Good evening.

And I thank you all for joining us here in person.

Those watching online.

Let's start with introductions going around the room, starting with our city clerk.

Billy Tons, Deputy City Clerk.

Andrea Leslie Fight, City Attorney.

Good evening, Victoria Watlington, member at large.

James Mitchell, Mayor Pro Tim.

Marcus Jones, City Manager.

Kimberly Owens representing District Six.

Malcolm Graham, District Two.

Good evening, Luana Mayfield, Councilmember at Large.

Good evening, JDMA Suera Adias, uh, District Five.

And I have two outstanding colleagues who's gonna join us.

Um Miss Asmir.

Temple Ashmar at Large.

Miss Mayo?

Councilmember Joy Mayo, representing District Three.

Thank you all for being here for our business meeting agenda review.

I'm gonna turn it over to City Manager to you to introduce the one and only.

Okay.

So thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

Uh we'll start off with uh our um agenda of review where we'll have any questions that you have from uh Marie.

And I'll say after that, we have a pretty stacked agenda today.

We have the cats budget outlook, and we have a number of items that have made their way through the committee process, like the street vending regulation, the safety committee, as well as the passenger vehicle for higher ordinance from the safety committee, uh, the housing trust fund from the housing committee, and we'll have a stellar awards update.

I do believe we have three uh closed session items for uh today.

And Mayor Pratim, unless you have any questions, I'll turn it over to Marie.

Okay.

Uh one if I may the distinguished colleague from District Seven join us, so can he introduce himself?

Ed Drake's District 7.

Good evening.

Thank you, Mr.

Drake.

Miss Harris.

Thank you, and good evening, Mayor Pro Tim and Council.

And at your seat, you'll find um additional information on some of the consent items and clarifications you've asked for this evening, and at this time I'd like to take any other questions or any highlights you'd make like to make.

So we did definitely we want to have at least five.

So we have four, um, and then we're gonna be putting it out again um here shortly to your point since we only have one to hopefully get at least one more.

Thank you, Marie.

And uh, mayor protect from my may, I have another question.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Um, I have it um for agenda item 33 airport customer support services for terminal operations, a contract with VIP hospitality LLC.

Um, since this is a subcontractor potentially hired by the city, um, how are we ensuring that they are um held accountable to ensure good wages uh benefits and safety standards to their employees?

So, as far as the safety and training, they definitely are trained um by our staff on the specific uh requirements of their duty, and while we don't have the legal authority to dictate, you know, we work with vendors as much as possible.

And this one, the lowest wage would be 17 dollars an hour, and that's for entry level with no experience.

So they do have the opportunity to continue to grow and they have benefits and retirement and time off with their employer.

Thank you, Marie.

Uh, no further questions, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you.

Dr.

Wattlington.

Thank you, sir.

Uh Marie, these are questions that I asked earlier, but just wanted to um make sure that the clarifications were on the record.

When it comes to items 38, 33, and 24, they all are looking at um some sort of design services or um some sort of on call services.

I just wanted to make sure that it was clear for the public the the um delineation between them because there are some here that are um assigned to CARPO, some that are um um mechanical and design services for ongoing city things, and as we think about the work going forward with the 19 billion in revenue coming, I want to make sure folks understand where these buckets sit because some of them are federal and they don't have any CBI connection at all.

I just want to make sure that's clear because there were a few items here that uh might have been um confusing.

Yes, thank you.

And for the good of the public, any of them that currently have federal goals we that are federally funded.

We currently do not have CBI goals, and to your point, though, there's one on here that is funded by the operating general fund, and it's not I mean, we definitely would have CBI, but it's one that there's they're doing 100% of the work, so there wasn't a subcontracting opportunity.

But to your point, yes, we definitely do have that program in place where it's um allowed.

And just so folks, as they're looking through these items, um the the services that we're talking about here are separate and apart from the work that we're saying is tied to the um upcoming sales tax revenue that we'll be getting over the next 20 or so years that 19 billion.

There's a lot of conversation around that and how we're gonna ensure participation goals are met.

So I just want folks to be clear that what they're seeing here is not that that conversation is still outstanding.

Correct, yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mayfield, welcome back.

Thank you, Mayor Potem.

Maria, I have a follow-up for additional question on number 33.

Yes, ma'am.

For this support services, do we currently have a vendor that's doing this work?

Is this a new contract?

Um let me look at the thing.

We're choosing a new vendor.

And as you identify that, mainly what I'm thinking about is we recently there was an article where we have a vendor at the airport where a new vendor was identified based on cost, but I don't believe we have language that protects our current employees, so that they are first on the list for transition when we make a decision to go with a new contract to ensure employability versus just asking them to consider the current employees, and it would be helpful to know if there's any legal constraints on that when we are looking at companies and others that are doing layoffs all the while, not only within Charlotte, but within the region and the impact that that is having.

But this is a current project, uh current um service arrangement, and it's a new vendor, so it was an RFP, and this is a new vendor awarded.

So the current vendor, we are now identifying a new vendor to take over this contract.

Do we know if there's any protections or language to ensure that the current employees are the ones that identify because we're looking at an annual expenditure to be around 3.5 million for this, and even with saying a minimum pay of 17, even though by law we do not have the ability to identify pay, we should have the ability to ensure that the current employees are not displaced during this.

And we can vote short attorney fight.

Now apologize for not sending this earlier to give you all time to review it.

But hopefully, we can get an idea of not right now, prior to if this is something that we're gonna be voting on in this room, then I'm gonna be asking for us to pull this aside in order to get that additional information.

So I know we can't, and I'm well speak for the attorney, but legally we can't, but we encourage usually them to review the existing staff, but sometimes the existing staff want to stay with their parent company and don't want to come to us.

So it's different situation is case by case.

But no, there's we did shutting down.

Okay, so that's helpful.

So and that's something attorney fight you can follow up on, and thank you, Marie.

And I thought that they thanks to our wonderful partners in Raleigh that we have some restrictions on what we're able to do, but I do want to make sure that we are having real conversation on if we're going to identify a new partner, and that is for a service that's already being provided, that we are making sure to the best of our ability, we're protecting our residents because our residents are the ones that are paying taxes here.

So we don't want to have a large workforce that not only can't afford to live in our city, but also you're not able to contribute because your job has been eliminated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

So, Councilman Mayfield, is it still your pleasure we pull item 33?

Yes, sir.

Okay, yes, sir.

Any other comment uh council member J D.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Uh, this question is for attorney Leslie Fight.

Uh what is our minimum wage uh city 24 dollars?

It is 24 dollars.

24 dollars.

Yes, sir.

Um, and this is more so of just curiosity understanding when we hire a subcontractor, what is the ability for the city to encourage the subcontractor to set their wages to our standard if we're hiring them or we're having a contract with them?

So I just want to know the legality, and I know the answer, but I want it to be on the record.

Sure.

Uh, and thank you for the question.

So so by state law, uh cities aren't able to set the contract or the wage requirements for subcontractors or any contract relationship.

Our our ability to manage wages is simply for our employees, and that that is under state law.

Now we'll say um the city does a really good job with encouraging um vendors to to have trainings and and some of the other things that have been outlined here today.

But as far as wages, those are prohibited by state law.

Thank you so much.

And so I just wanted to ask that to make sure it's on on the public record that um, as my colleague council member may feel said, uh, thanks to our wonderful partners at the general assembly that the city does not have authority to set certain wages because we're we're not allowed to.

But thank you, Mayor Parton.

So, City Council bear with me, but I like to get a motion, and so we have some items that have been deferred.

So walk with me if you don't mind.

Items 44 through 47.

Those proper transactions have been deferred as well as item 49, they will all be deferred to April 27th, and we have pulled item 33.

So may I get a motion for approval for the rest of the consent items?

So moved, second, moving proper second, but uh made by Mr.

Driz second by councilmember Ashmere.

All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Yes.

Okay.

And it um council member mayfield item 33.

Is there a motion for item 33?

My apologies, Mayor Pro Tel.

My no, my iPad for some reason keeps freezing on me when I was trying to scroll back through it.

Marie, let me just ask a clarifying question since we do have representation from the airport.

Is would there be any challenges if we were to do a deferral for to our next business meeting?

Yes, it might be a service lapse.

So in our ability to handle the flow of the public as well.

So we have to get have notified the previous the current vendor, and it's coming before council for us to vote on tonight, and we did not leave any wiggle wiggle room in case there was any conversation to ensure that we didn't have loss of service.

It wouldn't be lost, but it could be set service degradation because we have to get them up and trained.

Um have some overlap.

So we're we're we're still having the other contract, we want to train the other people up.

Oh, so as you follow me, you want me to train you on how to do my job.

Okay, just for the just to say you know, they're trained by um not by each other.

The contractors don't train the other ones.

Okay, just very fine.

I'm not gonna be motioning to approve this, so somebody gonna need to do that.

Somebody gonna need to do that.

I'll move to approve.

Second.

Be moved by council majority second by council member Graham for item number 33.

All those in favor, let it be known by raise your hand.

Okay.

All those opposed.

Okay.

That passes.

All right.

Thank you.

Wait a minute.

Dr.

Watt.

No, no, Jack, don't no, no, no, no.

This is your praise report.

Uh Dr.

Wattlington just uh informed me that Chief Infrastructure Officer Jack Christa has been awarded and named a recipient of 2026 outstanding airport profession of the year.

Uh please speech, speech.

The first one.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Jack, first of all, congratulations, sir.

But any words you would like to share.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much, sir.

All I will say is that I've had a wonderful blessed opportunity to work for this airport in the city for the last 29 years.

That award is as much about the people that I've worked with and the sacrifices that my family has made on all those 29 years, and I very much appreciate the fact that you acknowledge it for me.

It's uh definitely something that I will cherish, especially if since it's named after someone that I had the pleasure to work with for such a long time.

So thank you very much.

Congratulations, sir.

Thank you, Dr.

Wallace.

City Manager, I'm gonna turn it over to you for the action re uh preview items.

So uh thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

We'll start off with uh the Catz budget presentation.

And uh Mayor Pro Tim and and uh members of council.

This is a long time coming.

It's a really uh great day here in Charlotte for this presentation.

The reason I say that is the thanks to the mayor and the council, the vision and the resolve to uh stay the course.

Uh the business community that played a big role in the community in general that believed in mobility as our future.

This is the upcoming budget that will begin the implementation of the 30-year transit plan.

The good news is you don't have to wait 30 years to see things, okay.

Um what you'll see the one percent sales tax will be levied on uh July 1.

So you know we have the current half cent sales tax at Article 43 and Article 34 is the a one percent sales tax.

Uh and in this budget, uh, which Brent Cats, you've done a wonderful job.

There's a prioritization around safety and security.

Uh, of course, advancing the the red line to 30 percent and executing the better bus.

So you will see many improvements essentially it immediately uh underneath all this is well managed department, and I know we have at least one MPTA uh representative here today, and we believe that we are going to hand over to you a um of an entity in sound financial footing.

And uh Brent, I can't begin to thank you enough for the team that you've pulled together to put us in this place.

What's uh interesting about this budget?

It'll be half of the year.

Cats operations will fall under the city of Charlotte, and the other half of the fiscal year, the operations will fall under the new authority.

We're building this budget together, which is extremely important.

Uh, but again, a very, very good day.

And uh Mayor Pro Tim, I'd like to turn it over to Brent.

Mr.

Cagle, welcome, sir.

Mayor Pro Tim, members of City Council.

Um, thank you for having me this evening.

I'm Brent Cagle, interim CEO of CATS.

Um, not to correct my boss, but we have two members of the MPTA here, so I'll recognize Reverend Mac and um and Ned Curran, uh both members of the MPTA finance committee.

So wait a minute, Brent.

Can those two individuals please stay in.

I mean, we don't know you, but so can you please stand and be recognized?

Thank you, Bill.

Thank you for really.

Okay, I'll move through this pretty quickly.

Um, Mr.

Jones did a great job.

I think he took all of the major points that I had.

So this will be this is gonna be easy.

We're gonna move through this uh pretty quickly.

Um really when we think about the last four years or so.

Um, we have been focusing our budgets and our actions on fundamentals, people, assets, safety and security.

Um in the transit world, um, assets you'll hear us say state of good repair again, um people, assets, state of good repair, and safety and security.

Again, people, assets, state of good repair, and safety and security.

We've been focusing on that for many years, and this budget is no exception.

We do feel like we're the budget helps us build on the progress that we've made and to enable us to start delivering the promises that were voted for as part of the sales tax referendum back in November.

So a little bit about the budget.

This is an interesting budget year in that we are I am presenting a 12-month full fiscal year budget to you, but this budget will be marked by two governing bodies, we believe throughout that 12-month full fiscal year.

So you'll see that a little bit as we go through the budget.

First of all, our budget looks at how do we continue to support the current services we provide.

What we're doing today, how do we make sure we continue doing that?

Second, we look at how we expand service via the 2055 transit system plan or TSP, what the voters approved back in November.

And third, a category we're calling strengthen organizations capacity and resiliency.

These are the increases necessary to help us become part of an authority, or conversely, no longer part of the city of Charlotte.

Right.

So there are certain functions that CATS receives from the City of Charlotte.

Certain certain functions that all departments get as being part of the larger organization that we will still need, but now we have to provide those functions independently because we're not part of the city of Charlotte.

So again, organizational capacity and resilience to some degree.

Um, what's necessary to make this transition possible?

Okay, let's start with the revenues.

I will walk through these pretty quickly.

Transit revenue are the the revenues we generate internally, fair box revenues, advertising revenues, all those things that transit generates as as part of our function.

So total projected transit generated revenue is 18.8 million dollars on the local sales tax side or on the local tax side.

Article 43 revenues, that is the existing half cent sales tax that has been in place since 1998, are projected to generate 165.7 million dollars.

Article 34 revenues, that is the new sales tax revenue, projected to generate 198.9 million dollars, and then the Udrive It Rental Tax projected to generate 20.1 million dollars.

In addition to that, we have projected state grants at 9.2 million and federal grants at 56.1 million.

It's important to note here that we this the revenues and the expenditures.

This is a structurally balanced budget.

We do not anticipate um drawing down from our cash reserves.

In fact, it's just the opposite.

We believe that with this revenue projection, we will be able to um increase our cash reserves to enable us to do the capital projects associated with the transit system plan over the next five, 10, 15, 25 years.

We also I will also note that at this time we have tentatively planned for an issuance of certificates of participation or COPS.

That is tentative.

Those COPs may be pushed to fiscal year 2028.

Uh it is those COPs would be for vehicles associated with the transit system plan, and um we have to understand what the delivery schedule what the current orders are already in with the vehicle manufacturer to know if we're gonna issue cops in the current fiscal year.

So that is a possibility, but it is only tentative at this point.

Whoops, went the wrong way.

Okay, this is a chart showing Article 34 and 43 sales tax uh revenue projections.

Really, we just wanted to show this to underscore the significant additional revenue stream that Article 34 presents.

And in FY 2027, we project a total sales tax revenue stream of $365 million, and then growing at a roughly 4% rate of growth, both taxes beyond that.

Total operating and capital revenues by fiscal year.

So I wanted to show you this slide.

This shows the difference between those sales taxes, which are very, very even and grow at a predictable rate, about 4%.

Sometimes a little different, but generally 4%.

But what this shows is all revenues.

And so you'll note in FY 2027, we project $572 million of total revenues.

But then if you note FY 2030, a very significant increase in revenues, $846 million.

What that really shows is the effect of additional federal grants and issuing revenue bonds, right?

So when we issue revenue bonds, the revenue bond revenues come in, and that increases revenues.

What that's really signaling is that is likely the first the first year of significant construction on the red line.

And that's why you see that.

So the federal grants would be coming in in addition to what we receive annually.

The federal grants for the red line would be coming in, as well as we would anticipate issuing revenue bonds out there in the 2030 year.

And that's why you see that the sales tax revenues are predictable and grow at a fairly standard pace, but then total revenues can go up and down based on uh project grants, federal grants, and revenue bonds.

Okay.

Expenditures.

So for the first year, fiscal year 2027, we project a total of 571.7 million dollars of total expenditures.

That breaks down as 314.1 million in operating expenses, 224.9 million in capital expenses, 18.1 million in existing debt service, that is debt service on debt that has already been issued.

Um then we would anticipate uh just under 15 million dollars being transferred to our reserve account or to the cash balances uh at the end of this year.

So our operating budget again, you'll see it separated out into these three primary categories, again with a focus on people, assets, and safety.

Um also have additional personnel associated with the 2055 transit system plan.

That is primarily those personnel are to support the capital projects that will start to move forward.

The red line and the silver line are the first two of those, as well as additional operators and support staff for better bus, which will be the first um element of the transit system plan that we are really able to operationalize and put out in the community so that they see those differences, strengthening organizational capacity and resilience, again personnel associated with that, also technology.

Again, the city of Charlotte, we use the City of Charlotte's technology as part of an authority.

We need our own technology, and so technology expenses as well as other managed services expenses associated with uh critical functions.

Getting into some of the detail.1 million dollars to maintain current services, it's 286.4.

The transit system plan is 8.3 million, and organizational resiliency and capacity is 19.3 million dollars.

This is a little bit of an interesting slide, and I struggled on how to describe this slide.

So I'm gonna take a look at this slide, and then I'm gonna move to that slide.

So I'll go back because I I know I was moving fast.

This shows our operating expenditures for the city of Charlotte.

And what this is really saying is while we're talking about a full 12-month budget, we believe the City of Charlotte's operating expenses budget will comprise about 50% of our 12-month budget, or until January 1st of 2027.

So fiscal year starts July 1st, 2026.

We're halfway through a January 1st, 2027.

That half of the budget is for the city of Charlotte, and that's why you see nothing beyond that.

At the same time, we are projecting the rest of the operating budget for the MPTA, and so what you see in 2027 is the other half of that 12-month budget plus future uh budget budgeted expenditures beyond that.

What are we spending the money on?

Safety and security is a priority.

We have approximately five million dollars budgeted for off-duty CMPD support.

That is again the full year cost.

We also have an additional five million dollars programmed for uh fare enforcement, a dedicated unit to go through and increase fare enforcement activity throughout the system, not just on rail, but bus and rail throughout the entire transit system.

We have an additional two million dollars for microtransit service expansions, six million dollars in support of better bus, four million dollars increase to support our state of good repairs in our facilities group, and then again approximately $19 million for the organizational capacity and resilience.

That is really targeted staffing for new functions, selective outsourcing, managed services, and system upgrades to sustained reliability and compliance with federal uh reliability of the system and compliance with federal guidelines.

A little bit deeper dive, safety improvements.

Um I'm sure you're all aware that we have been funding between 12 and 1400 hours a week of off-duty CMPD officers.

This will continue the program.

Actually, every week uh so far for this month and every week except for the first week of February.

We've seen more than $1,400 hours or more.

We will continue that program into next fiscal year.

And then again, our ambassadors, that is uh an increase of 10 of approximately 10 million dollars from the current year to next year's budget.

Now I will note that it's about if you go all the way back to 2022, 2022, 2023, it's taking our total security spend from about 10 million dollars back then to about 30 million dollars in this budget.

Next, we'll talk about state of good repair.

Again, this is doing the things that we've said that we needed to do.

It's increasing our facilities budget.

This it constitutes uh approximately a 55 percent increase in our facility spending and nearly doubling and and it will nearly double our spend by FY 2028.

The truck overhaul project, we've talked about that in the past.

That was something that we've been working on since 2023.

That project is the the oldest vehicles that had been unmaintained, are almost they're almost complete with full maintenance and up to date, and the contract allows us to continue moving through with the newer vehicles.

You'll recall our our light rail vehicles have two series.

The first series, the one and two series we purchased when the blue line was was new, the the original blue line.

The second series we purchased with the blue line extension.

So the first two series, the original vehicles were overdue.

They are now uh caught up and will be caught up.

But the contract allows us to then move in to the newer series of vehicles to ensure that they do not come out of maintenance compliance.

We also are focusing on.

Oh wait, I got ahead of myself.

What next slide?

So we are also focusing on better bus, microtransit, and special transportation services.

We have seen a 48% increase in enrollments for special transportation services, STS.

So we are adding staff and adding vehicles to better support the demand of STS.

This budget will add 30,000 bus service hours.

That's about a 5% increase in total bus service hours, and allows us to start to convert those 15 largest routes, not all of them, but some of them down to 15 minute service, as we said we would.

This budget focuses on hiring operators, but they're limited by the number of vehicles we have.

So we can make some of the service improvements today by hiring operators, but at some point we don't have enough vehicles.

So this budget will also purchase vehicles so that you can see those uh improvements ramping up even more over the next um two and three four and five years.

Okay, on the capital side.

Can you do questions on the operating side before we do the capital?

This is a long presentation to you, my councilman.

I just want to keep the capital separate from the operations so that it's a long presentation.

I'm just afraid if we start quests, we might not get through the whole presentation.

So can you give me some grace?

I promise you first when we get to QA.

All right, thank you.

You just said I got you the hopper.

I got you.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, Mr.

Cagle.

All right.

So again, capital budget.

You see it broken down into the three categories supporting current services, expanding services for TSP, and then strengthening uh organizations' capacity and resilience.

Again, I won't remind you what those are about.

We'll just dive right into the details.

Total capital expenditures estimated for FY27 are 224.9 million dollars, so just shy of 225 million.

That's 66.1 million for existing service, 129.6 million dollars for transit system, and about 29.2 million dollars for resiliency, and most of that 29.2 million is in software systems necessary, especially HR and financial systems necessary for the MPTA.

Excuse me.

Again, this slide that shows the city's part of the five-year capital, and then the MPTA's part of the five-year capital program.

All right, let's talk a little bit about some of the projects.

And I promise I'll um I'll pick it up because I I hear there's at least two questions in store.

Maybe maybe more.

Um, South End Station.

Seen a lot about the South End station.

Um this is a new station on the blue line.

It's roughly right around the Publix area.

This station was eliminated from the original design for cost reasons, and this um, due to growth in the area and demand, this will establish the South End station.

All in the project is about 37 million dollars.

Um, and it will add a new station platform, a pedestrian crossing.

It will complete the rail trail segment in that area, and it will complete some special track work, a crossover in that area, which operationally is good for cats, uh allowing for a crossover in that area.

Hambright park and ride.

This project is approximately 15 million dollars all in.

It is underway.

This is a modern park and ride in Huntersville, right at Hambright Road and the I-77 North Toll Lane Direct Connect exit there at Hambrig.

This brings about 450 parking spaces, driver break rooms, internal pathways throughout the property for people to move around, micro mobility and shared ride areas.

