How about you? How are you? It's good to see you. It's good to see you. I was thinking of you because of this debate about solid waste fees. And I remember going through that with you. Another tough budget. Yes? It's good to see you. All right. Good afternoon. We'd like to call the Durham City Council meeting to order at 7.04 p.m. I certainly want to welcome all of you that are here with us this evening. We'll just take a moment for silent meditation, please. Thank you. Yes? Councilman Clement, you want to lead us in the pledge? This is all right. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll please? Mayor Bell. Present. Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden. Present. Councilmember Brown. Here. Councilmember Cattati. Here. Councilmember Clement. Here. Councilmember Moffitt. Present. And Councilmember Shul. Here. We have two ceremonial items this evening. One, I had the honor and pleasure this morning of attending a reception for the new Chancellor of North Carolina Central University, Dr. Deborah Sanders White. And she was invited this evening to be here and I'm pleased to see that she's here. And I would ask if she would care to come to the podium for any comments that she might make. Well, good evening. Good evening. It is truly my pleasure to stand before you this evening. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, I am one of your newest residents and it is with great pride that I return to North Carolina and to this great city. So thank you for allowing me to be here this evening but I must share with you I did not come alone. I would like to take a moment of privilege if I could to ask all the members of the Eagle community to please stand faculty, staff, students and alumni. It is with great pride this morning that I accepted the key to this great city from Mayor Bell and I want to share with you as the 11th Chancellor of North Carolina Central University. I plan to make it a priority to strengthen the relationship between our premier institution and the vibrant Durham community. A relationship that we have been fostering since Dr. James E. Shepard founded our institution in 1910. In fact, it is this strong bond between NCCU and the greater Durham community that helped us become this nation's first state supported institution supporting liberal arts education for blacks in 1925. Let me just share with you in the context of where we are in the 21st century. No institution can stand alone. We need the community, the Durham community, we need the state of North Carolina, we need the federal government to understand that public higher education is a national good. And so I stand before you this evening saying to you that I am proud to be the 11th Chancellor. I look forward to working shoulder to shoulder with you as we continue to move this great institution forward. Thank you for the opportunity to come this evening to greet you. I look forward to getting to know all of you and becoming a good, solid citizen of the great city of Durham. Thank you so much. Well Dr. Sanders White, again we greatly appreciate the fact that you've taken time to be with us this evening and we look forward to many more great occasions when we'll be in your presence and you'll be in our presence and look forward to helping in any way we can to strengthen the partnership that you spoke about between the city of Durham and North Carolina Central University. Now I know you've got a lot of work to do so you don't feel bad if you have to leave while we go through our meeting. We have one other, well this month we have another exciting event that's taking place in the city of Durham and I'd like to ask Phyllis Cooley and Gary Jones if they are present, if they would join me at the podium. This month we celebrate the North Carolina African American Independence Day. As many of you know it's June 10th and this proclamation speaks to the fact that it commemorates the day freedom was proclaimed to all slaves in the South by Union General Gordon Granger on June 19th, 1865 in Galveston, Texas. More than two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln. It speaks to the fact that former slaves in Texas begin to serve, begin to observe June 19th as anniversary of the Emancipation and coined the term June 10th. And it speaks to the fact that June 10th is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States and it's also known as June 10th National Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, African American Independence Day. Where as June 10th commemorates the survival due to God given strength and determination of African Americans through extreme adversity, hardship and triumph and today emphasizes African American education, cultural, art, history and achievement. Where as the 19th of June along with the 4th of July completes the cycle of freedom for Independence Day observers in America. Where as 41 states including North Carolina recognize the 19th day of June as June 10th National Freedom Day to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States and to demonstrate racial reconciliation and healing from the legacy of slavery. Where as to celebrate this important commemoration in the city of Durham, triangle cultural awareness foundation and its founder Phyllis Cooley in conjunction with Spectacular Magazine another Cooley event, YRAG Entertainment and its founder Gary N. Jones is sponsoring North Carolina's premier celebration with the 9th annual North Carolina June 10th celebration on June 13th to June 15th, 2013. The celebration begins on June 13th with the Spectacular Magazine Man of the Year Awards Banquet that will honor Durham City Councilman Howard Clement and 24 other African American men for their achievements and contributions continues on June 15th with the Bridges Builders Youth Nunchin designed to build a bridge between positive African American men and our youth and the Unity March for the eradication of modern day forms of bondage, gangs, drugs and etc. The celebration culminates with a festival in CCB Plaza in downtown Durham free and open to the public. Now therefore, I, William V. Bilbell, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim June 15th, 2013 as North Carolina African American Independence Day in Durham and hereby urge all citizens to take special note of this observance and all residents and visitors are invited to participate in these events. Again, with my hand and the Corporate City of Durham, North Carolina, this is the third day of June 2013 and I'd like to present this to Phyllis and Gary for any comments that you all may have. Thank you. I want to make sure that you all mark your calendars. First, we start our event off on June 13th, off on the 13th where Howard Clement will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Let's just give him a round of applause right now. And then we will go with our youth luncheon on Saturday. Youth luncheon is also free and we're asking all African American men, we're asking youth between the ages of 10 and 17 to please come out and you can just go to our website spectacularmag.com and register. And then we have our unity march for the eradication of modern day forms of bondage as the mayor said and we go down to the CCB Plaza where we have our big festival. Standing with me today are members of the Juneteenth Planning Committee and I'd like to recognize them. First is the co-chair Gary Jones, Ms. Leela Rooster, Rachel Green, we have Betty Reynolds and Keith McKinney. And there's one more member of our committee who cannot be here today and of course our photographer, Mel Brown. So we look to see you all at CCB Plaza, June 15th, 1 o'clock from 1 to 10 p.m. anytime come out we got great entertainment, food, all of that as we celebrate not just the ending of slavery but we're celebrating freedom. Yes, Councilman Clement. Chancellor taking time out of her busy schedule to visit with us finally to just take note of the fact that while we are speaking there's a tremendous event going along in our capital city that I just couldn't ignore and I would hope that this Council at its meeting on Thursday will adopt a resolution in support what is happening in Raleigh with respect to the Reverend Dr. William Barber and his wonderful group of colleagues and supporters. The Durham City Council and during my 30 years as a member of this great body we've taken on issues that some may question as to their relevancy to our program. But I don't see how what's going on in Raleigh with respect to the Reverend Dr. Barber and his colleagues should be departure from what this City Council and during my 30 years has stood for. Fair representation and fairness. We need Mr. Mayor, I'd like to add to the agenda for Thursday a discussion of how we the Durham City Council can support what's going on in Raleigh and I'm talking about moral Mondays. If y'all know what I'm talking about you should be no hesitance in supporting that effort. And if you'd include that on the agenda for Monday or for Thursday I'd appreciate it. Thank you so much. Welcome. Let me recognize Councilman Schultz who had 10 seconds at the time. My item is not as important or serious as Councilmember Clements but let me just say that on the way in today I did back my car into a public works vehicle and so I'm expecting a bill from the city in the morning. Yeah it was my good car. I thought we might have done your favor. I could just donate the car Mr. Mayor. Let's recognize the city manager for any prior items. Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of council good evening. No priority items. Likewise the city attorney. Thank you Mr. Mayor. No priority items. Likewise city clerk. No items Mr. Mayor. We proceed with the agenda. First item being the consent agenda items and I'll just read each one and if it's pulled we'll deal with it at the appropriate time. First consent agenda items. Item one approval city council minutes. Item two is the Durham cultural advisory board appointments. Item three is the housing and appeals board appointment. Item four is the mayor's nominee for appointment, Durham open space and trails commission. Item five is the bid report for April 2013. Item six is a resolution concerning Duke Energy proposed electricity rate increases for North Carolina and I'll pull that item. Item seven is the merger of next step housing Inc. and community alternatives for supportive boards. Item eight is contract amendment with community partnerships Inc. to provide workforce investment act youth framework services from July 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013 and I will pull that item. Item nine is a contract amendment with achievement academy of Durham to provide workforce investment act youth program element services from July 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013 and I will pull that item. Item 10 is purchase contract between Moscow sports lighting LLC and the city of Durham for stadium lights lighting at the Durham Bulls athletic park. Item 11 is purchase contract between American seating company and the city of Durham for plastic sports chairs at the Durham Bulls athletic park. Item 12 is contract for transfer, transport and disposal services. Item 13 is a contract for processing and marketing recyclable materials. Item 14 is parking fees change. Item 15 is selection of electronic bill presentment and payment vendor. Item 18 through 25 items that can be found on the general business agenda. It's public hearings. I entertain a motion for approval of consent agenda items with the exception of item 689. It's been properly moved in second. Madam clerk, will you open the vote? Entertain a motion for approval of consent agenda items with the exception of item 899. It's been properly moved in second. Madam clerk, will you open the vote? Open the vote. Is it open? It's not open or mine. Does everyone else have that button? Oh, it's open now. Okay. It's open now. Closed. Passes seven to zero. Thank you. Moving probably a little bit ahead of the agenda. As probably some of you know tonight we're doing a little addition to the normal public budget public hearing process. But we think it's also new, but we also think it's rather innovative. In addition to comments during the public hearing, we're conducting our first ever e-town hall to provide an opportunity for people who wouldn't normally come to City Hall, a chance to interact with council members. And for residents that are at home, some of you have already submitted your questions via the emails or YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. And we're still accepting questions and Facebook and Twitter addresses are at the bottom of your screen. It should be at the bottom of the screen. For people who are here in the audience you may also submit your questions on a blue card that's at the table to my left over in the clerk's office holding up some of those cards. And the staff would take those cards with whatever questions you might have. And now since this is a public hearing and for those of you who don't have a question but have a comment about the budget, you still have an opportunity to comment at the end of the e-town hall at approximately 8.30 this evening. All we ask you to do again is fill out the yellow card. As you've used, done in the past if you have a comment, again a comment for the public hearing. And again at the end of the e-town hall I will continue the public hearing as we normally do. I know there's an item that's on the budget that people want to come to speak about the proposed bus fare increases. We aren't going to be taking any action on that item tonight. We simply are opening the public for comments. So I would invite you to make your comments if you like during the public hearing part of the session for the budget public hearing. Again we're running a few minutes ahead of our time but I think we need to go ahead and get started. So I'd like to introduce Anthony Wilson who will be our moderator. And Anthony probably most of you know is the weekend anchor and report at WTVD 11. And Anthony will explain more about how this e-town hall will work. Anthony. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening and welcome to the City of Durham's first budget e-town hall event. I am the moderator for tonight's forum. And joining me are Mayor William V. Bell, Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole McFadden, Ward 1 Council Member Howard Ward 2 Council Member Don Moffitt, Ward 3 Council Member and Council Members at Large, Eugene Brown Diane Cattati and Steve Shul. Now the City Manager Tom Bonfield presented the proposed 2014 budget to the City Council at the May 20th City Council meeting. After that the doors were opened for the first time for the first e-town hall. The city began accepting your questions and your comments online. Now as we move forward through this process the City Council will evaluate the proposed budget. Members are again seeking your feedback. Tonight we are gathered to discuss that proposed 2014 budget and the issues the City Council faces in making final decisions about the budget. Now Durham and the entire county as you know have been through several challenging budget years. The City has experienced decline in revenues while the demand for services has remained constant in some instances it has increased. Positions were eliminated. Department streamlined and programs and services scrutinized for better efficiency and maximization of resources. Now clearly those resources are limited. So the City Council wants to hear from you now to make sure resources are invested where you want them invested and that brings us to our first question of the night. Mayor Bell this question is for you. What is the city doing to create more jobs in Durham? And let me say first of all that the city tries to run as efficiently as possible which means we try to minimize the amount of persons we have to bring on to do a particular task. But having said that I think the City Council has been very proactive in trying to create a new type of environment that would encourage developers to want to expand or to come to Durham. And I think you've seen a lot of that happening particularly in our downtown area but more importantly even on some of the areas outside of downtown. Now construction is probably one of the houses one of the things that leads back to the economy. And we're beginning to see an uptick in the request for new building permits and likewise the city itself is taking on a very Herculean task by developing the Roland Hill site which is going to provide for construction and jobs. But I think we are more an enabler and trying to create the environment to want persons to invest in Durham to continue to invest in Durham and we try to facilitate that process as much as possible when new development is coming on board. All of that has a backdrop for creating jobs in our community. