Oh, not that.

Oh my god.

Oh no, no, no.

I think we can have a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit more.

Ariel Smith, Late City Clerk.

Andrea Leslie Byte, City Attorney.

Good evening, Dimple Echmark at large.

Good evening, Victoria Watlington at large.

Joy Mayo, representing District 3.

Dante Anderson, District One.

Let's see, who are we missing here?

James.

James who'll be.

We'll have someone else coming in pretty soon.

Um, and I am Vi Lyles.

Marcus Jones, City Manager.

Kimberly Owens, representing district six.

Good evening, Luana Mayfield, Councilmember at large.

All right.

Good evening.

JD Masueta Adias, Council Member District Five.

Good evening, I'm Renee Johnson, and I'm honored to represent District 4.

Okay, so I believe that's everyone else, and thank you all for who the attending our session.

I hope that you'll be able to work with us and make things happier for all of us in this place.

So let's go with this.

We're now going to start off our meeting with items with the consent agenda items.

This is actually amazing.

Thank you.

And good evening, Mayor and Council members.

And as far as I'm aware, there's no outstanding questions still on consent, but if there are, please let me know at this time.

Okay.

Ms.

Mayfield.

Excuse me, thank you, Madam Mayor.

I had some IPad issues over the weekend, so I'm trying to find the item because I love my book up sale.

Um we have where we're tonight, we have an item on where we have a hearing as well as a decision, and I had mentioned previously that I have concerns when we have hearings and decisions on the same night versus having a hearing, hearing from the community, and then having the discussion for whatever that item is.

I'm double checking it.

I think it was item six and um seven, and that's in the chamber public hearing, not the consent, but yes, ma'am, it's public hearing items.

Not in the consent, but I wanted to make sure to acknowledge that that we need to have a conversation about having a public hearing the same night where item A is opening up the public hearing and item B being to approve whatever that project is without having enough time for discussion and for community to be engaged in the process.

Thank you, madam mayor.

All right, thank you.

Before we take before we um I may have but Mr.

Driggs has come in, and Mr.

Graham, I think I just didn't see you.

No, I just came in too.

Okay, thank you.

I was going to wonder if something had gotten.

How's the new babe?

She is doing fine.

I think you and Ed should work together since you both have girls.

Uh-huh.

That's it.

So thank you.

Um, and now, madam mayor.

If I may, if there's if we can have a motion to approve the consent agenda items 29 through 53.

With the Ms.

Mayfield, did you want an exception?

No.

So let's go with all of those.

Second.

We have a motion and a second and a second.

Any further conversation or anything else to say?

This item.

If not, at all in favor, please raise your hands.

I believe that's unanimous.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I think you wait a minute, knock on wood.

There we go.

I want to make sure we have that.

All right.

So now do we have we don't have anything for a separate vote as I understand?

Is that correct, madam chair?

I mean Madam Clerk.

Okay, we're good.

All right, so the next thing that we're going to do is introduce our city manager.

Thank you, Mayor and members of council.

And the action preview tonight, we have uh two items, two items that uh have really uh had a lot of uh work been done on them, and it's good to be able to uh be here tonight to to move them forward.

We will have the uh MPTA interlocal agreement update, and we'll also have an update on red light cameras.

Um, so mayor, unless there's any questions, are there any questions for the manager or any questions or concerns that regarding those two items?

All right, and so, then, Mayor, I'd like to turn it over to council member Driggs for the introduction for our guests we're here tonight.

Mr.

Manager, you look so doubtful, just then are you sure?

All right.

So, so colleagues, I just wanted to preface our discussion of the MPTA agreement by saying that uh the working group consisting of myself, Councilmember Owens, and Dr.

Watlington spent time walking along as these negotiations took place, ensuring that the council received updates and was aware at all times of what kind of things were being discussed.

And I think we've landed in a good place.

That's the important thing.

So from July 1st until, and forgive me if this is going to get repeated, I'll try to keep it short, but from July 1st to January 1st projected, CATS will continue to be operated by the city.

The employees will continue to work for the city.

And but all of that is pursuant to an agreement with MPTA because the PAVAC provides that as of July 1st coming up, MPTA belongs to and is controlled.

I'm sorry, CATS transit is belongs to and is controlled by the MPTA.

And so what we're doing is for six months, we have an arrangement, an agreement, which is this document you see, pursuant to which CATS will continue to be operated by city employees, will continue to be uh a city function, but uh pursuant to the terms of an agreement.

After that, in phase two, the intention is that the employees will move over to MPTA, that it will take responsibility for the operating of CATs, but there will be a lot of continuing involvement by the city because a lot of the debt, for example, that is secured by the assets was issued by the city, and uh so uh we're gonna have a kind of a symbiotic relationship with the MPTA for a while.

I will just note uh, and Ms.

Owens, I hope you'll speak in a moment, but uh we looked at considerable detail at some I think critical issues for the council, and one was in brief, and again we'll hear about it, but no employee of CATS will be worse off as a result of this.

The simplest thing.

Uh there was a lot of conversation about indemnities and liabilities, but there again, the the short upshot is that uh essentially no general fund money will be used in order to pay for cats, but nor will cats benefit from any of the sales tax money.

So all the sales tax money will be used for transit, no general fund money will be used for transit.

And I think uh amazingly those were the biggest issues, although there was a lot of detail around them, and I do appreciate the work that our staff did, and a bunch of names.

I'm not gonna try and uh mention them all, but uh also our cooperation with MPTA.

Uh so we got deep into a number of issues, they had concerns, we had concerns, and I think the way it was all worked out is a credit to them and to us.

And that's my brief synopsis.

Uh Councilmember Owens, would you care to comment?

Um I'll just very briefly say I too um took away a deep and abiding respect for the people who worked on this and the hours that went into really um a proof of concept that was put out without the requisite timing to really accomplish it, these sorts of things.

I think those of us who've been in the business community, as as many of us have can well appreciate that you don't want to rush something of this import, but because we are put in this situation, I think we did a phenomenal job under those circumstances, and I'm very pleased to cede the floor to council and and have you give us further walk through.

So actually, before you start, one last remark.

This is the last time we will all discuss this.

Okay, this this thing has to be effective on July 1st, and right now we're on schedule to vote on it on the 22nd.

Next week is a zoning meeting.

So uh I just emphasize that because if you have any concerns or you think there's something we need to talk about some more, we have to do it before the 22nd.

Otherwise, the PAVAC becomes effective.

All the transit belongs to, and the cash goes to the MPTA, and we have no basis for cooperation with them.

So we really need to get this done on the 22nd.

And uh, having said that, I'm pleased to hand over Catherine to you.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you for always showing up for this.

It's my pleasure.

It really has been our pleasure to work with you all and staff, and I'm joined today.

I want to note by my colleagues Shalana Perdle and Scott Leo from the Parker Post Charlotte office.

Um, as councilmember Driggs said, this is really your time to comment and and weigh in.

What I hope to do in a presentation is to give you some visuals so that you can put into perspective if you're a visual person, what Councilmember Driggs said about the phases, how this transition will roll out, and then focus on just four provisions.

That gives you, I think, some additional facts that you might be most focused on from what I've understood of the conversation so far before you talk to each other and with me.

And just a reminder the last time I was here was May 7th.

We had before you a draft, a proposed draft that was in progress.

There have been a number of changes since then.

What you have as of today is a draft that the attorneys who've worked on it and staff would recommend for your approval, but of course it needs your comments.

The changes that have been made since May 7th have also been provided to you in a summary form, and that's been added as an appendix.

But there are a lot of those changes.

So I want to walk you through on a high level the ones that I think I've heard you express the most concern about, and then hear comments and questions to any provision.

I'll start again with the visuals.

So this is really about a phase transition.

Three phases, the first being what we're referring to as the transition period.

What these visuals show you is basically who's doing what during phase one.

The city will, of course, CATS personnel are still city personnel.

The city still maintains debts, all assets will be operating the system, which means there's risk that comes with operating the system.

The operating revenue will still flow to be collected by the city, and then the city maintains the fund balance.

The ones that you'll be most concerned with are, of course, the debt reserve that you need to have in order to maintain your ratings and the operating reserve.

But there are other fund balances, there aren't many fund balances, and all of them to be maintained at this time.

The MPTA, so again, this is July 1st, will take over policy and governance.

That's similar to the relationship you had with the MTC, but of course, a much broader scope when the NPTA takes over.

Sales tax revenue will begin to flow to the MPTA.

That green arrow shows you that some of the sales tax will flow back to the city, and by back I mean forward to the city to pay for CATS personnel, debt service, all assets, any of the money that's needed to pay for assets, operations, and to cover the legal risks that come up either before this agreement starts or uh during phase one.

Operation control is with the MPTA.

The way that you are able to operate while the MPTA has operational control is through the interlocal cooperation statute.

This is a uh a legal provision that local governments take advantage of all the time when needing to jointly undertake some kind of task.

So you will be able to jointly operate with the city maintaining the operations and the MPTA maintaining control, the public transit.

The MPTA is also responsible for all of the transition activities that need to happen in order for the transfer to occur.

That's phase one.

That starts July 1st by statute, and we'll end our the goal timeline is January 1st.

What you should know is that if there are some services that have to be maintained by the city after January 1st, we have created safety nets within the interlocal agreement to be able to address those issues and timelines and schedules for determining what those are so that you may enter into additional agreements as necessary with the MPTA for those kinds of services, back office services that might need to remain with the city after January 1st.

In phase two, you're in this sort of shared services period.

Policy governance has, of course, remained with the MPTA.

CATS personnel become MPTA personnel as of the first day of phase two.

The sales tax revenue is still flowing to the MPTA.

It flows to the city to the extent needed to pay your debt service and to pay anything related to the encumbered assets.

Operations now are with the MPTA, they retain transition activities, they are now paying for the legal risk of the system and operating revenue, unencumbered assets are now with the MPTA and the fund balance transfers to the MPTA.

I'll take a moment just to give you a little detail on how all assets suddenly split into encumbered assets and unencumbered assets.

What that means is an unencumbered asset is something that still has some debt related or grant that couldn't transfer, and the city has to retain it by law.

Anything that's not covered by debt is going to go to the MPTA.

And in phase three, you start the ongoing relationship of having the MPTA fully running the public transit system, paying off debts as they become prepayable, and then all of those encumbered assets that remain with the city during phase two are slowly starting to become unencumbered assets as the debts paid off and they will transfer to the MPTA.

I want to focus on four provisions so you know where we landed when it comes to these four things that I believe we talked a good amount about over the last few months.

Employees.

Councilmember Drags, I think, summarized it perfectly.

As you want to see on the slides, in phase one, the city is remaining the employer of record through phase one.

So you will maintain the same consistent policies that you have in the past with respect to those employees.

Hiring and other kinds of natural order events that occur in the fall will occur in conjunction with the MPTA's notice.

In phase two, the MPTA is hiring all full-time CATS personnel as of day one.

And here's the important parts, I think, the most important: compensation and retirement benefits are no less than than the base offered by the city at the time before CATS personnel transfer.

You will note there's a difference in language for when it comes to benefits, compare comparable benefit plan cost.

That does not mean that the MPTA is expecting to provide anything less than the current benefit plans.

The issue there is in order to have a benefit plan, you have to negotiate with some third party.

And so contractually, what the MPTA can agree to do is aim for the comparable cost, though it's going to look different just because of, or it may look different just because of who the provider might end up being.

The MPTA is going to enter into any contracts that are related to the transition activities.

The city, on the other hand, is going to enter into all operational contracts.

Those operational contracts include things like capital projects you might be thinking of.

Here's the process we are going to go through in order to make sure that the city can move forward with an operational contract without it touching policy.

I think this was a big item of discussion and concern.

There's some operational contracts that the city will need to approve or consider to approve that also might touch on policy aspects.

A good number might not, but a few might.

So the process we have proposed is that the city will provide a list of contracts that need council approval to the MPTA.

Say, here's our plan for the fall.

The MPTA is going to identify those contracts on the list that they think there is some MPTA review needed, whether it be policy or otherwise.

The city will seek council approval for contracts where the MPTA has approved or otherwise, there's no approval from the MPTA needed.

Here's the important part.

In all cases, that MPTA review will not impact in pair or negatively impact operations, meaning the timeline has to be worked out so that MPTA review happens before your scheduled time for review and approval.

Let's talk a little bit about legal risk.

I think the most important thing that should catch your eye is what it says at the bottom of each of those phases.

In any case, in any phase, there will be no CATS liability that falls to the city's general fund.

That's how it currently is now.

You run a public enterprise that is the public transportation system, all the liabilities of that separate public enterprise stay with that separate public enterprise.

And that's how it will be maintained through this agreement and in the future.

Just to note for everybody, the words CATS liability continues to mean liabilities of the public transportation system even when the liabilities transfer to the MPTA.

So you will continue operating CATS, but uh in the fall, but the MPTA funds, so the CATS funds that you hold on hand will be what pays that legal risk, and you are restricted from expanding beyond the current commitments you have.

So that would mean you're not uh taking on new debt or grants related to the assets of the MPTA.

The MPTA is in phase two going to take on all operations, all legal risk they'll be paying for, and there will be a time, probably in the future always, where the city and the MPTA have to work together to determine where there might be shared risk or shared liabilities, properties that maybe the city owns and there's cats infrastructure currently, and vice versa, and you will have to work through how those shared liabilities and shared risk are addressed.

Those are probably going to be addressed through separate agreements, and we've written a provision in the agreement to address that.

And then in phase three, the MPTA is remaining fully responsible for CATS legal risk, which means the public transportation legal risk.

All the final debt, grant, and asset transfer issues will be resolved.

And again, there's no impact to the general fund.

The obligations in phase one break down like this.

The city is going to pay for CATS operations using the transit funds on hand or the sales tax revenue that flows to the city, and the city is maintaining 100 million of operating reserve that you currently maintain.

In terms of debt service obligations, the city is maintaining the 30 million debt reserve that you currently maintain, and the MPTA will transfer funds to the city for debt service as that's due.

As long as you maintain debt service, you will maintain that debt reserve.

Payment obligations are that the MPTA will provide to the city sufficient funds to pay operations without using operating reserves, meaning at all times you are able to pay those operating expenses as they come to you without needing to dip into the reserves that are there to protect the city's debt and uh bond ratings.

Believe that's it from me.

What is contained in the appendix are the the differences between the May 7th draft and the current draft.

I'm happy to go into explanation and detail into any of those, but I want to make sure that you all have the time to discuss and give comments.

So I'll stop there.

I'm gonna give you a comment to say thank you, especially for the I'm sorry.

I want to say thank you for what you've been doing, and I want to say thank you to a number of people that have been taking this time and making it work, our own ed.

Um, and I think about all of the um mayors in the um north and towns and what they've done, the county commissioners, we've done this well, and if we continue to do this as well as you've outlined it, I think we're gonna be in okay.

So I want to though open questions if there are any other comments, Mr.

Anderson.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for the presentation.

Appreciate the update.

Um, just a couple questions.

You mentioned that our the employees that are transferring over, they won't be worse off as it relates to pay and and uh benefits.

Um what about any perspective on career pathing?

Um have the MPTA thought about adopting similar career pathings.

Has that discussion happened at all?

That is not a discussion that we have had.

Um the MPTA, of course, will be responsible for all their personnel policies they've adopted, but that's not something that the city has weighed in on in this agreement.

Okay.

Um just really interesting uh as we are in this in-between uh space where we're both operating, you know, we it's a joint combination between the MPTA and the city.

It would just be interesting to hear their perspective on that.

I know they're gonna be working on this over the break in July.

So when we come back, perhaps we'll get an update on that, and then as you talk about the um the legal risk, and I appreciate that on slide eight, but just from an overall, and I also appreciate the fact that um there's no CATS liability on that falls on the city's general fund.

But what about, for example, I'm just gonna pick something that's really, really sort of out there, but what about like a SEER level five event that heaven forbids happens on our lines within phase one or phase two?

Who is who would be the person running the lead, or who would be the lead on that?

Would it be the city sort of facilitating an extraordinary event and doing all the public relations, or would that fall on the MPTA or some combination of both?

You uh uh the best way to answer that, I think is to recognize that the city and the MPTA are starting a relationship with this agreement and all future agreements, and there are so many of those types of issues that you will want to develop uh policies about, communication about, and coordination about this agreement does not address that type of situation.

Gotcha.

I think that's something we should think about uh because uh this is the legal framework for risk, and uh this is absolutely needed.

But when we think about risk mitigation and just over the last five years, the events that have happened on the light rail or um with the with the with the trains and bearings and things of that nature, just the overall miss uh risk mitigation uh from an operational perspective.

Um, I think we need to have some conversations around that and keep that top of mind.

That's it, madam mayor.

Thank you.

All right, Ms.

Johnson, and then following Mr.

Graham.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and uh councilmember Anderson, I loved your question.

So we did say that the employees wouldn't be harmed, but if an employee works for the city, there's lots of opportunity for advancement, just being an internal employee.

So I think if we could think about the employees that are being transferred, if they have some type of priority for hiring in the city, if they would appro uh apply for a city job, maybe the first two years or something like that.

If we could think about that, because while they might not be harmed currently, where they would be harmed is not having the same opportunity or the same priority as an internal applicant would with the city.

So for career advancement, if we could consider those quasi employees or or something, so that when they apply for a city job, they have some type of priority.

Just my suggestion.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other questions or comments?

Um I'm sorry, we had Mr.

Graham.

No, just a comment, madam Mayor.

I just wanted to thank Ed and Kimberly for kind of scrubbing the work for us, and I had an opportunity to attend two or three of the sessions that was held internally, and certainly I think this is where we need to be for sure.

So I certainly support where we're at.

Um, lastly, the word that keeps coming up over and over again is relationship.

Uh relationship with the new authority, and I think we should be very intentional about establishing a strong foundation working relationship with the authority, because again, this is beginning of a marathon, not a sprint, right?

There'll be more type of these type of conversations in terms of how we interact with them.

So I think this is a really good first start and with grounded in great legal advice.

So thank you for the work.

All right, Miss Mayfield.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I also want to thank the committee members for all of your work on this and staff.

I had a chance to sit with staff and council member Owens earlier.

And Councilmember Johnson, I appreciate the question that you asked for the manager, because understanding that once the MPTA is fully set up, it all of cats will be under that authority.

The only role that council will have from that point forward is our appointment of seven members.

