a way to move some of that surplus into the water relief fund i know that we will be reinstating water cutoff in september well this month and i've already been hearing a lot of concern out in the community about that john john if i could if i could say one thing about that um the revenue side of that i think we need to take with a little bit of a grain of salt so so we're showing a positive variance on the revenue side but we have not yet quite sorted through the um the how much of that revenue might not be collectible um so we record the revenue when we send the bills out and because we weren't taking um you know we weren't taking active collection measures and cutoffs you know we're assuming that that those bills we sent out are going to get paid and so now we're need to to look at to what extent we have some write-offs that we're not going to be able to collect so i will say just take that that revenue picture that looks really good right now with a little bit of a grain of salt because i think that number will when we when the dust settles on on the final audited results for the year that number is going to come down a bit as we make some allowances for uncollectible uh uncollectible bills um but but all of those those points are well you know we're going to have to figure out a way to deal with um and uh we already had some conversations with with um management about how to deal with that and what the position of the whole fund was like thank you i had a little bit of a hard time hearing at the end so i got the general gist of it um as you all learn more and i appreciate that um advice because that makes sense to me that we don't have a fully clear picture but i just want to say if there is a way to increase that fund because i know the need is going to be there as we learn more i just am advocating for that thank you i actually think that we have some restrictions on our ability to use those funds for water relief but i'm gonna defer to the administration i see the city manager or maybe mr allure would like to know that that's correct mr mayor um we we do have that on our radar and uh we actually looked at a different several different opportunities there one was the you know the cares money that we've just recently approved but that doesn't look like that was viable so uh in the back of my mind i think in the back of some of the finance folks minds potentially uh there there may be a need in the uh the covid relief fund for some other utility support but i think the city attorney has previously opined on several occasions that uh you can't use the utility fund money to provide funding for the uh you know um unpaid or or or or debt or different difficult collections within that fund that has to come from another source but we we definitely have that on our on our radar and i know staff is looking very closely at the timing of when to bring something forth okay thank you i appreciate that thank you council member colleagues other questions um i just you know i'll just highlight some of the things i liked i thought the capital improvement i mean this is our annual opportunity to look in detail at those capital improvement projects and to see that list was inspiring um i you know the the hoover road soccer complex creeps closer and closer to completion and uh i'm really excited about where that is um you know the fact that we've got 135 million dollars of water projects alone um just the park improvements the trail improvements the participatory budgeting projects that were all listed out in here and explained in such detail the technology improvements the sidewalks the bike lanes more money for public art than we've seen anytime that i've been on the counting ever uh the road paving the dirt road paving and i try to get to our last dirt roads um you know all these things are tremendous and the performance given the year uh is truly amazing and the way you all were able to ratchet back but at the same time ratchet some things up uh paying bonuses to our employees the our frontline employees during the covid period and then we see those kinds of things in the budget too so tremendous gratitude uh and oh you know whatever we win these wards every year for the best managed cities and there's a reason this is the you know this is where you see that rubber hit the road so congratulations and much gratitude tom to you uh to to wander to bertha to john to david all of you all who make this possible thank you thank you i do want to include my staff thank you and finance staff absolutely john thank you so much and thank you for being here today thank you and thank you david all right um we'll move to our next presentation which is the shot spotter presentation and who's starting this off with that i will run teach me i believe we hear from staff first i see the chief i'll pick it up it's okay hello everybody can you all see me we can we can chief oh okay there's so many pictures on the screen i was trying to make sure mine was up there okay thank you all um today we um have been asked to just give an overview of the shot spotter um technology and the opportunity that the police department and city has to potentially um pilot the um shot spotter technology and we'll begin with um ron teachman who is a consultant and representative of shot spotter and and we we've worked really hard to try to condense this presentation to give you as much information as possible so um ron are you ready i am chief thank you let me begin by uh saying that i thought when i created this presentation i'd have an ability to share a screen i do not so my thanks to miss diana schreiber at your city clerk why understand i'll be advancing the slides for me and with that i'll ask her to jump to slide four in presenter view uh present in the presentation just hit slideshow excellent thank you perfect so on behalf of all of us at shot spotter thank you very much for allowing us to join you today let me begin in my brief presentation