It will be have full technology capabilities with cameras, bike and pedestrian features, and it will feature art and transit.

Uh example of a great collaborative project with Huntersville as well as NC DOT.

The land was donated by NC DOT for this park and ride.

Safety and technology.

And so this will that will make it more efficient and better for our safety and security and our operators as we move forward.

So that is a good example of safety and technology improvements moving forward is the consolidation of the two control centers.

Better bus.

We will begin the purchases for future expansion.

So we'll place the orders for the buses.

Takes about 18 months to get buses, so we're placing those orders now.

And inside of this budget, we would uh anticipate making at least, if not more, uh, improvements to a hundred bus stops throughout uh Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in this year.

There will ultimately be more than 2,000 improvements, but in this year at least 100, if not more.

And I can tell you, if we get as we look for ways to be more efficient and do this faster, if we get 100 done and we're not through with the year, we're gonna keep going.

Uh we will not stop, we'll keep moving, but we are looking for ways to expedite the um improvements to the bus shelters throughout Charlotte.

Red Line Commuter Rail Project.

This is the uh design work to bring the red line to 30% design and to start and complete uh the environmental work associated with the red line.

Silver line again, 30% design and environmental work for the Silver Line.

Um Charlotte Douglas International Airport over to Uptown across to Bojangles Technology infrastructure again.

I mentioned there is a long area large amount on this for technology infrastructure associated with the MPTA, primarily workday, the HR and financial system.

So again, that is driving a lot of those FY2027 expenses.

Adoption process.

Now this is a fun slide because there's a lot going on on this slide.

Okay, I will jump right into April and say we are it's not even on this one.

We're here on the 13th to talk about this.

Next step will be the 16th.

The MPTA will be meeting at their uh regularly scheduled business meeting, and they will approve setting a public hearing and public hearing date for them to approve this budget or consider approval of this budget on April 22nd.

That's not this Wednesday, but a week from Wednesday, the MTC.

This budget will go in front of the MTC and we will ask them to endorse and approve this budget per the interlocal agreement that uh they have.

And that then brings us to the 30th, where the CATS budget is submitted to the City of Charlotte Strategy and Budget Department for inclusion in the manager's uh proposed budget.

All of that brings us to June 8th for this body to consider the City of Charlotte, including CATS budget, and projected June 10th for the MPTA to consider the CATS or transit budget.

With that, I am happy to take questions.

Mr.

Cagle, thank you.

Before before we go around uh the table and let council members engage, I'm gonna turn on the city manager as uh some comments, brief comments.

So uh thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and and thanks, Brent.

Um I'll start with Brent left.

It is extremely complicated to get three bodies to approve one budget.

I started off by saying this is a very good budget, and I don't think it's gonna be a problem because there's constant communication between the the three bodies.

Um I had to step out for a moment.

So I would be remiss if I didn't say um that employees are number one with this, absolutely full stop.

And that's the most important thing.

Uh Bernard and I sent a letter out to employees.

The big thing is no one will lose their job, no one will lose their benefits, uh, no one will lose their accrued leave or the sick leave bank, no one loses their tenure.

They remain in the retirement system, and that's in the act, and that's so important to keep employees first.

Um last two things I think extremely important.

It's been great collaboration between the city and the MTPA officers.

I think that's really really important.

And it's great to have um PTA members here to tonight.

Uh, and it's also important that while Brent was talking about 60 percent of the one percent, 40 percent is coming to the city and the towns.

That's very, very important.

That's a hundred million dollars in year one.

Okay, and with that hundred million dollars, uh the city is going to be able to fund vision zero, lighting, sidewalk, repairs, some of the SIAs, some of the the road projects.

So that's uh and the orphan roads, let's not forget about the orphan roads.

Um, and that's been a part of the mobility plus plan.

So to put it all together, there's 60 percent that's handed over to the MPTA, but 40 percent that's coming to the city and uh in the sixth town.

So thank you very much, uh Mayor Pro Temp.

Now enter in the game from District Five.

Keep it simple, Dimple.

Thank you.

Um great job, Mr.

Cagle.

You're a rock star.

Um certainly you made progress on all fronts on safety, you made tremendous progress on safety, and I appreciate the work that the MPTA is doing to restore confidence back in to our system.

Uh there were high-profile incidents last year that were politicized, and now that impacted how people perceive overall our transportation system.

So our job now is to rebuild that confidence and that trust through stronger presence, and I've heard that there has been stronger presence of security.

I've personally been to several uh transit stations, and I have seen better presence, and that actually helps us with uh stronger building stronger uh confidence in our system.

And also what I would like to see is having measure around perception.

It's great to have data on safety, but perception matters.

So if we can have perception as a real performance metrics, uh that will help us bring the riders back with our public transit system.

Uh I do have a couple of questions on operating side, and then I'll ask on the capital side.

I appreciate how we are prioritizing better bus and bus shelters, and I know that's something we had promised to our residents last November.

So it's great to see that we will be delivering and prioritizing better bus as well as restoring that dignity to those who ride our public transportation system, especially shelters.

And if we can also ensure that we are looking at and working with our C DOT in terms of sidewalks, because there are several bus stops that do not have sidewalks to reach there.

So I think having that collaboration is important to ensure that people who ride our bus system have safe infrastructure.

Yes, ma'am.

Second, in terms of on the operating side as well as capital side, I know on the hundred million dollar, which is the 40% that the city of Charlotte is getting from the sales tax revenue.

We are issuing, we are looking to issue a bond.

Is MPTA doing similar where they will be issuing a bond to frontload some of the investments in our transit?

So, yes, so as the MPTA gets established, one thing that the PAV Act enables is the MPTA is now enabled to issue revenue bonds.

That is not something that could be issued for transit in the past.

That is a game changer, and we are working to look at how we leverage those those cash receipts into revenue bonds.

Part of that is just establishing credit worthiness, right?

It's a brand new entity that has never been rated.

But yes, the plan will be to create a plan of finance that leverages those um cash receipts into revenue bonds.

Well, that's great to hear because the need is now, and if we can expedite any of this capital investments now, that will help us address the transit because transit is ultimately a pathway to great opportunities to good schools and everything in between.

So is this the last budget that the city of Charlotte or the Council will have a say in this?

But obviously, we will obviously have a say through our appointments, but I guess in terms of the budget review by the council.

Okay.

Um I'll certainly miss that part.

Um it's the end of an era, I guess.

Um what I would also like to see.

I know this is in the beginning phase, but having a dashboard on progress that you are all making, uh, not just in terms of better bus program, but the shelters and everything else that MPTA is investing from the operating side as well as capital side, so residents can see how their sales tax dollars uh what they are actually funding.

Yes, ma'am.

I I'll mention, and you brought it up in two different ways, but I will mention that on April 27th, we will be bringing forward to council consideration of a construction project management contract that is with two firms, uh Lochner and HNTB.

That those two contracts together, the intent is to utilize them to help us find innovative ways to speed delivery and to do things exactly like you said, dashboards and reporting on project status.

That's great.

And you talked a lot about investing in our safety improvements, and I appreciate this data where it shows that operator assaults have gone down significantly, almost half.

Um at some point, we were looking at physical barrier between operators and passengers, and I didn't see that in one of the presentation slides.

Could you speak to the investments that we are making to ensure that our operators are safe?

Yeah, so Brent, if I may, because Councilmember Asmill is bringing up some very important points that I think the viewers need to see.

So can I have IT put the slide up she's referring to?

Yeah, that's slide number 16.

16.

Can we have 16?

And IT, if you can follow the council members as they articulate some of the points, I think it'd be good if we have the slide.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr.

Cal.

So all of our buses, so what you're the rail cars already have a cab.

Right.

That the operators separated.

So you're talking about buses.

Um all of our buses have barriers today.

We are looking at and have been exploring, as is the industry, what can be done to create enhanced barriers or more complete barriers, all of those things.

It is an industry-wide focus, but all of our buses today have barriers and they will continue to have barriers, and we will continue to work with the industry to see how those that barrier technology is enhanced over over time.

Okay.

I know at some point we were looking at um, I I forget the term.

Bullet resistant, yes, yes, bullet resistance.

Um bullet resistant glass or bullet resistant barriers.

And we are following that closely with them to see what the you know what the pros and cons are, right?

Um certainly what what happens in the field.

The the biggest concern with bullet resistant barriers is uh twofold.

They're very heavy, so it puts a lot of weight on the front axle of the bus.

If you think about where the bus operator is sitting, it's putting a lot of weight on that front axle.

It also could create a hazard in the event of an accident if those barriers broke free, because they are they're literally several hundred pounds for the door and those kinds of things.

It it is a very, very heavy uh piece of glass.

So that's those are some of the concerns that the entire industry has around bullet resistant um barriers is the weight of the of the glass.

Well, I look forward to more update on that.

The last question that I have on the operating side, I know that we had adopted CAP for citywide, right?

That included CATS to ensure that our buses, especially the ones that were diesel based, were being retired.

Uh, as we now, as we are transitioning to MPTA, what happens to some of those sustainability goals as we are buying and purchasing these buses that that will be around for next 20 years or more.

Yep.

So useful life is about 12 years, but certainly we have some that are beyond 12 years.

Um our average fleet age right now.

When I started our average fleet age was over 10 years.

Our average fleet age today is about seven years.

The FTA requires you to keep them 12, so that average age reflects the new vehicles and the older.

To your question.

We have about 35 full battery electric buses.

They have been good vehicles, but they there are challenges in our operating environment utilizing them.

We have committed to um uh electric hybrid buses, and we have continue to buy those, and we will continue to buy full battery electrics as the to monitor how the technology progresses.

The two biggest issues that we see with the battery electrics today are the the um the amount of time the runtime.

About 30 percent of our routes would require multiple buses if you were using battery electrics because one charge doesn't can't satisfy the entire route.

The other problem is the overnight charge time.

It's between three and six hours to charge a bus, the ones we have, and we run about 20 hours a day.

So you run into a problem of you don't have quite enough time to charge overnight, but we know the technology will get better, and we're watching that as it progresses.

Exactly, yes.

And on the capital side, if we can go to slide number 24.

So you talked about South End Station and Park and Ride in Huronsville.

Um was this planned before this referendum was approved, or is this something new?

These are existing projects.

Existing projects.

Correct.

And what's the so funding source for both of this excuse me?

Um federal grants and transit dollars.

So local transit dollars.

Okay.

And then donations in the case of Hambright.

From NC DOT.

Well, that's all I have.

I appreciate all the work that you have done, and I appreciate I know we have treasure MPTA treasurer here, Mr.

Um and a CPA, farmer CPA.

So I certainly appreciate uh he'll be keeping close tab on the budget.

And thank you, Reverend Mack, for your service as well.

That's all I have.

Now enter Nagain from District 6, Council Member Owens.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Um thank you for the presentation.

I do appreciate it.

A lot of my questions are probably driven just because this is my first my first rodeo, if you will.

Um, I appreciate Councilmember Ashmira's focus on on um resilience.

That was actually one of the areas that I was gonna ask questions on, and I just want to put a finer point on that.

Some of the environmental commitments that we've made as a city.

I just would like to appreciate better how those translate into the goals and how they translate into the budget before me.

I don't see a lot in this budget, for example, that gives me clarity on assumptions that may have been made with respect to fuel costs, assumptions that may have been made with respect to um tariffs or any of the the drivers, no no pun intended of long wait times to get additional buses and technology.

Could you give me some clarity on that?

Yeah, um, we certainly see tariffs as a driver of increased capital cost 100% for sure.

Um it is one of the drivers of the South End station.

I think that its original budget was 20 million dollars, and it came in at around 37 million.

Um tariffs are a factor in that.

Cost escalation for capital is certainly a factor.

Um fuel, we hedge.

Um we just we do fuel hedging.

I can get you more information on the fuel hedging contract, but we have a fuel hedging contract with James River.

Um, and Mr.

Howe can certainly uh provide the council with more information on that hedge.

Um people or other factors, technology and other factors.

Um it wasn't people, it was the vehicles.

When we order vehicles, it takes us about anywhere between 18 and 24 months to receive vehicles, and we are factoring that into our schedule for increased uh bus service based on the delivery schedules that the manufacturer get will give us as as we but that's why it's important to order buses now.

We we already have started talking to the vehicle manufacturer, in this case it's Gillig, to talk about their delivery schedule to start to slot that so that we know when those vehicles are coming, and we know when we need to start hiring to get ready for those vehicles to arrive.

Okay, thank you.

If I could just take you back to the first part of my question, though, um, with respect to the focus on resilience, can you help me uh our articulate somewhere in this budget where we address the transference of some of our um environmental goals into the the new budget process and where those are picked up?

Is it in the technology area?

Is it in the resilience area?

I just I look at some of the assumptions that I think we made about the pace at which we were gonna electrify our fleet and the pace at which we were going to drive sort of that 50-50 mode share and get folks engaged a bit differently with their commutes.

Can you identify where in the budget those things are addressed?

So we have a sustainability is absolutely one of our core principles.

Uh to answer the question directly, does the C app apply to the MPTA?

No, it does not.

Um their sustainability policy apply, yes, but they have not created that yet.

And so we have made no assumptions about CAP applying to the MPTA as an example.

But we have not then assumed that we are not committed to sustainability.

We have assumed we will continue purchasing electric hybrid buses.

Um because of our commitment to sustainability, but but no, city policies will not apply to the MPTA.

Okay.

Is there um if I look at the the better bus slide, which I think is slide number 27, and we talk about making improvements to the bus stops?

Um the assumptions made here are are they also um driven by some environmental concerns?

Are we looking, for example, at solar power on some of these?

Are we able to be creative in the ways that we're engaging with electric at these bus stops?

Yes.

So all of our bus stops, we actually just put one in front of Southwest School for the Arts.

Um, and that was one of the newest bus stop designs.

It's solar powered uh with lighting.

It has um Wi-Fi capabilities.

I believe it has Wi-Fi.

Let me double check that.

Um it also has chargers for your phones and devices.

So yes, and and it is solar powered.

And so we yes, we are incorporating all of those things into our design as we move forward, as well as for other facilities.

Yes.

And then my final question on slide number 29.

I had an inquiry from a resident around the costs of the silver line if we go forward with the I-77 widening.

There's a sense out there of some communication out there that the cost of the silver line uh will go up.

Uh, do you have any input in that?

I I didn't have an answer for the question when it was asked of me, so I'm just um it so no, I I would not make the assumption that the cost of the silver line will go up if I-77 South toll lane project moves forward.

However, if I-77 South Toll Lane Project moves forward, we we have been for months having conversations with NC DOT to protect the right of way of the silver line to the extent that it interacts with I-77 South toll lane project.

We would anticipate over the next 30 to 120 days working directly and possibly bringing forward to this council an intergovernmental intergovernmental agreement with NCDOT protecting, doing exactly what I just said, protecting the silver line right of way because that will be necessary as that project if that project moves forward, because certainly the silver line interacts in a very important place with I-77 South as it's designed or proposed today.

Thank you, Mr.

Kangle.

No more questions?

Now in and again from District One, Councilmember Anderson.

Hey, hey, here we go.

We got the bobblehead.

Go Hornets.

Um Mr.

Cagle, thank you for the presentation.

Um I I wanted to pick up on something Miss Owens just said.

So for the 100 bus stops that will be improved, um, is there a uniformity uh to the bus stops?

Like you you mentioned you've been working on a design.

Will all bus stops effectively look the same?

Not all bus stops will look the same, but the um the the basic design criteria, benches, trash cans, shelters, they will be consistent, but not necessarily every bus stop will look the same because different right they may have to be applied a little bit differently depending on where you're talking about.

Okay.

Yeah.

I I would just encourage us to try to have as much of a consistent experience as um passengers can have at the bus stops, right?

Yes.

So to that end, whether you have one design or or three designs, but I I feel like the the experience should be consistent.

If there is a bus shelter, it will have solar lighting and chargers and and those things.

And so that will be consistent even if as you apply it, it has to be a little bit different based on field conditions.

Okay.

Uh on slide five, um, you've listed the federal funding for uh 56.1 million in grants.

Yep.

Are we uh where are we with that?

Do we feel like that is rock solid or is that potentially soft money?

We feel like that's rock solid.

That is uh formula funds primary primarily or awarded grants already awarded grants.

This is not future grant competitive grants for the silver line.

This is the formula funds that we receive um on an annual basis based on revenue miles and ridership.

Okay.

And then on slide 22, where you talked about the software expenditures for the MPTA.

What portion of those dollars would be dedicated to uh software expenditures?

Um let me see if I have the exact answer.

If you have predominantly the the vast majority of it on the capital side, the vast majority of it is software expenditures, but it's also network infrastructure.

Okay.

So it's work day, HR and financial system, and that's the software, but then it's it's the network infrastructure that's needed that that again we have to have to look at.

And as they are uh rolling that out, right?

As they roll out um work day, will will they will it be um stood up in time for them when we transition the assets over, or will we still have to have a uh uh a service level agreement with them for our backbone?

It is anticipated that there will need to be a service level agreement, but the MPTA just recently hired EY as their transition consultant, and they are they have a huge team.

I think there's no less than two former North Carolina secretaries of different divisions on the team.

It's it's a really impressive team.

Um they're working through all of that and they will be approaching the city to talk about that, and it may require uh a transition services agreement, um, but that's to be determined.

Um, but that's to be determined.

Okay, okay.

And then last question on slide 28 when you you're walking through the red line uh commuter rail.

We know that 50 percent of the red line must be complete in order for other projects to be jump started, right?

Correct.

Where is the 50 percent uh completion projected here?

Or do we have it a projection of when it would be 50 percent complete?

We don't have it projected at this time, um, primarily because as we go through design and environmental, we will be looking at project delivery methods that may enable us to speed up construction, alternative delivery methods like P3s or or design build or other things, and so the the cash burn, if you will, is dependent on the project delivery method, and that will come as we get closer to that 30 percent design and environmental as we start to look at project delivery.

Understood.

I just think that's really important.

I I can appreciate the movement that you you have on the bus side so that um passengers and residents will feel the difference very quickly, right, within the five-year window.

But for this 50 percent completion, you know, is effectively pigeon-holding the other projects, the other uh rail projects.

So to the extent that we can um increase increase the delivery through you know uh um the delivery model um I would I would definitely uh encourage us to think about the other thing to clarify on this is the payback says that no other rail project can complete before the red line is 50 percent complete.

Just logistically, the red line is is the most ready, it's the furthest in design, it's you know, all those things, and so it it is not the case that we will sit waiting for that 50 percent mark to say, okay, now we can start other things.

We will be there will be concurrent work on other lines as well, um, because you kind of come to the same place, but you can't complete another rail project before the rail line is 50 percent complete, but you can start them.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now in and again, council member, I'm back from vacation may fifth.

Thank you, Mayor Protell.

Mr.

Cagle, thank you for the presentation and to I MPTA representatives.

Thank you all for showing up and for your willingness.

I'm going to backtrack, but I'm gonna stay here on 28 because what you noted is that we're the furthest in design.

A lot of the community conversation all of last year when this was being discussed.

There are very clear concerns on that first stop when we look at gateway to Derrida and then Divida jumping over to Harris.

There is a lot of economic development that has happened along our current rail with the ground floor retail.

With us saying that this is the furthest along in design, where in a slide is the continuation of community impact because there are that is large swaths of let's be honest, majority minority community, majority working class community that is basically gonna have a train run right past them.

Where do we continue to have conversations to actually let the community know that what they support it is something that's actually going to benefit them?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So this is what we call the locally preferred alternative.

It has been the LPA for 20 years.

Um there are some issues with this LPA, and we know what they are.

One is everyone can see that when this was done, North End was a very different place than it is today.

And so clearly there needs to be a stop in North End.

Um as we do design, we've planned for that.

Um, and and we're planning for that as we continue design.

To change the LPA is a separate process and it comes through design, and ultimately the MPTA will be asked to do final approval of the LPA or locally preferred alternative.

The other, the second major problem with the LPA is right now the LPA reflects a terminus in Mount Morne, which is in Iredale County.

That is the LPA, it has been the OPA for 20 years.

But we do not have the legal right to terminate the red line in Iredale County at this time.

That decision and that conversation with Iredale County and Mooresville needs to be had because the red line cannot go beyond Mecklenburg County line without their uh approval.

So those are all questions that need to be addressed in the local in setting the LPA.

Um and that is part of the process as design moves.

So that doesn't completely answer my question as far as community impact.

So when we're talking about a locally preferred plan that was identified 20 years ago, the city of Charlotte has seen a major growth transition just in the last five years.

So I'm hoping to hear that we've identified that we need a little more flexibility versus saying, well, this is what we identified 20 years ago, and so this is the plan we're moving with, and clearly identifying community engagement prior to and on law alongside with MPTA, because again, what we thought growth would look like in Charlotte in 2020 versus 2019 to now 2026 is a very different conversation.

So trying to hold on to an idea from 20 years ago and not taking into consideration what we are seeing on the ground.

I think we're missing our opportunity, so we don't you don't have to have an answer for this now, but at some point in the near future, I would expect for us to see a clear guideline of how community will be engaged and not just rely on, well, we identified this 20 years ago.

I think we're saying the same thing.

Um, I don't like it, so that's why I wanted to come back.

Absolutely, there is a process, it's setting the locally preferred alternative.

The MPTA will need to do that as design advances, and the community will be engaged in that.

Okay, that I want to make sure we have it on record.

A locally preferred alternative should be the alternative that community is leading in that conversation since they're the ones that's going to be impacted.

Also, if we go back one to slide 27, I want to make sure that we are very transparent with community on how will these routes neighborhoods actually be prioritized.

You and I have had conversations over the years where routes have been realigned and reassigned.

I've always had an interest in how we decide what communities we've received, numerous emails and or run into people in the community that utilize our bus transportation system on a regular basis.

Buses will be on the app saying it's coming, the route will completely disappear.

It will be 30 minutes late, it will be 45 minutes late, it would just not show up at all.

So are we using the high concern data that's coming in to identify the priority routes?

What is the actual process?

We can provide you information on that.

In the early phases, the primary driver is ridership.

The highest ridership routes should be um taken to the faster to the 15 minutes as fast as possible.

But there are also concerns with route length and the number of vehicles required and all of those things, but we can provide you more information on the um anticipated um uh route route upgrades.

So here's what I would like for us to consider.

We sent you what you noted is the highest ridership.

I'm not gonna have higher ridership on my route, my route is 30 to 45 minutes late on a consistent basis.