So we have to and future councils have to be very intentional.

So I think we have an opportunity prior to that first two years, since some have two years, some have four, to think about what the qualifications are that we want to have in appointments, whether it's a reappointment and or appointing of new.

But manager Jones, with thinking about what council member Johnson just mentioned, for the employees, the challenge that I could see is our retirement system.

So if MPTA is now its own entity, pretty much a governing board like we are.

If an employee were to transfer back into the city, do they lose their seniorship?

So your vested after five years or seven years or whatever within the city, your best that when you're with cats and you have a retirement system, would they be starting over new or would they roll in?

So I'll make sure I'm I'm correct with this and I'll ask uh Catherine.

Um clearly you lose nothing when you go from the city to the MPTA.

You're asking a question that I don't think has been posed to me.

So if they came back, Catherine, what's the impact?

The employees, so the MPTA will become a member of the local government employment retirement system maintained by the state.

So you probably already have some shared agreements that that employees who are transferring from other local governments will step into those same retirement benefits, and it would be the same if they're coming from an elders local government unit.

So, and my apologies for not thinking about that question when we were together earlier, but just wanted to make sure that again, say they've been with the city for 17 years, been with working with cats for 17 years, and they have an opportunity to come work with the city.

Does that 17 get accounted for for their 30 years or making sure that they don't have to start all over?

And that would be, I think that will fall more on our end than on the MPTA's end.

Since again, once it's a separate authority, even though they might the employees will be will have access to the retirement system, just thinking about how we would do transition.

Thank you.

All right.

Do we have another question?

Mr.

Drake's I just wanted to comment uh the chair, David Howard of MPTA came to uh TPD, and I think almost all of us were there, but uh it was interesting to note that particularly based on his experience as a member of council, albeit a few years ago.

I think he responded very well to some pointed questions that you asked.

Uh and I think your observation is very much on target.

This is the beginning of a relationship, and it's important for us to get off on the right foot.

We need to recognize it's a partnership.

This is not an arm's length transaction, and therefore we're gonna have to proceed on the basis of an element of trust.

They need to trust us, we need to trust them, and we need to look forward to advancing the interests of Charlotte together.

Uh, the other thing we talked about with uh Mr.

Howard was a program of ongoing visits, uh reports, engagement.

So we haven't worked out the details of that yet, but he acknowledged that uh there would be uh regular occurring kind of briefings to us by members of their board so that we can stay informed about what they're doing.

Thank you.

All right, Mr.

Jones.

So uh thank you, members, mayor members of council.

I echo what uh council member Drake's said, and I just want to make sure that I'm also putting it uh into the record.

Uh the relationship with the officers of the MPTA and and the staff and the council is so important, and uh this isn't easy, but if we don't, we need to start off looking at this as a partnership and not a negotiation because we'll be together for a long time.

So I'm just really appreciative of uh how council has handled this as well as staff, and I look forward to in two weeks uh moving this forward.

All right, any other comments or questions?

Hearing none, um thank you very much.

I do think that we're really doing a really great job, and I I think when meeting when Mr.

Howard is just a great person and really wants to make this work, and I think it will let's just all keep our fingers crossed.

Okay, all right.

So, Mr.

Jones, what's our next step?

Thanks, Katherine.

What's the next step?

Okay, so uh mayor and council.

The last item that we have on the agenda preview is an update on uh red light cameras.

And uh before I uh turn this over to the chair of our safety committee, Councilmember Anderson.

Um, again, this is something that I had an opportunity to come through the committee.

I do believe after a bunch of fits and starts over the the years, we're at a very good place to move forward with the uh red light camera.

So, with that said, Mayor, I'd like to turn it over to the other Jones, Charlie J.

I'm not so sure you you should be thinking about this a little bit longer, right?

Yes, yes.

Absolutely.

If I can if I could, Madam Mayor, uh just want to give a brief introduction.

Um, first of all, as many of you may recall, the mayor issued a policy referral to the safety committee and back in late March, posing the question of whether the city should reinstate a red light camera program, and uh first I want to acknowledge my safety uh committee members who have uh CM Ashmira, um, CM Mitchell, uh, CM Graham and CM Driggs, who are on the committee, and they they do uh great work with me.

I thank you for serving on this committee with me.

But the committee got right to work uh on this referral, and we voted this particular item out of committee in May, and as you're gonna hear from Mr.

Jones here, um, staff are prepared to move forward with a red light camera pilot program.

Um, this effort is responsive to the concerns that we all, all council members have heard across our committee uh community.

It directly aligns with our commitment to our vision zero policy, uh addressing uh traffic fatalities and serious injuries throughout the city streets with an emphasis on uh the city's high-injury network intersections, and so uh Mr.

Jones is gonna walk you through a lot of the work that has come out of committee, and um then we'll have a QA session.

So there you are, Mr.

Jones.

Thank you.

Thank you for the introduction, Councilmember Anderson.

Um, Charlie Jones, Deputy Director for the Charlotte Department of Transportation.

Um, jump right into it.

Um, just a quick uh refresh on the policy referral.

Um began as a referral from Mayor Lyles on March 25th.

We provided a high level overview of the April 6th committee meeting and then went into additional details at the May 11th, 2026 committee meeting.

Um much of what we went over at that meeting is included in these slides that we'll get to here in a minute.

Um, but at that committee meeting, there are two recommendations that were uh forwarded for council consideration.

Establish a red light camera program for a period of one year as a pilot, and then coordinate with the intergovernmental relations team to explore a local act authorizing a program with Charlotte Mecklenburg schools.

So tonight's discussion are really around those two items.

Just a recap of the existing legislation and ordinances around these programs.

So a lot of what the programs are governed by is at the state statute level.

And we also have local ordinances that are on the books from our previous red light camera program.

So with the assistance from the city attorney's office, we found two avenues to reinstate a red light camera program.

And since the April committee meeting, we actually learned that we have a local act that would allow us to increase our fines from our current ordinance limit of $50 to $75, should council so choose.

During the committee meetings, there were several questions about advanced warning insurance points.

So what we wanted to do tonight was review the statutory requirements for red light camera programs and some of the details regarding those programs in North Carolina.

So cameras, camera equipped locations must have advanced warning signs.

Citations are issued to the registered owner of the vehicle, and the statute requires that we provide provisions so that if someone's car is stolen or if someone lends their car to somebody and they weren't the driver, there has to be a process in place where that driver can fill out a paper some paperwork and basically say I was not driving that car, and they can assign that responsibility to whomever was driving their vehicle.

Photographic citations are non-criminal violations, so no points are assigned to your driver's license for red light camera citation, and no insurance points can be assigned to the driver, and that's at the state statute level.

So if someone would like to challenge the citation, there's an administrative process that they can go through to challenge those citations.

Looking at red light camera programs across the country, there's approximately 350 communities that have active programs, and what we looked at were the programs that were more successful in that they were reducing serious and fatal injury collisions in their communities, and we found those programs had these common elements.

They align with their vision zero goals using data to select and identify locations.

They prioritize their high-injury network intersections.

They use crash type frequency and severity to guide the deployment.

Left turn different roadways, you're turning off the side street at the intersection, and so red light cameras are very effective at reducing those types of collisions.

And then the other thing is just an elevated number of overall collisions.

Final best practice that we found amongst the peer cities and other cities we looked at was data transparency and frequent reporting.

So we identified 39 intersections within the city that had had fatal collisions in the past five years.

We then added additional data to get that down to a list of about 10.

And we looked at higher percentage of angle and left turn different roadway collisions, pedestrian and bicycle collisions at the intersections, and then a higher number of overall collisions.

We came up with a candidate list that I'll say is an example of what a program might look like.

These 10 locations had $1,841 collisions over five years, 26 fatal and serious injury collisions, 220 angle and left turn different roadway collisions, and then 24 pedestrian and or bicycle collisions.

With the caveat that this is a preliminary list to see what 10 locations may look like.

As we move forward with the program, this list may change.

We want to make sure we're using the most current data and have a good handle on we're putting the cameras at the right locations.

So I don't want anybody to get you know too excited and say, we're gonna get a camera at this location.

The data may put point us to a different location, and that's part of the whole goal of using our high injury network is to follow the data and use the cameras.

But the 10 locations we identified for this were Graham Street and North Avenue, University City Boulevard, and I-85 Northbound Ramp, Still Creek Road and Westinghouse, North Tron Street and University City Boulevard, Central Avenue and Sharon Amity, W.

T.

Harris and North Tron, South Tron Street and Arrowwood Road, South Mint Street and West Boulevard, Central Avenue and Kilborne, and 36th and the Plaza.

One other reason why we don't want to set this list in stone just yet.

There may be projects coming soon to some of these locations or projects in development, and we don't want to get have a vendor install equipment that we end up taking out because of a roadway improvement project.

So we want to make sure we've isolated locations that we're not gonna have improvements that would you know disrupt a camera thing or a camera location.

One of the things we covered was engineering countermeasures.

You know, why can't we just build safer intersections?

And so we look at countermeasures that are uh common nationwide, and a lot of those are low cost uh LED signal indications, signal timing adjustments, and reflective back plates.

Not sure what a reflective back plate is.

I brought my little handy-dandy uh visual aid, and it's basically a thing that goes around the signal head to raise the visibility of the signal to a motorist.

One thing here in Charlotte, we've done a great job.

Most of our signals already have LED signal indications, it's a brighter light that you can see better.

All of our signal timing is done based on industry standard, and it's done across the entire system.

And then we have reflective back plates at many of our signals, and that's one of the first things we look at at intersections when we do have a fatal crash or some type of other crash pattern.

High-cost improvements are what we mainly think of as dedicated turn lanes, full intersection reconstruction, andor site distance improvements.

Those projects tend to cost more than half a million dollars or more and can take multiple years for planning, right-of-way acquisition, and a lot of things that you know don't immediately address safety issues while the planning and construction are going on.

So, based on that, we looked at a financial analysis for 10 intersections and assumed that based on feedback from several vendors that approximately five thousand dollars per month per intersection would be our program cost, so the annual program cost would be six hundred thousand dollars.

We use the 75 citation amount as just a benchmark and assumed 500 citations per month per location based on pure city research.

It would result in 4.5 million dollars of annual revenue.

Of that 4.05 million, we go to CMS.

That's their required disbursement from civil citations, and then the city's share would be 450,000.

That leaves around a hundred and fifty thousand dollar gap in revenue versus program costs.

So, you know, mentioned a hundred and fifty thousand dollar gap.

Whenever we start looking at safety benefits, a lot of those high-cost projects, we're not gonna do a an intersection reconstruction for $150,000.

We're looking at millions of dollars.

So we wanted to see what the safety benefit of red light cameras would be.

So annual crashes at those 10 intersections without treatment.

We expect to see around 1,600 collisions.

1.6, one and a half serious injury fatal collisions annually, and then 44 angle and left-turn different roadway collisions annually.

With the red light camera program based on industry research and tools from the Federal Highway Administration, looking at about a 25-30% reduction in total collisions at those intersections, less than one serious injury or fatal collision.

It's hard to get to zero because there's so many factors that go into a fatal collision, but it does take it by almost half.

Those angle and left-turn different roadway collisions tend to be your most serious and violent collisions that result in serious injuries.

Gets us to the program funding.

So the pilot program would be city-funded program using the existing statutory approvals.

The city would pay all the program expenses up front and distribute 90% of each citation to Charlotte Mecklenburg schools.

The city would retain 10% of each citation for program expenses.

Looking at the future, ideally we would have an interlocal program, but that requires general assembly action.

So next steps, establish a pilot program.

Staff will develop an RFP to select a program vendor.

Council would be asked to approve the contract at a future business meeting.

The goal is to have a pilot program begin by early 2027.

And then at a future date, we would introduce an ordinance amendment to increase fines, and that would be at a future business meeting, and that would increase the fine from $50 to $75.

And I'll open it up for any questions or feedback.

So Madam Mayor, if I can just add one more point.

Thank you, Mr.

Jones.

When we discussed this in committee, we had Miss Smith Debbie Smith come and join us, and she mentioned that the funds that are needed for this particular pilot program are already baked into the Vision Zero program.

So there are funds that are already available to execute this pilot program within Vision Zero today.

Yes.

Thank you.

We have a really great list of people that want to talk about it.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Mr.

Jones, thank you so much for bringing this with a very quick turnaround.

I appreciate the work that your team has done.

Also, I appreciate Debbie Smith and her team for a quick turnaround on this.

Couple of questions that I have.

Did we explore an idea that was uh floated by council member Owens about having this um this cameras rotating across the city so that we can get more benefit for just 10 cameras?

Um, that's something we could put into the RFP.

Um, we're not entirely sure what the contractors, the different contractors um construction looks like.

If it's uh you know permanent that takes you know quite a bit of construction to actually install the camera, it may be a challenge to move them.

There may be vendors out there that have uh a less permanent camera system.

Um so that's something we can definitely explore during the RFP process.

Yes, I I would like us to explore that option because I was looking at the high injury network.

If you go to slide number seven, where you got 39 intersections with fatal collisions, and if we only have 10 uh for 39 intersections, we got to be more creative with our solutions.

So I support Councilmember Owen's idea, I think that was brilliant, where we can get more benefit, and then also she had suggested having sort of like a sign that says that there is a red light camera.

Uh just the sign will prevent people from running red lights.

Have you explored that idea?

Um, not uh not completely.

We we don't want to get too many signs before we've you know get got the program up and running.

Um, but that is something we'll also consider.

Yes, I think I I would like to see both of those ideas being implemented because how can we save more lives with this pilot program?

Uh you know, when I look at this red lights camera, I don't look at just the cameras.

This is really a public safety issues.

We have seen how many lives that's been lost recently to red light camera, I mean to red light running.

Uh there have been few young lives that's been taken, and we are talking about pedestrians, we are also talking about cyclists.

We are also talking about car drivers that follow the rules, and they get hit by someone who chooses who chooses to run a red light.

So this is a serious issue.

Uh, this is a public safety issue that we need to uh invest in.

So certainly this is something I will support, and so this pilot program, it is for a year, and I appreciate that there will be some clear metrics and a dashboard if we can have public facing dashboard so that people can see the performance metrics.

They can also see outcomes and also more transparent reporting.

Um so people know this is not a money grabbing uh program.

This is certainly about public safety and eliminating traffic fatalities, uh, especially major crashes on our intersections.

So that's all I have.

Thank you so much.

Ms.

Mayo.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, could we go to slide five, please?

Um, so just wondering um if later you can talk a little bit more about this non-judicial administration kind of process.

Just wondering who would be standing that up.

Would there be a cost associated with that?

Has that already been baked into the budget that you've already outlined?

Um our previous program relied on city staff to do that, so the vendor would provide that to city staff, so it would likely be uh city staff uh that would provide that service as far as a cost, it would really just be the cost of you know doing business.

We wouldn't have to pay an outside group to do that.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I have another question.

Can we go to slide 12, please?

What slide?

12, please.

Thank you.

Sorry.

You're fine.

Um, just wondering if we can have potentially mismanage or think of some stipulations.

Um, as a former teacher, I'm excited that CMS will be getting some of these funds, but wondering if we can be thoughtful of how um we can influence maybe how some of those are going to be used.

I know that we are providing a million dollars for some workforce housing for CMS.

Are there other instances where we can think through, you know, this potential.

I forgot where the slide was.

I talked about how many millions of dollars that they'll be getting from this.

Oh, sorry, that's slide.

Um, so yeah, 4.4.05 million dollars is quite a good amount of money for us to think through.

I think we have some common goals with CMS to think through.

How do we support our workforce.

Um I would be interested in maybe seeing if there's some stipulations if CMS would at all be interested in that.

So, how do they help not only their teachers but bus drivers, uh custodial staff, you know, all of the people who are who allow us to have a robust uh community?

Um yeah, I'd be interested in that.

Not sure the logistics, but I know you can negotiate that for us.

Thank you, sir.

All right, our next um speaker is Miss Mayfield and Miss Owens will follow.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, thank you for the presentation.

Go to the next slide.

So we're anticipating, might be towards the end, that this will start in 27.

Why by early 27?

Why do we need a year and a half to get this pilot up?

Um, so that would be approximately six months, um, six to seven months.

Um, early, you know, can earlies kind of nebulous, I know.

Um, but we do have to go through the procurement process.

Um, there is going to be a period, you know, developing the contract, negotiating the contract.

And additionally, you know, whatever vendor we select, we'll have to install and provide the equipment.

And so we wanted to make sure we didn't set an unrealistic goal.

Um, you know, we've all experienced, you know, just parts shortages and difficulty getting things, so we would hate to say we're gonna stand this up in September, and the vendor can't get the equipment.

Um, so um, you know, we really need to go through that procurement process and then you know, work with the vendor to get the equipment installed.

Okay, and when we go back to slide 10 where we're looking at the financial analysis for the intersections as well as looking at, so when we're looking, I want to make sure that I can explain it if someone asked when we're saying the total estimated expenses, what are we actually calculating?

So we're saying approximately 5,000 per month per intersection.

We're saying that we think that's gonna be the cost at each intersection for the having the light there.

Yes, so based on feedback we've got received from vendors, um, most vendors offer turnkey solutions now.

So you pay them five thousand dollars a month per location, and they will operate a red light camera at that location and issue the citations and do all the back office parts of um doing a red light camera program.

So, manager, I would like to make a recommendation.

We have a strong relationship with National Legal Cities.

We also have a number of partners through National League of Cities that actually do this work.

I think it would be in the city's best interest for us to utilize some of those relationships because contractually we might be able to do identify a reduced cost based on the work as well as the expertise, but it's uh opportunity for us to really utilize that long-term partnership that we have with National League of Cities and looking at who our potential partners are because I seem to have remember at more than one conference at having representatives share, and some of them that necess didn't necessarily look at what our out-of-pocket costs.

There are some companies out there that actually have cost sharing.

So there might be a way to look at the revenue.

If there's a way to help protect because the other thing that we I don't think we ever really talk about is along with injury and loss of life when these accidents happen, the debris that's left on highways, left on streets from the accident, the vehicles that aren't picked up immediately that trigger other accidents.

So I'm I'm salty right now because the accident happened on 485 on Saturday morning, and whatever debris that blew off from the vehicle blew out my front tire.

But more importantly, it blew out the front tire of 218 wheel, they blew out tires of 18 wheelers that was coming up behind me.

