Good, everyone.

Thank you very much, Miss Brown.

Um, I want to call to order the um consent and action review portion of our agenda, which has started a little bit late, like five PM.

And we'll start that by saying um, we're glad for those that are watching us online and or those that are joining us on in person.

The same thing we'll say about that when we go downstairs for our the remainder of our business meeting.

So right now, what I'd like to um say is that we um are ready for the call to order.

We'll start with our introductions with the city clerk.

Ariel Smith, lead city clerk, Andrea Leslie Fight, City Attorney.

Welcome, Andrea.

We're really we'll talk a little bit more about you later, but want you to welcome upstairs downstairs.

That's the way it was.

All right, here we go.

I'm Marjorie Molina, District 5.

What's my name today?

Oh Jane Smith at large Dempelaj Mira at large.

Dante Anderson, Mayor Pro Tim, District 1.

By Lowell's Mayor.

Marcus Jones, City Manager.

Johnson C.

Smith, District 2.

Championship came on Saturday.

Malcolm District 2.

Wow.

Ed Drake's district seven.

Lowana Mayfield, Councilmember at large.

I do want to say that yesterday.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Miss Brown.

Hey, the best for last year.

Oh, of course.

Of course.

Council Member Brown, District 3 J C S U.

You nope.

Oh my gosh.

Pretty soon you're going to be doing that all day long.

So I just want to actually address.

Yesterday we had a Panthers football game.

While that game perhaps wasn't exactly what we wanted it to be, we had the Aggie Pride band come in and perform for that.

And they did a fantastic job.

Oh, ANT there.

We got it.

We gotta keep up, Smith.

Hey, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, y'all gotta you gotta start keeping it.

They're not playing for a championship Saturday at all.

We won nine games, they won two.

They can keep the ban.

Who can I I don't I don't I don't know what he's talking about.

I really don't.

So congratulations on all of that.

I I just think that when I saw those young men and women come out of that tunnel, it just I it just showed us that while we have the stadium, the stadium is actually made for the people in this community, and I just want to say that and especially um because it's something that I think we really can be proud of.

But nonetheless, I think right now we're going to start with the city council policy.

Well, no, we're gonna talk a little bit with the city manager.

Mr.

Jones, do you want to have some comments for us?

I'll give the consent the consent agenda is important to do.

Miss Mayfield is gonna help us with that.

Let me see if I can find our pages.

Let's see.

I don't know that I have here we are.

All right, we've had the clerk, and so everybody's okay.

Um, Miss Watlington has joined us, and so um we will now consider consent items on tonight's agenda.

And so I see Miss Mayfield has raised her hand, but before we begin this, I know it's really hard when I can't see around the dais downstairs about who's making the motion, and often it's so I really uh like to have your help that when we are gonna have a motion or you are making a motion that it's easy that I see have some eye contact.

That would really be helpful.

So, Miss Mayfield, why don't you start me out like that?

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So, for the items for consent to pull it put aside for either separate vote and or discussion item number 26, 27 and 34, please.

Could you repeat that?

Um and then number 34.

Okay, thank you.

In addition to that, the staff has pulled item 30 as well.

Yes, do we have any others pull from the staff?

Okay, so 30 will not um be addressed this morning this afternoon as well.

So with that, um, why don't we start with item 26?

Miss Mayfield.

I'm sorry.

So Madam Mayor Mayor Marie.

I want to I just wondered if Miss Mayfield wanted to make the motion.

Oh no, there needs to be a motion.

I'm sorry.

I'm not making the motion.

Okay, you're not doing a motion.

So, madam mayor.

Can I I'd like to motion uh that we approve all the consent items?

Uh we're standing 26, 27, 30, and 34.

We have we have a second for that.

All in favor.

Is there any comment?

Miss Mayfield.

Madam Mayor just go one quick motion.

Okay.

So we have 26, 27, 30, and 34.

26, 27, 34.

Yes.

Second.

We have a motion and assumed all is there any discussion?

Hearing no discussion.

All in favor of that motion that we made without those that Ms.

Mayfield um pull.

All in favor, please raise your hands.

Anyone nodding?

Anyone opposed?

That passes our consent agenda with the file with now.

We'll move on to Miss Mayfield's request for item 26.

I believe there still needs to be a motion to it.

I'm not going to make the motion.

I need to speak to this.

Well, will you speak to it and then we can move to approve item 26?

All right.

So we have 26 to prove.

Um do I have a second?

I need a second.

Thank you.

I have a second.

Uh now let's hear the discussion.

I think we want to start with the discussion.

Miss Mayfield.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Maria, I sent an email and to all of council.

This particular request is for the mobile payment services for the on-street parking contract, which will create an amendment of this amendment would increase the contract estimated amount to $800,000.

My question was one, as this is an online app, what is the justification for increasing the administrative fees?

But also, Maria, you and I had a chance to speak earlier.

What has been the actual revenue that has been generated from this particular vendor?

And again, to justify this additional cost for this app management.

Yes, ma'am.

And thank you.

To your point, the this administrative fee, and the fee is not increasing, just the number of transactions.

So it's 12 cents per credit card transaction.

And your question on the revenues, yes, for for this fiscal year, we're projecting around 3.8 million, which is roughly 70% more than in 2024 when they first started the year of the contract.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments or questions regarding it?

So we have a motion on the table.

All in favor of the motion, please raise your hands.

All right.

That is there you know, I mean, Miss Ms.

Watlington and Miss Brown, did you have your hand raised?

Well, it isn't when you're here.

It's only when you walk away.

So it's number two.

Okay, is anyone opposed to the motion?

The app.

Okay.

Anyone opposed to the motion?

Okay.

None hearing none.

Uh the motion passes.

Thank you.

Our next item is 27.

27.

Miss Yes.

Do we have a motion?

Madam Mayor, actually, I would like for us to consider a deferral on this for more clarification to come in on the question that I sent.

But if my colleagues have a different motion, then we can move in that direction.

Okay.

Does the staff have any comment or or any concern to have a question?

Somebody can make another motion.

I'd like to make a motion.

I made a deferral motion and then and waiting and see if it's going to be a second.

Yes, yes, I did.

Okay.

The motion was to defer.

It's a motion.

Miss Mayfield made a motion to defer.

Is there another motion?

Was that seconded?

It wasn't.

We have a second.

You have a second for Ms.

Brown.

Thank you.

All right.

Any uh is that agreeable?

Do we see is there anyone that has an alternate to the motion?

Hearing none, I'll raise your hand.

We'll do it and we will return this item in the next meeting.

Mayor.

Yes, Mayor.

I now have the opportunity to speak to it.

Thank you.

So for colleagues, the reason I asked for a deferral, this particular request is the fact is for spectrum, of which has been a great partner.

But what I want us to consider is we have we city have been providing the traffic control services for the spectral arena events since 2005.

The initial question that I sent to Miss Harris and I copied all of you on is how much is Spectrum contributing to the cost of this traffic mitigation and why is the city absorbing the financial request.

What was shared is that this is a cost that we've incurred since 2005.

My follow-up question, which I want to give enough time for that to come back, is okay.

Have we not considered a cross-sharing model?

Because the idea of just because we have done it, we should continue doing it with the financial potential shortfalls we're looking at and the multiple needs in the community.

We have made a considerable investment in spectrum recently.

I think we it is time for us to have a conversation of if this is still the best model versus some of the other growth and opportunities within the area and buildings that we're responsible for for us to move forward.

So that it was the reason for the deferral.

Thankfully, my colleagues did support it, but I did want to share and have it on record what this the expectation of this conversation is because just because we have been doing this particular model since 2005, as we're going into 2026.

I think we deserve the opportunity to review if possibly a cost sharing model will be more efficient and more beneficial to community.

Okay, thank you.

I think Mr.

Drix and I just want to ask the manager does the contract we have with the team provide that we make these payments.

Is this negotiable?

Um I'll have to ask Charlie if that is a part of the contract that we have right now.

That 20 euro contract.

Well, we renewed it in 2022 and 2024.

I don't have an answer for that.

Um we're focused solely just on the traffic control piece, um providing the services to the community.

So I think there'd be some more research to see where those agreements lie.

So I I think it's just worth noting.

We will abide by the terms of any agreement we have with the team.

Okay, we'll look into what this mayfield suggested, but not to the point of reneging on any agreement that we've already signed.

So Mr.

Jones, you um we'll do the research to determine.

I don't know whether it's for our attorney or however the folks that are around this, we'll have to come back um and with a deferral and a discussion around how it operates, Mr.

So we so we're uh we we are voting to defer or we are deferring.

Oh no, it we are voting to vote it.

We we have we agreed to a deferral already.

Yeah, yes.

Well that's just not people weren't paying attention.

It happened really fast.

It really did happen.

People weren't paying attention, that's when it happened, and we had light that went around.

Well, I again we can defer it, but this is a I can speak to it if I can before.

Well, you know, it's a community benefit.

We generate millions of dollars of economic impact.

We have thousands of people traveling to Spectrum, traveling at Bank of American Stadium, traveling at all our arch venues uptown.

We're finding the perception of safety in Uptown, and this is a small investment, and the return is greater.

We can have the discussion.

Um that you know, we just had literally what between Charlotte FC and Carolina Panthers game this weekend, and over 150,000 people visiting on our town, and they all have to get around it.

I think we'll be a penny wise and a pound foolish um if we don't take the public safety issues, even traffic control seriously, and I think that should be a city investment.

We'll have to discuss it, but uh I think we just got it at the bigger picture of what's happening in Uptown.

I think that what we have a motion that's been approved, and so we'll come back to that.

I think that you were hearing Mr.

Graham's concern.

I understand.

So with that, all right.

All in favor?

We've always got this motion.

So we've already done it.

So we'll have the missile manager come back.

It was a courtesy that I went back and clarified what it was.

Okay.

I didn't record the votes.

Okay.

Okay.

The vote has not been recorded, so let's raise our hands for the deferral.

Oh, yes, ma'am.

I'm for the deferral.

All in favor of the deferral, please raise your hands.

This is of item 27.

From item 27 for spectrum, additional information.

Additional information.

Okay, one, two, three, four.

What's a four motion has now?

We got two all against.

I know all the I know against, but I was just making sure.

So we have four people that raise their hands to come back for deferral.

All of those that oppose the motion, please raise your hand.

I think he wanted to clarify.

Melina had a point of information.

Okay, Miss Molina.

Well, wait, we but we we have voting on the table right now.

Really quickly just to clarify.

If it were deferred, when would it come back?

On the 24th is our next meeting.

Okay.

Okay.

And and is there any type of like is there something that would not happen as a result of us not approving it tonight, just for clarification?

I don't think we can answer that question until someone on the staff gives us more information.

It would it would not be a bad impact for two weeks.

All right, so we have um now those that oppose the motion, please raise your hands.

One two, three, four.

I'm sorry.

Oh, she's out.

We got a full council.

Full information.

I know.

Where's everybody?

What's really going on?

That's 20 years I don't know what's really going on, except I I have the ability to have Miss Mayfield.

Let's see what your hands up.

Thank you, madam mayor.

So we can all level set.

There wasn't an initial motion to approve.

As there was silence, I made a motion to defer.

I was able to get a second on that motion to defer.

I then asked, and I thought you had said for us to for the motion to defer, but evidently the clerk said they didn't catch that.

But I thought we had actually voted on that, and it was after that that I said I would like to speak on it to give clarification.

The clerk says no, she didn't catch that.

So when I was sharing to give clarification why I was asking for a deferral versus just making a motion to deny, is again this contract from 2005, and we are now in 2025, is to give us additional information because as we continue to grow, as we as a council have approved quite a bit of funds to our partner, it's a cost sharing option.

Has it even been discussed?

Is there a consideration?

Now's the time to look at the contract.

So when my motion to defer was seconded, again, I was under the understanding that we did raise our hands.

Clerk says she did not catch that.

So now we have this other conversation, but the challenge right now is there was not six votes to approve my motion, neither was there six votes on the other conversation, and I don't believe that I heard a amendment to my motion, which was the original motion to defer.

So I don't think I think we didn't have enough votes either way to come to a decision on this.

But so Miss I have to question yes, please.

I just want to ask a question because uh Miss Mayfield, I had stepped out.

That's why I was under trying to understand what was uh what were the challenges?

So it so there was an RFP, there was responses, and you're asking for information regarding no no no item 27 was spectrum traffic control service.

The traffic control service is right.

It says on July 2020 22nd, the city issued an RFP.

There were five responses received.

Is your is your that's item 27, the third bullet or fourth bulk third bullet point?

Is your is my point is it's your question related to the RFP process and the outcome of that, or is your question just a higher question around um cost sharing in general?

So my question specifically for the Spectrum Center traffic control services is a clarification on are we continuing just because we've always done it, because this contract is from 2005.

So, because of the amount of money that council has already approved in support of our partner, has there even been a conversation of a cost sharing for this particular resource to the community?

So that was the original question.

The original email that everyone was copied on that was sent to Marie asks how much is Spectrum contributing to the cost of traffic mitigation and why is the city absorbing this financial request.

Conversation with Miss Marie is when I learned that actually we're doing what we're contributing to is the of which you all have a copy of that.

The city has provided traffic control services for Spectrum Arena events since its opening in 2005.

So my question follow-up was then we're now in 2025 going in 2026.

This deferral that I initially motioned is not going to cause any challenges in this contract, but it will help to give us clarification on where we are on this contract and the expectations.

So I believe if the manager can provide the information, we can get the information as well as coming back to.

But Mr.

Jones, help us out of the sure.

Thank you.

Uh Mayor's member of council.

As Marie said it doesn't negatively impact on what we're doing.

Um if this were deferred for two weeks so that everybody could get more information and feel more comfortable.

And I feel very comfortable with that.

No, I have people that have I mean Miss Watlington and then Mr.

Driggs and then Miss Molina.

And Washington.

And I'm sorry, I can't see around that far.

No, Martin was already first.

She's first.

Because given the way the vote happened, if you're not a no, you're a yes.

So it technically passed, but I mean, I would for clarity, certainly we can just reconsider the motion.

Um I want to understand how this particular information is going to change or impact your vote.

Because if it's just a matter of point of information, I don't know that a deferral is necessary, but if it's something material about the information you plan to get back that would impact your vote, I just want to understand that because I certainly want to support if I can, but for me, yes, it will determine the impact of my vote because this is which I don't send the questions to Marie unless I think that question is gonna help me identify if this is something I can support or not.

Can you tell me why?

Or what it what what are you weighing?

So going back to the actual question that I sent to everyone that states how much is spectrum contributing to the cost of this traffic mitigation and why is the city absorbing this financial.

But is there any question or any answer that's going to make you say, oh, that's enough.

I'll vote yes.

It's not a point in me voting, giving that answer of I'm gonna vote yes or no.

It's a point of why are we absorbing this costs?

And if the answer you give to me is, well, we've been doing that since 2005.

That's not a good enough answer for me to say, well, that's how we've always done it.

We've been doing it since 2005.

We're in 2025.

We're looking at potential financial shortfalls all across.

We just made a major contribution to this partner.

My follow-up question was then have we considered or had any discussion about cost sharing, which will actually probably be more beneficial to the community to know if that to get the response from staff would help me to decide if I think that this is an investment that we should continue to make, and that's what's gonna help determine my yay or nay to this request.

Thank you.

Mr.

Driggs.

So the concern I have is the vote tonight is about a contract with a vendor with whom we engage in order to fulfill an arrangement we have with the team.

The time to discuss our arrangement with the team is not now.

We uh actually renewed our agreement with the team in 2024 in great detail.

It's all spelled out.

I assume our commitment to absorb this cost is in there, and I don't think this is an occasion to have the conversation that you're talking about.

I think maybe we can have it, and uh, but I don't want the to appear to the team as if we are using this opportunity to contemplate some sort of renegotiation of our deal with them.

This is a vendor.

This is a company that provides these services.

We pay for them based on an understanding we have with the team, and uh I think we should go ahead and appoint the vendor and whether or not the team participates in that cost could be the subject of a different conversation, but they shouldn't hear that we're discussing this this way.

Like we should approach them and tell them, hey, we'd like to have this conversation with you.

The the vendor itself is is somebody we need in order to control traffic.

Who pays for it is another conversation.

Okay, each game.

Miss Melina.

Uh thank you, madam mayor.

I just so my it it's I have no problem providing time to what would give more clarification to you, right?

Uh, because I think the challenge we have now is now we have public engagement because this conversation is happening right now.

So the public is going to have questions like what you're bringing to the table.

Um I'm I'm willing to entertain just for the scope of and and I agree with you, Ed, and saying that you know, I would never want to communicate to our partners that we intend to renege on any type of you know contracts that we have, but I think spelling out the fact that there is a contract, Mr.

Manager, that says that we've agreed to X, right, with certain dates and et cetera.

Um, and and some of the things that you know Ms.

Mayfield is bringing up.

I think if that means that we give that a week to make sure that that answer is out in the public, and then it returns to the council, you know, and like I said, making absolute clear to now the public and our partner that this is in no intention to renege on anything, and we you know I I don't see a problem with that, you know, as long as it's with the understanding that we're not intending to undo something if we have contractually obligated ourselves to it.

I want to make sure that that's clear.

Thank you, Mayor Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And and that was the initial uh my initial uh reasoning for the questions because my understanding is we've already negotiated our um partnership with the Spectrum Center, what we would cover, what they would cover.

I mean, that was a long robust conversation last year, and so this is just a step in the execution of it.

If you if you want additional information at 1,000 percent, uh you should have it about the RFP and what it entails and the inner workings of it, but it sounds like we're going back to the original question of whether we should be paying for this or not, and we had those discussions last year when we had the negotiations with the team, and it wasn't a quick negotiation, it was a robust long conversation, and so and so as we're looking at this information tonight, I I think we can move forward with the vote to um to to stand up to our part of the bargain for what we're going to cover because we have already had that uh negotiation now, whether or not you put you have questions around this particular vendor or if it should be another vendor or what um what else they should bring to the table, that's a different conversation.

Those are those are two separate conversations, and I think um opening up the can to say, hey, we need to go back to uh have a negotiation around this with the Spectrum Center and the team.