So if the route logic will tell me that if accessibility is the priority, what we will be tracking first are the routes where we have received multiple concerns and or complaints and or questions regarding why the route changed or why the bus didn't show up, that should be the priority versus where high ridership is.

High ridership is in South End, and there are certain areas where they're not challenged by their bus not arriving on time or with thought or arriving within a five maybe six-minute window.

But we have other areas in this community where when that individual misses that bus, that is putting them potentially in a position where if they're attempting to go to work, they're an hour and a half to two hours late.

To me, that's a greater priority because we're tracking all of that information through our CATS app through all the emails that come to council to say, and manager, this is more so why this is still under our authority before it goes over to a whole nother entity.

If we're seeing that the priority is public transportation, and we want to build confidence with our community, why would we default that higher ridership should be the main criteria versus identifying where we have the pain points and building from there out of the case?

Most of the highest ridership routes are Central Avenue is the highest ridership route.

Always has been, probably always will be.

Beatty's Ford is the second highest ridership route, probably again always has been, always will be.

Again, the South End itself, there are high ridership routes that go through, I guess, generally speaking, the South End, but most of the high ridership routes are the major thoroughfares through the throughout the community, north, south, east, and west.

Um the the other thing I'll say, and again, when I started, we saw missed trips over 10%.

And a missed trip is the bus didn't come.

We said it was gonna come and it never showed up.

That is an incredibly high missed trip rate.

I've in fact I don't know that that's really really high.

Um that's off the charts.

We have worked very, very hard in the last four years.

Our mis trip rate hovers around one percent or less at this point.

Once we got missed trips under control, we said on time performance.

Is it on time?

If we said it was gonna be there, is it there when we say?

And the standard is at least 85% OTP on time performance.

Again, we were in the 78 to 80 percent range.

We are consistently at 85 percent or better as we've made these changes.

So I understand how frustrating it is for all of our riders when the bus doesn't come or when it comes late.

Um, we are actively making those changes as part of this budget, and we're making the improvements so instead of a bus on Beatty's four coming every 25 minutes, it's coming every 15 minutes.

Just just like the the service standard or the other major routes, and so I wasn't trying to say that you know it's only ridership.

We need to look at where we have issues with routes.

Some routes are very difficult from an on-time performance standpoint.

Um South Tryon is one of them, and it's because of two things.

One, it's a very long route.

It starts uptown and goes all the way out to almost to um the lake.

Um, not Lake Norman, but um out to um the other lake anyway.

Um and um and um and it goes through South End where there's all kinds of construction, and so it's an impacted that's a hard route for OTP, but we look at how we make those improvements to that route specific to the route.

Thank you for that.

The transparency that I would like to see is when we're presenting this, when this information is being presented to council, but also when it is presented to community, is a clear line of how the routes are being identified.

I appreciate we look at high travel, high ridership.

What I'm also saying is we need to clearly identify not just percentages, because unless we go and throw up the actual 3D models of any graphs, we're not looking at the real numbers and the percentage doesn't really numbers never lie, but they can be missed, they could be used to mislead.

So at the end of the day, we know that there are pain points.

You all are already capturing information through the app through other ways where we are having clear misalignment with routes.

I want to make sure that what we're showing the community is accurate as possible, and letting the community know how they can best get the information that they need and share the concerns that they have and share the wins because constituents also reach out to us to say thank you when things go right, and we try to get that over to the team.

But if we're talking about millions, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment, it will be helpful to make sure that we can go share with the community when they reach out to us a better turnaround time on getting responses to the questions that they have because we have this great presentation, but unfortunately, just at 8 03 a.m.

on Friday morning, we had an assault.

So we look at the breakdown of what we're gonna do with security in the earlier slides and other things.

But when you have an individual who we witness and video shows a male following and female onto the bus, there being an assault, them both leaving the bus, and there is nothing that stops that in between, and we have uh police support that's out there doing whatever process that they need to do.

The city of Charlotte has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of domestic violence awareness, domestic violence outreach and support.

If we see an incident happening that's not a direct assault onto one of our drivers, what is the protocol to ensure that one, those individuals are separated, but two that there is protection because to just say where the camera shows both the male and the female leaving the bus, but there's no follow-up of that, but yet the female was kicked and beaten, and this is uh the assault of a female uh near the center street, which is on all over the news today and directly connected to our bus.

The operator immediately called this called the police.

They were responding to that, and and that's the exact protocol that they needed to follow.

That operator did exactly what they were supposed to do.

That's a clarification.

What I'm saying is if I if me and Mr.

JD got into an altercation and he's about 6'5, and I'm about five two.

I'm just saying it that is just our policy.

Our policy, and this is just a question for clarification, is that versus stopping the bus and doing one of those, everybody get off, or bus never move.

It's only that's I'm gonna ask my question, and then you can respond to it.

So for clarification, our bus driver's response and training is to call law enforcement not to intervene because we're not supposed to intervene, and that's it.

We're just supposed to call and hopefully stop at one of the routes where we know the officer says, okay, well, I'll be at your next stop, and that's the stop we stop at.

Do we have what is the actual protocol in that?

The bus never moved.

Two people boarded the bus, they were in a verbal altercation.

The operator called the police, and that bus never moved.

So then, and the police arrived, and those two people had left.

Altercation, but we do not get involved with the physical altercation because multiple reasons.

We call police, and however long it takes for law enforcement to arrive, then that becomes law enforcement's responsibility.

And I'm just asking for clarification.

Yes.

That that is the responsibility of law enforcement or security, whichever responds first.

But that the operator stopped, was stopped.

A female boarded the bus, a male came right behind her, they were in a verbal altercation.

The the operator never moved the bus.

They did exactly what they were supposed to do.

They held and called police and said the police is on the way.

And and those the two people then exited the bus uh as I understand it before the police came.

But that bus was not, they were not traveling, they were not passengers on the bus.

They boarded it, but it never moved.

Um the operator called for um assistance, called for assistance from security CMPD.

Thank you.

I just want a clarification for that since that I've had two people reach out asking me about it, and since you were here, it was an ability to say what our process is.

I don't necessarily agree with it, but I don't have to because y'all are about to be gone in about a couple of months anyway.

Last piece, Wi-Fi access.

While we're looking at making the infrastructure investments, are we considering at our parking ride stations since a lot of people will be going to work or school or anything like that to be able to partner to have Wi-Fi access while we're waiting?

Yes, so our vehicles are Wi-Fi enabled.

Um, and and yes, as we do new facilities or facilities upgrades, we we look to enable with Wi-Fi, including bus shelters as well.

That would be great if that could just be added as one of the bullets in the presentations to just let people know because I think that's a great opportunity for those that may be waiting.

Thank you, Mr.

Manager Mayor Pro Tem.

Now entering the game from District 2, Council McGrimm.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

I'll be very quick because I know we're short on time.

Um looking at the clock.

Uh Brent, I just want to thank you for your leadership.

I also want to thank the members of the MPTA who are here for their leadership as well.

Uh I'm a political junkie, so I do watch some of your meetings.

I I I get a good feeling of what you guys are doing and where you are in the process, and uh I just really want to thank you for for leaning in on public transportation for us.

Um, Brent, I'm gonna underscore safety.

Uh obviously, the conversation we just had.

Um, unfortunately, bad things happen to good people uh and they happen on public transportation, and so hopefully we begin to double down on the investment that you guys are making on public safety um on the bus, on the train, at the stations, and at the shelters.

So I I I want to underscore that.

Um I also want to underscore um and get uh just a little bit more clarification.

I think a hundred bus shelters uh is should be the absolute floor, right?

I I think we should have the capability to do more than a hundred, right?

So I'm gonna challenge you, and you've basically said it yourself that you should be able to do a hundred plus or more.

I'm gonna focus on the or more.

Uh and help me understand that all bus shelters will have um same standards, right?

Like uh a basic car, and others are gonna have more features based on location.

Help me understand that.

So, depending on the utilization of the stop.

Some some stops have a hundred boardings a day, some have ten or two boardings a day.

It dep depending on utilization, um, as well as um investment as well as equity um in the area that drives the um the decision on the level of amenities.

All those amenities are consistent, but they are not the same amenities on every stop.

Some may have benches, some may have benches and shelters, some may have you know other things, but but again, all those amenities are consistent.

It's not we don't go out and buy a different kind of shelter for each one, but there is a policy dictating the level of amenities that go on each stop.

Well, just Malcolm, I think they all should have benches and shelters.

Uh just saying, right, it rains on two people the same way it rains on a hundred.

Right.

And so hopefully, uh Minister Mack, you you you would hear that, and that no matter it's in uh ridership of two or ridership or a hundred riderships that starts on Bayes Road Road or ends in Ballantine, the standards should be the same throughout the system.

Uh just my thought.

Um, and I hope that we can uh um pivoting to microtransportation.

Hopefully, that we can also um demonstrate quick results, right?

I I think the public really want to see their dollars at work quickly, and the quickest way to do this through the the better bus program, the microtransportation program, and getting shelters up and running and protecting people from the rain and the sun and having someplace to sit while they're waiting on the bus, as well as access to sidewalks.

I mean, those are basic functions that folks voted yes for.

I I just think that that's just there should be no compromising from my perspective on that.

And then lastly, um, you didn't touch much on um handicap access, but hopefully there's some um conversations around um the book the blind and the limited site um passengers and those who need um handicap access on the on the buses on the trains, that there's an investment um area in the budget that talks about making sure that those folks who are need assistance uh get the type of support they need as well.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Now entering the game from District 7, Mr.

A.

Driggs, point garden.

Um thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

I think it's worth pausing for a moment here to recognize we're actually at a moment in history for our city.

Uh, this is an extraordinary event that's taking place.

And we are talking about matters, some of which we will not control.

Uh so in my mind, as the chair of transportation, when I look at this, I'm thinking in terms of moving out, going forward.

You can take transit out of city government, but you can't take transit out of the city and out of the county.

So in fact, the critical thing for most of these issues is the ongoing basis of our partnership with MPTA.

And uh I believe Ms.

Mack left or stepped out of the room.

Uh but uh I want to stress the fact that uh our role in all of this will be one of advocacy for our constituents because we were elected by them, so we're appointing board members, but we're the interface with the public.

They're gonna look to us and they're gonna say, okay, who did you appoint?

Are they doing the things that you know we want?

Um we will not have the immediate control over many of the issues that we've been talking about here.

So what we really need to focus on is that question of the partnership and how it moves forward.

Uh it's it took us five years to get here.

I I think it's really exciting that we're having this conversation.

I remember the uh mobility task force, and it all seemed a little remote.

And the first time I heard the suggestion of a half cent sales tax, I said, don't be ridiculous.

The legislature will never let us do that.

And and yet they did, and the people approved it.

Uh in my mind, one thing that's critical that I have said publicly a number of times is the referendum passed by a vote of 52 to 48.

And uh what is on my mind is we have to make clear to the 48 percent that in the end this was actually a good thing to do.

So there are a lot of ways that we can do that.

Uh we have to allay the concerns.

Uh there is an element of distrust, and we we we struggle with that in our community.

We are struggling with that on I 77 as well.

It's hard to have a serious uh policy conversation among people if they don't trust each other.

So, in my mind, the partnership that we have with MPTA is critical.

Uh we will appoint those 12 members, yes.

But uh aside from that, we have to work out the terms and conditions for the transition of the assets to the MPTA of the employees.

We have to make sure that the terms are uh fair to Charlotte and that we take very good care of our employees.

The safety issue uh is one that I'm confident will be addressed by the MTA PTA.

I appreciate the fact that the way that board appointment process worked, we have quite a diversity up there.

There's not going to be any issue that is not being represented by somebody in that group.

Uh and and in alignment with our mix of interests here.

So uh I'm very uh optimistic about the outlook for that.

But at this point, as we look at these things, we need to be mindful of the fact uh the CATs can enter into agreements, for example, that might be binding on the MPTA going forward.

But uh it's it ultimately they have to be able to do what they were appointed to do and to run this thing.

And uh our job is to make sure that the way they run it aligns with what the things that we aspire to for our city.

Uh I did have uh, for example, uh one question, and that is you say there will be a hundred shelters.

Um and these bus routes.

You've made some reference to how they are prioritized, but is this just a data exercise?

No.

I I mean, I guess what do you mean by that?

I I guess what I'm getting at maybe related to Ms.

Mayfield's question, because the question has been put to me.

You know, how many of these shelters are we gonna get?

Will they all have a roof over them?

Uh there's a lot of interest in the shelters because those are a near-term prospect and they have implications socially as well as from a numerical standpoint.

So I'm just wondering whether we have a sequence uh for over 2,000 of these in five years.

Who goes first, who goes last?

Uh, how does that work?

That is a great question.

The MTC passed an updated policy about thr, well, how long about four and a half years ago, just pre-Brint, um, just before I got there, maybe four and a half or five years ago.

Um, and that sets out the prioritization of how you score and rank uh bus shelters, bus amenities, and all of the bus stops are scored and ranked per that policy.

Um it's all out there.

So um and has actually has been for a while, and so that lists all of those things.

Now, the only thing that has to be updated is with microtransit, there will be some bus stops that are removed because in a microtransit zone, where you are is the bus stop.

You don't walk to a bus stop, the microtransit vehicle comes to you.

So we have to fix that.

But otherwise, that is the MTC policy.

Now I say all of that to say we have already brought that and presented that to the MPTA, not that they have to approve that policy as written by the and approved by the MTC, but as a starting place for what they can consider as they create a policy that dictates level of amenities and prioritization of those amenities.

Thank you.

So we will be exporting everything that we have built into CATS when we when we cause that transfer to happen.

And finally, I think I will just note we are extraordinarily fortunate to have somebody of your ability and insight working for us at this very complicated time.

I thank you for that.

Thank you.

Last but not least, who needs to check into the game is from D5, Councilmember JD.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Uh thank you, Brent, for the presentation, and thank you to the MPTA members who are here in attendance.

I did have a question about whether uh in your exercise of projecting these numbers, did was there a time and place that you all included the um revenues and as well the estimated loss uh from fares, uh particularly the ones on light rail.

So we have calculated as an analysis, it's not in one of these slides.

I started looking for it like it was there.

It's not in one of these slides, but let me try to answer your question.

We have already calculated um what we believe through analytical, not a count, but an analysis, what we believe is the rate of fare evasion in the system and all modes combined, we put that at roughly 50 percent all modes.

Wow, bus and rail.

50 55 zero.

Okay.

Uh a little bit lower on bus, a little bit higher on rail, but averaged at 50.

We also calculated in response to either the FTA or the Office of State Auditor projected lost revenues.

I can get you that number, but I believe it was somewhere around three to five million dollars annually in lost revenues.

Yeah, uh colleagues, the reason I asked this question is more so not only about efficiency but safety, right?

Um, to ensure the safety of the passengers on our bus to uh prevent things like what happened this past Friday morning from happening, um, as well as you know, encouraging our MPTA trustees that are in the room here to relay the message to the other folks.

Um I appreciate that we are incorporating five million dollars in fare enforcement, but also finding a very sound way to implement that and to ensure that we're not using 50 percent of revenue that is supposed to be coming from fares, right?

I mean, I that's a lost opportunity, a huge loss opportunity, and let's remember that it is those revenues that also take into account the operating costs and and budgeting um to make sure that we're providing great public transportation service.

Uh, the other question I had is uh while I I can understand that we're not going to go through every project.

Um, could you talk to me about the Uptown Transit Center?

This is uh a center that is in desperate need of modernization.

Um, and particularly because we are one of the rarest bus systems in the country where all the buses meet in that place, right?

Like if you are um if you live in East Charlotte in District 5 and you're wanting to get to West Charlotte or another part of town, you have to go to the center uh to the transit center here in uptown.

Can can you talk about any uh potential upgrades to that center?

Yes, so we have done a um condition assessment of the CTC.

Um the short story is the CTC needs to be renovated and rehabilitated for sure.

It is a 30-year-old facility, and it needs some work.

So we are working through how to bring it up to the state of good repair condition um uh level that is required by the FTA that is included in the budget, but we are also looking long term what our options are for complete redevelopment of a transit center.

Um, to your second point, do other transit centers have a central, do other transit systems have a central transit center?

Yes, most do.

Um in Charlotte, we especially need a central transit center because of the road network and because Uptown Charlotte is a significant employment center now, included in Better Bus is more is also more point to point connectivity, so that instead of all buses needing to come uptown and then across, there are also buses that can bring people around the edges and skip uptown, and that would be the difference between a hub and spoke and point to point, but incorporating that.

But we we certainly need um a central transit center in Charlotte.

Right.

Yeah, I I appreciate that because not all folks work in uptown, right?

And so we want to make sure that everybody has access to opportunity and all parts parts of Charlotte.

Um I joined my colleagues, and this is more of a comment about the uh equity uh when it comes to shelters um and the bus stops across the city.

It has to be consistent, right?

Because although perhaps one stop might just have two to five people waiting there a day, we are growing exponentially.

Like we again, 157 people moving to the region.

Um does not include uh specifically the city number, but uh that means that you know we're we're seeing exponential growth in South End and East Charlotte and all parts of our city, and so we want to make sure that the infrastructure is equitable from a stop in South End to a stop on Central Avenue or and Baileys Ford Road, etc.

Um, and and also uh you know, Councilmember Mayfield spoke on this, you know.

We're looking at, for example, the LP LPA that was 20 years ago for the red line.

Um we need updated scores for you know the prioritization of modernizing our bus stops, uh, because that was done five years ago, and again, we're you know, we we've grown exponentially.

Um, and so I would love to see an updated criteria on that.

And then the other thing is just uh speaking to what Mr.

Driggs was talking about, our partnership with MPTA.

As we, you know, something I was thinking about as we were talking about the red line and how we have to adjust and update it and whatnot.

I I want to make it very clear to folks that the transit plan that the city worked on is now in the hands of MPTA, right?

And so there are that plan might change, you know.

I I just want to make that very clear because when I was against the transit sales tax, no secret, um, I I made it very clear that you know this plan might change.

Um, and so I think as Mr.

Drick says, it is on us to respond to our constituents and advocate on their behalf when it comes to ensuring that community input is incorporated to a revised LPA um for the red line, as well as where do we redirect funds if additional costs will be incurred on adding a bus stop, I mean uh uh rail stop to the red line or extending the silver line or halting the the Gold Street car.

So all of those questions, and I think it's just very important for us to ensure and remind ourselves that this is a collaboration, particularly with our 12 appointments and having good faith relationship with the MPTA.

That's it, Mayor Pratem.

Thank you.

Council, thank you for the great questions and Brent, we thank you for the great presentation.

Let me remind our citizens though, this agenda item will be before us four more times.

Um public hearing will be held on May 11th, on May 18th, uh budget adjustments, June 1st, straw votes, and then June 18th, budget adoption.

So we encourage citizens who like to weigh in on this uh important agenda item on May 11th public hearing.

Uh with that said, I want to do two more things, T.

One, I would like to do a time check, and then two, we have some outstanding students that I want to recognize uh in the audience this evening.

They are political science students from the Queens University of Charlotte.

Thank you for joining us for the meeting.

Will you please stand up and be recognized at this time?

Would the alum of Queens like to add anything else?

Absolutely.

Uh, these wonderful students are also taught by the incredible professor, Dr.

Margaret Commons.

If you can stand up, please who is a former professor of mine and is the reason why I love politics and policy.

And also if we need to talk to you.

And also is an engaged citizen with the city of Charlotte by being the chair of the mayor's international cabinet as well.

So um, and I just also want to add that not only am I an alum of the Queen's University of Charlotte, but so is our mayor by Alice.

So thank you so much for being here.

They took a tour of the government center earlier, and thanks for being engaged.

All right, team, we need a time check.

We have four more items, and we have a closed session.

My goal was we can complete all those by 7 p.m.

And so and we have a okay thumbs up.

Okay.

So let's see if we can accomplish that.

Okay.

A you okay?

Kimberly.

All right.

Dante?

I didn't hear a question.

We need to accomplish four items plus a closed session here in 267 by 7 p.m.

You okay, Joey?

Yeah.

Dot Dempo.

Okay.

I turn it over to our public safety chair, Dante Anderson, who is going to speak to street vending regulations and passenger vehicle for hire ordinance revision.

Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Pro Tem.

First and foremost, I just want to recognize my committee and thank them for uh the effort that they've put into both of these items.

Um we've had several meetings, we've had uh touch points with the community, both with street vendors and with residents.

So I just want to recognize um Councilmember Ashmira Graham Mitchell and Driggs that they comprise the public safety committee.

And um, I'm gonna go ahead and hand it over to Charlie, but just to frame it a bit, uh this item was referred uh by the mayor last year, actually in April, so it's been in committee for quite some time.

Um, as you'll see as Charlie walks through some specific slides.

We are the only major city or medium-sized city in the great state of North Carolina that does not have street citywide street vending regulations.

Uh and so as we're growing, it's been referred to this evening several times as we continue to grow.

Um, that we we need to, as a council address this idea of citywide street vending.

But I'll stop talking now and I'll pass it over to Mr.

Jones.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council.

Um, I can do one thing well, and that's follow instructions.

I understand you've got a packed agenda, so I'm gonna go quick.

If I go too quick, please tell me a slowdown.

Uh quick overview of our existing street vending ordinances uh street vendings governor by chapter six of the city code of ordinances.

Uh, we made updates to that last year, um, including the uh peddlers section.

We increased the violations of those ordinances in civil fines up to $500.

Real quick level set the geography.

Citywide street vending is legal without a permit in all areas outside the congested business district.

Um the congested business district street vending is illegal except for the Tron Street Mall Vendors Program.

Uh the CBD was expanded by council to include streets in Noda last year.

Tron Street Mall, uh street vending is legal, but does require permit, and that program is administered by the Charlotte Center City Partners.

Um got the footprint there, but it's a little easier to see on the map.

Uh so you can see our current congested business district includes most of the streets in uptown and a small area in no DAW.

So, real quick overview of the policy timeline.

Um Councilmember Anderson gave a pretty good overview of that.

So last year in April, policy referral by Mayor Lyles.

The housing safety committee approved two policy recommendations in June to expand the congested business district and to create a no-daw pilot program for a period of six months.

June 23rd, council approved those committee recommendations.

September 1st permitted vendors actually began selling items in NODA as part of that pilot program.

On January 5th of this year, uh the safety committee approved sunsetting the no-daw vendor pilot program.

Um so there was no action taken, and the program was expired on February 15th.

March 5th, the safety committee approved two policy recommendations for council consideration.

We'll get to those at the end of this presentation.

But real quickly, it's extremely extend street vending regulations citywide and then create a criminal enforcement option for CMPD.

