Welcome to Chapel Fills Happen Happen Hills February 11, 2026 work session.

We are pleased to have you join us.

Tonight is the first meeting for our new town attorney, Nate.

So welcome, Nick, and thank you for joining us.

We are very excited you are here, and apparently you are also tax support for council members.

You do it all.

Tonight we have three items on our agenda for discussion.

Oh, and of course, I would be remiss if I did not say happy black mystery month.

We are going to honor the occasion officially and well in our regular business meeting, but of course, for our work session, an advanced celebratory month.

Tonight we have three items on our agenda for discussion.

A first, council will receive updates on the fiscal year 2025 audit report and the 2026 financials.

Second, we'll be discussing our land use management ordinance or LUMORE.

And third, we will discuss a report on town manager evaluation practices.

Before we get started, we want to remind our audience that the format of a work session is different than that of our business meetings.

Work sessions are an opportunity for the council to dive more deeply into specific topics.

And these meetings are more conversational and less formal.

We do not vote during work sessions, and the topics will come back to a formal business meeting if they need a vote.

Finally, we value public input, and we do want to hear from you on these topics.

Another way to give us your input is by emailing Mayor and Council at Town of Chapel Hills platform.

Okay.

Up next, item number one is our fiscal year 2025 audit results and our fiscal year 2026 financial update.

Okay.

Good evening, ma'am.

Council.

My name's Amy Owens.

I'm the director of business management.

Uh first let me apologize.

I am under the weather.

Sorry, I'm gonna try very hard to make it through the presentation.

That happy relevance.

But I am also here this evening with our town's external auditors.

I have Chad Jackson from Malden Jenkins to present on the fiscal year 25 comprehensive annual financial report results.

So under North Carolina Administrative Code, a municipality's auditor must present the audit and financial statements to the governing body in an official meeting in open session within 45 days after submitting the audit report to the local government commission.

The town's audited financial statements were submitted on January 15, 2026, and so tonight's presentation meets this requirement.

I will just briefly note that we are a little bit later timeline-wise than we usually are.

Um and a big part of that uh twofold.

One was because of the federal shutdown.

Uh compliance supplements were late to being issued, and so that delayed the audit.

Um, and then the second piece to that was uh WASA was delayed because of the shutdown in issuing their report, and because they are presented in our annual financial report.

Uh we could not complete our report until their report was issued.

So that's why you're seeing us in February instead of in December.

So after Chad presents, uh I will share some additional information with council.

But now I will turn the presentation over to Chad.

Good evening, my name is Chad Jackson.

Um Jenkins, the town's auditors.

And uh tonight I'm gonna be going through uh the results for the 2025 audit.

I'll go over our engagement team, results, and then some financial ratios and trends, and then open up for questions if you have any.

This first slide is our engagement team.

Um the manager for the engagement, and I manage the day-to-day um over the course of months that we do the audit.

Tim Lyons, the engagement partner, and then we have a separate director review at the end.

That's our quality control that doesn't usually do a lot of the groundwork testing, and he just comes in to make sure that everything standard, everything's good.

That's Brian Nicholson.

Uh the next slide.

Um our audit was performed in accordance with generally accepted audit standards and government auditing standards.

Um our objective is to provide reasonable, not absolute assurance that basic financial statements are free for material misstatements.

Uh we did not audit the financial statements of the Orange Water and Sewer Authority.

Um, as you said, that's that's what's the hold up with the federal compliance and uh WASA.

And the basic financial statements are the responsibility of towns management.

For our report, we issued an unmodified or clean opinion for on the basic financial statements.

This is the highest and best opinion that you can get.

On the next slide, the significant accounting policies.

These are described on page 41 of the ACFER, and these are just the summary of significant accounting policies.

Policies used by the town are in accordance with generally accepted accounting policy principles and similar government organizations in the state of South Carolina, North Carolina.

The town is not involved in any controversial or emerging issues for which guidance is not available.

This year the town was required to implement two different governmental accounting standards boards statements.

First one was 101, which is compensated absences, and the second one is 102, certain risk disclosures.

Neither of these had any material effects with the town.

For management judgment and accounting estimates, management estimates used in preparation of financial statements that deemed to be reasonable.

The audit is uh this is an invasive and complex process that goes over the course of several months, pretty much half a year.

And we received full cooperation from the town's management and staff.

Amy's team is very prepared, has quick turnarounds, and overall very easy to work with.

So we just want to point that out.

For audit adjustments, we did not have any past audit adjustments for fiscal year 25.

There were no significant issues discussed with management related to business conditions, plans, or strategies that may have affected the risk and material misstatements of the financial statements.

And we also like to point out that uh Maldon and Jenkins is independent with regard to the town, and uh there's no management advisory services that we perform for the town as well that would impair our independence.

On the next slide, uh, this is talking about the federal and state single audits, the compliance audits that we do.

The town is reporting approximately 20.4 million in federal funding and 6.9 million in state funding.

We did three state uh three single audits for fiscal year 25.

This was the uh federal transit cluster, the North Carolina Department of Transportation state maintenance assistant for urban and small urban areas, which we call SNAP, and uh the NCDQ Volkswagen mitigation grant.

I do want to point out during that that uh there's a lot of uh me saying that there's not this or not that there was no findings, there was no FPIC use or financial performance indicators of concern, so there wasn't any management letter comments.

This was a very clean audit, and uh everything ran very smooth.

So I just want to point that out as well.

Um this next slide is the town's general fund.

This is just gives you a visual representation of the last five fiscal years for the general fund performance.

As you can see, it is very consistent and it steadily increases every single year, and this really just shows uh good budgetary controls.

There's not a lot of fluctuations, things that we don't like to see.

I mean, this is consistent all throughout, so that's great to see.

Uh, this next one just shows the fund balance by category and the town's general fund.

The biggest difference here is that there was less assigned this year, and that portion went to uh unassigned, and then uh with the increase in fund balance, that also goes to the unsigned.

Um that's all that this one is showing.

Uh, this next one is property taxes throughout the last five years.

As you can see in 2025, there was a 2.3 million increase, and uh the green line there is the tax rate kind of correlating with that.

Uh next slide is the gas.

I spoke to I spoke about the new GASB statements that were implemented this year, but in the next year, there will be two more that we uh implement, and these will be a little bit more uh noticeable in the next years.

The first one is 103, which is financial reporting model improvements, and this will affect the management discussion and analysis, presentation of budgetary comparison schedules, and the statement of revenues and expenses and changes in that position inside the town statements.

The other one is uh disclosures of certain capital assets, and this will just clarify information that is required to be disclosed in the capital asset book note and roll forward.

Like I said, this was this is a short one because there was not any significant issues at all.

Small issues really either.

Um but this slider here just lets you know that Marnet Jenkins also offers free CPE for anybody in the town.

So if you want to uh be a part of that and be on the email list, just let me know if you can get in touch with us, and then we'll uh we'll put the on that list.

And that's all I have for tonight.

If you got any questions, let us know.

If not, then maybe some message issues next.

Um so in the first in the first paragraph, it looks to me like what you're doing is we're sort of changing the yardstick.

Is that sort of a in the financial reporting modeling improvements or this new standard?

Oh, the new standard.

I read that is sort of a new yardstick, like when you as well.

It's just changing how it's being presented.

That's really mostly what the changes are, so they'll just look different.

It's not really changing the uh actual.

Right.

So if it's not gonna be something that when we look at last year's compared to next year's or this year's, no, we're gonna go, wow, how did that change happen?

Okay.

Okay.

Um I was wondering kind of for the second paragraph, the new standard would require the town to separately disclose historical cost and accumulated depreciation.

And I was kind of wondering what the purpose of that was.

It just breaks it out into more information.

Um, they they developed this really because we had those um the right-to-use assets, like the subscriptions and leases that were added, and those that was GASB 87 and 96.

And as those came, there was a lot of different disclosure differences in the capital asset footnote.

And this is more kind of reshaping it so everything's more standardized across the board, and so it'll it'll show those historical costs and accumulated depreciation, it'll it'll look a little different, but the information once again is still the same.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

So I am here tonight to share some additional information on the fiscal year 25 financial statement results, and to provide a brief update on what revenues and expenditures look like for the first half of fiscal year 26.

One of council strategic focus areas is organizational fiscal sustainability, strong financial management, and conservative budgeting practices support the strategy.

My presentation is about 13 slides and should last about 10 minutes.

No action is needed from council this evening.

So we'll start with the fiscal year 25 audit results.

The town is committed to a very high standard of financial health.

This is demonstrated in the following ways.

Our external auditors perform an annual audit, as you just heard from Chad.

We received an unqualified, unmodified opinion, which basically means the clean bill of health on the fiscal year 25 statements.

Each year, the town has been awarded the certificate of achievements of financial reporting, and the distinguished budget presentation award from the governmental finance officers association, or on year 34 of the budget award and 40 for the financial statement reward.

The town also continues to maintain the highest possible bond rating of triple A.

This rating helps keep the town's cost of borrowing to a minimum.

So the bottom line for the end of fiscal year 25 for the general fund is that we have about three million dollars that is available to procreate from excess fund balance.

So mid-fiscal year 25, we found ourselves in a bit of an unusual set of circumstances because sales tax numbers were plummeting, and we were experiencing less salary savings than we were anticipating.

We immediately began having conversations with our departments about holding off our major expenditures.

We made the decided decision to intentionally hold off on hiring fund projects so that we could make sure that we would fall out at the end of the year to the good.

Things started turning around after the budget was already adopted.

Revenues wound up being not quite as bad as we predicted they would, especially in SalesTex, which was definitely still down, but not quite as down as we had originally anticipated, and inspection permits was much higher than we had projected.

And lack salary savings were much higher than we had projected.

But most importantly, the impacts of these decisions and discussions that we had and year end results don't influence the budget discussions from last year's budget preparation.

We are looking at one-time funds here that are available to allocate versus the ongoing revenue needs that we have to continue funding our operations.

The local government commission and rating agencies prefer to see a financially sustainable approach that results in some excess fund balance at the end of the year for the community to use rather than for the community to use to balance their budget.

Ideally, we'd end the year with about one to two million dollars per year for one-time needs.

So adequate fund balance in the general fund is important for a number of reasons.

First, to provide sufficient flexibility to meet future obligations, to enhance the financial position of the town and to maintain the highest credit and bond ratings, to plan for contingencies for unforeseen revenue volatility and expenditures in the event of an emergency, and to ensure that we have adequate cash flows.

Here's some additional calculations tied to the general funds fund balance as of June 30th.

We've put the detailed calculations in the packet that the important takeaways to share this evening are that the general fund total fund balance was up at June 30th by 2.65 million dollars.

The amount of unassigned fund balance that's available is 24.9 million and sits at 29% as of June 30th.

Our fund balance policy notes that any amount over 22% is available for appropriation for one-time use.

And so the calculation shows that we have about six million dollars of excess fund balance.

But once you remove the amounts that we've already accounted for, so that would include our carry forward, and what that means is any contracts or PO obligations that we had at the end of 25 that were not complete, carry into 26, and so those amounts have to be accounted for.

So each year our budget gets bigger, meaning that when we do that calculation to see how much is available, the denominator of that equation gets bigger each year.

And particularly for fiscal year 25, our expenditures were a little bit lower than usual because we had a significant amount of personnel savings, and we had a pretty significant amount of money that we held for projects that we carried into this year because we were intentionally holding some of those projects.

So we've heard from council at your retreat that financial sustainability is one of your goals, and one critical aspect of maintaining that goal is having a healthy fund balance.

We believe that staying at the 22% unassigned fund balance target ensures that we remain financially sustainable.

So our recommendation would be to appropriate the available $3 million in excess fund balance.

So we've determined that the following allocation could meet current funding needs that we have one-time use monies for.

This is one way that we could allocate the $3 million.

So here we have proposed the existing green track MOU that we have with Orange County, that's $100,000.

A FEMA administrative support contract for help to manage tropical storm chantal expenditures, street maintenance equipment that we need to purchase to help vacuum and clean the town's storm drains.

That's for $400,000.

Some downtown funding needs, this could include potential collaboration with UNC on the activation of lot two, some holiday light replacement that's needed, substation for our PD downtown, security cameras, and a myriad of other needs that we have in our downtown area.

Demolition of the current fire station for building to ready the site for the new construction.

And then an infusion of money to the debt fund to help ensure that we're able to stay on track for our bond referendum issuance schedule.

So turning our attention to the town's other governmental funds.

The debt fund added 1.42 million in fund balance at the end of fiscal year 25.

This was a planned addition to fund balance to help build up the capacity for the future debt service tied to the 2024 bond referendum.

The Capital Project Ordnance Fund, this is the fund that where we maintain all of our longer term capital projects and all of our bond issuances.

Saw a planned use of $352,000 in fund balance.

This change was the result of the issuance of the $10.63 million of bonds that we issued in 2025, offset by planned capital expenditures for projects that were covered under that referendum and previous bond issuances.

The American Rescue Plan Fund had no change in fund balance.

This fund represents the $10.6 million, $68 million in federal revenue that we received to help offset the impacts of the pandemic.

As of June 30th, we have about 1.7 million dollars remaining to spend.

And because of the reimbursement, the timing of a reimbursement we received, it shows we had to defer the revenue, and that just means that there was a decrease in fund balance.

So that's really just a timing of when we're reporting.

So turning our attention to our enterprise funds, we have four enterprise funds, and these are funds that charge a fee for the services that we provide with the intent that the fee covers the cost of providing those services.

So overall, fiscal year 25 year results were very positive for the town's enterprise funds.

The transit fund added $7.2 million in fund balance at the end of fiscal year 25.

And this is because we received about an $8 million grant that was reimbursement for expenditures that we've already incurred for the North South Bus Rapid Transit project, and it was a way to help cash flow that project.