That's a re-litigation of something that we've already agreed to.

All right, we're gonna close this out with them Bulash Mirror.

Ms.

Mirror.

All right, thank thank you, Madam Mayor.

So bottom line is there is very minimal or no impact from what I heard from Mr.

Jones.

Is that correct?

So I don't see yes, I don't see a reason why we wouldn't give a benefit of doubt.

I mean, our colleagues is asking for information.

There is no impact, there is no rush.

Let's wait two weeks, get her the information.

She might be yes.

Uh, but I think I see this out of respect to our colleague.

Um, I'll be supporting the deferral.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

No, I uh for clarification.

I I think there was some confusion.

No, it didn't I we the clerk does not have um the motion that would that I think there's something that's passed.

Am I saying that correctly?

You do not have a motion that she has put in the minutes, so we need to have something for the minutes that we're doing this with.

So all right, Mr.

Graham, Mr.

Mitchell, and let's see if we can get a motion here.

Oh, is there a motion on the floor?

There is a motion on the floor.

There is a motion on the floor, but not one okay.

Would you read the motion?

Miss City Attorney, Ms.

Clerk.

That's right.

So that's right.

So the two there was a motion and a second on the floor, and it looks like there were two who did not respond, and so they're they're non-respon if they yes vote.

Yeah.

Okay, so then they're yes.

All right, so it passed then the deferral.

Deferrals is passed.

Okay.

All right, thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Um, Mr.

Graham, I mean, sorry, Mr.

Mitchell.

So, mayor counsel, I just find I just don't want the team to think that you're in our office.

We understand that.

Okay, right.

I think that's included in what Ms.

Molina said as well as you and Mr.

Graham.

So we'll keep it.

My issue is bigger, right?

Because of public safety in Uptown, notwithstanding the contract.

Okay, from the street.

All right, 34.

Let's go to item 34.

Water sends sanitary, sewer, infrastructure, engineering, and surveying services.

Ms.

Ms.

Mayfield.

Motopo.

All right, we have a motion to approve and a second.

Any further discussion?

Hearing no further oh, Miss Mayfield.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Marie.

You did a follow-up.

The email, the question that I sent based on previous reporting of vendors that have been identified as CBI subcontractors doing the award process that have not actually been contacted to perform work.

What language has the city added to the contracts and or what mechanism is in place to ensure what council approves is being implemented?

We were able to have further clarification, have further conversation for clarification for my colleagues.

Some of us have heard over the year or so that we have approved contracts that have multiple partners who are the subs, and those subs have not been contacted for work by the prime over a period of time, and we did not have a mechanism in place.

Both myself and council member Mitchell from going to multiple small business meetings, have reached out to staff, notably Mr.

Coker, to find out okay, what are we going to do to try to help mitigate this process in the future?

So this was a question since we have identified in this particular process, multiple opportunities.

Yes, ma'am.

And to your point now, um that is automated with the B2G now application.

So what the contractual agreement is gets loaded into B2G now, and the con and the prime has to go in and load their payments, and then once they do that, then the subcontractor gets a notification notification through the system, and they have to go in and validate it.

So it's a not just the prime saying it, it's also the sub validating it.

And um Stephen Coker staff monitors it as well and runs reports on that information.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and colleagues, because I wanted to give an opportunity to let everyone know that steps have been taken where we have an actual tracking mechanism to help ensure that our partners are not only being identified for opportunities, but also are being paid in a timely manner.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think that that ends the um list of we got a vote on it.

We need to have a vote on the water and sanitary infrastructure engineering and surveying source services.

All in favor, please raise your hand.

Anyone anyone supposed?

Is there anyone in opposition?

All right, so that passes unanimously.

All right, thank you.

Mr.

Jones, take us to the next step.

Okay, thank you, Mayor, members of council.

I would like to um just propose a quick flip on the two agenda items tonight.

We have a mobility um update as well as our community area plan uh update also.

Um, for the mobility update, uh, we'll be brief.

But what I we wanted to do is uh hide off the press, come back and have a conversation with council because there's so much uh to talk about with mobility with the passing of the sales tax, and we're trying to ramp this up between tonight and the annual strategy meeting in uh January.

There's no way in the world we're going to be able to cover everything tonight.

Um, so we really want to focus on just one portion tonight, and that's what's in yellow on the screen.

Uh the roads.

So if you will recall, we have the the roads piece, and we have the the rail and the business and microtransit piece.

If you take the rail uh piece, that's 40 percent.

If you take the the bus piece, that's 20 percent.

Tonight we're not proposing talking about that.

That is something that you'll talk about over the course of the next several weeks as you start to think about the authority and appointments, but let's set that aside just for a moment and focus on the 40 percent of roads that's coming to this body.

That's 5.7 billion dollars over 30 years that's coming to this body.

Uh, we can go back to um and we won't go back to 2019 with Charlotte moves and all that, a lot of great effort.

Um, we're gonna fast forward to some of the staff work of the last uh two to three years, and also the question that came up about infrastructure and how we would go about paying for infrastructure.

It was very clear there were two paths.

One is the property tax and one was the sales tax with the passing of the sales tax again, focusing only on the 40 percent that comes to the city of Charlotte.

Um that's where we want to have a brief discussion tonight.

But within that, you can see what's also the highlights of project delivery, small business readiness, and workforce development.

Okay.

Um so if we go to uh again, the what we're trying to do tonight is uh focus on these pieces, and we will have uh Ed McKinney who's come back and really like that tie, Ed.

Um, and he'll talk about the road investment and the project delivery, and we also have Daniel Frazier who will talk about the workforce development piece, as well as um Monica Allen, who will help frame a gap analysis that we're having to see what kind of gaps do we have with scaling of businesses as well as what's happening in the workforce uh space.

So in the small business space, we'll also have Holly Esther.

So uh with that said, we start off with just these plans, okay.

And I could go back to 2019, but let's just stick with the last uh few years, and I would call it the three volumes.

We came up with volume one, which was our needs, and it was just a spread sheet of about 2,04 separate projects from lights to roads to to you name it.

And you said, no, no, no, we we need to do better.

We just don't want a list of projects.

So that brought us to uh the approach volume two, and with that, we were able to uh do more bundling.

We were able to talk about these projects in a way that we hadn't talked about them before to really think about connectivity, and then it really came to uh volume three, which is uh our plan, and that plan uh includes what we're doing around 16 strategic investment areas, including our six corridors of opportunity, and what you did for us in 2024 is that you had enough uh confidence in us to just let us test something.

So last year was a 400 million dollar bond.

Okay, I know Mr.

Driggs, you and I had many conversations about how big that bond was, but pieces of it were extremely important.

So things have already been approved.

In that 400 million dollar bond, 238 million was just for transportation.

So let's not again, not the 60 percent, not the authority, the city of Charlotte, and with that 238 million dollars, we tested some things.

We had 20 million dollars in Vision Zero, five times the highest we'd ever done in vision zero.

We had 50 million dollars just in sidewalks, okay.

That was a record number for sidewalks.

What I was most excited about is what I would call an experiment, $55 million in these strategic investment areas, 16 of them.

And uh I believe that the entire organization had this uh, I guess big leap because we had to prove to this community that we could spend $55 million in a way so that they could be convinced that we could spend $5.7 billion in a positive way.

But I will tell you the early returns on that $55 million, I think I have this right, and I hope I'm not taking your your presentation.

Uh we we're gonna we're gonna deploy that $55 million in two years.

We're going to have these projects done faster and cheaper than we've ever done before because it is a comprehensive approach for connectivity throughout our community community.

Um so if we can deploy $55 million faster, cheaper uh within two years.

I wouldn't bet against this team and being able to deploy $5.7 billion over 30 years.

But that said, uh we have this at the same time that Ed was working with his team on deploying this $55 million in these strategic investment areas.

We also had um our workforce development team and our small business uh team, ED team, work on two different plans.

And these aren't plans that are going to sit on a shelf.

What we're prepared to do through this gap analysis is make sure that small businesses have an opportunity to take advantage of this $5.7 billion, as well as uh our workforce has an opportunity to be engaged and involved in the jobs that come along with this.

So, with that said, again, don't want to talk about the 60% tonight.

There's so many other things to talk about that we need to talk about it now, anti-displacement.

We'll talk about you know, uh a lot of things around uh this investment.

But tonight we just wanted to focus on the Charlotte piece.

So with that said, I'll turn it over to Ann, and then I think Abe will turn it over to Monica, and then I think Monica turns it over to Danielle, and Danielle turns it over to Holly.

I get that right.

All right, let's go.

Great, yeah, thank you.

Yeah, we got lots to cover, and I'll jump right in.

Uh, you did steal a little bit of my thunder, but we'll we'll move through real quick.

Appreciate that.

Um, yeah, so let me give you a context of uh what we've been doing around the road investment, uh, getting ourselves ready and how that relates to project delivery and our bit our ability to uh take advantage of this new funding.

This this gives you the context.

We've we've talked about this before, but it's important to mention that our plan is tied to that transit plan.

There, the these two things working together will make us successful from a mobility standpoint.

We've been developing our plan in concert uh all the way through.

These two things work together to be successful.

So there's there's the headline that we just talked about.

We had the 55 million last year, the team's been working as we gave you an update earlier this year at this the uh your annual uh strategy session uh to talk about how we were going to do that and the strategic investment area approach and the team that did that is uh essentially the strategy about how we invest and doing that uh $55 million in two years uh is a huge accomplishment, and I'll talk about a little bit how we've been doing that.

The other point I'll be making there is the whole point of this is what the manager just described is to make sure that is a model and a foundation for how we will scale up essentially.

It's the way we are going to test how we identify and build projects so that we are ready uh potentially with this funding source available.

So, how do we do that?

It's actually relatively simple.

We have a great team, you have to bring them together, you give them a problem to solve and a focus, and that's that's how we get there.

And so this is an example of bringing together everybody who touches a project, essentially from conception to completion.

This is procurement, this is IT, this is the fire department, stormwater, everybody who touches a project, they're at the table, they understand the vision, and then they're all sitting there from their seat trying to uh use their talents and resources to achieve uh the goal.

And so they're essentially all working together to solve a problem uh in a new way with the the skills and talents we have.

Five million $55 million plan.

If you've if you're uh grew up in the 70s, you might get the reference around the six million dollar man.

We can do it faster, better, and cheaper.

So that's that's a it's a great way that uh we're thinking about this a little bit differently.

Raise your raise your hand if you know that reference.

Um, what does this look like on the ground?

So uh, you know, the joke is um, you know, a plan is only as good as your ability to implement it.

So this is an example of that team working together out in the field.

You've got to get out there first and early.

That's how we start to think about how to implement these projects in new ways.

This is a great example.

It's sort of an onerous task, right?

That's a developer-built sidewalk.

The team is out there, this is Arrowwood.

Uh, you can see we've got utility issues, you've got right-away issues, you've got stormwater, you've got to think through the design.

They're there trying to identify and figure out a way to weave all those things together to get to a solution.

That solution has to be done in a way that's quick because time uh leads to money, and that's the risk of all of these projects.

So just gives you an example, the the focus, the on the ground, being out in the field, identifying risk uh early and quickly so that we can get to solutions.

Engagement is also integral and key to the success.

And what the team, the strategic investment team has been doing over the last year is a pretty comprehensive approach to how we've been engaging the community, a touch upon a few of these areas.

It's certainly about awareness.

So we've got lots of materials.

We've handed you all and many, we've given out, I think, thousands of that purple book, that plan.

Uh, so those that information is important, but we have to build just basic awareness.

The value we've gotten out of just putting signs on the Harrisburg Road Corner, talking about projects uh coming, is driving interest, it's driving understanding, it's it's a creating awareness of the investment uh that we're putting out in the in the ground quickly and showing uh progress.

Community events, you know, the basics of this are important.

Uh we've got great examples of how we've done this.

We did two over the summer.

Numbers are important.

So over the summer, we've got 250 uh people to attend to events, you know, a non-controversial issue over the summer.

That's that's good, that's great.

Numbers are important, but the dialogue is more important.

So, as you can see here, what we're doing is we're learning, we're engaging, we've we've adjusted, we're thinking about the priorities of these projects.

So that's happening in real time.

And again, the uh the nimbleness of our plan and our our project team allows us to be um to use that information in a very valuable way.

These build partnerships and relationships.

So we go from uh breaking ground.

This is this is just a few weeks ago out on the Harrisburg Road corridor with the FENCO neighborhood.

So there we are breaking ground on a new project.

You know, it's a great way to celebrate, but this is also an example of the relationships that we're building.

We're cutting ribbons.

This is an image of a few weeks before that, uh, out in there in the Airwood corridor, that's the Swan neighborhood.

Again, they're at the table.

We've got great dialogue, even these kinds of meetings have identified projects uh and opportunities uh through those relationships.

This is the most important slide, though.

Uh what happened after this is this is an example of what happened after the the groundbreaking in Harrisburg.

So that little conversation is about a right-of-way easement that the project needs from that neighborhood association, the property that they own.

So that relationship that was built allows that conversation to happen in a partnership way.

It's not a project we're doing to you, it's a project that we're doing together.

A typical conversation negotiation around like an easement right away in real estate is one of the biggest obstacles to projects.

This can now happen as part of a partnership.

It might take six, nine months to do that in a conventional way.

This is a neighborhood that wants the project, they want to work with us, they're gonna be duly compensated for the for the easement they they we need, but it's we're doing the project together, it's a partnership.

Uh that's really why engagement is important, and that that alone is an example of how we will accelerate projects as we move forward.

Trust and accountability is a key part.

So over the last year, certainly been out there, we've been out there talking to the community about this mobility plan, getting engagement more broadly.

The most common thing I hear, right, is no matter where you are on support of this, is we need to know that you're gonna do what you say.

We need to know where the money goes, we need to know what the projects are, we need to know schedule, budgets, etc.

We hear that, and one of the things that the team has done is we built this dashboard.

So this is live, this is a the sort of project program dashboard for the strategic investment areas that just published a couple weeks ago.

This is a screenshot of that.

This is the program view, so you see scale of investment, you see the types of projects, the number of projects, you can click on a map and see where those projects are.

It dives into the details.

So this is just one example of a project, so you can see where it is in the process.

This is a great example of one that went from uh design to completion, and you get a sense of the scale, uh, the budget, the investment, and the the sort of the purpose of that project.

This another point about this is this is for the 55 million, but the whole reason for that is it's the foundation for the 5.7 billion.

So we will scale this as a platform that becomes really one of the more important ways that we will engage, have accountability and trust with the community as we move forward.

We've also been engaging with businesses, and so in this case, I'll give you a couple examples of small businesses.

So our team has been working with our broad team doing community engagement, small business engagement over the last year, building awareness about these opportunities.

That awareness gets down to something like this sort of a cliff notes or cheat sheet for the business community to understand what these opportunities are, right down to the commodity codes, the specific skill sets that we're looking for.

Small businesses don't have time to think through all that, they don't know what our opportunities are.

They don't, we need to break it down for them.

So this is something we've been handing out so they understand where those opportunities are, where they might fit, and the detailed skills that we're looking at.

A great opportunities is and a good example is we are also not just making folks aware of the opportunities, we're actually creating opportunities.

This is a great pilot that bore out of the strategic investment team work.

We're testing a solar pilot street lighting project, and what we wanted to do, and this is something that doesn't exist in the market.

We don't have skill sets in the business market to actually implement and install these things.

So we said, well, we'll bring the uh the manufacturer of this uh solar lighting to town.

We'll spend a day and we'll train people up.

We invited everyone, every small business that's on our registry, spent the day with them, trained literally hand in hand as how these projects work, how you how what our expectations are, they could learn and understand.

Then we targeted the bid to that group, and so it's very tailored.

We used uh uh the what the general services department has already spearheaded with this informal bid process.

So if it's a project under 500,000, we can go directly uh to that list of vendors and get to a bid process very quickly.

So we're we're extending that.

There's lots of other opportunities where we can do training around other portions of the investment we do.

We do a lot of sidewalk work with ADA, we do a lot of uh pedestrian signalized crossings, all things that have some very specific skill sets that we can train up our community for.

I'll pause here and and really this will be the handoff to Monica and her team, but I'll just make the point again that this is about building uh and creating opportunities.

We essentially, this is the this is the folks that participate in that training and all the workforce and the businesses that are represented.

What this represented was a new opportunity done in a five-month period from training to contract.

We're putting 175,000 in a small business's hands.

We've now given them a whole new market, a skill set and a and a business opportunity that they didn't have before.

It's 175,000.

If the pilot works for us, again, street lighting is one of the most important things we hear from the community.

Getting it out there fast is a challenge for us.

This isn't a great opportunity to have opportunity of how we can do that quicker.

So that 175,000 could be much bigger.

We've now built uh capacity in the market that can grow.

So that's a great super small example.

This is a great handoff to Monica and her team to talk about how we might scale that more comprehensively over the longer term for the investment that we're talking about.

So I'll turn it over to Monica Allen and her team.

All right, thank you, Ed, and uh good evening, Mayor Council, uh, Manager Jones and others.

So, what we're talking about for the next several slides is really building the people and the business infrastructure that is going to be needed to really support this work so that we can grow Charlotte's future and grow that capacity that we really need to be able to do the work.

So I think Ed highlighted for us very nicely the current and the past work that has been done with regards to this model.

So just want to just kind of give you a big picture visual on how we're thinking about all of these things as it connects.

And so you'll notice that there's various departments and offices that are listed on this slide.

And so we've been really intentional in trying to think through the alignment, right?

So I'll just go quickly from left to right.

So we start with our course our our ecosystem of businesses, and that would include certified businesses as well as non-certified businesses, right?

So we're not just targeting those certified businesses.

The thinking there is that then those businesses that need to have capacity built and that need some readiness support, that we would take them through training and development programs that uh Danielle and Holly will talk about in a second.

Making sure that the business needs are there when it comes to that capacity building.

Our hope is that we would then align the workforce that's needed, right?

So if I'm a single member LLC and I'm an electrician, I may need that workforce support to be able to do the work at a greater scale.