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I did not mention earlier and not that any of you need this information. I'm going to limit your responses to about two minutes. So we can keep things moving here. We have several questions and they're still coming in. Council Member Cattadee, the Ellerby Creek Trail Extension Project can get over a million from federal funding if we can just put up $270,400. The $75,000 this person said will make us lose the opportunity this year. Why short change the Ellerby Creek Trail? Well thank you for that moderator and Anchorman Williams. It's a pleasure to see you tonight. I would say that I flagged this item at the budget hearing last week and we will have additional discussion on Thursday but it is still very much in debate as to whether those federal funds are accessible before 2016 or 2015. So the fact that we have dedicated $75,000 in right of way acquisition for this year may in fact be as much as we could possibly do. I do serve on the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Transportation Advisory Committee and the MPO would have to authorize the CMAAC funds I believe and so again we'll have additional information on Thursday and keep discussing it. But if we do think we need additional funds to collect those federal monies this year then I will certainly advocate for that. Again I'm not sure that that's the case and in fact if we did we could jeopardize those federal funds which is something that has not been discussed with the public. Thank you. Any follow-up comments from any of the members? Mr. Mauthe. Good evening Anthony, thanks. I just wanted to add that even if we allocate $75,000 now if in fact we do get to a place where the design is done and the easement is in hand we can always come back and adjust the CIP later. Thank you very much. Mr. Shul, this question is for you. The citizen asks, how does the city plan to pay for all of the affordable housing work we still need to do in the northeast central Durham area when you are planning to use all resources on rolling hills? Thank you very much. It's a great question. We're not planning to use all of our resources on rolling hills. We have substantial resources invested there and that's a very large commitment on behalf of the city and I think a worthy one. But we also have now, we passed last year, a penny for housing which is one cent on the city on your taxes to pay for affordable housing in Durham, in all parts of Durham and we do a lot of things with that money. We have $200,000 a year that we invest into rapid rehousing to get homeless people into permanent housing quickly. We have, we support second mortgages for people who have habitat homes in southwest central Durham or northeast central Durham. We have rental, we have repair support for low income elderly. We have lots of other things that we're doing with this and then what we have also with the penny is we have a fund where people who have affordable housing projects that can be leveraged state money and other private and private development money to come to this fund and apply for that money and we have a process for that and over the years 2000 and fiscal year 2014 to 2018 we have about six and a half million dollars in that fund. So there is plenty of availability over time and we need the low income housing developers whether it be the Durham Housing Authority or the nonprofit developers to come forward with great projects that are well financed and make sense financially and will advance our affordable housing goals. Thank you sir. Follow-up comment? Thank you Anthony. That was a very good question and a few of us were somewhat critical of the Rowling Hills project though at the end I supported it. I felt that in many ways it was a better deal for the developer than for the citizens of Durham because the cost of coming in is about $180,000 per unit which is really high. We also just learned that we're not going to be able to integrate the lower income housing with the regular housing in the apartment buildings because due to a variety of issues and challenges not the lease of which was from Dina, the state agency that were behind on the schedule. And so in order to gain the tax credit the project has to be completed by the end of the year and by that I mean the tax component project. So in some way I think eternal vigilance is still needed. I look forward to the completion. It's a great site and so we're in it now but we need to make sure that the buildings are done correctly and that the citizens of Durham are served including the taxpayers and those citizens who end up living there. Thank you. Any other follow-up comments? Alright moving on. Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden this question from the citizen what is the city doing to provide employment opportunities for our youth? As you know some years ago we started the mayor summer youth program. That program is now in the auspices of the office of workforce and economic development. What we're hoping though is that people will understand that the city cannot do everything. We need our business owners, vendors etc. to cooperate with employing our youth and I hope that some of them are listening right now so they will know that they too have a responsibility to assist with employment opportunities for our youth. Thank you. If you're just joining us on television you're watching the first ever E-town hall on the budget for the city of Durham. We continue now with another question for council member Katati from a citizen who asks instead of spending so much money on the south side project couldn't the city just give the land to a private developer and let them make something nice of it? Thanks for that question. I think that over time many years of analysis we've looked at that and didn't think that the private sector funding was coming in without investment in infrastructure. So this council chose to invest in infrastructure roads and matching funds. I think that we feel strongly that we are developing the area and creating a tipping point where we hope it will prove attractive in the future for private investment. I'll stop there. Well I'll comment council. Council member Brown a citizen would like to ask you this question are there other ways of paying for solid waste that put less cost on individual taxpayers? Excuse me I assume that question is related to the budget discussions that we're going to have on Thursday at our work session and what has been proposed by the city manager is that in order to pay for the infrastructure of our solid waste department including garbage trucks which are number one very expensive and number two give out pretty easily over average lifetime I think it's five to six years that we add a dollar and fifty cents per month to the water and sewer bill and of course that equals eighteen dollars a year. And this would be a fee for those who actually receive the services. A lot of people do not realize this but if you live in a large apartment complex the developer pays for garbage collection and it is not done by the city and the same for large businesses. So the question to us that we will discuss is do we increase overall taxes by one half of a penny or do we impose the fee and so I look forward to a good and vigorous debate on that come Thursday at our work session. Thank you Mr. Brown. One citizen I need to mention this was so concerned about this issue that the next issue not the one we just talked about that a video was sent in along with this question can we roll the video take a look at this. This is what we put on an everyday basis every single day we have to live with this so I'm wondering what can this situation repair. Each time anybody whether it's the mailman whether it's the trash trucks whether it's UPS whether it's the meter readers whatever or just the wind blow we have to deal with it every single day and the truck is long gone but the dust stays behind for minutes. As you see the truck is completely gone but we still have the dust clouds that we live with on a daily basis. It will be wonderful if we could get this repaired. This is the corner of Leonard and Turner. He wants to make sure you know exactly where this unpaid road is. One of several roads that still remain in the city as everybody here knows but the question from that citizen Mr. Bell is for you. Why does it take so long after City Council approves a dirt street petition to actually get the street paid? That was a very good question and video explaining what the issues are the process is first that persons have to apply and assuming they get enough persons along the right way to sign up for it then if the City Council approves the paving of that street that's the first step and once that is done a capital improvement request a CIP request is submitted as part of the city's annual budget and you'll see some of that later on as we go through the process requesting the funds be set aside to purchase right away or to construct the paved roadway it's a time consuming process it's a process of design, it's a process of permitting it's a process of requiring the necessary right away if necessary and theoretically it could take up to 12 months to get that done and this obviously varies depending on what property owners are going to be impacted by the project of this type and once these steps are completed then it has to go off a bid and once the bids are received and the contract is awarded the timing of the beginning of the construction can take up to 6 months depending on the time of the year and of course one of the most difficult challenges we have in doing paving so theoretically it could take up to 18 months after the council has ordered the dirt street to be paved before it is ready to begin construction and that assumes that the money is there for that to happen I'm not sure about this particular street but I'm sure the manager is seeing it and he'll come back with a report to the council as to the status of that dirt street paving isn't available but we don't have sufficient funds then that gets rolled over to the next year and it gets a part of the list of dirt streets that have to be paved but the bottom line is the function of money being available, the petition process, permitting process design process and getting a street dirt street paved but again Mr. Manager I'm sure we'll look at that and give us a report on that at our next meeting. Any other council members have comment? If I'll just do a follow up myself I'm sure that person would like to see that get fast tracked now that they went through all the trouble to show that so we will keep an eye on this process and see what happens. Moving on another question for Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden why not make city bus services free like they are in Chapel Hill? That's a very good question Tom why can't we do that? What are we willing to give up to make that happen? That would be wonderful for the city I don't think we have the resources that Chapel Hill has to do that maybe one day we'll be able to do that with perhaps increasing taxes or come up with some other resolution for doing that but at this juncture we just cannot afford it, the resources are not there. I would like to add to that what Chapel Hill has that we don't have is the University of North Carolina that helps pay the city for the free bus service so that's primarily the way that Chapel Hill is able to offer free bus service the University of Chapel Hill would prefer to see people on buses rather than having to be able to park in lots and provide that type of infrastructure so that's the reason that Chapel Hill is able to do that and we in Durham are not able to do that in this particular time. Anthony we've spent nine million dollars subsidizing currently Councilman you had a comment I'm sorry I just thought you raised your hand just to add to that that's on the Chapel Hill comparison that's really on Apples and oranges because as the mayor has just mentioned the bus service in Chapel Hill which has been free now I think for about six years but that it's not there's no such thing folks as a free lunch or free bus ride someone pays and in this case in Chapel Hill it is the University now we have tried to reach out and are doing a much better job than we have in the past in terms of trying to get Duke involved with some subsidies from them in fact they are in terms of our bus system which is free they are kicking in about three hundred thousand dollars a year which is very helpful that's the Bull City connector. The downtown route. Yeah that's the downtown route and also to the University and particularly the medical complex you know we can all say we'd like for Duke to step up a little higher to the plate and hopefully they will in the future but every day that Mark Aronson walks well let me put it this way when he walks into his office on January 2nd of every new year he's already at least nine million dollars in the hole so this is a difficult complex issue again we're not a business but this does not mean we should not use good business practices and it's there's some difficult choices here and we want to keep the ridership as high as we can make it thank you. Mr. Clement I'm sorry you had your hand up earlier if my memory serves me correctly thank you Mr. Moderator there's a certain segment of the population that can ride the bus without charge that's the segment I belong to the senior citizens now if my memory serves me correctly the senior citizens upon presentation of appropriate evidence if you qualify I'm 79 years old so I certainly qualify I can ride the bus at my pleasure am I correct in making that and I don't want us to forget that because I think that's very important I'm one of the few bus riders sitting around this platform tonight and I'm proud of the fact that in my age you ride the bus free one question quickly you say appropriate evidence is presented what sort of proof other than your own face do you have to present in case a bus driver asks if you are indeed not you personally but the rider is a senior citizen well that has not been an issue for you but those individuals and I don't want to get caught up in this ID thing that's going on over there in Raleigh and other jurisdictions but the fact remains is people of good faith get on the bus knowing that they are 65 years old are entitled to ride the bus free of charge and I don't think that is ever presented an issue since that ruling went into effect so I want the public to be aware of that and that portion of the public is entitled is a growing segment people are getting older and living longer thank goodness councilmember clements exactly right anyone 65 or older rides free but so does anyone 12 or younger so we want to make sure that people understand that a large segment is already riding free the second thing is that if we made