That criminal would be a class three misdemeanor.

So community feedback.

One last year to really get a feel for the concerns of the community.

Had another public input session in February of this year uh to gather feedback around additional policy proposals and to garner feedback from the pilot program after its conclusion.

We've had numerous emails, as all of you have, calls and staff interactions with vendors, residents, and businesses.

We have challenging challenges with permitting and compliance during the NODA pilot program.

We had permitted vendors that set up in the wrong places.

We had unpermitted vendors setting up in Noda.

So we had a lot of challenges with that pilot program.

And then we also have concerns from adjacent communities during the NODA pilot.

So a lot of the folks that were vending in NODA left that area and went to other areas of the city to sell their wares.

Someone was selling animals in NODA, and there's a food cart set up in the street during a stadium event, cooking hot dogs and other things in the street.

So we continue to see and hear about these challenges in the community.

Some of the benchmarking work we did beyond just what North Carolina has.

We looked at what we consider peer cities, large cities with diverse populations.

All of those cities have citywide vendor registry regulation.

So no other city that we found has an unpermitted type system that's our size.

Three of the six cities have a criminal penalty option.

Got an asterisk there by Nashville and San Diego.

While they don't have a criminal penalty option, they do allow their local department of transportation with the assistance from the local police force to remove items from the right-of-way.

It's one of those things if someone refuses to move, the local department of transportation calls the police department and they physically remove the items.

Common elements we saw throughout these cities is restricted locations due to insufficient right-a-way widths.

So think of the narrow sidewalks in NODA.

Those locations would not be allowed to have street vendors in most of these cities' programs.

Prohibitions on proximity to businesses.

That's one of the complaints we've heard of people setting up in front of a store and blocking the entrance and exit of that business.

Size restriction on displays, authority to remove and impound vendor materials.

Almost all of the cities require valid business license from the vendor.

So there's a wide range of what's required from vendors in our pure cities.

Which brings us to the two items consideration tonight or discussion.

Safety committee vote was to extend street vending regulation beyond the existing congested business district citywide.

So some of the staff analysis behind this, citywide regulations consistent with the results of our benchmarking review.

Street vending regulation is in the interest of public safety and public health, particularly around the unlicensed food vendors.

Street vending regulation helps level the playing field with our brick and mortar businesses.

One thing we've heard consistently through the public input section sessions is that our brick and mortar businesses have a lot of hurdles to jump through to open and run that business, and they want at least some level of skin in the game from the street vendors.

Of course, we want to maintain exceptions for city authorized programs such as the Trion Street Mall Program.

We think the nonprofit partners that manage our municipal service districts are well equipped to run and maintain those street vending programs.

And then we want to continue also to allow vending during festivals and other events as currently codified in our ordinances.

Then the other vote was to establish a criminal penalty option, class three misdemeanor for illegal street vending.

Our analysis about this was it's a stronger enforcement tool, particularly for repeat offenders.

We had several vendors who receive citations almost daily, and there's no there's nothing CMPD can do to force that individual to move from their location other than write another citation.

The misdemeanor classification also allows for CMPD to track repeat offenders more effectively and gives them a path to resolve recurring issues beyond just writing another citation.

Officers have a wide discretion on when to escalate misdemeanors to an actual arrest.

The implementation approach on a criminal penalty, we would work very closely with the city attorney's office to make sure we adhere to the state statutory considerations.

And then we really want to make sure that CMPD relies on a progressive enforcement tools.

Voluntary compliance, verbal warning, civil citation, and then criminal penalty, not an immediate criminal penalty.

And it mainly be based on the circumstances of the offense.

So next steps uh based on council feedback this evening as desired.

Um staff can draft ordinance modifications for future vote or take any other direction uh the council may deem necessary.

With that, I'll turn it over for any questions.

Go ahead.

Yes, yes.

Councilmember Anderson was taking those for the first one, the council member Ashmere and Council Member Owens.

Council Member JD.

Council Member Mayor, I'm sorry.

Councilmember Ashmere.

Yes.

Thank you.

First, I want to acknowledge Mr.

Jones and Mr.

Heath and the entire team for doing this work in terms of implementing the pilot phase pilot uh program as well as uh providing us the feedback.

Uh and they have done all of that within the same capacity of of their staff, so no new members.

So I certainly appreciate um the work that you and your team have done within the capacity, current capacity.

Um I just wanted to share some of the feedback that uh I heard from the public hearing.

Uh I had an opportunity uh with the council member Anderson, we both attended the public hearing where we heard both from street vendors as well as from brick and mortar businesses.

And what we heard clearly from both groups is that the current system is not working uh for vendors as well as for small businesses, and we need to fix that.

So we heard from street vendors and brick and mortar businesses, and the solution has to respect both sides so that we are not picking the winners and the losers, right?

This is about leveling the playing field and not tipping the scale in either direction.

So I think I was the only council member at the committee meeting who supported the first recommendation, which is to extend the street vending regulations beyond the existing congested business district citywide, but I did not support the second recommendation of establishing a criminal penalty option.

And I'll tell you why.

Um here is my reason because as I attended the public hearing, I got insight from uh street vendors as well as small businesses.

Um we have to ask why we are holding street vendors, uh these are small entrepreneurs to a higher enforcement standard uh than brick and mortar businesses because there is no uh misdemeanor or criminal criminal criminality option for Brick and Mortar businesses, though we don't regulate them, there is none that exists today.

So I think that is an equity concern that we need to take it seriously.

Um I heard from street vendors specifically that we should not apply one size fit all system approach.

So uh at our public hearing there were street vendors that were working specifically in arts and creative space, so these are artists, these are creatives.

Uh they shouldn't face the same regulatory burden as food vendors because they don't have to go through this whole public health requirements that food trucks would have to.

So we need to ensure that our enforcement approach is not disproportionately impacting the very entrepreneurs that we are saying that we want to support.

So what I would like to see is having a pathway for creatives and for artists that is not as stringent as those who are operating in some sort of food space.

Uh also I heard that uh permitting process is difficult.

You know, we have the same team with no additional capacity doing the permitting process.

That doesn't speak to what the work that Mr.

Jones and his team has done, but we had to also factor in this this has added quite a bit of work to the team without adding capacity.

So we do need a faster permitting process, and that was feedback that I received consistently from the public hearing that I attended.

And clear distinction between artists and who are going to be doing some sort of foot truck business.

Because I didn't I took notes when I attended the meetings.

I want to make sure I got everything.

And also we need an enforcement approach that prioritizes fairness as well as compliance.

Knowing that we don't have additional heads to do permitting process, I think having having that option of issuing a misdemeanor shouldn't be the first solution that we should consider.

Because I do believe that if we expand our permitting process where it's streamlined, where we have dedicated team just working on that, uh, we can clearly have more compliance.

And rather than just going this enforcement route, uh, especially the criminal penalty option, because there were a few street vendors that talked about how criminal penalty could end up affecting other parts of their life.

You know, you're talking about housing, having a reliable job, um, and everything else in between.

So I think we need to take that very seriously because that will not be the level playing field in my perspective.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

Councilmember Owens.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and thank you for the presentation.

I'll be brief.

I think I just want to lift up some of what Councilmember Ashmira was talking about.

I I too um sat in on the session.

I'm not a member of the safety committee, but I was inclined towards something citywide, but also was pretty resistant to the situation of criminal penalty.

I do draw a distinction as she does between food that I would not necessarily say artists, but I would say goods.

You know, if people are telling us selling t-shirts or there are just a variety of things that seem to have less risk to the public than food does.

And so I'd like to explore that.

But another aspect that I did lift up in that meeting that I would like to hear your thoughts on is where we stand with respect to the seizure of goods.

I was under the impression that we have the ability to seize goods, but we really have a failure of some of the systems that would enable us to house those goods during a period of seizure.

Could you speak to that and see if that's an additional way that we can get around necessarily criminalization?

So uh the if the objects are blocking the right-of-way, uh, we do have the ability to remove the items from the right-of-way.

I think where some of the gray area comes in is what constitutes blocking the right-of-way.

Is it blocking a pedestrian path?

Um if they scooch it back out of the way and meet that minimum width we're looking for, is that okay?

Um the other challenge we have is that would require um CDOT or code enforcement, some staff to go out to do that.

And you know, working in the field in those situations, we would we would not be comfortable without CMPD being present to do that.

And so now we're tying up additional resources to to remove you know a table of items.

The storage, of course, is is on that back end.

Where do we put those things and how do we account for it and make sure that everything's documented so that after a week they come back and say, Oh, I'm missing five thousand dollars worth of goods when you know they had you know 20 dollars on the table to start with, you know.

So there's a lot of logistical challenges with removing those items in the right-of-way.

The items street maintenance or C dot tends to remove or abandoned items or things that are blocking the roadway, not an item where somebody is actively there with their property.

Understood.

I'll I'll be brief again.

I just want to um lift up the the comment that I had made at the committee meeting around getting some um sense from some of these cities that do take items, what their experience with that is because again, I appreciate that we're issuing fines right now, those fines are going unpaid because there's really no way to impose a lien or anything on the unpaid fine because there isn't a vehicle necessarily.

I I just I think that my sense from seeing vendors on the streets is that they do have a fair amount of money in their in their inventory, and that the threat of having that seized and not returned to them and the devil's gonna be in the details as to how we do that, but I would really like to explore that before we explore out and out criminalization.

I do appreciate that that's hopefully a last resort that that CMPD would go to.

But to the point that you've raised that CMPD would have to be involved in the seizure, CMPD is obviously gonna have to be involved in the criminalization as well.

So I mean I do feel as though we're already somewhat going down a path to having more CMPD engagement on this, but I do appreciate if we could get some more knowledge on how cities that do seize goods, what their experience is with uh enforcement.

Thank you.

Councilmember JD.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Um while I do agree that we should have some form of regulation around street vending, I I don't agree with the criminalization of street vending.

I think, you know, as I was doing some of my own research, I saw that other cities in North Carolina generally regulate uh street vending um but do not rely on criminal enforcement.

Uh instead, they're using, as we as you discussed in your presentation, civil citations, even zoning restrictions or permit um uh revoking.

Um and also cities like um Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco, who first started to criminalize street vending are now decriminalizing street vending.

Um they've many have started to do that in the last decade, uh, shifting to administrative fees.

I think criminal criminal penalties such as putting a misdemeanor really will create long-term harm.

Um I think a misdemeanor could really impact or having a misdemeanor on your record could really impact and affect employment, housing, immigration status, um, and access to public benefits.

I I say this particularly, and I am impassioned by this topic uh specifically is because my district, District 5 in East Charlotte, is filled with wonderful street vendors who are selling um uh flowers or mangoes, etc.

Um, but also because they come from um different countries or have language access barriers, um, the permitting process is not accessible to them, right?

Um and I think there's there's a gap there.

And I also was a little bit concerned about um the sentence that said that officer discretion is wide.

I think having wide officer discretion really increases the risk of unequal application, and when escalation is subjective, um, I think the enforcement will often mirror um existing inequities that a lot of marginalized communities face, particularly black and brown immigrant communities who are typically the ones in my district doing the street vending.

I also think that um this um this recommendation does not really uh address the underlying issue that I think both our small uh brick and mortar businesses and our street vendors are trying to raise to us, which is uh a lack of vending opportunities, unclear rules, and insufficient designated spaces for our street vendors.

I think if anything, rather than uh thinking short-term um and and relying, which I feel like a lot of times governments rely on a lot, instead of criminalizing, we should be thinking of a better way to create uh creative solutions to the problem.

Um and then I also in my research saw that cities that criminalize vending um uh often see lower compliance from those folks because they don't want to engage with CMPD or not CMPD, their local PD um departments.

I I think ultimately the the goal should be to create a system or a vending permitting process that is fair, that it's predictable and rooted in community well-being.

Um I I think we should focus on as a solution, um, accessible permitting, um, um an administrative enforcement that is consistent and transparent without criminalizing the livelihoods of folks that maybe only have street vending as their only source of income.

Um, and so I I I don't take a lot, if any, appreciation towards the criminalization of street vending, particularly as I know that it is street vending that makes ESHLOT very vibrant.

So what I would ask staff or the committee is to provide perhaps a detailed comparison of civil versus criminal enforcement outcomes in pure cities, such as the ones you you mentioned earlier, which thank you so much because that answered most of my questions.

And also of uh a clear and objective criteria for when enforcement escalates and how discretion is limited if this council does decide to criminalize street vending.

And then potential locations.

For example, you know, you had the try-on and NOTA of designated vending zones, right?

Uh, so we can create uh outside markets or things like that.

And the last thing is an equity um impact analysis of introducing criminal penalties versus strengthening civil enforcement and cooperation with the city instead.

So thank you.

Oh, and um any community engagement plan that would help us uh inform this policy better.

That's it for me.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

You're welcome.

So Councilmember Mayo.

Thank you.

Um I have echo a lot of the same points that a lot of my other uh co-workers are uh have given.

Um I wonder does you know if if we were to criminalize this, does the DA, Spencer Merriweather's office, do they even have the capacity to really be able to enforce and and get this done?

So I don't want us to set ourselves up.

Um if if it's already difficult for them to execute their current responsibility.

So that would be my first question.

Is this even realistic?

Um my other question would be I know I've talked to the city manager about this in my last one-on-one about being proactive, partly what JD was saying with some designated space.

Um, I'm all about thinking about solutions.

We know we've already had some conversations about city owned uh property and our housing committee.

I've already had some conversations for ones in my district in district three, which also has a large street vending population.

Um, so just thinking through can we temporarily activate some of our city owned parcels uh to provide a space for some of our uh existing street vendors to go.

Um and I think that would be kind of fun in general.

People can go have like a festival kind of vibe, um, go to one place, one stop shop to kind of explore different opportunities and um options.

So uh I would like to learn more about that.

I look forward to seeing that in the report because I did ask um our manager when we would be receiving answers to these questions that people are raising.

He said Thursday.

So I look forward to hearing on Thursday about yeah, I text you.

Next Thursday.

Oh, next Thursday?

Okay, sorry.

Well, you know, I like I like deadlines, you know this.

I like timelines.

So thank you.

I look forward to hearing the answers to all the questions that my colleagues have raised.

Um I think that there are opportunities for us to think outside the box um and not just do business as usual.

So excited to hear about some of those solutions.

Thank you.

Councilmember Watluton.

Thank you, sir.

I just wanted to add a couple of things in the spirit of solutions.

Um, well, and first I'll say this as was mentioned in the uh presentation, we've been talking about this for some time now.

Um, and so I appreciate the continued engagement of brick and mortar business owners as well as vendors in trying to come to a solution.

I echo many of the statements that my colleagues have made in regards to how do we do this in a way that is equitable and ultimately delivers the kind of culture and thriving tourism um city that we're looking for.

Um street vendors help to provide that uh cultural landscape that's unique to Charlotte.

They give people a reason to visit and a reason to stay.

Um so I definitely want to see um some kind of citywide effort here.

I do think that regulation is necessary to do so in a consistent manner.

Um I just wanted to offer up, even as we think about things like parking and these kiosks that are gonna go across the city.

Why not just go ahead and designate particular places and if there's a kiosk or some kind of um QR code, you can just go ahead and get your permit.

How do we automate that in a way that it doesn't take additional staff or uh manpower just like you would do for a parking?

Why can't you use that for a vendor space that's already designated?

Um and then we can talk about what that looks like in terms of security and surveillance and whatnot, so that if you are there, you you're automatically uh registered in.

Um so I just I just think there are some ways we can leverage technology to make this a lot more simple than uh maybe it would have been in the past.

Mordecam, thanks.

Council member Mayfield.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you for the presentation.

Mine is really just adding on to what my colleagues mentioned.

I think we also have an opportunity to look at our faith in housing initiative and look at partnering because as a community we want festivals, we want events.

We just also want there to be safety.

I do not want to support a business pulling up in front of a brick and mortar and use utilizing their electricity to run whatever it is.

We all receive emails and concerns from uptown where people are out and they have boom boxes or other things going when you have also residential area.

People actually want to sleep.

Some of us like to be in bed by 10 o'clock.

So, you know, and you uh partying two or three o'clock isn't necessarily as conducive, but we have places around where you can.

So you think about the fact that we have the farmers market that's right here at the church.

Well, we recently lost, I think the farmers market that's off of Statesville.

So I had someone at my church asked me yesterday about what's the process if we wanted to use the parking lot in order to have a farmer's market.

We have an opportunity to think outside of the box.

We know Portland's tagline, keep it weird.

Well, we have when we look at faith in housing, and we look at the fact that our church community has parking lots, has parking, that might be a better way to actually get in community and have some festivals.

I definitely love the idea from Dr.

Wattlington with utilizing the kiosk to get the permitting, but I do want it to be very clear that I do support us having an actual process in place because I do not think that we should put the burden on that brick and mortar to have to handle when I decide I want to set up my business in front of your business that one is blocking you from having customers coming in, two potentially direct competition.

Three, I'm using your electricity in order to do it.

So I have a clear, I have a real challenge with that because there should be a process in place.

I have concerns about the criminalization of it, but I do think what we're doing so far.

If we're not able to get the funds, if you are fine, I think having checking in with our legal representation of what does it look like if you've hit a certain number of complaints if we were to confiscate items.

We do a surplus sell-off ever so often a year.

So we got space.

We can identify a room because I'm not I'm not anticipating us putting enough things in there where it'll be more than a closet.

Yet we do need to have some clear rules, but I think we have an opportunity, and I would hope that my colleagues will consider that as well.

How we can partner with Faith in Housing through housing and neighborhood services to potentially support the festivals, support the growth and the creativity.

We was at Charlotte Shout this weekend, amazing event.

How do we create more of those throughout the city and not just only a certain time of year?

Thank you, Mr.

Manager Mayor Pro Tem.

Councilmember Driggs.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Uh, I think, like many things, the difficulty here is recognizing that many of these vendors are small businesses whose presence uh enhances their location.

And so we want them.

We want to encourage them and enable them.

But on the other hand, some are genuinely bad actors.

Uh they set up in a place that that impairs a business or uh they they create a nuisance or an obstruction, they create a hazard in some cases.

So the question is how do we draw that bright line?

And that's the hard part.

I can hear both sides of the argument there.

I I do think that from what CMPD has said that uh their ability to deal with the bad actors is improved if they have this criminal sanction possibility in their pocket, because otherwise, people get fines and it's a business expense, and they just stand there and basically stick their tongue out.

Uh and I I do think our officers need to be able to perform their public safety function supported by uh a genuine remedy if they are defied openly or if people don't just keep paying fines.

Uh it's like some people park wherever they want and they don't care.

They keep getting tickets and they keep paying the tickets, and it's just a cost of parking.

So uh personally, uh I I guess we could start down a road without the criminal things and see how effective other things that we are doing can be uh and see if we can accomplish it that way.

My personal view is that we would be better off giving the police something that they could fall back on in the event that they're dealing with one of those bad actors.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, you want to bring us home on this topic.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir, thank you.

And uh thank you for this has been a really good conversation.

Um I just wanted in closing to say this topic is out of committee, so uh it was voted out of committee.

It's now on the hands of uh council, and it's an opportunity for us to modernize our ordinance um into the 21st century as we are um nearing a city of a million people and we've heard from small businesses, vendors, residents um that some level of regulation is needed.

Uh and so it's it the onus is on the entire council to come up with that process and working with Mr.

Jones.

Thank you for all the work that you've done um through throughout the last several months.

I also wanted to make a comment around the food vendors because food vendors were brought up several times.

Food vendors are um permitted through Mecklenburg County.

So if if a resident or someone is selling food on the street, they already have to go through a process, and if they don't have a uh permit from Mecklenburg County, then they are out of alignment.

So um from a from a street vending process, if you're selling food, you ha already have to go through a process, including food trucks.

Food trucks are are um regulated through the Board of Health, and which is under the purview of of Mecklenburg County.

Um I I do also just in closing want to say uh we have and Mr.

Jones could potentially speak to this as well, but even in NODA um where uh street vending is restricted, we have some vendors who continue to go out and and set up shop and vend, and um that is creating some challenges.

Um and we we also had a shooting in NODA that was an altercation between two vendors, and so um we just we need to think about as we lay out an ordinance um to regulate street vending citywide.

We also want to create some level of stickiness or teeth that will allow um not only code enforcement but uh CMPD to administer this with some level of stickiness.

So this is our first discussion, more discussions to come, and I I greatly appreciate the engagement um that that you all had on this topic.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh you have the next item, passenger vehicle mayor.

Oh, I'm sorry, city manager.

Uh okay, I don't want to just snatch the jaws of where's it uh no?

I I don't want to hurt this um this great moment.

Um I just don't know where this is now.

It's not in committee.

It's with the council.

And we're just in a strange place.

Can we say back to the committee?

Well, so um Mr.

Manager, if I can just respond.

Um I think, and and please, colleagues, help me if I if I'm misinterpreting this, but from the conversation that we've had this evening or this afternoon, it sounds like that there's an appetite to have some level of citywide regulation.

Um, we there were several questions to Mr.

Jones as it relates to peer cities, how they administer um their citywide regulations.

There were questions around um seizing items and also criminalization in other cities as well.

So at uh city manager, I I'm under the belief that Mr.

Jones will come back with some level of of a draft of a of an ordinance and with additional information based on the questions that were asked.

So I'm not gonna be able to do that.

Please I know where we're about to go.

And Gray and Graham hasn't spoken.

So can I go to Graham first?

I'll be very quickly.

I think that the most expedient thing to do is just send it back to committee.

That's what I was gonna say.

And and then we can resolve these outstanding issues there and bring it back to the council for a final vote.

Make a motion.

No, no, well, we'll come back to Council Graham.

I want to make sure I go around so you all won't fuss at me.

Council Graham, we'll come back to you so you can make the motion.

This is a council member Mayo.

I agree with Councilmember Graham, and I would like to make the motion, but I can wait since you say you want to go around.

Thank you.

But when we come back, I'm doing it.

Okay, I okay, gotcha.

Okay.

Councilmember Watland.

Councilmember Asmere.

I was gonna say, combine what Councilmember Anderson said and what Graham said, you bring back to the committee with all the answers because we need answers in order to take the next step, so that the committee is prepared to take the next step.

That's all.

Okay.

Oh, council council member Councilmember Driggs.

So I I think in response to the manager's question, this was considered and voted out of committee.

Everything we've just talked about was part of that conversation.

Therefore, the next step is that something goes on the agenda for council action.

And we'd use that opportunity for the full council and not just the members of the committee to participate in the conversation.

I don't know what is going to be different if the committee sees it again because everything we just talked about was part of the committee conversation the first time.