So we've been reimbursed and now we have some monies that we can use to continue and further the project.

The parking fund added 1.6 million dollars in fund balance, and this was largely due to UNC's contribution towards their use of the spaces in the DAC.

This was a one-time contribution, and these funds will be used to help offset death service for fiscal year 26.

The housing fund saw a small reduction in fund balance of $13,000, and that was just to help pay for some maintenance needed on our facilities.

That was a planned use for some stormwater needs.

Okay, so now we're going to quickly take a look at how things looked as of the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 26 compared to budget and compared to the same time last year.

We'll start with revenues.

So property taxes were up about $7.1 million as a result of the revaluation and the higher tax base.

So we have not received a January revenues yet.

So but based on what we're looking at, we do believe that we are on target to meet our budgets.

Sales taxes have a three-month lag between when we collect and when we actually receive the funds, so when they're collected and when we receive the funds.

Revenues are up from last year's and collections for the first three months were strong, which is great news, but we know that it's still too early to really know what that means for year end.

So hopefully over the next couple months, we'll get some better data and we'll be able to build in some good projections for next year's budget.

Occupancy taxes make up the majority of the other tax category.

Those are down by 12,000.

Those revenues lag a month behind, so we have five months of data, but we still have plenty of time to make those revenues up, and we're not concerned about meeting budget in that area.

Intergovernmental revenues include funds we received from federal, state, and local sources.

These revenues were a little lower in fiscal year 26 because the first quarter of utility franchise tax was slightly less than in last year.

Charges for services we provide are down for the first half of 26.

That's really largely due to planning revenues being down by about 694,000.

And this revenue source is very, it just varies depending on what projects happen to be in queue for that year.

Um and this off decrease was a little bit offset by increases that we're seeing in some parks, public works, and public safety fees.

And licenses and permits include permit revenues from inspections, fire planning, public works, and also vehicle licenses.

During the first half of 26, inspection revenues were up by about 411,000, which is great.

But that also that revenue source varies just depending on where the projects fall in the queue.

Other revenues are not recurring, and therefore it's very difficult to compare those from one year to the next.

As we take a look at expenditures, um, as of the first half of the year, we would expect to have spent about 50% of the budget, although not all expenditures fall evenly throughout the year.

Our actual is about 48.6%.

One of the big areas that contribute to the amount that we save each year is personnel savings.

We rely on those personnel savings to help offset the amount of fund balance that we budget, although we did make a reduction to our fund balance appropriation in the fiscal year 26 budget.

At the end of the first half of 26, we've spent 47.1% of the personnel budget.

If we project that out through the rest of the year, we'd see about $2 million in personnel savings.

Departments are hard at work attempting to fill their vacancies, but based on what the labor market is doing, it's proving a little bit challenging in certain areas.

At the end of the first half of 26, the town spent 58.7% of our operating budget, and this is very comparable to where we were last year at this time, which was 57%.

So as noted earlier, there's no decision required tonight.

We wanted to introduce the topic of excess fund balance, but there's no expectation that we dive into any of this this evening.

We are going to return to council at one of the business meetings in March to more thoroughly discuss excess fund balance appropriation and the recommendation.

We'll begin budget discussions at the March 18th work session, and that's all we have for you this evening.

So now we'll open it up for some questions.

Amy going back to the um suggested spending for the fund balance, you know, a million dollars for the fire station demolition.

Is that are things more expensive there?

Is that just something we can budgeted work before?

Yeah, uh project costs are up.

That seems to be the norm nowadays.

So right now the immediate need is to have about 300,000, and that's for the um the training facility.

But over the course of the project, they're going to need about a million dollars.

Um, and they've looked at various models.

Um they're working with a designer now to figure out where we can look to have experience some savings, but yeah, we're really looking at a about a million, a little over a million dollars more than what we had projected.

And so this was one of the areas that we thought we could easily extrapolate from the cost of the project.

Thank you.

Um this is so weird.

My dad's nice to play just give it.

Sorry, I was gonna do it like my dad used to do when he played Vienna.

Um, thank you both for these presentations.

One thing, Amy, that I've heard you say repeatedly was personnel savings, and that troubles me that we are relying on not filling our positions.

Um that's something I'm gonna be questioning more.

But it you voiced that at least three times.

Um then um demolishing the training center.

I'm curious about the incurred costs that are going to happen as a result of that.

So that'll be a question that I'll want us to dive into.

Um I correct, do we already have plans for that 1.7 million dollars for the American Rescue Plan that's existing?

Oh, yeah, that all those funds were obligated.

We were required to have them obligated by December 31st, 2024, and all the funds have to be expended by December 31st, 2026.

So that was just a quick update so you kind of got a sense of what monies were remaining.

Okay.

And could you go back to the downtown funding needs?

Well, you don't have to tonight.

I'd like more details.

So as you're sharing with us, it's hard to capture what you've said if it's not already written down.

Yeah, that's it.

Thank you.

We can bring more information on each of these areas when we return.

But I remember seeing the five-year budget projections, and we had some needs that we know already that we need to meet, and I think these would be additional stuff we could get done with this money.

I'm wondering, what about applying it to the needs that we already know we have?

Um can you translate, was it 1.2 cents, 1.2 million was one cent of tax for us?

Yeah, last year it was one 1.3 approximately.

So is it fair to ask the question that there's a choice to make of applying this three million to these projects or applying this three million to already identified needs that we wouldn't have to again raise money for in the future?

Yeah, and that was on um my original list here.

Um, and then we found out we had the fire station for demolition because uh it was a million dollars allocated to those one-time needs.

I mean, ultimately what we've identified here are things, uh a couple of them are commitments that we already have in place, that we don't have the identified funding for one of them, the infusion of money for the debt fund.

We just know we're gonna have some shortfalls for the parking fund, and so this was just a way to make sure that we don't have to delay any projects in the debt fund.

So um, I mean, I think we can use it for either or, but these were needs that we thought were existing right now that we don't have dedicated funding for, and so this seemed to be the priorities that we've thought were the best recommendation, but we can we can always use additional funding for those um key priority areas, noting that this is just one-time money and doesn't help with the longer term need.

Thank you.

Um just two questions from me.

One, when I see that infusion of dollars to the debt fund to stay on schedule, is our projected debt repayment counting on excess fund balance to meet the repayment schedule.

Uh that's a little tricky.

Uh revenues are just not quite where we would like them to be in the parking fund right now.

So no, that was not the basis of our original calculations, but ultimately the parking fund is not self-sustaining yet and able to pay back the debt on its own.

So the debt fund is ultimately responsible for helping to cover any shortfalls.

Got it.

So it's moving from two questions to the third, sorry.

Um, could we also see proposals for additional enterprise revenue generation towards parking just as an option to consider, you know?

I think I think we have different, I think if we stop paying two hours earlier for street parking than for deck parking, for example, we can project if that would matter if we were to raise the rates by 25 cents or something, it would just obviously debt be payment uh pretty critical and can become very expensive if you're not gonna get on the schedule.

You think you're supposed to do it on it.

Um my other question was uh if we could just get information on our historical excess fund balance appropriation amounts, and so we could just look at because I I it was noteworthy in the auditors' report that our fund balance has stayed extremely stable for the last five years, which is great.

And so then my question is sort of like how much excess have we been generating and appropriating in the past.

I think I can stop there.

Thank you.

Um this is probably less for upcoming information on the allocation of these funds, but more just sort of probably as we go into the budget discussions further down the road.

If we could get some uh more information on that parking fund on the parking deck, like how it is looking and rolling over from being part of the debt fund to being from you know self-sustaining as its own enterprise fund.

Um yeah, how that's going, how it might how it's not going as planned, that might inform our future decisions.

Um yeah, just as that seems to be continuing from um planning to construction to self-sustaining um continues to not go as planned, it would be helpful to have some more information about why, yeah, and how yeah.

Um had a couple questions, and these can certainly be for understanding that we don't need to answer every single minutiae question.

But um, I guess in some of the places where, like, for example, we're hiring is challenging.

Um, I remember when we were talking about um the comp in class study and the you know the complexities of kind of figuring out um overall versus targeted raises.

I'm just wondering, are there levers we can pull like um adding additional raises to hard to hire roles or I guess you know do we have any policy or budget levers that we can pull in order to make sure that we're filling necessary positions, and I guess you know, part of that question is in general what positions aren't getting filled, because some are they're all important, but some are really important.

So I'm just wondering kind of a little more on what that looks like would be really helpful.

Um I think um I am wondering about the parking fund deficit and just again are there levers that we can pull.

I know that we were trying to have a better mix of um lease spaces versus hourly and you know, trying to really generate revenue.

So uh it would be just be helpful to understand where we are and where we think we're going, and again, how when do we um anticipate that fund being in better shape?

Um I don't know how else to say um and I guess finally in terms of the excess fund balance.

Um I I have questions on all of these, but I instead of like getting into the details of them.

I think what would be helpful for me for the future conversation is just to kind of understand like the criteria that we're using for deciding and then having options.

Like I believe you that we need all these, but I know there's other stuff we need too, and so if I can understand, you know, if this if these are the ones that we feel like we don't have another revenue source for, but then there's other things that, for example, become more expensive if we don't attend to them in their life cycle.

I would want to at least know what those are and be able to kind of make a decision with some options because I I'm sure we need these things.

I just don't know, I don't know how to compare them to something else, I guess, or what that list I could be anything, right?

On some level, like anything we're we're legally allowed to spend money on could be on the list.

So I'm just having a hard time with this being I believe you, but I don't know what else we can talk about.

Sure.

Yeah, I just quickly just second that just like some um basic metrics on how you arrived at this, which can be really helpful, and like yeah, that's it.

We just I second that okay.

This is for both Amy and uh Ted because each year, each budget cycle you ask the department ads to give you a list of needs, right?

And so I want to make sure that you were revisiting that list of needs because I know that there are some that are not included up here.

One of them that we've heard about equipment for our fire department, okay.

Um they need more gear, and I wonder the same for our police department.

Another thing is radios for all of our folks.

Um so again, our first responders.

I'm gonna be digging into that, and so I'd like more information before the next meeting.

Uh I appreciate the capital things here, but uh where are we with our fire trucks as we continue?

I sense for my colleagues and for myself that we want to go higher.

You know, forposes, but we need to make sure that we can protect the people and the things that are at that height.

I'm not confident that we can at this point.

So I would like for us to discuss that.

So please help us by revisiting those lists that your department has been made.

Thank you.

And if there are none, great.

But if there are any one-time costs that we don't have a source identified for it, that would be interesting.

Asking that because of the bearers needed because of the maintenance.

So I know that the public housing plan has this sort of we're supposed we're due for a sort of financial presentation about making sure our public housing stock is in good order and it hadn't been, yeah.

Right.

And so I don't want to fall off the radar if it's a potential for inclusion here.

And we also said public housing was one of our key priority areas, right?

So we think that just would occur to me when you got that question.

I'm sure that was connected about the correctly.

And I guess that leads to just one more question, which is you know, are there I'm not saying that we shouldn't do this list, but it would be helpful to understand of our key priority areas for this fiscal year that came out in the uh retreat.

Are there things on there that are one-time that would fit the you know that would make sense that we could consider too as a way to look at trade-offs, I guess.

Yeah, um, we're public housing really concerned with where we are just on a federal level as it pertains to HUD, and so being able to understand how the uh one-time funding could address some of the things that DLL is really important to me.

If I'm not mistaken at this point in time, HUD funding pretty much funds most of our town-owned public housing portion of it.

It's about a third.

About a third of it, yeah.

So very interested in that.

Okay.

I really appreciate the generative discussion.

So now public housing and those who've been displaced due to the storm.

Um can we oh can we learn more about that?

I know that's coming up, but I know that there are folks still in hotels, and um that gets I I am concerned about the mental health of those families, and so I see one family in particular each Tuesday morning when I go to my rotary meeting.

Uh and so I'd be curious about that.

So I really appreciate is there other information that's helpful at this point from us.

No, I think that's very helpful.

Feedback.

We will take all that.

Uh we have some information to provide back to you either as part of budget or as part of when we return on this topic.

So is there anything we've asked for that is not realistic in terms of information that you can find?

I don't think so, but I will let know if that's the case.

So we can look back.

Okay.

Um thank you very much.

Um thank you for coming, and we are always very proud of our staff for having wonderful audit reports, and everybody always rags about them.

Um about how they are good to work with.

So thank you.

Um and thank you, Amy to you and your team, and I hope you are like that.

Thank you.

Chad had the um the hot seat, got to be next to you tonight.

I'm happy I'm along in that exact seat a couple weeks ago.

It's nice to be next to that person.

So thank you.

All right.

Um, okay, item number two is rewriting our rules, LA's management ordinance or a Luma rewrite update.

Mayor and Council.

While he's putting that up, I'll go ahead and start.

So before we jump into tonight's presentation, I want to share how we got to the content of the presentation you'll see tonight.

So, in other words, as we've talked about at your retreat, I'm going to quickly explain the why.

As you know, we faced some significant setbacks in 2025, and now that it's 2026, we can see the end site.

So, how do we go from where we are now to where we all like to be?

So, Taz will walk you through a proposed timeline of next steps.

And these were developed with the following interests at top of mind.

Provide a high quality draft that reflects our many months of engagement with residents, with stakeholders, and with you.

Make it easier for residents, stakeholders, and you to interact with that draft to understand its contents, and how it advances our vision and values.

Brittany, are we supposed to be looking at something?

Okay.

This is before we start.

Yeah, I have no slides.

This is Taz's presentation, but I'm taking liberty space.

Yes.

So finally the final um interest that I wanted to mention was setting us up most importantly to begin this legislative process this fall.