the bus completely free the fares that we collect today actually contribute $3 million towards the bus system and that is another funding hole, funding gap that we would have to fill and the last thing I want to say is that our fares in Durham compared to pure cities across the country are some of the lowest anywhere so we are working hard we understand that buses are used by people who have the least we are working hard to hold the line in a way that is reasonable for the entire community clarification appreciated anyone else on this topic is a new fire station in south Durham really necessary? Well again we rely very heavily on our staff in terms of their requests and presentations that they make I'm not a fireman but we've had recommendations as to where fire stations should be located and they're considered judgment they feel it's appropriate that a new fire station would be required in that particular area anyone else? Council? I'm sorry go ahead Mr. Schultz I'll add just a slight bit to that which is that not only do we rely on staff but they don't use just subjective judgment it's based on measures, it's based on response times the locations for those stations are carefully selected and there is a point at which the development of any community question becomes you know how long are we willing to stretch the measures and at what point do we put the station in I was thinking ahead my eyes were ahead of my brain here I do have a question for you Mr. Schultz and this is from a citizen who asks are city public safety employees compensated adequately for pay and benefits Good question and an important question what I would say one good indication of this is that we have 13 positions for sworn police officers in our community and we have zero vacancies in the department so that says to me that we are not only because of our pay and benefits but also because what it's like to work in the Durham Police Department that we are doing a good job we have a special pay scale for our police officers that other city employees do not have a pay scale that goes from 3 to 5 percent pay increases each year and we do feel that this helps us to keep the police officers that we have and what does that translate to that translates to a police force that is solving crimes at a quite a bit higher rate than the national average and even the state average and it also helps translate to a falling crime rate in Durham falling also the crime rate nationally has fallen over the last 20 years the violent crime rate the murder rate and other violent crimes but in Durham it's falling faster than the national average and so I think having a well equipped well paid police force well managed makes a tremendous difference whether or not she's talking about crime on the American tobacco trail or crime in communities and so paying our police adequately is critical and I can hear a siren in the background they're going to catch somebody now I hope they're not coming for Tom Miller who's out here in the audience yes Mr. Brown yes if I can add to that and Steve was not on council but about seven or eight years ago we were having serious retention problems within our police department that is to say that quite often we would train them and Durham is noted for having one of the best police academies in the state and then they would very quickly lead to cities in surrounding areas because the pay was simply not keeping up with their performance as a result we had to make a hard decision and that was to increase taxes but some things you just have to pay for folks and I've always said that you can't have a great city unless you first and foremost have a safe city and so now to see the turnaround is really a very refreshing to all of us as elected officials and we want to thank the taxpayers for understanding that as well for the follow up comments council yes Mr. Cattari thank you just a few follow up comments I wanted to expand that it's not only police but also fire that have a separate city band and that just last week we got new data in graphic form that I'm sure our staff would be happy to share that shows that our pay is well in range and in line with our pure cities and one of the quotes that came out of the tragic happening in Boston with the marathon but a quote that I actually posted on my Facebook site that I think is really important is that emergency personnel police or fire run toward explosions not away from them and we really value their work and think this money is well spent the other thing that I wanted to say that we'll get into probably further is just in terms of our general fund our police and fire councilman Schull mentioned 513 sworn officers we have another 300 fire personnel so just fire and police alone about 48% of our budget so when we make changes it's significant there's not a lot of room to do a lot of other things thank you thank you do want to acknowledge there are questions coming Anthony can I mention one more thing on fire one of the recent one of the figures that we learned the other day in our budget deliberations is the fire department last year answered 19,000 emergency calls 19,000 so keep in mind the tremendous need that we have here in our community for these firefighters thank you Mr. Schull so as I was saying the audience is giving us some questions as we move through the evening we want to acknowledge some of these questions this is one for you Mr. Bell came from the audience the question is what is the city's policy on granting tax incentives to businesses and how can we make sure these are sound investments for all citizens of Durham? Again that's a good question and I probably when I was asked early about what does the city do in terms of trying to create jobs that is one vehicle that we have providing incentives for certain companies depending on certain standards and one of the standards is the number of jobs that are going to be created and also the level of pay that those jobs will be creating so that is an incentive and the question is how do we make sure that they do what they commit to do that's the responsibility of the staff to follow up on that there's an agreement that's signed between the city and the company that receives incentives in terms of certain measurement marks that they are expected to meet and if they meet those marks they receive incentives if they don't they don't receive incentives Mr. Brown? Well I would suggest that what we're talking about here is public-private partnerships and we're beginning to see more and more of those throughout the country particularly in the urban downtown areas and for those of you watching at home as well as here I would mention two projects to you and you can answer in your own mind that these are viable and worthwhile and that would be the new I say new it's now 18 years old it's hard to believe that but the new Bulls Park downtown Durham and the American tobacco complex and if you look at both what they provide for us in terms of entertainment for business for jobs for recreation I think the sponsors overwhelmingly they were two good deals quickly what happened there is that the county built what is called the south garage and the city built the northern garage but that project would not have taken place without the incentives coming from both the county and the city and one reason that we have incentives too in closing is that the cost of parking is so much more expensive in your downtown areas averaging between $12,000 and $15,000 per car but if you go out to even South Square mall we have a flat surface and it's open parking your cost there is going to be between $1,500 to $2,500 so that's one of the reasons for these incentives. Mr. Moffitt this question from a citizen for you why are some council members in favor of a tax increase while others favor increases in fees? Both of those are the intent is to raise revenue when we have a gap in our budget our choices are either raise revenues or to reduce spending reduce services and when we start looking at increased revenues then either of those increase taxes or imposing a fee increase or a new fee or ways to do that and people who support increasing the tax revenue from property tax believe that it's at least less regressive that it spreads the pain if you will over the entire community. Those who favor fees point to it's a fee for service so only those who are using the service pay the fee it's just a question of who pays and who gains. For the follow up council. Mr. Brown a question from the audience for you why do we continue to raise water and sewer rates? In some ways that's a difficult question and yet in other ways it's easy and that is why for you as citizens when you turn your tap on in your kitchen or bathroom we want to make sure that the water you are receiving is good quality and it's safe and it's pure and these things cost money folks. We still have some pipes believe it or not in the city that are approaching 100 years old some of them are actually terracotta pipes or clay pipes one can argue that in the past Durham has not necessarily done the infrastructure job that we should have been doing all along incrementally but now that we're catching up with that there are also federal demands as well as state demands in terms of pure water and also storm runoffs so all of these are driving costs up but we're trying to do as best as we can to make sure that the taxpayers not only get good water but a good bang for their buck from our water department. Thank you. Mr. Bell another question for you when is the city planning to build the new police headquarters and where will the facility be located how much will it cost? Well I've got about three questions. Three questions yes. You may or may not know that we recently began public hearings on two proposed sites for the new police headquarters so one is on the federal street area which used to be the federal street projects, development housing and others on main street, east main street close to where Hendricks Auto used to be and so what we're doing now is going out to the public trying to get feedback from the public in terms of their comments and responses to those two locations once that has been done and we've got in the budget I think about six million dollars for planning and etc once the site has been chosen the manager will come back with a recommendation to the city council and depending on whether or not we adopt that recommendation then we'll proceed with the planning stage. Once the planning has been constructed it depends on what approach we take whether it's a design deal or construction management at risk we will then begin the process of constructing the police station in terms of the amount of dollars that we're talking about. I think the latest dollars, that's about 46 million that's been planned for that police headquarters and there are a lot of variables in that. Obviously we have the present site that has to be sold. It's a question of whether or not we combine the facilities over on Hunt Street at the new site but all that will be a part of the recommendations come back to the council from the management staff to make a decision at that point in time. I think this plan will begin construction in 2014 if that's correct. Follow up from me if you will so you just said that the present site would be sold, I guess that means it won't be demolished at least not by the city. Well we don't know I mentioned that because the next question is where you're going to get the money from and a part of that comes from existing projects to the resource for building the police headquarters. My thought will be that we try to sell it and let whoever buys it do what they think is appropriate. I think it's very interesting that right across the street now we have a new apartment complex that's going up for primarily dedicated for students but I think it's going to change the environment and I could very easily see somebody in that corner where the police present headquarters is for maybe a similar project. That's in your neighborhood Mr. Brown that would probably affect you. Do you have any comment about that? I will comment for sure on that. What was there was really unacceptable for too long to all of Durham citizens. We had close to 15 to 18,000 cars a day going past there. It was an embarrassment for all of us and the firm that bought it is from Memphis, Tennessee they're going to spend about $46 million there for 320 apartments and they know what they're doing and they deal primarily with universities that try to get graduate students first because it's easier to deal with them but they have student complexes such as this from Syracuse University to Cal Berkley, California and here's the catcher. They built Grandville Towers in Chapel Hill and that was the first private student apartment complex one of the first in the southeast and they still manage that building so they do a good job and we're very pleased they're here. Will they pay taxes? Absolutely pay taxes and the value of that site and of that property will increase immensely and I think based upon the activities we've seen combined with their past histories that they will be good corporate citizens as well. Thank you for clearing that up. One last audience question this is for you Mr. Shul. Thousands of kids participate in youth soccer programs shouldn't a city invest in more soccer facilities and improvements to existing fields? Yes. I I've been a youth soccer coach for 18 years from the Y to Riverside High School and yes we need more soccer fields in Durham no question about it we need and that's not the only recreation improvement enhancement that we need and the Durham Parks and Rec Department is in the final stages of putting together a master plan that will talk about all the things that we need not that we'll be able to afford all of them but all the things that we will need in terms of for example there's an outdoor swimming pool on the list. There's many other different kind of recreational facilities that people want in soccer fields are on the list we have thousands of kids and adults in Durham who are playing soccer and we don't have the room for them so we need that but we need it as part of a plan and I think one of the things I think we need to be thinking about in the next year and is how are we going to be funding what we need in terms of maintaining our parks and fields and trails and how are we going to fund adding to them because well Diane pointed out for example how much of our budget is devoted to public safety. We have a tight budget and parks and rec and maintenance of parks and rec and trails and open spaces competing with so many other needs so one of the things I'm interested in us thinking about is how to set aside some sort of dedicated funding for these parks and rec and open space and trails needs because I think as a central part of the quality of life in this community while people are flocking here it's absolutely critical and so it's soccer fields yes and it's particularly close to my heart but I think many other recreation and outdoor needs as well. Thank you Mr. Schult. Opportunity now for all you members to make some concluding remarks. Two minutes less would be good but we have a little time so if you want to go along but not too long that's okay. We'll begin with you Mr. Clement do you have anything? This approach represents in my opinion an outstanding innovation for the city of Durham bringing more people into the equation in terms of discussing what we may do. I like that and I want to commend staff and public relations people and you. My favorite TV announcement. Please keep talking thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Brown I think we made a good choice with you Anthony to head off this first and hopefully not our last town gathering and much rather do it this way than coffee with councils but that's just