So when once you made it up past exit three, there was at least three other vehicles that was sitting off to the side.

We drive around, and there are bumpers and other things that we constantly see.

But and in my dream, well, along with catching those that run lights because people have been acting like a red light is a suggestion, not an actual command to stop lately, and it is disheartening to see.

But they keep opening up their car door and putting a whole bag of garbage out on the street as well.

I don't know if we have the technology to capture that, but um these because we have a beautiful clean city, it is not as clean as it once was, but that is due to the individuals riding around our city and thinking that the street should be the trash can.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I believe you said it was Ms.

Johnson.

Okay.

Uh, I did Miss Owens and then followed Miss Johnson.

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, so thank you.

Uh Mr.

Jones, I appreciate the opportunity to ask a couple of questions.

I um could you go back to the slide that has the entirety of the high engine network?

I think that was slide seven, maybe.

Yeah.

So I note in slide seven, I just need to be able to speak to my district about this, that we've got eight um locations that are along the high injury network, but we are not gonna get any of these in this immediate pilot.

I'm assuming that is because while we have eight discrete locations that have had identified fatalities, the totality of fatalities is not such that those were prioritized.

Can you confirm that?

Without getting diving deeper into the data, that's probably what happened.

These are intersections that had fatal collisions.

What we're looking at more specifically for red light cameras is angle and left turn different roadway collisions.

So those intersections in your district may have had a fatal collision at the intersection, but it may not have been one that's readily addressable by red light cameras.

Excellent.

Thank you.

I just I've had a lot of interest in these out of my constituents, and I just want to be very clear with them that this is a pilot that you described as being fluid.

Is that correct?

So as you have stood those up, there is the potential that some of those could be moved to other locations.

Not only that, but this uh the the list of 10 is just a preliminary list as we start working through the RFP process and analyzing the most recent crash data, there may be a location in district six that rises to the surface.

Okay, no, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um, just another question that I had um around the um, you know, I have not done a pilot before.

This is my first opportunity to see that.

And so what is the normal cadence that we can appreciate?

I know you said that there would be some transparency, but how will we know if it is working?

Is there a routine time that you come back and report to us, or what does that look like?

Ideally, we would have a dashboard for red light camera violations and the collision data at those intersections.

And with crash data, you tend to not want to compare weekly numbers.

Um, but I think at the conclusion of a year-long pilot, we could have some this is working, or we need to rethink this approach.

Okay, and and if you know, just one follow-up question, and this may be for the city attorney as well.

Is there an intention to have the the cameras run for a period of time before we go after the piece with the general assembly?

So are you are you needing to or wanting to show some efficacy of the the cameras before we go and ask the question?

And do you know what that time would be that you would go to the General Assembly?

So the intent was really we understood council's desire to stand something up.

Um we know the state legislature is busy, they're in short session, and so the opportunity to get something before the state um is that windows very tight, and so the earliest opportunity I think we could have the delegation work on something would be later this year when they go back into session, and so it could be more than a year before we actually get to that interlocal agreement if the state legislature agrees with that approach.

Okay.

So I appreciate that.

I think I just wanted to also put out into the room.

I I would really like for us to to stay on top of the things that we want to add to our legislative agenda.

I think sometimes we get to those meetings and there's oh gosh, we said this here or there.

I think this is really one that provides a wonderful opportunity for us to work in partnership with our General Assembly and um get them on board with us because I think it it eminently makes sense and it affirms a court ruling to that effect.

So thank you, Mr.

Johns.

All right, our um next speaker uh next speaker, our next um JDR is.

I think Miss Johnson, Miss Johnson, sorry about that.

You lady, you you didn't look like her at all.

I think I just need a class.

Ms.

Johnson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I just wanted some history.

If we could.

So it's my understanding, my understanding this was at some point we had red light cameras in Charlotte.

I know I think it was 2020 or 2021 when I was on the safety committee.

I know uh councilmember Eggleston was the chair.

I don't remember who the vice chair was.

It might have been council member uh Ashmer or Watlington, I can't remember, but we talked about this, and there was a barrier into implementing it.

Can you give us a little history?

What's changed?

Are we more progressive now?

Did something happen with the law or what happened?

One of the biggest changes has been uh the willingness to spend city funds to fund a program to reduce serious injury and fatal collisions.

Um, in the past, when we had a red light camera program, there was there was no capital program for vision zero.

Um the funding wasn't there, and it would have required general fund dollars to to run the program.

Um, thanks to you all and the voters approving you know, bond packages where we have vision zero funds, you know, I think what's changed is the calculus on relatively small investment.

I know 150,000 isn't relatively small, but from a road construction and building things, it it is a lower amount.

Um, and so to have that vision zero funding that's available that we can stand up a program that can potentially reduce or eliminate fatal and serious injury collisions, that's really what's changed and favorable court rulings allowing cities to partner with the school boards to basically turn the program into a revenue you know net neutral for everybody involved.

Those rulings came out in believe 2022-2023 time frame.

So there's been kind of a growing shift in the way you know we view safety, and then of course favorable court rulings.

Thank you.

So the so the money has to go to CMS.

Is that okay?

Do we are there any reports of how many cars are currently running the lights?

Have we done any preliminary reporting?

No, we didn't.

And the reason I ask is if it's five thousand dollars a month and the tickets are 75 dollars, there's a minimum that we have to to make in order for it to make sense.

I think it's like 66 cars.

I'm sure we'll meet that, but I was just wondering if we had any preliminary numbers.

Okay.

And how will the public be notified?

Um so, of course, we'll have signs posted at the intersections.

Uh, we'll of course use our social media presence.

Uh we'll rely heavily on our media partners.

Um, so this would be one of those campaigns where there's a push to notify um motorists throughout the city.

Hey, this program's coming.

Um, I know in the past when we stood up our speed camera program, there was a two to three-week grace period where citations were mailed and uh at no charge, just to let people know, hey, this is here in two weeks you're you're gonna have to pay if you continue this behavior.

So that there's it there's different ways to get that message out, but we'll definitely use you know, city corporate communications and other partners to get that message to the public.

Okay, if we could really get this word out, because this is a change of behavior.

Some people, if you say you know what do you do at a yellow light, people speed up, right?

So it really really is a change of behavior.

So if we could get that information out, maybe post it at the DMV and just really begin to change that behavior.

I also like the idea of capturing uh people who are littering.

Is that an option?

Not that I'm aware of it this time.

So big brother.

Okay.

Well, I mean, I think it's a okay, all right.

That's what I wanted to know.

Okay, well, if it is, can you research if that's an option?

I will definitely look into that.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

That's all I have.

All right, Ms.

Owens would like to have a follow-up question.

I think anybody else, yes, there are more people, but I thought you wanted to be just to that to that point.

My apologies, I forgot the question that I had.

I know that we've seen that some vendors are doing both the noise cameras and the red light cameras.

Could you speak to that in the same vein of the question that was just raised?

So one of the vendors that we've been in discussions with actually has the noise camera systems as part of their suite of tools.

Um, you know, we're I believe CMPD is currently working through that, and um the attorney's office are working through those issues.

Um, there could be the potential should the legislature grant us authority to that, where there would be uh um economies of scale by having a vendor that can provide all those different camera enforcement solutions.

Um, there are cities such as Alexandria and Washington DC that that have a whole host of noise uh stop sign running cameras, red light running cameras, and they tend to use the same vendor that provides all those services.

Okay, um JD Arias.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Jones, for the presentation.

I want to first start off by thanking the public safety committee.

Uh, thank you so much for taking this on, um, and especially Sustain Charlotte um and their advocacy efforts.

Um, uh personally to me, because I um have gotten the opportunity to visit families across Charlotte and visit those that have been impacted by traffic violence uh since I've been sworn in, such as uh Luz Mora's son Diego Mora, who is a young bicyclist and is now paralyzed due to traffic violence, such as red light passings and um and uh and and uh traffic violence, um, just most recently in my district, which continues to be the district with the most traffic fatalities, um one of Manolo's bakery is uh employees, Angelica Chicas, a young young lady uh who started to work there two months ago, died this past weekend, attempting to turn onto North Sharon Amity off of Central Avenue.

Um, and so this is extremely important.

Um, and and of course, uh as I mentioned earlier during my term, uh my friend Lance Sotilo, who I went to college with, who uh passed away in um plaza and and north to 36th Street.

Um, and as well as myself, I got in a car accident a few uh a few uh weeks ago.

So this is this is uh extremely important, and I'm so glad we as a city um and all of our colleagues are are taking a proactive approach in addressing this.

I have a few questions.

Um, so financial concerns led to sunsetting the program the first time in 2006.

Um what financial protections risk mitigations uh would we be leveraging to ensure that this pilot is a success and we don't find ourselves in that situation again?

So I think at the end of the pilot, should the cost escalate beyond where you know use council aren't comfortable, and we as you know the capital program managers uh realize you know that maybe there's a higher and better use for those dollars than funding this program, um especially if we don't see the reductions in collisions um and reduction in fatal and serious injury collisions.

I think that's when that that metric comes into play.

Thank you.

Um, so the citations that will expect to generate revenue.

Um, how do you expect the city to see those funds be transparently tracked reinvested and uh reported to the public so what what mechanism do we expect to use to kind of see where those taxpayer dollars are going to so as far as the program uh you know we will be paying um for the program we'll receive an invoice from the vendor every month and and we can show what we're paying on those invoices and then as far as CMS's share um I'm sure there's a way monthly we could have a report of what's been sent to CMS.

Yeah I I think uh to my call thank you Mr.

Jones uh to my colleagues I think that should also be essential uh and part of the interlocal agreement that we will potentially be a part of is making sure that we have those uh that data transparency and reporting transparency uh the other thing I would add to staff is um as uh I've been um contributing to the revamping of the Vision Zero uh data dashboard thank you so much for the work that you all are currently doing and thank you council members mirror for bringing that up earlier um I think you know implementing that into this dashboard I think will also be crucial um moving forward uh thank you madam mayor all right Mr.

Driggs thank you mayor uh I too am a survivor of traffic violence having been uh you may remember having had an encounter with a car I was lucky I had a dislocated shoulder and got banged up pretty good um uh I made a huge dent in the car I just want you to know so uh for one uh miss mayo I really like your suggestion I'd like to explore that a little bit this is a proposal that yields four million dollars a year to CMS and costs us money so I wonder if we could have a friendly conversation with them and maybe talk about having the proceeds committed to a fund of theirs right uh the the purposes of which we would agree on with them right I mean we can't interfere with their conduct of their business I get that but before we actually commit to this if we just say hey we would like to know we'd like to feel good about what will happen at CMS if we do this as part of our deliberation.

The past thing by the way uh I remember the discussions about that and uh the feeling was that uh we did not appreciate the fact that we couldn't cover our costs that was an issue but also the narrative at that time was that the reduction in those side impact collisions was offset by a lot of rear end collisions more rear end collisions and so at the time uh you know it seemed like the net advantage wasn't necessarily that great and then if you look at the reduction in fatalities in relation to the cost even though you don't talk about human life and money terms the actual there possibly other ways you could spend six hundred thousand dollars and save more lives than this so I just put that out there personally I think this is something we should do we should pursue the uh opportunity with the general assembly to get full cost recovery um and uh bear in mind too that this is a pilot right if we like the way this goes out the goal will be to leverage it expand it and at that point the money that CMS gets is even bigger right so uh maybe you and I could talk about that or we'll we'll see what the constraints might be in terms of trying to partner with CMS.

Thank you.

All right um Miss Anderson do you want to wrap is there anyone else that would like to comment before Miss Anderson wraps this up okay Ms.

Anderson thank you madam mayor and thank you colleagues for this really great robust discussion I think um from the tone of this uh conversation we're in a pretty good place and I I like all the added dimensions that you all have brought to the table on this I think at the bottom line of conclusion, we're saying this is uh 10 intersections out of thirty-nine intersections within our high injury network, which is approximately twenty-five percent of intersections within high injury, right?

And so that's a pretty good number to have within a one-year pilot.

Uh, that could potentially yield the uh benefits that we see here.

The other thing I've heard uh a recurring theme around data and being data driven.

And Mr.

Jones is as we um well, we'll have to vote on this as a council, but if successful and if we move forward, I think a part of our RFP process should be around when you when you think about these turnkey companies that can provide reporting.

How can that be resident-facing to the public?

Um, but also then potentially fit into our ERP system, so it can be a part of our reporting suite for municipal um activities and operations as well.

And since we're upgrading our ERP system, I think that those are salient questions you can ask through the RFP process.

Um lastly, we've talked about the dollars and and how much that could potentially generate for CMS.

Again, if it's twenty twenty-five percent of the intersections, just back of the mat back of the envelope calculation.

You know, um, four times that that four million.

I mean, that that's looking like, you know, if it's citywide, it could be sixteen million or north of that that CMS could get if this is a successful pilot.

Now we do have to, of course, city manager, uh, look at it and city attorney look at the constraints of the law within the General Assembly and the statutes, but I think some really good perspectives, um, CM Mayo and CM Dregs on that.

So more to come, of course.

This is the first action review, and it will be back in front of us to particular potentially take an action.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor Porte.

Thank you, Council.

Uh Mr.

Jones, thank you.

Let's head down now to start a city council meeting.

Miss Mayo.

Oh, motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Let's head down.

All right, we're going downstairs, everybody.

Okay.

Oh, no.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Um, thank you for your presence.

Thank you for attending the Charlotte City Council meeting.

Um, I want to call this meeting to order and appreciate what you are doing to help us understand what's important in our community.

I want to um begin though.

We're gonna have a with the call to order.

We're gonna have introductions, and we'll start with our clerk.

Billy Tons, Deputy City Clerk.

Andrea Leslie Fight, City Attorney.

Good evening, Dimple Ashmura at large.

Good evening, Victoria Watlington.

I have the pleasure of serving you as a member at large.

Good evening, Joy Mayo, representing District 3.

Good evening and welcome to District 1, Dante Anderson, District 1.

Marcus Jones, City Manager.

Good evening, everyone.

James Mitchell Mayor Pro Temp.

Good evening, Kimberly Owens, representing District 6.

Malcolm Graham, District 2.

Ed Driggs, District 7.

Good evening, Lawana Mayfield, Councilmember at Large.

Good evening, J.D.

Masueta Adios, probably representing the East Side District 5.

Good evening.

I'm Renee Johnson, and I have the honor of representing District 4.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

I think everyone is in their seat and ready to go.

We begin our meeting with an invocation, which is an expression or inspiration followed by the pledge of allegiance.

The invocation is intended to solemnize our proceedings.

We celebrate the religious diversity of our community, including those without a religious faith.

Tonight, we would like to ask Councilmember Mayo to give our invocation.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

As we begin tonight's meeting, I'm reminded that innovation is not simply about embracing new technologies, it's also about challenging and creating thoughtful policies to help communities navigate change responsibly.

Tonight we'll consider important items, including our proposed budget and a potential moratorium on new data center development.

While these may seem different topics, they both ask the same question.

How do we prepare Charlotte for the future while protecting the quality of life that makes our city strong?

The proposed budget reflects investments in public safety, affordable housing, small businesses, mobility, and our workforce.

These investments help ensure that opportunity reaches every corner of our city.

We'll also discuss the proposed data center moratorium.

This conversation is not about being for or against innovation.

Rather, it's about taking the time to understand the potential impacts of a rapidly growing industry and ensuring our policies keep pace with that growth.

A temporary moratorium will allow us to study important considerations such as energy demand, water consumption, noise, infrastructure needs, land use compatibility, and potential impacts on nearby neighborhoods.

It would also provide an opportunity for meaningful public engagement as we develop appropriate guide guardrails and statements and standards for future development.

Innovation works best when it is paired with transparency, accountability, and community trust.

My hope tonight is that we approach every item before us with curiosity, respect for different perspectives, and a shared commitment to Charlotte's long-term success.

Thank you, and I look forward to a productive meeting this evening.

Let's have our Pledge of Allegiance if you choose to, please.

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America.

And to the report, we say one nation under God, individual with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much.

Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to recognize our city attorney, Andrea Leslie Fight.

Attorney and Leslie Fight has been recently honored by the North Carolina Bar Association as a recipient of its leading legends of color award.

This prestigious, really prestigious award recognizes attorneys of color, whose leadership, service, and achievements have made an undeniable impact on the legal profession and whose accomplishments may have helped pave the way for future generations.

Throughout her service to the city of Charlotte, Attorney Leslie Feight has provided exceptional legal counsel, thoughtful leadership, and a steadfast commitment to public service.

Her professionalism, integrity, and dedication have earned the respect of colleagues across our organization.

So, on behalf of the city council, congratulations on this well deserved honor, and we are grateful for your service and proud to celebrate this remarkable achievement that you have made and helped us be a part of something really special in this community.

Let's all raise a hand.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

You want to say a few words?

Yes, thank you.

I'm I'm deeply honored and surprised.

I didn't expect that, but thank you.

Well, thank you very much.

Um I think how long have you been with us now?

Is seven months?

It might feel like seven years, right?

Mr.

Graham isn't noted it as well.

So that's it.

So let's see.

I want to go ahead and start.

We're gonna start with our public hearing, and we're now gonna open the public hearing on the Average Express Incorporated Business Investment Grant.

Madam Clerk, we do we have we do not have any speakers.

A second.

We have a motion to um move and close.

All in any discussion, Mr.

Dregs.

Oh, I'm voting in favor.

All right, so all in favor of the motion, anyone in my opposition?

So thank you all for that.

Um, I do have that motion.

We are gonna close that and approve the city's business investment grant to the average express in the oh, I'm sorry, Everett Express here.

All right, we're gonna open the public hearing on capital group companies in in in business investment grant.

Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers?

No, ma'am.

All right, do I have a motion to close the public hearing and to approve the city's business investment grant to the capital group companies for a total amount not to exceed 1,038,565 dollars over the five years over five years.

We have a motion for A and B and a second.

Any further discussion?

Is all in favor?

Miss Mayfield, you did you want to have a comment?

Miss Mayfield.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So I mentioned it earlier, but I do have a concern when we have a public hearing and decision on the same evening.