So tonight we are bringing you a high-level overview of the proposed process and timeline, and that we believe meet all the interests that I've mentioned.

So after TAS presents, if it would be helpful to hear from you whether you agree that we are meeting these interests, and also if there are any other interests that we need to consider.

And with that, I would turn it over to Cost.

Thank you, Rigney.

Good evening, everybody.

As Brittany said, the goal of the meeting or our presentation this evening is to share kind of a broad overview of what we can expect over the next year.

And what I'll what I'll do is kind of walk us through what the kind of the seasons of MUMO are going to look like as we kind of round out the year.

Share some of the main interests, some of the constraints that we're thinking about as we think about what that phase of work is going to look like.

And then again, Brittany mentioned would really appreciate your feedback and your presentation about are we are we hitting more?

Are we meeting the right interests?

Are we thinking about the right interests as we kind of let them figure out what the year ahead is going to look like?

So looking at the spring, um this next several months of our work, um, some of the overwhelming interests at play are first and foremost, I'm pretty mentioned this real mission statement of producing high quality um product that's going to address community interests that have been discussed in a lot of public meetings.

Um not that anybody's keeping count, but this is the 18th related meeting that we have had.

Um so you know, we we've had a lot of discussions.

We know that there's a lot of community interests at play, a lot of council interests display.

Um, and we want to make sure that we're producing a high quality work product that uh reflects those interests.

Um really critical to us to put our high quality work because preserving and uh building up public trust is so critical in this process.

Um again, I nothing is supposed to be on the slides just yet.

I'll share the interest first and then get to them brass tax on what we're we're talking about.

Um those are those are a big interests in the in this spring season.

Um I think some of the the constraints and other just kind of things we've got to be mindful of is the fact that it's really important for staff to have meaningful time uh to review uh a full technical document.

Um that that drafting work that we're gonna be finishing up over the next several months of review work, it's highly technical work.

Um it's got a lot of interconnected and moving pieces, um, which is why we really think it's important that when we're putting something out publicly, that we're putting out a full document, not uh individual pieces or sections of the document.

Um those individual chapters uh because of how interconnected Lemo is or any development ordinances.

I at best putting out individual chapters can paint kind of an incomplete picture of what our land use rules are going to do and how they'll impact development capital.

At worst, they paint an inaccurate picture.

And that's again, speaking to that point of public trust, we really want to avoid creating an inaccurate representation of what this new ordinance is going to do.

So again, those are some of the basic and kind of fundamental interests and constraints as we're dealing with the next several months ahead.

In terms of grass tax and what the actual activities and work of the next several months are going to look like, you know, once we are done with the actual drafting of LUMO, our first major milestone is receiving that first full draft, that first opportunity to start looking at the LUMO in its entirety.

We've been working at it in chunks, and we expect that in the next several months we will have that first full draft to look at.

That kicks off a kind of frenetic period of technical and legal review where we're really kicking the tires, looking at prodding that draft and make sure that it again meets the interests that we've laid out with you all, community, and interests that we've shared with our consultant team.

We also get a revision of that draft after we've conducted our kind of full technical review.

And then that gives us an opportunity to then lead it in the summer.

And as we kind of prepare for the summer, one of the things we always want to make sure that we're doing is giving you all as much of a clear picture as possible of what is what's next, what's coming.

And so as we're finishing up our drafting work, it's going to be really important that we finalize kind of that summer calendar so you all and members of the public understand what the next major phase of the work is going to look like.

So that's the next several months.

Leading into the summer, again, new phase of the work, new major sets of interests and constraints.

Ultimately, the summer is all about setting people up for success.

It's about making sure that the public is well informed about the content of the new draft LUMO and with their opportunities to be heard and to speak directly to ultimately the final decision makers in this process, making sure they understand what that process is going to look like.

It's about making sure that we're all kind of set up for success by engaging with the end users, the technical users of LUMO, folks that use it day in, day out, and getting their feedback on the work product.

And then ultimately, and kind of most importantly, when it comes to setting people up for success during the summer, it's making sure that you all, as the final decision makers at that planning commission, as kind of your partners in that work have the time and the assistance needed to understand this big technical document that we're going to be dropping in your laps.

And so those are the major interests at play leading into the summer.

What we anticipate to start off with is a council work session in which we it's going to have an opportunity to preview the draft LUMO with you all.

We expect that this is going to be kind of mid-June, one of the last meetings that y'all hold before going off for summer break.

And again, it's going to be that opportunity to share what we will be seeing in the draft LUMO for us to make sure that there's good alignment and the interests that you all have shared with us over the last year and more.

Similarly, in that mid-June period, may take a few days after receiving that to make sure that it is actually ready to go live, but we anticipate that not taking tremendous amount of time.

And so again, wanting to make sure that that's that's out in front of you.

That's only obviously the start, right?

We're assigning the summer reading, but we want to make sure that we're also alongside with you all to make the most of what we're putting in front of you.

Again, we don't want to just give you a document and say we'll we'll see you in the fall.

And so what we plan to do to support you all, council members and planning commission members as you engage with the draft MUMO is to host a series of regular office hours, staff hosted office hours, uh to meet with you all in kind of in a way that makes sense for you all to start engaging with the material to learn about what's in the draft that we will be asking you to comment on.

Um it's an opportunity for us to understand what what major sticking points might look like, where you will want to dig deeper as we start to set you up again for success in public deliberations about the document.

Um again, all at that vein, making sure that you all have the support you need to understand what's in the document.

Um also know that that the public is a major element here, and we obviously want to empower you all to understand what's in the document.

We also want to make sure that the public is very well aware of what that document contains, what it means, and what it'll do.

And so we expect a really robust uh kind of season of public interactions, public education to make sure that anybody that's curious enough to come out to one of our meetings or curious enough to check out our website, um, has resources at their fingertips or is able to speak to planners to understand what's in the draft limo.

Um we're also gonna I mentioned looking at end users.

We want to make sure that we're talking to folks that use LUMO A and the out development community that understands LUMO in a way that few people or few stakeholders can and do that user testing both from a usability perspective, but also they better understand whether we've created a set of constraints that is uh meaningful in a set of development that's meaningful for them.

Um then this notion that you know we're gonna be gonna continue to refine the LUMO during the summer.

Um, once we put out that draft at the beginning of the summer, that is not a static document that is kind of locked in amber.

Um we will continue to do kind of technical review.

There may be still technical changes needed.

Um we just we know that it is still a dynamic document.

It isn't done until you all really in a unanimous vote approve it.

It is still something that can be changed and refined, and we'll be working on that through the summer.

Um, and then it's it's all again with with the mindset of bringing it home in the fall and winter of this year.

Um as we go into that last season of the year, um the overarching interest here is to set you all up for a deliberative and well-informed public process.

Um that means starting with, I think this is something we've learned, I think, through the omnibus discussions, and starting with some really well-tailored work sessions.

Um this is gonna be probably as planning commission starts looking back into uh into year in August, and we'll start coming here in September.

Um August and September are gonna be an opportunity to have some really great work sessions and then move into the formal legislative process.

Um again, we'll we'll have these these council and planning commission work sessions.

Um we're expecting three to four.

Um there's a lot of different opportunities of consolidating work sessions, potentially doing uh joint work sessions between you all and planning commission.

There's a lot of different ways that that can look.

Um we will work with you all over the summer to understand again your interests, um, what are the specific areas that you all want to dig into so that that intense period of work session activity can be as fruitful as you all need it to be.

Because again, the goal of the fall is to set you all up for a deliberative, well thought out and efficient public process.

And then ultimately work sessions are all proper for like the big ship, right?

The formal legislative process.

Uh by law requires one meeting and two council meetings.

That's the bare minimum.

It would be great if we can, and we will do our level best, especially through those work sessions to set you all up.

So planning commission to be able to move through the legislative process as quickly and as efficiently as you need to.

But ultimately, the the amount of time that that takes is up to you, right?

We are not going to force you to vote on something that you're not ready for.

All of this is about something you all look for for success when you can have the type of legislative process that you need.

So again, kind of putting it all together, um, kind of mapped out, as Burton said at the beginning of the presentation, uh, a possible path forward.

Um we know that our our goal here is to meet several kind of key interests that we hope are shared, right?

And an opportunity to confirm those interests, confirm that these are shared interests between all of us, um, to understand what we're moving to mark on, what we've laid out, and see if there's more that we need to kind of incorporate.

Um thinking about what those shared interests are.

One is making sure that of course there's a high quality uh draft within the ordinance uh for everybody to move forward with.

Um want to make sure that we're doing again everything we can to make it as easy as possible for residents, for other stakeholders, for council and commission to interact with the draft and really in a meaningful way, understand its contents.

Um, and then ultimately um for us all agree to a process that allows council and planning and commission planning commission uh to begin that formal legislative process this fall.

Um I think as we look through these, we think that there's strong alignment between these interests and what we've laid out.

Um again, that that period of intense staff work this spring is all towards the interest of providing that high-quality draft, um, our work over the summer to engage with you all and to support you all uh to educate the community.

It's all about that second interest and easier for the community and for our decision makers to understand what's in the mo.

Um, and then as we move towards legislative process, it's all about again having a process in place, like a timeline in place that supports you to start, hopefully end the legislative process this year.

Um with that, I would sorry I didn't want to jump in, but one point of clarification in the timeline.

I know Ted's stressing on the summer slide that that's a little bit about um the fact that we will continue to refine the document.

I just want to clarify.

We will not be seeking changes to the document.

We we will continue to refine it and stress upon that we should not caught in the ember that it is something that is changing and progressing.

But that is really us trying to identify delaying issues or concerns, of course, encouraging you in conversations with us to flag things that you may want to tweak or changes that we may, but not with the expectation that we're actually making changes to the document in the summer.

We're all on the same page for that.

Thank you.

Um happy answering questions and get your thoughts on again the the alignment between these interests and what we've laid out for the year, but council, if we can start with clarifying questions and then we can move into um some discussion.

Um thank you.

Um of the things that I really enjoy being able to serve in this capacity is just learning.

And the Lumum is completely new to me in terms of like the rewrite, it's huge, it's daunting, it's all of those things.

Um but it's also not like good reading either.

So I'm like really thinking about like once that comes out and I'm sitting alone independently in my room, um, have it to be this having a really good like methodology and process and approach that I can as an independent leader um take to the limo would be really really helpful.

I don't know if you all can do that.

Like the the um the office hours is a great idea with an opportunity to be able to interact in that way, but I know individually each of us is gonna have to read this draft by ourselves.

Um and so anything that you can offer us as we are are approaching that will uh help us do the things that you were just describing, um catchy, glaring issues or things that down the line as we want to add or change this living document, be able to you know separate the two.

Um but just an overall just independent reader approach would be really helpful for me.

Yeah, absolutely.

I appreciate that.

Uh and we have been having internal discussions about how we do that.

Understanding everybody's gonna want to interact with this document on different levels.

Some people really want to dig in, some people want to grade it.

So we are there are going to be additional materials that come out when with the draft that uh we have a we have a user's guide, which is more of an in-user when someone's actually gonna apply this to their property kind of book.

But it it would be helpful to show you how the book is broken down and and how how the different sections interact with each other, but also um making sure we have a strong executive summary so that it is high level, it does click show you or or anyone looking at it how um the changes were made, how good is organized, and the major things that you should be paying attention to.

Um, because we don't truly have an expectation that you read every age of this book.

It's not actually necessary for what you we are being required to do.

But we do want you to have the context.

We do want you to understand the types of changes and how those changes will impact changes that you'll see on the ground chapel wheel.

So we are working to try to do some more um especially very conscious of a plain language and making sure that the the average person can read the these materials and truly understand what's happening in in in a document.

Thank you.

Melissa Yes, so um I I know that there'll be a lot in there about how how what's being proposed is meeting the goals.

Um what I'm hoping that that you will also have in these um materials, especially these supplementary materials that Brittany was just talking about.

I can't hear you, I'm sorry.

Oh I'm sorry, am I just get clear?

Yeah, they're not getting up there.

Okay, the volume.

Is that better?

Yes.

Thanks.

Um the other things that could be addressed during the the um with the additional materials are things that things that I would I would like to see because of the way my brain processes things.

I'd really like to understand these interconnections that are going on and uh how those linkages work and where uh those linkages can provide opportunities for multiple benefits.

Um and how they're influencing each other.

And um it'd be really helpful also to have examples.

Here's somewhere this has worked and and this is what it looked like, or this is how this is work this this particular kind of action has worked elsewhere.

Um there's a lot of places that we can run.

And I am um really hoping that one of the potential users that you're gonna be reaching out to are the are the very people that we're that we're missing right now, those small developers that aren't even trying to do anything here, and if we can find a way to um potentially reach out to the the um our non-existent incremental developers or are you know latent or potential um incremental developers, I would really like to see that um input.

And then one just last ask, I don't know if anybody else is like me, but I function better visually, if I can have a hard copy and I can write on it.

So please thank you.

Um thank you for all this.

Um to build a little bit on what Melissa is saying I'm starting to hear us getting the input about what we need because I know when you guys look at it, it's a whole different way than what we're trying to do.

So just in the interest of trying to make sure that we're getting things in the way we need to have them.

Um I know you guys for examples of other places.

I'd also know that in some um some of them say sort of test things, right?

To say, okay, if we apply this to a lot, you know, duplex regulation, here's a lot that we have in town, this is what this would look like.

Just so people can, especially visual people, folks who don't really know what a setback is or don't know what all those things are, if they can say, okay, we're looking at a lot over the four side, and this is what could potentially be built as a result of these new regulations.

Can we just have the graphic novel version?

Can y'all do that?

That would be great.

Yeah.

I've been looking at the DRE DO, and I think that's the same group that's working with us.