me because this is really Durham is known as a participatory democracy type town and we have many many active citizens some of them will be here this evening and I think that's terrific most of the time but no we're very proud of that and we should be and this is like a New England town hall meeting it's the closest to it that we have in particular with those viewers watching at home in terms of the budget I think it's really very simple every year we begin with the premise that we have more needs than revenues. That's it folks we have more needs than revenues and so we have to deal with that everything then becomes an issue of priorities and indeed I often said that forget about the political speeches and the white papers and all of that show me your budget and I'll tell you what your priorities are so it's always a good hard strenuous combination of debate discussion and it's really crucial and we appreciate all of your input your suggestions and please if anyone can find a grove of money trees growing somewhere in Durham City let us know so we can gather up a few more dollars and I would conclude by suggesting also that it is just a delight to work with these elected officials and especially to our city manager Tom Bonfield who's been here going on five years now boy that seems like a long time and our city attorney as well and clerk I think we have and I think Howard has said this too in the past and he has more of a long range analysis but I think objectively this is one of the best city councils in the city of North Carolina and I am very, very proud to be a part of it. Thank you Mr. Brown. Ms. Cole McFadden? First of all thank you Anthony for being a part of this process and thanks to Bertha and everyone, Beverly and everyone on staff who helped to make this night possible. Each year we collectively work as an elected body to craft a budget that meets the critical needs of this community and very special to me are the needs of our youth and they must be addressed as a part of our budget process and normally we don't hear a lot about our youth we cry out about a whole lot of other things but not about what's happening to our children what's happening to our youth and the budget will help us meet many of the needs of our community's youth from funding to positions which I should have shared earlier for the Durham system of care to continue funding for the Durham youth work internship program and I believe these items will improve opportunities for our at risk youth. I also want to thank our residents who participated in tonight's E-town the input and feedback we received from our residents is vital in crafting a balanced budget that will move this community for it it is because of the residents who care about Durham and take time and effort to get involved in local government that we are a place where great things continue to happen thank you for coming and participating in this process I apologize for my voice I have laryngitis we heard you though Mayor Bell well I don't know if I can add much more than it's already been said by my colleagues and I'm sure the remaining colleagues will have similar things to say but this is always an interesting time of the year for me I've been through 26 budgets on the county side doing 11 budgets on the city side so I have somewhat of an appreciation of what it takes to get a budget done and I think the value that this council brings is that each one of these council members takes this role very seriously there are certain areas that each one probably has more focus on than others but I think collectively when we have an opportunity to discuss the merits of what's being proposed we all value everybody's input and respect their input and we ultimately make a decision and as I said before we know we don't please everyone but I think in the end we're hopefully doing what's right for the city and what will continue to move the city forward in a very positive fashion so again I want to thank you Anthony for your efforts here I certainly want to thank all the residents that have participated and those that participated through the ETown and as we get into further discussions on the public hearing very seriously and trying to derive a final decision on our budget Thank you Mr. Shul. Thank you Anthony and thanks so much for being here and leading us tonight and I want to second what folks have said about having this ETown hall I think it's great and what I want to just mention a little something about is the budget process that we've been through so everybody will kind of understand it from the council perspective of course our staff is working months on this and what we kind of intersect with the process is this some months ago we get initial budget information to read through quite a bit of it and then we sit for two days with a large group of staff over at Durham Tech in a room for big room for couple of days and then we get lots of presentations about the state of the economy both locally and statewide and then we get lots of presentations from different departments about revenue potential and what it might look like and then we get all kinds of information about what the spending priorities might be and what kind of choices we face and then we lay out a set of budget guidelines after those two days city manager goes back with the staff and the finance staff and they come up with then they're working on proposals and meanwhile we're going out and we're meeting with the public at the coffees with council at all the packs and we get input there and then we come back together and the city manager and the staff has prepared a budget book here it is it's large it's thick and what I want to say about it is this it's fabulous it's fabulous the process is amazing the amount of input that we get what we hear from the departments the level of accountability and the document is tremendous if you are interested in reading this budget document first of all the numbers are totally transparent the detail is profound I mean it's a lot of detail and the pros is very unusual for bureaucratic pros it's clear and it helps you understand and I have been this is only my second budget not the 38th I guess Mr. Mayor but I can just tell you that it's coming to it fairly new the level of information and the level of explanation that we get to try to make good decisions is terrific and then what that leaves us with and we spent the last we spent two days last week again two full days together hearing again from the departments having read this book more presentations and then we flag for this coming Thursday and we'll hear again from people tonight we flag items that we will discuss on Thursday at the work session and then we'll come together at our next meeting and approve the budget and what I have come to realize is of this in terms of thinking about the consensus on the council and mainly the job that our manager and his staff has done in bringing this to us is the budget is about 381 million dollars the items we flagged are about 2 million dollars so when you think about it we've already come to agreement on about 379 of the 381 million dollars the other couple million dollars we're talking about how do you fund it should we the budget was asked about the solid waste fee versus taxes for example there's been questions about the bus fares there are a few other items that we're talking about there are a few other items and there are important items which we have talked about should we fund it can we fund it and how but because of the work that our staff does we already have reached a consensus on the vast majority of the budget it doesn't do everything that we wish because we don't have the money that we wish it is a great process and I have so much confidence in our staff our finance staff our deputy city manager Wanda Page Bertha Johnson and all the staff that are putting this together it's just been a great education for me and I think that if you want to learn about our city read this book so I really do appreciate the work of our staff very much on this so thank you Anthony for hosting this and thank you to budget and public affairs staff for putting this together and especially thank you to the manager and management staff and all the departments for all the service that you provide to our citizens you do a tremendous amount of work and really under tightening resources this is my 10th annual budget and we have had essentially less money for discretionary services over time I also want to thank the citizens for their very thoughtful emails and input I tried to respond to all of them I did not respond to the last 125 that came in since I left for work this morning so I look forward to the additional budget deliberations this Thursday and echo the comments of my colleagues so thank you keep the input coming thank you Mr. Mothin did any of you leave me anything I don't think so but I'm sorry you're going to bear with me for a moment I'm going to tell you that some of the things you've already heard the budget is tied very closely to the city's strategic plan which is written through input from stakeholders like you resident staff partners against crime districts and others transparency and engagement are key values of this council preparing the budget it starts with coffees that are held around the city conversations it includes a visioning process to explore goals projects activities surveys are used to get more feedback and residents and emails and call with their input our process of engaging citizens participation has been recognized nationally and I thought I was going to get to do this but even this got done but I really want to call out and appreciate two of the architects of that process who are usually in the background and who put together tonight's ETAL meeting that's Beverly Thompson I want to give these guys a round of applause for the city's public affairs office and Bertha Johnson who leads a terrific budget team and Anthony I want to thank you for your moderation tonight. Thank you Mr. Marford and thank you for pointing out the architects I was going to do the same thing DB2. Anthony council member Katati pointed out to me they even coordinated their clothing yes that's very important well we have come to the end of this thank you all for joining us tonight electronically you came down to City Hall for this ETown Hall hope we found it helpful now in the event that your question was not addressed make sure you visit the city's website DurhamNC.gov the council will review all questions and suggestions and they will post responses now your continued involvement throughout the budget process is not only welcomed it is also encouraged stay connected via the city of Durham's Facebook page the Twitter page and the website I just mentioned all resources and documents referenced tonight regarding the budget can also be found at the budget page which is on the city's website thank you again for all your questions participation hope you have a wonderful evening and tomorrow we'll be back after you guys thank you okay we are now going to move into the public hearing part of the budget and the process will be that this is a comment public hearing we here to hear your comments on the budget proposed budget persons have signed up to speak on the yellow cards I would ask is that anyone else that would like to speak at this budget public hearing that is not signed up if so we'll ask you to go to the clerk's office place desk to the left and sign up I have 15 persons that have signed up to speak on the public hearing and Farron is to the fact that you're here and you said through it I'm going to say let's take three minutes each for your comments that's plenty and if you don't use three minutes you can write something down and we'll follow up with it so I'm going to call the names if you could come to the podium to the right and there's a clock in front of you for those of you who have not been here to speak before that will keep the time in terms of your speaking and again we don't yield time so you've got three minutes to use we have Steve Korn is that correct come to the right Steve Hopkins Steve still around come to the right Larissa Seibel Aidan Rowley Graham is that correct Marina Hawkins Susan Brooks Marie Eisen Barbara Garrett Tony Williamson Sandu DeZimmick Harry Godwin Goodwin Dan Williams Donna Rudolph Victoria Peterson Call RIS and is there anyone else that would like to speak that has not spoken that's fine Mr. Korn Korn I'm here to talk I hope one last time about the funding for the extension of the West Ellaby Creek Trail which you already had a question about I'm the president of the Ellaby Creek Watershed Association but in this matter I also have the backing of many other groups and many other individuals the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission the East Coast Greenway Alliance Neighborhood Associations and Old West Durham Old North Durham Watts-Hillendale and also the Inter- Neighborhood Council representing all of Durham's neighborhoods have all passed resolutions in support of funding for the construction of this trail as soon as possible First I want to thank Tom Bonfield for including in his proposed city budget an initial $75,000 to complete the right of way acquisition and I especially want to thank Mr. Bonfield for making what I understand to be a firm commitment to fund the rest of Durham's portion of the construction money in the following years city budget but second I want to remind the council members that with a somewhat larger allocation this year leaving less to fund in the following year the city can get the process moving as quickly as possible to secure the federal matching money more than a million dollars that has already been approved for this project but not yet clinched. I know there have been questions and confusions about how long the easement acquisitions might take but the trail supporters intend to do all in our power to help move that process along as quickly as possible and as smoothly as possible if it gets done in six months or less then we want to be ready to move on to the next steps not meaning the project would move right into the construction phase which we know is not possible yet at that point and might jeopardize the federal funding but rather meaning the city would move right into the process of fully securing the federal funding that is needed for the construction to begin what we definitely do not want to happen what we fear is for the million plus dollars of federal funding to haul through because the city did not move fast enough to put up its matching share. A commitment from the city manager is great but that's not enough to secure a full commitment with federal funds for that as I understand it the city's matching share needs to be fully budgeted and as we all know from bad surprises of all sorts what happens. Bad things for the trail funding can happen in the federal budget process or in the city budget process. The longer we wait the more bad stuff can happen. By putting an additional amount less than $200,000 into this year's city budget rather than promising to put it into next year's city budget put it all into next year's city budget you will allow the process of securing the federal matching funds to begin as soon as possible not a year from now which could turn into two years from now or ten years from now or never. Please don't take a chance of letting these approved federal funds slip away because if that happens this trail might never get built. That's why I'm asking you to commit the extra funds needed to secure the federal match this year. Let's make sure we get this trail built so bikers, walkers, runners and commuters can benefit from it each and every day. Thank you. You're welcome. Steve Hopkins. Mayor, City Council, Steve Hopkins, 1117 apartment 10 Gurley Street and I usually don't break this hat out but with the new chancellor at Central I'ma equal, okay? Alright there's a couple of things this budget is huge and there's a lot of things that I need to say about a lot of things which I'm not but I'm going to pick out a couple of things that is really important to me and I'm speaking as a private citizen, I don't represent any group just me and my biggest concern right now is our impact team. You know your measurements and everything said that they are doing a great job and they are but they can't keep up folks.  