i have 10 minutes i have a colleague with five i want to just tell you a story tonight in dorm it's very likely that while most of your residents are asleep they'll be gunfire and as derma's like most of the cities in the country it's very likely that no one will call 911 and since your officers don't know about the gunfire they can't respond unfortunately as that scenario plays itself out over and over again it leads to the normalization of gun violence the perpetrators feel emboldened to shoot guns increasing the likelihood of homicides and blood shootings while the rest of the community live in fear wondering why your officers are not there for them next please next slide please thank you they think your police know about the shooting they think your police know everything because they watch cop shows on tv and if they think the police know but the police don't show what might they think about the police department next please all this creates a vicious cycle next gun violence continues unabated your police agency is perceived as deliberately indifferent next next again there's an erosion of community trust next and your police officers are put at risk but it doesn't have to be like this next please what if there was a way to address your concerns about officer safety public perception community trust and violence reduction i know how this works i've been representing shot spotter for the past five years but before that i was twice a client i installed shot spotter in both cities where i served as a chief of police and we had success in those cities and they're both clients today i joined shot spotter five years ago to have conversations with folks like you to help bring our solution to cities like Durham hit twice next twice please thank you the fact is that over 80 of gunfire never gets reported to the police next here are some sample statistics on gunshots without 911 calls and even if someone does call their call is delayed and they usually cannot provide much information about the event which begs the question why don't law-abiding people call 911 when they hear gunfire or here are some reasons that we hear from the communities in cities will be deployed about why they don't call next they're not sure if the noise they heard is gunfire next they think someone else is going to call closer to the event with more information next they're afraid if they call the police the police come to their door and the shooter will see that and there'll be retaliation and next or they've simply given up on the police because the police have never come previously next slide so here's what happens when you do not have shots spotter at least 80 of the time when someone fires a gun you wouldn't know about it next an officer might drive by or worse stumble into the gunfire unprepared next if someone does call where would you send the officer next to the call is addressed potentially put in the officer in harm's way next critical time is lost processing the call through 911 and dispatch in the officer to the caller's address what we also know is even on the rare occasions that people do call the police they're calling from a considerable distance away on average of 780 feet or more next and since the caller's location is all the police have we send an officer to that address next as a result they fail to find eyewitnesses or other evidence or worse next they fail to find victims who are bleeding out and as a result of not being located quickly could die of their injuries next please lack of effective police response fuels negative perceptions diluting community collaboration and engagement next without comprehensive police response normalization leads to diminished quality of life such as kids not allowed to use playgrounds or leave their homes after school it also may lead young men to join gangs or groups for their own protection or that of their family next shot spotter gives an opportunity to drive different outcomes when shot spotter detects i'm sorry when someone fires a gun shot spotter detects it and even in the absence of 911 calls gives your officers within seconds the precise location where the shooting occurred so they can respond quickly and effectively next which shot spotter when someone fires a gun in the coverage area the officer would hear their sound next whether a desktop laptop phone or watch i'm sorry the audio didn't come through so here's an example of an alert as it be displayed on a police laptop in the squad car the shot spotter alert contains first you see a satellite view of the scene next the number of rounds fired in a 25 meter radius location next the nearest street address next the exact time of the shooting next if the if the incident involves a multiple shooter case next or high capacity weapon we would also tell you if there was a fully automatic involved then we give it a sequence of shots fired with an exact time stamp next and a breakdown of that sequence all that's available to the officer as it being dispatched next please so how does the system work next well shot spotter will come to Durham and we would build out a sensor array a dome of protection if you will with our acoustic sensors installed on rooftops or on utility poles next when a gun is fired the sound of a muzzle blast radiates outward next acoustic sensors are triggered by this impulsive event the sound is classified as a gunshot using artificial intelligence and triangulation determines a precise location next the data is relayed to the shot spotter incident review center we're trained acoustic technicians add their expertise to the machine classifier they listen to the audio recording of the event next examine the acoustic signature gunfire is unique and then next and they'll look at the sense of participation to see if it matches a gunfire event next in less than 60 seconds your officers will receive an alert with the tactical intelligence that they need for a safer response next all that information