We had started this conversation back in February on February 23rd is when we went into closed session, which we need to do when we're having discussions of potential investment, but to have it have a public hearing today in June that gives little to no time for community to actually know that we're having a discussion and actually come down for the public hearing to understand why we will be making this type of investment, the total amount for the investment because even with the last one, we didn't identify that this part B is asking for us to approve the business investment grant or total amount not to exceed a million thirty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty five dollars over five years, but we also don't discuss the reality that when we approve these grants, it is noted that if the company were not to meet the anticipated goals that they would need to return any and all funds, but also that taxes that are due from the capital group companies must be paid before the grant payment is made.

So I think there's an opportunity for us to not rush certain conversations because we're in June.

Council had this conversation in February to have on any business agenda opening a hearing and approving the grant basically in a single motion is concerning.

So I will be just as with the last one.

I will be voting against this one as well.

Alright, thank you, Miss Mayfield.

Anyone else to comment?

Okay, all of the did I hear someone?

May have to maybe upstairs?

So um, so we now have a motion to close this out.

All in favor?

Yeah.

All in favor, please raise your hand.

And we have one person in opposition.

Thank you, Miss Mayfield.

All right.

So now we're going to move the next item to the policy section for our agenda.

City manager, do you have any updates for council this meeting?

I do not.

You don't have any updates from Ms.

Kim.

So if I may, yes, Mayor, um, I I need to have a little bit of clarity on when this is appropriate, but I would like to revisit an issue with respect to the mayoral selection process.

I know that it is not on the agenda, but we had discussed with council today that if we were to make a tweak to that, I'd like to put forward a motion that we modify the approach so that we can have a virtual participant.

I think it's come to our attention that some people, because we chose a date and then went out with the date, we haven't had that opportunity.

So at the conclusion of your agenda, you can make a I'm sorry, she's answering my question as to when I can do that.

I wondered if I could do it during the city manager's report, which is what I was saying.

No, no question.

Pursuant to your rules of procedure.

If we could you have a show up or you don't, she's she's responding.

We can have the city attorney give us a call.

Since this item is not on the agenda, at the conclusion of the agenda, there can be a motion to add it to the agenda, and council would need to vote on whether it's this this topic can be added to tonight's agenda for discussion.

Absent a unanimous vote, it would need it need to be added to a future agenda.

Yeah, one person.

I withdraw that because I know I can't get to unanimity.

I had discussed it with your office, and they thought that we could have a vote on it, but that's fine.

That differs from your advice.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right, thank you.

Um, Miss Kimberly.

All right, so um next we'll move to the policy section of our agenda.

City manager, do you have any updates for the council this evening?

Hearing none, all right.

Our next policy item is the fiscal year 2027 operating budget and fiscal years 2027-31 capital investment plan.

This represents our most important policy document that we make.

I would like to first and almost always say that I'd like to commend the council on the diligence in this process to get the to tonight's vote.

The manager has proposed to us a very solid plan for each of you to review and then you brought forward your ideas for adjustments on May the 18th meeting, and then reviewed and discussed each option on June the 1st straw with the straw votes meeting.

You've collaborated and done a lot of time and work with us.

These are tough decisions to be made, and we all understand that, but we have to continue to move forward because the uh citizens declare that we have to work hard together and do this collaborative.

So I hope that we will be able to make the adoption for the budget this year, right?

Meaning tonight, and that would be great for so I just want to make sure that that's where we are, Mr.

Jones.

Um, is the motion?

We want to have a motion.

We need a motion, so move.

So motion for second and a second, all right.

Madam Mayor, before we proceed, I'd like to make a motion to recuse council member mayo on action number eight.

Action number H, please, okay.

I think that's true.

What I had is that she is recused.

And you've already, do you want to make a motion?

Yes, that's excuse.

No, no, not the motion.

I just made the motion.

So I second.

Okay, we have a motion on a second.

And all in favor of recusal, all in favor, please raise your hand.

That is unanimous.

Thank you very much.

I think I saw everyone down there.

All right, so for item nine, is there a motion to adopt 2027 appropriations and tax levy ordinance?

The FY 2027 compensation and benefits recommendations and other items related to the annual budget ordinance adoption.

Do I have a motion?

A motion and a second.

A motion and a second, Ms.

Anderson.

You go to Graham.

Mr.

Graham.

Right.

We have that.

Miss Mayfield has her hand up.

Ms.

Mayfield.

I was putting it up for when you got to discussion.

All right.

So do we have a motion?

And we have a motion.

All in favor, please raise your hands.

And we have to do all of this other things.

All right, Mr.

Graham, you're the you're the business person here right now.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, members of council.

First, let me start off by thanking uh the manager's office, uh the budget office, all the finance team and the department heads for their participation in preparing the budget.

I think this process started in early January, and here we are six months later, getting ready to pass what I think is a very um challenging budget that reflects the needs of the citizens.

Let me also uh thank the citizens for their participation in the surveys that we sent out earlier this year, the workshops of the public hearings and providing their feedback on this year's operating budget.

Uh, just wanted to share with the council that the the budget development process include input from the community, city departments, the mayor and council.

Uh we have three budget workshops and governance um meetings, February 5th, March 5th, April 6th, and two budget workshops on February 23rd and March 23rd as well.

The fiscal 27 budget is structurally balanced with a two-year lens that preserves core services, advanced public safety, invest in transformational mobility and maintain reserves.

Uh the tax increase all goes to public safety, which is 1.89 property tax increase dedicated to enhancing public safety.

Some of those items basically is uh increase for fire uh and police, it adds 35 cars to the police take-home vehicle program, uh promotes recruitment and retention of police and fire police in the public safety pay plan across the board, pay increases.

Uh it provides funding to advance and complete animal care and control satellite adoption for the center project, uh, and invests in small business and neighborhoods with $600,000 for business direct organizations and main street programs, uh supporting our quarters of opportunities.

Um $500,000.

These are again budget highlights to expand youth interns internships at the city with 1.5 million committed to expanding road to hire program, which is a great uh program that the city is investing in.

Uh it matches the historic 2024 transportation and neighborhood bonds at 300 million dollars, which includes um 60 million for strategic investment areas, 22 million for vision zero, 50 million for sidewalks, 10 million for bicycle facilities, 20 million two million for new orphan roads program, and 100 million to deliver seven mobility projects by 2030.

Uh in addition, the budget also includes uh 20 uh 27 general fund for financial partners, Carolina Youth, community culinary school, crisis assistance, housing collaborative, parent child, roof above, etc.

Uh obviously there's always more projects than funds, and there were several projects that we were not able to fund.

Um the greater enrichment program uh for the struggle, Hearts for the Invisible, just do it movement as well as others to not meet um are not included in this fiscal 27 budget.

The committee, the council has agreed to revisit our process for how we uh review uh financial partners moving forward.

Uh, and so we will take that into uh consideration as we move forward to uh distinguish uh and to discern how we will uh work with and improve the process or amend the process if necessary for nonprofit organizations um seeking support from the city.

Uh this is a uh good budget.

Uh it's not a perfect budget, but it reflects the values of our community uh and invests in public safety and investments in housing, uh neighborhood development, core services uh that our community demand um demands of us.

Uh, and I just refer the budget to you and thank the manager and staff for for its preparation.

Thank you, Mr.

Graham.

So the next next policy item is oh, we're gonna start.

Is this okay?

We're gonna start with the council members.

We're um making their comments.

We'll start with Ms.

Johnson and go all the way around the dais.

Ms.

Johnson, please kick us off.

I mean, and not literally.

I'm happy to support nonviolence, right?

And I'm also honored to sit on the council tonight and to vote in favor of a balanced FY27 budget that makes historic investments in Charlotte's future while heavily prioritizing our frontline workers.

By securing a full 10% pay parity for both CMPD and CFD firefighters, we are proving that public safety is our top priority.

Lifting our city employees to a $25 per hour minimum respects the dignity of those who keep our city moving.

And I'm incredibly grateful that we fought to uh restore funding to um organizations, but also we must acknowledge the real strain that this budget puts on our local taxpayers and grassroots partners.

While a property tax increase is necessary to build a safer city, it's painful to see vital community organizations left out, and I look forward to improving our policies so that we can take a more equitable approach.

Um I'm honored to sit here tonight, and I look forward to supporting the budget.

Thank you.

JDR is.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, colleagues, and and thank you, uh Chair Graham, for the work you and the committee put on uh into this and and for into staff.

Um I will be supporting the budget tonight.

Um there's a lot of great things that are included in this budget, including $600,000 to business district organizations across the Queen City.

That includes organizations in our main corridors across the city, such as Charlotte East and District 5, Historic Western Partners, and other organizations that will be included in this programming and mainstream programming as well, and also very proud of the efforts that Councilmember Graham, Mayor Pro Tim Mitchell, and some other colleagues on this diet.

It was a collective effort to include funding for a new international relations manager position for the city of Charlotte as the 14th largest city in this country for us to be the only one not to have a dedicated office or department for international relations is really an opportunity gap, particularly when it comes to the multi-billion dollar transit mobility plan that will put a lot of folks to work.

But we saw in one of our recent reports that there's going to be a workforce gap there.

Um I mean, I can I could get political and say why there's a workforce gap in construction for obvious reasons, but I think this will help us identify those opportunities as well as encourage more foreign direct investment that really are going to bring jobs and help us compete with our other peer cities and make us a world-class city.

Um as uh my colleagues have already uh have iterated, it is not a perfect budget, right?

I think that is one of the natural consequences of not um raising the property tax for six years, right?

Um, and we have to do this as we are continuing to grow as a city, edging now a million residents, um, as well as some disappointments uh in terms of some really good grassroots uh organizations, such as For the Struggle, Prospera, and other organizations that weren't included in this budget, which I think I'm encouraged and looking forward to improving our financial partners process, um, and really proud of what we did last week as this council looked um two weeks ago, uh, or I believe it was last week.

I don't know, it feels like a year already.

Um where it came to pay parity for our uh frontline workers, right?

I it's essential, you know.

We need our men and women in uh blue uniforms as much as we also need our firefighters, right?

They're typically the first ones on the scene when it comes to uh the public safety issues that are arising in the city.

So I look forward to supporting this budget.

Um, as always, I think we can always improve and be better.

So thank you.

All right, thank you, Miss Mayfield.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Thank you, Chairman Graham and the entire committee for that represent our budget committee as well as Manager Jones for presenting us another balanced budget.

I have been an extremely vocal advocate for our fire department.

I appreciate the fact that in our budget we have kept the funding for our burner center.

There are other items in the budget that I have concerns about.

Unfortunately, I think about even though we have had a number of meetings, we have a very short window where we have those meetings and we spend a lot of our time on, we spent a lot of time on financial partners, which is 0.01% of the total budget.

We had around six million dollars in financial requests that came in this year.

We had less than a million that was actually available for allocation.

I appreciate those that are here that are advocating for for the struggle.

We also have the opportunity individually to donate and support.

One of the challenges that we have talked about for years in creating a system, is one an organization is gonna be able to come and apply for financial partners.

We decided out of between five to seven years.

If this administration didn't teach anything, don't rely on government because government got limitations in funding.

One of the biggest challenges for a lot of our nonprofits is there was a lot of federal money that was available that has been eliminated under this administration.

The other challenge is council approved a process for staff to adhere to.

So if we got to have a conversation about our process with how scoring is done, because this is the second budget year where I said if we're not gonna stick to the process, then stop making staff go through it and just pick out the organizations that you want to fund.

Because at the end of the day, business.

So at the end of the day, we have a responsibility with limited funds to try to figure out how to invest the best way that we can.

If you have a score from 100 and we had scores as low as in the 30s, how do we and what staff did I support?

They picked from the money we had, if we were to fund at full capacity, we were able to fund seven projects.

If we had additional monies, then we would have been able to do more.

But for me, it was very difficult to have an organization that score a night at 96 to skip everyone that was 96 down to 89.

Skip everything in between to jump to another organization, no matter how much I might like the organization personally.

Greater in Richmond does amazing work.

They didn't show up to the meeting.

It was one mandatory piece, and the meeting was online.

No, I'm not gonna support later a conversation about having our pro intro and intro and mayor discussion online because you're not phoning that in.

If you can't make the time to get here, I'm not I'm not understanding why you put application in.

That's a whole separate piece for me.

But I also have concerns when we think about our water and sewer.

Yes, Charlotte is the lowest when we look at impact, but the individual impact.

So if we move forward with the proposal that we have currently in the budget, because again, we spent a lot of time on a small piece of the budget.

We didn't go into breaking down the actual increase, and the way that works out for solid waste fee, residential curbside.

Currently, that's $120.30.

What's proposed is a 13.51% increase, which would take it to 136.55.

If we look at water and twenty dollars and we say what the average user weight is, I don't know what that average rate is based off of when we have townhomes as well as single family homes.

But what we have noted is currently $921.60.

The proposal is a 5.74% increase.

Stormwater, $129.84.

The proposal is an additional 4.44% increase.

So when we look at over the years, the city has not passed a property tax, even though I had recommended that we had at least had real conversation about incremental so that we wouldn't have a large tax, which now we're looking at a 6.95% increase at one time.

But we have consistently because it's baked into the model when we look at solid waste water and sewer, that that has been a consistent increase.

We have to recognize that we have residents in our community right now that have experienced layoffs, and those layoffs are not there out of work for three or four weeks.

People have been out of work for a year or more.

They are not bouncing back in.

Our big partners, the banks, have been laying off, and when they lay off, they lay off hundreds at a time.

When our corporate investments that we have made, and those companies lay off, there's not a transition plan that's getting these people back into the workforce at the pay that they were making.

So you have someone that was earning 27, 28 an hour in a field for 15 20 plus years now being offered $18 or $20 an hour.

That's a considerable cut to their cost of living.

So I have a challenge.

If I'm I'm still praying on the fact of whether or not I can raise my hand for the budget, because we have the full budget and we don't break the budget out.

But we have some clear line items throughout the budget that give me concern because I own that in our last budget, I did not speak up to some fees that were going to be instituted regarding uptown parking.

I had an individual conversation with the mayor, but I did not bring it to full council, and I did not speak to it out loud.

That has caused tremendous challenge that has caused challenges for our workers, whether they're in hospitality or they work at one of our event spaces that once had access to parking after 6 o'clock.

That is no longer the case.

You also have a two-hour limit.

We were just talking over this weekend.

People came to visit.

You can't even extend your parking for four hours.

You need to physically get leave wherever you are and try to find another parking space.

Council approved these parking spaces years ago when we approved developments in Uptown.

When we approved multifamily developments, we negotiated parking that we then turn around through a budget request through Center City Partners to move access to those parking spaces to be listed under park it and have a fee to have constant turnover.

That's fine for the people who come in and visit.

But are we creating obstacles for our own residents to enjoy their uptown because it's not accessible?

We're working on a better transportation system.

We will soon have the funds, and I pray that we do that MPTA does the right thing because it will soon be out of our hands to create a more robust public transportation system.

But the majority of us drive, and if I have to drive in uptown, this is one of the last places that I'm gonna try to have a meeting because I'm not paying 25 apartment because y'all don't pay me enough of that.

So I want us to be transparent in our budget.

We have some really great investments in our budget.

We have some really good opportunities in our budget, but I also want us to be cognizant of when we vote, it is not just the impact that we're paying in taxes, our community is feeling this impact, and our most vulnerable as well as our workforce is feeling the impact of a 6.95% increase, a 13.51%, a 5.74, a 4.44.

It might not sound like five dollars and 76 cents additional as a lot, but 16.25 cents is a meal.

So that going from 92160 to 974, $52.52 and 92 cents, that's not only a meal, that's a meal and a bill for some people.

So I want us to be to try to figure out how to really look at the impact of our decisions as we move forward and we go through this budget cycle or figure out a way for us to try to have more budget conversation and not get stuck on just the financial partners, which are important, but that's 0.01% of the entire budget when we're looking at the impact of our fees, and the residents, residential versus corporate impact to those fees.

I had great concern of an additional 16 cents being added to try to get to the 200 million for a one-time bond allocation and what that financial impact can look like.

But I think we also need to figure out how we can start preparing now on how to help our residents that when that tax bill comes out, that $650 you get from the county is not enough.

We talked about this previously.

We need to look at what is the real impact of that new tax rate, and is that going to cause displacement or hardship?

Because if I bought my home 20 years ago for under $100,000, and that house is now value because of the market and because of my is now value at $6,000, $700,000.

This new tax bill is giving me an over two thousand dollar tax bill.

We need to make sure that we figure out a way to help those residents the same way we help our development community when it comes to allowing them to take those taxes to turn in the subsidy, attorney Leslie Fight.

What is what could the language look like, and will we have the legal ability to look at a subsidy for our residents that potentially will face hardship?

Thank you, madam mayor.

Mr.

Drake's thank you, Madam Mayor.

So, as a retired uh finance professional, uh Mr.

Manager, I want to commend you on the outstanding preparation and presentation of your budget as usual.

I expect you will win the usual award.

Uh, and that matters a lot.

I mean, it's a very professional look for us, and uh I think it reflects well on all of us.

You also did a great job, I think, of taking on board the input that you got, diverse sources of input, identifying where there was uh priority and incorporating that into your budget.

Uh I appreciate the fact that first responders are getting an increase because it's good that that's one thing on which we can all agree.

We need to take care of those people, safety is a big priority for us, and we need to invest there.

I do have two concerns.

Uh one of them is in my view, as a retired finance professional, I believe that we are stretching our capacity to spend and to borrow.

Uh, we had to dip into a couple of reserve funds in order to accommodate some changes in the budget.

So I believe our cushion is thinner than it was in the past.

It concerns me.

I hate to think we end up in a place where we can't manage without another tax increase.

The second thing is the tax increase itself.

This is not just a partisan issue.

The fact is that tax increase for a lot of low income households that matter the most to us hurts.

And there are many people on both sides of the aisle who are fundamentally opposed to a tax increase.

And I think I have an obligation to them not to support this budget, even though I appreciate express my appreciation for its qualities.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So I appreciate the opportunity, and I won't belabor points that have already been mentioned by my fellow council members.

One of the things that I want to commend the city manager and the budget team on is the raise of the minimum pay to $25 an hour.

I think that sends a message to communities and to our corporate community that we're trying to lead by example, and I appreciate that immensely.

I'm hopeful that we also, and this is something I'd love to take up with this with the city attorney, is whether we can also adopt a responsible contract partner that really looks at things beyond wage and our requirements that we know we're limited to, but that we can build on that leadership that we're trying to show with the way that we engage our contractors.

So I look forward to opportunity to engage in that.