If businesses are not registered as a vendor or they're not certified, we would hope that after the training, the now what is answered, and we can say, okay, make sure you go through the process and become certified as a vendor with the city as well as a register as a vendor with the city and then become certified if need be.

From there, they're made aware of the opportunities through the contracting and procurement process.

Hopefully, they bid and win, and then the execution of work occurs.

And so, what this slide shows you is five, six different entities that are going to be coming together to make sure that everything aligns so that we can be able to do this work.

You'll also notice on this slide that there's mention at the bottom of a gap analysis.

And so that's something that I'll talk about on the next slide.

And that gap analysis specifically is for us to really be thinking about small businesses, what are those needs, and what are those workforce needs?

So the goal for the gap analysis is to prepare the local businesses and workforce so that people in businesses can capitalize on the significant economic opportunity.

So right now we are waiting on the final recommendations of the gap analysis from a consulting firm that we've been working with who's helping us quantify and qualify what are those needs, right?

So if we're where we are with our businesses today, and then we determine what those needs are going to be for the next five, 10, 15 years, what is that gap, and then what are those strategies and tactics that we need to put in place to be able to make those businesses be and individuals be in a specific place to effectively compete for city contracts.

Some of the questions that we've been asking are like how many jobs are needed, right, to do all of this work that's going to be before us.

What are those small business opportunities that small businesses who may be new entrants or who may already be existing businesses have?

What are those business needs specifically, and then how do we prepare for through our processes, and that could be the contracting and procurement work, and how do we also make sure that we're scaling up those businesses?

Recommendations in full should be provided to us next month, and at that time we should be able to align those things that we've said that we were going to do with the recommendations that are coming out of that document.

I just put one recommendation that we got very early on in here, which was for us to really be thinking about our internal small business and procurement processes so that we can make sure we're doing the work effectively and efficiently.

So at this time I'm gonna turn it over to Danielle Frazier, and she's gonna talk specifically about some of the workforce development initiatives.

Good evening, uh Mayor, Council, and Manager.

I'm glad to be here with you this evening to share a little bit more about our workforce development implementation efforts, especially as it relates to this mobility plus initiatives.

As you recall, you all approved a workforce development plan back in March of this year, in that it's focused on career pathway access and awareness, skill development and credential attainment, as well as job placement and career advancement.

And as you could imagine, a lot of our workforce development implementation will be centered around this mobility plus uh work.

Monica shared a little bit about the mobility workforce gap analysis.

I'll go a little bit deeper into what that means for workforce development.

Uh, three things that we're really looking forward to uh reviewing when we get this gap analysis is understanding as Monica mentioned, what are the jobs over the next 30 years respect respectively in the construction skilled trades as well as the professional services fields.

So, understanding that, then what are those jobs that are immediately in need in the in the near future, mid and to longer term, so that that can help us in how we plan and how we support whether it's training programs or other workforce efforts and initiatives to support our talent as well as our small businesses.

And lastly, we're looking forward to diving into some of the recommendations that they share with us, whether that's best practices from other cities or case studies of what has worked well in other communities as it relates to transportation infrastructure support and development.

So, what comes from this mobility analysis will really help us to plan how we execute on our mobility workforce readiness plan.

And you'll see on the slide that really entails two areas, right?

That's talent development training, which that means investing in more education and training programs to prepare our talent pipeline in the areas of these respective fields of construction skilled trades and professional services.

And then we've got industry engagement and training.

And so, one thing that I continue to hear from you all as well as many others is it's one thing to get the training, but where's the job?

And so, fortunately, there will be uh many, many jobs that come through this this work and these projects, and so we want to make sure that we support our businesses and helping them to source talent through our community ecosystem, as well as continuing to support uh employee training grants that help them hire new employees as well as continue to upskill their current employees.

And so we are looking forward to releasing some solicitations for grant proposals in the month of December so that we can solicit uh organizations that will help us in these two areas.

And so we will be looking forward to sharing that information with you all, council, so that you all can help uh spread the word through your modes of communication as well as we have various other sources and how we will get the information out to community.

Lastly, I cannot stress enough collaborations and partnerships.

As Monica has already mentioned, how we're working internally across offices and departments to align around how we can deliver on uh these projects and support our talent and businesses.

We are also aligning with our community partners, Mecklenburg County being a huge partner in this, as well as our workforce development ecosystem through our workforce education and community partners.

We cannot do this alone, and so we will be partnering uh with community as well as internally.

We have already had uh community convenings and conversations around what this may mean if this referendum passed, and so how community can come together to be able to support again our talent and workforce in a greater way.

Our message has been over this this time period is that this mobility plus plan is not just about how we move people around, it's about how we move people up.

And so I'm excited about um putting some of this work in motion.

And so, with that, I think I'm handling it over to Holly to talk about small business.

All right, thanks so much for having me.

Um hope you all are having a great night tonight.

This is such exciting work, really honestly, and the collaboration.

We keep saying it over and over, but it can't be done by any one department or even really even our partners or uh the county itself.

So we're very excited about it.

So, one thing that you've heard continuously is we must equip our small businesses to be able to see these opportunities that are coming from these projects.

And so we put together a small business readiness initiative that accomplishes this through executing on the goals of equipping small businesses, especially those historically under-resourced with the skills and certifications needed to pursue city contracts.

We want to foster equitable economic development by connecting businesses to workforce pipelines and contracting networks.

And then we want to strengthen Charlotte's local economy by ensuring public investments reflect the city's diverse business community.

All those things are critically important and will be foundational as we build out the work around this readiness initiative.

So we to do this, we talk about collaboration, partnership.

We really this work will be done by the economic development department, the Office of Workforce Development, contracting and procurement department, and then as well as Mecklenburg County and our local small business resource partners.

We're going to have measurable, and I want to say that measurable outcomes around looking at information and outreach.

So how do we create sort of that one stop shop that I know a lot of you guys have talked about when I've heard you talk about in other areas of the city where small business can go?

They can understand what programs exist, what those procurement opportunities are that um are available and other types of information.

We're also going to do training.

This is going to be hands-on curriculum that covers topics like certification, bid preparation, compliance, project management, licensing, bonding, legal, and then financial planning.

All things that we know are small businesses have told us that they would like to see.

We are too in December going to be issuing a solicitation, a competitive solicitation to start this work around the development of the correct curriculum.

And then really making sure that the resources are present.

So one thing that we constantly hear about are sort of mentorship opportunities and mentorship protege type relationships, really working with our small business resource partners.

I know a lot of you all are huge supporters of theirs, and they are experts in this field.

Making those workforce connections that Danielle just talked about, and then networking with prime contractors.

So I will turn it over to the city manager.

Next slide.

So thank you, team.

And I'll be super brief.

So mayor members of council.

I believe what the team didn't tell you tonight is that we've had people study us.

And part of this uh Uber collaboration you see is because we found out what our weaknesses are or were, and now we are really working better together.

And so with that said, uh, I think we have a good blueprint here.

If you don't want to get ahead of council, I will tell you that you um did approve money in the FY26 budget around small business.

We um laugh about a joke about Danielle's almost three million dollars of workforce development money that's still out there.

So, what we're doing is combining those dollars together as well as seeing um if there's anything left that we may have from uh other initiatives because we think this is the most important thing right now in terms of making sure that our residents and the businesses have an opportunity to take advantage of this um 5.7 billion dollars.

So, mayor, uh that's um what we have.

Are you taking that questions tonight?

Absolutely.

All right, uh three.

Uh thank you, Madam Mayor.

Uh, this is a great collaboration.

I love seeing how we are working across departments, uh C DOT, small business, workforce development, and is really thinking ahead because we are looking at hundred and ten million dollars that we will be infusing in our infrastructure.

That's a lot of money.

Um so it's great that we are thinking ahead and we are making sure that our small businesses in our workforce is ready to get to work.

Uh, I have certain uh I'm sure so many of us have business in mind who can actually uh start getting ready.

Uh I would love to get information about that once those opportunities add out are out so that we can uh help uh distribute that to people in our network so that uh they can all participate in this opportunity.

Well, that's all I have.

Thank you.

All right, Mr.

Mitchell.

Okay.

I don't want Mr.

Beacon.

I don't know.

You're first go ahead.

Okay.

Steph, uh great job.

Uh Monica, I know for a long period of time you've been working on the gap analysis.

So uh thank you for for championing that for us.

And and I like the collaboration between small business workforce development and and uh um small work for workforce developed small business and then small business readiness.

Uh Monica, just a couple of questions on the gap analysis, though, if you can make sure that the consultant would bring this back as well.

I think it'd be interesting.

We look at our CBI firms.

We have a lot of companies can do vertical construction.

We need to be clear though, where is our gap analysis on horizontal construction?

Can you think about roles?

What you think about the sidewalks, role payment.

And I'm not too sure from a historic perspective, we have got a lot of participation from our database from our CBI firm.

So it'd be nice to see that gap analysis.

And and then don't leave out professional services.

I I'd be the first one I'm guilty because construction would I do 24-7.

I think by construction, but there's some opportunity on the professional service side that I think we miss a lot, and I would like to see where they will recommend we can do better from the consultant uh gap analysis.

Let me just respond to that really quickly.

So the gap analysis does include both construction and professional services.

Okay.

So it's a full comprehensive end-to-end analysis, but certainly we can um we can follow up with you with regards to those two pieces horizontal and vertical.

And just to follow up with uh I call the miss workforce development.

Because she's on the national level.

I'm sorry to embarrass you, Danielle.

But one piece I think it'd be helpful for us is you have built the new office, the youth workforce development.

And how would the youth development be incorporated in your long-term vision?

So I could wait to see it to retreat.

But I think having that discussion and that strategy for us would be helpful because we're already getting calls now, 18 to 24.

How can they participate and be part of a youth workforce development office?

Thank you, Mayor.

All right.

Um I believe I don't know, Mr.

Peacock, but Miss Wattlington also, Miss Watlington, did you have remarks?

Ms.

Watlington.

I did.

Um I want to echo my colleagues.

Thank y'all for the work.

Um consistently excellent.

So I appreciate that.

This has been one of the most important community conversations, particularly around this transportation investment.

So thank you for bringing it to the community in short order.

I got a couple of things, and Mr.

Mitchell was reading my mind on a few of them, but I'll just hit my questions really quickly.

Um I know you mentioned that the plan the professional services was included in the gap analysis.

I'm pretty curious as to what thought process is around the creating opportunities work for professional services.

And you showed us an example on the contracting side.

Had you all put any thought into how to reapply that on professional services side.

Oh yeah, yes, yes, absolutely.

Um, and as Monica said, that's part of the analysis, the gap analysis that we're doing now.

So we understand very specifically that's you know the types of services that we need, uh, looking at the innovative things that we're um looking to do in these projects, and there's probably parts of the market that doesn't exist and skills and resources that we need to build.

So that's part of workforce, making sure there's a pipeline of engineers and designers, et cetera, uh that are part of this work over the long long periods over the long term.

So certainly it's a big part of the gap analysis that we're conducting now.

Sure, and definitely on the work for or the um workforce development side.

I'm speaking specifically to this idea of we have a project we brought in the solar panels, for example.

So there's a gap in terms of installation.

There's also a gap in terms of working through all of the things through Duke utility and SCO and all of those things.

So I'm wondering if you all are intending to uh put together that type of pilot on the professional services side beyond the workforce development piece.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great idea, and certainly, yeah, those are the those are the types of opportunities we're we're beginning to identify.

I don't have some great examples yet.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

Um, and then as we get into the gap analysis, there was a couple of things that I wanted to lift up as well and hope that it will be included in the consultant's report out.

Um where you get here to the Office of Workforce Development, and you're talking about businesses ensuring workforce needs are identified.

Um, there is a little bit of a chicken and an egg dynamic, as you all are aware.

Um, when it comes to securing contracts and then going to get the workforce to deliver on the contracts.

You've got to have contracts in order to get funding to go get resources.

How are we thinking about how to clowl that gap?

So your question is there the businesses would need the workforce in order to be able to effectively compete for the contract, right?

So when we're thinking about the gap analysis, it it it's we're not just assuming that it's businesses that don't have an existing workforce.

We're assuming that it could be businesses that have a greater need for a stronger workforce, right?

So I think it's that one of the things that we're gonna be doing is looking at that when it comes down to the training and development needs.

And so if we're trying to work with businesses to build that capacity, that the question would be do you have an existing workforce?

Do you have gaps in your workforce, or do you have need for stronger workforce?

So you're right, it is a chicken and an egg.

But we but the goal would ultimately be that they're positioned regardless of coming out of the training and development work in order to be able to compete for those contracts effectively.

So I don't know if that answers your question specifically, but I think we would have to take those businesses on a case by case basis.

Yeah, to some degree, I think what I'm trying to highlight here is the gap between not only the workforce existing, but the funding to hire the workforce on some level so that they can be in position so you can't compete on the formal projects.

Right.

And so part of the training and development work would be how do you get access to capital?

What are some things that you need to be considering as it relates to getting that funding to support the workforce?

I didn't go into depth in this, and I'll I'll I can certainly talk later, but we're also exploring opportunities for um micro businesses versus small businesses.

So those micro businesses may be new in their um new in their experience, so they may need a little more handholding and help than small businesses that are a little more mature.

Um and so again, I think it's gonna have to be a case by case basis because ultimately we want to meet them where they are and not create a structure and over-engineer it to the point where they can't effectively compete.

The goal is to compete and that they have the insight and knowledge to be able to effectively compete for contracts.

Thank you for that.

And then just as a follow-up to that, as we move further down this pipeline here on the gap analysis, when it comes to actually winning the contract, the dis the time between the award and contracting and then delivering and then pay out is oftentimes months.

Um and so when you again, when you think about those businesses that have to go get that workforce to demonstrate competitiveness and then needing work for that workforce to do as they wait for this contract to actually start.

If I would love to see us exp um innovate around shortening those timelines so that people can really be agile and responsive to those bids that makes sense.

It does.

And in fact, one of the early recommendations is around a quick pay program that we would implement um in order to be able to get the the funds out the door to those businesses sooner and quicker.

Um and of course we're looking we're gonna look at our internal processes to make sure that we can shorten that window and time frame.

Absolutely, and not just the quick pay from where I've submitted my my um my pay app, but we're gonna do this work, we've awarded it the time that it's gonna take to then come to whatever governing board in our case, city council, to approve that work and then contract and starting those kinds of things.

That really upfront piece is critical.

Yeah.

Um and then Mr.

Mitchell spoke a little bit to the vertical development piece.

I'm curious from a little from a little bit of a different angle there, because we know that this horizontal work is going to drive a lot of private vertical investment along these corridors.

Um I'm curious as to how we're thinking about leveraging that development as well.

This outside of our specific five point however many billion dollars, uh, but that we know is going to be part and parcel with this horizontal development.

I guess if I understand your question, just the relationship of our infrastructure investment to development and growth or and how we're thinking about that because there's there's the investment horizontally, but we know there's going to be even to another degree of investment privately along these lines.

How are we making sure that we've captured what we can in terms of leveraging and preparing our businesses, not only for the work that we are leading, but the work that we know is coming quickly behind.

We don't have to have an answer today, but that's something that I'd love to see us think about.

So, mayor.

So um thank you, Dr.

Wattlington, and I uh apologize to Monica because I pulled a slide out of this deck that dealt a lot with what you're saying, because I wanted to s have Cheryl right, our new directive con contracting and procurement to focus on some of the preliminary findings that we're getting from these studies, especially as it relates to um contracting and procurement and many of the issues that you brought up or address the gaps that we have within our own organization of how to be better with that.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Peacock.

I want to get back to your example on the 55 million that we spent so well and so efficiently.

Um talk to me about um when you do a project of those scale.

Um this is obviously primarily construction, correct?

We're talking about road and sidewalk building and infrastructure.

About how many vendors are we using and that have met the certifications and have gone through the competitive bidding process and have been awarded the bidding?

What how many people are in our I'll call it our bullpen, people that we want to give business to, how many of them are actually awarded?

Tell me about the win loss ratio.

Yeah, certainly would have to get back with you on the details of that if you're specifically related asking the question related to the work, the 55 million that we've been putting out.

Um so there's more detail that I'm glad to we can provide a detail.

But tell me what what are the categories of businesses we're talking about, just in layman's terms.

Well, we're talking about, I mean, a good example is the street liner.

We just uh solar street liner just talked about, those are essentially electricians, kind of contractors that know how to do the electrical work.

Uh we're doing tons of significant amount of sidewalk work.

Mentioned the ADA work, which is making sure all of the curb ramps and everything are per code and that's really basic concrete work.

There's grading that goes with that.

So there's uh the detail and the uh sort of granular nature of these things get down to in many cases lots of projects that we can do with small businesses, and we're working, as I mentioned, uh to specifically target those and and make the projects.

I get a point about this is making the projects as reasonably small as we can to make them um quicker.

Uh we can actually contract those things quicker, we can identify work with uh contractors and and businesses that are working at that scale, small businesses.

Okay.

So uh relatively small companies, correct?

For a solar project, putting up solar lights off of a sidewalk.

You have curb, you have gutter, we have lighting, we have hardscaping.

I'm not in this industry, but I'm I'm just trying to uh like approximate how many people are we talking about that we are economically creating jobs for in that situation, and now when we scale it up as we're talking about, are we trying to spread the spread out more business across lots of more small businesses, or will this follow what many people know is the 8020 rule, which 80% of the business will still go to 20% of the people.

I'm just trying to understand what what's the broad objective from across the board here and what we're trying to develop.

So you're alluding out.

This is a gap where I'm trying to, we're talking about gap, we're speaking all this corporate speak, but none of it's kind of clicking through with me as to what are we really talking about?

What kind of businesses are we trying to create here?

Are we trying to handhold and bring up because we're trying to lift people that just currently can't get the business?

We want to give more business to.

Am I hearing that correct?

Correct, but I would say it's all the above, right?

We're we're gonna be doing big projects.

We're gonna need big contractors that can do large projects.

Those contractors and businesses are gonna need workforce to make that happen, even on the professional services side.

So we're we're working at all scales.

We have a goal to provide and raise essentially the tide for all of the opportunities in the community.

A lot of the details you're asking, really good technical number details, which is really the work that's happening in the gap analysis.