Folks we need another impact team to help keep Durham beautiful. Secondly jobs. You know we can train folks and train folks and train folks but if there's no jobs for those folks we have a well trained unemployment line and there are work that needs to be done but nobody wants to pay to have it done. We need to get this work done and I'm talking about more lawns boarded up houses and these are jobs and the federal government through their AmeriCorps process will help with the stipends for these folks. We need to put people back to increase our tax base. Now we're getting jobs coming in and the bad thing about that is the employers that are coming in is bringing their staff with them. That's how we grow. The people that are here that aren't employed are still unemployed. They are not getting these new jobs because there's no new jobs really coming. The jobs are coming in but they ain't bringing new jobs with them and that's a sad fact. Now our housing stock is getting a little bit better the boarded up and the dilapidated ones that we have and we need to address that and I'm asking the city to rethink some of your decisions in your budget and hey I don't mind you raising bus fare if you put in parking meters. Thank you. Hello I'm Larisa Seibel and this evening I've been asked to represent Durham CAN which is a diverse group of people who want the entire Durham community to benefit from the city budget. We know our city budget reflects our priorities and we all want every person to have safe quality homes as well as be able to get affordable transportation. But we may not know how critical these homes and transit are to the entire Durham community. The two largest expenses for residents of Durham are number one housing and usually number two is transportation and many individuals work more than one job just to be able to keep their homes and as you know a stable healthy home is critical to the health of all of our residents and also critical to the success in school of our children. So try to get to work without a car. Try to keep a car running on a minimum wage job. I know I have. The A says it costs about $9,000 a year for a car. That's $173 a week and $4.32 an hour. Durham is actually at a crossroads with our budget we can put the funds into continued suburban sprawl outside our transit system outside of the reach of low income residents to be able to get to jobs or we can build quality affordable homes along our existing bus lines and our proposed transit station. But we need to move forward now. We need to put money into planning affordable housing around transit stations and bus lines now before the land is all taken up with development. We need to put money into homes, affordable homes for people with disabilities, seniors, homeless, veterans and other extremely low income residents so the people who use transit will support transit and we need to keep transit affordable so everyone in our community can get to work, to school, medical care and other things. I want to add one thing that Durham can did not have time to address before this meeting but it appears that there's a proposal to eliminate a housing inspector and in the past Durham can have strongly supported housing inspections to provide quality housing for all and I hope that you will flag that item and discuss it further and see if we can find some way to preserve that housing inspector. That would be the last position I would cut from neighborhood improvement services. I appreciate your consideration. Thank you. So I actually want to start by asking everybody to think back a couple hours to the downpour that happened around six o'clock if you weren't actually in the downpour just think about a downpour that you've been caught out in and then actually so think about that and then imagine yourself down at the downtown station. I don't know if you've stood like how many of you all have stood under the shelter at the downtown station but I definitely have and I know I often will like look around to try and find like a dry spot on the concrete where I can stand to get shelter and unfortunately there's not one there. So my name is Aidan Graham. I'm here with People's Durham and I came to speak out against the proposed bus fare increase and I've actually spent the last three weeks me and some of the other people from People's Durham talking to hundreds of riders who have signed this petition that I want to submit for the public record that says the riders who signed this say no to the fare increase. They want you to hear this. They say no to the fare increase. They say no to service cuts and they say if the city really cares about what riders think you have to give us enough time and information to really be able to give our opinions. So as I've had these hundreds of conversations with people down at the station on the buses at the bus stops in the neighborhood I've talked to folks who can't put an address on the petition. Can't put a phone number on the petition because they have to make tough choices all the time about what bills they're going to pay to survive month to month. They're living at the homeless shelter. That's the only address that they can put down here. So to me these are not folks who can afford another $15 a month and these are the folks who rely on the day pass to be able to get around to where they need to work if they have a job to where they need to get food to where they go to school even. So that's just one thing that I think is really important. And another story that I want to share is that one of the folks that I talked to, a young man, tall, lean guy who's kind of standing off to the side at the station, I walked up to talk to him and a group of his friends and he looked at what I had and he said you know that's worth less than an ashtray actually. And my immediate reaction was that my heart sank. I took it personally. I'll admit like when I walked away I was like ooh I did a bad job. But then as I walked away I realized he wasn't saying that I did a bad job he was saying that he thought his voice doesn't matter. And him and his friends laughing, that's actually heartbreaking to me. So I'm here because I believe actually I know that many of you on City Council believe that public transportation is really important. That you stand behind public transportation and I have the hope that you're going to hear these voices and think back to why is it that a multi-million dollar station downtown isn't able to protect you from the rain. It's because riders were not allowed enough input in the process where that building was designed. Thank you. Welcome. Rena Hawkins. Good evening everybody. I'm also with Pupils Durham here to pose the bus fare increase and my first experiences with riding public transportation was when I was a student at UNC. My first three years I was a student there I didn't have a car so I had to depend on the bus to get from class to class and also to go from Chapel Hill to my job in Durham. I enjoyed the independence that working allowed and I also enjoyed the mobility of the bus system and although I'm already graduated and I have a car now I can still relate to the struggle that the Durham riders face. I remember what it was like to not have an alternative and to be dependent on the bus to get everywhere and I also was at the station listening to people's testimonies and I'm hearing their stories and getting them to sign our petition and I love public transportation too. The buses ensure that Durham riders can keep their jobs, go to the grocery store, even go to a Durham Bulls game if they want to and I think it's our responsibility to maintain the fare because it's exploitative. It targets the people at the bottom who have the least money to pay for this increase and it just makes me think back to when I was a student in Chapel Hill there is no bus fare and I could go anywhere in campus, I could even come to Durham and I didn't have to pay for anything but my proposal isn't for a free fare it's just I want a fare fare. I want a fare that doesn't burden the riders any further and I've experienced another system and I know that it doesn't have to go up there are other ways that the deficit can be met and so I just want to ask you to vote against the fare increase. Thank you. You're welcome. Susan Brooks. I'm here too to speak against the proposed bus fare increase not with an organization but pretty much as just a private citizen who has been using the bus system by choice, not because I have to. I've been using it for many years. I have been involved with the bus system when data had their board of trustees so I'm well aware of the many challenges that there are with funding of really, you know, world class bus system or at least one of the best in the state and actually the southeast so I know that but to have this bus system funded especially on the backs of any increase of the people who can least afford it does not seem to me the right thing to do. That seems to be the wave of what's happening now all across the country with many kinds of services and the people who are writing data not by choice but because they have to are people who are working minimum wage jobs, mothers who are trying to get their kids to a school maybe that's not their zoned public school but it's a better one that they think is the right place for their children to be and you know they're just for students for instance who happen not to be Duke students I work at Duke and I'm very fortunate to have a go pass. I can ride the bus for free. Duke has made a lot of investment in that and I have taken advantage of it so just to put this fare increase on the backs of the people who ride the bus and as we all know those are people who really are the least who have the least funds just doesn't seem right to me there are other ways to do that a tax increase would be one and one of you said yeah there are people who prefer what is it is by the people who use it there are others who prefer that everybody in the community pay for something that is a community resource and this is a community resource and also if you want to attract more riders who can ride the bus if they want to but have a car sitting at home upping the fare is not the way to do it and there also will be people you may really lower the ridership there will be people who ride the bus and who will not be able to afford it so I just think it's not the right thing to do for those reasons Durham is on its way to becoming a nationally recognized city in many ways and having a really good public transportation that's attractive to all of our community would be one way to do that so I'm not even going to take up my three minutes I just wanted to thanks for hearing me my name is Marie Hill facing and I came tonight to speak against the proposed fare increase I attended two of the meetings at the terminal and I was very disturbed at the information that I received about the proposal for the increase for the buses I work for Paris Transit and I transport handicapped elderly people on dialysis that depend on the service so I would like to commend you for leaving the fare as it is because I see firsthand how people struggle to pay the fare this is one area that we don't need to increase the fare and so I would just like to say thank you and I appreciate it I don't use the service myself but I drive the vans and I transport the people that ride one there and it services a lot of people that really need it and every day you hear accolades of the service from the people I mean there's lateness and there's a lot of problems but the service is there and that's pretty much what we have to keep going no matter what and the buses is equally important because when people can't ride the Paris Transit they need public transportation and so I would just recommend that we try and expand our vision of what we see public transportation to be in the future and not try and take away from that but to add on to it we have as was told before we have an increasing elderly population but what I see is a lot of people here that will probably be riding the van still in the future because it gives a service of independence for people and they're able to do things and another disturbing thing at the meeting that I heard was that with a fare increase for the buses the ridership would go down and that's the wrong direction we don't want ridership to go down we want to encourage people to ride it I ride it I go to other states and ride public transportation I'm a firm believer in being able to get to where you have to go without a car and the other good thing about public transportation is that it's good for the environment so what I'd like to see is more green thought for Durham encouragement for people that even have cars to ride public transportation let them know that it's efficient it's safe and it's the way to go you know and then we'll save our environment so thank you for listening to me and I hope you'll entertain that thought thank you welcome let me call these names again I'm calling them as they signed up Barbara Garrett Tony Williamson Sandlow Pisma Harvey Goodwin Jan Williams Donna Rudolph, Victoria Peterson, Carl Riss linear Blum and Jim O'Reilly Good evening my name is Barbara Garrett I'm here to talk about the bus fare increase I'm a lifelong Durham member of the Durham community I'm a graduate from NCCU and I'm unemployed for me on some days it's and I own my own vehicle on some days it's very hard for me to get the $2 that it takes for me to ride the bus and so I'm asking that you all would not increase would not allow them to increase the bus fare to leave it as it is for people that's like myself that are in a position at this time where we really can hardly afford the $2 that it is at this time and so I ask that you all consider it thank you Tony Williamson I know I'm butchering this name but is this Tony coming Sandlow Pisma I can't read that no so I wasn't originally going to speak tell me what is your name thank you I wasn't originally going to speak last time I did public speaking in front of public officials was at the county commissioner meeting and we got to yield time so I was going to give some of our folks a little bit more but I have been riding public transportation since I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan I rode the buses there in a town that's about the size of Durham I rode public transportation in New York City and I've been riding public transportation here in Durham and you know the ritual of about going to get on the bus is going by the change thing by the door right and I have to get there half an hour early because it's going to take me a little time to dig through find the quarters or the nickels of the dimes or whatever and the idea of adding another 50 cents to that for a day pass right like it seems like a small amount you think like 50 cents it's not that much but as somebody who goes through that process every day or around other people who go through that process every day 50 cents actually does make a really big difference and people's Durham the organization that I work with our work is primarily with folks who are low income mostly in the Hattie area in the south side southeast Durham right and you all know us from the Lincoln apartments fight I was walking down the street the other day and I ran into two people who came from