Another point that I will mention, and while I have deep and abiding respect for Chair Mayfield, I really am disappointed that we didn't get to 200 million on the housing trust fund.

I think that housing is such an essential component of one's lived experience in Charlotte, and I am disappointed but am thankful that we got to the additional 25 million.

I do appreciate that.

The third item that I'm deeply thankful for, and I think that this reflects Chief Patterson's well-articulated three priorities, is that we have been able to fund take home vehicles for CMPD, the 10% raise that's already been addressed, but also the dash cams.

And for me, those are things again that do feed into that narrative that Chief Patterson really wants to focus on recruitment and retention of officers.

We as a community have had a lot of focus on public safety, and I think an appropriate focus on her priorities is definitely something I'm proud that we were able to deliver.

And then I'll say that, you know, another more uh creative item of the budget that sort of came up and we discussed, and it still needs to be scoped within committee, but the funding that's made available for a transit model that was brought to us by Dr.

Watlington.

I'm excited that we can potentially go forward with some ideation around what that can look like, but I will uh caution, and this will come up in my comments later on data centers, that a whole lot of the energy that is in this space is paradoxically for some in the AI space, and it is around you know optimization models that computers can run that we cannot.

So there is always that push-pull between our different priorities, and we will discuss that when we discuss the moratorium.

And then finally, on the financial partners, I will um second the comments of uh council member Mayfield.

Um, and I I do want to take a moment to explain how I personally approach nonprofit funding in this year's budget.

Uh this is my first budget to go through, but I know that many residents uh care deeply about fairness, transparency, and how we divide public dollars.

Um, this year, as I understood it, the city required every nonprofit partner to go through the same standardized application and scoring process after, of course, as was said, a mandatory financial partner meeting.

I am personally happy that that meeting had a virtual option because I think any meeting that we have that enables folks to participate virtually, can address accessibility issues, and particularly when we schedule things without adequate notice.

Perhaps there are times when people cannot attend, and so I'm I'm appreciative that we made that possibility available then.

Um, this year, the city required every nonprofit partner to go through the same application process, and that included our longtime partners, our new applicants, and folks like Safe Alliance that have historically been funded through the crime reduction pay go dollars.

And we did this to create a clear and consistent record, a transparent record of how each organization aligns with city priorities, demonstrates impact, and manages public funds.

The scoring rubric was applied equally to all applicants, and some organizations scored very well, others did not meet the threshold for funding.

As a council member, I believe it's important that we respect the process that we ask staff to run, and that means honoring the scores, even when we personally admire the mission of an organization.

At the same time, I want to be very clear why I continued to support funding for Safe Alliance.

Their work is directly applied and tied to violent crime reduction and victim services, core public service functions that the city has historically supported through our crime reduction paygo budget.

Domestic violence is one of the highest volume violent crime categories of CMPD, and Safe Alliance is a critical part of that response system that keeps survivors safe.

So while they participated in the process for transparency, their funding source differs from that for the financial partners, and so that is the distinction that I personally made, and I owe it to district six to explain that process, and I hope that I've done so.

I am proud to support this budget, and I appreciate the leadership that was um evidenced by its creation.

Thank you.

All right, Ms.

Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and um thank you, City Manager, for presenting us a balanced budget that really leans in and underscores our priorities as a city and as a council.

I'm I'm excited about this budget this year, although we do have a tax increase, uh, but as you all know, the city of Charlotte is steadfast on not increasing taxes if we do not have to, which is why we have a multi-year track record of not increasing tax the tax rate for our residents.

Um, and in this year, we're in a different position due to a variety of different uh things going on.

But our city is growing, and I hope that you see when you look at this budget that we are investing in the things that really and truly matter for our city.

Housing is increased to 125 million on a housing trust fund.

You see, uh pay parity for our first uh our first responders, which was number one in their book to have pay parity across the board, as well as a $25 minimum for our own city employees.

But then you see investments that we're making as it relates to infrastructure and understanding that as a city, one of the one of our main goals is to provide good and accurate services to you all to the residents of Charlotte, and there is some increase in investment in those spaces, but Charlotte is growing.

We are growing as a city, and our our approach to services is becoming more nuanced as the footprints grow and expand our city bounds.

And so I'll leave it at that.

I'm not gonna say uh too much more.

My colleagues have said a lot.

I will be supporting this budget this year, and uh I look forward to us advancing our journey of becoming a world-class city and advancing on that list of being uh top 15 number 14 in the country.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right, Miss Mayo.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Um, I won't speak long, just want to pretty much agree with my colleagues on many of their points regarding this year's budget.

Um, you can really see that priority really was for public safety and thinking about our employees, um, which I think is so important uh that we're able to retain employees, great employees that we have at the city, as we know that uh the public sector and the private sector, you know, there's a huge difference, and they could go other places and I'm sure make much more money and not have to deal with headaches from us council members.

Uh so just really want to just uh thank them for their time and their effort, and I hope that this budget really reflects the respect that we have for them.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, I won't rehash the points that my colleagues already made.

Many of you are familiar with the highlights of the budget.

Certainly, I was uh pleased to uh initiate the motion for uh pay parity.

Um, and I'm so happy to stand with my colleagues to have supported that.

Um at the end of the day, there are a lot of great things in this budget, but I'll repeat what I've been saying for years.

We need to take a much deeper dive into our budget because we are growing rapidly and our needs are uh accelerating, and we understand that while we're making investments in the future, which we absolutely have to, we want to make sure that as the number one fastest growing city in the nation that our current residents are not just paying it forward but are seeing dividends today that improve our quality of life.

Um, and so that's what my focus is as we go into this year and into this next budget cycle is how do we make sure that our dollars are not only going for future residents but are impacting and improving the lives of current residents, whether that's pay parity for our first responders or that's workforce development investments or that's smart infrastructure investments that help us to relieve um uh congestion and overdue assistance today.

Um, so I will be supporting the budget tonight, um, and I hope that as we continue to uh sharpen our pencils going forward um that that we roll up our sleeves and do a deeper dive.

Thank you.

Hi, Ms.

Mira.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I I agree with some of the comments that's been made by my colleagues.

I agree with Chairman Graham.

This budget is not a perfect budget because of the higher tax increase in this year's budget.

I've heard from a number of residents, especially who live on a fixed income, our senior citizens, citizens with special needs, uh, they have expressed concerns about being displaced, and um I think we need to look at our incentives to see whether we are subsidizing large organizations, large corporations on the back of working people, and how much is it costing our community?

Um, I agree with councilmember Mayfield, our most vulnerable is feeling the impact.

Um, I talked with um some of my neighbors in East Charlotte in Far East who are struggling with trying to keep up with the property tax bill on top of the sales tax increase that's going in effect in July 1st, on top of the number of fee increases from water and uh solid waste, and I know it's not gonna stop here.

Uh I certainly appreciate that the county manager proposed the budget without any property tax increase, and I would have liked to see further reduction in a property tax increase, but I also appreciate the work that the budget staff had done to increase our employees' minimum wage to 25 per hour.

That shows that we lead by an example, we need to take care of our own.

Uh, I also appreciated how we made significant investments in public safety, especially our police and fire as we are trying to recruit and retain our officers and our firefighters.

Um, I often hear from our community where priority two calls are not meeting the benchmark that it should.

So when someone calls 911, the response time should meet the benchmark.

Unfortunately, our priority two calls when it comes to CMPD are not meeting that benchmark, and I hope with this increase, we are able to meet that benchmark.

Um, because that is certainly our core services that we must provide.

I I came into this budget process uh with two priorities, support the people who serve our city, which is our employees, and protect the people who pay for our city, which is our taxpayers.

And we've come of we've come a long way.

I think during the budget adjustment process, we did ask the city manager and the budget staff to go back and look at all of this adjustments without any additional tax increase, which you have done that.

So thanks to you, Marie and the entire budget team and Mr.

Jones for your leadership on not introducing additional tax on all of these adjustments that the council proposed.

Uh, we did strengthen firefighter compensation to Councilmember Watlington's point.

We invested in public safety to Councilmember Dante's point.

And we maintain our commitment to neighborhoods and mobility.

And throughout this process, every single council member never stopped asking how we can do more while asking taxpayers for less.

And I think that's responsible government because every dollar in this budget belongs to the people of Charlotte before it belongs to the government.

So with that, I will be supporting uh this budget, but I look forward to doing a more deeper dive as we discuss next year's fiscal year budget process because we will need to make sure that we are taking our most vulnerable population very seriously, and we are reviewing our subsidies and how much it is costing our communities that we are not introducing subsidies to large corporate corporations on the back of the very people we are trying to protect.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mitchell, uh thank you, Madam Mayor, and I'm not going to belabor.

I think you have heard from our colleagues who share why this budget was so important to them, and we truly know the impact it has on our citizens.

So I am going to highlight first.

I'm gonna start off by saying thank you to city manager to the budget team, Councilmember Ash Mayor Point.

We challenge you more than one time to go back to sharpen your pencil so we can make sure we have the minimum impact we can have uh to our citizens.

So that I say thank you.

Um to our CMPD and fire department.

I think this reflects our priorities by giving you the 10% uh raise for both departments.

Uh City Manager Jones, thank you for sending a message to our city employees that a minimum we're gonna raise $25 an hour to continue to lead and hopefully other corporations will follow what the city of Charlotte is doing.

And I have to thank uh my colleagues, we put some new this year with business district organization, Councilmember Graham, Councilmember JD, Councilmember Mayo, and Councilmember Anderson.

This started with a meeting we had with our business district organization to really challenge us to say we could be more impactful if there's additional funding for us.

And so to my colleagues, this council, six hundred thousand dollars will be going to our business district organization.

Charlotte is growing fast, fourteenth largest city, and I do think it's time that we invest more in our international relationships that we currently have.

And so I'm proud to say I will be supporting the new position that we're gonna have in this budget.

And to all the citizens, I think you need to know that we receive your emails.

We hear you loud and clear.

We know there's a struggle.

But the challenge we have is how do we continue to move this city, keep you safe, making sure that we continue to do the important things, pick up your garbage, provide good water, but more importantly, uh we still have affordable housing challenge before the 14th largest city in America.

And so, thank you, City Manager, for putting 125 million.

That's more than we've ever done before.

It was always a hundred million.

So thanks to all.

Thanks for your emails, and thank you for this council for all the hard work to get us here today.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

I think that everyone has had an opportunity to speak, and I really um appreciate the the kindness of understanding how difficult it can be to do something in a company like this, and government is important, and the people along this dais are working very hard to be a part of what we can do and to do it better for our city.

So, right now, do I have a motion?

Is there a motion to adopt?

There was only a motion and a second.

We have a motion and a second.

All in favor, please raise your hands.

Anyone oppose?

Miss Mayfield and Mr.

Driggs.

Thank you, everyone.

So let's just move forward to our next items.

I just told y'all our next policy item is a temporary moratorium on the new telecommunications facilities, storage facilities.

For item 10, is there a motion to adopt an ordinance to impose a 150-day moratorium on the acceptance processing and approval of applications for new telecommunications and data storage facilities within the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and it's ETJ pursuant on general statute 160-107.

So we'll have a motion and a second.

All right.

Now we want to have some comments about this as well.

And so we started this way, we'll start this way this time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um first, I just want to recognize uh individuals and organizations that have gotten that have helped us with uh getting us to this process.

I wanted to, I wanted to give a shout out to my neighbors uh who are here, Susanna, Gustavo, and um Charlotte East, Gregor Schudel, and the entire crew who is here.

Thank you for speaking up for our communities and our neighborhoods.

I also wanted to give a shout out to Robert Dawkins, Action NC, and the entire team for providing us uh white paper on what regulation should look like.

I certainly appreciate it.

Um I want to also give a shout out to Tony Mingle and neighborhood leaders like Reverend Jeanette Garner Mullins uh for speaking up for neighborhoods from university area to West Charlotte.

I certainly appreciate the work.

And um many experts who had reached out to us over past several months from Clean Air Carolina to uh Katabar Riverkeeper to all other organizations who have helped us who have helped us get to this point.

So I just want to be very clear because the question before us today, it is not whether data centers are good or bad.

Uh the question is whether Charlotte has the right policy framework in place to manage them responsibly.

So, today I believe the answer is that we need to do our homework, and we need to make sure we put guardrails and safeguards in place to protect our taxpayers, to protect our residents, and to protect our health.

So, this 150-day pause gives us the time that we need to do our homework.

A hundred and fifty-day pause today can prevent years of unintended consequences tomorrow, and a hundred and fifty-day pause, so we can get this right.

For your due diligence on this, I think your staff led on this issue, and I certainly appreciate that.

And I also want to highlight the work that's been done by Heather Ballock and her team and Allison and her team.

With that, we need to move forward, and I hope that this action tonight is unanimous because it will send a strong message to our community that this is not a partisan issue when it comes to protecting our neighborhoods across the city.

This is not a blue or red issue.

This is an issue about quality of life.

This is about clean air, clean water, and good neighborhoods.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you all for coming out tonight.

I have to say, y'all, I'm proud of you.

Um, because we're on a roll, and what I what I mean when I say that is that we are showing up, whether you are a member of the business community or a neighbor, or you're an advocate for clean air or sustainable solutions.

This is what it looks like when people come together.

This is what policy work is at its best.

Is that people who have totally different experiences, backgrounds, and in some cases, even values are willing to come to the table and have a conversation so that we're not having to make false choices here at the dais.

I absolutely support the 150 day moratorium to do exactly that.

We are facing new issues that we have not had to face at this level because we are growing so rapidly.

And I think that's a great thing because we have the capacity and the capability in our community to do exactly that.

We've got to dig deeper.

We've got to really understand not only the the legal framework, but also the technical information, whether it's the data itself or it is the scientific basis behind the impacts to our communities.

When we can agree on the facts, then we can talk about good policy.

And I think that that's exactly what this 150-day moratorium will do is give us an opportunity to come to the table together to review and understand and align on the facts and then decide what's best for our community because ultimately we determine how it grows.

We are growing, there is no mistake about that, but we need to do it intentionally.

And so I look forward to reviewing the policies and co-developing the policy with you.

Um I look forward to seeing how that informs our economic development incentives, how it informs our infrastructure investments going forward, and frankly, how it how it informs our housing policy going forward.

It is it is far-reaching, far beyond one data center or two data centers.

So I look forward to building the city with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, very appreciative of Dimple and her leadership and others on council for really spearheading this.

Um I think this is so important for us, particularly when we think of land use and our policies.

So I too will be supporting this as many of my colleagues.

Really, oh thank you.

As someone who works at an environmental nonprofit at my at my real job, or not that this isn't my real job, but you know, it's part-time slash really part-time.

You know what I mean.

Um, you know, it's sorry, silly.

Um but yeah, just that um pay the passion.

You know, I know how important it is for us to really be forward thinking.

Um at my job, we always talk about the the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.

Um, and while I know we've heard a lot about maybe we should have thought about some policies in 2020 or 2023, I'm really proud of the work that we're doing now.

Um, and also incorporating community into those conversations.

Um, so I continue to support these conversations about how we can be better stewards to meet the needs of our community.

So excited to continue to work with you all.

Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank all of you all for coming out and having a continued level of engagement around a variety of different uh topics.

This topic of data centers is something that is not new but has bubbled up in a very meaningful way over the last uh several months, not only here in Charlotte, but real really throughout the entire country, as we're looking at the proliferation of hyperscale data centers and different types of data centers that we haven't seen traditionally.

I think it's important to know as we ask questions through this process and staff that provided us information.

We have data centers in our in our community here in the city of Charlotte that have been around since 1990.

Um, and so that's what I mean when I say it's not a new issue.

But what we now have to see is we are operating in a 21st century, and with the advanced technologies that really advance on an exponential level, because that's the way tech works.

We have to understand what the impacts are to communities.

We have to understand what the impacts are to the environment, the impacts to small children, and having these facilities close, approximate to K-12 schools, and so that is I I hope part of the work that we'll do during this moratorium.

The other thing that I think we can do is be very savvy about what the General Assembly allows us to do here at the local level.

So looking at the types of data centers that will might move forward, looking at the technologies, whether it's a closed loop system, whether it takes advantage of chilling the chips right there on site, rather than having a large water chilling system, whether it's having what is called uh behind the meter strategies, which means that all of that electricity and all of that power source is right there on that site, and not pulling from our um municipal utility and then therefore having an adverse effect on your rates that you pay as regular citizens.

So a lot of that work is going to be done.

I commend our staff on immediately standing up an interdisciplinary uh team to look at this.

There's a lot of newness to it.

So, as as you all advocate, I just want you all to extend some grace to staff as we're navigating through this, because there really is no rubric uh around how you actually specifically deal with this.

We are learning as we go, we're learning from others who might be a step or two ahead of us, and we're trying to be nimble to make sure that we're taking care of your needs, our residents, and making sure that our city is safe.

So, of course, without saying, of course, I'm going to support this 150 day moratorium while we do all that heavy lifting that I just described.

Thank you all.

I would like to take a moment.

I have one question for you.

Does this include information to the first chapel roads?

Sorry, you can't you can't yell out here.

I want to know are you gonna stop building?

Sir, sir.

Yeah, the first one to call.

She wanted to before I'll take you up.

The attorney, the attorney, she's uh she got it.

So I wanted to say this.

Um sitting up on the top is one of our former city councilwomen, um, Nancy Carter.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with her and the clean air group over the um weekend.

And I want you to always understand that we believe in people, and of course, people like Nancy, they've stayed with us, they've made it possible for all of us to be here today and to actually think how do we do this better.

So, Nancy, thank you for the work that you do.

Stand up, you got to stand up and get a round of applause.

And Alison, where's Alison?

Al Austin.

Al, where are you?

Al, I can't say that.

Stand up, please.

You don't have on shorts on today, you can ignore that, ignore that.

Also is the chair of his community, and I think he said that he is actually working harder than he did when he was elected.

So I just want you all to know you can come and be really, really a part of this community and make it well, I mean, make it better.

And so thank you, Al, all of you and the people that are here.

I just want you to know it's because of what we are all able to do and accomplish when we do it together, when we do it collaboratively.

Thank you very much.

All right, so you're gonna.

I don't understand why he has not been removed on a minute.

We need to say comments.

That's possible with that.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, in recent months, I've listened to our residents and studied the facts and sought to understand the full impact of this issue.

Data centers play a vital role in our economy.