We'll we'll we'll have lots of information around the scale of investment, uh, the scale of the type of firms that we'll be uh working with.

That that'll those will be details that come out of the gap analysis, but it's not uh again, I would say it's not just focused on the notion that it's just about small businesses, it's really across the board because we're gonna need all of it at the end of the day.

So there's only so many concrete providers.

There's only so many people that can put together an actual road and meet specs for CDOT and NC DOT and the federal regulations, correct?

So it's gonna be I I'm just gonna need where when we're doing roads and hardscaping and all these types of things.

I'm just I'm trying to imagine this workforce over 30 years.

Are we trying to make Charlotte into a construction destination?

Is it is it gonna be tech, AI?

I mean, this is where the gap for me as a as a board member is I'm going, what what are we talking about here?

Can I take a shot?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So um one of the other slides we didn't put in is uh basically what is the baseline if there were no sales tax that were passed, right?

Right.

So you look over 30 years, what are the uh the opportunities with the sales tax, uh those opportunities uh really grow.

And we know what, and I'm I'm confident we will know what's the peak in terms of the opportunities in terms of uh jobs, um and uh jobs and the workforce uh needs.

What I would say is what we're learning is, and I wish we would put it on the table, um, but we started off with this uh maybe two months ago.

There are some technological advances that we haven't even thought about yet.

Sure.

Okay, and that's where we can't limit ourselves to thinking about just building roads, okay?

And then there's direct indirect induced.

And so early on, um, before uh um the campaign began, maybe like four years ago, there was a study.

So we'll make sure we get the NC state study to you about what is the economic impact of this.

But again, what we're learning is all these different job types, the professional services also.

Let's not think about just laying concrete or or roads.

It's much broader than that.

That's why we're paying for the gap analysis.

And I will say we're doing it not just for our projects, but it will be a nice gift that we hand over to the authority also, because we're looking at the transit piece.

Also, last thing I'll say is that um, but maybe I won't do this one.

Um we must make you all do, but you be kind to me.

Okay, so um just think about microtransit in and of itself.

Yeah, sure.

Okay, and think about all the jobs and all the opportunities that come with having a transportation system within microtransit, things like that.

Yep.

Well, I'm what I'd like to have, I'd love to see the list of the current vendors that we're working with right now on that $55 million example, who are the businesses maybe that are on the sidelines that we're trying to, I don't know if we have I don't know what you all call it.

I mean, to me, it's like a sales pipeline.

We got vendors that are interested in doing business with us, but they're not really ready.

I'm just curious the scale of what we're trying to build up for, because it looks like 2027 is what we're we're um we're at right now.

Yeah, and how do board members refer and get people into your system?

I would love to know an answer to that too.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, or Mrs.

Mayor and Mr.

Manager.

Thank you.

How about um Mayor Pro Tim wants to address the thank you, Madam Mayor?

I just have uh three quick points.

The the first one is you know, we were talking about the youth employment program and how we could tap in internships to some of the opportunities with CMS's program around uh employee enlists enroll.

Yeah, maybe we can start now collaborating with them around opportunities for employment that don't require two or four-year degree, similar to the work that we do directly with them that the managers program just uh jumped off a couple years ago, and we doubled the number of students that we brought on this year.

I think that's a great opportunity for us, as well as thinking about some of our some of our other educational partners, like CPCC, for example, and some of the things they're doing with some of the local corporations where they go through uh eight month, nine-month uh certification process and and get getting put to work right away, in particular on some of the traits that we're speaking on.

So that's just one the first point I wanted to say, and it's sort of tangentially to that, as we as we get the gap analysis, we know that there will be, as the discussion has um been had, that there'll be gaps that you know we can't particularly fill here locally because we don't have the skill set and we're ramping up.

But if we focus on how can we fill the gap locally to keep more of the dollars that we're spending in the Charlotte regional um community, I think that would be very helpful if we're strategic about that, especially in some of those areas like I said, that you don't need multi-year um expertise or um multi-year certifications on, and then the um the last piece um Mr.

McKinney is for you when we talk about the the road spin, and you've done a you and your team done a phenomenal job laying out the strategic investment areas and opportunities, um, but I would like to spend some time talking about the prioritization of those projects uh with an emphasis um of those high injury network areas where we know loss of life and accidents are occurring throughout the city that they get some level of uh emphasis and priority.

So looking forward, I know we're not discussing that tonight, but as you bring us that rubric around prioritization, I I would like to go ahead and lobby for um high prior high um injury networks being high up on the list of the priorities.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um I think that Miss Oh Ms.

Johnson for you first.

You want to go well, she's okay, thank you.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you all for your presentation.

It was a great presentation.

I I want to piggyback off what Mayor Pro Tem said, and I think that's already consideration.

The high injury areas would have priority.

I hope I think I I know you're gonna be working with Vision Zero.

Um I wanted to know, I guess, how are we considering state-owned roads?

Those would be a part of the project as well, right?

Because I'm thinking of roads like W.

T.

Harris.

Um I know of a catastrophic injury that occurred recently there.

And so I mean, uh how does a person ride their bike from Sugar Creek to the Y or Sugar Creek, someplace very close?

So how are we considering state-owned roads?

Is my first question?

Yes, good question.

We we partner across the city on state uh projects, and it's in our strategic um investment area plans.

There are a lot of those projects are on state routes, those are state roads, those are uh can be as simple as street lighting on a state route.

It could be as simple as a shared use path or sidewalk on a state uh uh maintained facility.

So we we do those partnerships all the time, specific to the things you're describing, safety, pedestrian access, crossings, etc.

So those are all embedded in that purple book, and that's part of the uh the projects that play out in those strategic investment areas.

Here in Harrisburg Road is a good great example.

That was uh one of the test uh cases that we've been doing.

Well, all the projects we're doing is on that state facility.

Those are all done in partnership with the state, but that's investment that's supportive of the growth in the neighborhoods along that corridor.

Okay.

Okay, and we can talk offline because WT Hair, you know, District 4, we've got a lot of state-owned roads and WT Harris.

Um there's just no way to travel on WT Harris.

And then secondly, I wanted to talk about the small business readiness initiative.

I think this is wonderful that we're doing this for contractors.

Are we also doing something like this for nonprofit organizations, Mr.

Jones?

Um getting small business businesses ready for funding, because what we what we want to be sure of is that we're not awarding money that where the organization is not ready for that type of award.

Um if we if do we have a program that helps nonprofit organizations uh be prepared to accept um financial training and reporting and all of that, can we have the same consideration for nonprofit organizations?

Thank you, uh Councilmember Johnson.

I know we've done that in the past.

I'm not sure what we have in the pipeline right now.

Um I'll get back to the body on that.

Okay, I think I think it's great.

I think it's necessary if you want to help organizations move up to the next level, but we also should consider this across the board.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Ms.

Molina.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And for the sake of time, I know that we're over out.

I'll try to condense what I was going to say initially.

First of all, I want to say thank you guys for the presentation and the comprehension in your work.

I mean, I'm always super impressed with every last one of you.

I have absolutely enjoyed working with you.

And I am really excited about the direction of where we're going as a city.

I think what you're laying is the foundation for something especially and and dare I say, first of all, strategic investment areas.

Ed, you know how I feel about that.

I'm so proud of what you and the team have done out there.

You've seen the faces of the neighbors, you see how happy they are.

They've been asking about that implementation for a long time, and the areas across the city, once they get that same type of emphasis, they're going to have the same reaction.

I'm absolutely certain of it.

Um, not to mention, you know, once you know the connection of, you know, transit is actually connected to their areas in addition to that infrastructure.

It's just going to be very exciting to see that across the city.

So uh very proud of what I've seen you and the team do.

Um I I cannot say enough.

I think a lot of the times when we were talking about the comprehension of what this plan would represent, I think we left out the fact that there was workforce development in it, planted in it.

Um, and because of the work that I do every day, I already know that we're going to have interest from companies around this country that know that we have 19 billion dollars on the table, and they're gonna start coming and they're going to start trying to date the city of Charlotte because they want to do business with the city of Charlotte.

And I love to see that we're out ahead of that, right?

Saying that we have now, you know, and I a lot of the times when I talk about workforce development, we have kind of this cheat sheet of you know what the alliance does with regards to the the types of industry that we would like to, you know, attract to our area, and some of that is adjacent to transportation, but not with the idea that it's going to be for our work.

So now we literally have a new lane to work within that is going to be a dedicated lane for it at minimum the next 30 years, right?

And I imagine it would evolve.

So I I love that you have a gap analysis.

I love that you're thinking ahead of that, both of you, all three of you.

Um and I'm really excited to see how that evolves as far as our workforce is concerned, um, because that's going to be important.

And lastly, I think it's something that the manager said that I think is very important to mention because I keep reminding you know those around me of the same thing.

And I leaned over to Councilmember Mitchell and said, 30 years is 205.

Right?

We said the same thing, like, uh, you know, because you you think about how old you're gonna be in 2055, right?

And you're like, wow, right.

And you know, it it also lends itself to the idea.

I mean, I think about 30 years ago, right?

Well, hey, hey, look, I ain't in no rush to get the aging, but you know, the the reality of it is is that you know, if you think back 30 years, right?

30 years, and I keep saying this, 1995.

We have pagers and payphones, right?

Like we had pagers, payphones, analog computers that were like blue screened, and you know, it was just a completely different time.

And so leaving room and space mentally for that evolution, I think is grand, right?

The level of malleability that we're going to have from a workforce perspective from a you know an implementation, what I mean, what will cars be doing then, right?

Like how will we even be planning transportation and infrastructure in 10 or 15 years, right?

And how will we be planning, you know, workforce adjacent to AI, you know, and the possibilities of AI and how we train.

So, like I said, we're at really exciting times.

This is literally generational setting tone.

Um, and um I'm just blessed to be at the ground floor that when I'm you know much older, I'll be like, I remember that, you know.

And if God allowed me to still be here, right, healthy and intact, to just look at the fruits of what it's become and remember what these conversations were like.

So, congratulations to everybody.

I think it's a great time.

Uh, I think we're, you know, in the beginnings of something that will evolve to be absolutely spectacular for this region.

So kudos to all of you and the council.

All right.

Um, Ms.

Mr.

Manager.

So uh mayor members of council, uh, two things.

I know we have community area plans.

Um, what I would recommend is that we move it to the manager's report.

Also, um I have uh Dr.

Stewart here and Director Hefner.

We were going to talk about the Office of Youth Opportunities during the manager's report.

Um because it dovetails into what we're seeing tonight a week.

If that's okay, we can push that off.

But I just want you to know that just like we have this team thinking about small business and workforce development, we have our Office of Youth Opportunities team thinking about, I won't say how many internships, but thinking about how do we make sure that um people from CMS and many of the youth that we've been talking about over the course of the last year also have opportunities.

I came to council tonight just for that presentation.

Okay.

I don't hear that.

Is that is that everyone, Miss Mayfield have been?

I just along with telling you thank you, Manager Jones.

Thank you for listening to us.

We had these conversations back in 2017.

How do we fill the gaps and create opportunity because that's what I believe should have been the role of CBI is to not just present us opportunities, but the gaps when we say, well, we didn't have any MBE or SVE that did that particular work in order to create opportunities.

Thank you all for coming together.

Workforce development is so important because to me is directly tied to access to housing to quality of life.

My goal for our community is to not need a subsidy for you to earn enough dollars, or we have created enough diversity in our housing stock where you are able to pay the rent based on the income, but we create opportunities.

We're partnering with Central Piedmont, of which is one of the top community colleges in the nation.

And I am a proud multi graduate of CP at this point.

As we grow these small businesses, as we look at what our role is, I don't necessarily agree with my colleague that we should be looking in that nonprofit space.

In the meantime, that small business might face challenges because of the model that we have.

So anything that's going to help identify and grow businesses in our backyard and keep that money and that opportunity to grow that business from a small business to a prime is something that I look forward to watching you all achieve over these next few decades.

So thank you.

About what we're doing.

But today I think maybe perhaps everyone wants to do something a little bit different today.

So thank you.

So I want to call the business meeting to of the Charlotte City Council to order.

Um, good evening.

Thank you for those who are watching us.

And um for this meeting, which is our November tenth council business meeting.

We usually start with introductions, but um yes.

Um, but tonight I think that we all know who's sitting at the die is tonight.

But if you would like to, I'd like to actually take a moment of privilege to introduce to those that are in our um that are watching.

That would be the introduction to our newly appointed city attorney, Andrea Fi Leslie Feist.

Her previous roles in government included city attorney for Shelby, North Carolina, senior assistant city attorney for the city of Charlotte, Assistant County Attorney for Cleveland County.

There'll be no assistance in this work.

So that we want you fully here and there.

I'm sorry.

I got too excited.

North Carolina Central University.

But she also has two law, two bachelor's degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in political science and communications, which you will need to use often.

She began her career serving local governments in 2007 as an associate with the Yelton Far 4, where she became a partner in 2011.

She was interested instrumental in guiding and providing legal support for major Guilford County economic development projects, such as the initiatives such as Jet Zero, Cascade, and Lenova.

She has also provided legal guidance and took for the county for the county's 1.7 billion bond initiative.

Now that we're going to work you through.

So thank you.

Welcome.

All right.

So now let's go ahead and um have our meeting.

We usually begin with an invocation.

We usually have someone to help us do that.

I think that Mr.

Graham said that he had to step away.

So you know there's nothing wrong with the Lord's Prayer if you're interested in doing it.

And let's all stand we'll begin with the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallow be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, honor as it is in heaven.

Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our tests as we feel those who trespass against us.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you very much.

Um let's now have our pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the Republicans under God.

Thank you very much.

Um, Mr.

Jones.

Mr.

Jury's still out of the case.

Um, as we mentioned in 267, this is an opportunity for an update with the community.

All right, community area.

Yes.

This is Office of Youth Opportunities.

Okay, well, they are um getting that pulled up.

Thank you all very much for having me here tonight.

Uh, Mayor and Council.

I'll be giving an update on the community area plans, really checking in on where we are and our next steps.

We've had a very busy summer and fall uh getting ready for uh this moment and this opportunity to share with you where we are.

One there for so the presentation tonight, uh, once we get it pulled up, we'll really uh speak to a general update, talk about the revised policy map, and uh give you a deep dive as to where we are.

So you should have received earlier this evening uh a packet that has all the proposed changes, that broad overview, and so as I give this presentation, uh you'll have that to refer back to afterwards.

Monica, is that this right here?

Yes, that is it.

So I'll give the presentation.

Um I'm sure that they will pull it up shortly, and then when that uh occurs, we can I can go ahead and get started, but that will be your takeaway so that you'll have uh that to refer back to uh after this evening.

So uh tonight I'm going to give a broader overview why community area plans should matter to our community and why they do matter, why they matter to you and your decision making, how our community has shaped those plans, and what our next steps are so as we know growth is coming.

You can see here on the left a picture of Charlotte in 1975 and a picture of Charlotte today.

So just for a point in reference, 1975 was the last time we did a citywide plan up until uh 2021.

So without a plan, we are still going to grow.

We're still gonna have anywhere between 150 and 170 people move to Charlotte.

Uh that growth will be uh unchecked and uncoordinated.

So the community area plans provide uh a basis on how we grow with an equitable lens.

So it provides clarity around access to essential amenities, access to housing, access to employment, and how we uh use environmental justice tools to make decisions around land use and growth.

So, how does that actually play out?

What are the benefits for the community?

They provide the community area plans provide community-level guidance on where we see change happening, where uh growth will occur, and that they further refine the 2040 plan.

So the area plan specifically update the policy map.

So the policy map was adopted in 2022, and the area plans of the past two and a half years have taken recommendations on revisions to that policy map, and they are included in the adoption of the community area plans.

Uh it also helps us to memorialize what the community needs are so that we can look through a lens of those community needs for future rezoning petitions and what benefits we want uh the community to reap from that development.

And then finally, the area plans incorporate all so the area plans that existed prior to the 2040 plan, the area plans today incorporate recommendations from those, what the built form should look like, how tall buildings should be, uh, where they should be located in the community, and things that really matter to several of our neighborhoods.

So the area plans are really about how we take vision into action.

So let's talk a little bit about what has gotten us to this point.

We started this journey in 2019 with the 2040 plan, and that had over half a million interactions.

That includes everything from emails to in-person to walking tours and the voices that rep that represented.

So, whether that be neighborhood leaders, uh community activists, uh, developers, passionate, passionate people from our community, were all represented in that first phase in the 2040 plan.

We then move straight into the community area planning process, and through that process, there have been 750,000 additional interactions with over 2700 voices or very specific comments and feedback that we've gotten through that process.

So, again, that really represents that wide variety of neighborhood leadership, um, community voice and vision in the plans.

That those interactions have occurred through all five phases.

So you can see on the right side, uh, starting with how we begin began the process, to how we set the foundation for great places, to supporting the vision, and then finally where we are today, plan for action and then review and adoption.

So we started this final phase, phase five, uh, in April.

In April, we released 14 community area plans, you're all aware.

Uh, that was uh several months ago.

We worked with you all to figure out what type of additional engagement should we have.

So that started in April, May, June, August, and then we got to the September time period where we decided we needed to uh continue refining and understand a little bit more.

So looking back at that September uh 22nd deferral, we really focused on two major areas.

One is how do our neighborhoods and residents know that their feedback is incorporated, that their feedback has been vetted, and that it has been addressed as most thoroughly as possible.

And the second is does that feedback does uh the change do the changes that we propose do they reflect the neighborhood's vision?

And so we had some very specific issues that we wanted to tackle with uh some communities that I'll walk through tonight.

So Stillberry Acres, Stillworth Cherry, uh Northern, and then we wanted to make sure that everyone's voice was heard.

So I'm gonna talk about both of these categories and how we have been uh addressing them.

So the first thing we did is we talked about what does community what is continued engagement and continued community engagement look like.

So that started with uh we want to make sure that we are leveraging all the wonderful work that the city does to make sure we're hearing from our neighborhood leaders and that our neighborhood leaders know about this, uh they know about the community area plans, they understand what they mean for them, and they understand how they can plug in.