Lincoln apartments Miss Barbara is one of those folks there was another young lady who was walking down the street and what struck me in a conversation I was having with her is just all the different things that are coming down on top of our folks right now right and you all know that as people who are working at the local level trying to build a city that's progressive but on the everyday level there are so many things that are happening to our folks and adding even small pieces is tremendous right so what we're asking folks to do here is to think about not just small number right but the impact that that has on somebody's everyday life the other thing I want to say is that a public transportation system isn't just for poor people I am a poor person I want to have a public transportation system that I can afford but a good public transportation system is actually the blood system for a good city right and right now you go to 147 you see that blood system working through cars we want to see that working through buses y'all have said you want to see that working through trains right we believe that a public transportation system that's based on buses and that puts forward riders is what's really going to build that blood system that heart for the kind of city that we want to live in thank you Harvey Goodwin yes I'm Harvey Goodwin and thank you I come today back to budget too and I'm a tax payer and I come as a person that represents the people that are retired and social security they're not getting any raises and people that are unemployed I'd just like to go over this a budget is more than just a budget a budget is made up of the salaries a budget is made up of the work they do a budget is made up of the waste a budget is made up of many things and I want to go over one first I want to go over the manager Mr Goodwin could you pull your microphone a little bit over so we can 185,192 dollars 143,575 20 cents 140,000 146,087 18,000 also they get hospital insurance holidays and whatever just the budget on this was 668,785 dollars that's over a half a million dollars that's high for a budget okay the next is a city attorney Baker makes 182,694 dollars and the raise I think he got was 3,581 dollars and 41 cents and the people that are out is paying the taxes or struggling they cannot pay their light bill they cannot get their medicine they're not getting raises they're not getting bonuses like the city has got bonuses they get bonuses they get raises that's not fair for the city taxpayers they cannot afford it the city assistant attorney 112,026 dollars 15 cents attorney 118,354 dollars and 29 cents and the assistant he got a raise of 5,500 dollars and then the other senior assistant he got 2,321 dollars then assistant assistant attorney 102,421 dollars and 18 cents and he got a bonus I mean a raise of whatever 6,695 dollars the next senior assistant 112,299 dollars and one cent his increase was 5,500 dollars I'm going to speak for my husband I'm going to get based we don't yield time what I would suggest I think we get the trend of where you're going I'm sorry I said we don't yield time okay but if you like you can leave your notes with the clerk it'll be a part of the record and I think we'll understand your concern salaries well I'd just like to say too that these talking about the if you don't mind Ms. Goodman you've really gone over your time you can leave your information with the clerk and any other remarks leave that with them also okay thank you my name is Jan Williams and I am program director of Healthy Families Durham we serve about 150 families of young children we do home visits and all of these families are low income families who are struggling to make ends meet every single day so I'd like for you to think of me representing these 150 families I realize what a tight position the city is in related to the transportation budget and I realize that some of the bus fares will need to increase but I am here to speak specifically against that 50 cent increase on the $2 day pass over the 16 years that I've been doing this work I am convinced that that $2 daily pass is the one most frequently used by our lowest income citizens many of the families in my program use this daily pass to get to their pediatricians appointments their WIC appointments to Department of Social Services to mental health appointments to their work and to Durham Tech though a $10 a month increase 50 cents a day might not sound like much to us for some families this is a 25% increase that would take money away from diapers, formula food and clothing for their children and unfortunately many families do not have the $20 all at once to purchase a multi pass I know that they could save money by doing that but they just don't have that $20 all at once so I also have a question I think about sometimes at my work we hop on the bull city connector to go eat lunch at Brightleaf or to go downtown and we pay nothing so I have a question about why would we not charge something for that bull city connector instead of raising the increase making an increase that penalizes our lowest income citizens so I really ask that you reconsider that 25% increase on the $2 day pass because I think it penalizes the people who can least afford it and I'm here to represent them so thank you. Donner Rudolph I don't know how we do this because I have two hats tonight and so do I have a three minutes as Donner Rudolph starting now I'm Donner Rudolph and I live on 751 South in the subdivision of Eagles Point at about as far as the city goes but I'm concerned about the city the whole city it's my city it's where I am pleased to call home and I'm concerned about homelessness and I'm a member of the housing committee of People's Alliance and on behalf of People's Alliance I want to draw your attention to the fact that a count of homeless people made in January revealed 759 homeless persons 93 of those were homeless veterans and 87 of them were chronically homeless individuals and several advocacy groups have stated a goal homelessness in Durham in the next 10 years within 10 years and for veterans and chronically homeless persons by the year of 2015 so we're asking in order for these people to be able to call Durham their home that the city budget in the physical year of 2013-2014 allocates $750,000 to build new supportive housing for extremely low income people with a priority for homeless veterans and people with special needs people who are disabled and for those who are chronically homeless now I want to speak about a development that's proposed on 751 South and I my main concern personally is getting out on 751 because I can't get home if I don't use 751 and the traffic's already rather intense several times a day on 751 South and if you use the statistics of the last census and the number of cars per people per home 1300 housing units in this southern Durham development will produce about 2.2 cars per household so I'm looking at probably 3000 car trips coming in and 3000 car trips coming out a day beyond what are already on 751 so there's that cost to build and maintain a highway but the items I'm most appalled at I don't see how in good conscience Durham can approve this development because there are 80 of this 166 acres 81 of those acres will be paved over and the carcinogenic runoffs from asphalt paving into the lake which Jordan Lake is the water source for 500,000 people and I think you can think of another matter that is astonishing to me is if you allow this development to occur then how can you say no to other developments that violate the existing environmental standards and density statements thank you. Victoria Peterson. Mr. Mayor for the e-commerce you have sort of allowed the city council members to answer questions I just have really one question that I would just like to ask particularly the city manager, why are we losing money? This is a public hearing for comments. Okay well I would like to still ask and somebody can write me back why is the city losing monies again? This is the second year that we are losing monies on revenue at least from what is in the report and I remember last time the city manager gave the report a revenue dollars were down on the last budget but I would like to just share this Mr. Mayor and city council members. I still have and I live in this community and a lot of folks talk to me about the crying and other issues and someone on the council stated that the crime was going down in Durham. If crime was going down in Durham then somebody really needs to call the county commissioners because we just built a 64 million dollar courthouse you don't build a courthouse and you don't expand your jail because crime is going down. I really think that this community really needs to look at bringing on a new police chief yes. I'm tied to the shooting, the killings, the murderings, the stealing the breaking into the houses that's going on in this community there is something terribly, terribly wrong with the part two crimes. I know the police chief brings in the part one crimes and I've told you numerous times you need to ask him about the part two crimes. When you add the part one and you add the part two we're talking about close to 20,000 crimes that are being committed in this community annually, yearly. We have a huge population of young men that are unemployed in this community if you cannot work you're not taking care of your family and you're not taking care of your children if you don't have jobs we have all these projects that is coming to this community and very few and I'm hearing it even from the African American general contractors and contractors Miss Peterson we hear you down here we see you somebody needs to tell the mayor that we are not getting the jobs go across the street to your huge project that is going on today in this community and you're going to see very few young men in this community working on that project we have a police department that has asking for $52 million $52 million that's a lot of money that's a lot of crime money do you know what we can do with $52 million in this community but anyway Mr. Mayor I'm just asking that we really look at this budget and the police chief we need a new one and thank you sir Mr. Mayor members of the council my name is Carl Rist I live at 809 Watt Street and I'm here representing the Durham People's Alliance we are 700 members strong in Durham and growing I have three brief recommendations for you regarding next year's city budget number one the city council should support modest funding for supportive stable safe housing for extremely poor residents as my colleague from the People's Alliance just said we recommend the council fund $750,000 per year to provide supportive homes for residents with special needs this is a smart investment to help end homelessness in Durham and to ensure that all can call Durham home secondly the city council should oppose the proposed $18 annual fee garbage fee because it hurts working families a fair approach would be to increase property taxes by half cent per thousand dollars of value per home this would raise the same amount of money but cost the owner of $100,000 house only $5 per year if your home is valued at less than $360,000 per year you would pay less than $18 per year third as many here tonight have said the city council should oppose the proposed increase in bus fares because it too hurts working families we've spent the past 10 years moving in the right direction toward more free public transit now is not the right time to shift direction public transit doesn't pay for itself any more than highways and roads and bridges do we should be investing in options that support non-drivers as much as we invest in options that support drivers so again I urge the council to oppose the proposed bus fare increase thank you very much Jim O'Reilly yes Jim O'Reilly thank you I'm here to talk about Durham housing for people in poverty along with linear bloom will present the second half of this Durham's five-year community development plan has two priorities one is housing for extremely poor households many of these neighbors suffer disabilities and so require supportive services to maintain a stable decent home a 2009 HUD report found that in Durham 7800 extremely poor households rent deficient dwellings and or dwellings they can't afford in January of this year Durham counted 759 people with no home at all 706 live in temporary shelters and 53 outside housing is the key to health not only of individuals and families and of neighborhoods there are the practical key to the health of communities studies have repeatedly document that the public cost of providing stable decent supportive housing is far lower than responding to the damaging consequences that go along with being homeless for example in Los Angeles they found the average cost of supportive housing is $605 a month whereas the typical cost of a similar homeless person is $2,900 five times greater than their counterparts who are housed for the next five years from all sources the city has so far allocated funding for building up to 45 only 45 homes for very low income renters 16 and rolling hills four and south side and up to 25 for seniors at witted schools that's less than 10 a year for this year the community development budget published in November requested proposals for $250,000 of dedicated housing funds for supportive housing this $250,000 is the only funding now allocated for supportive and very low income housing that amount of leverage might add about five permanent dwellings so what can we do if Durham's very key priority is to end homelessness and especially of veterans and chronically homeless individuals and people with disabilities and families by 2015 and to end homelessness in 10 years and if it's one of the two priorities of our community development budget what can we do in 2013 and 14 in addition to the funds the city has reserved for witted school the city should now allocate from the dedicated housing fund $768,000 to build new supportive housing and housing for people with extremely low incomes according to the community development department budget these funds are and will be available but they have not yet been allocated for this or any other named purpose so please allocate that money for this purpose very low income housing and until Durham does reach its goal of ending homelessness the city and counties five year community development budget should continue to allocate at least $750,000 a year for extremely low income households along with funding housing Durham should preserve existing housing new housing Durham should preserve existing housing that is well managed and affordable to people with incomes below 30% of area median to expedite this development we need the city to put forth and adopt a process with a predictable schedule that will allocate these resources and select projects these funds need to be carried forward from one year to the next so that the city and its partners can plan development of varied sizes this policy will support a range of projects that meet the diverse needs and opportunities of different types of housing in different neighborhoods this strategy will enable high performance accountable non-profit local providers to plan and propose viable developments that will remain affordable for decades to come the county and city should also maintain and build on the coordinating and coordinate resources for health care and supportive services for homeless and extremely low income residents should also be able to provide affordable housing for those with a low income population Durham really needs policies that include and encourage supportive housing in all new large developments particularly those for which local and state agencies are providing financial and infrastructure assistance we have for example just completed this whole big