They power the systems we rely on and bring investment to our region.

However, these facilities can be large, consume significant energy, and operate continuously.

Their size, water use, energy demands, and effects on nearby neighborhoods, noise, light pollution, and land use conflicts, um, they pose real challenges for our community.

And over time, we've learned that many function more like industrial uses than office spaces and should be located accordingly.

We've also learned that not all data centers are the same.

The small facility is one thing, but a sprawling hyperscale campus is another.

And our current rules do not reflect these important differences, and I feel that that must change.

However, let me be clear.

We do not have the legal authority for projects that have already been approved, and they will move forward unaffected by the moratorium.

This pause.

During this time, I will ask the city manager to direct staff to carefully review project scale, tailoring rules based on facility size and impact, neighborhood buffers, setting safe distances from our homes and from our schools, water and energy demand, assessing what our infrastructure can support or should support, equity impacts, protecting vulnerable communities from unfair burdens, costs and incentives, balancing fairness for residents and business.

I also would draw attention.

Backup generator fuel is often necessary for these, and I'd like to have our folks be focused on that as well.

AI is already changing transportation, housing, and many other sectors.

At the recent housing innovation summit, nearly every proposal involved AI.

I've spoken with small businesses using AI to compete in new ways, getting help with HR compliance and marketing tasks they couldn't manage before.

I don't know that you all are listening.

Even our own traffic optimization project is going to rely on AI.

This shows that data centers and their infrastructure are key to our future, and that's why I ask all of you to be involved.

I ask homeowners, the alliance, the small business community, and all stakeholders to join in our effort.

Their expertise is essential to creating a balanced and thoughtful approach.

I will be supporting the 150-day moratorium so that we can take further input from all of those stakeholders and make a decision that works for our community and our economy.

Thank you.

Okay, I'd like before we take the next step.

Thank you.

Yes.

We're going to have the city attorney provide us some information.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

The projects that are exempt by state law include those projects which have a valid building permit.

Any project which for which a special use permit or application has been accepted and completed.

Any development that has a site specific vesting plan approved by statute.

Also, any development for which substantial expenditures have already been made in good faith, reliance on prior approval, also any project that has a complete application for developmental approval.

This is not a city council policy.

This is state law, and any attempt to apply a moratorium to any of these projects that I have just listed would be a direct violation of state law and subject not only not only this council to an overturning of this of its action, but also exposure to liability and frankly taxpayer dollars associated therewith.

And so this is not a city council policy with respect to exempt projects, but it is state law.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I too will be supporting the moratorium for the 150 days.

I think it's extremely important that we um speak um tell people what they need to know.

Versus what they want to hear, and that we have a conversation uh based on truth and honesty about what we can and what we can't do.

Certainly, Councilmember Anson is correct.

A lot of the framework will be shaped by state legislation in terms of how they perceive this issue.

Uh so I would encourage everyone here to also talk to your state representatives and your state senators in reference to that's where a bulk of this thing, the framework, the guide the guardrails that we will work within will come from.

Um so I won't delay it any longer.

I think we need to take the 150 days to pause, and and even for me, uh I've learned more about that since the last six weeks than I ever knew, right?

And so even for this 150 days for me to be better educated about what we can, what we can't do, the impact.

Certainly, the number one goal is protecting neighborhoods and communities, right?

That goes without saying, but there's a balance there, and I think we need to figure out collectively together where that line is.

Thank you.

All right, Mr.

Griggs.

I look forward to joining my colleagues in support of the moratorium.

Uh I think there are undeniable national trends and data science.

Uh and we need to reconcile those with our concerns about the welfare of our community.

So we will have 150 days in order to educate ourselves to hear different points of view and to work out what is best for Charlotte.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So I appreciate that we're having this discussion.

I would like for council to start being more proactive instead of reactive.

When the first part, when we received a proposal over the million square feet back in 2023, and I asked questions then and shared information then regarding the potential impacts of data centers, because we've always had data centers, but not at the scale that we're seeing now.

We're in a drought, we're not the only ones in the drought.

There's a drought throughout the nation that's happening without having language in place that mandated or incentivized heavily, and for me, making the cost for the access to our water being cost prohibitive, that's how you incentivize internal cooling systems and or location.

It should be nowhere near schools.

I speak all the time about the fact that we are losing manufacturing areas, manufacturing is the place where it needs to go because of the constant hum that has not only a physical impact to us, it is having an impact on our wildlife, on bees, there are a lot of environmental.

So you think about the fact that we passed the conversation around pollinator, but these buildings have so many other negative impacts on environment that will be long-term for us.

So I appreciate that there's a lot of conversation now, but honestly, all of you that are sharing your thoughts very loudly, I need y'all to consider why we need you to be engaged.

Because this isn't new.

We're in 2026.

We've already passed a couple of them.

No, we can't backtrack to 2023.

But when that information was out there, when we were having conversations about it, we didn't hear from the community.

And our biggest challenge is when we don't hear from the community, even when we try to outreach to the community, and community is like, I don't know, we all use an AI, so it must be okay.

And then you learn information later.

We need you to help us.

We want to work with you, but we gotta hear from you.

So us having this moratorium now is a step, but is not going to retract what was already approved, and the two largest potential facilities over a million square feet.

One of them, which 2023 is outside of City Charlotte limits, it's actually in the county.

Yet we need to hear from y'all.

We need to know that this is a concern.

This moratorium is gonna help us do more research and hopefully get us to a place of policy language.

But as my colleague mentioned, the North Carolina General Assembly understand the rules.

They set them.

At any time, the General Assembly can decide what is going to be the policy language for all 120 counties across North Carolina.

So if the right person gets to them and say, hey, we want access to put data centers wherever we want, they have the legal ability to do that.

What does that mean?

Go out and vote.

Don't complain about it, just go vote.

That's how you so I appreciate that y'all think that you all think that, well, since some country, y'all, y'all think that we have more control and ability than what we do.

We serve at the pleasure of the North Carolina General Assembly.

So as we move forward and try to create language that's going to benefit our residents, we cannot say, I cannot say that there are gonna be no data centers.

But what I can commit to is working with staff for us to figure out where's the best location as far away from students, as far away from our elders, as far away from residents as possible, so that we can try to minimize and what can we do to ensure we are protecting our water source so that we don't end up like other communities that don't have access to healthy water, and so that we can try to make sure that the cost of running that facility 24-7 for all of us that like to use Chat GPT and Claude and AI and everything else, we're going to use it because that's a reality.

The question is, can we do that?

I didn't ask, do I come to your job and start looking up?

So that's what I'm gonna ask you not to do.

So when we look at the impact of data centers, the question for me is where data centers are gonna be located, how large is that data center gonna be, what access to our natural resources are you trying to get access to, and do we have the legal ability to not only limit our natural resources from being utilized that way and or eliminate our natural resources to be eliminated?

I'm looking forward to the conversations we're going to have regarding the impact of data centers and what legal language we can put in place.

The attorney and I have actually already started this conversation soon as she's only been here seven months.

So I think I gave you the first 45 days to let you get situated before we started having the conversation so that we can look at what can we do within the legal constraints constraints, and how can we interpret the language that is out there in a way that's gonna benefit our community?

I think this moratorium is gonna help us move that conversation a little further.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

JD for thank you, madam mayor.

Tonight's vote on a 150-day moratorium.

Uh I do believe it's more about data centers.

I think it is about the kind of city we want to build and who we believe should have a meaningful voice in shaping our city's future, whether it's those who make profits at the expense of our community or the people, the community, the workers who are make who are helping make those corporations the profits in the first place.

All right, and as my colleague just said, we should have done this years ago.

Um, particularly when my colleague council member may feel sounded the alarm on this two, three years ago.

And when I think about this decision, I think about the people of District 5 who are facing a potential data center in their backyard, people like Gustavo Toro, who is up there, uh, a father fighting every day for his son with autism, navigating the systems that are already stretched thin.

And when we talk about land use and infrastructure, energy and environmental impacts, we're not talking about abstract policy or money.

We are talking about families like Gustavo's who feel the consequences of our choices and their daily lives.

Data centers have real impacts.

A simple Google search will help you uh identify that on our environment, on our water supply, on our energy grid, on noise, on heat, on the long term sustainability of our neighborhoods.

And I believe this moratorium gives us the space to ensure that growth does not come at the expense of the people who already live here.

And we also have to be honest about the corporate reality in front of us.

The corporation who is petitioning for a rezoning in my district to build a 40,000 square foot data center, already has in holding approval for a 10,000 square foot center if the rezoning is denied because of what you just heard from the attorney and my other colleagues.

The state legal environment we live here in North Carolina, such as downzoning restrictions and by right state statute that allows this to happen without city council's approval.

That tells us something important.

They have options and they have flexibility.

To my colleague just said, uh Councilmember Mayfield, this is your time to hold other public institutions accountable, to hold our state representatives accountable, to make your voices be heard.

Because listen, with all with um, I think I've said this to many of you in the audience, as much as I wish we could live in what New York City is experiencing right now.

We do not live in that reality in this uh the good old state of North Carolina.

So our work is cut out for us.

We can if you elect representatives to our state legislature that represent your voices.

So I am reminded of what Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens recently reminded corporate leaders.

We cannot attend to corporate needs if they can't attend to societal needs.

That is not anti-business.

That is a reminder shift that I believe partnership must be mutual, not one-sided.

We also have to confront the policy framework we are working with then.

Our unified development ordinance gives far more flexibility to developers than to residents, allowing data centers by right in seven zoning districts.

And because of state down zoning restrictions and by right zoning enabled by state law, our ability to protect those neighborhoods is very limited, even if this moratorium is passed.

So this is a moment, as I stated before, to understand the power that the state has over local jurisdictions.

This happened in 2019 when the city of Charlotte wanted to pass uh municipal IDs to residents that didn't have uh documentation here.

The moment the state legislature found that out, they passed a state statute that prohibited every municipality, every local government in the state of North Carolina from protecting those residents.

So it is a moment to say clearly that local governments need the authority to make decisions for the people who actually live here, not just those who profit here.

Passing this moratorium is not the end of the work, it is the beginning of broader conversation about all types of advocacy, about restoring local control so we can protect our neighborhoods, our infrastructure, our quality of life, and if residents have to be asked to conserve water during drought conditions, if families can be asked to reduce energy using uh during peak demand, then corporations, especially those with massive water and energy footprints should be held to the same standard.

Especially especially when Duke Energy is pushing for higher rates, and when our residents are already facing property tax increase and service fee increases.

If we are going to ask more of our people, we should expect at least as much from those folks that are petitioning for data centers who can afford it.

I want to express my gratitude to the people and organizations who have been relentless in raising awareness and demanding accountability, action and see, the District four coalition, uh PSL Indivisible, and e-sharlotte residents, and the law and academic experts who have helped us understand the implications of not only state law but also our unified development ordinance.

Your advocacy is the reason why we're here tonight.

Your persistence is the reason this conversation is happening.

Your voices, your noise must continue.

This moratorium is not about anti-growth.

It is smart growth.

It is smart development, it is people first policy.

It is a pause, a necessary pause to ensure that Charlotte grows in a way that protects our neighborhoods, respects our infrastructure, and honors the people who call this city home.

So let us not be lost in this moment because this is not isolated.

There is more work to do, more advocacy to pursue, more voices to uplift, and tonight we take a step forward to make sure that Charlotte, where the development is happening, serves the people, not the other way around.

Thank you, Ms.

Johnson.

Thank you, madam mayor.

I won't belabor the point.

Uh I think you all know that I'll be supporting the moratorium.

And I want to thank Councilmember Ashmuir for your leadership on this bringing this forward.

Um also want to thank the city attorney and Tony Mingo.

She's in the room.

She's the one with the sign University City Lives Matters too.

Yeah.

She's the original chair of our uh the council district for coalition, and she's been on this for a long time.

I want to thank you, and as well as your predecessor, Juan Yuven and the coalition.

Action NC, uh Dr.

Aria White.

Um, just thank you.

This is a huge moment tonight.

I know it's not perfect, I know it's not everything that we want, but you all have to realize the moment that we're in right now.

There was last year, this time we wouldn't, I used to call moratorium the M word.

We wouldn't have mentioned this.

Um, and so this is huge.

This is a huge step for our city.

I think you're what you're seeing is is people first leadership.

So give yourselves a hand for your engagement, and that and we are really give yourselves a hand.

You have to know, um, I think the rule, Andrea, what's the law that that mentions the exception?

160 C is it 160 C Council Member Johnson, it's 160 D 107 subsection C.

The exempt projects, right?

So the exempt projects.

We've had long discussions regarding the exempt projects.

This is where our state legislators will be able to help.

You all reach out to your state legislators.

I'm going to be meeting with the state legislators and also the county.

And we'll take a look at this from an intergovernmental perspective.

But we need your help.

But you just have to know that you've got some fighters on this council.

We're gonna do all we can for the uh Morse Chapel and the Powerhouse, but there may not be, you know, we it's already passed.

So just just know that, but we are going to be, I think, a more proactive from now on.

Councilmember Mayfield and I voted against this in 2023.

We asked questions about health, we asked questions about the capacity, but there was not the public knowledge of what data centers were.

There wasn't staff knowledge of it.

So now we know, and and we're going to try to do better.

Um, but we are going to take a pause this in during this 150 days to uh to implement policies that will be beneficial for the city and and the residents, and I look forward to supporting it.

Thank you.

I want to call for the vote, please.

Let's go ahead and call for the motion.

We have a motion.

I just wanted to make sure uh our video missed if I did not recognize June Blotnick and her crew of climate leaders.

Please stand uh for pulling together interdisciplinary team of all the experts from air, water, health to quality of life.

I appreciate you and the white paper you have given us.

We'll continue to keep that in mind as we develop regulations.

Thank you, Jimmy.

Alright, so um now let's go to our city attorney.

No, we're gonna go to the oh, let's go with the vote.

All in favor?

Anyone opposed?

Alright, thank you.

That's unanimous.

The people united will never be defeated.

The people united.

Will never be defeated.

The people united.

All right.

Um, if you want to continue, if you would, it would be very helpful so that we can get everybody to have their opportunity to have their conversation with the council.

So, but our next policy item is a discussion on council rules and procedures.

If you'll recall from our last business meeting during the council topics, council voted to add this.

This was not specific.

I don't do it.

Thank you.

I'm going to need to add to the agenda council chamber at the point.

Are we doing what is it?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

No, we see the what I'm saying.

We weren't already.

No, we haven't done business.

We only didn't consider.

All right.

As you recall from our last business meeting during council topics, council voted to add this item to tonight's agenda for the discussion to open up the topic.

It would be good for our city attorney to give an overview of current rules and procedures.

Madam Mayor, members of council, thank you very much.

For the benefit of council.

I don't think we can hear it all, so maybe we'll let's just get it a moment.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of council.

For the benefit of council and the public, I would like to briefly explain how items are placed on the city council agenda.

The process is governed by the city council's rules of procedure, not the city charter.

This means that the rules of procedure can be updated pursuant to council's own processes.

Currently, the rules of procedure provide, and actually rule 4D of your rules of procedure, which you have before you at the dais, that any member of council may request the city manager to place an item on a future agenda by making such a request at a council meeting.

Unless a council member or the city manager objects, the requested item shall be included.

If a council member or the city manager has an objection, the item in question shall not be included on the future agenda unless a majority of the council votes in favor of including the item.

At this time, this item has come back before council.

Certainly on on the last motion that was made.

And it has now come back before this the full council for consideration.

There is nothing in your rules of procedure that would prohibit consideration at this time, nor any referral process to committee as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um Madam Attorney, thank you for clarifying that.

I'll be supporting the change.

All right, Miss Johnson.

I'd like to make a motion.

All right, Ms.

Johnson.

You're recognized.

Thank you.

I'd like to make a motion to modify 4D.

That in uh that includes unless the majority of council votes in favor to reduce that threshold to four.

Council members.

Second.

Do I have a motion and a second?

Any discussion?

Hearing no Miss Lincoln.

Mine's just a question.

I'm looking at 4D.

Can you can you tell me what it would read?

If a council member or the city manager has an object objection, the item in question shall not be included on future agenda unless four of the council members votes in favor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Of including the item.

We set a majority.

Any other comments?

Is there any other item you trying to amend while we got this over?

Miss Mayfield.

We start.

We have a motion and second on the floor.

Yeah, indeed.

We have a motion on the floor.

I got another question.

Okay.

Um, and it might be what you were just saying.

I know that there was the whole decorum thing, and I saw that land in our email box.

Right.

Is it would seem that this discussion is a part of that, but I just want to, yeah.

I'm just wondering if your motion, Councilmember Johnson, is separate from what may come after it, or if you were waiting for to compile.

That's all the separate.

This might be a good time to talk about it, but yes, it is a separate.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Can we have any other questions?

Oh no, I'm just ready to act.

Okay, Ms.

Sanderson.

So I just want to be clear here that on 4D, we're we are the third sentence in.

If a council member or the city manager has an objection, the item in question shall not be included on the future agenda.

Where's the strike through here?

Right here.

Unless four.

So instead of majority, it would be four.

Yeah, change it.

All right, council members.

Yeah.

The language majority to four.

May I in plain language?

So that's always if we bring something up on the agenda.

You understand?

It doesn't get done unless there's a majority.

Because anybody can object to it, and then there had to be a majority of council to get it on the agenda.

This way it would only be four council members to get something on the agenda if anyone objects.

On the future agenda.

A future agenda.

Now, the currently there's a unanimous vote that's required to get something on a current agenda.

There was some discussion on that, but I don't want to get complicated today.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Mazulera is oh we have it is that is actually overlapping with your charter.

And so the so that this is different.

Um, agenda, but the charter specifically says that for the same night for something to be added to the agenda that it requires.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay.

So we have a motion on the floor.

Any other discussion?

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

Anyone?

Okay, that passes.

Thank you.

How many?

Are you an opposed?

All right.

Because who is our that we have someone opposed?

All right, we have two of two opposed.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

The next item on our agenda.

Madam Mayor, or maybe can we add?

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry, Madam Mayor.

Can we talk about the decorum?

Um that I just sent people via email that the decorum committee has been talking about as well.

I'd like to make a motion to pass that.

All right, we have a motion to put it on in the email.

We have a motion to discuss it.

I think I think you have a motion to discuss it.

Oh, yeah.

Can we do that?