So we scheduled uh we for November 6th an informational webinar.

We reached into our partnership with housing and neighborhood services and the wonderful work of their nest team.

Uh they reached out to over 2,000 neighborhood leaders.

They uh did reach out and phone calls two separate times to make sure that people really understood why this mattered for them and how this could be important to the future of their community and their neighborhood.

And we had that webinar uh last Thursday.

Uh we had we followed the same format that the NES team used in prior webinars.

So uh we we use their technology, uh, we followed their format, uh, and we had over 90 neighborhood leaders participate in that.

We are still working through some of the general questions that are were from that webinar.

Several of you attended, which I really appreciate that.

And then and I will say that uh from our initial review of the questions, the majority of questions are really clarifying or understanding what does this mean for my community, meaning I'm not opposed to it.

I generally think it's a good idea.

I just want to understand how I can use it and how it applies to me.

We also did continued engagement with those very specific neighborhoods and some of the issues that you all raised at your September 22nd meeting.

So we went on a walking tour with the Cherry community, we sat down in person with the Dilworth residents, uh, we had already reached out to and really worked hard with Steelberry Acres doing both of those things, walking tour and sitting down and talking to them in person.

And we last just last week, even had another conversation with our North End uh partners group and are planning to continue to work to make sure that people are educated and people are their voices are heard and they understand how they can participate both today and tomorrow in planning in the city of Charlotte.

So now let's talk a little bit about how we handled that other uh category that I mentioned, which is let's make sure that everybody's voices are heard and that uh it's really clear as to how their voices are incorporated.

So we took another deep dive into all the comments that we heard in the in phase five.

So it was over a thousand comments, uh and we really wanted people to understand exactly what action was being taken with their comment.

So if they needed an answer, we gave them an answer.

If they asked a question that was how does this impact me, then we explained how does it impact you.

If they said, I want to make this change, then we took another deep dive to say, is this feasible?

Does this make sense?

How can we make sure that their change is incorporated?

So that's exactly what you see here.

I'm gonna deep dive a little bit into some what are those categories are and the actions, just so you can see some examples around that, and then I'll walk through some of the changes that have resulted from them.

So before I go into that deeper dive, I just want to show you what that actually looks like on our website.

Uh we had feedback from you all that it needed to be easy to understand.

So uh again, we took all of our re-vetting, all of our new work, and we made sure that it was um easy to find, so we reorganized the order on the website so that uh you would really see it, and that we created versions where it's all the same information, but if you want to have it in a sortable spreadsheet, you can sort by the area plan itself.

If you want to look at it just for specific council district, you can do that as well.

And it also includes all of our prior webinars and our series that take a deep dive into each area plan, so you can find that there as well.

So, some of those uh comments that we we said before, you know, we had a lot, we had a number of comments that didn't warrant changes, right?

So uh those comments they weren't just all things that could be incorporated.

So I wanted to help explain uh when you hear those numbers, what does that actually mean?

So we had a bulk of comments that were really just about clarifying questions, which is exactly what we saw in the webinar on Thursday.

You know, uh things like how does the planning process, how would this be used in the planning process or zoning process?

Uh, how was this created?

Does this affect my ability to develop my property?

That's a clarifying question.

Okay, it requires an answer, some additional information.

We also had comments that were just generally supportive.

I like this, I can't wait till it uh is adopted and goes into action.

Uh we had some that were uh concerns that were already addressed.

I want a tree policy that does XYZ, and we may already have a tree policy that does XYZ.

We had things that were out of scope, so uh things that were just something we can't control in an area plan, helmet laws, school funding, police enforcement.

Uh we had some general uh opposition to citywide goals.

So we had about three to five percent that were just opposed to foundational policy for the city, things like equity, things like uh housing choices.

We had site-specific issues that was about two percent, which is really just a parcel level concern.

I want a traffic light here, and we've made sure all of those were forwarded and accepted by receiving departments like transportation and transit and cats.

And then we had some that were just general misunderstandings.

So with the with the comments that uh did yield changes, I wanted to talk a little bit about what some of those comments uh specifically looked like.

Uh, for example, this comment, which actually came from uh one of you all, which is a great comment, which had was how do we provide additional clarity around where we anticipate change to occur.

So we've gone back in and highlighted with a blue outline in each of the area plans where we anticipate change to occur, so that it's very clear for the community uh exactly where they can expect to see changes in their area plan.

We've also made some very granular changes to uh the policy map, which again are in this outline proposed changes.

So on the left, you see the adopted map.

That's the 2022 map.

Uh that is the guidance that we are using today in our rezoning decisions.

On the right, you see the revised policy map with changes.

So we heard loud and clear at our public hearing and through continuing conversations that Steelberry Acres really wanted a better transition between the manufacturing that surrounded their community and the growth of the airport and their neighborhood.

So we worked collaboratively both with Steelberry Acres and the airport to uh come up with this compromise of industrial mixed use instead of manufacturing and logistics.

The industrial mixed use was actually a choice by Stillbury Acres because they looked at all of the things that uh could be developed in that those zoning districts and thought that was the best fit to accommodate that transition from uh manufacturing to their community.

So again, that on the lot left is what we would use as policy today, that on the right is what the revised map uh is.

With Cherry, we went through the same exercise.

So we walked around the community with them and we identified uh where prior they have in the adopted policy map, regional activity center.

So that darker blue, higher intensity uh land use, bless you.

And then on the right, um, they have you can see where the changes are proposed, which is uh lower density, it's community activity center because they were really passionate about having a transition from uh the metropolitan and the higher intensity area to the center of their community.

So you also see changes here with around a new park and preserve that's proposed in the revised policy map, and also uh some changes to a couple of the blocks specifically around where they own parcel and I mean where they own the parcel and really want to see more of a neighborhood to scale development.

So we then made sure that those changes were also reflected in the illustrative concept.

So you can see that here.

This is a change where uh the prior version was much higher intensity, and this is a lower intensity.

Um, and then finally, I'll just walk through the changes that we worked through with Dilworth, which again, the one on the map, the left is what is adopted today, the one on the right is what is proposed, and you can see there um it's hard to see on the screen, but there are a couple yellow outline parcels that again reflect what that community vision is and what they would like to see different from the one that is currently adopted to the one that is proposed.

So I want to also just take a moment to make sure that we understand how the community area plans can further clarify the 2040 plan uh that was again adopted in 2021.

So the community area plans have a couple policies that add some clarifications and some learning from the 2040 plan.

So in the 2040 plan, we had uh, you know, neighborhood one was neighborhood one.

We see that every third Monday of the month.

And so we often have petitions where someone wants to go from a neighborhood 1A to a neighborhood 1C and perhaps disrupt the character of that neighborhood.

We've learned that we need to put some guardrails on that so we can understand uh how to evaluate that request and how to evaluate when people may want to change that.

So in the community area plans and all 14 of them, uh, there's a policy that uh gives us some additional guidance where you really need to evaluate what the existing neighborhood pattern and character is, what the average lot sizes are, what the road frontages are, what is the road that the development's on, and where the location is before you make that decision.

So it's not always appropriate to go from one um neighborhood one to another one.

Sometimes there need to be guardrails on that.

So that policy, if the area plans are adopted, would help us to clarify and provide additional guidance to the 2040 plan.

It also gives us this new policy map that is about six to eight percent more accurate than the one that exists today.

So it is closer to the community vision and it gives us clear guidance within the area plans on how that map evolves.

And then finally, uh something that was not in the 2040 plan that is really added in the community area plans are the environmental justice recommendation recommendations and environmental impact recommendations.

So that is um things like taking land surface temperature into consideration when we're looking at proposed developments, uh, measuring that over the long term so that we can understand what the impacts are.

So again, I'll just finish with uh why we believe these are beneficial, which is really they give us additional guidance.

Uh, they update the policy map, they help us memorialize what those needs are so that both our community has that tool and you all have that tool to use when you're uh vetting rezoning petitions and development proposals.

And they also pull forward the area plans that existed prior to the 2040 plan and have a new updated version.

So these plans give us that 100% coverage.

You can see here where we have evolved from uh when we started the 2040 plan, we had about uh 27% coverage for our city.

Uh, we now are working to get towards that 100% coverage, and we want to make sure that we have the best tool in place to provide guidance for both our investments as a city and uh for the community.

We also want to make sure you're really clear about what our next steps are.

So uh this is a foundational document that again builds it, puts the structure on top of the 2040 plan.

It gives us more of a framework to work from.

Um, but we know that planning is iterative and we will keep planning.

So uh very exciting.

We have a lot of transit station planning to do.

Uh so we will start uh working on all of the different specific plans in parallel.

If this is adopted, we will keep working towards environmental impact action plan.

So we have a couple neighborhoods that are very interested in that.

Uh we know the need is high.

We have communities like Stillbury Acres and Northern, where you have manufacturing right next to residential neighborhoods.

That is a great tool that we are testing in corridors right now that we believe uh we can uh use to get that fine grain detail that they want and the tools in place.

And then we also know that again, we have a lot of uh transit station work to do as to how we link our transportation and our infrastructure investments and what uh type of investment we need in a very small area to leverage uh our new transportation system.

So that is the work that will continue.

Uh you can see here all of the different actions.

We have an updated rezoning staff analysis that we will launch that again gives us that umbrella framework.

It uh we will reference specifically the community area plans when we're looking at consistency.

Uh, we will, and and we really uh were excited last Thursday to see some people interested in this CAP implementation roadshow where we will go multiple times a month to community meetings to help people understand and continue answering questions around what this means for them.

So with that, I'll answer any questions and be happy to provide any additional information.

I think you have a few people that would like to address this.

We'll start with Mr.

Briggs, followed by Mr.

Peacock, come all the way around the dais and then come back around the dais.

Okay.

Mr.

Driggs, start us off.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

This is uh another landmark for us, along with the vote last week, which we should note by the way.

Last week the tr the mobility uh tax was approved.

It's a big deal.

Uh it does create uh an opportunity and also a responsibility for us.

But talking in particular about the area plans, um, I've had the the pleasure of working closely with the staff uh going back to the inception of the 2040 plan, and uh I just have to comment on the extraordinary uh competence, professionalism, dedication.

Um I get text messages on Sunday afternoon, they answer calls at seven in the evening.

I mean, these guys are tireless.

Uh I believe we have the best planning staff in the country, frankly.

Um we've reached a point now where uh I think we have to move ahead with these plans, and it doesn't mean that everything is fully baked and that we're done, but I think there are questions now that can't be answered until we gain some experience with this plan uh after it takes effect.

Um we need to find out how it works and uh identify issues that in practice require more attention.

I also believe that uh the great majority of people will not participate in a discussion of our planning process until it affects them.

Uh and and so uh we need to get that feedback.

We've had that feedback through our zoning process and other engagement.

I've had it in my district, but uh we need to gain some practical experience with this uh and not talk in generalities.

I think that we have done all we can prior to the adoption of the plan, but uh understanding that we're not done and the work will continue.

We're gonna have seminars, uh we will uh obviously continue to have the website.

The staff will be available to engage with people and answer questions.

So this doesn't uh permanently lock anything down or cast anything in stone, but it's the transition from the development and the theory of the plan to experience with the use of the plan.

So I'm very hopeful that next week when our vote is scheduled, we will be able to reward the staff with a good solid majority vote to pass this plan and move ahead with our process.

So thanks to all of you.

Great job.

All right, Mr.

Peacock.

Madam Mayor, my colleague has just captured all of my thoughts in in exactly four minutes, so I have no questions.

Thank you.

Ms.

Mayfield.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Monica, thank you for the presentation this evening.

A couple of questions for clarification.

So with the next to the last slide, we have the planning is eroded too.

So for clarification, we have smaller geography plans for specific issues.

Is your expectation to still move forward with the 14 area plans, but then for business activity centers, station area plans, employment district plans, focused investment plans, environmental impact that we slow down for those plans in order to have smaller geography plans for them?

So the plan is they all they all work together and build on each other.

So you start with the comprehensive plan, uh, then we had strategic plans like the mobility plan, then the 14 area plans, which provide the next layer of guidance.

The specific plans are specific issue driven.

We have some that have occurred like corridor playbooks.

Uh we have uh some very specific work that's occurred while we've still been doing the while we've been working on the area plans.

Uh I I let me make sure I understand your question correctly.

But the goal is is that we have the foundation in place so we have the next layer of guidance to lead us on these specific plans.

We can they they they don't they work together.

So, Manager Jones, I have already shared on more than one occasion the concern I have with trying to move forward.

All 14 area plans.

So I and my colleague did have opportunity to tune in online last week.

I have some concern regarding the numbers that we list as far as interactions as well as impressions.

There were a number of questions that were asked that via online that were not identified to speak to.

Clear cut happened.

We said we have sustainability goals.

Streets have been named.

That construction project has come to a complete stop because there's a good possibility the company has run up has gone out of business and or in the process of bankruptcy.

But in the meantime, we allowed this clear cutting to happen.

So now we have this vacant lot that has some infrastructure in place.

Nothing in the discussion of the plan talks of that.

So one of the reasons why I am attempting to encourage my colleagues that we need to break these plans up because some areas of the community are ready to move forward, and I don't want to stop that growth.

But we have other areas that are experiencing different challenges, such as approvals that have not moved forward, yet they have done they have committed a certain percentage of the work that now is causing impact to community.

Again, this clear cutting that you did because trees, crazy idea, create barriers and a certain level of protection and safety for single family, but we've made way for diverse housing options, multifamilies.

The clear cut happens.

Especially when also one of the questions was about the fact that we have approved a number of things that are in direct contradiction to our 2040 plan.

So help me understand how this benefits.

I appreciate the work that you all are doing.

We have a little bit of the luxury of time because of how we build it out.

I do not believe in unintended consequences because if we address it on the front end, if we have diversity and thought on the front end, so when the question is asked, you're making a conscious decision where you're saying this is a negative that I can absorb or that I'm comfortable with.

So you can't say I didn't know because you did know because it was brought up.

You just chose not to address it.

So then when it happens, that was a consequence that I was comfortable with versus unintended consequences.

I'm just asking the consideration of us breaking it up in order to make sure that it's right.

Thank you, ma'am.

Can I just speak to the comments?

The question, just the one qu on the questions from the webinar.

So we worked with housing and neighborhood services, they had done several uh webinars prior, and did an excellent job of getting people there.

We had a lot of questions, and so what we're now doing is going through all of the questions and responding in as plain language as we possibly can to answer directly, provide resources, answer directly what all those questions are.

So uh we communicated, which you probably received.

We communicated today with everyone that that just takes a little bit of time for us to make sure we're really giving them the right information and answer, and so we will deliver that by Friday with all the specific answer resource clarification, et cetera, with links so that people, if they did not receive an answer in person, or even if they did, we're making sure that they get um a direct plain language answer by Friday to address what their question was, even if it is not specific to area plans like the example you gave.

If it's a business incubator, we want to make sure they have the information and they understand where that fits.

Thank you for that that trigger for Mr.

Manager Jones.

I don't know if this is accurate or not, and it will be helpful just to update full counsel at some point soon.

We no longer are have access to our meetings and information on Facebook, it's only on YouTube.

That's something that was mentioned to me earlier today, and I was like, Well, council didn't receive an update on that.

If we're talking about how we engage and reach out, because one of the challenges on Facebook, and this isn't the first time, because again, Monica, you all have done a wonderful job getting out.

I personally like the in-person, but it's very difficult on when we're outreaching, getting the communication, or at least acknowledging to people, so that they have a paper trail saying, Hey, I did get your message, I'm gonna follow up, because others we're reading that, so we also may want that information because we also may have had a similar question or the same question.

So, what forms of communication are we utilizing would be helpful to know.

But thank you for not only capturing and getting that information back out, but sharing that's what Lincoln.

Um, thank you, and thank you, Monica, for the presentation and for the work you all are doing.

Um, this becomes even more critically important as we think about how this marries up to the mobility plans going forward, particularly around neighborhood stabilization and displacement.

So I'm particularly interested in the updates that have been made and in the work that you all are doing here.

Um, I do agree with my colleague in that I would prefer a phased approach based on readiness of each area.

Oh I do agree with my colleague, and that I prefer a phased approach of adoption, uh, given that some areas are more prime and more ready and also more vulnerable to potential displacement as we think about upcoming investments.

Um I also agree with the previous comment that said there are some things that we will learn along the way as we implement uh to that end.

I really would like to understand what is the change management plan, knowing that there are going to be some things that we're gonna learn along the way, it's extremely important to me that we are able to react and respond to that within a timely manner.

I think about some of the things we learned uh after the UDO was adopted, some things that we wanted to make sure that we um addressed.

Many of those were very foreseeable consequences.

Um but in this case, certainly there'll be things that pop up that we want to change.

Can you talk about what is that plan going to look like to be able to stay agile over the course of the next six to twelve months?

Yes, so I was just trying to flip through my notes to make sure I had the right answer to give you.

But so we expect in the actual document in the area plans themselves, it outlines uh what we call map amendment criteria.

So basically, how would we update that on a regular basis?

So both the policy map and then the area plans themselves.

So we we will have to adapt and do that on a regular basis.

So you you will see we I'm gonna look to Kathy as to if we have the specific time frame identified in the plans as to when we would bring forward those um edits, those kind of learned lessons.

Uh so we've we've discussed it's like the points allowed or yeah, yeah.

So the whole thing is whole every five years we do a whole overview in the interim, the specific plans are on that when they're completed, they kind of rise up to make changes to the overall area plan.

So if you were to do a specific environmental justice action plan in a neighborhood and it had recommendations that change the actual place types, then that would get adopted up and then reset the frame.

So that can happen, you know, every several months basically.

Okay, I'd like to, if possible, I'd like to dig into that much more because I want it to, I want people in our community to feel like they're able to drive that change.

The worst thing we can do is see a problem and have people lifting it up over and over and not be able to do anything about it in a time that means something for them.

So I hear the every five years for the full plan.

I'm looking for something even more agile, even more community uh-led, so that we can be responsive uh in a timely manner.

Yeah, and that's outlined in the major map amendment criteria, and it outlines how a community can basically jump start that so we can make sure and follow up with you so that you have that information and kind of see the path forward.