is simultaneously sent to your 911 emergency communication center next to the squad cars out in the field next to the officer's phones next and even to their smartwatches and we're compatible with both android and ios platforms next shots but will protect your personnel and enable them to better protect the public next here's an example of a shot spotter gunfire alert if the officer clicks on the blue arrow next they can hear the gunshots and i'm sorry we don't have audio hooked up so you can hear it then by clicking on the blue street view icon next they would get access to it would take them directly to google maps where they could pan on their with their finger on their phone or on their laptop and see the entire area they're being dispatched to for familiarization next shot spotter also helps the chief and her command staff to allocate resources effectively and efficiently without bias here's an example of a coverage area with gunfire activity over 24 hours next over three days next and over seven days you can clearly see next where to deploy the resources and be confident about the plan next shots but will direct your offices to the crime scene location in near real time multiplying the value of existing technologies and gun violence reduction strategies involves a stronger connection between your agency and the people of durham next which shot spotter when someone fires a gun your offices are directed to that location specifically gives them a chance to work the crime scene talk with witnesses and gather evidence next shots but it detects the precise time and location and can be integrated with video management systems to zoom in into the capture the shooting or see you add access to the crime scene or egress from the crime scene next please lastly but just as importantly shots but helps connect with the community which shots butter now when your residents look out their windows they'll see the police respond they'll see your officers making an arrest this is the essence of precision policing arresting the shooters removing that threat is from society without overpolicing the community next please and since so few individuals are responsible so much of your gun crime next removing those serial shooters has a significant impact next they'll see your officers attend to the gunshot victims offering lifesaving first aid and preparing those victims for immediate transport to the trauma center next next please they'll see your officers set up the crime scene and interview witnesses next see your officers collect forensic evidence to be submitted for analysis next and before your officers leave the crime scene we'll ask them to take one small but critical step ask them to go a couple of houses in every direction and knock on doors or ring doorbells next and when that community member who previously never saw a police response or infrequently saw one now would answer her door and the officer would do a welfare check and time doesn't allow me to do the full narration but we'll ask are you okay are your kids okay they need to talk to a police officer feel safe we hear because we care about you shots but it gives them the chance to connect with the community next please and i'll finish with this just hit next five times so how does gunshot detection lead to a reduction in gun violence more detection set up a chain reaction that leads to a more and faster responses leading to more evidence recovery and witness interviews which improves the investigative process leading to identifying and prosecuting shooters leading to crime gun reduction and deterrence resulting in a healthier Durham community next when you make shots part of part of your gun violence reduction efforts you empower your community policing strategy create a new normal and make a community safer and i thank you for your attention and with that i'll turn it over to my colleague wendy ethridge next slide please good morning i'm sorry afternoon i'm actually in colorado it's still morning here good morning thank you mr. mayor members of the council and chief davis i'm wendy ethridge i'm the director of analytics for shot spotter and i'm grateful to have this opportunity to introduce you to shot spotter connect which is an extension of our gunshot detection technology that focuses on crime deterrence patrol management and community engagement i know we have limited time together today but i'll quickly cover the solution due to those constraints i'm also going to ask mr. driver to help me skip through some slides so feel free to stop me at any point for additional details or discussion can you please go to slide 53 right there okay so why even consider a solution like connect if we have to describe connect in three short words next they would be detect protect and connect next please detect crime gaps of police services and risks of over policing to drive more effective precision policing deployments we do this by presenting ai generated crime path forecasts by beat and shift that use unique and transparent data sources that limit the potential for bias next connect protects your community by deploying the right resources to the right place at the right time driving crime deterrence and strengthening community trust connect protects your plan by using data to allocate your resources eliminating bias and mitigating the risks of over and under policing and connect protects your officers by alerting them of areas with elevated risk for violence allowing them to take extra precautions and remain safe utilizing connect to drive down crime in this manner means less stress and more time for positive community engagement next and finally we will help you connect your agency the critical insights for more effective precision policing while helping you to better connect your police services with the community that you serve next can we skip to 57 please thank you so here we have a quick view into the application unlike hotspot maps which