We get to vote.

That was his perspective, colleague.

Let's respect it.

All right.

So I'll be real quick.

So I understand that's his perspective, but from what I heard, the majority is not okay with the criminal option.

So now we need to find a solution.

And what I heard is that people would like to see streamline permitting process, use off this bar courts at the kiosk and all the other questions that everyone else asked.

I don't think we are ready for this to be in front of the full council.

So we need to do more work at the committee level, answer all of the council's questions before it comes up in front of the full council.

Okay, now we speed dating.

Councilmember JD, then we're going to council member Mayo for the motion.

Manager Jones, is there anything the rules and procedure that prohibits us from sending it back to committee?

No.

I'm sorry.

No.

Sorry, attorney Leslie Fight.

You woke up the city attorney.

There you go.

Now there's nothing in your role.

Yeah, so I agree.

I think in order for us to do the best job possible and come up with the best solution, we should send it back to committee.

So I support my colleagues.

Councilmember Mayo to make the motion.

Thank you.

I move that we send this back to committee to have those questions answered, and then we work through some more things.

Thank you.

Councilman Graham the second.

Are we ready for the question?

All those in favor sending this back to the committee, raise your hand.

All those opposed.

All right, great job.

Great job.

You guys ate your weeders this morning.

That was pretty good.

Madam Chair Anderson, I'm gonna turn it over to the next item.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Our our next item also has been voted out of the public safety committee.

Um so it's it's no longer in committee.

Um this topic uh will be focused on um passenger um vehicles for hire.

And we, as a committee, and I recognize my committee again, Ms.

Ashmir, Mitchell, Graham, and Mr.

Driggs.

Um as a committee, we've had robust discussions on this topic, and and thank you to um city attorney Miss Battle, who has led us through this effort.

Uh, we've had um listening sessions with um individuals who operate these businesses.

Um we had several touch points that they've been very engaged in our in our committee meetings as well, and um, and so we're at a point now where the committee voted on thank you, uh voted on a a specific um uh a specific method to address this topic, and I'm going to allow uh attorney battle to walk us through that.

So thank you, Attorney Battle.

Good evening, everyone.

Um, before we get started on passenger vehicle for hire, I would be remiss if I didn't thank my colleagues in the city attorney's office, um, the city manager's office and our PBH stakeholders for all of their input throughout this very intentional and thoughtful process.

And so as we get into tonight's presentation, we'll briefly talk about the background and sort of how we got here in PBH.

We will look at the legal considerations, we will then discuss proposed ordinances and and end with our recommendations from the city attorney's office.

A little bit of background here.

This kind of started in August of 2024 after stakeholders submitted a letter to the city manager and the city attorney's office about proposed changes to our PVH ordinance.

I will note to the group or just remind everyone that the PVH ordinance has not had a major update since 2017.

In fall 2024 and fall 2025, the chief of police, the city attorney's office, and the city manager's office had several meetings to discuss these proposed changes from our stakeholders.

In June 2025, I know that seems like a big leap, but we were doing a lot of research and some potential drafting and discussion.

But in June 2025, we had an in-person meeting with the city attorney's office, the city manager's office, and a small group of our stakeholders just to get their initial input and thoughts on what direction the city should move in.

In October 2025, I came before full council to discuss PVH at a business meeting.

And then in December, we had two stakeholder meetings, one in the daytime, one in the evening, so that we could reach the widest audience possible in order to again meet with those stakeholders to update them on where we were in the process and get additional feedback and concerns.

In January of 2026, Mayor Lyles referred PVH to the safety committee for consideration and out of committee in February 2026, we held a virtual input session with PVH stakeholders and members of the safety committee.

It was a very informative discussion to have a larger group of our stakeholders provide additional input as we continue through this process.

And then in March 2026, the safety committee voted the PVH matter out of committee based on the recommendations of the city attorney's office at the time.

And so some of the legal considerations when we talk about PVH, these are just reminders.

What we've been discussing for the past year and a half or so.

North Carolina grants municipalities express authority to regulate taxi cabs.

However, on the other side of that coin, state law explicitly prohibits local municipalities from regulating transportation network companies, often abbreviated as TNCs or colloquially known sort of as ride share companies where you can hail a vehicle through an app.

With those sort of legal considerations in mind, we looked at the different proposals from our 2024 stakeholder letter, and the city attorney's office made some recommendations.

This slide is just sort of a brief summary of those, but there were about 19 changes that were proposed from our stakeholder group.

Everything from the application process, drug screening, training for PBH drivers, upfront pricing, rate changes for limos and black cars, things about vehicle wrecks, metered vehicles at the airport, and third-party background checks, just to summarize what's in that larger chart that you all have before you.

Actually, we had some similar proposals from our input sessions, but also received some additional input for that we had not previously been made aware of from our stakeholder community and PVH.

One of those was to cut the look back period for the background checks from 10 years to five years.

There were also several proposals from the limo industry about having black car stands at the airport and in various locations in Uptown.

There were concerns and thoughts about adding fleet vehicle minimums that companies must have a minimum number of vehicles to operate under passenger vehicle for hire.

There were frequently questions about adding an ordinance section to specifically address limos in black cars, including rate changes for those limo limos and black cars and universal upfront pricing.

I will go ahead and say that the upfront pricing is a large and passionate point from our PVH community.

That's something that they have given us a lot of feedback, a lot of input, and a lot, a lot of ideas on.

With that being said, our CAO, or excuse me, city attorney's office recommendations are encapsulated on this slide.

The first being about application processes and also changing and adding a definition of operator to our PVH ordinance that someone can be an operator and also separately own a PBH company.

The third is about training requirements and removing the requirement for PVH drivers to take a sort of history of Charlotte lesson where they have to learn about different landmarks and points of interest in the city.

Given the wide availability of Google and GPS, you know, that was something we thought that PVH drivers could get on the road quicker without having to schedule those training courses.

We also changed from the or recommending, excuse me, to change the current drug screening to a five-panel test.

Right now it's much higher, but the five panel is very similar or the same as to what the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles has for commercial drivers and sort of mirroring the DMV requirements there.

Changes in criminal history for number five would include that currently, if a person has any sort of pending criminal matter on their record, their application would stop in the PBH process until that criminal matter was resolved.

We are proposing that applications with pending criminal matters continue through the PVH application process unless one of those pending charges is one that, if they were to be found guilty, would disqualify them.

So if it's a criminal charge that would not disqualify someone from getting a PVH permit, that that application would continue.

We also looked at rate changes for agency vehicles, meaning that transfer, excuse me, meaning that rate changes for an agency ride would not cost any more or less than it would be if that ride were to be booked traditionally.

A lot of the agency rides are with CMS or the DSS system.

We also looked at meter proposed metered vehicles at the airport, must use a meter and not a sort of ride share app if you are a taxi cab.

Also, currently vehicles must be removed from the road for PVH at the 10-year mark, and the city attorney's office is proposing increasing that age limit to 15 years so long as the vehicle is operable and passes safety inspection.

For number nine, roof lighting was something that the industry brought to our attention that a lot of that roof lighting you see on our traditional taxi cab is only made by a few companies and can be expensive to purchase and or replace.

And so we are proposing to allow, in addition to roof lighting, the sort of LED lighting that you see in some of the vehicles that have ride share with the name of the particular ride share company in their windshield just to offer various forms of lighting to give notice to the community that this is a PVH or available taxi cab.

Number 10, we recommend that black car and limo stands are placed in uptown.

They do not have to be anything new.

They could use the existing taxi cab stands.

However, we are not recommending at this time that we make any changes to the limo or taxi stands at the airport.

Number 11, we do recommend a completely new section to cover black cars and limos in our PVH ordinance.

Right now, the current draft of our PVH is geared more towards taxis and metered rides.

And so we are proposing to add a section that deals more specifically with limos and black cars.

And recommendation 12 would be to change to incremental billing for black cars and limos.

And we'll discuss a little bit more on fares in the next slide.

And so I'm gonna go a little bit out of order here, if you will allow, and I'll do universal upfront pricing sort of last on this particular slide.

But the city attorney's office is recommending incremental billing for black cars as it currently sits, no matter the length of the ride, if a patron hails or books a black car ride, they must be billed for a period of one hour, even if they are only taking a ride that is a few blocks long.

And so what we are recommending is incremental billing in a 15-minute increment.

So no matter how short the ride is, the minimum bill would be 15-minute increments, then 30, then 45 and an hour.

We heard a lot of feedback from our black car and limo community on that, and it benefits their companies and consumers in sort of an equitable way for having a closer bill to the actual time in that black car.

Previously, it was discussed about adding additional flat rate pricing from CLT Airport to different points of interest in Charlotte.

Um, the city attorney's office recommends we do a little bit more research and development into that because obviously we have areas like University City, Ballantyne, South Park, NOTA, and we need to look at how that would fit into a map and also the considerations with time of day and day of the week.

And so if that's a route that council wants to go down, we would recommend a little bit more research and development before we could fully recommend adding any additional flat rate pricing from the airport.

And now getting back into universal upfront pricing.

Again, this is something that our PVH community has been very, very passionate about, and we certainly appreciate all of their communication as it relates to these discussions.

Right now, we do not recommend universal upfront pricing as it would eliminate the need for the PVH ordinance and for meters in a taxi.

If all rides are sort of pre-arranged and paid up front when a person hails a cab, there would be no reason to have a meter in a taxicab.

To give you all an example of what upfront pricing looks like, it would be someone hailing a cab, and when the driver stops, they would negotiate a sort of price that they would pay for that particular fare.

However, given the fact that it is a taxi cabin metered under our PVH ordinance, the meter would have to run during that fare.

This gives us a sort of one high probability of disparities or potential discriminatory or predatory fare setting, but also could create different public safety concerns if someone gets to their destination point and realizes that the agreed upon rate is far higher than the metered rate, and that could cause different types of disputes where law enforcement would need to be called out when we are have people arguing about metered fares versus pre-arranged fares.

But likewise, it could happen with our PVH drivers as well if the meter is higher than what the pre-arranged cost is.

When we talk about some level of pre-arranged and upfront pricing in Charlotte, we actually do have somewhat of an upfront pricing option for taxi cabs.

Um there are apps like Curb C U R B and Aero, ARRO that are sort of dispatching and brokerage apps where people can hail a cab to in the same way that they would hail a traditional TNC.

When I was looking into cities that have upfront pricing, the large majority of cities that have upfront pricing are those that use or permit the usage of apps like Curb and Aero.

In New York City and Washington, DC, they both allow the use of the Curb app.

Pennsylvania has flat rates for certain routes within their city.

In San Francisco, their PVH also allows usage of Curb, Arrow, and another app called Flywheel.

Those are apps again that persons would use to hail a traditional metered taxi cab, and the price would be upfront before they select to take that particular ride.

It is my understanding also that a few of our taxicab companies in Charlotte do utilize these apps, and there is a level of upfront pricing for taxi cabs and our current PVH ordinance.

I say that it's a level because either a cab will drive with a metered fare or they would use an app like Curb or Arrow, but they would not use both.

In essence, if a taxi cab were to use one of these apps, they would be a TNC or for that particular fare, and then they could later pick back up on a metered fare if they wanted to.

But I did want to offer that to council as I know this has been a major sticking point and has had lots of questions from our council members and our PVH community members about upfront pricing.

We certainly understand someone leaving an airport and wanting to know, you know, how I have $10, how far will that get me?

Well, there is an option to learn how much a fare could be through those particular apps without the city instituting its own upfront pricing.

If the city were to do that, the city would need to create its own app.

Generally speaking, a lot of app creation could be in the six-figure mark.

It would also cost time and money to create and maintain the city's own sort of upfront pricing taxi app.

In the research that I did, I have not seen any city create its own upfront pricing app.

Therefore, the city attorney's office is not recommending moving forward with upfront pricing, but to continue with PVH as it is as it sits right now for fares.

So the goals of these recommendations are to adjust to industry changes and ride share availability.

We certainly understand the somewhat predicament that our small businesses have been put in, creating or excuse me, competing against bigger TNC companies, but we also want to keep in mind consumer safety, service quality, and making sure that we have an improved experience for citizens, drivers, and companies, and also that there are that our internal PVH policies and processes are transparent to our PVH community and efficiently processed so that we can get drivers on the road as soon as possible.

Again, the city attorney's office was very thoughtful in these recommendations, and we certainly believe that many of our recommendations align with frequent changes, proposals and requests from our PBH community, and we look forward to continuing to support small businesses, transportation, travel, and tourism in Charlotte as we update this PVH ordinance.

Again, this was a collaborative effort between different city departments and our PVH stakeholders to get us to this point of making recommendations to this full council.

Next step would be to follow up with council on any particular questions not addressed this evening.

And whenever council is ready, we can certainly bring forward draft ordinance refinements and updated as needed.

Thank you.

I'm gonna turn over to Madam Chair and any open comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Again, I just want to thank Attorney Battle for all this work.

It's been very detailed work and uh very grassroots working with the small businesses within the space.

And so I want to thank you for for that.

This the committee did recommend uh well as we voted it out of committee, the actual revisions that attorney battle just walked through.

Um and and as I as I mentioned, and as she mentioned, we've had lots of touch points with the community and specifically the small businesses within this space.

And I had Miss Ashmira.

Thank you.

I also would like to echo council member Anderson's uh point about thanking you for the work that you have done, and I appreciate that you have incorporated a lot of feedback from the PVH community into the update.

Um I would like to recognize uh that based on the public hearing that I and Councilmember Anderson attended of with our PVH community, is that what we had clearly heard is that small business small is that small businesses that operate in this space want a level playing field, right?

And I think you addressed that in your presentation because that's a fair concern that we need to take it seriously.

Uh, because if we restrict our local operators while Uber and Lyft are using flexible pricing, more dynamic pricing, we risk putting this small businesses out of business and we put them at a disadvantage.

Um, because these are the local operators who showed up, shared their concerns, and are trying to compete in a changing environment in a changing market, and we need to make sure that we somehow find a way to address their concerns while also acknowledging that we are addressing if there is pricing discrimination, if there is a hybrid approach that we can take without having to develop uh an app internally.

Uh, I have seen in many cities where at the airport there is um an operator that actually does off-front pricing for the PVH community.

Have you explored that model?

Because I have seen it at least two to three airports uh across the nation.

No, we have not explored making changes from destination point from the airport to different destination points.

We believe one of those steps will be sort of mapping out the different points of interest in Charlotte and then making calculations from there.

So that's certainly something we can look into.

I think uh that will help in terms of helping small businesses compete with apps like Uber and Lyft because Uber and Lyft model is not based on the distance, it's based on the day, it's based on the time, and it's based on the demand.

So if you are not taking that into consideration, some of these businesses will not be in business.

So I think that is a serious concern that we do need to take it seriously while keeping in mind that there might be discrimination that we need to address.

And I think there is a way that other cities have done.

And they there is a third party.

It's sort of like an operator that actually tells you this is how much it's going to cost.

If it's late at night, I will pay a higher price.

And rightfully so, right?

If there are operators working after 6 p.m., they should be able to charge more versus someone who is working eight to five.

I just think it's um it's a common sense, right?

I mean, we pay shift differential uh to our uh employees.

Why wouldn't we support our small businesses do that?

And I think we need to find a solution rather than just saying there is a discrimination.

Yeah, there is a discrimination that could end up happening, but we need to find a solution.

So I really hope that we come up with some sort of model that other cities have done where we're not putting our small businesses out of business.

Thank you.

Councilmember Owens.

Thank you.

Um, Madam Chair.

I just want to to park just very briefly on this.

I I completely appreciate all of the work that has gone into this and am fully supportive of what you've offered, with the sole exception of the universal upfront pricing.

Um I do travel a lot, and while this is completely unscientific, I do share Councilmember Ashmer's thoughts with respect to a thoughtful approach that keeps these folks in business.

I was most recently in DC and I had an opportunity to talk to the taxi driver because he you know had quoted me a fair and um you know didn't use the meter, and and there's just there's a request for flexibility there that I am very sympathetic to.

I feel as though the state has um made a decision with respect to the things that we can regulate, and if we continue to regulate them in a manner that is inconsistent with commerce, that we will no longer have taxis.

So I just I'm I'm very sensitive to this upfront pricing model.

I would encourage us to reconsider perhaps that element as well as to um expedite the research and development on the flat rate pricing from the airport.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mayo.

Yeah, I just briefly wanted to agree with Councilmember Owens and Azume are just second seconding that um I think that is imperative for our small businesses.

Um I'm hoping that we'll have a little bit more research and we'll be thoughtful of some of that flat rate pricing um so that they compete against you know the Ubers and Lyfts of the world.

Thank you.

Okay, that was the last speaker that I had.

If anyone else Yeah, and I think we have a couple of small businesses here in the room.

Absolutely.

And and they've been very much engaged in this process.

So I just wanted to recognize, I mean, they contribute to the local economy and bring jobs.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, thank you for your leadership and council thanks for your question.

So, team, uh, we're gonna call a different play.

And so we're gonna call an audible.

Uh and so we're gonna have a housing trust fund uh be presented doing a city manager report downstairs, and then we're gonna go with the stellar wars.

And remember, we still have two closed session items we're gonna do up here.

So okay.

So I'm gonna go into closed session now.

No, no, no.

We're gonna do the stellar wars now, two closed sessions up here, and then we're gonna proceed downstairs.

Okay, Mr.

Bagg, well, no pressure.

Yep, I'm gonna make this update efficient.

Uh, appreciate the opportunity to be here, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council.

Uh, I need to forward this.

Or is there something uh appreciate the opportunity to be here today to give council an update on an exciting event coming to Charlotte, and that is the Stellar Gospel Music Awards will be here in August this year.

And this is truly a strategic event for our community.

There's so much enthusiasm in Charlotte about this.

I know this from all the ass that I get about what's happening with Stellar Awards, it's going to drive economic impact and visitation into our community.

And it'll certainly bring a lot of recognition to Charlotte through the large viewership that comes along with the Stellar Awards themselves.

So I wanted to give you some information about the event.

First of all, Stellar Awards is the pinnacle celebration of gospel and inspirational music honoring artists, producers, and influencers that move audiences spiritually and culturally.

And you can see some of the statistics that are uh part of the package that's coming to Charlotte.

Stellar Awards has been produced for four decades.

This will be the 41st year.

Broadcast to 3.6 million people across the country.

And it's the number one gospel music franchise.

And it that broadcast coverage covers 90% of the United States.

So deep penetrating coverage across the country there.

Central City Productions.

I'm so sorry, Central City Productions.

And Jennifer Jackson, who is COO and president of Central City as well.

We are so pleased to have them with us today.

Okay, so a lot of impacts that we can expect to receive in Charlotte for hosting Stellar Awards.

First of all, again to mention the 3.6 million households that it's broadcast to across several different networks, including BET Bounce, the Stellar Network themselves, which is cable and streaming, and then there will be a lot of coverage through national syndication as well that will be done to local level.

Charlotte Scorp is going to be on the national stage with this broadcast.

Our skyline is going to be featured.

Lots of mentions about Charlotte being the home to Stellar Awards this year.

Of course, driving economic impact in the community.

We expect 5,000 folks to visit from out of town to participate in the activities that go along with Stellar Awards.

And of course, a powerful social media presence as well.

Over 16 million social media impressions will be generated from hosting Stellar Awards and 8.5 million video views through all the different social media channels that's managed by Central City Productions.

So a full schedule for the entire week.

This is not just the awards themselves.

There's a full week of activities that runs from Wednesday through Saturday associated with these events.

On Wednesday, there will be a community event focused at school age kids that will feature a gospel music artist.

So outreach to the community there.

Thursday, there'll be the unplugged event concert.

This is a concert featuring featuring secular music artists with gospel backgrounds.

And then we move into the the big ticket items Friday, the pre-show.

The pre-show is an awards presentation similar to Stellar, but not broadcast in the same way.

There'll be awards for artists, radio nominees.

There'll be 10 performances as well that take place at that pre-show event.

And it will be broadcast on the Trinity Broadcast Network, better known as TBN.

This will be the toughest toughest ticket for the week.

It's a very popular event.

It's going to be at the Carolina Theater, which is much smaller, obviously, than Spectrum Center.

So this will be a very popular event.

And then we move into the big event itself.

On Saturday, the Stellar Awards will kick off at Spectrum Center.

This is going to start with the sort of glamorous red carpet introduction to the event.

If you're familiar with the Oscars and the Emmys, you'll have the same feel for this event, this red carpet affair where you have over 200 media in attendance interviewing the nominees, sponsors, performers, and guests.

This will be one of the primary PR drivers for the event will be the red carpet event preceding the awards themselves.

This will also flow into a sponsor and media reception that will take place at 5 p.m.

that day.

And then we'll move in at 7 p.m.

to the event itself.

The Stellar Awards were honor excellence across 28 different award categories, the including the big awards Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year.

And these are will feature the biggest names in gospel musics.

They'll be giving powerful live performances that span traditional, contemporary, and urban gospel styles.

So definitely a really exciting event for our community that will have a huge impact in the after party.

So this is definitely the highlight of the activity everything builds and culminates with the Stellar Awards themselves.

So just wanted to my final uh update will just be what's happened so far and what's what the next steps are associated with the event.

Uh we've got uh the major event fund at the state level has been confirmed confirmed to provide up to $995,000 to support the operating expenses for Stellar Awards.

Spectrum Center has been contracted, the Hornets have been great partners on this to craft a package that's customized to the needs of uh Central City and Stellar Awards.

We're greatly appreciative of their partnership.

Uh room block agreements talked to Jennifer last night.

We think we're gonna get those finalized this week, and uh we will be working with Jennifer and her team to finalize the venues, Carolina Theater, very close to contracting there, also several other ancillary venues that will be needed for uh the production of the event, and then uh outreach to the faith community, corporate connections, the CRVA will be supporting stellar awards in that regard and probably reaching out to members in this room to help establish those connections and uh find ways to support this great event for Charlotte.

So, and we'll of course be providing logistical support on transportation, welcoming guests, all those things that we typically do at the CRBA.

So a quick but hopefully very interesting update.

We're excited about this event coming to Charlotte and be happy to take any questions.

Steve, thank you.

So we have Mayfield, Anderson, and Ash Mayor on day.

Councilmember Mayfield.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Town.

Mr.

Bagwell, thank you for the presentation.

Just a couple of questions because we're talking about three months that in three months this is gonna be happening, and I noticed you had a number of previous host cities.

Do you by any chance know what the lead time on the previous host cities were?