Thank you.

Thank thank you, Madam Mayor.

I agree with some of the comments that's been made by my colleagues.

Um I agree we have one of the best planning staff in the nation, and I hear that from my colleagues about how we have uh done our work with our UDO and other 2040 plan.

Um, but I also want to acknowledge some of the concerns that's been raised.

Um specifically, uh Mr.

Drix is right.

There are times where uh people will pay attention when they know how it affects them.

So I think if we can provide an example, uh, it is easier to follow.

Like I was going through this PowerPoint.

If you can make it uh give an example, how will this plan be used?

Number one, just pretty simple, very basic.

What happens if we don't adopt the plan?

Uh do we go back to the previous plan or do we go back to no plan at all?

I think having a real example and maybe district by district, do a seven do seven examples.

Um and and break it down because councilmember Mayfield mentioned how technical this is, and that's one of the comments we have heard.

Like I got um, I see that email that was forwarded to me from Dr.

Jeanette Reverend Agarra Mullins, and she talks about in her email how we need to have plain language, because not everyone can understand this development and planning language.

So if we can have some sort of plain language of maps, metrics, that would help.

Uh also one example she gave in her email is that if we can have slower-paced interactive sessions where residents can ask questions where we have enough time for community questions and reflection.

Um that's the type of feedback I have received.

So I would like to continue that conversation, but having a real example would certainly put things into perspective as to how it affects residents in all parts of our city.

And I think that is that is missing.

Yeah, I will just answer really quickly because we we're making edits, so uh we we have some outlined information around kind of what happens if we don't adopt the area plans.

So if we don't just if we did not, if we were to say we're not adopting them, then the current adopted map, which is the 22, the 2022 map would be the guiding policy for the city in partnership with the 2040 plan.

So the 2040 plan citywide would be the referenced material and document for all of our future rezoning cases.

All of the kind of those 10 goals and priorities would be the lens at which all uh rezoning cases would be evaluated and all decision making would be evaluated, and that the policy map from 2022 would be our land use guidance.

So from a community member perspective, um, there would not be the needs assessment that identify where there are needs in their community.

That would not be you know adopted.

They could use it as a reference, but it wouldn't be something that would be guiding policy.

We wouldn't have the priority goals for their 14 geographies, and we wouldn't have the adopted revised map that takes into account their feedback and their perspective and some of the changes that they wanted to occur.

Um we also wouldn't have the program guide, uh, which is part of the adoption, includes um how we evaluate change and very clear metrics so that anyone can pick it up and understand what uh change can occur near me and how it may or may not be supported.

And so that provides clarity for community members and for the development community and for all of us to understand if something is appropriate or not.

And so without adopting it, we will not have that guidance.

We will just be using the 2040 plan and the policy map.

I get that.

I think that's where you you need to have an example.

Like, okay, here is the side.

If we don't adopt this, it's gonna go based on previous plan.

Here is what it says.

It doesn't take into consideration environment justice, tree counterfeit to council member Mayfield's question.

Uh and let's go, let's take an example of Silbury Acres, because I know you all met with them, and a neighborhood did reach out and said they were satisfied and with the changes that you all made.

Let's take that example.

Here are the changes that's been made.

If you don't do this, uh it's gonna go back to the previous plan that where it shows heavy manufacturing.

Right, right, or industrial, whatever that is.

I think those are the concrete examples that you need to show because this is this is too technical for community to understand.

I appreciate, I mean, you're doing a great job as a planner, but I think if you can break it down to third grader, this is how it impacts you.

This is how it impacts your neighborhood.

This is how it impacts your quality of life.

I think that's where we can truly make an impact.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we'll go over to this side of the day.

As Ms.

Brown, do you have any comments?

Thank you so much, Mayor Pratim.

Um, I was looking through my notes trying to figure out uh some of the community leaders that had some concerns similar to what uh council member may feel, as Mira and Wallace and Dr.

Watson has already shared.

I did want to note that uh first of all, Monica, thank you so much.

The team and the staff for all the great work that you all have done on this extensive project, um is complacent and it's uh a lot of information to be able to to look over uh the broad spectrum of how the community area planning uh placement maps and and and how they need to be configured.

However, um I would just have to stick with um there's a lot of unanswered questions for community leaders, and I know that time is of the essence in everything that we do.

We're always um under a time frame for where we have to have things in and they have to be done.

But the one thing I don't want uh to forget about is that as we're looking um to move the plans forward in inclusivity, make sure that you know the vision is bold, but we have to make sure that we're uplifting our most vulnerable population, and I don't think that's being done.

Uh, if we could break down maybe more sessions and uh host more intimate sessions for community engagement, for them to be able to come out and express how they uh feel about the maps in greater detail, and what I mean by that is let me get a little bit more simpler.

District three is humongous, and some areas of district three may be uh ready to move forward when we start to look at uh the displacement and uh the gentrification that's taking place in district three.

I want to be very, very mindful of how we go about getting the information out and the dialogue and being able to be receptive in the information that's coming back from the community leaders and the emails that I got in my email.

Um, you know, I'm uh blessed to work with you and have about 20 days left.

So this will definitely fall into the hands of uh our other team members, and I hear my colleagues hear me attentively as it is.

It's very important that these presentations be rooted for the community and that they understand the rhetoric, and what I'm getting is that the language is um too complex for uh the neighbors and our constituents to understand um the data, and um just incorporate um more understanding with a deeper dive into our communities that are asking for more information and more input, and I wouldn't be able at this moment to to go and um sign off on the entire project moving forward.

I would uh look at um breaking it up and moving out what makes the most sense, but uh for me and uh the constituents that I'm hearing from louder and clear in district three, I wouldn't be able to to to do it today.

And I know you all work really hard.

I've been on several phone calls with you, and I respect your work to the fullest, but I also respect uh the people that are reaching out to me and gave me an opportunity to serve for two years, and uh they are very vocal and I'm very diligent in listening to them and digesting everything that they've shared with me, and those are my concerns, and that's my feedback.

It's too complex and too many unanswered um questions from people that work really hard in the corridors of opportunity to make our city a better place to live in.

So I thank you so much, Monica, and thank you guys for all of the hard work that you do, but just I'm just not ready there, respectfully.

I I wouldn't be able to do it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Molina.

Um, thank you, uh Mayor Pro Tem.

I uh first of all, I I echo I don't want to repeat anything.

Thank you guys for the work that you've done.

Um I again because I've had the opportunity to be on the Transportation Planning and Development Committee.

I've heard a lot of these updates in committee.

Um I think the challenge lies in the fact that we have thousands of neighborhoods, thousands across the city, um, and they have individual needs, and and what I hear uh from my colleagues and and even residents is um we already have an adopted 2040 plan, and we have a unified development ordinance that also preempts some of what can and can't happen already based on the policy, right?

So, for an example, um, and and then I I think what is expected, and I'm making an assumption, this isn't something that I can give you any type of qualitative data, but I'm making an assumption based on what I'm hearing.

Uh, people are expecting barriers that could help against some of the things that residents are currently being preempted by.

So, for an example, um, the idea of something being by right, um, which already takes place without there being an area plan just simply because of the language of of what can and can't take place in certain, you know, uh plan types.

Um, they're looking for things uh that would provide protection, and I see that in the community area plans, you know, there are some, I guess some forward thinking, right?

So this is with foresight, right?

Like what we've already learned.

This is my synthesis, and I need you to help me understand whether I have this right or not.

Um the 2040 plan.

We got a plan that already says how we plan for this community as a whole overall to grow based on what we anticipate is growth, and then we got the plans based on where we anticipate those people moving to, right?

And then we got um kind of a design of what people can do once they buy a certain type of property, whether that be residential or commercial, whether they to what level of density they can take their property to based on where it is and and what the plan is for it going forward.

I think what people are expecting these things to do is for them to provide protections when community members have things happen in their neighborhood that they don't want, is what I think I'm hearing.

And that doesn't mean that I don't think we try, but I just, you know, because I wasn't on the council when we adopted neither the 2040 plan or the UDO, I think that it would have been.

I don't know if there ever would have been a place where we had all of the information considering the size of city that we are.

So of course, what all the decisions we make, we learn as we go, right?

Um but I I like I said, I think the challenge here is um the challenge here is and and the opportunity.

So the thing that excites me is the idea of the specific plans.

Specific plans means like what she had circled, those areas where based on the specificity of an area, you can make decisions, and then those decisions can actually after a certain period bubble up to change the entire overall area plan from what you're learning, but specific areas having the same issues would determine whether they affect the overall plan, right?

Uh in a case like the east side, however, that's a very large geography.

So how many specific plans would we need to be affected by something before it actually affects that one overall?

I mean, it's a lot of questions, right?

And so I don't know if we could have definition properly at any point where we'd be able to answer that for every neighborhood in the community.

So lots of questions, and and this is just me.

Do I have that right?

Is there anything that you would add to that?

No, that that was uh that was a pretty good explanation of it.

I think it was the the key point is is that yes, every piece of property has uh a property right attached to it today, right?

That is in line with the UDO and their zone zoning existed prior to the UDO.

Right.

Um and so the Charlotte Future 2040 plan is our guiding document for policy uh for our decisions that we make that changes those entitlements, you know, when when you guys make a rezoning decision.

We're trying to further clarify that with the area plan so that there's there's more clarity as to what's going to happen, and it's not as broad as it kind of is today, right?

So that is the guidance that we're trying to put in the area plans and that we've been working with the community for is more specificity, and then we get even to additional specificity beyond that, so that you're not just looking because we know that what's good in one neighborhood is not necessarily good in all neighborhoods, and the 2040 plan applies to all neighborhoods neighborhoods.

Um so we're trying to get that level of specificity, and we've learned some things along the way.

So hence the environmental justice work that's in the community area plans, and hence the um, you know, it's the the tweaks and and revisions, lessons learned along the way with the neighborhood one.

Well, I do largely appreciate the amount of feedback that you all are taking, you know, um and and implementing into these plans intermittently as you're getting that feedback from us and the public.

So thank you for that.

I know that this is not easy work.

Um I know that this is challenging to plan for a city of our size, and now you got transportation running adjacent to that.

So I I I guess I'll look forward to you know, just communicating with my colleagues over the next week or so to see kind of what the sentiment is.

Like I said, I do realize some of the areas of opportunity in this, it's not perfect.

Um, and like I said, what I hear and what I hear, you know, here and at the community level, is that people are looking for things that will protect them from a neighborhood basis from things happening in their neighborhood that they would not like to have happen, is what I'm understanding.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Monica, for the presentation.

Uh, you all do a great job and and are very professional.

Um, position has has been that there are residents that have spoken out, and their concerns are not being incorporated into the plan.

Um, which is why I led the deferral or um on the 22nd.

So I've got a couple of questions.

From the 22nd of September to today, how many more resident recommendations have been incorporated into the plan?

So the you'll see here on this first page of what we distributed, these are the concrete um changes where they whether they be map changes or recommendations that have been proposed since the twenty the 22nd.

So these these resulted from all of those specific meetings that we've had, uh one-on-one sessions, uh kind of taking a deep dive into what specific issues are.

So uh please let us know.

I mean, we we are happy to we've we've met with a lot of people and we're happy to, you know, if somebody has a specific question, concern, changes.

I mean, even just last week.

Uh you know, we're having a meeting this week because we need to understand if you have a concern and you feel like it's not being heard.

We need to understand what specifically are the things you want to like how can we incorporate that feedback in a way.

So my question was for a number because the public can't see that spreadsheet.

So there are well.

So 20 is changes since since September.

Yes.

Okay.

And I I saw your numbers, these 1,000 um comments, I think, in phase five.

And and we also so saw categories of the different comments.

Can you pull that slide up, please?

I can't change the slide.

You would have to be it, it's slide number 10.

Let's go.

Because I saw different categories of um the comments.

Yeah, it's like questions support, like basically breaks down the different categories of what the comments are.

Okay, such as clarification questions, general support, concerns already addressed, out of scope issues, opposition to citywide goals.

I wanted to know did you categorize how many of those comments yielded changes?

Yes, so those were the ones that didn't warrant changes.

About twenty once about 20 percent.

Uh so the there are about 20 percent of all comments yielded an actual document change.

About 38 percent of all comments were just asking a question that then that question was responded to.

So then we had about 17 percent that were just out of scope, about um seven percent that were a misunderstanding, two percent that were site specific, three percent that were already addressed, seven percent that just said their comment was like, I like this, three percent that were their comment was I don't like this.

So we we can get you all the percentages of breakdown of what those were 200.

Yeah, okay.

So that's the concern out of a million people in the city, almost about a thousand comments were received in this phase, and 20 percent of those changes, which is 200 yielded changes.

So that's been the concern, and even uh of this what I'm saying is there are residents that have been involved since the beginning that have not been or or felt or been heard, and um of the things that Ed McKinney said earlier is numbers are important, but the dialogue is more important.

So we we for in order for me to support this, and I would hope council this is on us now because city staff has done what they're what they're charged to do.

Um our residents are not feeling heard, and the the goal for that meeting on the 6th was my expectation was engagement with the residents, and we talked about it, and I asked you for just 15 minutes overview and allow time for questions and answers.

Mr.

Jones, that that that didn't happen.

There was a 40-minute presentation, and we ran out of time at the end.

That's why there were numerous questions that weren't addressed, and and so I got an email.

And so I got an email.

And her email says, I joined the 2040 area plan webinar with hope and curiosity.

The presentation offered a rich tapestry of maps, metrics, and momentum.

But the pace and the complexity left left many of us overwhelmed.

What was meant to orient felt like a rush, swift, dense, and difficult to digest.

I write not to critique but to call us higher.

Planning for 2040 is not merely technical.

It is communal, ceremonial, and deeply consequential.

If we are to build a Charlotte that reflects the fullness of its people, our engagement must be accessible, paced with care, and framed for understanding.

She also sent a second email that says, I reside in the West Inter and have had opportunities to be on several calls and also to have attended the West Boulevard corridor-wide meetings with where presentations were made by local government staff.

I've spoken out with questions and concerns regarding the CAP relative to the West Interlocation and speaking with some residents, they are still somewhat confused, not sure what changes will take place in the West Inter and concerned about displacement.

And she lists several recommendations.

One of is plain language summaries, and we've talked about plain language before.

I mentioned that before.

So and we've talked about since the 2040 simplifying.

If we're only getting 200 comments out of a million people, we are not, we can't blame the residents.

They partnered with the Urban Institute at UNCC to create a map which shows that community carries an inequitable level of the environmental burden.

There's no uh red line stations.

There's several challenges in that community that they feel they're not being dressed, addressed in their setup for displacement.

So I we again council, it's on us.

I agree that we should not uh approve all of these together because these are residents that haven't felt heard.

That meeting on the 6th was invitation only.

There were people that didn't even know about it.

There were calls and and phone calls, um, and it just wasn't.

I had asked for the webinar for each plan, just like we had before, so that these people who had been engaged could ask very detailed questions.

But it was a CAP 101.

It was very basic and it was not appropriate, and it did not meet the needs that we deferred the vote for.

So I asked for the transcript of the meeting for all of you, so you can see the questions and see the percentage of questions that weren't answered.

We didn't receive that.

Um we and and someone mentioned the public being engaged.

We have people that are engaged, but they're not being heard.

So I'm not willing to support uh plan to see what happens later, because we know Dr.

Wattlington, that there is no change once it's done.

So I think we need to get this right because there are no unforeseeable consequences.

I keep telling you my seven-year-old grandson, he's learning responsibility for his decisions, and we need to take responsibility for ours.

So that's all I have to say.

We we cannot move forward with 14 plans, in my opinion.

The public's not ready, and um, and they've told us that.

So now it's up to you, council.

Thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Mitchell.

Mr.

Mitchell, I think a lot of comments from my colleagues, colleagues have been said today, and I find it a little interesting.

I'll be the first one to tell you that Council of the priorities I had on my desk.

Um, I did not make this a top priority.

Councilman Johnson Day called me and asked me, was I gonna join the meeting on November 5th?

So just in the conversation uh around the dias, I I'm gonna come to two conclusions.

One, um, I don't want this to be like UDO, where it really calls a lot of tension among this council.

I was fortunate enough not to be down here.

But I know there was a lot of vowel scars and me, I guess Councilor Mayfield, we just from afar uh looked at it and I remember telling the citizen if I was down there I would advocate for more time.

I think sometimes we just have to get it right collectively.

Um secondly, I do think there's enough partnership.

You heard comments that and Monica don't kill me, uh, but I do think a piecemeal approach.

I want to use the word piecemeal, so uh we were phase in different area plan.

That's that's better than saying piecemeal.

I don't like the piecemeal.

So phasing in the community area plans might be more acceptable, just listen around the diets.

I think for two reasons.

I think there's a lot of concern that if we don't get it right the first time, we will never change it again.

I think secondly, I do think it's uh uh uh still a lot of noise out in the community.

And and here's where I think we have fell as a council, so council, I think we got to put this on our responsibility.

I'm not sure we've had made realistic expectation of staff.

And so you got 12 different expectations of what they wanted to see, and I think staff you have then tried to take care of all 11 of us.

I'm not gonna put the mayor in it, all 11 of us.

And that caused confusion that caused frustration on your side, and I think you hear from some of the council members, they are still frustrated as well.

So if I can remember, we delayed this councilmember Johnson, we delayed us to come back to us, and November 24th will be our last council meeting with this current council.

So uh we we're stuck in a bond.

We got we got one more week uh to decide what two well one more week November 24th, because December 1st it's a new council.

So I I can't remember the timeline, but we say we'll defer.

We're gonna have new committee assignments probably December 2nd.

And I I don't know, City Manager.

Um do we go what we feel comfortable on November 24th, that council can get support by phasing in different area plans, or do we just continue to say we'll visit us again in as committee at the December 2nd.

I I just think we kind of crossroad, especially from a timeline.

My recommendation would be if you're gonna move forward on November 24th, uh you use a phase approach and continue to allow us to work through certain part of this community whose voices have not been heard as loud as we would like for them to be heard and continue to incorporate and get their feedback.

Madam Mayor, yes, Ms.

Mayfield.

Thank you.