plan for the transit station and the units built and planned there is not a single low income affordable dwelling in that project but we can change that also we need to prioritize the location near transit so that the people who need transit the most and housing the most have access to each other thank you so much it's really good to see that let me ask is it anyone else that is spoken that would like to speak on this the public hearing on the proposed budget is it anyone else let the record reflect that no one else asked to speak I will close the public hearing on the proposed 2013-2014 budget I entertain a motion to accept comments that have been presented second it's been properly moved to second Madam clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes 7-0 now the next item on the agenda was to move to item 20 before you do that Steve was to move to item 8-19 item 25 was the proposed bus fare increases and when I started out early I indicated that if people wanted to make comments on that item doing the public hearing for the budget would be appropriate to do that I want to find out is it anyone else that wants to speak on the proposed bus fare increases the reason I'm asking is as Steve makes his comments I'm going to move to the proposed bus fare increases as a public hearing item open it accept persons that want to speak I understand no one else wants to speak but I'll close the public hearing but the point is it's anyone else that wants to speak on it okay Steve thank you Mr. Mayor I just want to make a few comments on what I heard tonight and because we're going to be thinking about this on Thursday and afterwards and the first thing I want to talk about is the housing what I want to say is that we have the money in the budget and it is allocated and we had a great discussion about that at the council meeting the council meetings last week in which it was you know we asked many questions of our community development people the penny has created a pot of money as it was intended to do for people housing and it's not just a matter to come forward with their projects there are two categories and that I think are particularly relevant one of them is the match gap financing with people homeless people with special needs and the other is the match gap financing for projects with for the low income housing tax credit and this could be mixed income projects and so let me give you some sense of how much that is because I think this is important there's roughly a quarter of a million dollars each year in the match gap financing for housing with persons with special needs specifically for that in fiscal year in the match gap financing for low income housing tax credit fiscal year 15 there's over 840,000 dollars fiscal year 16 there's 1.6 million fiscal year 17 1.7 million fiscal year 18 1.9 million the staff has made it abundantly clear that that money is available for these projects to come forward and so what I would really like to do now because I think it's really important that we kind of reassess this is challenge the housing community to come forward with these projects if you want us to fund these projects there the money is there and it's really time for the housing community to come forward with these projects and then we can help all willing to fight for projects that will help the homeless that can use this money especially mixed income projects which I think we all know are the Holy Grail but we cannot do that building it could be the housing authority and it could be the nonprofit providers but I really feel very strongly that we need to shift this the thinking that we have about this now there is a pot of money here and I know that I will go to bat for those projects and I know that other council members my colleagues will go to bat for these projects if the projects come forward that we can use to leverage private financing and other government financing such as a low income housing tax credits and so I just want to challenge our community and especially our housing providers of which we have this wonderful group whether it be the housing authority or the nonprofit providers to come forward with projects and I do think we have a process you know I am concerned that we only have the October deadline we may need a second deadline every year I know the community development department is thinking about that which they discuss with us so that we would have a second opportunity for people to apply during the year but that's something we can deal with if people will come forward with projects the other thing I want to say is I would just mention a couple other things I really appreciate the fact that we gave the manager a task and he did it which was coming with a balanced budget with no tax increase and what he did was he took all the tools at his disposal both to cut costs and I want to say something people talked about pay and job positions there are 16 job positions in this budget that are going to be eliminated most of them only four of those people those jobs are filled now so there won't be layoffs that will be moved to other jobs but I just want to make clear what the manager did in terms of efficiencies in this budget again cutting a very lean staff to make it even leaner and that makes it harder on our other employees but those were decisions that were made one of the things that he did and I give him the credit but I give our whole staff the credit is to move some of that money into our bus service so about 1.1 million dollars or about half a cent worth of your tax dollars has been moved from other things in this budget into the bus service so most of the way we're filling the hole in the bus service is through general fund money already and I want to commend and I want to thank the manager for that I do think that to 240,000 dollars that we're trying to fill through the day pass we should not be filling that way and my hope is that we'll be filling that through I would much rather fill that through general fund money and I'll get to that in just a second similarly with the solid waste fee there's no question in my mind that it's regressive for homeowners and I also am convinced that it's regressive for renters it does exempt renters in large apartment complexes but not those people in smaller rental units and I will be showing some of my, in fact I've already sent my colleagues today some math that Mark Hellman a very committed Durham citizen did in terms of the regressivity for renters of the fee versus the tax and the other thing I want to say about the solid waste fee is this interestingly it's also in many ways not helpful for those people at the top end of the income spectrum and here's why if you have an $18 solid waste fee and you're an itemizer you itemize taxes which the most tax about 30% of American taxpayers itemize and of those 30% they're obviously at the higher end of the tax range those people can't deduct that from their taxes they can't deduct that $18 fee from their taxes but if you are an itemizer and you have are paying the property tax instead you can deduct that from your taxes so if you're in the 35% tax bracket you can deduct $6.30 of your $18 fee from your taxes so not only is it regressive and does it hurt people at the lower end of the income spectrum more but it also I think in the long run financially is not advantageous it's disadvantageous to people at the higher end of the income spectrum so if you own one of those houses those over $360,000 houses in which you might have a break even point between the tax and the fee but that's not true anymore if you count the deductibility of the property tax versus the non-deductibility of the fee all of a sudden the value of the house that you would have to have goes even much higher than that so not only is it regressive but it hurts people even at the higher end of the income spectrum so I really hope my colleagues will consider that as we go forward and of course we have the LRB Creek Trail on the table and I think Diane did a great job of describing the information that we need to get and I am hopeful that if we need to fund that this year to be able to get the additional money that we will make that decision and we will find out about the timetable on that on Thursday and I know the staff is going to give us some great guidance on that and then I also wanted to say something about employee pay we wanted to raise our employee pay higher we wanted 3% that was our original guideline and the manager came in with a very responsible decision to raise it 2% because that's what we could bear but I am very hopeful that we can do more than that and I would like to at least be able to give something like a mid-year bonus if we can't raise the base pay more than the 2% budgeted. I think our employees deserve it and I would like to be able to do it and then finally I want to say something about how to fund it. It would not be responsible of me to advocate against a solid waste fee increase and a bus fare increase without talking about how to pay for it and the way we need to pay for it is property taxes. No one wants a property tax increase but for less than a penny we could cover the day fare pass increase, we could cover the solid waste fee we could fund the Ellaby Creek additional money if it does become clear that it is necessary and we could give our employees another small bump. We can do all that for less than a penny. Durham is in its golden age that's what we're in now. People want to come here and one of the reasons they want to come here is that we invest we're going to invest publicly we have got to be able to pay for it and people have got to be willing to pay for it to pay for the services that we need. We don't want to be the highest tax people around but we want to be able to tax it so that we can build the infrastructure that we need. We want our streets paid and we want them well paved. We want trails, we want good parks, we want ball fields these are amenities that people want. We want a really good bus system and if we want these things then we need to invest in them and I think we can make the case because I think that's what's going to make us a great city and I think it's at times when you are in a time of prosperity which Durham is relative to the rest of the country and will continue to be when you're in a time of prosperity and when you're in that golden age that's when you invest because we will have the money to invest. Let's invest let's do the kind of infrastructure creation that we want. We're invested in our affordable housing. We're ready to do it. Okay let's build it and so like I say for less than a penny we can do all the things that I think we want to do in this budget without having to raise the fees that are aggressive. I know this is not an opinion shared by all my colleagues and I know that there will be differences on these various items but I just think that we have a real opportunity here and that we ought to think about we ought to think about the big picture about our budget and try to fund it in a way that's progressive. Thank you. Thanks Steve. That's a very healthy commentary and I'm sure when we get into discussions Thursday we'll have a few more. The only comment I would make at this time is I know we don't want to be the highest tax city around and I think one of the reasons that we are where we are is because some of the other cities do not serve as not through their property tax but through these fees and I just think we need to look at where we are relative to what other cities are doing and make it a judgment. Do we want to continue down the path that we're doing providing everything out of property taxes or do we want to provide it out of some of these fees which we find some of the other cities are doing but we have that discussion Thursday if you try to get there. Having said that the public hearing has been closed with the comments. I am going I know people waiting here and trying to move it along so we can get it out. I'm going to open the proposed bus fare entries which is item 25 to conduct a public hearing to receive comments on the proposed bus fare increases. I'm going to open the public hearing and I'm going to ask is there anyone that wants to speak on this particular item. I recognize Victoria Peterson. Is there anyone else who wants to speak? I don't want to go through that. If Victoria wants to speak is anyone else who wants to speak? If not, Victoria you have three minutes. Mr. Mayor, last year a lot of folks here in the community who were volunteering and persons who were being paid we were out in the community on registering persons to vote and one of the places that we worked was over at the bus area and it was shocking to me and I would just like to make some suggestions on how I think the city could actually generate some income. That whole second floor is empty. It's built up but there's I believe the police department or there may be a private officers that go up there and walk around but that whole upstairs is empty. We have persons who are outside who vendor why not allow them to come inside rent a space very reasonable and start generating some income off the upstairs off the upstairs in the bus station because there's nothing going on upstairs and you have that huge space up there. Also I'm not sure if the Greyhound or the Bull City bus that sort of sits on the outside. I'm not sure if they pay rent or not, if they don't they should. We have the Greyhound that goes in there we have the Mega and they come there what two and three times a day with all their clients bring them inside rent space to them to me these are ways of generating income where we may not have to raise fees at all Mr. Mayor. Also I agree with the young man some of us stood out there in that hot sun how that thing is built it's not long enough to even deal with the sun even if you sat out there on a nice day that sun just cooks you. So I heard the gentleman complaining about the rain you get wet but you also get baked also when the sun is high and bright. But thank you Mr. Mayor. Anyone else who wants to speak on this item has been the fair increases for public transportation. I'd like to reflect on no one else as to speak I'm going to close the public hearing with understanding that the comments made relative to fair increases during the budget public hearing will be folded into the public hearing we're just closing it on bus fares and when the council meets Thursday as we go through this discussion the manager can have the staff to present the bus fares for presentation that they were going to do this evening. That being the case we're going to move open Madam Clerk I entertain a motion to close the public hearing. It's been a property to move in second. Madam Clerk will you open the vote. It passes seven. Thank you. Now we're going to move back to the item 2019 which is the public hearing on the proposed economic development incentive agreement between GE Aviation and the City of Durham outside the community development area and within the city limits. With staff person Kevin Dick Directive Office of Economic Workforce Development. Thank you Mr. Mayor and good evening Mr. Mayor City Council members of staff and Durham holders I'm Kevin Dick with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and I am appreciative of the opportunity this evening to present a proposed economic development incentive agreement that would be executed between the City of Durham and GE Aviation. I also want to take a moment to recognize my colleagues from the Durham Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Casey Steinbacher Vice President for Economic Development Ted Connor certainly recognized their recent recognition and award from the World Chambers Federation. Congratulations again for that. I also want to take the time to introduce representatives from GE Aviation Mr. Mike