That's I yeah.

We just had this we have to pass.

Eddie, yeah, it's in the email.

I'm sorry.

There seems to be some confusion about who's doing what.

Alright, Miss Mayfield.

So for clarification, Mayor and I'm just asking an attorney.

We have the agenda for tonight for this business meeting.

We're on item number 11, which is discussion on the council rules and procedures, which was specifically what we just voted on in this book.

The conversation for decorum is not a we need to go through the business items.

And because is this a night where we even have we don't even have council topics on the agenda?

That's where that would come up is in council topics.

We have to go to item number 11 according to our agenda because the decorum discussion is not a part of the rules and procedures.

So attorney and I how is it not a part of our rules of procedures?

That our next item to the for discussion is item number 12 because we just discussed number 11 and voted on it.

Can't be brought up in this conversation that we're having right now.

So two so two quick things.

Rule 4C of your rules of procedure provide that any item that is not on the agenda can then be taken up at the conclusion of the agenda at the conclude.

Correct.

Um and with respect to item number 11 discussion on council rules and procedures.

Um, my recollection of the the request and the motion by council member Johnson was specifically with regard to item 4D of the rules of procedure with respect to changing the the number of required votes to add something to a future agenda, and so that is the basis of my conclusion on this evening is based on that.

So we got to continue with the original agenda.

Point of order.

I have a question then.

Um because we don't know necessarily, and this is maybe a general question, but this is an example.

We don't know what motion would have come out of the discussion associated with the quorum.

It may have resulted in a in a change to the rules of procedure, and there's no rule that we can only make one motion on uh on a particular topic.

So to me, this is absolutely germane to the agenda topic that's at hand because just because council member Johnson we knew she was going to talk about that specific thing, the agenda says a discussion about rules and procedures, and so I'm not understanding why that doesn't fall clearly within what was just discussed.

I would agree as well.

I mean, on the agenda, it's very broad, it's not very specific about exactly what we're talking about.

So I I would say we could add this, but I mean I'll go with the majority.

I'll leave it to the chair.

I'm just I'll leave it to the chair.

I'm sorry, I'll leave it to Madam Mayor for you.

Whether it's in or out of order.

Or you do you want you to decide if it's in or out of order.

Yeah, but I can't I have three people talking to me at once, okay.

Um what would you say?

I was saying I would leave it to Madam Mayor to decide whether it was appropriate to based on agenda topic.

Okay, great heading.

All right, we can talk about it.

Yeah, yeah.

So, okay.

All right, so we're gonna go to the next item.

So I'm sorry, can you rule on that, please?

Was it in or out of order?

It is in order.

It is in order, so we can talk about it.

You can talk about it.

Okay, yes.

Sorry, I'm gonna you couldn't I couldn't hear and so the attorney ruled that it's in order.

So we're now we're waiting for we just voted on it, so we just voted and close item number 11.

We didn't have been an additional an amendment to the first amendment if we close item 11, which was the discussion on council rules and procedures, okay.

Now, what I'm hearing, and I want to make sure I'm hearing it correctly.

Is an introduction of a new topic, but according to our rules, that can be added after we complete the agenda.

The chair of the meeting just said that it was in order and a part of the topic that was discussed.

That motion closed, but the topic didn't close based on what she just ruled.

Madam Mayor, I'm gonna withdraw my motion and we'll just go based on my email and hopefully we can vote on this later.

So I I apologize, I did not mean to open a can of worms.

Okay, all right.

So I think we have a okay.

Now let's go into the business section to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager is its designee to negotiate and execute a craft.

We have a motion for A and B.

Any discussion?

Me.

Yes, sir.

Hello, thank you.

Um, I did want to uh thank you, Madam Mayor.

Sorry.

Um, want to uh call down Debbie Smith uh from uh CDOT to answer some questions, please.

Yes, okay, both kind of good.

Hi, good evening, council mayor.

Good to see you, Debbie Smith with CDOT, and I've also brought with me Samantha Miller, uh, also from CDOT to be able to answer your questions.

Thank you, Debbie and Samantha.

Um, so as we know, uh I first want to go to council.

Um, you all have a one-pager of the eSharot connector in front of you.

Um, it is a proposed active transportation network uh that seeks to improve connectivity and safety for vulnerable uh users, increase job diversity and employment opportunities in the east side.

So think of it kind of like the South Park Connector.

Oh, it is uh one pager.

It's a handout, a handout.

Um I do want to ask uh some few questions uh regarding this because uh I've had community members raise some concerns, so um I'll just go one by one.

Uh when did we initially apply for these funds to fund this project?

Um yes, so we actually applied for this in July of 2024.

Um they were not awarded until January of 2025.

Um and we needed to wait for FHWA to get back to us for a kickoff meeting, which did not happen until October of 2025, and at that time we can work on an agreement with them, and we needed to be sensitive to the fact that it needed to go through their headquarters approval to ensure that all of the funding would come to us as had been prescribed, and that actually did not happen until May of this year.

Um that's a seven months process, which is actually pretty speedy, um, for our federal agreements.

Um, and so we were pretty pleased with that, but we wanted to make sure that everything was in place before we brought it to this council.

So, would you say that there was a delay um in the funds being released?

Yes, and then accepting the funds, and then there was a delay with the kickoff meeting or what what did you call it?

Um so we had to have a kickoff meeting with FHWA and where they talk about the agreement.

There was a lot of agreement language that they were changing during the process.

There was a lot of things happening, and so they were trying to get all of their information correct before we executed the agreement with them.

Thank you.

And when was this all settled?

So May 1st of this year.

May 1st of this year, okay.

Uh, and how much community feedback have we gotten on this framework?

Or I I saw that a framework has been released, and the concerns that the community brought up is that those initial stakeholders, particularly those in the east side, were not brought into the conversation to come up with the final adoption of the framework for the eSharlot Connector.

So could you walk me through that timeline, please?

Um yes, so we did have uh robust communication.

Um there were several events in 2024 with uh stakeholder agreements, open houses, um, including and a logo and branding survey.

Um, and then we came back to the community in March of 2025 with a full public meeting to give some of the updates that we have.

Um, we did seek to get this planning grant so that we could continue that work, and actually, as part of that grant, one of the deliverables will be um increased and more extensive public engagement that is all part of the process of what we need to give back to the federal government so that they can understand that we've engaged the public properly.

Perfect.

So when was the last time city staff checked back into it the community?

So that would be March of 2025, and we've just been waiting.

The community said to us that they wanted us to come back with more information, and we wanted to wait until we had that information to share with them in a more better.

So and just to be clear, what we're voting on today is more so a formal procedural vote to go ahead and accept the dollars, right, rather than finalizing and adopting the framework plan because the framework plan is still going through revisions and as set put set forth by the grant guidelines, more community engagement will be done.

Yes.

Yes, okay, great.

Thank you so much.

I I greatly appreciate it.

Okay, and please keep me appraised of uh the community uh sessions that you'll have, and please use me as an active working partner to bring those stakeholders along.

Absolutely, we certainly will.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you so much, Debbie and Samantha.

Do you want to make a motion?

There was one and there's a second.

So ready to vote.

Ms.

Mirror, yes.

Um, thank you, Madam Mayor.

So, my question is related to overall infrastructure investment program.

So, over the weekend, staff shared this performance metrics for us.

It's a long PDF, and that was a really good document where we have performance measure for each department.

And I looked at the transportation and miles of new sidewalks, miles of new bikeways, and there are other infrastructure projects where we are far below our target.

So I just want to highlight that concern, not specific to east Charlotte, but just throughout the city, we are not meeting the target where clearly there is a progress needed, but I think we need an action plan to improve to ensure that we are meeting the benchmark because we are our target should be 10 plus, but right now the data shows we are at 4.54, which is not even half.

So that means we need to do more progress on investing our dollars into our infrastructure where we promised a time timely delivery.

We are certainly falling behind on that, and this performance metric specifically calls out sidewalks and bikeways, and yeah, there are more, but I'm not gonna go through every single item, but I just wanted to highlight that.

That's all I have.

All right, we have real quick.

Yes, please.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Um, manager Jones, um, more so of a suggestion and direction.

If you know, when it comes to projects like these that require community engagement, um, I would like as a district representative, I really would like to be made appraised of those conversations and dialogue so we can help connect the dots.

Um, as we've said, I think we've got in a uh a slogan this term on council, which is be proactive and not reactive, right?

I want to make sure that I'm not finding about this project from my constituents, right?

I want to make sure that I'm ahead because I think we want to build that public trust where hey East Charlotte Connector, and as a district representative, if I go to my constituents and say, Well, I had no idea and they know more about it, right?

There's clearly a disconnect between communication and um uh dialogue from residents with their city council representative or the institution that is the city of Charlotte.

So if we can find a way to perhaps create a community engagement process that is more um that that includes the district rep, at least in my perspective, right?

I'm not gonna speak for my at large members because they represent the entire city, but for at least the district rep, since we're at the first line of defense, um, and those conversations, so thank you, all right.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

So we have the motion and the floor and all in favor?

I think that's unanimous.

Anyone opposed, but I'll look around and see.

All right, so there we go.

Our next business item is the general obligation bond referendum for item 14.

Is there a very good motion?

13.

Sorry.

May I move to approve A and B, the federal funding of the Razo Fair Mobility Path, to adopt the resolution as well as adopt the budget ordinance.

Second, mayor.

We have a motion and a second.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor, anyone opposed?

Okay, thank you.

And we can go back to item 14.

Was there a motion to adopt resolutions authorizing staff to proceed with the necessary actions to conduct a general obligation bond referendum on November the 3rd, 20268-75A I move, Mayor.

Second, motion and a second.

Is there any discussion?

Yes.

All right, we have to do we have that on that.

Just accept it to the right.

Okay.

So Miss Watlington is is excused recuse from this, okay from item fourteen from item 14.

Right.

Okay.

Everybody's square on that.

On our next business item is the oh we have to take any other vote.

Oh, do we have a vote for it?

All in favor?

Second for all right anybody to um object no objection so let's go to the next item which is 15 our next business item is for an amendment to amend it and restate it lease for the bank of america stadium for item 15 is there a motion to authorize so move mayor second we have a motion and a second is there any discussion mr thank you madam mayor can I get a member from city staff to talk about this mayor good evening good evening hey Sean thank you so much I just uh would like for you in lemus terms to describe to the public what we're voting on in terms of this uh restated lease agreement uh for the bank of america stadium of course this is an adjustment to the lease that was executed in December of 2025 and it's a scenario that was contemplated as far back as October of 2025 when there were discussions at the committee level about the opportunity for a fully private sector funded performance venue adjacent to Bank of America Stadium on city owned property in the last couple months the North Carolina Department of Transportation has conveyed a very small piece of property 0.244 acres next to the stadium to the city of Charlotte and as discussed with the committee in October the aspiration for the team is to have part of the performance venue straddle city owned property and what was previously in C DOT property which is now city owned property that we are seeking to tuck into the lease that was executed in December of 2025 and no additional taxpayer funding is needed for this uh this amendment correct that's correct this will be a purely private sector funded performance venue with a seating capacity of approximately 4400 with an estimated number of performances between 80 to 100 per year so the job creation and tourism benefits associated with that asset will require no no add no investment whatsoever from the city of Charlotte no financial investment thank you so much Sean that's it mayor thank you Miss Field thank you madam mayor Sean for clarification since this is city owned land and we are talking about leasing are we generating any revenue from this lease so no we are not generating any revenue from the lease but in exchange for including this in the lease all of the jobs and tourism benefits associated with the venue will accrue to the city of Charlotte what does that mean so it benefits hospitality and tourism and hospitality and tourism tax but what we are adding we're expanding to include this corner into the current lease for them to be build a venue on which is going to generate income for them but generate hospitality and tourism taxes for us.

Yes this will be less than one percent of the total amount of property included in the lease.

Thank you.

Alright miss flatlington thank you madam mayor I just wanted to understand was the land conveyed from NCDOT for the purpose of us transferring it to um the stadium so the land was deemed surplus by NC DOT so the deed was handed over to us with no restrictions or obligations associated with our use of the property so we received it free and clear um there no there are no restrictions that would prevent us from including it in the lease or anything else correct correct and this is a piece of property that it's in our long term interest to have this as city owned property as it's been that little tiny point to four four acre triangular parcel within a much larger piece of city owned land for quite some time.

Alright is there any more are there any more questions, Ms.

Johnson?

Thank you.

So we're donating the land so that they can build the practice facility, right?

No, so this is not a I'm sorry.

Are there any allotted days in the in the venue to the community?

So if we were to find ourselves in hopefully the very unlikely circumstances that after the 20-year non-relocation period associated with Panther Stadium that the team were to leave then in that instance there would be five city use days associated with the performance venue.

After 20 years if they leave in what is hopefully the unlikely event that the that the team leaves the stadium then there would be city use days associated with the performance venue.

And what's the size of the lot so it'll be approximately two acres in total almost all of which is was previously city owned land it's only this little point 244 acre parcel that was previously owned by NC DOT that is relevant to this proposed amendment to the lease.

Were there any Miss Watlington unless somebody who hasn't spoken I think that we had no one in the case.

Have we had any conversation as far as community benefits associated with I mean it would seem that we could just call I'm sure they would be amenable to some community days but before we vote on this it would seem that we would at least have that conversation.

So I think it it goes back to the conversation that we had with jobs and economic development committee in October of last year and then there was a vote by full council subsequent to the committee meeting that contemplated the construction of a performance venue next to the stadium is we needed council to allow us to include that in the negotiations with the team that were that were completed in December.

So the conversations we've had around community benefits really revolved around any scenario where the football team were to leave after 20 years then there would be certain benefits including a rent payment and and city use days associated with the performance venue.

But only if the team leaves as long as the team is here this there is no community benefit correct well I think the way it was this discussed in committee was by allowing for the performance venue to be on this small piece of property it well but for that there may not be a performance venue was essentially the way the the committee discussion was so is this time sensitive because I would much prefer to if if it's the will of the council to at least have a friendly conversation I I would hate for us to miss an opportunity to simply say hey if we're if we're providing this land so that you can build for this amenities yes we understand there's going to be some level of jobs and some tax uh revenue but that tax revenue goes to the to the housing and tourism fund anyway which we just learned is restricted for anything that actually benefits residents.

Non-profit tax no well so okay so we'll get the property tax that's fair but any sales that go there will be associated with um with the tourism fund I think it would it would behoove us to at least have a conversation about community benefit days or or anything of that nature that doesn't seem like a tall order so if this is not time sensitive I'd I'd love to see us come back to that just after we have that conversation and like I said I would expect that uh that the Panthers there they are a great community partner that they would be amenable to something.

So the the way that we've worked on the timeline we've given ourselves a little bit of latitude in the month of June.

I will say that all of the conversations around the performance venue were really contemplated in the negotiations we had with the team leading to the execution of the lease in December of 2025 so I I would I would want to make everyone aware that the staff did have conversations with the team around the value proposition we did have conversations with committee about the about the value proposition it's it's been a number of months since we had those conversations but I just want to make sure that was on the record.

And does that mean that that has already been executed so well the existing lease was executed in December, what's being contemplated here is really just one adjustment to allow for this little piece of land to be included in the lease.

Yeah, so then we've got time to have this conversation about this piece.

Okay.

Yes.

Miss Watlington, the manager would like to address this.

So I think you mayor members of council.

So as Sean had said earlier, um, this had been contemplated, and I think it's just been a while since council has had the conversation a little bit refresher.

I believe that the option on the table now is.

So Sean, can you bring everybody up to speed about what was contemplated versus where we are now?

And I think we're in a better place, but please.

Yeah, this there really is a a long history on it, so I don't want to go back too far in time.

But yeah, no need.

Yeah.

Um where we thought we could end up as of six months ago, was that the team could actually have control of the parcel, and then where it landed obviously was NCDOT ultimately decided that this is surplus property that was warranted to provide conveyance to the city of Charlotte.

So with us having control of the property, it's much more beneficial to us in the long term.

Uh, Mr.

Manager, I'm not sure if that was the specific scenario you're referring to.

Okay, Madam Mayor.

All right.

That's Ms.

Johnson.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm sorry.

Did Ms.

Johnson, Miss Mayfield, did you already have a comment?

I have a question.

Okay.

A question, Ms.

Johnson.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Thank you, Sean and Mr.

Jones.

The challenge for us is too it, it may seem like a little bit of land, two eight, two acres, but it's not.

We have we have vendors that are being displaced.

They're no longer able to, you know, to uh provide business or do their business in front of different shops in NODA and different locations, and there's restrictions.

I think of truck parking, I think of affordable housing.

I mean, there's just opportunities for land, maybe not here, but two acres of land is two acres of land.

So when we ask for community, point two.

Well, land is land.

So when we ask for, when we ask for some type of community benefit, I think that that's reasonable.

I think that what council member uh what Dr.

Watlington said is reasonable if we could go back to the uh Bank of America, stadium folks, and and see what we can come up with.

I mean, these are taxpayer dollars that we are stewards of.

Thank you.

Especially since it's the um tourism fund, and you know, we're being told you know, kind of hands off.

We are just we just need to be stewards.

So if this is an opportunity to do something for the public, we need to really be asking these questions.

Mr.

Driggs, Ms.

Mayfield, thank you.

Sorry, thank you, madam.

Yeah, I didn't get there.

So I want to clarify because what the manager just noted is, yes, we started this conversation back in December 2025.

Mr.

Heath, what you noted was when we started this conversation, it was under a premise that they were going to be purchasing it.

So we were saying, okay, yes, we'll support the idea of a venue.

When that conversation shifted, there was an opportunity to have come back to council before bringing us a decision tonight for us to be able to ask these questions because once it was shifted that they were not going to be the ones purchasing the land, that the land was going to be conveyed to the city.

I agree with my colleagues.

We had the opportunity to then look at where uh are the community benefits.

We can have all these venues uptown.

Of which I'm pretty sure when we first had this conversation, I was in no boat because we have multiple venue spaces around the city, that our residents can't even attend because of location and cost.

So when I'm I don't understand when the conversation shift shifted to ownership of this land by the city, that the first question wasn't what are the benefits?

Because I know I'm gonna have to go before my council, and my council is going to ask me how does this benefit the community?

It's a given that that's gonna be the question that comes from at least three people from around this diet.