Yeah, and they do a really nice job in a lot of places of giving really good visual information.

Yeah, I guess building on this idea of like how to navigate this document.

The idea what I think about is like cross-cutting themes.

So there are goals that I think council and town has.

So that could be like a way, so we can have a cross-cutting theme where like I really appreciate the chart you provide it.

So like there's affordable housing, but like affordable housing, when I think about it, also interacts with like our transit is housing for students.

It's like where are there places where we're gonna have trade-offs?

So, like as we develop our greenways, as we develop our transit system, that makes more places attractive to students.

So that helps with the complete communities, but also has these like perverse trade-offs of like now more students are gonna be competing with people for housing in these areas.

So, like I know the LUMO can't answer everything, but if we could like think about what are some goals that council wants to accomplish, and we can see how those cut across different parts of the document, that would be really helpful.

I'm not sure how our other council members feel about that.

I feel good about that.

Um I think it is sort of like what we're all saying, and I think someone's talking about that that it would be helpful.

You know, there's a why that we decided to rewrite our lumo, and if we could still like a handful of like the most important whys that we are rewriting the lumo, and then have those as metrics isn't quite the right word, but like you know, I almost envision it like when we get the rewrite, like each chunk is color-coded with like this meets this goal, although I'm sure some are in multiple things, multiple address multiple things.

You know, maybe it's like a little icon next to each section that's like here's this changes addressing you know sustainability and housing and whatever I think um you know deciding.

We probably need to decide, or maybe you guys would help us decide sort of what the main why's were so that then we can look at the rewriting through that lens.

Absolutely not.

I will not promise you a color coded.

No, I have just for you.

Can I well I have but I can say that the supplementary materials we can absolutely look at how we give you that so that so that it explains exactly what you're saying if there are those cross-cutting things where there's a theme and how that's addressed and what priorities we can we can use that to frame out what we give you and also how we have that discussion with you in June when we are providing the draft, like what we probably want to do into the summer, that could help us craft those materials from the film.

Yeah, I think it would be really helpful for us to have a broad framework through which we are looking at each of these changes.

Like each of the yeah.

Um Louie and Amy.

Um just I like the Liz percent what we're thinking, we're trying to develop in terms of like develop this process.

I guess this is almost for this for all the Ted, Jess, y'all.

Could we have another work in meeting where we work collaboratively to think about what are those cross-cutting themes or what are those goals?

So like what are those whys?

So, like you know, we would kind of sit together and try and figure cash out.

And then you could make sure they're right, and then use that to help so we have that guide.

Is that does that make sense?

Well, we've had some conversations down this very path, and so I think what we wanted to do was have this meeting to kind of hear from everyone whether what has already been presented meets your interests, whether the schedule meets your interest, or what you're helping us to do is to refine the more clearly what you want as a as tools to help you understand if your interests are being met.

Maybe a crosswalk instrument that says, you know, we we know we have these high policy things that we've all advanced, and here's what you'll find that in this chapter, here's what you're finding that in this chapter.

Bundle them appropriately so you know it's sort of maybe it's sustainability, maybe it's housing, maybe it's commercial, maybe it's you know, district standards, maybe you know, whatever, maybe it's parking, and here's how we're addressing it.

Um we've got some things we've been reporting how to, but they're um the it's they're not as digestible in a in a in a kind of um consolidated way.

I should have given these two three minutes ago.

Yeah, that's all.

But yeah, so so yes, thank you, and we're hearing that right now, and that will help us to design those tools.

Yeah, yeah.

Quickly.

So for that crosswalk, I think it would be helpful if like we did that in consultation with each other.

Like we have like maybe if we like here here, if y'all think these are the important things for the crosswalk, bring it to us, and we're like, okay, that makes sense, and maybe we want something else.

And you're like, well, that doesn't make sense for a crosswalk.

Um, you know, I just I'm concerned we may get a crosswalk and we may feel unsatisfied with crosswalk.

I do not understand the crosswalk situation by a crosswalk.

Um, I won't try to give a specific example because that you know that may not get there, but um, to describe what I'm getting to uh we might have an interest in um a goal.

Let's say it's more um middle housing, like let's say, and so if that's the interest um the documents you've seen over the past number of months that sort of talk to the somewhat you know, have have a whole lot of different interests in there.

But let's say this one is under a theme of uh access to affordable housing, and then the crosswalk would be like this chapter addresses it in this way, this other chapter addresses it in that way, so you know where to go and look at that level without regurgitating the whole thing.

It's like that housing type is now available in this these two zoning districts.

Oh, okay.

So I I mean that's just a high-level description of what I mean by it.

So sort of like uh something that uh would lay out the the goal of you know, one of the whys of why we're rewriting on Bumo, and then a series of like here are the different parts of this new document that address that are that we are hoping will facilitate meeting that goal.

Yes.

Okay, and there's in things that may not facilitate that goal is important to me.

So, like we want, and this is completely hypothetical.

We want more housing along our transit corridors.

Well, that may conflict with our stormwater goals.

You know, I'm not saying it will, but like if we can identify those points of tension, if they exist in the document just to help explain to the public, because I think a lot of times people look for points of tension that base their questions around or base their approach to the document, so we can identify some of those beforehand.

I think that would be helpful.

I was just gonna say um there's a document that we shared very early on.

I was like a essentially an infant as a planner when you forget.

June of 2023.

Yeah, um, the plan alignment memo.

Um huge tests.

Um that's essentially what the um when uh the one of the kind of supplementary materials we'll be sharing with y'all put on the draft is essentially an updated version of that document.

Um we'll we'll share this.

We can share the planet modes as an example so there's some understanding there.

Um but that's what we're we're kind of thinking about when it comes to that way, click notes of the full draft.

Um it's something that could be pretty self-contained so we understand it, or just a helpful aid as you're digging in to the full document.

Um I'm hearing Louie talk about the council being able to actually decide what we think the core goals are, so that we can then as a board about you know, I don't want to read the whole document.

I'm gonna be like very uh brutally honest with you, which is I'm not reading 800 pages of code or however many pages, but what I would really like is I want to know as a board what we have decided the core goals are, and then I can look at the draft and say, does it do these things?

Yes, and even if I don't like one of those things, the board likes it.

And so then it's also a way of us kind of circumventing the constant like revisiting and oh, we're gonna rehash it, or in September, then we're all gonna have the same conversation.

Like I want us to be very clear on what we think good is as a board because we have to vote, and then the public comes for us, not you all.

Oh, look, well, we can all share that.

But what I really want is um not just staff's idea of what is important, but I want the council's idea as a body of what's really important, so that when I go into the summer, I can look at the draft and just be like, hey, Taz, in office hours, tell me how the draft does this thing, and five people thought that was important.

So that's what I'm looking for, not for what is just think is important by myself, because then every single person in this room, along with every member of the public is going to be evaluating the draft differently.

So I want a shared evaluation tool that is driven by the board that will have to approve it.

I want I also want to go so there are a few of us.

No, no, no.

I would say I don't want to jump in.

Is there any?

I think CEO has not gone yet, and Wes has not said anything yet, and Neil has not said anything yet, so we'll go to you who haven't not said anything, and then we will go back around.

Thanks.

Um I want to quote Louie from the work session and say um I see things a little differently here.

Um I want to bring us back to something that has been a real challenge for me as a council member that I'm taking a new position on, which is um I love giving my opinion right now about what I think a good idea is, but we have adopted numerous documents.

We as a as an abstract entity as a council over the years have adopted numerous documents in our slow, can't even really call it a march, our crawl towards a lumo.

Um and uh you know, mayor David Siles reminded me the other day, he was like, you you love coming up with ideas, but remember that councils have been adopting things that say what your goals are at every step of the way.

So I just want to reiterate that like I I think that we we run a risk if we talk about a sort of like blank slate conversation about what our goals for this LUMO are when there are multiple planning documents.

I did not hear that that yeah, that's that's that's what I'm hearing as a risk in this situation, right?

There's others are hearing it differently.

Of course, coming coming to a table and saying, look, here's here's what's important now.

When we have the plume, we have the comprehensive plan because the complete community strategy is a update part way along the way.

We've said many times what our what our goals are, and so I think there's plenty of capacity for a staff to point to many documents we've adopted and say in that sort of crosswalk thing, these are what those are, and in the in the 23 audit and all that.

So I just I sort of uh wanted to underscore that point, and I recognize that others may not have heard the same risk there that I was hearing.

Um we have an inwise?

What's what's going on?

Go out of the bus.

Well, this reminds me of the retreat, right?

Where we said one of our strategic priorities was to complete the lumbo.

And then through our conversations, we quickly realized that the lumo is uh a thing that gets us to somewhere, the why, the why we're doing it.

And I think we have the key themes there that can be a starting point, but again, I think it it benefits us to come back to.

I haven't heard the key themes until 2023, honestly.

So it's kind of like we need to be reminded, we need to be recommitted to this in this way because it leads to the main question I have here.

Um the public education starts in the summer, but we're not gonna make any changes.

So what we need to be clear to the public that it sounds to me this is a clairframe question.

Public engagement may be over, and that the summer process of sending this out to the community is education.

Is that true?

And if so, what can the public expect if we roll it out to them in the summer but we say we're not going to make any changes?

So two-part, three-part thing, committed to setting up our goals and ideas of what we're really doing this for won't take us long, but Theo said the stuff's there, we just have to do it.

I think a work session is great to sit with this together because I found our retreat to be very productive.

And uh relationships are built there.

My real question is public engagement over.

And in the summer, if we're going to roll out the public, but we're not going to make changes, what can the public expect from the process?

So I think, and this speaks to kind of the glacial pace of these sorts of processes.

Um the the truest public engagement when you think about the capital E engagement where we're kind of down in the trenches with members of the public really hashing out broad interests, that kind of stuff.

Um yeah, that is absolutely done.

Um that is the work that has happened over years as part of the community, as part of the flume, all of those processes, part of the comprehensive plan, all of those processes have led to the work that we're finishing today.

Um so the the LUMO from basically from the beginning of our work on Lumer Rewrite is the most recent iteration, right?

Like you can't most recent iteration of rewrite, I think we have tried to be very clear that we are now in an implementation phase, right?

We are trying to kind of bring it home based on this body of really robust public engagement that we've done uh in years prior.

Um and so that's why I think for the most part, our plan and our kind of ethos around engagement for the rewrite really has been around education, uh, making sure that we're bringing along with community so they understand what we're working on, and how and when they'll be able to speak to the final decision makers, right?

Our goal is to put that high quality responsive product in front of you and give other stakeholders the opportunity to speak directly to you about uh is that responsive, have we kind of met uh the broad community interests?

Um but because we're in that implementation phase right now, um, I think we decided a while back that the engagement was gonna have to look markedly different in order to kind of keep the momentum going and get to that definition.

And can I also just to add to that?

I know you mentioned uh multiple times not making changes, and I can stress that it's a praise point for me because there's a there's a place and a time for that, I do agree if that's document can't change in the legislative process in front of you as a body.

But the notion that it could change in the summer while we're doing engage in it is is where it's problematic.

So there could be things that are brought up that are something that this board decides needs to change or needs to happen before it is, but it's just more of when is appropriate as opposed to that it can't happen.

So I didn't want to make it sound as though we will not engage in the world.

Well, and the document should be based off of the vision and priorities of the council, and it shouldn't be so misaligned that it can't be moved forward, and hopefully we're giving you something where in your role as a council, your responsibility to the vote on what's before you, it is an issue with it, we can make tweets, but if there's a problem with it, you don't have to approve it, you know, until we get it to where you want it to be.

Right, and just to just to clarify that so that um in that context that the public engagement is going to be focused to us to help us inform our decision making, it absolutely has to be tied to this big reason why, because we have to be the ones to communicate why we're making the votes we're making, and tying it back to some larger goal is um we're gonna have to do that.

And so I'm an agreement for figuring out what those top level goals are, and then being sure to constantly go back to people and say this is why we're we're approving the things that are approving.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I have Camille, Louie, and then Melissa, oh, and then Paris and Amy.

Um sorry.

No, no problem.

So the Lou, I know you're gonna speak shortly, but what I heard from you is that what I'm digesting, or what I'm coming out with, is that we need to have a shared vision.

We have given you a lot of information, but we have been different.

The iteration of this body has changed.

This is the third iteration that I've been part of.

Right.

And so right.

So if we also not at all, I'm saying that.

If we follow our old Jeff, actually.

I said that.

I said that TED was old.

Jess's experience.

Oh man.

Well, there we go.

No, but help us to have that condensed version that we've all bought into so that we remember what we all bought into.

Okay.

Okay.

So that condensed version.

And then we can point back to it.

I think it is important for us to have all of these are very helpful to me because I was like, how am I going to tackle this?

That user guide.

And in my head, you know, I like color, right?

So in my head, I'm thinking overlays, don't worry about it.

But I am thinking this is this will be achieved here.

It's very important that we understand the trade-offs, and that we can say we are going for this because we have agreed that this is paramount.

I'm not using that other word.

This is paramount to what we want to achieve in this area.

Um this past uh council year before new members joined, maybe after, there were some tension points for me that I couldn't, I struggled with with the trade-offs because those were they weren't articulated.

I think if we articulate those, um it will be so much better for folks, and then to the expectation for all of us, help us understand what we get to do in each of these things.

I hear you, Brittany saying, you want me to do understand this is where we're going to.

This is where we are in the process.

You repeated it.

Um when the public hears engagement, make sure that they don't think, oh, now's my time to give my opinion on that so you can change it meaningfully.

No, say this is public engagement in order to inform.

We have got we have moved beyond because that's exactly what I think my colleague was hearing, engagement to receive more input.

Um so please help us with our expectations.

I think that would be really helpful.

But I'm excited.