traditionally focus on aggregated crime data we ingest multiple other covariate data sources like weather seasonality transportation and gathering points as well as other publicly available data sets and we then pair them with crime data to create sophisticated and precise risk forecasts utilizing data in this manner allows you to detect the gaps and reduce the potential for over policing in your service area driving more effective precision policing deployments connect places patrols in the forecast and risk areas at the right place and the right time helping you protect your community your plan and your personnel can you skip to 61 please uh next slide next some animation one more additionally connect serves as a mechanism to create new opportunities to engage with your community we recommend involving the community for their input in the tactics and the police department plans to use across the various crime types we offer a free citizens guide for connect that helps inform residents about what connect does and how it works so it's perceived as an equitable way to allocate patrol resources while engaging the community in preventing crime and we are currently partnering with nyus policing project to conduct an ethics and transparency audit of connect which is focused on eliminating bias can you skip to 64 please one more when officers and watch commanders log in to connect in preparation for their upcoming shift at their fingertips are data driven patrol plans designed to maximize crime deterrence these plans have been automatically generated by highly sophisticated algorithms that analyze real-time data sources anytime the officer spent in these directed patrol areas will be calculated and presented in the reporting module as well as any tactics applied and activities logged 67 please one more armed with that information your officers are going to be better equipped to provide quality services that are focused on crime prevention and positive community interaction during their shift and the decision makers will be presented with measurable outcomes they can confidently present in defense next connect is a game changer technology that will enable you to drive more effective use of your limited police resources drive and track positive community engagements and drive measurable crime deterrence outcomes resulting in safer communities better quality of life and stronger relationships between you and the community that you serve next in closing cat connect enables you to fully implement your crime prevention strategy next resulting in decreases in crime less demand on your resources and improved community perception it's a win-win situation for the police and the community next thank you so much for your time while we didn't have enough time to do a full presentation on the solution we certainly look forward to digging further into connect with Durham in the near future thank you very much miss ethridge and mr. teachman and you all didn't get to present all your slides but of course we have your slides and have been able to read them previously so thank you very much for going through that all right chief do you have any comments that you'd like to make at this time or you rather have council members ask questions at this point um i'd rather have the council members to take full advantage of um our shot spider representatives to answer any questions and i'll be glad to answer any that they have for me as well thank you chief thank you chief all right colleagues who would like to get us started anyone want to start us off uh council member middleton thank you mr. mayor uh chief teachman uh thank you so much for being with us miss ethridge thank you for being with us would you please just go over the specifics of the representation that was made uh to our city regarding a no-cost no obligation a trial period uh with your technology and with connect could you talk to us about that Wendy i'll let you go first uh and i'll answer on the flex side sure um so councilman thank you very much for your question uh what our company has decided to do to try to partner with Durham and bring our technology there is a free pilot of both applications so it's a gunshot detection technology and then paired that with our extension that is the risk forecasting patrol management and community engagement tool and for how long would the city be able to take advantage of that offer wrong please jump in yeah i believe it's a six-month pilot and our intention is to give the chief an opportunity that's from the time of go live so it's going to be a process of us installing the sensor array uh training with the department and from the time that she's ready to accept service we'll char that out for six months and we expect her agency will in your agency will give a vigorous review of the efficacy and determine if it's something you want to pursue going forward on a subscription basis okay and we have we don't have to use cameras do we no i showed that as a as a possibility of integration it's certainly not required our solutions stand alone and a very effective alone but it's a forced multiplier and both technology and i think soft strategies work well let me give an example i think you talked earlier if i heard correctly about violence interrupters in my previous job as chief i work with street outreach programs and i find the shot spotted data better informs their efforts because they know exactly what neighborhoods to concentrate their efforts in if they don't have the capacity to work citywide so it's a data-driven program but you need the data that shots but it could provide because 911 doesn't give you full information in fact it may give you insufficient and even misleading information because the caller is too far away from where the shots were fired mr mayor i do have additional comments but those are my questions i'll yield to any questions that my colleagues will have and i know they'll have rigorous proven questions