Like, because to my understanding, historically, we're like a year, two years out when we're planning a major event to help ensure that whoever the organization is has the time to do the fundraising they need to do and all of that.

So, do you have an idea of what the lead time for the previous host cities were?

I I don't have uh the numbers on that.

I I have been in contact with Jennifer, they're very comfortable with the pace of planning.

I believe they've characterized it as typical uh on what they experience when they arrive at a new city.

Um, but I certainly have heard uh concerns on that front, uh, and we want to make sure and move urgently with in partnership with Stellar to get them the connections and get the planning going on that front.

I've certainly heard those concerns, and we've talked about uh addressing that urgently.

So historically, when it comes to the CRVA, what is our lead time?

Because I know like we are hosting the National League of Cities again, that's 2029.

We're in 26.

So historically, my understanding is we're again two plus years out for planning.

So, what's generally our lead time when we're seeking to submit for a bid in order to give enough leeway because also this runs right up on completely different target, but our Charlotte Crown kicks off at that same time.

So we have that that'll be going on at Bo Jangles, and we're gonna have a lot of people.

So I just want to make sure we're not setting ourselves up where we're creating a new precedent where another event later on may present what they identify as an opportunity, and then we tell them well, the city's process usually is a year to three years out, and then they're gonna be able to say, Well, in actuality, you did this in a six month period.

So, what's our usual lead time when we're seeking to show off the beauty of our city?

Yeah.

Uh I think the lead time varies in the events that we work with.

Uh certainly you have League of Cities, C AAA that traditionally have very long lead times.

I think the the planning is probably on a different level as far as complexity and the the processes and support that need to be brought together.

Um this one has come together probably quicker than normal for an event like this, but again, uh we're staying in close contact about the planning process and and feeling comfortable with where we're at.

But I'm also hearing, you know, the urgency that uh that that you've expressed to me and others to make sure that we're moving forward with the planning processes as quickly as possible.

And we're listening to that and responding.

So I have not shared that as an urgency, just for clarification.

I just want to make sure that what we're doing is in a is within the guidelines of what we normally do because also what I did not see in there if there is an ask for the city.

So and historically, we're a partner, we don't lead, but I think even when we hosted the NAACP image awards, they had already identified a certain level of funding outside corporate funding on their own.

The state put in a little bit, city put in a little bit, the county put in a little bit.

So without I'm concerned that we're in April, we're looking at this in August.

We don't know outside of the state contributing what the total cost, what the ask, if any, from the city is going to be, and how soon is that gonna be coming back to us when we are looking at April the 13th as of today, and we're talking about having this start August 15th, third 13th to the 17th.

So if there's an idea of what that ask is gonna be, if there's any updates of what funding they've identified the corporate relationships, it will be helpful to know that just so that we can stay consistent for all of the programs and opportunities that we have moving forward.

Understood.

We'll make sure and can put updates on that flowing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, sir.

And excited about the stellar awards coming to the Queen City.

Welcome to the Queen City, and um some really spectacular spaces in the Spectrum Center and Carolina Theater, which both happen to be in District One.

So I I'm here for you.

Um so I greatly appreciate that.

I know my family members are excited about uh this event.

I do agree with um Councilmember Mayfield, it felt super fast.

It's it's it felt like this sort of came out of nowhere, which is wonderful.

Um wonderful to have this event.

Um, but I I just have a process question.

Um, because when we received some documentation, maybe about uh a couple weeks back, maybe about a month or so, in our packets, um, there was a communication that's that stated that there would be a financial ask from both the city and the county.

And at my question at that time, and I asked the city manager about this as well.

It seems like our processes are inverted.

Um, if there's a financial ask associated with an event that of course will drive tourism and all the things that we want to check the boxes for, it feels like that that vote and that ask should be done ahead of um the big announcements and the press conferences, etc.

So that was my question about the process, and I felt like it was inverted uh when when I received the communication.

Can you speak to that?

Uh Mr.

Bagwell.

Yeah.

So um we were focusing on the state support.

We have a small business development fund contribution from the CRVA, but uh you know, in the planning process, that was sufficient to move forward with the event.

I am aware of of that item uh that's out there.

The CRVA is is not uh leading those conversations regarding city support, and uh we're we're focused on the levers that we put in play to support the event financially.

Okay, so just as a point of clarification, is there a need for financial support from the city in order for this event to be successful?

Well, again, I I feel like we uh uh put the package together that provided the sufficient support uh with state and uh business development funds.

Um there are conversations uh outside of what the CRV has worked on that I that I'm just not leading.

I'm probably not best positioned to to answer that question.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ashmere.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Balgaro, and also thank you, Mr.

Graham, for your leadership in bringing this stellar awards to the Queen City.

Um I and welcome to the Queen City.

Is uh so this is new to me.

Is there a financial ask from us?

I I'm not aware of a financial ask from the city.

Uh that is separate from C RVA.

Mr.

Jones, if could you speak to that?

Is there a financial ask that will be coming in front of us?

I believe there will be a financial ask what the magnitude is.

I don't know.

Um it would not be uh different than some other sponsorships that the city has had in the past.

So I think that's uh fair question, and right now I don't know what exactly that number would be.

Got it.

So okay.

So in the past where we have hosted large events, there have been have been a financial ask.

For an example, uh golf championship, right?

Um, but that has all come from the tourism bucket.

So I'm assuming this would be no different.

Is that correct?

I would um want to make sure that if we start talking about the tourism bucket, that um when we start to think about heads and beds and what would an event bring to the city.

Right.

And that's really where we start talking about uh tourism.

Uh and sometimes there have been general fund um carve outs for sponsorships also.

There has been general fund carve outs.

Yeah, I'm not sure that we didn't do the NAACP out of tourism.

Not sure if we did that at tourism out of the general fund.

Yeah, because now first let me thank Mr.

Bogwell for your leadership on the CRVA side of things.

I I appreciate you keep uh you're keeping things moving because the deadline is coming up fast.

Um but I guess in terms of the financial ask, I agree with my colleagues.

If there is an ask, then we need to be aware of that now, not later.

Um if there is a general fund ask, we need to have that conversation.

Like we should have had that conversation yesterday.

So I'm I'm getting concerned now.

Um not knowing what the ask will be and not knowing what source of funding, because we have so many other priorities when it comes to our general fund buckets.

So I would not be comfortable with touching the general fund bucket when we have affordable housing crisis, we need to spend money on public safety, infrastructure, economic development, workforce development.

So we need to be having this conversation about the source of funding.

I I wouldn't be okay with general fund.

Let me just say that out very clearly now.

So if there is an ask from general fund, I will not be voting for it.

Thank you.

Councilmember Graham.

Uh Mayor Pro Tim, uh, Madam Mayor.

Uh I'm extremely excited about this opportunity, and it's not an opportunity that I brought to the city.

It's an opportunity that the convention of visitors rule um booked and sourced for the city.

Uh the mayor asked me in 2024 to follow up on a letter that she received from Central City Production.

And so we've been in contact and communication with them since 2024.

Uh they came to town when the Spectrum Center was under renovation, and they took a look at both Bojangles and others auditorium for the 25 production.

Uh that was not suitable for their needs.

Uh, and so they uh they politely declined coming to the city.

Uh they came back in 25 after their renovations were completed at Spectrum Center, and the Carolina Theater was now open.

Uh they visited the community once again.

Uh they toured the arena, they toured the uh Carolina Theater.

Uh they fell in love with the investment that we made in both facilities uh to Louis Travel and Tourism to our city.

It is a national production, and so they are bringing to the city national sponsors as well.

And so they do they will be a sourcing and identifying local corporate support.

That process has already started and they've been pretty successful in doing so.

Uh there will be an axe.

And I spoke with the manager almost a year and a half ago uh about um and keeping him and the mayor updated every step of the way uh in reference to when they applied for the state funding, when they received the state funding, uh, and um the wonderful opportunity this would be for our community, and so has the NAACP and other conventions that have come to our town seeking financial support from the city or the county.

I don't see this being any different as well.

Uh and so in terms of the short period of time, uh it is not like a national convention.

It is a musical production, um, similar to when a concert comes to town, right?

There's a runway for the production to be executed.

They execute the production.

And so they don't need, and I'm speaking for them.

If I'm they don't need a two-year runway or a year runway to produce the event, right?

It's having a concert at the Spectrum Center or having a concert at Carolina Theater.

And so this is a tremendous opportunity for the city.

I think it's worthy of our investment in those dollars.

Again, those decisions will be made by the management and the management team based on our input, as we always have done.

And so I think those discussions will be coming forthwith as we go into our budget discussions, and I I look forward to supporting it.

Councilmember JD.

Thank you, Steve, for the presentation.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember Graham, uh, for the context.

Um for me, it's more purely out of curiosity, because I'm a new council member.

What does the process look like when a organization selects us as a city and there's a financial ask attached to it, right?

I I just want to know kind of like the procedural um steps.

Um I right to say that this would be the first music-centered event that the city would potentially financially support.

I'm not sure if they're not going to be able to do that.

Sure.

So many years we've had a half million dollars that we have put into shout.

To shout.

Yes.

That has musical production into it.

Well, yeah, but again, it it's the programmatic aspect is musical, but it's an event for the city that happens to be a musical event.

So it could be the NAAP convention, or it could be uh the Stellar Awards, or it can be the CIAA, which is basketball and um etc.

Right.

The genre that we're talking about is is music specific.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um if there's a memo or something in terms of like procedures when when organizations choose us as a city and like what the process looked like, I I think uh myself and I I apologize if I'm speaking for my other two new council members.

I think that would be helpful for us to understand.

Um as well as um there is a mentioning of it, uh Councilmember Graham.

Uh you said a year and a half ago, the conversations with had with mayor, the mayor and the city manager.

No, what I said was every step of the way since 2024, when there was a milestone decision to be made, both the manager office and the mayor's office were informed.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

I purely out of curiosity and wanting to understand the process better.

Thank you.

Council Member Wattlett.

Thank you, sir.

I'm going to just double down on a couple of questions because I want to make sure I'm clear too.

Um, from a process standpoint.

When we talked about milestone decision, or yeah, milestone decisions, can you help me understand what decisions have been made to date as it relates to the key milestones that we the city were was actually involved in versus what CRBA might have been involved in?

Uh uh none, right?

Because it's clearly a CRVA booking of the event.

The initial inquiry from Central City Production came into the mayor's office.

The mayor handed off to me as the chairman of the economic development committee, follow up with this to see where it goes.

It went to an initial visit from Central City Product in 2024, who looked at our older facilities that was not acceptable to them.

They said no.

They came back in 25 when both the Spectrum Center was back online and the Carolina Theater was open, and they said we like what we see.

A milestone step was when Steve informed me that, hey, they're going to apply for the state funding, right?

I informed the mayor and the manager that they're going to apply for state funding.

Uh when they receive state funding, and they got it the week of Christmas, I looked at a text, I text the manager on Christmas Day, thanking him for the rum cake that is my fake.

And say, oh, by the way.

Oh, by the way, they got the state funding almost $950,000.

In January, when they said they were coming to the city to make a decision, a milestone point, I informed the mayor and the manager that they're coming, and Mr.

Mitchell at that point, because he was then the new chairman of this the AD committee, that they had made a decision that they wanted to embrace Charlotte and they're coming to the city to the city.

So those milestone decisions in terms of steps along his process.

There was nothing for the city to do other than me as the chairman that now former chairman of the X uh Economic Development Committee is to foster the relationship with them while Steve and Mr.

Bagwell book the business.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

That's helpful context.

So in terms of booking the business specifically.

So uh just a better understanding of the state money.

Uh huh.

This would be a reimbursement of expenses to support the event that take place in the state of North Carolina.

What we got approval for was for stellar wards to be or central city to be reimbursed for the for that spending in the state up to that amount.

Okay.

And I think my council member colleague had a question just to clarify.

What is the the nature of the business of Central City Productions as a nonprofit?

Is it a for-profit?

For profit.

Okay.

All right.

And then that they're running the awards show through.

Okay.

So it's the nonprofit arm that the reward show is being run through.

Got it.

Okay.

So when it comes to the I would assume you've seen the pro forma for the whole event, or you're just waiting on an ask.

We we've seen we've seen the activity that's associated with the event, yes.

The reason I asked the question is because I'm wanting to understand two questions.

It's uh first of all, how much money is what is the request at this point, four months out, I would think that rooms have been booked by attendees, the talent has been booked, there's some sort of external promotion that's already gone on, so the the event is baked.

Right.

So whether or not the city supports sounds like it's not a make or break of whether or not this event happens.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Well, the CRBA's uh contribution to the organizing the event was to get the state funding in place.

We also have uh a small business development grant that the CRVA is providing to support operations for still rewards.

So um that's the extent of what we're leading to support the event financially.

And so that's C RBA, but we're talking about uh city investment too.

Right.

So is this I'm trying to get a sense of is this gap financing or but for the city investment, is this event still going to go on?

Yes, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Um so given that then I don't have to ask about contingency because it sounds like the plan is already there.

So discussion is what do we as the city want to contribute, which leads me to my next, which leads me to my next question then.

Um if you already have the dollars, is I I'd be interested, you don't have to answer this right now.

I'd be interested to know what kind of what meaningful support looks like.

It may not necessarily even be cash at this point, it may be something else.

And I feel like that conversation still needs to be had uh because we don't want to just be throwing money at folks if that's not really what the need is, if the need is more so something else, how do we amplify it?

How do we create additional partnership, how do we help expand the event or do whatever it is?

It sounds like that conversation still needs to happen.

Am I thinking about that correctly?

Uh uh I I think there are a number of ways that we can support them being successful in Charlotte.

Uh being a financial partner will be one of them.

Right.

For sure.

Right.

And and I submit to you that I think we should be a financial um partner, and that's a discussion that we need to have with the manager.

Um that we probably won't resolve today.

Yeah, and I'm not opposed to that.

I just would like to know what those dollars would be driving that would make the event significantly different than what it already is today.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Ashmare.

Thank you.

Uh based on my colleagues' questions and discussion, I feel like we need to have a policy on ask when we have major events like this, right?

We have a tourism fund for a reason.

So when we are bringing tourism activity, uh, we should be looking at tourism fund to bring more tourism dollars.

So I know that tourism dollar looks at number of bags, the economic impact and all of that, but that gives some sort of certainty to event host.

And right now we don't have a policy that I'm aware of, Mr.

Mitchell.

So I think there needs to be a policy that we need to work on so that we are applying the same standards for all major events that come to our city.

Uh and I was gonna ask what if question, but I think Councilmember Watlington did a great job because usually we ask what if for any incentives, but the answer is pretty clear in this case that they've already chosen the Queen City.

How can we be a partner using our tourism bucket and CRVA, who's been a great partner who helps us bring great events to our city?

How can we support them to be successful in the Queen City?

So I hope that you will continue to find race to help support them as well as I know there have been other asks that have come our way and that I have sent your way.

And uh I appreciate the work you and your team have done to support not just large but also mixed size as well as smaller events that come to our city that brings tourism.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mayfield.

Thank you, Ma'am Protel.

Manager Jones, I hope you're hearing that some of us are saying we need uh actual process laid out.

I think us being able to host the seller awards would be an amazing opportunity.

The concern I have is this timeline because as was mentioned, as the former chair of the economic development committee, which the mayor has done it with multiple chairs, her schedule gets crazy.

She said, Hey, can you have this meeting?

We're saying this conversation started back in 2024.

We're getting a presentation that came on the heels of us seeing media response, press conferences that were done before council actually had a discussion, and still don't really know what the ask is.

So having an actual process in place, and it's a little confusing for me to compare to like a concert.

Cardi B was here last night.

She sold out, so she didn't ask for no money.

Um edition Belle Bill DeBoe and Tony Braxton was here two weekends ago.

They ain't asked for no money.

The Love and Life concert.

What they asked for from us was security and police assistance in Uptown.

They didn't ask us for any money.

NAACP image awards asked us for money.

We sought out and seek out the CIAA championship.

We sought and applied and had to show that we can raise the money needed in order to win National League of Cities to come back.

So having a consistency would be helpful, but to have a conversation now to say, well, Manager Jones, you were aware of this conversation for more than a year, and that it was just stated that you were a part and received updates, whatever those updates were, but your full council is getting this information tonight on April the 13th, still without a clear ask when this thing is three months away.

If it is a hospitality and tourism, then let's identify that bucket.

If it's something other than, then just let it, you should be able to tell us this is how much corporate dollars we've already raised.

So here's the ask.

Is the ask 250 because that's what we gave to the last people, and if we're using the logic of, well, we gave this organization this amount, so we're gonna ask for the same amount.

Let's create a process moving forward so future councils don't have to have these conversations.

If it's a specific but for, which we just said wasn't a but for, then what is that amount?

Because we I'm not saying I don't want to support.

And not only that, our leadership with CRVA when they go out and do PGA and all of that, that's still a year plus in advance before when they come and say, Here's what we asking for.

So the concern is that this started in 2024.

They got their first, they received the allocation from the state 2025.

We now in April, there was opportunities for us to be aware prior to us just seeing a press release and or an announcement or seeing something posted on social media that council was not fully aware of.

City manager go right in.

So thank you, Councilmember Mayfield.

Two things are really important.

One, this is a CRPA event.

And uh Steve has done a great job with this event as a part of that event.

Um there has not been an ask from CRVA to me regarding any types of sponsorship.

Okay.

I think what's also important is um let's think about the world military games.

It's out there, and I would be shocked if there wasn't an ask of the council with that.

Okay.

So I think I think uh Councilmember Ashmer said it best.

Um, or I'm sorry, it may have been Dr.

Wattlington.

There will be something of value that's good for the council that's a good investment.

But up to this point, there hasn't been an official ask of a particular amount for an investment.

And the military gains will be actually asked for money.

I expect them to be sent since so team.

Uh what did the last speaker we have is Councilmember May uh Mayo?

Joy.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

Um, I would just ask that if it's possible for the economic development committee to work on this protocol and procedure for this.

Um I would ask that um as a chair, maybe that's something you do when you can present it to us in a in a couple months, and then we just hold everybody accountable.

So, you know, peer pressure.

Um as a former middle school teacher, I I know that can be uh a good tool.

So I think holding each other accountable for following the procedures that we come in, we create is essential.

So sorry, so can I request a referral to create this procedure in the economic development committee?

Thank you so much.

That need to be in a form of a motion, or just that that need to be in the form of a mo was that in the form of a motion, or we just the manager second.

Let's do it.

Let's let's do it strictly be transparent.

There's a motion by councilmember mayo, second by councilmember mayfield.

All those in favor of the motion, raise your hand.

Oh, the motion is do a referral to economic development committed about a process to recruit to recruit events to seek funding from the city.

A process to recruit events.

We fund.

I think you should say and fund it.

Yeah, it's funded.

Yes.

All those in favor, raise your hand.

All those opposed.

Okay.

I severed.

Thank you for the referral.

Okay.

Steve, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thanks, Steve.

So here's what we need to do.

Team, here's what we need to do in our audience.

Um, I'm gonna turn on the city attorney.

We're about to go to closed session.

And those who are part of Project Ace, could you stay here?

If you're not part of Project H, we appreciate you being here, and we'll see you in the diet.

So city attorney, can you make the motion for us to go in closed session, please?

Mayor Purse Ham, I'll read the motion, and a member will need to adopt the motion.

So the motion is to go into you want me to do for you.

You want me to do for a vote now?

Wait, yes, so which one are you going first?

Do you all mind?

Uh yeah, we need to.

I'm gonna read just for the economic development matter.

Okay, yes.

Mayor Party, the motion is to go into closed session pursuant to NCGS 143-318.1A4 to discuss matters relating to the location or expansion of industries or other businesses in Charlotte, including agreement on a tentative list of economic development incentives that may be offered by the public body in negotiations.

We need that motion.

There's a motion made.

Is there a second?

Second, all those moved.

Okay.

Council member ones made a motion second by council member mayfield.

All those in favor going to close sessions, raise your hand.

Good evening, everyone.

Like to call the order this city council business meeting.

Um, like to thank everyone for joining us in person, those 8,000 people who are joining us watching online for our April 13th business meeting.

Now let's begin with introductions around the dais, starting with our super hornets fan, our city clerk.

Yes, good evening, Stephanie Kelly, City Clerk, Andrea Leslie Fight, City Attorney.

Good evening, Dimfala Shmera at large.

Good evening.

I'm Victoria Wattlington, and I have the pleasure of serving you as a member at large.

Councilmember Joy Mayo, representing District 3.

Dante Anderson, District 1.

Marcus Jones, City Manager.

James Venture, Mayor Pro Tim.

Kimberly Owens, representing District 6.

Ed Driggs, District 7.

Good evening, Lawana Mayfield, Councilmember at large.

Good evening, JDMA Sueda Adias, probably representing the East Side District 5.

We'll begin our meeting with an implication, expression or inspiration, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

The invocations are intended to solemnize our proceedings.

We celebrate the religious diversity of our community, including those without a religious faith.

Tonight Councilmember Dr.

Wallington would give our invocation.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor Pro Tim.

Um let us pause before we begin.

We gather today as stewards of a city in motion, a city growing faster than our fame work than our frameworks were designed to handle, and calling us towards something greater than routine.

So we ask today for the gift of courage, not the absence of uncertainty, but the willingness to move faithfully within it together.

We ask for fresh eyes, the grace to look at familiar challenges and remain genuinely curious, to ask why, and to ask it in a spirit of discovery rather than dispute.

And we ask for the wisdom to remember that the people who sent us here are trusting us to build something worthy of them, honoring what they've built and open to what's possible.

May our work today be marked by rigor and openness, by the kind of honest, elevating discourse that this moment and the city deserves.

May we hold the complexity without being paralyzed by it, and may we leave this room having moved Charlotte just a little closer to what it could be.

Thank you.

Let us please stand and join us in the Pledge Allegiance.

Now ask all council members to remain standing.

Oh, yeah.

And I would like each one of us to pick up our number one Charlotte Hornets.

And in the spirit of cheering on our hornets in the play-in game, this council on the countless three.

I forgot what we said.

I got it.

One, two, three.

Let's go.

All right.

Now we have awards and recognition, and for the first one, the National Arbor Day, I would like to turn it over to Councilmember Mayo to read our first proclamation.

Councilmember Mayo.

Thank you.

I pulled it over.

Whereas urban forestry is a very important municipal responsibility.

Providing countless benefits to the city of Charlotte, including enhancements of the quality of life, and whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water, cut heating and cooling costs, moderate temperature, cool the air, produce oxygen, and provide with wildlife.

Provide for wildlife.

And whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of our business areas, and beautify our community.