Manager Jones, I would just like to point out six months ago when I made the first suggestion of breaking it up.

We could have already passed possibly three or four of these during this time, versus the pushback of we want to do 14.

Correct.

We went on ahead and put the energy and the time in the areas where we were hearing from community, because I never said the whole thing, let's not do it.

But six months ago, if we had taken the first recommendation of instead of pushing 14, let's break it up, we possibly could have already passed District 6, a lot of their work, a lot of the work and parts of South Park area, and some of the upper north area.

So now we're in December, we're down to our last two meetings.

But six months.

But uh the direction from your office to the team was one uh phasing because that language feels more comfortable, which I'm fine with the language, as long as we did the work, we wouldn't be now having this discussion where we're possibly concerned that we only have two meetings left, so what we're gonna do.

So I'm hoping as, and I know we have a responsibility, council, to get some writing back to you as our manager based on conversation, but I'm hoping that we take this as an opportunity as we move into a new term that if you have multiple members on council that are sharing a similar question on procedure and policy that from your office, it will be reflected through staff to listen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Mayor Pro Tim, and then I want to um address councilmember Driggs.

Mayor Pro Two Can you put me in the queue, please?

I'm sorry.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I wanted to uh make my comments uh like the rest of my colleagues, uh Monica, and first of all, I just want to say thank you to you and your team.

As you mentioned, uh in this packet, there are several changes and modifications that uh your team has done due to listening to community, and in particular in the South Inner um area, where a couple of my uh neighborhood leaders who have been well engaged throughout the entire process.

Um but you've you've listened to them and you've continued to listen to them, you've gone out to meet with them, and I've heard specifically back from a couple of them that they are uh first of all very thankful with the high level of engagement that your team has had, but then also um they really appreciate the movement and um and the flexibility that your team has demonstrated throughout this entire process.

So uh thank you for that, and because I think it's really important to reflect when a community does engage uh with staff listed and they do make the modifications.

So I see this here in writing, but I've also heard from them in writing um over the last uh day or so.

So thank you for that.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right, before Mr.

Driggs, I think the manager wanted to have some comments as well.

Uh thank you, Mayor, members of the council.

Uh first of all, I'd like to uh thank uh Monica and the team for the hard work.

Um the comp plan to the UDO to where we are here tonight.

I don't think there's ever been a vote that hasn't been complicated.

Um learned in that process is in this exchange between the team, the staff, and the council.

I it's um becomes very difficult when the goal line gets moved.

And I'm not necessarily saying that anybody's moving it.

What I'm saying is if all of a sudden there's a new barrier with let's say a recommendation that we have like um phasing the approach.

Um I think you will be very upset if all of a sudden staff says, well, that doesn't work, right?

So and I'm not saying that's what it is, what I am understanding that there are two issues, one engagement, and either it's uh adequate or not adequate, but engagement is an issue, and that's something as a team that we are reviewing because what engagement may look like in one part of our city, may not be the same way for another part of our city.

We know there's certain things you don't do on Wednesday nights in certain communities because certain things are going on in those uh communities.

Um so I I think this you know point one second point is this whole concept of um adopting all of the plans or phasing them in.

Um seems to be another conversation that's happening around the the the day is what I don't know, and this is what I mean by let's all be careful about the next few comments of let's say moving the the goal the goalpost.

I don't know what happens to a neighborhood that has an adopted plan versus a neighborhood that doesn't have an adopted plan.

I don't know if they're ones at a disadvantage versus another one.

Um I don't know what confusion exists if some neighborhoods have adopted plans and others don't.

So that so that's all I'm saying.

I'm not saying don't do one, don't do the other.

I just don't know um the consequences of having the phased approach, but it seems like the majority of you would like to have something different than just an all in.

I also believe or pray that the majority of you would like this to rest on this council and not necessarily the next.

I agree.

Okay, so that's just an obligation.

We're gonna do it right.

Okay, okay.

You want to know the other thing.

All right, Mr.

Driggs.

Thank you, Mayor.

So I don't know if you remember a couple of months ago, uh, we were having a conversation in September about the deferral, and I told you then, guys, we're gonna be in exactly the same place in two months that we are now.

And to put somebody try and tell me that isn't true.

Is it anything different?

And the fact is that so I don't know exactly what is going to what could happen that would move us from here.

I just don't see what it is that we can do that's going to respond.

Bear in mind it's been seven months since these plans were released.

The drafts of these plans were released seven months ago.

And we've had that much time to engage with the community in any way possible to review for our own benefit what the plans say and um and to try to work through them.

I will say to you, these plans are intrinsically complicated.

If you try to simplify your explanation of this plan, there will be people who said you left something out and you misled me.

Transparency does require a certain amount of detail just in order to render the plan faithfully.

So I don't know how to solve that.

And some people say they haven't been heard.

You know, the problem is not that they weren't heard.

The problem is that they didn't get what they wanted.

It's not the same thing.

They had every opportunity to express their opinion, and then in the greater context of our planning process, maybe that position they took wasn't the one that prevailed.

This plan is being created by the staff and by us, not by individual members of the public.

So we listen to what they say, and a whole lot of effort has been made to accommodate what they said.

But there are times when people said I wasn't heard, and what they really mean is I didn't get what I wanted.

Because the amount of engagement in some of the neighborhoods that we know the most about uh has been extensive.

Walks, discussions, and so on, a lot was actually done.

I've seen the way certain areas were redrawn.

But um so I'm just at a loss in terms of where we go from here.

Three people who worked hard on this over the last year uh will now be left out, I guess, if we say we need more time.

So that's unfortunate.

I do agree that a six to five outcome is not a good thing.

Uh you know, I went through that, and uh it was uh it was mean, right?

And uh I think everybody with good intentions was pretty adamant about where they stood and the reasons that people had for being opposed or in support.

I voted no, right?

Uh and my concern was primarily 2.1 and the fact that the plan looked like it would invade all kinds of neighborhoods, not just in my district.

And sure enough, we found out, right?

Suddenly that N1A started to be a problem, and we had to work on that.

We're still working on that.

Um I think the idea of not having area plans would be a bad thing because these area plans are mainly there in order to give residents the comfort that the strictures of the planning process and the things that developers are allowed to do uh will not hurt them.

That's really the main purpose, right?

So uh if you look at it, I mean the developers don't like it.

They're they're now being told look, aside from everything we told you before about how far apart and how tall and everything else, you these are the things that you also have to consider.

That neighborhood, as we just heard, has these qualities, and we want you to respect that in your development proposal.

That's the kind of thing that's in these plans.

There's nothing there that is intended to benefit the developer community.

These plans are all intended.

So the fact that some people don't think it's perfect shouldn't be interpreted to mean that they aren't good, that they aren't beneficial.

There are about 65,000 people in each of these planning areas, and uh I would say, in spite of all of our efforts after seven months, we have heard from a tiny percentage of them.

And the responsibility to speak for the rest of them falls on us.

They elected us.

And so the question really is if you don't like it, what's your suggestion?

Now we could look at the phased thing that came up, and in the past, one of the issues about that was um the fact that you have an uneven planning environment, which means the rules are not the same in this place as in that place.

Uh there could be a question as to whether that raises legal issues.

We'd have to talk to uh our attorney and terree about whether there might be problems that we are administering these requirements from the plan unevenly.

Um they might also have an impact on where development occurs.

So the people that held out find that they don't have the protection of area plans that we pass in other places.

And wouldn't it be ironic if they ended up of all people being worse off?

So uh with the best of intentions, and I'm hearing what everybody's saying, I'm trying to interpret it, and I I just don't know where this group wants to go.

You know, how does this come out?

So we don't do it now, and let's say we introduce a few of these plans early on.

Now three new people come in, and they're gonna have to get educated.

That's gonna take some time.

Remember how long it took you?

They stand up for who cares.

What's that?

They signed up for who cares.

Uh trust me, when you come on this council, we've all had the experience, there's a whole lot of stuff that you don't find out until you get here.

Yeah, I know.

Uh no.

Um there's that.

And then again, I I just want to know what the body intends.

Right.

So we don't do it now, because after seven months, we still think that there is something more that we should do.

What comes next?

I think this is the thing that I I'm just Watlington has raised her hand.

I'm not sure if it's next or she's got the floor.

Thanks.

Um this is always so interesting to me when we come to a place where it seems like we're clear about what the will of the body is, and yet we have these conversations about all the ways we can get around what it seems to be the obvious will of the body.

Um I'm not sure why we continue to do that.

To me, the what's next is either we voted all down or we vote some of it up, is what I'm hearing around the dais.

To your point, it's been months and months and months.

We've said the same thing for at least six months.

At what point did we pivot to how do we figure out how to get done what they're asking versus how do we continue to move forward with what we've said we want to do that they've said they've got a problem with?

So to me, what comes next is what are the plans, if any, that the district reps after having connected in with their uh respective communities are comfortable with.

Well, let's let's let's vote those up if that's what the will of the body is.

Go find out from a legal standpoint what might be the things that may be the watch outs.

But until we have those answers, seems like we're gonna be right here.

Um when it comes to the areas where there are still issues, I think from a communication standpoint, and I know that Councilmember Ejmira has spoken on this before.

We've gotta we gotta update our communication to this century.

Um when we start to talk about ways to really engage with a community.

Well, absolutely it's impressive that these numbers with the methods we're using are higher than they normally are, and that's a testament to the work you all are doing.

Every single person in this community has the world at their fingertips.

We got to figure out how to reach these people where they are in a much easier way.

And that means moving beyond some of the traditional methods.

We see it happening everywhere in guerrilla marketing.

Why can't we figure out how to make that happen at the city?

Um, so to me, what happens next is we innovate, and I think until we get clear about the pivot, we're gonna keep talking about how to bring back the same thing over and over and over again.

So that's what I'd be interested in is understanding from each district rep or and even at large, what are the particular um plans that you're comfortable with if you're comfortable with the number set or the plans in district seven, you're comfortable with the plans of district six.

I'm fully on board to support the district reps in those spaces, but we just need to know where people are.

Well, Miss Swatlington, how about if you have an a way of putting that in a motion?

I think that Mr.

Driggs has said what's next and what do we want to do, and how do we walk out of here maybe sometime at some point.

So if you have the um ideas to put that into a form of a motion, then we can go and I'll let Mayor Pro Tim go next, and then hopefully you'll be able to get that done and provide it to us.

Before you do that, can we have a clarification question from our new city attorney?

Are we able to vote on this tonight?

We are not.

I did not think so.

So I we feel like we're flirting to come up to the edge to vote, but we cannot.

This was information tonight.

Yes, it is, but the 24th is going to come around pretty quickly.

And we need nothing's gonna change.

I think Mr.

Driggs has been very clear.

I'm letting you best, and it's not we unless we have a change.

So I'm Mayor Pro Tem and then Ms.

Ashmere.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And Mr.

Peacock, you took my first point because I think that's where we were going, but more importantly, so I I get it and I understand it that where we have this tension between some areas that that are okay with the modifications, and some areas that are still struggling to Mr.

Drake's point.

I do believe that those who have wanted to participate in this process or learn more about this process has taken advantage of the numerous opportunities that this team has put together as a touch point.

I I I do believe that.

They've figured out a way to tap into a variety of different touch points.

And I want to thank the team for engaging with them.

So the the whole point of thinking about, well, if we delay, we have to really be uh clear-eyed on what's the end game, because I do also agree that with a deferral or a delay and and allowing a new counsel to come in who probably know very little about this process.

They probably know some because they've been tracking, but um very little is as much as the rest of our district reps and and current council members that I've been engaged with community, there would be a high ramp up.

But my point is what is the end game for the deferral?

Because if we're if we're having the conversation around a community area plan is really meant to first and foremost, protect those communities from the developers having their way.

Um even unbalanced city to me where there are guardrails in some communities and then there aren't guardrails in other communities create inequities in my from my perspective.

So that's my first concern, and I'd I'd love to for staff uh to maybe perhaps share what you've seen in other communities, perhaps that's been done in other communities where you've had a midway or a partial um enrollment of this.

What has what has been the outcome?

What has been the impact, or has it been just great and not a problem at all?

But I think that there would be challenges to that from a community perspective.

The last thing, just in preparation for a vote on the 24th, is um our new wonderful uh city attorney.

I'd like to understand the city's exposure to moving forward with a partial implementation.

Because again, in some areas, if certain development is possible or allowed, and in others it's not allowed, um, are we exposed from a municipal perspective from litigation from certain communities or even from particular residents that can circle back and say, hey, you all did not act in my in my best in my best favor as a res as a taxpaying resident of this community.

So I'm open to the a way forward, but number one, if we're not gonna do a full um implementation, I want to know what what are we being exposed to legally and what are the ramifications from a municipal perspective and perhaps looking nationally at some uh cities that may have done that and what have been the outcomes because I think it's a really really important question around how are we representing our residents and ensuring that we have the community first, and certainly up for any additional marketing levers or campaigns that we can do, but I I do want to say that I know that the staff, at least in District 1, you all have created a number of touch points, and I know that uh my community leaders have leaned in and engaged in those more than one time.

So thank you for that.

So Monica, do you have Mayor?

I'm sorry.

Okay.

So um to the mayor pro Tim's point.

Um I think any comparisons from other states or places is secondary to legally can it be done.

Exactly.

And I think that's the question that needs to be answered.

Absolutely.

We'll bet it and we'll bet it.

Okay.

Plus why I've given our first homework assignment.

And I think Ms.

Watk, Ms.

Sajmira wanted to speak as well.

Yes, so while that's being explored, I think there are uh takeaways here.

Uh we all provided feedback.

So there was let me just remind so I asked for examples, district by district, specific example that is easier for our constituents to follow.

How will this plan be used?

What happens if it doesn't get adopted?

This is what the difference is.

Uh I think having that very simple example would certainly be helpful.

I think we can work on that.

Um also technical language.

I know I hear that number of my colleagues talked about how this is very technical, and we got comments from our neighborhoods asking for more just plain language.

So if we can have follow-up sessions for deeper dialogue, um, because I understand that the webinar we had on the fifth, did not we did not have enough opportunity to have QA at the end where we could engage with community.

Um I think if we can have follow-up session, and uh just having slow-paced presentation, but it's more interactive rather than we are just presenting, let's ask, let's we have at least 50% of time dedicated where community can ask questions.

Um I think those are the takeaways.

If we can work on those while we are exploring this other legal questions, I think that would be helpful.

That would at least address some of the concern that my colleagues and I have raised.

That's all I have.

Oh, and and the communications that uh Dr.

Watlington had raised about just making it, how can we engage the community?

Uh I've seen some very innovative ways where uh our communication has helped us push out very critical information through social media, and I think we can do that with this.

Uh, I see Jack here, he's got his hands full, but I'm sure he's up to the task, and we can find a way to be more innovative.

How do we break down break this down into very just simple to understand?

Uh and we can do even SCM targeting based on geographic area.

Like for Far East, here is where it's I I'm sure um Council Member Molina gets this all the time about jobs and opportunities uh in Far East.

How does this plan address that, right?

Uh or in near East, we get often asked about environment justice and tree canopy.

So these are just the example.

I know in airport area, the question often gets asked about oh, are we seeing more industrial now uh very close to residential?

I I think it's just very we know already know what each community area plan has asked for based on the feedback we had received.

So if we can just break that down and put it uh where we can get the information out on social media, that would certainly help.

Get more engagement to council member Johnson's point.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

So um let's figure out Ms.

Watlington.

If you have a motion, yes to I I don't know that we have to have it right away.

I'm not saying too right now, this moment.

We'll have to have our legal um folks do this.

So if you're taking that opportunity to draft something, because I think that many of us are saying, yes, do something.

Like we have to do something based upon what we have the ability to do legally as well as have the votes to achieve it.

And so I think that we probably have had a number of conversations.

I mean, uh it's been going on for a while.

So my suggestion is to have you work through that, and then working through that, we come back after we get the city attorney's um review, and then we come back into the committee to start that effort of be able to come convene that and let's focus on getting something achievable that is workable as well.

That's probably the only way that we'll be able to get this in a way before we have the people that are coming on board next week.

So, Ms.

Johnson, thank you, Madam Mayor.

I just wanted to address a couple things.

Councilmember Drewiggs asked, you know, what's going to be different.

It would have been different if the staff had done something differently.

When you do the same thing over and over again and you expect something different, we know that that's what that leads to.

Yeah.

So we ask for them to hear from the residents who felt like they have been engaged.

These if you saw the transcript of the questions, these and qu these questions were for from people who are informed and and engaged.

This wasn't community area plan one-on-one.

So if we had a a meeting where those experts and those folks who have asked these questions and their issues aren't being addressed, if they were in a room and we and they could talk to staff and their council members could hear from them to to hear that your residents don't feel heard.

What's going on and why weren't these changes made?

And that's that's what I was asking for.

And keep in mind this meeting was invitation only.

It was in it wasn't even communicated broadly.

So I mean that's what happened.

Yes, agreed.

And then I also in the future, I think we should set a benchmark for uh what percent uh feedback we're hearing from residents.

We have a million people, even a thousand comments is only one percent, and then less per less than what 0.02 less than one percent.

200 is 0.02.

200 is 0.02.

So less than one percent of the public's comments was incorporated to the into the plan, and these are the residents that have to live with this.

And so I just think we should keep that in mind.

I think as a policy, we should set a benchmark that we need to hear from X number of residents before we move forward.

And if we're not meeting that, again, let's move our communication up to this this decade, or or we have to do we have to do something different.

Because we this is a problem.

This has been a problem.

Okay, so I I appreciate that.

But right now, let's figure out how we can do something that's going to actually make a difference to the people that we're working with right now.

Oh, and lastly, let me say this.

Wait, wait, wait.

Wait, may I finish?

Can I okay?

I I just want to say we're looking for opportunities for something that can be valued and workable for the community as well as this council, and so that's where we are right now.

So I'd like to have to be this council.

We all came on board and had to vote on something that we may not have had history.

I know for a fact that at least one of the look where we are now.

I mean that anyway.

I need I know at least one of the at uh elect council members was was in the meeting.

So I I think that I don't think there's something that says this has to be this council again.

That's part of the job.