so i'm very thankful let me first let me thank my colleagues for allowing and affording us this time for what i think is a state of emergency in our city for many in our community and that is that is the issue of gun violence and gun fire that i've been talking about for years i want to thank you mr mayor for giving a voice to it from your very powerful platform and thank my colleagues for allowing us to have this discussion and consider it fully so let's have at it so i'll yield for questions for my colleagues and then i'll have for the comments later thank you councilmember other questions at this time or comments other questions or comments for mr teachman or uh chief davis councilmember reist i think mr mayor appreciate that i want to thank the folks from shot spotter for coming to see us again chief davis appreciate you being here and having your perspective on this as well um can you help me understand the statistic that i think drives the business case for your product which is that 80% of all gunfire is not reported how does that where does that come from and um how can we how can we talk about that as a reality in Durham um without better analysis of what's actually happening in our community sure we understand that that data point and i'm sorry was i talking over the chief now you're good thank you chief so that data point is from our own analysis we've also been reviewed by outside academics a couple of academics one at the time from University of Virginia another one readers of Purdue University looked at oakland and dc for example and their study showed as i suggest that the public's calling in on gun violence was at about 15 16% and the demographics of the neighborhood didn't necessarily predict the lack of community engagement so we've looked across our client base 100 cities that we have and by the way we welcome you to look at our website shot spotter.com forward slash cities we proudly present all of our cities for your review not just a few hand picked but we welcome you to call any of them other council members in those cities and say what have you seen with the effect of shot spotter but to your question about the percentages this is what the analysis shows 911 calls from the community versus shot spotter alerts and how do they match up and the average is under 20 a 30 second anecdote if i may when i came to south in indiana my more recent job as chief and presented the prospect of shot spotter to the command staff they frankly didn't see the need they thought they were getting 90 95 community engagement as the gun violence but we installed shot spotter and a couple of months later we did an analysis and i was getting 11 911 notification which as a chief of police i'm 89 in the blind of what's going on in the city i can't possibly uh work with a problem if i don't have a full analysis and so that's why we made that that comment about the 80 20 furthermore we're now in the process with several clients doing a deeper dive and saying not just the calls coming in generally but what is the timeliness and the accuracy and our clients have suggested that we look at three minutes and 300 feet or a football field away how accurate is 911 and we're finding that when we get to the three minute 300 foot rule we're about three to five percent calls from the community those calls are usually 10 to 15 minutes they can be up to a quarter mile or more away depending on acoustic and atmospheric conditions and you're wasting a lot of police resources going to the caller's house if you do get a call and then the officer would ask did you see anything that came as the neighborhood people say they saw nothing the police got frustrated because they're in the wrong neighborhood and last comment is as i'm sure the chief is as witnessed you get called to a trauma center on a privately transported gunshot wound victim and you debrief that victim about what occurred and they misplace you to a different neighborhood and tell you a story that may not be true about their injury and you waste a lot of police resources there so the efficiency of knowing exactly where it occurred with or without camera integration talking to the neighbors directly getting to those victims being on site for physical evidence makes a world of difference and i hope i answer your question council person reese um when you say that that figure is based on your analysis you mean your analysis of other places in america not durham is that right that's correct we don't have a we don't have shot spot in durham yet to do that analysis what i hope to accomplish we hope to accomplish in that six month pilot is give the chief the opportunity to say is shot spotter of value are we getting notifications versus what 911 is giving us that shot spotter is more timely more accurate and more comprehensive that 911 is not giving us the information we need along um i noticed that in one of the later slides um you talked about the fact that the shot spotter system would reduce the need for police resources is that right it may redirect them and they can be properly applied when i say reduce uh you're not what you know as i said you're not spending a lot of time going to the wrong neighborhood you're putting your resources where they should be allocated correctly and gives the chief a better data position to allocate with a full understanding where the gun violence is occurring right now if she has his 911 and i would submit respectfully that is not informing her effectively but if your data is even close to correct that um 80 percent of gunfire is going unreported uh won't that require a significant increase in police staffing and resources to respond to all those calls no she can i believe the chief can do that with the resources she currently has in for the patrol division this is a patrol uh focused detective see the value and the solvability that comes from it but patrol be a primary responder and we're not talking the entire city we're talk