I um know that there are many of us who sh have different points of entry on this, as well as different stages of where we entered.

Some entered from the Planning Commission, some of us, you know.

So I think that would be extremely helpful.

Thanks.

Louie, can I take on a quick place?

Thank you.

Um, I just wanted to clarify to you, and I totally understand your concern.

I I wanted to be like really clear that this was not about coming up with like outlandish things that have no that have no connection to our previous plans, right?

Like it shouldn't be a surprise.

Should be new information.

No, I and I also say Chapel Hill 2020 is very old.

It is 2026, and Chapel Hill 2020 was supposed to be a future facing document.

So I don't know that just saying like it aligns with our comp plan is like enough, right?

But I do think it should not be anything new.

I just think it's a way for us to again like communicate to the public and amongst ourselves and with you all about like these are our goals.

These are the and then it's a way for me to also ask you questions in a smarter way.

Like if one of our goals is to get missing middle housing, then I can say, okay, here's the way you're doing it here.

What about this?

Did you consider this?

What about the way they do it in Durham?

And you can do like Jess, no, because of this.

We're like, yes, that's an option, but we didn't pick it.

Um if the council wants that, it's possible.

Like, you know, whatever, but it helps me to know where I'm spending my time and my focus instead of doing 800 hours of the document and being like, well, now I'm in TAS's brain, but I don't know what how to get out.

Like, you know, like, but so I don't mean to imply that we are making new goals.

I mean that we are like zeroing in and aligning and agreeing that that is what we are all how we're all looking at the document.

That's all.

But I understand that it's working 100%.

That was not the oh not working.

I think you're not.

No, that was perfect.

I'm glad that Camille, you both had a chance to speak.

So I miss a secondary thing that Camille and Jess said, and I want to go back to what was saying in terms of thinking about public engagement and people in Chapelfield love to engage and you know, talk.

I think we should think about this question of whys, which shouldn't take long.

That's a place for public engagement.

So we should really think about when we have that work discussion discussing our whys.

That's where we should have the public come and say, like, here's a why I want you to consider.

And like it maybe it's gonna be messy, and maybe there are whys that we don't think match by thinking of that discussion, and then people know that you can't change the document.

But maybe the whys that you're concerned about can be part of like what we think about.

So have people come and present the argument like here's a why that's important, or I think what's probably gonna happen.

People will come with their whys, and between Taz and Brittany and Council, we can explain how their whys are already being considered in the whys that we've talked about already in these copious amount of documents that feel referring to.

Because I think a lot of times that's what people want to be heard is in the why.

And when they don't, they start going into detail to become frustrated.

I would say that's what we do.

That sounds a plus.

Does that make sense?

Does that make sense for us?

Yes, it does.

And also just low setting with us that like if you have a conversation about goals, my apprehension is I want to make sure that everybody in this room also remembers that whatever goal you come up with doesn't change the book you get in you.

But it can help facilitate the conversation around that.

Like if I'm I'm 100%.

I think that was the intent, right?

It's not that it changes what the product is, but it changes where we look for places that we want edits or we want to discuss, right?

But it's not meant to be like, no, let's delay again another year so you can you like no that works.

But it's just a way of to like go through it is the thing that facilitates us.

And it sets up something that you said, Brittany, often of like this is a livid document.

So if there's a why that we feel really unsatisfied with, that's something we need to think about for the next document when we're gonna revisit it again.

That's a great point.

Um Alissa, then Paris, then Amy, then Elizabeth.

Yeah, it's yeah.

So what I wanted to say was to some degree started by by Lily and Wes.

Um, but I just wanted to emphasize that part of the reason for all of this educating of us and for us asking for all these whys and for us asking for the examples, is because we are the messengers, we are um the storytellers that have to explain to the public what this is about, and and not only not only why it meets our goals, but why we have these goals and why these goals are better for the people and of Chapel Hill and the future of Chapel Hill.

Um, some people are going to come in at the last minute and go, I haven't paid any attention.

And we all have to be ready for the elevator speech, and we have to be able to understand be able to um develop our own coherent story to tell people so that they understand why we got to where we got um because it is about them and the future.

So two sense.

Um Amy First, I just want to say thanks, Theo, for hearing it the way that you heard it.

Um that was really important for me.

Um and I think it speaks to um you all hearing us as well, and so I can't like go back to just the materials that we received to prepare ourselves for this uh work session where you went all the way back to October of 2023 and presented to us what you heard, and it's I like the way we organized it, what we shared, what we heard, and staff recommendations.

Um, and so that to me goes back to my first question of like a methodology for me to be able to approach this, and it also segues what the ability.

We're not starting from scratch in terms of communicating to you all what our goals are.

Um, and we also brought up, you know, there are other um documents and things that have also set that forward.

And so you saying that was really like, ah, yeah, that's so true.

So I'm glad you heard it the way that you heard it.

Um all the other things that other folks were saying too.

Like us coming together as a new body, being able to understand that we understand what the goals are, um, and we're not starting from scratch.

And so I you know sitting through and listening to what I heard through my reading the way you organized it, um, according to what I saw, like some of the top level priorities that we were constantly hitting on when it was parking, uh, what do we want to do with single family homes, um, design, um, affordability, like all of those things, those topics to me were the things that really elevated us the goals that we had like stated, and then like what we said about it, and then the recommendations that you all presenting forward and how that potentially will show up in the LUMEL.

So thinking about it that way is really helpful for me.

And so I don't feel like what we're asking for is too far removed from what I think you all are already doing.

There may be some tweaks there from our table might want to add to that, um, but I feel like it's there, and we're not starting from scratch.

Like I want for me for that.

Or you and then Elizabeth.

Yeah, I don't I don't think we are starting from scratch, and I think that uh first of all, I'm just really excited about this conversation because of making sense to my brain of how we can actually work our way through all of this, you know, kind of the process stuff.

So I I think I think it's a really great discussion.

Um I know that we have we've got all this information in here, but I think the thing that we haven't ever had as a council and a group was to say these are the things that we buy in, these are the goals that we buy into, and we buy into the group.

I may not like goal number one, and you may not like goal number seven, but as a body, this is what we've agreed to.

I think it's just brought up earlier.

Then I can say what the thing that I felt before doesn't matter now because the body has decided, and now I have a yardstick for as I go forward, and you guys present things and say, okay, this is me or not.

I mean, I can see um a way that you know we've got different categories of stuff, we have a few high-level goals under each, and then I get a summary document that says, okay, how are we encouraging our goal is to encourage missing middle smaller units, and you say, Okay, there's seven different places we do that.

And I, you know, so it's just it's like a two or three page document.

It's not the one thing, and I can go in and look and see, and that document also says, okay, we do it here.

Asterisk, there's a conflict with something on the next page.

There's two things of tension here, and that's a place where council's gonna have to then there's a policy decision to be made at that point that during those fall sessions that we'll have to get together and talk about it kind of hash out.

But that to me, I think will make it, I think it'll be much clearer to the public if they can look at something like that and see again, see what those whys are and what the what's are.

So um, yeah, I I'm very supportive of all this discussion that's been going on.

Um, and the public engagement piece is going to be a little tricky.

Um, I was talking to a planning commission member, and he was saying in his experience, it's really hard to judge a code until you see the draft.

Like you can look at pieces and you can do things, but that it's really that's the place where it all comes together.

And so our public has a seeing it in its fullness, and I understand why you don't just take public input from now until the minute that we vote and get that, but somehow there has to be a way for us to receive some kind of input from the public on that on that actual final draft piece, whether it's a summary of what you hear during the summer, you know.

I mean, people will come and we'll educate them.

I can't believe they won't be giving you input as well.

So you met us.

I better talk with them.

So I just a way that we can figure out how that happens because for me to tell the public, well, if you want input, you know, our goal is to basically have agreement on everything by the time we get to legislative hearing, right?

That was that's the that's the place we want to be.

And if I tell the public, well, you know, your next chance for any kind of input is coming for that legislative hearing, but I mean, that's not a real opportunity for them to have input.

So I you know, I think Louie's um Louis's idea about the why.

I don't know if you would do that, like just a public information hour before the work session.

I know we um back during OB Creek, we actually did have a couple of sessions where we're doing made a change because there were a lot of people that wanted to speak on something, so there's precedent for doing that, so we couldn't do that.

Um I just want to make sure I again I don't want to open it up wide up for the public, and I don't want to have expectations for something that we're not actually gonna do.

I want to make sure we're clear about what's happening, but I think somewhere in that draft process we've got to have a place where there's there's a place for substantial.

Because when I said expectations, I mean I think it is a kindness for people to know that they are not contributing to meaningful changes.

That doesn't mean that we won't, and that our staff won't, we the council and the staff will not receive their comments and consider, but not to set them up for the expectation that those will be will make neat you know significant changes.

I think that that would be disingenuous.

I think part of that is is what um uh Louie mentioned about like them commenting on the why.

Yes, because it's a very different conversation for someone to come and talk to you high level and maybe react to the whys that you decided you're gonna use as your majority statement you guys mentioned, did for them to come and expect that they're gonna see a spot in the on page 36 where something got changed.

That's it right.

This is a the LUMO is on such a granular level based on what you guys are discussing as your why, your priorities, and it's more appropriate for them to aim their feedback at the whys, and then we figure out how to synthesize that into the code either now or in the future.

I'm agreeing with you.

I just want to make sure I was hearing something different from the Amy, and I just want to make sure that we're all aiming for something where the public can feel good about the input that they are sharing.

Right, that we are actually hearing them.

Yeah, that's right.

Umelista.

Um I'm wondering if like if if if it sounds like we're all kind of asking for a work session when we decide on the whys potentially.

Um to me it would make sense, yeah, right.

Revisit the whys, and to me it would make sense.

I mean, you all have driven this process of a little rewrite for you to come to us with like here are the because in theory and I'm sure in practice, what happened is the council said our current LUMO is not meeting our council values and goals.

We need to rewrite it because our goals are these things, and we aren't meeting that goals, and so that you all took here council's goals.

What can we do with the LUMO to make it meet those goals?

And so in I don't think so.

Well, okay, well, I was here, so maybe that's wrong.

I mean, maybe I just don't think that we ever did goals at the beginning.

It was like clear to everybody the Luma was broken, but there the old council that maybe before me, but that would have been 2014.

So, okay, well, that's different then.

Um, but um there are I'm sure the whys that you all have been using to drive the process of the rewrite, and I think if you were to come to us with those, and then we could react and be like, well, actually, we thought the whys were this, and then that would give us if the if there's a discrepancy between your whys and what we think the whys are, then I think that will very quickly highlight the places where perhaps things need tweaking.

I also would like to suggest an olive garden menu model where we get like a little icon next to things like this is gluten free, and this is vegan.

Yes, like this is supports multi- you know, like little anyway.

How put it out there content is what we want to and icons and which is all about it all resonates with to like the continuation of your retreat, and we can talk with the manager's office about how this plays out, but also noting whether it needs to be owned by our department or it's something that needs to be a facilitated conversation for you guys.

It's a little bit of a step.

And I'm also super protective of staff time in the next few months.

So if we don't have to be a line running or sessions, okay, what do you have that feeling?

So just thinking about the best use of time and and what you really trying to get out of it, maybe having some more conversations could be helpful.

I'll just throw that out there for food.

I I think I I'm assuming council's okay with we want to have, I think we do want a facilitated conversation, but I don't know that we need to get in the weeds on who from I again I don't I want to leave it to Ted and his team to decide that who like I don't I think we want we want to get we have some outcomes that we want to do and we have some conversations that we want to have with each other, and I think if we can do that, and we can do that, I think hopefully one work session, not sessions.

Um, because I heard you vocal and I was like, oh, we'll be closing in 10 minutes.

Please make your final selection.

See a staff member if you need assistance, and please start making your way to the exit.

Thank you.

I also think that coming out of this work session, and people think about it and they have other feedback or things that they think would be helpful.

I think those things can still be communicated, right?

So I don't know that we have to decide the exact I won't be taking any comments tonight.

Right.

Just I'm picking up on Britney.

No press, no paparazzi.

Yeah, right.

Um so I would say as long as we can agree on the what and what we're trying to get out of it.

I I think we can leave it to staff to decide the who is that fair?

Great input tonight.

Uh I think we um for the people on television.

For the people on television we learn from the omnibus process, and we delivered, I think, a great work session that helped you work through that.

Now we're hearing from you about a much bigger bit of work, and we're hearing you, we will we will do our best to design co-design how we move forward uh to get to get there, and whether it you know, to the degree to which it involves Britney's team versus other folks, we'll have those conversations, figure out how we can best design that.

For sure.

We won't be offended.

But we like we can be bad.

But you don't have to do that.

Uh Wes and Louise.

That was a great wrap-up, but I do have to say illustrated a lot.

I did try.

Yeah, I know, sorry.

You're your wise, the staff wise are different.

Like, you know, we could say, oh, quadplexes or triplexes.

Why?

Well, you won't miss a middle housing.

Well, our job is to like why missing little housing.

Like take it up in another layer of like, why are we concerned about that?

I mean, like, as we're talking right now, there's a bunch of people in town worried about their schools closing.

Because families can't find it.

I don't know if it's all the fact that we don't have a housing for families, but there are people that are starting to wonder, hey, wait a minute, why are my schools closing?

If it has something to do with housing, that is one of those whys that are really high up there as far as building the community you want to build.

So, as far as involving you all, you have a whole different set of whys that really work on developing the product.

We have a whole set of whys that are at the high level of what we're really trying to change as a community.

So grateful for the conversation, ending with a dad joke and just say that the whys are whys.

Very dad.

It was there.

Yeah, you might be Danish, but I don't know.

Um if you have a dad joke, Louie, you are welcome to share it.

I like the map of my dad.