And whereas trees, wherever they are planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal.

And whereas Charlotte has been recognized for the 46th consecutive year, 2025, as a tree city USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation, and desires to continue its tree planting ways.

In Charlotte, and urge all citizens to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands, support our city's urban forestry program, and plant trees to gliden the hearts and promote the well-being of present and future generations.

Witness my hand in the official seal of the city of Charlotte.

So this is from the mayor.

Thank you, guys.

Okay.

Do we have anyone here from National Officer?

Would you mind coming down and Councilmember Mayo?

Can you take your time coming down?

It's very steep.

Oh my God.

Thank you so much for being here and appreciate your patience.

Councilmember Mayo would greet you.

Thank you, Councilmember Mayo.

Yes, sir.

Yay!

Okay.

It's National Library Week.

And I'm now turning it over to Councilmember Dr.

Wattlington for the next proclamation.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

So I'm excited to be reading this proclamation because I am one of those kids that could usually be found in the library, right?

Um there we always had our free time, and a lot of kids would go outside, and certainly I was no stranger to recess, but one thing I love to do is go into the library.

And to this day, I am a hard copy girl.

I want to turn the pages.

I want a dog ear them.

I want to mark them up.

Um, and so from practicing the Dewey Decimal system to using the projector in the back, I love the library.

Um, and the the technology in the library, of course, has changed over the years, right?

Um, I don't know how many of you were in the library recently, but you'll notice that oftentimes you'll see fewer books and more computers and more digital learning spaces, more collaborative spaces, more co-working spaces, and I think that's a good thing, right?

I think that um the purpose of the library is to is to educate and is to convene, right?

And provide that community space.

And as long as it's doing that, um, I think it continues to be a vibrant part of our community.

And we are very blessed that our Charlotte Mecklenburg library system not only houses our books and our digital um our digital library, by the way, if you don't have the Libby app, download it, okay.

It's excellent.

You have access to all of it with your library card, you have access to all of the um all of the database and the inventory across Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, and so that's an excellent way to expand your your repertoire.

Um, but beyond just the books and the media, um, our library has demonstrated partnership through our community in several different ways, whether it's through corridors of opportunity, how many of y'all know how many branches of the library we have?

Not these two.

I'm about to say that's right.

Within our service area, there are 21 branches of the library.

And how many of you can tell me how many of our corridors of opportunity have a library?

Um five.

What if I told you that all six corridors of opportunity have a library?

That's significant because, like I said, not only does the library provide a place to come and study, but it's also a key uh connection and arm into the community.

So from digital equity and technology tutoring for adults to immigrant uh immigrant innovation and the welcome CLT initiative to supporting unhoused populations and to workforce development programs, um, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library system is doing the work.

And if you haven't been to the Burst and Vino, you are missing out.

Okay.

Um, so with that, I will read the proclamation.

Um, whereas Charlotte Mecklenburg Library serves as a vibrant community hub, connecting people with knowledge, technology, and resources, fostering civil engagement, critical thinking, and cultural enrichment, sparking creativity, fueling imagination, and inspiring lifelong learning.

And whereas the library provides free and equitable access to books, digital tools, and innovative programming, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of background, have the support they need to learn, connect, and thrive.

Protects the right to read, think, and explore without citizenship.

I'll say it again, without citizenship, and stands as champions of intellectual freedom and free expression.

Whereas the library's dedicated workers provide welcoming spaces that inspire discovery, collaboration, and creativity for all, nurture young minds through story times, STEAM programs, and literacy initiatives, foster curiosity and a love of learning that lasts a lifetime, while offering a space where individuals of all ages can find joy through exploration and discovery.

Now therefore, be it resolved that Vi Laues, Mayor of the City of Charlotte, recognizes April 19th through 25th, 2026 as National Library Week in Charlotte and encourages all residents to visit a Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Branch, explore its resources, and celebrate all the ways that the library helps our community find joy.

And I'd like to invite uh interim CEO Angie Myers and Board of Trustees Tracy Montrose to come on down and receive the proclamation.

I might get in trouble, but they already fired me.

This is my last meeting anyway.

So but can you please give us a picture?

Go to the microphone, please, Miss CEO, and uh make some brief comments.

Oh it's not already late.

Thank you.

Oh, she she didn't know.

Yeah, they're doing hugs and going up.

They don't want to see there.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Um, well, thank you, first of all, for the recognition tonight.

Um, Councilmember Wadlington, your words were beautiful.

Um, we need you to write our scripts for our future meetings.

That was excellent.

Um, really, I just want to thank you all for this recognition.

We are your Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.

15 of our 21 branches are within the City of Charlotte.

So we are here to serve just like you are.

Um, we are so grateful for the many investments you have already made in our services and the impact that we've had together.

We hope to do more of that in the future.

We're always willing to brainstorm and be courageous and think of new and creative ways to serve together.

So reach out anytime.

And um, I want to thank Mary Pro Tem Mitchell as well for attending our inaugural uh state of the library event back in January.

It's the first annual one, so I hope to see more of you there this year.

And speaking of this year, our beautiful impactful new main library of opportunity will open in April of 2027, and you all will have many, many chances to get involved over the next year and get excited for that.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

So now, council, we are approaching our public hearing section of our agenda.

Item number eight, the public hearing is on the housing and community development fiscal year 2027 annual action plan.

Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers?

No, sir.

Okay.

Do I have a motion to close?

Then made by Councilmember Dregs.

Is there a second?

Second, second by council member JD.

All those in favor, close the public hearing, please raise your hand.

All those opposed.

Thank you.

Now we're going to move to the policy section.

And the first item is the city manager report.

City manager.

So thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

I'll yield my time to Council Member Mayfield.

So we can have an update from the Housing Trust Fund recommendations.

Thank you, Manager Jones.

So first, I would like to acknowledge the housing and neighborhood services team that is my colleagues, Councilmember Renee Johnson, as well as Councilmembers Joy Mayo, Councilmember Kimberly Owens, my council member, my SWATA audio, and what we're going to be listening to is our staff representing is going to be presenting recommendations for affordable housing development support in response to the reason recent housing trust fund request for proposals.

This is the third funding cycle following the approval of our initial 100 million dollar housing bond and council's adoption of the affordable housing funding policy.

We received a total of 18 proposals in the categories of rental housing production, home ownership, and innovation.

The request for new multifamily development exceed the funding that remains in the housing trust fund for that category, which is approximately 11.2 million.

Staff's recommendations tonight are based on the financial feasibility and alignment with the investment priorities in our funding policy.

They have negotiated funding amounts and affordability terms to bring us a slate of recommendations that if we approve them, would deliver around 479 rental units and 214 home ownership units while staying within the allocation goals set by our council policy.

Following tonight's presentation, staff will provide detail information on each application in our council packets that we'll receive on Thursday.

And I am going to be reaching out because we're planning to have a special housing committee meeting to discuss the proposals next week.

So I'm gonna be reaching out to the committee so that we can have an additional meeting because we're scheduled for council to vote on these funding recommendations.

The schedule right now is identified for April 27th.

So with that, I am going to turn this over to the amazing director of housing and neighborhood services, Miss Rebecca Hefner.

Thank you, Chair Mayfield, and good evening, uh members of council.

Um I wanna acknowledge you have your uh also amazing housing staff in the room, your assistant director Warren Wooten and your development services manager Michael Engelhart, along with um quite a number of your housing development partners who have stuck it out with you uh tonight, um, who are who were watching the clock and and uh wanna just appreciate um all of you for for joining us um this evening and for the partnership um that uh it requires to get this incredible work done.

So tonight I am going to share the staff recommendations for affordable housing development support in the current round of the housing trust fund.

As Chair Mayfield shared, this is our third round, and uh we received a total of 18 proposals, and um, and we're gonna go through go through those tonight.

You did receive in your council packet on April 2nd a memo and report summarizing the proposals that were received.

Housing committee reviewed uh uh the that summary and also talked through the proposal proposal evaluation process at their committee meeting last Monday, April the 6th.

And there's some of that information tonight that given the time constraints.

I'm gonna move through pretty quickly just in terms of the overall context setting so I can get right into the recommendations.

Um but I do want to invite um especially anyone watching who wants to know more about uh the house uh housing trust fund process to take a look at the committee meeting from um April 6th.

So your housing trust fund again provides gap financing for affordable housing uh developments and the the um you have you have a standing RFP process that uh that um uh we'll be talking about tonight as a reminder.

You also have separate rolling RFP processes for rental housing profession provides preservation and land acquisition.

So you do have a rental housing preservation item on your business agenda tonight following this presentation 1001 Tivola that we talked about back in March.

Uh, importantly for the round of uh applications in front of you today.

This winter RFP schedule aligns with the state's tax credit application deadlines in May.

So that does a couple of things that drives the it drives the schedule for our proposal and um your consideration.

Um it also means that you have a lot of tax credit applications in your pool.

Um, and so you'll see that tonight that the multifamily development proposals are all tax credit applications.

Um your staff go through an extensive evaluation process looking at each project for financial feasibility, but also uh looking at alignment with your affordable housing funding policy.

As a reminder, that policy sets three primary goals around economic mobility, neighborhood affordability, and residential stability, and your policy incorporates five investment priorities around vulnerable populations, location priorities, resident services, partnerships and leverage, and innovation.

So tonight, as I walk through the recommendations, I'll be touching on each of these items as it relates to the proposed recommendations, and then on Thursday, you will receive in your packet the infamous HTF booklet.

And then on Thursday, you will receive in your packet the infamous HTF booklet.

This is this is a this isn't your Thursday one.

This is an old version.

But this is what it looks like, and you'll have details on each development in that booklet, and it'll walk through an evaluation of each of these investment priorities.

So I've got two slides in here that give you a sense of where we are in relation to your uh allocation of the hundred million dollar housing bond.

Um this is this is you for for the visual uh processors, and then this slide will kind of break down the math by category.

So out of your 100 million dollar housing bond uh in your housing policy, you had allocation goals for specific categories, and this slide shows you where you stand with with the uh allocations and the balance.

So your current balance in the housing trust fund from the 2024 bond is just over 44.2 million dollars.

You also have a couple of open recommendations and RFPs.

Um that 3.5 million under rental housing preservation is again the Tyvola Road development that you'll be considering tonight, and then there's estimated holds for open RFPs for housing rehab and the administrative and evaluation components of the bond.

Those holds total around 9.1 million dollars, uh leaving you with an unprogrammed balance of just over 35 million dollars.

So your housing trust fund RFP schedule for this round.

The RFP was released on December 4th.

Proposals were due on January 30th, and then you had a council committee discussion and housing committee on April 6th.

We are here tonight for action preview on the 13th and with a city council vote planned for April 27th.

As Chair Mayor Chair Mayfield indicated, we're also working to schedule a special meeting of the housing committee that will take place the week of the 20th to dive deeper into the uh proposals.

All right, here's what here's where the slides start getting teeny tiny.

So this information was also provided uh as a summary in your packets, and you will see that on this slide there are only 16 uh proposed proposals, and we indicated that 18 came in, so two of those have been withdrawn.

You'll note that Cherry Gardens um is no longer on this list.

Cherry Gardens is, however, still planning to move forward.

Um they had they had a um relatively small ask of the housing trust fund, and staff were able to work with them to identify an alternate path forward where they could still make the project work without your funding.

Um so that project is still planned to uh to apply for um tax rehabilitation tax credits.

So again, a total of eight development under rental housing production, and then the majority of of the remainder as home ownership, and you had one proposal come in under the innovation category.

So uh what I'm gonna do for uh expediency's sake is cut to the cut to the punchline right here at the beginning and share with you that staff are recommending four of the rental housing production communities that is Mineral Springs Commons 2, Oak Valley Family, the Village at Greer Heights, and evoke living at Wallora Lake, and then we are recommending for uh approval all of the remaining home ownership developments.

Um so we'll be going through each of these uh tonight.

So Rebecca, let's slow down a bit since because I don't want us rushing through this.

What for are we are you saying that you're recommending?

So I will I will I will go through each of them, but I wanted to just summarize for you for now.

Um so the uh um row two, mineral springs commons, row four, oak valley family, row six, the village at Greer Heights, row seven, evoke living at Wallora Lake.

All of the home ownership applications we're recommending for approval.

We'll go through them one by one, but I wanted to give you the overview at the outset.

There's a map of the applications that is included in your in your packet.

And so that you can see the locations.

You received applications in a fairly broad range of geographies across the city.

For rental housing production, you did receive development proposals across council districts one through five.

And under home ownership, you also received an application in district six.

As a reminder, though, you did approve a housing trust fund allocation in District 7 in just the last round.

So one of the things that we're going to do for you in your booklets is to provide an overview of the investments as you've made them for the entirety of the 2024 bond so that you can see more than just this small piece of staff recommendations.

So I'm gonna move into the uh the recommended developments.

Again, I'll go through each of the recommended developments with you tonight.

Additional details are again in going to be included in your HTF booklet.

So the first two developments that we're recommending are both 9% tax credit projects.

So we discussed in housing committee last week about the importance of tax credits as a production uh engine for creating affordable housing and also the difference between the 9% and the 4% tax credits.

The 9% tax credits are a highly competitive process.

Um you have two of them in front of you tonight.

Um they they will go in May.

If you approve them, they will proceed to the state North Carolina Housing Finance Agency application process, and the process there is that they would be notified in August or September about funding.

So the first one is the village at Greer Heights.

So the village at Greer Heights is a planned 80-unit affordable housing community for seniors proposed by Dream Key Partners.

This is part of the master plan development of land owned by Mecklenburg County off of uh Randolph Road in the Greer Heights neighborhood.

This is a 14-acre site in the master plan on this county owned land is comprised of a mix of home ownership and rental communities.

In previous housing trust fund round, you all approved Ellington Town Homes, which was a 35 units of affordable home ownership on this site.

You also deferred a previous iteration of this development in uh in that round.

This round you received two proposals from Dreamkey for multifamily communities on this site.

Um, this one, the village at Greer Heights for Seniors, is recommended for approval, and the other is recommended to be deferred.

Uh you also received an additional home ownership application also on this site from Crossroads Community Development Corporation, which your staff is also recommending for investment, uh, which you'll see later in this presentation.

So this development plan and the partnership really reflects the coordinated investment of land funding and community partnerships that are intended to support long-term affordability.

So Mecklenburg County contribute contributing the land, including a long-term ground lease for this development and uh affordable uh conveyance of land for affordable home ownership and some infrastructure investment.

The city previously committed $2.2 million in funding through CDBG resources for site work at the entire 14-acre site, and also secured additional federal funding for the development through congressional appropriations.

There's an additional partnership in this master plan with Crossroads Community Development Corporation.

Um, as a community-based partner, they're helping to align the project with neighborhood priorities and to engage residents, and again, they also have a home ownership proposal in your slate of recommendations tonight.

So the overall funding recommendation for the village at Greer Heights is just over $3,000 $63,000.

Um you'll note here that your staff are recommending 2.763 fund of funding from the housing trust fund and $300,000 of federal home funds to make up that $3,063,000.

The unit mix provides 26% of the units at 30% and below of AMI.

That exceeds your HTF requirement of 20%, and nearly half the units are two bedrooms, which serves a gap in the senior market.

The development is proposed to be affordable for 99 years, which again is the longest allowable by state law and uh which makes this a very efficient investment at 287 dollars per unit per year.

So as I'm going through, I'm really just highlighting some of the things that are on the slide under the financial summary and the key indicators.

One thing to note is that the investment per unit, which is just over $38,000, is significantly lower than the previous application for this development, which came in a little over $20K per unit.

I think this is a great example of city and staff and county and our partners at DreamKey working together to create a more efficient proposal for this round.

This site you'll note under location summary receives a high location score.

It has access to transit, grocery pharmacy, medical care and retail services.

You'll note that the diversity scores is a little bit lower.

That reflects in part the higher number of housing trust fund investments nearby.

You'll note in the bottom right corner of key indicators, and this will be on on each slide, the number of housing trust fund investments within a half mile of the site.

This is a location indicator that you all have asked us in the past to add.

So you'll also see that on your maps in the in the housing trust fund booklet.

This site is served by the Route 15 bus line, and that is actually a bus line proposed as a 30-minute frequency under Better Bus.

So one of the things that housing committee asked asked staff to do is to evaluate the site scores under the future transit plan for both better bus and the light rail lines.

And while we were not able to actually calculate how that would change the location score with just a week's time, we were able to kind of estimate what that looks like.

For this particular proposal, your the proximity score for this site would actually reduce under the future under the future transit because of that 30-minute frequency of the bus line.

So one of the things that your policy has identified is the importance of resident services that can promote stability and mobility for residents living in the communities that the city supports.

In this community, resident services will be provided through partnerships with the Charlotte MacLenberg Library outreach department.

So our partners who were just here along with the Mecklenburg County Senior Nutrition Program.

So you the Housing Trust Fund requires one community meeting, and we have some parameters around making sure that notice notice is sent out and our partners are required to complete meeting minutes and share with us what they heard at those meetings.

So one there was not a large amount of attendance because this particular development has been proposed before, but notably one of the participants in the meeting shared that she had grown up in the neighborhood and is interested in staying there, and even asked if the um if she could go ahead and be added to the wait list for the development.

So I think it's just reflective of the kind of development that DreamKay and the County are trying to create at in Greer Heights, creating places where people can age in place even in a rapidly changing neighborhood.

The next proposal for you for your consideration is Mineral Springs Commons 2.

So this is your other 9% tax credit development that is recommended in this round for funding.

Mineral Springs Commons 2 is a planned 91 unit affordable housing community for seniors, proposed by Wesley Community Development Corporation.

As its name indicates, it is indeed phase two of the Mineral Springs Development.

The site is located at the intersection of Graham Street and West Sugar Creek Road.

It's fully leased and has a wait list, which indicates strong demand for additional housing there at the proposed community.

So the funding recommendation for Mineral Springs 2 is $1.1 million.

The unit mix provides 30% of units at 30% and below AMI, again, exceeding your HTF requirements of 20%.

And in this in this development provides 31% of the units with two bedrooms.

And combined with the low investment per unit makes this again a very efficient investment at $201 per unit per year of affordability.

So you think about the site, this site is located within the Sugar Creek I-85 corridor of opportunity.

The site itself receives a moderate site score.

With planned transit investments, the site score will improve both in proximity and access.

So that this site is served by the Route 22 bus line, which connects University City to Center City Charlotte and along Graham Street.

That's one of the bus lines that's proposed to increase to a 15 minute frequency under Better Bus.

The site's also adjacent to the Red Line Commuter Rail and within one mile of the proposed Derrida station.

The Mineral Springs Commons development is structured as a faith-based partnership.

So you'll see your faith in housing logo here on the slide indicating it as such.

So in this case, the Board of Trustees of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church serves as the ground leaseholder, remain retaining ownership of the land while enabling affordable housing development on the site.

Wesley Community Development Corporation serves as the leads the development activities.

This is the same development team that completed Mineral Springs One.

Resident Services development will include resident activities coordinated by the property management team.

And what I would say is this is fairly standard for a rental community.

We believe it could be potentially strengthened to better meet the intent of your funding policy.

So this is resident services is not the strongest part of this proposal, but with other strengths, the efficiency of the proposed investment.

Staff believes this offers a very strong value proposition for council.

Wesley CDC did meet the community engagement requirements for the housing trust fund.

Again, one participant that joined shared some concerns for the safety of the residents as they're crossing the street.

So the site is directly across the street from a Walgreens and then in the other direction from a food lion.

So one of the things we wanted to note is that it's also part of your West Sugar Creek strategic investment area.

So complete street upgrades are planned for both Graham Street and Sugar Creek at this intersection.

So in the future, it will be not only well served by transit but will but has planned complete street upgrades as well.

So those are your two 9% tax credit developments.

The next two are 4% tax credit developments, evoke living at Willora Lake and Oak Valley Family.

So Willora Lake is a planned 120-unit affordable housing community for seniors.

So this is your your third senior proposal in this round.

Proposed by CSE Communities, which is an affiliate of Crosland Southeast.

So you will likely recognize the Avoke Living Name.

And this proposed community follows a similar model and program.

So in addition to the five completed, Evoke Living at Eastland is also an affordable senior community that council invested in and is currently under construction at Eastland Yards, approximately a half a mile from this site.

The funding recommendation for Evoke Living at Wallora Lake is $5.85 million.

The proposed unit mix here includes 24 units at 30% AMI and below, which meets your HTF requirement and includes 40% of the units with two or uh two bedrooms.

The development period has a proposed affordability of 99 years and a more average investment per unit of uh just over 48,000.

So this is the highest investment per unit that you're going to see in this HTF round.

However, it is on par with your average investments over the last several years.

The site itself has a moderately high location score with proximity to medical groceries, financial services, shopping center, and a pharmacy.

It's served by a bus stop along North Sharon Amity connected to the 29 and 222 bus lines and within a half a mile of a stop on Central Avenue on the high frequency Route 9, which again will be enhanced with signal priority and enhanced stops under Better Bus.

So the site is located, and you'll be for very familiar with this from the rezoning, located in District 5 within the Central Albemarle corridor of opportunity.

So as you look at the location summary, it does have a lower diversity score, and that's reflective of the concerns that have been raised by community about lower household income in the surrounding area relative to other parts of Charlotte.

With its proximity to the transformative investment in Eastland Yards and a relatively high change score, which really indicates increasing construction activity, rising sales prices, and increased risks for displacement.

This development meets the location priorities of your affordable housing funding policy.

However, there was, of course, significant community concern raised about the proposed development during the community meeting and the recent rezoning process.

Much of what was recorded in the community meeting specifically for the HTF investment focused on traffic concerns, safety, potential neighborhood impacts, tree and open open space preservation, and overall lack of amenities in East Charlotte.

Ultimately, City Council approved that rezoning, enabling consideration of this housing trust fund request.

Related to the infrastructure and traffic safety concerns, it's worth noting that this location is part of the Albemarle Central Strategic Investment Area, which has a planned mobility hub and planned complete street upgrades along Sharon Amity Road.

In the near in the more near term, the site will benefit from both infrastructure improvements underway as part of the Eastland Yards redevelopment and proposed infrastructure improvements on the site by the developer.

This particular development includes several partnerships that are intended to support resident services and long-term affordability at the site.

As with other evoke living communities, the nonprofit Freedom Communities will serve as the primary owner, which provides both a property tax exemption for the development, but also allows the cash flow to support the work of freedom communities across Charlotte.

The development is planned on land to be acquired from the adjacent Charlotte Calvary Church of the Nazarene with a portion of sale proceeds supporting the church's community programs.