Well, let's wait until we see what the city attorney advises us to do on how we can promote something that works for us as a community as this as the council.

All right, so I did.

Uh, thank you so much, madam may, and I'll be very, very quick.

Uh I just wanted to say that you know, these meetings are recorded, and people are watching and they get offended, like when they send us information for us to to communicate to our council, maybe that's just the person that's their mouthpiece to say that they didn't get their way, so they're not upset, Mr.

Drigs.

That people are watching and they hear that.

And so when you say things like that, we've already acknowledged that the staff, I know I have the utmost respect for the staff and the highest, but I also know that constituents they matter, they're very, very important.

And um if they have something that they want us to say, it's our job to be able to to uplift them and to deliver that information.

You know, you're in district seven, I'm in district three.

You know, the demographics, the the needs are different, the scales are unbalanced totally, but uh it's not that they don't get their way, they're educated, they run West Boulevard coalitions, they've been around for a long time, they show up for community meetings, they're on boards and commissions.

Their voice matters, and so I'm gonna echo it every single time, and no one's gonna stop me from doing that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so um, we have an understanding.

Um, Miss Watlington will provide a draft that she will get out, and we have the opportunity to begin to think about this that what's workable as well as what we're going to be able to do legally.

Okay, please, you know, everybody okay with that.

So let's go to our next item.

We're now ready for our business agenda.

All right, so the first one is the first item on our agenda is the fire building inspection schedule.

Is there a motion?

Oh, do we have to have a presentation of this?

Is there a motion to update the established fire building inspection schedule as required by the North Carolina?

We have a motion from Beacon, Mr.

Peacock.

That's why I agree.

I cannot see, especially all of y'all got on blue and black suits tonight.

So that's really the topic.

Makes it harder for us.

Okay, so we have a motion and a second.

I have a question.

Yes, I do.

I'm sorry.

Well, I'm sorry, what's the question?

I have a I have a question.

You have a question.

Yes.

So for the fire chief, uh, or anyone from fire, if they can come forward.

Up there on top, yes.

So I understand that there is going to be changes, more frequency in terms of fire building inspection.

Could you tell me how is it different in terms of schedule uh than what we currently have?

How many days?

What's the time period now and where we are heading to?

Okay.

Yes, so thank you for having us today.

Um thank you for coming.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Um so this is more an update of uh the paperwork versus procedures.

Our procedures are have already been in place.

This is merely updating a 1992 resolution resolution that has uh that is not meeting what our current practices are.

So highlighted changes of that is um private educational facilities would move to mirror that of public educational facilities to twice a year.

Vacant properties would be inspected annually to uh address occupancy changes in a timely manner, and then properties with an operational fire permit um would be inspected annually, regardless of their occupancy type to address any kind of increased risk associated with those operations.

Again, it's more so to update the paperwork than to match what our current practices are.

Yeah, that's that's all I have.

Thank you.

All right, we have a motion on the floor.

All in favor, please raise your hands.

Anyone in opposition?

All right, that's unanimous.

For item eight, is there a motion to adopt a resolution approving the transfer of city-owned property located at 6514 Freedom Drive, a portion of a parcel identification to the North Carolina Department of Transportation containing approximately one point well, I guess 0.10 acres to be used as public right-of-way and approximately 1.26 acres to be used as a public utility easement and authorize the manager to um or is designated make the transaction.

Do I have a motion?

Motion right here.

All right, do we have a second?

Okay.

Somebody want to talk about Freedom Drive or a second motion.

Second.

We have a second.

Okay.

Any further discussion about it?

All right.

All in favor, please raise your hands.

Anyone in opposition?

Okay, that moves this forward.

For item nine, is there a motion to approve the con a contract for program services for the youth violence prevention communication strategy and social norms campaign with creative marketing resources for a term of two years, authorizing the manager to renew the contract for up to one year term with possible price adjustments and to modify or amend the contract consistent with the purpose for which the contract was approved?

So moved.

We have a motion, I get a second.

Yes.

Who asked about the question?

Ms.

Yeah, peacock.

Peacock and Mayfield have questions here.

Is creative market resources, Mr.

Manager?

Are they a Charlotte company?

No.

Um we're going to have Rebecca.

Rebecca.

No, it's an MBE.

Okay.

Yeah.

This company has hit put it in the city.

Rebecca Hefner, Director of Housing and Neighborhood Services and Office of Youth Opportunities.

Uh when we had the um the presentation punted, I let Dr.

Stewart go home.

So I'll do my best on this one.

So creative marketing resources, they as a whole, they are a firm um out of Minnesota, but they they have identified a local um Charlotte-based staff to lead the initiative.

So a person who lives here in Charlotte is on a remote staff for this firm, is going to lead the initiative here in Charlotte.

They have partnered with my brothers keeper to lead the recruiting, hiring, and training of the youth who will participate.

And they will be working with the UNC Charlotte Violence Prevention Center as the academic partner for evaluation.

Okay.

Um response.

Is this been um worked in conjunction with CMPD and the new police chief?

Um is this working a part of a public safety plan of some type?

I'm assuming it is.

Yes.

So this recommendation came out of the mayor's referral to housing safety and community committee related to youth crime.

It was one of the specific recommendations that was brought forward out of committee.

Uh and the uh there were there was about two million dollars in pago that was available for the slate of recommendations.

That referral was completed with CMPD housing and neighborhood services and the community relations department, and those organizations partnered on developing the RFP and identifying this work.

And this has been going on for you know several months for the procurement process, but we did work with the current police chief and and his staff in developing the proposal.

There are other programs right now in place that are youth violence prevention.

Either from CMPD or maybe even our partners at CMS.

Yes, so the Office of Youth Opportunities that was created just this fiscal year combines a whole range of programs that the city offers and strategies that the city advances around workforce, uh, youth employment and workforce, uh, youth development and youth safety.

And out of out of the youth safety bucket, there's a range of programming that's specific to violence prevention, violence intervention, um, and as well as things that the broader community does, like the uh Mecklenburg County has a way forward, the community violence prevention plan.

This is one of the recommendations in that broader plan.

So uh we've really been thoughtful about partnering uh with our partners, whether it's law enforcement, CMPD, uh the county folks who are already doing these things.

What we did is identify this as a specific gap in that landscape of programming.

Uh, and the really uh exciting and unique thing about this is that it will be led by youth.

Okay, thank you very much.

All right, Ms.

Thank you, madam mayor Rebecca.

I hate that staff was sent home.

Here's the question that I have for you because it is noted that we received 18 applications.

Yes, which they were not attached.

I have asked again, Manager Jones on more than one occasion for that information to be provided to us.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, as an attachment.

When I attempt when I searched creative marketing resources incorporated, what was identified is that it's actually headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

That that is the headquarters.

So my question is since we did not receive access to the other applications.

Are we saying that we have no local business that's working with our you that could have been considered for this contract?

Because what I am thinking about is even though you mentioned that they have an individual that works here, that's still us contracting with a business outside of Charlotte that may have an employee here that's still having to work with our partners when we very well could have had somewhere in those 18 a local Charlotte nonprofit that we are already working with that is proven as though they very well should have had greater consideration for this contract versus continuing to work with outside groups, basically as the plan again, because was what was just mentioned is that they have an employee here, but they're going to be working with Brothers Keeper and other school, other groups.

So we're basically identifying them as a plan, headquartered, Milwaukee, or in the location that Ms.

Hefferner noted, either way, not in Charlotte.

Why?

So help with that.

And and I apologize I misspoke, it's Milwaukee, not Minnesota.

Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying.

Help me get comfortable with this.

So we partnered with um procurement and and consulted with CBI on this solicitation.

Um the the creative marketing resources based on a panelist of seven um seven folks who were participated in evaluating this.

This was our highest ranked proposal.

Creative Marketing Resources is registered in North Carolina.

It's MBE certified.

So they have worked with Centers for Disease Control on other violence prevention campaigns.

They've worked with substance abuse and mental health service administration.

And what they brought to the table actually was a fully developed campaign approach that included all of the components of the RFP.

Message development, brand identity, integrative media, creative design, measurable evaluation metrics.

They were able to clearly define their staffing plan.

They were able to demonstrate deep uh partnerships with these eight uh community partners.

Uh and their um staffing reflects really you know and an awareness of the issues here in Charlotte.

Um we did have a second uh agency that was local that was um we we talked to them about would they be willing to do a partnership where they where they worked together.

Um but this other the the second highest scoring group um actually had their um business registration revoked by by the North Carolina Secretary of State.

Uh so we did not move forward with that approach.

Um but I'm happy to um provide the list of agencies that applied.

It was actually a mixture of national and um local agencies, not all of them met the requirements, and then out of those that did meet the requirements, um creative marketing resources really had the strongest proposal uh as well as demonstrated uh commitment or demonstrated staffing of people who understand the community, especially um most importantly um the on the ground work with my brother's keeper so that the youth who are most impacted um by issues of um violence in their communities are the ones who can actually be developing um these messages, and I would just add again that part of this is paying those youth, um, so it's not all um funding that's uh going to a marketing firm.

This is paying our youth to create these messages for their peers.

Thank you for that, Mr.

Jump Manager Jones.

This is uh another one of those examples of opportunity where it could have come to committee.

We did or no for deep for discussion on this, where we did not talk about the 18 we did that um apply for this.

No, we did not.

We did not have unless, and you know what?

It could have been one of the 10 meetings for the year that I missed.

So I would own that.

I do not remember having a conversation regarding 18 because I would have said the same thing then.

I am really focused on how we grow Charlotte.

How do we support Charlotte?

Not how do we create an opportunity and the overall and my chair like I said, I totally own if it was one of the 10 meetings for the year that I missed.

I do not remember having a conversation where we broke down that the 18 had applied because I would have asked these questions then because again, my focus is how do we create and support here because there are too many conversations that I'm having in community?

Well, we identify this outside group, and the money that's supposed to trickle down here doesn't actually make its way, or we have a challenge with the group that is actually doing the work, the accountability piece with them as far as if they're waiting on a third party to get the funding released or to get the support signed off on that is causing some delays that is causing some additional challenges.

So we have full clarity as we move into these last two meetings going into 2026, Charlotte first.

We have amazing organizations here.

We have some organizations that could use a lot more work, and we need to identify that because not all of them are ready, but the idea of going outside of Charlotte to come in for you to have to build relationships and build resources and connection in Charlotte to do the work of Charlotte when you don't live in Charlotte, live, work, or play in Charlotte is concerning.

So can I just mayor just uh make sure we may need a legal opinion on this?

So it came.

Um mayor had a bunch of referrals about you to different committees, and and what came out of the committee was to have this type of social norm campaign.

Um and then we did an RFP.

And so if the council is now saying they want a local only preference, I I need some guidance on that because we had a bunch of people review RFPs, we had an RFP, we had an open process, and this organization landed on top, and I'm not sure if this council wants after there's an RFP for all of the people who applied to come to a committee.

So I'm just trying to figure out where we want to go with this, and I'm open to figuring out where we have to go with this.

I that's that was a great way to maneuver that those minds.

What I would encourage is prior to RFP, that we get an idea and where committee has a chance to not only review what it is we're discussing, but so that we're on the same page of understanding what is it that staff is looking at, what is it that council members are looking at as we move forward in this?

My brother's keeper is a partner that we have been working with for a number of years.

We have others that we have been working with for a number of years.

What I'm saying is now that we've created this, just like another conversation that you and I recently had, Manager Jones, the interpretation of some council members of an idea and the concept that staff moves forward with may not align.

What I'm asking is that we take a pause long enough to make sure that we're at least in the same paragraph.

Even if we might be at the end of it and you're at the beginning, versus the same chapter, can we at least get in the same paragraph on some things versus implementation and then bringing it and saying, hey, we've done this amazing work with staff does amazing work every day, but sometimes at work when it comes to us, it's like hmm.

Why do we think this was a good idea?

And where's the other information?

That's what I'm asking you to consider.

All right, Miss Brown.

No, Ms.

Brown, I have it.

I'm just listening.

Okay.

Mayor County.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and uh, and thank you for uh your comments, Miss Mayfield.

I just want to make sure that we keep keep it in the middle of the road here, right?

Um, because we have a procurement department, we have a process, and if we want, and I know that we're looking at the process and trying to enhance the process, um, but let's just make sure as we are, and I am 1,000 percent in agreement with a um a Charlotte Forward, I would say Charlotte Forward rather than Charlotte First mentality.

Let's get our people in into the mix into the pool if they qualify.

If they don't qualify, let's do all we can to ensure that we're getting them up above the line so they're eligible to submit in the RFP process.

But I want to make sure that number one, legally, we are conducting things the right way as it relates to city spend, and then secondarily that we have that we are adhering to the process uh that we have agreed to and that we've laid out um for ourselves, and if again, if that means that we need to make some modifications, and there are times throughout the year where we can do that, fantastic.

But if we have gone through an RFP process void of any um just wildly obvious mistakes or gaps, I think we need to honor the RFP process because that is the legal process.

Now, if something has been identified as incorrect or a serious gap or seriously overlooked, that's something different.

But we need to adhere to our policies with the notion that we I think we all fully share that we want Charlotte forward.

We want money to stay in the Charlotte Market, but we want to make sure that those individuals who are awarded have the right skill sets and they and they have the right certifications and they have all that they all the qualifications they need to take part in our RFP process.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Right.

Mayor, Ms.

I have Mr.

Graham next.

Mr.

Graham.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And uh thank the council for your patience with me tonight.

Something I had to take care of.

But I I agree with uh the mayor pro temp.

She took the words out of my mouth.

There was a formal process that everyone went through and the cream rose to the top.

And obviously, I I want to invest in Charlotte firms, Charlotte institutions, uh, and and Charlotte programs, right?

Uh but there's a legal process that we have to follow.

And then secondly, the services, uh, and I I happen to know the young lady that's the Charlotte lead for this program.

She's well known in the community.

Everybody kind of knows who she is.

Um, and she does great work, she has a great reputation.

Uh, and the vision is for the campaign to be led by local Charlotte youth.

So while the firm may be based somewhere else, the delivery of the services are from people that live, work, understand our community, understand the issues that we're dealing with with youth crime and youth violence and the need to get more youth involvement.

That delivery system is certainly um Charlotteens being um being led by understanding have a relationship with a number of council members around the dais.

And so I uh I I don't think we're missing anything other than trying to ensure that uh that we encourage those individuals in our community to apply uh and to participate uh without any guarantee.

We can't guarantee that they're gonna rise to the top.

We can only guarantee an opportunity for them.

But in this case, I'm very comfortable because the delivery system is by our youth themselves and is someone that I know is very intimate in the relationship with a wide variety of nonprofit organizations, community groups, uh, youth-led groups, uh church organizations, etc.

etc.

Uh, that will meet the uh and exceed um what I think we're looking for.

Thank you.

All right.

So the city attorney city attorney mayor.

Do you want to do you have any comments from the attorney?

Yes, madam mayor and council with respect to the RFP process.

We do have to follow the legal process in that if it has been outlined in insofar as there has not been a violation or a legal challenge to the RFP process, we have to honor it.

That said, I'm hearing there's an opportunity to explore outreach and engagement with community members, perhaps in future processes that would allow for onboarding for the the needs of council with respect to a lot of these uh concepts, but um but short of a violation or concern with the specific process with respect to the engagement um with the posting and advertisement.

I think um we would be hard pressed to to challenge this one.

Ms.

Johnson did we set a budget for this proposal?

So the maximum amount that's available from the funding that council set aside is six hundred thousand dollars over two years.

Um and so that will be done in one year chunks to the uh uh uh as indicated in in the council action.

The estimated budget for one year is three hundred thousand.

Um that's that's the maximum that was allocated now.

We allocated that for this specific project uh well, out of out of the total dollar amount that was allocated for for the referral recommendations, that's the amount available.

Okay, okay, because if it was over budget, then the city manager has the authority to dismiss all of the bids and reissue, but okay, thank you.

I knew that was coming.

Yeah, okay.

So we have a motion and a second, I believe.

Yep.

So um all in favor, please raise your hand.

For item nine for the youth violence prevention communication strategy and social norms campaign with creative marketing resources in for a term of two years and authorize the manager to renew the contract for up to one year term with possible price adjustments.

All right, all in favor, please raise your hand.

Anyone opposed?

We have three opposed.

All right.

Did we get that, Madam Clerk?

Okay, thank you very much.

I know.

Well now we come to the portion of time where we begin the nominations.

The council members have submitted their nominations earlier to the clerk via email.

Names of nominees will not be read at the dais.

Tomorrow the clerk will email city council the name applicants and that that received at least two nominations.

These candidates will be considered for an appointment for appointment at the next business meeting.

Any applicant receiving six or more nominations can be considered for appointment tonight upon a motion, second, and a majority of vote of the council.

Um so the names of all the nominees will be recorded in the official minutes of the meeting, and the clerk will now proceed with announcing the results of the nomination.

Madam Clerk.

So at the conclusion, if you so desire, you can make a motion to move um these individuals for appointment.

The business advisory committee, I can tell you will come back on the November 24th agenda.

Okay.

Now I was saying that we have a motion to do that.

Uh I need to read the provide the uh the nominations for the arts and science council governance board.

The um incumbent Alison Allen received 10 nominations for the Charlotte Business Inclusion Advisory Committee, Jeremy Johnson received 11 nominations for the Charlotte Tree Advisory Committee, Richard Pennbaker and Elliot Forees.

Um Richard received eight nominations, as did Elliot Vorreese, who also happens to be the incumbent for the Civil Service Board, Michael Cossack received nine nominations for the In Libyan Board of Commissioners, Barbara Ratlith received ten nominations for the Keep Charlotte Beautiful Committee.

Stephanie Griffin received nine nominations for the passenger vehicle for hire, um Alex Alexis, excuse me, Alexis Berk Bergren received ten nominations, and for the Unified Development Ordnance Board of Adjustment, Janice Shirley received ten nominations.

Move by acclamation, all those six or more.

We have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Hearing none.

All in favor.

Anyone in oh everyone's that's unanimous.

Um we now have a motion to um dismissal second.

Thank you.

Do we need a motion to adjourn?

That was it.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.