Uh yeah, I like what Wes said.

I think something I love when Brittany and Tass participate, but I think staff time is incredibly important.

So like maybe like if you have this list of things we should consider.

But like, I think it's important that maybe all over the prizes, but there has to be a limit on how many high-level whys that we come up with.

So, like, you know, if you can tell us that, like, because that's gonna take work.

So, like, if it's like five or six, just let us know that.

Going back to something Amy was saying, like, we and Amy and Jess are emphasizing, like, yeah.

That's gonna be a vote, and we're gonna have to hash that out.

So I think if we can have that number, that'll be really helpful.

Three.

Uh yeah, this is uh this is a sort of lower level question, but I've had some conversations with the manager about the whether it would be possible with staff time to run very tight and narrow second set of types of amendments, and depending on council interests.

To just legalize triplex quadplexes after cottage courts are shared interest.

So when to see if now is the time to assess council interests in supporting or opposing that, or is that be better done in a different way?

I very much support, I I wanted to add cottage courts because I do think that that is a use that we had hoped for.

Um but uh counsel, if you could give an indication of your interest.

I know that staff is trying to protect staff time, and so we've tried, you know, it's been really important knowing also that we've it's we've been delayed, and so people are feeling a little anxious, um, understandably, um, but I do think we need to keep it real narrow so that we're not expanding out into things that can be done in the larger LUMO, but not as well as a discrete.

Um, but if we could get a sense quickly of interest and then it would come, you know, with materials, etc.

So it wouldn't, we're not making the whole choice right now.

Um I I support the effort and I would defer to staff whether it's harder to do it as a one-off or whether you'd like to do it as a in the larger level.

Um I think on the content of the text amendment.

My initial reaction is that I would far prefer to see the comprehensive document at this point because we just did some text amendments, and I know that for um again for for public accountability.

I'm really excited to see the full document and see how all the pieces fit together, and and because it is such a um inner there's so much what's that interdependent?

And yeah, there's so much, there's so much interdependence between the different changes that are being made in order to meet the ultimate goals.

Um I I think that we would in terms of public trust and accountability be far better off to present that as a whole rather than continue to make small changes since we've already since we've just done that, and I know there was already a level of discomfort doing it piecemeal.

Um for some, I think I think the six months that we would gain with some of those is probably not worth that trade-off.

Okay.

Um in the interest of time, and I do want to allow for conversation if we need it, but if you have something additional to share, please do, and otherwise let's just kind of give some input on whether we want it now or in the larger Alissa.

I was just gonna say I I don't want to do anything that will delay and take up in order to staff coming.

Um and one thing that I would think about doing now that I don't think would add either complex or you're a lot more um public output rate would be to allow triplexes and quadplexes within the exact same um limitations that we just finished putting on duplexes, and therefore the the sources of great outrage about mass and stormwater and yada yada yada would be uh ameliorated because it would be the exact same restrictions as we just approved for duplexes, it would just allow it to go up to um triplexes or quadplexes.

I also do you think on that note that it would actually make it so the 5,000 square feet is not so huge exactly, but I I don't have I I'm I'm not I would I would not go to the map in six months.

I think it's just you know, console you need to I don't know whether I when we first started talking about the duplex and then there was a lot of talk about congruency and you know how things fit in with with the existing thing, and I don't I think doing it piecemeal, we don't get that aspect of it.

We just have you know, if you're doing it, you're doing it one by one and not um because I when we did the duplex thing, I didn't see a lot of that kind of thing in there.

And I know that you know, again, I've been looking at the Durham UDO and they have a lot of regulations around that kind of thing, what the messing looks like for different things and how you keep that compatibility issue.

So that would be a concern for me.

Camille?

For me, it's keeping our eyes our eyes on the prize, which is the school mode requirement we've been going after it for quite some time, and I'd like for us to just focus on that six months.

I so okay.

I am hearing that people would like to wait, but I but please be please be very direct and explicit where you are.

Um for those with who would like to I I know that we want to see those things.

That's been very clear to me through council conversations, I think.

Yes, and we've said they're coming.

So if you I'm hearing a majority for weight, but if can I get a show of hands for wait?

Okay.

So um we are gonna fold off, but thank you for bringing it.

I um often to agree with you, but um, I I think it's I don't think six months is gonna make or break us either way.

So um with that, I we do have another item on our agenda, so yeah.

If I could just on the triplex and quadplexes question, one thing that I think would be helpful to just get some feedback on, and maybe it's as for the next work session when we talk about big whys.

Um there's been I think uh so there's been this question about timing.

There's also a question about um kind of the uh how ambitious we want to get with triplexes and four pluses in terms of where they are allowed.

Um there's one version that we've talked about um as part of prior remote discussions.

Um I think there are other opportunities in terms of we want to get even more expansive um the that original proposal was seems like there might be some interest in that more expansive view.

Um so that could be a good kind of helplessness.

Now it clap and the library is closed.

So it's my creation there today, but thank you.

Just kind of on a procedural question.

I know you won't maybe not be at the next work session, but if you could just send some basics for us to understand those trade-offs or what you know how they I know we if you could give us a little bit of information in advance, I think we could probably certainly give you feedback on where people want to land in terms of kind of expansiveness or intensity or the you know weight how much across town and I didn't mean we will be involved.

Probably possibility.

Oh, okay.

Like I will not be in town, right?

Okay.

Understood.

So I think if you could just bring up give us something, that would be helpful in advance.

Um glad you brought that up because um I was reading um the whole part of that, and I wanted to revisit that, and I forgot to do that.

And so that also leads me to the commercial and anytime like they're like a uh number square feet or whatever, sometimes hiding the uh what does that look like?

What is four thousand square feet?

Um trying to get a sense of that, and also the 3,000 square feet, like understanding how y'all landed on that square footage.

It's gonna be helpful for me.

So, for instance, if that's the normal link, what we see coming to us, like we don't see numbers like outside of that, and that is helping us to achieve our goal, um being how able to have that context of your thinking is to how we made it there, or do you need to have uh square footage?

Um like also like I want to look at like what is the norm around towns similar to ours.

I always go back to Ashville and we you know go on our visits and try to look to towns that are like ours.

Very similar, blah blah blah.

And so 4,000 is still very low for me.

Um thinking about that conversation we had today.

So that's just real quick because I raised my hand to say wait on the text amendment.

Uh it's really just I want to get through this whys.

I don't really want to be in the position to be like, yeah, we're gonna have triplexes and forplexes and cottage courts, potentially whatever size, shape, and configuration we come up with.

Having this conversation on the whys will only help reiterate to the public why we're doing these things just to keep keep people on board with all this great work that we're doing.

So I want to do the whys before we make any action.

That's where I'm at.

But thank you for bringing that up.

Thank you.

Okay, um, thank you very much, Steph.

Um, we will feel like we should clap.

Very great small curves.

Um thank you very much, and thank you for allowing us to give feedback and figure out how we're gonna move forward in a really I think a really good way that will work for everybody.

Um next up is um item number three, it's our final item, which is a report on the town manager evaluation process.

And I believe the town manager himself shall present along with a special guest.

Thank you, Mayor, Council members.

Um delighted to have uh a couple of special guests, um, maybe three actually.

Um Dr.

Carl Stenberg is uh leading the team, and we we can uh introduce the team uh and uh he is a distinguished professor from school of government.

Uh you all may have um worked with him before if you've attended uh essentials of uh North Carolina municipal uh government or uh uh programs like that.

In fact, he's teaching uh some of those sessions, and some of you are signed up to attend uh coming up in the next few weeks.

So um, but I've worked with him uh uh as far back as um you know in the early 2000s of working uh on the public executive leadership academy program, which now is celebrated over 20 years in North Carolina as one of the preeminent leadership programs uh that local government folk uh enjoy here and uh full disclosure.

Carl also helped uh design a an evaluation instrument uh for uh me in uh Fayetteville.

So um uh he knows where the bones are are buried, I guess.

So Carl, if you want to come up and introduce your team and share a little bit about what you've learned about the evaluation process.

Okay.

Mayor, Council members, good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'd like to begin by introducing the other two members of the evaluation team.

Both our new colleagues, they joined the School of Government faculty as assistant professors in August.

Julie Beasley back there.

Julie joined us from Indiana, where she has a PhD.

And she is before pursuing a PhD, Julie was a practitioner in nonprofit organizations and communications, and I believe for a year was a statehouse reporter.

Julie is an expert in human resources management.

She brings that dimension to our team.

Colt is a native of Boone.

Received his master of public administration from Appalachian State University and his PhD from the University of Georgia.

We were able to lure him away from Georgia Southern University to join us.

Cole is working with our leadership team, and particularly with city and county managers as we move forward.

They both volunteered for this duty, and it's been a real pleasure to work with them, and they've contributed a lot.

But we were tasked with taking a look at the evaluation process.

I'll just for the benefit of the TV.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, but if you can do that, I'd like to stand for all sit.

Okay.

I'm just kidding.

But I've invited Julie and Colt to chime in at any point, okay.

All right, thank you.

Um this is phase one of the evaluation process.

I hope you've all had a chance to look at the draft that the team produced.

And beginning with kind of the statement of why are we doing this?

Evaluations are really important, not just for the manager and the management team, but for the elected officials to whom they report.

It is really essential to use the process as a way to get out expectations, mutual expectations around what do the elected officials on the council expect of the manager, and through the manager, the managers of departments and agencies of the local government.

An annual evaluation.

We the manager, the elected officials, and moving forward to realize those expectations.

So with that by way of this is important.

I should say that they don't exactly embrace evaluation right at the outset, but it is important to spend the time to do it and to do it right.

Phase one involved looking at what's out there by way of evaluation instruments.

And it's indicated in the draft that you have on your computers.

There's really no one best way.

One kind of standard evaluation form that's out there.

ICMA doesn't produce one, the School of Government doesn't produce one.

And it's it's really interesting because you would think that we would have those those organizations and perhaps others putting out best practices.

We're getting there at the school of government.

Each year we have a one-day session on manager evaluation and its board managers and the elected officials together to walk through an evaluation process.

We're not going to do that tonight.

I just wanted to explain what you have before you what we're going to need from you.

Our approach was to look at the file of manager evaluations from local governments, not just across North Carolina, but across the country.

And to try to identify some of the best or better practices that we teach our elected officials and our leaders who are in the management teams.

So we we meaning the three of us decided that probably one way to go would be to independently go through the sample evaluation forms that we use in our teaching and in our consulting and identify those practices that we would put forward for your consideration.

And so what you have before you is kind of a right word.

It's a clustering of best or better practices in our judgment that we would put forward for your consideration as a point of departure.

That was a final product.

Because you know, we don't know how much you value some of the different performance categories and the standards and statements that are within them.

So it's just something to get you thinking around the manager evaluation and the key time lines that we're going to need to establish probably sooner rather than layer timelines for the manager to prepare his own assessment of his performance during the year, uh setting the uh board meeting time to conduct the manager evaluation, facilitated one, uh, and then to report out.

So let me ask Holt and Julie what I've missed.

Um that's a great summary.

Last night I was in a planning commission meeting that lasted five and a half hours, so this is a really nice change of base.

Um I'm glad to be able to talk about evaluation with each of you.

Um, and as I looked over the wealth of experience that's represented around this table, I think a lot of you have experience in the nonprofit sector in education, for profit, or working directly for government.

And having an annual evaluation can sometimes feel like a checking the box exercise.

So we want to emphasize that this evaluation process does not replace timely communication or praise or constructive feedback.

All of those things will still continue to be necessary, but because the job of a manager is so multifaceted, this annual evaluation is designed to provide insight into the holistic duties of a manager and a built-in and create a built-in forum for conversation.

So this is a document, it no evaluation instrument is perfect, as Carl mentioned, but this is designed to create a forum to have a discussion about performance as you all view the performance of the manager and to set priorities going forward.

So that's a little bit more insight.

I know sometimes when we hear evaluation, we think annual evaluations, we think about box checking exercises.

That's really not what this is intended to be.

It's intended to be, as Carl mentioned, a jumping place up for a jumping off point for a larger conversation about the day-to-day duties of the manager because the manager implements your binding directives.

Whenever a majority of the vote at the council occurs, that gets the manager direction directive as to what they should do in the day-to-day operations of government and how they should orient the council in terms of long-term priorities.

So they're implementing your vision, so you have this oversight function.

So we have built in some discretion into this document.

We've included a lot of things that may or may not be relevant to you, so we want this to be a collaborative process.

Yep.

Sure.

And to build off of Carl and Colt to bring in an HR human resources lens when we think about performance evaluation and providing feedback.

It's never easy and never something that's always fun for everyone either.

But the I think a lot of what I've heard in the conversation tonight is talking about goals, the council's goals and the community's goals.

So part of this evaluation tool as well is thinking about are we achieving the strategic plan or thinking about these strategic goals that we do have in place?

The evaluation tool is set up to provide both quantitative and qualitative feedback for the managers.

So we do have some points where we would be asking you to rate from one to three, and then also opening up some dialogue boxes where you can provide some feedback.

This is very helpful and a great opportunity when you think about this previous year to think about how you can uh provide some constructive feedback, and that's the way that we're thinking about this tool as well.

As Colt mentioned, there's not any perfect evaluation tool, um, and but we're looking for your feedback as well.

Um, so this is something that we're uh looking to co-produce in some ways, and that as Carl mentioned, we've done a lot of homework, um, but we don't have all the answers as well.

So there may be some items on there, um, especially when you look at the the top bullet points when you're thinking about high-level questions that you might think, I really am not well informed to be able to answer this question, and I don't know if this is applicable.

Maybe this should be removed from the instrument, or maybe you have ideas of things that should be added.

Um, so we would be looking for your feedback as well.

Are you are you ready?