Currently, those include food pantry things such as food pantry, backpack ministry, and community enrichment services.

There's also a partnership with Kennedy Properties and Development that's planned to develop 11 market rate townhomes on the same site, which will be staged to transition from the multifamily community into the single-family community adjacent.

Resident services will be provided at Willora Lake by Apartment Life, similar to other Evoke Living Developments.

Apartment Life is a third-party provider and plan to provide services on a weekly basis funded through the property operations to support housing stability and encourage community engagement.

So more details on those type of services will be in your booklet.

The last recommended rental rental housing production development that staff will share tonight is Oak Valley Family.

Oak Valley Family is a planned 188-unit affordable housing community proposed by Horizon Development Properties.

Horizon is an affiliate of Enlivion.

They've also for this development engaged a partnership with Urban Atlantic.

This again is a 4% tax credit proposal.

The site for Oak Valley Family is located off of Green Oaks Lane that's tucked between Central Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue in District 1 adjacent to Briar Creek.

This community is also part of a larger development and replacement of the former 50-unit Oak Valley apartments, which now sits vacant.

So if you if you go out to that site, there were previously 50 units of housing provided by Enlivian.

The they are been around for quite some time and for safety issues were closed down and the residents were relocated, and now the site itself is fenced off and the buildings are vacant.

Also proposes a 76-unit senior community at this location, but they are not seeking housing trust fund investment for that particular community.

So again, Oak Valley Family is also a revision from a previous iteration of the project that you received in a previous round.

So much higher density and also a substantially higher public investment.

For this iteration of Oak Valley Family, the funding recommendation is 1.5 million dollars.

The unit mix provides 25% of units at 30% AMI and below, again, exceeding your HTF requirement.

One important thing to note about these 47 units at 30% AMI is they in Livian will utilize project-based vouchers that they have through HUD.

And so residents in these units will pay only 30% of their income on rent, even when allowable rents allowable rental rates increase in tax communities over time.

So those project-based vouchers enable them to further support stability of residents at the very low income.

As a family community, Oak Valley will provide 69% of units with two or more bedrooms, including 24 three-bedroom units.

Those will be distributed across each AMI level.

Again, indicating the increase in construction activity, rising home sales prices, and increased risk for displacement.

So if you've been if you've been on Oak Valley Lane, it's a lovely lovely residential street with indeed large and mature oaks.

That particular street is served by the 17 bus line directly in front of the community, but it's also located within a half mile walk of several stops on Central Avenue on the high frequency Route 9.

The site has the highest access score among the current recommendations, which reflects its proximity to center city, and also that access to the high frequency bus line.

The site itself actually presents limitations for development because of wetlands and floodplains.

But you know, it in another way of looking at that is fantastic.

It will also conserve 10 acres of the site as natural heavily forested green space preservation.

So they have plans to limit the impact on the land by avoiding the areas of environmental significance and then again conserving those 10 acres.

This is a program that offers voluntary individualized coaching and support for residents focused on economic mobility and housing stability topics such as employment readiness, financial literacy, education and training, asset building, and home ownership preparation.

So in Libyan as a partner has many of the same goals for economic mobility as the council has set out in your housing policy.

And primarily resident feedback noted appreciation for the revision to the overall site plan from previous iterations, including the reduction in density and building size, reduced parking and traffic concerns.

And one important thing to note as this was a former in Libyan previous community former residents of Oak Valley apartments who had been relocated, receive priority to return to the new development upon completion if they wish.

So those are your four multifamily recommendations.

The proposals from your development partners were within the funding amount still available in your home ownership category.

And upon evaluation from staff, we believe that they are all good candidates for your investment.

So this is again a reflection of your staff putting forward the full slate of recommendations that came in for home ownership.

I'll go through these much more quickly than your multifamily ones because those you have you know we had a valuation and and a limited number we could bring forward to you to stay within that 11.2 million dollar cap.

Billingsley home ownership is a planned 21 unit home ownership community proposed by Crossroads Community Development Corporation.

As noted earlier, this is part of that master plan development on county-owned land in Greer Heights.

The recommended investment is $1,050,000, and it's proposed to serve households at 50, 60, 70, and 80% AMI.

You can see the breakdown of units here on the information on the slide and the information in front of you.

The affordability period for Billingsley is proposed as 15 years.

So one thing I will note is all of your home ownership developments will have the same proposed years of affordability at 15 years.

Each of your partners handles the affordability terms for home ownership a little bit differently.

So I'll talk about that as we go through.

But the baseline is 15 years, and that is intended to balance wealth building for the first-time homeowner, but also the uh investment per year and to maintain home ownership opportunities at affordable levels over time.

Your next uh recommended development is the South Kriegler duets.

Um, this is a planned six-unit home ownership development composed Rebecca.

I hate to interrupt, but I want to yield to council member.

Please do.

Thank you.

So, Rebecca, I have wished we had were able to do this earlier, and since we're looking at the time, this is a lot of information that we were planning on sharing with everyone.

So I think we have an opportunity since everyone has the PowerPoint.

I think it might be helpful since we're gonna be working to get a meeting on the books next week for the committee for us to detail, but I think it will be helpful to highlight now mainly the faith how how do we identify what's considered faith in housing?

It's almost 10.

I hate us cutting short our presentation because there's a lot in here, but with us having to meet being able to have a meeting next week, we'll be able to keep the community engaged.

Absolutely.

How about I just run through the um the names and unit number of these home ownerships, which will take me right to the summary slides, which will give you the context of the overall recommendations that would be very helpful too.

Excellent.

All right.

So this is West Side Community Land Trust, six units, Hovis Road, Prosperity Alliance and True Homes Foundation.

This these are partners in the Faith in Housing Initiative, 39 units.

That they built legacy at Paul Creek, Kingdom Development Partners.

This is 23 units of affordable but also 54 units of market rate at this site.

Avaline at Prosperity Church, a dream Dream Key Partners proposal, 16 townhome units, Zion Hills, which is a habitat for humanity proposal, 20 uh 20 units of home ownership.

One thing to note about the home the home ownership model for habitat, you'll see the note that the effective period of restrictions is 45 years.

Proposed to accommodate 65 affordable uh home ownership units and Westeria Drive in district six expected to accommodate at least 24 home ownership units.

And so again, details about about each of those will be provided in your booklets and committee will have a chance to ask additional clarifying questions.

So when when you get to the summary, then uh staff is recommending tonight four multifamily communities totaling 11,213,000.

That is the exact dollar amount available in the balance in that category in the housing trust fund.

Um and you'll you you may recall um as we discussed village at Greer Heights that we were recommending $300,000 in home funds.

That was so that we could accommodate the needs of that project, but not go over the amounts in your allocation goals.

Um we had just about that much money left in home funding.

And then in home ownership 9.654 million for a total recommendation of over 20 million dollars.

Um it's important to note when when you're looking at AMI levels, what that means in terms of rent and sales prices, that slide gives you that this slide gives you that information.

But as Chair Mayfield noted, um, even with just over 11 million dollars remaining in the housing trust fund, um, your staff did a fantastic job negotiating um getting costs down for particular projects, extending affordability terms, and with with that um providing a recommendation that could create 479 rental units and 214 home ownership units.

So this is the current um housing trust fund balance and a look at the forecast if these recommendations were approved.

Again, much like the manager provides his budget to you in in May and hands it over to you at that point for for your um for for you to work with uh the same is true here.

Your staff tonight are providing recommendations for the way that developments meet your uh affordable housing funding policy, and tonight we turn it then over to you.

The the current recommendations for nine percent uh developments is 7.35 million.

It's important to break this out because again, these if approved by council would then go to uh the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency for approval, and they those would be awarded in August September time frame.

So there have been times in the past where uh where you put where you approve a recommendation that then doesn't receive an award from the state, those funds would then revert to the housing trust fund balance for you to reallocate.

Uh so the ending balance then, if these recommendations were to be approved, would be 20 just over 23.3 million dollars.

As a reminder, however, you do have these holds for open RFPs and committee recommendations.

So if all of those moved forward, that would leave your housing trust fund balance at just over 14 million dollars.

So next steps again on Thursday, the HDF booklet will be delivered with detailed project information in your Thursday packets.

Um we're tentative but working on the definitive right now, the week of the 20th, Chair Mayfield will host a special meeting of the housing committee on April 27th, council will vote on staff's recommendations at a council business meeting.

And then what we have proposed with Chair Mayfield is that in the May committee meeting on May 4th, Housing Committee would have an opportunity to ref review the deferred multifamily proposals.

And you have also received two NOAA applications to your uh revol um your rolling RFP that have come in but are not reflected yet in your recommendations here tonight.

So if you were to approve um this slate of recommendations, there would still be uh several other other developments to review.

Um and so we've proposed that housing committee can take a look at those on May 4th.

As a reminder, especially for those watching, this is still a long process ahead of us to bring new units online.

If the council were to approve developments on April 27th, there's financial closings, design and permitting processes, and construction.

Typically, we're looking at a um 12 to 24 month timeline to bring new construction units online.

And it's late, but I am here for you.

So if you have questions, um I'm ready.

Rebecca, thank you.

We're gonna I'm gonna yield to the committee chair.

Uh I have Councilmember Mayfield, the chair, councilmember JD, Councilmember Mayo.

Councilmember Edgemere.

If it's okay, I will like to defer to my committee members to go and I'll go less.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember JD.

Yeah, thank you so much, Rebecca.

I really appreciate it.

And as always, thank you so much for breaking down the numbers.

Um I just have uh a few bit of concerns um that I had posed at the committee meeting, right?

When did the housing trust fund applications close?

The application closed on January 30th, I believe.

30th.

Okay, and can you provide some clarity or clarification around when folks apply for the housing trust fund?

Are they supposed to have their rezoning if they have if they need a rezoning approved by the time the application closes?

Under your current uh RFP, the uh site control and appropriate rezoning, which are your two baseline requirements, uh, are required to be in place before council receives and votes on recommendations.

So you do have a situation in this round where you received an application from Willora Lake on January 30th, and the rezoning was not complete until March.

The because the rezoning was approved, it then made this that development eligible for housing trust funding.

Thank you.

Um for my committee members, um, I think it would be sound and reasonable for us to evaluate that policy in our recommendation because what we see often um and not only during this council but the previous council is developers submitting the application before the rezoning is approved.

And it oftentimes leads to this false assumption that they are guaranteed housing trust fund dollars when that is not the case.

And so when they do go to the community and they make the pitch to the community that this is going to be affordable housing, and it's gonna use housing trust fund dollars, that's misleading, right?

It's misleading to the community, it's confusing to council.

This is not a clear kind of uh explanation out there that says that what Rebecca just explained of very eloquently that you know they need to have the rezoning approved before it comes to council, right?

I don't think it's fair.

I don't think it it really uh sets up for a competitive landscape with other developers that might also be novel to this business and have this same, I think, ability to compete for these uh housing trust fund dollars.

The other thing is um really I I thank you so much for showing the the score um and uh the what's it called the location summary score.

Um I I think for me is you know, some of these developments uh including one in my district.

I mean, it's the most expensive per unit coupled with significant community concerns plus a site point five miles away.

That is the same concept.

It is the I mean it is literally the same development at Eastland Yards.

I think again, committee members, um, we should look at at kind of that location summary and how we can make sure that it is equitable not only within the district, where as I've mentioned before, I have sounded sounded the alarm multiple times.

By reconcentrating low-income communities with low-income housing, right?

Um, not that I am against affordable housing, I am pro affordable housing.

I'm more necessarily pro-affordable housing equity, meaning that we have to couple affordable housing with high opportunity zones, right?

And if we're coupling affordable housing with areas that lack amenities, then we're just repeating the same cycles that we're trying to build our way out of.

And so I just want to leave that for a free for thought.

Thank you so much, Rebecca.

Thank you, Councilmember Jitty.

Councilmember Mayo.

Yeah, uh, this actually is a bit aligned with what JD is talking about.

So I thought this was a great presentation.

I was a little disappointed that the river district mixed income was not part of the recommendations, particularly as I know Councilmember Mayfield and I have talked often that we don't want River District to become another Ballantine.

Um I think Oh, sorry, no, no shade.

Calm down it.

But yeah, we we want to make sure that there are opportunities for everyone to be able to live there, not just uh our most affluent residents.

Um so that is something I'll be talking to a lot of my colleagues about.

Um, and JD, that I mean, that for your project, I know that was two years they have to go through the housing trust fund potentially.

So maybe that's the conversation we have.

We pass on Wallora like maybe this year.

Sorry, I don't know if there's a question of me, just chatting.

Um, and then we think about reallocating some of those funds to River District, and we still haven't even talked about innovation.

So there's still, you know, 4.2 million dollars that would be allocated there that could go to some of that river district.

But I I just want us to make sure we're not making the same mistakes we've made previously, um, and the fact that the river district was not on there is concerning.

If I may, Mayor Proach, I'm just um clarifying about the the developments that you don't see recommended.

Um so I I in my in my haste at the end, I skipped over this part, which is again you'll see all the detail on those developments as well.

Um, one of the ways that your staff prioritized recommendations tonight is based on um uh the time proposed time to construction.

We want to get units um moving quickly, and we were also uh um careful to stay within the and uh the amount that you have allocated for each investment, but those again are not hard caps.

So you have the uh the those um ability to discuss um uh the remaining funds and the housing trust fund and specifically for river district, uh the the first uh phase of that was just recommended in your previous housing trust fund round um and and has not closed yet.

Um, and so staff um uh uh look looks at that as a you know uh one of the factors in what kind of recommendations that we bring forward.

And so um the the other the other development uh Nevin Road is also a tax credit development.

Um again, deferred, they are not declined.

These are good um projects with strong value propositions, um, as well as the other multifamily community uh proposed by DreamKey at the Macomer County site.

So again, we're primarily um attempting to bring forward recommendations that fit within your allocation categories.

Um the last thing to note on your innovation proposal, which we didn't discuss, we're also recommending that for deferral.

Um it's an it's an exciting idea.

Um modular single-family homes with ADUs proposed by West Charlotte Land Trust.

However, there's no the specific sites identified yet, and so our recommendation on that one is actually to defer it under innovation, work with the um partner to identify sites and then bring it back to you as a homeownership proposal.

Thank you.

Councilmember Esmere.

Thank you.

I agree with some of the comments that's been made by my colleagues.

Um I think clearly we have an opportunity here to recommend a proposal where we do not have community opposition, where and clearly uh we need more affordable housing in river district because otherwise it will become an area where it's out of reach for many people.

So I would be hearing more from the committee.

I look forward to committee's recommendations.

Um at some point we do need to address location policy.

Yeah, because I think we at the Dais have talked about location multiple times, and unless we change the policy, we're not going to see different recommendations from staff.

So I hope that we can refer that item to the committee.

So do I need to make a motion to refer the location policy to the housing committee?

Sure.

Rezoning.

No, the location policy.

Well, one thing to note is that the overall affordable housing funding policy is already an open referral to the housing committee and location priorities and the location score are a component of that discussion.

The committee has talked about that actually already twice.

Um, and just for your consideration, that overarching policy is already active in committee.

Okay, so yeah, I because council member Masra Res as well as Councilmember Mayfield, we talked about some of the concerns around the rezoning last week, and we need to see different results, especially recommendations from staff that address those concerns.

Uh, because if you truly want to tackle affordable, we cannot tackle affordable mobility if we keep concentrating affordable housing in one or two parts of our city.

In fact, uh one MAC also reached out to us and they advocated for having affordable housing distributed throughout the city, especially close to great schools in district six and district seven specifically, uh, so that we can really tackle affordable mobility uh crisis.

Also, I want to thank uh Habitat for Humanity for the great work that you are doing to be to give people a shot at American Dream, especially housing, and also I see Dream Key Partners as well as Laurel Street.

Uh, thank you for the work that you do.

And that's all I have.

Councilmember Owens.

Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity.

I'll be brief.

I um first and foremost, I'll say if you are looking for a spot for an ADU, my backyard in District 6 would be one that you can consider.

But I just I want to go back to this um evoke living at Willora Lake because I I I may be misremembering, but did we not approve the rezoning contingent on them getting housing trust fund dollars and then it would revert back to what it was if they didn't get the dollars?

No, the the rezoning is a is a separate and distinct process.

So the rezoning um uh so it gets I understand that I I thought that they had said that they would revert to so what what they had indicated as a community uh benefit is that they would be proposing affordable housing on the site, and they indicated that they would they would try for that for two rounds, at which point it could they they would be pursuing development at that increased density at but with no affordability restrictions.

Okay, thank you.

I just want I appreciate that.

So it was two rounds, so okay, got it.

Thank you.

That's all I had so I think Madam Chair, bring us home.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim, and thank you, all of you, for your comments and Rebecca for the presentation.

I will share that I'm looking forward to us having an additional meeting next week where we really get to dig in and also for the ad hoc, so just for full transportation, our ad hoc will be made up of a couple of the committee members so that we can continue the conversation when we look at the river district specifically, which was once upon a time my pride and joy.

And the reason it was my pride and joy is because we had very direct conversations regarding not creating another ballant time, having both workforce housing that is rental and for sale.

Now, unfortunately, what I learned over the years is that previous staff leadership that was having those discussions, even though because you know we can have a conversation with developers, then we rely on staff to then go in and put the legal language in place as well as do whatever economic development negotiation that should happen.

Previous staff did not do that.

So I had a chance to meet with our attorney and learn that the language that was discussed, of which I have minutes and notes on, of what our expectation was going to be when we worked to get public transportation, the bus system, as well as widening, as well as additional incentives that was created to help move the development and construction of the river district forward, did not happen in writing.

Yet, with that said, I see us having a greater opportunity if we were to look at what that support looks like versus a project that one, because I feel like we're giving a mixed message.

We say, well, with the River District project, it hasn't closed yet.

And simultaneously, we have a project that did not have a rezoning that was completed prior to them applying.

So in theory, their application should not have even been accepted because you didn't have everything taken care of.

That was many months later.

So we, which is why in committee, we got to have a more detailed conversation so that we can have a clear guideline so it doesn't look like we are creating favorites.

It's a why does one organization or set of individuals get to do one thing when we have language in place saying, okay, the deadline for this is January, but these are all the things that you should have in place.

You didn't have a major piece in place until many months later.

But we have another one where it hasn't closed yet.

But the scoring, how do we offset that to understand what we're creating out there when if you go on to the river district's website right now, their rental for a studio that's 619 square feet starts at 1,539 for 619.

The one bedroom that's 679 square feet is 1,625.

That was it was never the intention, but yet unfortunately, we allow staff to do what staff do.

We I didn't necessarily have the leadership that continue what the conversation was around the tables, where we were gonna have diversity for the workers to actually be able to live there.

So when we get to committee, and I wanted to just share since we have new members around the table who weren't around in 2017 when the river district was just land that hadn't even been clear-cut yet, what the initial expectation and actual verbal commitments were.

And those verbal commitments was around mixed income workforce housing, both in rental and home ownership.

The houses out there now, seven, eight hundred thousand dollars plus.

We put a lot, we local government put a lot of investment and infrastructure investment in that area with the expectation of creating what a true diverse community could look like.

And this was one of our last times to be able to do that because of the amount of land.

So I appreciate and will always appreciate the hard work that staff does, but staff is also limited based on the language that we have approved.

So if we want better language, we council starting with committee, need to present stronger and more directed language, which we did two years ago when myself, Dr.

Wallington, Councilmember Driggs, we had done something that had never been done before with the reallocation.

Now it's just a time to tweak that a little bit more to identify areas where we have opportunity so that we don't have areas where we already have multiple projects that have been approved within a three to five mile radius when we have areas that are not getting the opportunity.

Yeah, it might be a little bit more, but it's worth it if we can get it in uptown parts of district one, six, seven, and this river district area specifically of district three.

So I look forward to us having and hopefully again, staff, our staff liaisons will be mentioned reaching out to all of the committee members for us to identify a date so that we can get this other meeting in.

But also keep in mind we did have a recommendation from the mayor, as well as the manager knows where we're going to be having an ad hoc discussion specifically for housing and neighborhood services.

So committee members, we're going, a couple of us are gonna be working on that as well.

Thank you so much, Rebecca, for you and the entire team for everything that you do.

I know we know we have to give you all the language in order for you to move forward, but I do wanted to make sure I did want to make sure that we level set, especially when we see, hey, river districts on here, what are we doing?

What are we doing?

We have an opportunity to do some things differently to try to protect the investments that we made with uh understanding of something that was supposed to happen that was not codified through legal language.

Thank you, Mayor 10.

City manager, anything else?

City manager report.

So let me just take uh a brief moment, 30 seconds, say thank you to the committee.

This is a lot of work, a top priority for us.

And I appreciate have you all have used your committee means very productive.

Let me echo housing chair mayfield staff.

Thank you.

And to our providers, Councilmember Ashman recognize you all.

Thank you for being partners with us in this business of affordable housing.

So thank you all.

Um council, I'm gonna ask you all a favor.

I'm gonna be respectful.

It is 1015.

I promise your wives and husbands and your boo that I was gonna have you all home by 11.

So you have to get a hotel room.

Right.

And so uh I'm gonna be very brief in my ex and when I read out the next policy business item.

Is anything you'd like to highlight, please add?

So, but we're gonna move brisk because we still have a closed session.

No Lord with three items.

Okay, two.

So who did this?

Yeah, like I'm not gonna go there.

Okay, so let's move to item number 10.

Solid waste services ordinance amendment.

May I have a motion?

So moved.

Move properly.

Is it second?

Second.

Second.

Be moved by council member Drigs, second by council member Ashmer.

All those in favor, raise your hand.

Item number 10.

All those opposed.

Uh item number 11.

Now we're in the business section.

2020, 2026, water source, revenue bonds, and construction period financing.

Might have a motion.

Excuse me.

Question, Councilmember Wallington.

I'd like to be excused.

Oh, okay.

Is there a motion to uh recuse council member Waddlington?

It's been moved by Councilman Mayfield to recuse excuse excuse.

Excuse.

Excuse me.

Second by council member uh J D.

All those in favor to the excuse, raise your hand.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now is there a motion to accept agenda item number 11?

A B C D and E.

A B C D and E.

Yes.

So motion made by Councilmember Mayfield second by Councilmember Driggs.

All those in favor, raise your hand.

All those opposed.

Thank you.

Agenda item number 12.

Municipal agreement for the Metroliner Regional Travel Demand Model.

Move to approve ABNC.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Councilmember J D.

All those in favor, raise your hand.

Any opposed?

Thank you.

Councilmember Wallington, you had a comment.