Wagner and Eric Madison seated in the front row here representing GE this evening and I'd like to point out that my presentation this evening will consist of a short video about GE Aviation and then a few informational slides that will just provide a little bit of clarity about the proposed incentive agreement. I'm just throwing them around whenever I could. I always wondered how everything worked. How did an airplane get in the air? To design and create the next greatest thing takes a lot of imagination and a lot of courage. I always wanted to be one of those guys that had that kind of responsibility and that kind of technical expertise. In aviation we build jet engines. We lift people up off the ground to 35,000 feet in the air. These engines are built by hand with very precise assembly techniques. I definitely feel responsible to these customers. You can't pull over on a side of the road and see what's going on underneath the hood. These have to be perfect every time. We make jet engines and I think the inner nerd in me is really excited about that. When you build one up and wrap it up in plastic and out the door it goes and you know that it's out there somewhere. This machine you've made is serving an even bigger purpose. GNX is the latest and greatest. It's edge of technology. It's going to fly people around the world safely and better than it's ever done before. We are building engines that are literally making the world smaller. We built this engine up but never get to experience its glory. See and smell and touch your life's work. I would love to see this thing fly. It's a dream honestly. Here it is today. We're going to go out and see it. I think a lot of people when they look at a jet engine they see a big hunk of metal. But when I look at it I see Seth, Mark, Corrine and Tom and people like that work on engines every day. Just keep going in. A few feet right there. That's where my part is. People say there's no such thing as perfect. They don't make jet engines. They come out here and actually see my baby strap to the bottom of somebody else's and those creative energies coming together to make such an awesome product is just a real treat. To see that thing on an airplane and flying around. If you work at GE Aviation it doesn't get any better. We built jet engines. And now for the brief presentation. GE is a global leader in jet engine and aircraft system production. The company produces engines and parts for the airline industry. They have a major manufacturing presence here in Durham off Miami Boulevard in an area adjacent to the research triangle park. They are considering a significant investment across North Carolina in new technology. This technology would lead to increased fuel efficiency in jet engine aircraft and better fuel efficiency means increased economic and environmental benefits. The local investments they're planning combined with additional investments in advanced manufacturing technologies would eventually amount to more than $200 million in North Carolina operations by the end of 2017. 29 million would be invested in the Durham facility over the next five years. This project will create 50 jobs within three years at average wages of $60,000 per year plus benefits. And statewide the project is expected to create a total of 250 additional jobs including those in Durham by 2017. The capital improvements that are planned, the $29 million investment is expected to yield $157,000 in new tax value over a five year period. We are proposing an incentive payment of $400,000 to be paid out over five years between fiscal years 16 and 20 which would yield a net of 157,000 and net tax revenues to the city. This dollar amount is part of a statewide incentive package that has the involvement of not only the North Carolina Department of Commerce but four other municipalities. And I do want to point out particularly in light of many of the comments tonight that no funds would be paid out until the thresholds are met. In other words the capital investment thresholds and the job creation thresholds. These benchmarks must be met and they must be verified by staff. GHE has indicated to the state and to us locally that they would be considering moving this manufacturing technology into green field areas in the Midwestern United States if the incentive package from North Carolina were not offered to them. And the Durham package is part of that statewide package. As I stated the company must provide the city with documentation to improve expenditures on the aforementioned capital investment amounts. The company must complete and return the workforce development plan that would utilize the Durham Job Lint Career Center system as a source of recruitment. This is an opportunity or this would be a vehicle by which we provide Durham residents opportunities to recruit for to be recruited for the 50 new positions. I also want to point out that with the manufacturing technology that would be produced in North Carolina it provides the opportunity for further growth with the Durham assembly plant that's off Miami Boulevard. So not only with the 50 jobs be created there would also be other opportunities for Durham residents in the future as more manufacturing technology is produced in North Carolina and then assembled at the Durham plant. To further the process of documentation collection the company must provide to the city a certified copy of the company's employment insurance filings with the North Carolina Department of Commerce Division of Employment Security. This proves job creation. And so in summary we believe this project will provide the opportunity to manufacture cutting edge technology in Durham provide 50 new jobs at competitive wages with the opportunities to produce more perhaps if technology continues to be robust. The opportunities for Durham talent to find employment and for Durham businesses to compete for contracts related to the capital investment and expansion. And finally significant tax new tax revenues to the city. I'm free for questions at this time if there are any. Thank you. Again it's a public hearing item. I would ask first of the comments or questions by members of the council on this item. If not as anyone in this public that would like to speak on this item. Recognize whoever wants to speak if you can come up and how many speakers do we have. Well there's two chamber folks. Okay. I'm trying to figure out the time that's why I'm asking. So is anyone else who wants to speak we've got three people without speaking. In that case let's try four minutes each and see where we go. I'm geared for two, three's fine. Good evening members of the Durham City Council and the Durham City staff. I'd like to recognize and thank Mike Wagner and Eric Madison GE Aviation Managers for joining us tonight and sitting through our interesting meeting. It needs to be said that manufacturing is not dead in Durham. It has grown significantly in the past 10 years as we have seen expansions at Merck at Cree at EW North Carolina and now again hopefully GE Aviation. It would surprise a lot of folks here in Durham to know that the largest growth in Durham's gross domestic product or GDP over the last 10 years has been in manufacturing which has increased 170%. The really exciting part of this number is that the leading edge technologies have really helped fuel this growth in our GDP. Just looking back a little bit in a little view in history. In 1993 Durham brought its aviation division to a Durham facility which had been vacant for several years. It's a mammoth facility that had been vacant and at that point began assembling the CF6 engine. Over time GE has added new engines for assembly such as the newer and much larger GE90 and new Gen X engine that powers the Boeing Dreamliner. GE's Durham plan is the forefront or I should say is at the forefront of manufacturing processes delivered and developed by GE Aviation. Currently when new engines are developed assembly generally takes place here in Durham. The Gen X engine is currently the cutting edge smart and fuel efficient engine of the time and leads the industry. But GE is already working on a new engine for the future known as the leading edge aviation that's a tough one or LEAP engine. This engine really represents the next generation of smart fuel efficient engines in the world which we hope will be assembled when it's ready in Durham. Today GE employs 320 assembly workers, 35 staff members and more than 50 contractors as a team to assemble the best jet aircraft engines in the industry. It was brought to my attention recently that during its history here in Durham GE Aviation has never laid off one of its workers even during some lean times. I should also add and as Kevin noted that GE Aviation will be investing up to 30 million dollars which will be generating some sufficiently or some substantial new tax revenue for Durham. What we ask the Durham City Council tonight is to approve the incentive for GE Aviation tonight in order to push this project forward and hopefully it will land in Durham. Thank you. Mayor, members of council, thank you so much for the opportunity to address you. On behalf of the greater Durham Chamber of Commerce I'm Casey Steinbacher president and CEO and you heard Ted a few minutes ago talk about the production and activities that go on actually in the GE facility. But I think equally as important as you get to know this company is that there are much more than just engines to get the opportunity to really get to know the people that work there. When GE actually started that new plan it organized the production process within that assembly facility around self directed work teams composed of 15 team members. Other than the work teams there's obviously some administrative staff that work there but everyone actually belongs to a team and the work team really addresses the whole comprehensive process of the assembly of the engine which includes resource issues, supplier issues, vendor issues, engineering challenges computer systems, disciplines and rewards. The facility really is one of those few that you get a chance to see that are totally self managed and everyone is treated as equal at the facility. It really allows the assembly team members future opportunities to learn the process within the facility and increase their personal skill sets and expand their future career opportunities within the company. I think you saw evidence of that earlier in the video. You also heard Ted mentioned just a minute ago that they've seen significant growth steady significant growth over the last several years during a time when the aviation industry has not necessarily seen that kind of growth and they have not in their tenure since 1993 when they began that operation here ever as Ted mentioned saw a layoff at that facility. What I really wanted to emphasize with you guys tonight was some other things that they do there that I don't think most people are aware of and that specifically recently I had the opportunity to attend a meeting that GE held with some local officials and some education leaders in the region. Recently their local, Durham's local at this facility women's leadership group within the plant which they strongly encourage women's and diversity within the plant. They had been working with GE officials. They went to actually the leadership of GE and suggested to them that they thought that there was an opportunity for GE to get more involved in creating aviation related opportunities within the Durham Public School systems and the community colleges in the region. And so GE administration worked with the local leadership group to put together a presentation with the Durham Public Schools area community college and quite frankly all the way up to the North Carolina education department in which they talked about the opportunity for the creation in the area of avionics, aeronautics academies within the Durham Public Schools systems. They brought in some experts that have been doing this in about 10 high school systems across the United States and talked about the various ways that Durham Public Schools in our community could actually invest in that and as part of that presentation we had the opportunity to hear how they would engage students directly at the facility to meet Vice Chair's Mayor Pro Temps position here about internships and talked significantly about how the aeronautic academies across the United States that were successful were actually to engage students in those internships in their communities. And as you can see here and we believe there's really no more exciting field to be engaged in as a young student. There's certainly no more better opportunity to be involved in cutting edge technology and as you can see also tonight there's really not many better paying fields than the aviation industry so we're really excited to be working with them on that behalf. We think it's pretty obvious that this expansion will yield new manufacturing assembly jobs, net tax revenue for the city and ensure that GE aviation stay here and continue to grow in Durham. We would strongly urge you to help us send that message back to GE. Thank you very much. Victoria Peterson Mr. Mayor, when I first came to North Carolina it was in the late 70's and before I came probably very few people know this but I have training, I have experience in flying. I was flying the Cessna as well as the Beechcraft. I don't know if that's still on the market but the Beechcraft is a very very nice plane. I was very disappointed because I could not continue on with my flying to get my flying license. I had the flying license in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania a young person could have training. There is a need and it would really be nice to have our young people to get involved really with this industry and actually years ago when I came to Durham there was actually an African American flying club that we would go out towards Roxboro. I don't think they're still around but if any of you know Mr. Stevens, the insurance gentleman, he was one of the gentlemen that was in that flying club. So we had Durham does have some of the old timers who are flyers. But I think it would be good to have something like this young men and women, Durham Tech, North Carolina Central, even some of these kids that might have dropped out of school could get back in the school if they could see something new. Flying is awesome to be in that sky. It's like being with God. I mean very close on a beautiful clear day with the clouds and the sky. It's just a beautiful feeling and I would really love to see young people in this community really have that opportunity to fly. You know there's a song on that. But I do I would like to say this though. I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. I would like to see Mr. Mayer to make sure that the African American community, our young men, and I'm hoping that this company has been here for a few years. But I'm hoping that they are reaching out to young African American men and women in this community to make sure that they get some skills. I'm hoping that maybe Kevin to try to see if there could be a job training program added in the future where some of our young folks could get trained and get certified.  Because if you get certified then that means you may want to stay with that company five or six years and move on and work with another company. But when that certification does not happen, they're sort of there. But I say good luck to this company and I wish I could fly. And thank you Mr. Mayer. You're welcome. No I didn't. Thank you. That concludes persons that have signed up to speak on the public hearing item. Anyone else not that direct reflect, no one else has to speak. Close to public hearing as a matter of fact for council. The proper movement second. Recognize council and market. I'm just going to take a mo