Is it okay to talk to questions?

Sure.

Okay, Louie?

Yeah, I like this as a starting point, but I'm thinking about this slightly differently.

So um town, I see town as a system, so I'm thinking more of like an ecological or system dynamics perspective.

So, of course, I'm interested in like performance evaluation and the metrics you have, but also I think this could be a chance for us.

I think for a lot of council members, part of town is like a black box.

So, like we have a parks department, and we know this happens in the parks, and we know that TES is the center spoke event.

I would like to see like this activity kind of provide a better description of that model.

Like, how do those relationships actually function?

So that's less about evaluation, but more providing us greater insight into how the ecosystem works.

Does that make sense to other council members?

I I'm not sure I understand.

I'm curious and listening, but I'm not sure I understand.

Are you saying that TED would be helping us understand kind of how the how the organization operates?

Yeah, and like in more granular detail.

So, like we know Ted has these, and so you've done a good job about this outlining, like he's day-to-day functions he has, but like how does that interact with like the communication staff?

How does that interact with these different parts of the town system?

And like I'm just thinking about feedback moves, and like if there's more time spent in this part of the system, how does it impact in different parts of the system?

You probably can't get that granular, but like I really want greater insight into how like Chapel Hill government functions, and like you know, TED's a part of that, and considering like how North Carolina is like a manager state, and we as a council really TED is our point of view into that wider governance.

I think that's why I really want to see like how he interacts with those other departments because like there's a firewall between us and the rest of town government.

It's like you know, we can't go in there and make changes and stuff, which is probably for the best, but I would like to see how Ted is making that system operate.

Does that make sense to people?

I think I think that there's a piece of like maybe to bring it, and I don't know, but tell me if this is getting at what you're thinking about.

Is there's a component of kind of getting Ted to help us understand not so much, maybe not so much about the organization and how the organization works, but the things that he's kind of doing that we wouldn't be aware of, and there could be a way for that to be included in kind of his successes or efforts or whatever that there's a lot that's not visible to us, and so understanding where some of his efforts are that we might not see from our view or something, like you know, putting it back into why do we need to know?

It's probably because we need to know what he's spending time on, and how do I evaluate somebody if I don't know most of what they do, right?

And so from that lens, it could help us to say, oh, yeah, you've actually been doing a ton of work over here on stormwater, and we don't know about it, so we want to know.

I I don't know.

Yeah, I think that's it.

Or maybe we're going back to that why's conversation.

So we have whys as council, and a lot of those whys, and we have whys for them we want to think from our city government, and those whys go through TED.

So, how does a why of council go through TED and get implemented by staff?

And that to me maybe is like an orientation topic as opposed to part of the evaluation.

I I was unsatisfied with our orientation in different departments.

Okay.

Because like I felt like we were introduced to our different departments, but part of me wants to see like almost like how what is happening manually in these departments.

Like, you know, how are these these changes happening?

And like um, so like this past year we had a pretty big change in logo.

And like, how did that happen?

And like I wasn't here for that, but like you know, that's a very public thing, and like I have a lot of people coming up to me.

But that's not really it sounds like it was not like a council thing to drive.

So, like, just but I'm getting lost, but I just want to have I just don't see this as about TED.

I see this is about the whole organization.

I just want more about the whole organization there.

I'm talking too much on rambling.

Elizabeth, please help me.

I don't I don't know how to help you.

But to me, what it uh is I think this is adjacent to what you're talking about.

But to me, some of these, and I've had this experience when you know I'm only a couple years into council, but when we've been asked to do reviews before, we get a list of metrics on which to evaluate the person.

I was like, I have no idea.

Like, yes, this is a very important metric by which to evaluate your employee, and certainly we should be holding our town manager accountable for this task or this quality, but I have no flipping idea if this person, town manager, well, the town manager and the attorney are the only two we review.

But anyway, we don't see a lot of the day to day, and so to me, some of the things that you have on this list are just really um they really expose the places where we are not able to effectively evaluate and where potentially we need to readjust the communication, and um I I almost want like a separate, like we give that one like a letter instead of a number, like you know, this one gets like an X, this is a place where we don't know, and we should be able to evaluate evaluate our one of our two actual employees by these metrics, but we don't have the communication that facilitates that, and so that to me is like this is I you know, reading through these, these are all I think really great things to score on, and I didn't come up with a bunch of others that I would want to add, but there are some that I know I don't feel qualified to weigh in on, and that to me is more the the issue, and and I think it's it's a this is a great way to shed light on what those are.

We just don't understand how things work.

Well, and it's not I mean like we're not sitting on Ted's shoulder all day long, and that is nor should we nor should we exactly but we do need to be able to get a sense of how well he's doing his job because we hired him.

Well, I think that's kind of part of like I think there's a difference that it's not we don't need to know how the exact mechanisms by which something happens.

We can certainly say, hey, we think it's we want council to have more input on something, and we want that to be part of what you work on this year or whatever, you know.

But I think it's more about Ted is our manager, we evaluate him based on the articulated goals that we put out there, and then however he does it.

I mean, he's got to follow the law, he's got to stay within our budget, like you know, there are constraints, but like that is more that's kind of I think it's outside of the evaluation process, although I think it's good for us to understand how the organization works just as a separate issue, right?

But I I don't know.

I think the school of government and TED can probably help us to think about how do you do deal with this issue, and we have the same thing with our attorney.

I'm sorry, Nick, we don't have a great one for you either.

But I do think it's helpful to understand how do we how do we evaluate things that we don't know about, and how does TED communicate to us so we can better.

So we're gonna have a consultant's idea.

I was just gonna chime in really quickly and say that we anticipated this conversation, and this is we discuss this very topic and thinking about are they going to feel comfortable evaluating relationship with staff employees?

So when you think about the the outline and the structure of that survey, where I said some of these things might not be applicable.

Um, if some of you do want to keep that item on there, there is space to leave physically blank and just the dash through if you don't feel comfortable answering a specific question, we can also completely remove some of these items.

So this is something that is definitely a work in progress.

So who's knows?

I have my hands on it.

It was Melissa.

Okay, go for it, and then Camille and then Amy.

Yeah, so um in some respects to to go to some of what some of these things um said.

Um I was very glad to see that the kind of highlight reel is the first thing on the on the top.

Um that's where we can address so the um I forget what how it's exactly described here, but um manager submits to mayor and council key performance highlights and accomplishments, and that in many ways tells us here's what I've done.

You may not know that it was my job to do this, but I accomplished this, I accomplished this, I did this, which accomplished that.

Um that is an incredibly important.

I know when I was working on the It was always my way to remind the my boss why I did something.

What I actually accomplished, even if they didn't remember it.

Um and the other thing is that there, you know, like Elizabeth said, there are things that we just don't have any idea how to judge.

Um and and for me, one of those is management ability, and especially since one of our really significant issues is personnel, how that management, how that management happens for those personnel, how it affects that those personnel, and what might be done to further incentivize um personnel staying, or uh attracting new personnel.

And I was wondering whether what you all think about or whether you've considered the possibility of annual or biannual um 360 degree evaluations so I can speak to the the the 360 piece that so over time that tool eight version of a 360, and there are lots of them out there you know, it's kind of had been flowed as far as being in vogue, right?

Um so some of the I've taken those several times from different providers.

Um the most useful time for me was actually getting 360 from folks who reported to me.

Um it is, yeah.

Yeah, but but also um the ones I've done have asked for for you to provide feedback as well.

So it's 360, otherwise it's a 180.

Right, right.

I'll settle for a 180 from the ones below.

What well, so this is just a sort of a clarifying point because if you really want a 360 and you all want to do the feedback on it, you run into some of the same issues of I don't know about this, that, and the other thing, and then some members will give up on it.

So they're there, they're fairly.

I consider this R 180.

So that's so I think what I'm hearing you say then is would there be a place for uh folks who report to me to provide feedback?

Yes.

There certainly could be.

I've seen I've seen I've seen that.

I've advocated for that uh when I was on a nonprofit board.

Um so you know, that's something we could we could talk about.

Um I I don't know that I would uh suggest it annually, uh, but I think you know, having all the department heads or uh uh a group of them and the deputies um be able to provide some sort of feedback, I would say of a leader who knows how to lead should not be afraid of doing that and should not be afraid to be vulnerable and to accept feedback.

Um if you have somebody who who just you know says I'm not gonna do that, that might give you pause.

Um so I'm I'm certainly open to that.

We could talk about what that might look like and when and how we would do that.

Um we didn't add I don't I didn't anticipate that here, but that's um certainly feedback I'm willing to take and think about.

No, and in fact, with the school government, when we teach manager evaluation, we really kind of don't go to the 360 because it's a developmental tool.

Not an evaluation tool.

That is the most important point to make here is when you do 360s, um, if it's perceive that it's going to be used as a hammer instead of a helpful um guide for how you can strengthen your relationships, it it becomes a very ineffective tool because then people gain the system and uh shut down or just won't do it because they're afraid that the the evaluated will come after the evaluating folk with a hammer saying why did you sabotage me or you know I don't believe you or whatever.

So that is a great point.

Um so to the extent that your interest is figuring out is this person leading well, um, you know, there's probably a way to get at that, but it it does bump up against you know some of the principles of I work for you, um the staff works for me, and going around me to them is you know can can be fraught.

Uh I'm not afraid of figuring out a way that that works, but that but that you know that there are some principles there that we have to you know look at and think about how that might work effectively.

Yeah, we just you know we need to have some way to be able to say how well are you managing your people and and I don't know how we do that, and y'all are the experts, so I would call your attention to uh performance category number nine, which is similar to uh a number of the forms that we looked at that are in practice.

The key question is are the staff effective in carrying out the responsibilities are you getting the performance that you expect?

Not just from the manager, but from the staff of the report to the manager, and I might just add to that that um it may be somewhat in response to council member rivers' thoughts uh earlier where my mind went was to does the organization have performance measures that you could look at that would be helpful to understand whether the organization is functioning well and thereby inferring that the leader is helping them together.

Yeah, and certainly you know, then this item number nine is something that should probably very much be addressed in your highlight reel.

Yes, and I think one other thing that's important to note here, as we've done this with numerous councils across the state, they tend to take one of two approaches.

One is a pragmatic approach that we want to evaluate what we know about, we don't want to be asked sort of about things that we don't know about, and the other is the aspirational approach, which says we don't currently know about these things, but we would like to have sufficient knowledge to be able to evaluate on these topics, and that gets at sort of the why question is like this is what the evaluation is, this is how it would be done.

Um but there are different driving motivations when adopting an evaluation plan.

Are these things that the council would like to evaluate, or are they simply beyond the scope of how you see your oversight role?

So there's no right or wrong answer, but those are two competing perspectives.

I think I saw you in the LCD almost after Melissa.

Sorry, what did I say?

Oh, look hard line.

Sorry, is what I meant, I promise.

I had the microphone ready, that's why I'm gonna do that.

I'm getting a little booing, sorry, go um so I do want to stay on that point.

Uh, because when we hired Ted, um we solicited the input of our senior staff, and we listened to that.

We put um we held that, and so I think it's important for us, whether it's developmental or not, to go back to our senior staff to say how is this going, and not just the senior staff, but also the other individual with whom Ted uh works that we supervise, which is the town attorney.

So the 360, not just up and down, but around, and the two of you are colleagues, and so I would like I'm curious to know how that is from the town attorney's perspective.

Maybe not in this, but we need to be informed at some point of how um individuals are viewing experiencing your leadership, and as far as them working for you, um I see you working for them as well, right?

100% okay.

And I say that publicly.

Thank you.

Because I I think there's a danger when we say someone works for us, and therefore to get that that was problematic for me to hear.

Um I would like for us to, if not in here, because I hear you about it being developmental, for us to create at some point where we do invite that input once again.

them working for you um I see you working for them as well right 100% okay and I say that publicly thank you because I I think there's a danger when we say someone works for us and therefore to get that that was problematic for me to hear um so I would like for us to if not in here because I hear you about it being developmental for us to create at some point where we do invite that input once again because it was important enough for us to use it to hire it should be important enough for us to consider how the evolution of that position goes and I will say I've been through two orientations I didn't go through the third one in between I'm glad that I went through the second one and I still um wanting that's not necessarily connected to your orange to your evaluation but I want to vocalize that I still want to know more mayor can I just respond to that one piece that was problematic just to be clear I because I want everybody to hear this that you know at multiple points where I came to introduce myself to staff and I was really just making a quick response of the sort of the way people report but I want everyone in this room to know that what I have have told staff every time I've been part of the last several months of orientation is that I don't have a job if they don't have jobs.

I am here to serve to help them because they are the ones who deliver service directly to the public I'm just in a support role so I would I want y'all to be very clear that I I've said that on multiple occasions and and I take your point that's a very important one.

Thank you.

Amy and Harris so thank you for all this work I really feel strongly that there's several of these that I am not qualified I don't have the knowledge to to address and really for me I was okay up to number six and then send an eight I could do some of that and then I really have a hard time answering those questions in any way that is meaningful.

So I think we're happy to take those out or you can leave them in as as aspirational it's your evaluation yeah and I hear your point about getting the about getting that um broader input I but I also I I don't know anything about this stuff so it'd start there and I hear your explanations of why sometimes that can be problematic.

I'm intrigued about the organizational performance metric which then kind of takes the personality out of it but then still gives us a sense of how the organization as a whole is functioning and where things are going well and where they're not so if that's something that would that you would feel would be appropriate and helpful to help us get at some of these things you know like the university relations like super important for the tent of Chapel Hill I have no way to judge that you know so um unless I see it was Ramsey's getting your picture taken I don't know you would never know it was me.

Oh are you Ramsey's other news um so um yeah so I and um yeah and I you know and I Louie I hear your point and I've been doing this for a while and there's a lot of stuff that still is a black box to be and probably appropriately you know I don't need I don't need to know everything that's going on but in order to for us to be working together really effectively in this form of government that we have I would love to know more about what you know where are our strengths where are the places we're trying to approve what are the things that are going for you know that and just so that we could not as a punishment or a blame or something but just to say before this is an organization you know a learning organization we strive for excellence let's make sure that we're contributed to that last thank you for helping us in trying to get a tool together really appreciate it.

I would be like it I think the one section that is probably the most difficult would be section nine for me but I am very much interested in keeping it and I would echo um what I've heard so far in terms of the benefit of being able to hear especially from our senior leadership in some capacity as it pertains to section nine and so I don't feel like all of section nine I I don't feel like I don't have a way of approaching some of it because in settings like this for instance I'm able to see how and observe um the interactions between you know the manager and staff and so there are opportunities that do present themselves from my standpoint where I can have some touches with nine but I do think that some of it is outside of my purview and I think senior staff would be very helpful in in helping to give us some some of that insight of the black box so to speak but overall I was pretty pleased thank you.

But overall, it's a pretty police thinking.

And it may well be that number nine on staff effectiveness, the timing is not right.

This might be something that would be for like another year evaluation.

It may be too soon, but that's really your call, not ours.

Well, what would you like?

What would happen between now and next year that would help us be better at answering it?

Because without something in between, I don't I would still not point to take to address it.

I can give a quick response.

So phase rollout could be helpful in establishing organizational metrics.

So if we wanted to do this sort of annually, one year from hiring, it may be quick to put in place organizational metrics and then try and capture that data within a short time frame.

But if you um phase the rollout, so the first year section of nine was absent, and then the second year it was present, that would give more time both from the managerial perspective to emphasize the organizational metrics and their importance, and then collect data over time.

So you could have a starting point, you know, immediate data collection, and then you would have data collection.

That's helpful.

But then you have the organization organizational effectiveness data for the second or third year or whenever um then.

So yeah, thank you so much, Carl Colton and Julie who must have left, but um, we can't take you for granted, and your time is very valuable, and I appreciate it.

Um for me, this document is separated by trying to the scoring mechanism and a narrative mechanism.

The way I'm thinking about it is process, like how stuff is done, what the outputs are, like Ted attended so many meetings, he did things, so there's outcomes, like what actually got done.

Like, for example, uh thinking about it from how he does his work, how you do your work to like what actually gets done.

Because I believe that we're really focused on like what gets done and what doesn't.

And so, like, for example, does he collaborate with the university?

I can score that, you maybe go to meetings or whatever.

But the other question I really want to ask is have the town's goals and partnership with UNC been advanced, right?

Like, what is the outcome of the work you're doing?

And there's some key themes there, like uh town and gown relationship, like we can we can know if things are moving the right direction or not.

We're gonna get a bunch of money to do a BRT.

Um, and in essence, you're the one that is accountable for what the staff is going to do or not do is a part of the stuff that we do, right?

The way I understand it.

So it's kind of like from delivering a budget on time, um, looking at that as an outcome process versus uh procedural one where it's like yes, the manager had all the appropriate meetings, the manager did allow for community input, but were those things factored in?

Was the budget done on time?

So in my mind, I would love to see an iteration or some thinking around um outcomes, like what gets done and what doesn't get done, like at the end in the narrative section, it says what performance areas would you identify as most critical.

I think that means that the performance areas from above me personally, I'm less concerned about how you do your work, unless how you do your work affects the outcomes.

I totally agree.

So finding somewhere to think about process evaluation versus outcome evaluation and weighing a lot heavier on what are the big buckets of things that um we need the town to do that um we can only work through the done.

That's right.

I think I totally agree with that.

And that's where it's like, yeah, of course, to meet some of the goals, you're gonna have to collaborate with the university, right?

Because they're they're the always the elephant in the room, right?

And but do you know that's how that's the how we want to go by, right?

Like why do we care about that?

It's because there's something that happens when that goes well.

What is that?

And I think that gets a little bit to a looping what you're talking about too, which is like then you don't have to know.

And I get it, like you have a dip you also have an interest in being educated and understanding the how the organization works, right?

Yeah, and like the process is really important to me because like I'm glad you said this stuff about outfits, because that's where I was gonna go with, and like Ted could be doing great in all the process stuff, and the outcome is still bad.

And if we hold that against Ted, that means we just bring someone else in and waits all the time to search and we still have that outcome.

So like I really want to know how we can figure out like yes, there are outcomes, but I I hate judging people strictly on outcomes.

Because like sometimes you get the best of process, and the outcome is just bad.

Yeah.

And I that's why I need to understand like how to make that differentiation.

I'm drawn to the notion of evaluating a police chief on the crime rate and how risky that can be.

But you can't measure that which doesn't happen.

So it's it just becomes a challenge sometimes in complex organizations.

Um we could just default back and look at my evaluation based on our stock value, um, but I don't know that that would apply here.

That's what the private sector does.

They get off easy.

Is there no task?

Um so what you know on a process note, what is helpful in the you know, how do you want what do you need from us in order to actually know what to do next?

Okay, well, there are a number of needs that we have.

Let me start and uh manager and poll can add in.

Um we're going to need key dates.

I think your comments uh really kind of understore the importance of the manager's self-report and assessment, and then what to focus on, and then how to convey to you not just accomplishment, but what relevant the process that led to it so setting the date for the manager to submit that report to you for you to review it, and then a second date for you to schedule a meeting and performance evaluation where you would discuss not just the manager's report, but also the response from the council members to the survey instrument.

Uh so those key dates don't have to be decided right now, but I think they they need to be kind of focused on sooner rather than later with respect to the form.

Again, it's it's kind of an amalgamation of what we thought were really reasonable areas to include based on other local governments who have used the use the instrument, and so what you see here are taken from the town of Manio, Wake County, their products of the Georgia City and County Managers Association, the Tennessee Center for Public Service, and a dozen local governments in North Carolina is close as Holly Springs.

So we've just put those there in our judgment.

We didn't know what was really important to you, what you were comfortable with in terms of your ability to evaluate, and so we need feedback from you in terms of particularly the 10 performance categories, which ones would stay, which ones could go, which ones need retooled, if you will.

Our approach here was to be at put more generous here in terms of the number of different examples that you would grade, thinking it's probably easier to delete it than to think it up, and so you know, we're fine with however you want to adjust the instrument, it's your instrument.

Um so that that's a second kind of general need we have.

The good news is evaluation isn't gonna take place until the fall, so we do have time.

Uh but again, I realize you have very busy agendas and lots of other things going on.

So we want to again make the best use of your time as well as our own time.

Elizabeth and Melissa, and then um just as a follow-up to that, and like how couldn't uh given that we have been here for almost three hours tonight?

How how do how do we as a body give you that feedback?

When and where do we give you that feedback?

Are we gonna go around and try to do it now given that we've been here for almost three hours?

And I think we're all starting to get a little weary eye.

Um and then what what I would could you roll out the process for us a little more?

Sure.

Is it or everybody do a little active listening exercise?

So far, what I have heard um from the council is that sections one through six don't tend to provide or raise a lot of red flags for you in terms of your ability to evaluate those sections.

So our focus would be less in those areas.

Um I have heard some hesitancy around sections seven and eight, particularly.

So now if there are any things that raise flags for you in terms of we would like uh tension here, that could be helpful.

In section eight, particularly, we put the relationship with the university, we're biased for at UNC, so we feel like that that relationship is important, but you are also next to Carborough, you're in Orange County, there's a WASA, there's other types of relationships that could be important to you.

If you want to highlight one of those, um that would be an easy fix for us.

Um that one looks like it's gonna need a little bit of work, um, and then 10 will be an evolving thing.

But I think um, in terms of feedback, if you've got feedback on seven, eight, or nine, um, that could be helpful.

We'll workshop nine in terms of how we're going to report the staff effectiveness, taking into account your desire for staff and staff feedback in order to be able to adequately evaluate that.

So that's something that we'll workshop and bring back to you.

But specifically with seven and nine, if there are seven and eight, if there are any um statements within that they give you pause, it could be helpful to know that.

And Cole, can I just add that on the ten, those four um council priority areas?

That's the we um we've got some staff work coming up very shortly.

Um, all the departments have provided um uh feedback on your work at your retreat on how they propose to address your priorities and the ensuing work that they're gonna be doing.

So we've got that, we just got it, and we're will we can uh massage that into um a proposal to come back to that sort of says here's what we think we heard as far as your goals, and here's what we think um accomplished can be accomplished, and and might be measures of success.

You guys can take a look at it and see if you think that that's the outcome that you would like to measure on.

So, mayor, whatever process is going to work best for you, we're fine with that.

Um approach would be just the individual council members to send their comments directly to me or to to the manager, and um or another would be to designate a council member as kind of a liaison or go-to person for these communications.

Um, it's really something the manager and you should um I think it's fine for council members to directly communicate with you guys about their feedback.

I guess the only question that we often run into is that we do like to be a little more efficient, and but we also learn from each other, and if somebody says something that I actually do end up agreeing with, then it's hard for me to I didn't mean to understand that I thought I didn't, but then I did because of the conversation, not that generally that wouldn't happen, but um I don't have the opportunity to hear that, but I don't want us to keep going tonight to be clear because I think we're not gonna give you very good at anything.

Um can I throw in a possibility?

Uh and I I don't know absolutely certainly whether whether this is legal, but I do it from the hearing.

But I mean other context, another another context that I would work in when people are trying to comment on the same document, and that would be is it possible legal to put it into a Google Doc that we all have access to that we could only put comments, we wouldn't be coming up with decision making of any sort, but it would enable the the kind of things that Jess is coming is mentioning, which is I didn't think of that.

I agree, or um I disagree, and this is a comment, and you have it all be refined in one place, it would be accessible to everybody and Melissa.

Let's let our attorney answer your question.

Or you late it to your town manager.

Since it's a personnel matter, we might be able to do something like that.

Because as long as it's one way going in and not us responding.

To each other five at a time, responding to one one or two to each other is not a quorum problem.

So maybe this is something that between IT and our manager and our attorney you guys can figure out a way, and it sounds like then people would feel a little better about not just throwing information into the voice.

Um I do I had you know, I had stuff on some of the other sections too, but I'm assuming we can just throw that in as well for people to kind of consider and then I think we could at some point maybe have a way for council to kind of coalesce around some of the feedback before you all start doing stuff.

We could come back for a return engagement bringing revised instrumenting your input and what the manager's input is as well.

Yeah, if that would be helpful.

I think there was you know what sort of kind of summarize I had heard that people were interested, that people were interested in understanding more about kind of the organizational assessment that could be phased later.

Um that generally there's comfort with some, but maybe there are places where we don't want to rate it, but we want to talk about it.

Um I do have one question, which is kind of how do we um what's kind of the um sorry I'm getting tired.

Um how are we uh making sure that there's kind of um statistical, I don't know, like that to put it in plain language, how how does my one compare to Camille's one and how does my two compare to Camille's two?

How are we making like what are those scores mean in a little more detail?

Because I mean, always almost always generally for some of them is like what is Google like again, is what I'm asking.

Actually, on that point, most of the forms had a five-point rating scale, not a three.

And and we thought that the three scale was actually more useful than kind of that almost specifically getting their sort of midpoint.

Okay, um Camille and then Amy.

Yeah, I would actually like for us to consider not doing the shared feedback.

I'd like for us to independently, I'd like for us to consider providing independent feedback to you.

You can share with us by a certain date what feedback you've received, and then we can consider.

I'd rather um for this that we not be swayed by anybody when we first go into it.

So someone who jumps on it right away and does it.

I I'd like to be able to have a chance to speak up without without being influenced first.

And I think we can still achieve shared thoughts if you can give back to us what you heard from us.

Thank you, Mr.

I don't yeah, so maybe a way that people can originally put in their thoughts without having to see others, and then there's a way to see.

So IT IT challenge uh Amy.

Yeah, I I'm neutral on multi-formatics where we do it.

Um I just you had asked earlier if we had additions, and I would we do that in the feedback that you want from the do you want them then?

Do you like additions now, or would you like me to just do it?

It's only it's two things.

Yeah, if it's quick, we can I can chat it down.

Yeah, it's um I'm just gonna say that everybody's gonna have it's not gonna be quick.

I'm just telling you as I think as long as we can give it, and then as long as other people can consider it, I think we'll get there, but I'm just gonna finish that.

So I'm sorry, I don't I I feel pressed.

Sorry, I try to make you feel suppressed as I feel like.

So in the interest of moving on, what I'm hearing is we're I think we we I will send a message to uh counsel with the instructions on how to get feedback to Carl, so look for something from me that you know has some kind of address or link or format in it to you.

long as we can give it and then as long as other people can consider it I think we'll get there but I'm just gonna finish that I'm sorry I don't I I feel sorry I try to make you feel suppressed as I'm here so in the interest of moving on what I'm hearing is we're I think we we I will send a message to uh council with the instructions on how to get feedback to Carl so look for something from me that you know has some kind of address or link or format in it to you staff will also separately be looking at how to get to you proposed um measures on your performance uh priorities uh and then we'll also be kicking around probably them and us uh what some sort of staff feedback might look like um so that's my takeaway for the the the the big three things to do next that sounds right to council anybody that's not right all right that's great yes wonderful thank you so much we really appreciate all of you um all all all of you for uh for helping us um we know that there's a lot of work that goes into it and I'm really excited to have a good instrument that's gonna help us have that collaborative relationship that I think totally work thank you very much um great job council you did um thank you guys for the great conversations I believe we are back together again on February twenty fifth council chamber six pm two days before council obviously huge event um and meeting is a jerk to council what