So manager Jones helped me get to the place of why once the conversation shifted from Bank of America owning the land to the land being conveyed to the city, why that didn't trigger uh conversation prior to coming before tonight, coming before us tonight as in the form of a vote, yeah.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Mayfield.

I think part of the and I appreciate the conversation we're having, and I think waiting for two more weeks is probably a good thing.

Um control of this.2 acres is much better than having a private entity having control over 0.2 acres if they were ever to not renew the lease in the next 20 years.

So that was one of the that's why when I was saying to Sean earlier, I think we're in a better position being in control of the that 0.2 acres than not being in control.

And I agree with you that it's a better position for the city to be in control of it.

The challenge I have is it's not benefiting the community for the city to be in control of it.

So if our having control is still just gonna give them the ability to build and develop how they do without there being a community give back, and I'm not talking about the holiday giveaway that you do actually at Carrowens, which is on the South Carolina line.

I'm talking about uh actual impact to what we have here within the city limits.

So I agree that it's in our best interest to own this piece of land uptown.

That does not answer my question of why we didn't think that was the opportunity to go back and have a discussion on how this can benefit the residents of Charlotte.

I'm not in, I was thinking that Dr.

Waddlington was going to do a motion to defer.

So if so I will move to defer since we didn't have that.

I don't think Billy, did you get motion to defer to you and Ms.

Organic?

Got it.

So that's to to defer to our next business meeting to give us a chance to have to work with our partners because public-private partnerships are so very important.

There you go.

They have given and supported a number of opportunities, and this will be another yet great opportunity for them to show support to the local Charlotte community that supports them.

I'm so proud of Mr.

Mr.

Graham.

Thank you, thank you, madam mayor.

Um, point oh two acres.

0.244, a quarter of an acre.

A quarter of an acre in close proximity to the proposed of adjacent to the stadium pre-standing by the North Gate, correct, on land that's not currently being activated.

Not currently, and so it's in district two, and the council can certainly have a perspective.

My perspective is this is really within our entertainment district, right?

It's it's a small swath of land.

Um, and we do have the community partner that has uh invested in our community, um travel and tourism, sports and entertainment.

They're building a new uh music venue that seats 4200.

Charlotte um soccer, Carolina Panthers, economic impact, employee workers, city controls it, works with our partners who part of the Carolins is on the North Carolina side too, so it's like in the middle, right?

Also, depending on which side you side you stand on, right?

So it's it's either or uh and but I think the bigger point is that they do have a uh impact with our community, and I think that I'm not sure you can fit any other usage there.

That's something that's not really consistent with the majority of the activity there, right?

I mean, so I think it's it's very narrowly tailored usage that should be consistent with the surrounding um compatible um functions, activity, people moving around, and so I hope that we would I thought this was gonna be a no-brainer when I when I read it through the weekend, um, but I hope that we can this the manager said two weeks.

I'm ready to move it forward tonight, but if there's unreadiness, then I thought that was just don't understand why we need to do that.

My hand has been struggling with why we should do that.

Mr.

Driggs and then Ms.

Hajmira.

So I have a lot of the same concerns as Mr.

Graham.

This is normally something we would pursue eagerly, and they might in fact apply for hospitality fund support in order to create this resource and revitalize energize that entertainment district.

It's a vision that we had, it was part of the reason that we partnered with the team.

Uh it provides a lot of benefits.

The people who go to those concerts will enjoy the opportunity to go.

Many of them will come from out of town.

It will provide jobs through economic stimulus.

And the point is they haven't asked for any hospitality money.

They could have the fact that they didn't mean that there will be hospitality dollars available to us for other uses.

Uh so I I think it's uh it's unfortunate, in fact, that the team is willing to make the is it 40 million dollar investment to create this facility?

They haven't announced a particular construction cost, but it's a 4400 number.

40 some odd million dollars that they're going to invest in Charlotte with all of the jobs that go with that investment, creating a facility that will add to the appeal of our city to to visitors and be a benefit in that sense, and it's a quarter of an acre.

We have a 1.3 billion dollar partnership with this team.

This should not be something that we niggle about.

Is it something that we should sort of recognize is a benefit to us?

I had the same feeling you did.

I I didn't see why uh this would turn into a thing.

It's not a gift to them in that sense.

We are making a small accommodation in order to realize a very significant facility that people will appreciate.

And I think they're giving us the gift, right?

Because they're building a facility without any public money.

We already gave them something.

And they've they made a contribution.

Point of order, there's a cue.

Well, they made they made a contribution as well.

So it's it's it's it's a point of order partnership that we're doing.

It's a partnership, okay.

I think that's really good.

We have several people that wanted to speak.

Ms.

And then my understanding, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, uh so my question is, well, I have a couple questions.

We'll get around there.

We're going around.

Um, I have a couple questions.

My question is, okay.

Well, can we really happy to have that?

What about Mr.

Graham?

Was this item in the ED committee?

When you were the chair, was it was this item?

Did this item come through committee?

The item was discussed at the October 2025 committee meeting.

I said that earlier.

Okay.

Okay.

When it came when it was discussed at the committee, was there a vote on it at committee level?

Or was it just uh an update on you know the modifications?

It was an update in advance of a full council vote on October 13th.

Okay, which granted the city manager the authority to negotiate a lease that included provisions related to a potential performance venue.

Yep, yep.

So I vaguely remember when it was I just one wanted to ask if there's a question.

I thought that there was a representative from the stadium in that meeting.

I think is it do you do we call it that way?

I I don't recall uh who was in attendance at the meeting.

I do recall the conversation being had at the meeting, and again, I don't have any meeting notes or anything.

Um, but I didn't think that it was a whole lot of discussions.

We went ahead.

Well, I so uh so I I remember the conversation, and I do think that there was representation in the room, um, my perspective on this is I agree with the city manager that I think I believe it behooves us to own this piece of land in the future of anything potentially happening, it is proximate to an asset that can be built in together yet can be leveraged here with the with the plans that um but that the Panthers have for this entertainment complex.

So I don't have as much consternation.

I respect the consternation that my colleagues have.

I don't have that same consternation remembering that discussion in committee and understanding uh the intertwinings of this, you know, years out in the future.

I think this makes it less difficult and less complicated if we go about it through this um process.

So thank you.

That's all I have, Madam Mayor.

All right, Ms.

Ashmira.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So, Ashawn, if you can help me understand, so was the amendment to a mandate lease, which is I'm talking about specifically 0.244 acre.

Was that in the committee?

I remember the amendment, the first amendment, but not the second, this the one specifically.

No, what was in committee was a specific conversation about the concept of a performance spending.

Yeah, I remember that medium.

Yes.

Because in June of 2024, there were discussions about a privately sec a private sector fully funded owner mandated project referred to as a stadium annex.

So that was a more generic concept, right?

But I don't remember discussing the amendment to amendment.

Correct.

I remember discussing the concept, which we agreed on because it was all private investment, there was no public subsidy from hospitality dollars.

So I this is something new.

I think what my colleagues are saying that this is something that we haven't discussed as the committee.

Uh another question.

So there is a two-acre piece which was already signed into the lease, and then there is 0.244 acre.

That is the new piece that is the NCDOT portion that was given to the city so the city can uh do whatever they wanted to do, find the best purpose for the site.

So I consider this as the general fund asset, not necessarily hospitality tourism asset.

Am I correct?

So the way you've described it, yes, the overall performance venue will take about an approximate two-acre footprint of which.244 would relate to this triangular parcel conveyed from NCDOT.

That's correct.

Yeah, so I just want to make sure we are not commingling general fund asset and hospitality asset.

I mean, I think uh consternation here that this is general fund asset, right?

And I know that there was a state um recent state bill that was approved that said, hey, you know, do not use any hospitality funds, even for safety purpose.

So I I guess now that we're talking about general fund asset, even though it's a very small piece of property, what is the fair market value of this property?

Number one, and if you were to put it out, put it out for a lease, how much would it generate, right?

I mean, we are looking at general funds so we need to be very good stewards of our taxpayers' dollars.

This is ultimately a property tax revenue.

I don't know the fair market value of this particular parcel, but I would go back to the conversation in October, which really focused on what do we get in exchange for having a performance venue as part of the overall.

Yeah, that's hospitable.

I'm trying to figure out what are we getting in terms of uh fair market value of this small parcel.

What would be the fair market value if you were to market it uh to an outside third party?

Uh and now that with this performance venue, maybe there might be a value proposition that this would generate a lot more in property taxes than maybe another use, or if you were to lease it to another source.

I don't know, but I think it's worth having a conversation around it, just to ensure that we are not our general fund, our taxpayers are not subsidizing a private uh, you know, a billionaire.

That's all I thank you.

Understood.

I would just go back to the conversation focused on in addition to the 150 million dollars the team is required to invest into stadium modernization and the 421 million dollars the team is required to invest in operations and maintenance during the 20 year non-relocation period in the city use days and the MWSB benefits that without any incremental city funding, the team is contemplating building a performance venue which would provide 80 to 100 events per year or up to 40 years in a 4400 seat capacity venue.

So that was how the value proposition associated with this very small, as I said, it equates to about well, it's it's between a half and one percent of the total land that's being leased associated with the Panthers modernization efforts.

Yeah, I mean, that was a separate conversation uh for the renovation of the Panthers Stadium.

I mean, this is separate, right?

This point two, four, four acres was never part of that conversation when that renovation of for Bank of America Stadium was approved.

So this is different.

This is a nuance.

I do not remember, I do not recall discussing this.244 acre piece at all.

I do remember the concept, but this was never in the picture.

When did the NCDOT uh provide this piece of land to the city?

In April of this year.

Yeah, so this should that's that means this would not have happened before.

So I think this is a new concept.

We need to worth having.

I mean, the council, I agree with council member Mayfield.

Since this is a nuance, it's worth having a conversation, and we need to understand um the impact on general fund, and that's all I have.

Thank you.

So I want to make a suggestion.

It's been a pretty long day for most of us here.

And so I wonder if we should just take as I think Miss Wattlington suggested that we take a moment and pause on this one and then come back in a couple of weeks, and then there would be opportunity time for us to do and look up all of these differences because I saw I heard it, I saw it or at least, you know, differently.

I think it I wasn't really sure, but I know that they came by and I thought that they were part of participating on some of this.

Not the committee for me, but for the meeting that I had with them.

So my suggestion.

If I may though, because I was in the queue.

I was in the second.

I just I do want to say something here, though.

Cause I I do, and I'm glad that you made the comments that you made because I do think we're conflating a couple of different things.

Um, I know that some of y'all were um out when we started the conversation, so I just want to be clear about what I was talking about.

I wasn't talking about even necessarily changing the use.

For me, that wasn't a conversation about changing the use.

For me, it wasn't about whether or not we should own it.

That was not even a discussion point, um, as far as I was concerned.

The only thing I was wanting to understand is because this is a separate part, had we had a conversation about community benefits because of all the things that Councilmember Ezemira just mentioned.

And so I think that was clear for the record.

Yeah, so I think this is a nuance.

So it I think if we can just wait for those two.

So, hold on for a while.

So, Mayor, I made a motion to declare.

We got a second.

We just had discussion, so we just need to vote on it.

All right, so let's go ahead and vote on a deferral, referral, deferral on this one.

All in favor anyone and opposed.

All right, three, four, five.

How many do I just four?

Just four.

And then Dante.

Yes, that was your done.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right, thank you guys.

Um, it has been a very long day.

We still have a few more.

Okay.

Nominations.

Our next business item is not really.

All right.

Now, now nominations.

You guys get a chance to nominate people for various activity that various parts of what we do, all the way from Beckler Arts all the way to Unified Development Ordnance Board.

So how do we do?

Um, I'll read through all the nominations that receive six or more votes, and afterwards, if you choose, if the council choose, then I'll need a motion, a second, and a vote to appoint these individuals.

So for the bachelor's art board, Hunter Watner received ten nominations.

Second.

Yeah.

Um, for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Access Corporation.

Incumbent Faye Barnett Shell received eleven nominations, incumbent Tyler Loveless received ten nominations.

Umb Sasha Thomaske received ten nominations.

And Ms.

Haggins received ten nominations for the Charlotte Regional Visitor Authority, Alvin Austin received eleven nominations, Stephanie Hand received nine nominations.

Abigail Gravegerd received eleven nominations.

Incumbent Trip Cagle received eleven nominations, and incumbent Marcy Kelso received eleven nominations.

For the community relations committee, Shade Cannon received 10 nominations.

Michelle Dunlap received nine nominations, and Michael Hord received nine nominations.

And the for the passenger vehicle for hire board, Hamad Cashmere received eleven nominations.

We'll bring the Planning Commission back.

Um Emma Allen, Robert Hillman, and Will Russell, incumbent, all received more than two nominations, but not six.

So we'll bring that one back.

For the public art commission, incumbent Nina Jackson received eleven nominations, and for the UDO Board of Adjustments, Devin Gangadine received eleven eleven nominations, and that's it.

Move for acclamation on all nominations, six and above.

Second.

Okay.

How much pizzas left?

That was okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Go ahead and get started.

How's everybody doing tonight?

Listen, it's a Friday night.

We got the weekend right in front of us.

We're celebrating tonight.

How's everybody doing?

I love it.

My name is Alex Giles.

I'm an anchor over at WBTV here in Charlotte.

I've had the honor of serving as the MC for this event for several years now.

And it is honestly one of my favorite events to be a part of.

This is such a cool experience to see the men and women who serve our community get honored in front of their loved ones, their peers, and some of the elected leaders here in our community.

I know we have ten winners tonight, but I also just want to acknowledge all of the law enforcement in the room.

Can we have a round of applause for all of our officers this evening?

And I know these folks are getting up, whether it's in the morning, the middle of the day, or the evening to protect and serve, and there are folks who are at home holding down the home front, in some cases with kids or family members or elders.

Can we also do a round of applause for the folks who are staying at home?

The family members.

But I think what makes this event special is that you're literally acknowledged by the community.

I know as a news reporter, it's nice to get that good job from your boss.

Hey, that was a good story.

You did a good job with that.

But it almost means a little bit more when somebody reaches out and was like, Thank you for doing that story.

The folks in my community appreciated that story.

And I know you guys can relate to that.

Because this is what that is for you guys.

Somebody from the community saying, Thank you for what you do in my neighborhood.

Thank you for the initiative you started in my community.

So it's really, really cool to be here, and it's awesome that you guys are being honored tonight.

At this time, we'd like to start with an invocation from Reverend Sandra Gripper.

If you just bow with me for a minute.

Continue to strengthen them.

Continue to endure them.

Continue to move in faith.

Faithfulness is developed when we continue to obey everything when the pressure is heavy and they go through pressure, but God, they know it's only temporary.

It's only a discouragement.

It's never permanent.

The hobby still belongs to those who refuse to give up and quit.

When we're tempted to quit, instead of continuing, we'll carry the cross across the finish line.

In his name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you, Reverend.

At this time, we want to acknowledge some of the elected leaders we have here.

Whether it's the City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County Commission, some other elected office.

If you're an elected leader, please stand for just a moment.

Appreciate them coming out.

I know it's a fun time of year, budget season, right?

They're like, oh yeah, okay.

We have a few people delivering opening remarks tonight, including Sam Smith Jr., he is the chair of the community relations committee.

Good evening, everyone.

If you enjoy the food, let's tell the chef you did your thing.

Well, good evening.

My name is uh Sam Smith Jr.

And welcome to the 46th Annual Community Relations Award.

I am honored to serve as the chair of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee, and I would be remiss if I don't honor my vice chair, Mr.

Emmanuel Maggot, who is in here with us today, because tomorrow he'll be walking across the stage getting his doctorate's degree.

So shout him out.

It's a privilege to gather here uh with you all tonight for such a meaningful celebration.

This evening recognizes people who, through their actions, show us what partnerships truly look like.

Tonight we recognize officers who go above and beyond the call of duty to build bridges, solve problems alongside residents, and serve with heart and purpose.

The nominations submitted from across our community are a powerful reflection of how deeply this work is felt and appreciated.

These awards are a reminder that public safety is not built by one group alone.

It's built through relationships, listening, collaboration, and a shared commitment to the well-being of our neighbors.

I want to extend gratitude to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee, and at this time I'll ask if my CRC members that are in the space with us today, if you all could please stand and be recognized.

I also at this time would like to ask the planning committee for today's uh festivity.

If you all could please stand and be recognized, it's more than just Miss Dolores and Miss Debbie.

I want to uh I want to thank the planning committee uh who is led by uh my second mom, Miss Dolores, and when she called, I have to answer my phone no matter what I'm doing.

Uh I want to thank them for their commitment each year to ensuring that this event is a success.

And to our dedicated community relations staff.

Um, if you all are in the room, if you all could please stand, I know you'll be recognized again, but if you all could please stand and be recognized too.

We thank you all, and we'll also thank every um everyone who took time to nominate each of our officers.

And to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, thank you for your service, your sacrifice, and your continued commitment to protecting and serving our community with professionalism and care.

To all of tonight's nominees, congratulations.

Your work matters and it does not go unnoticed.

So tonight let's celebrate the best of what partnership looks like in action.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sam.

Sam, did you did you train your daughter to record the whole thing like that?

I'm gonna look for that on Facebook later.

We'd like to call up James Smudge Mitchell, the Charlotte City Council.

He's currently our mayor pro Tim.

Good evening, Charlotte.

Oh, wait a minute.

We the fourth largest city in America, and that's how y'all go respond.

Good evening, Charlotte.

Okay, that's a little better.

Before I get started with my remarks, the theme is a team.

CMPD has a team, and the city council has a team.

And I would like to introduce one of my team members who's here this evening, Council Member Lawana Mayfield.

Steve, please stand again.

You know I was gonna call you out.

Thank you, Lawana.

Then I know we have a former elected official who used to serve in District 2, and I always want to pay respect to anybody who offered themselves up for public service.

Well, Mr.

Al also, please stand and be recognized.

On behalf of the Charlotte City Council and the mayor's office, I'm honored to join you for this special night to recognize individuals who represent the very best in our city.

Charlotte is now the 14th largest city in the country, and we continue to grow, evolve every day.

With that growth comes both opportunity and responsibility, the responsibility to ensure that our city remains not just bigger, but repeat after me, better.

A truly world-class city is defined not only by its skyline or economic strength, but by trust, safety, and connection it shares between its people.

So that's why we're here tonight.

We are here to recognize those who go beyond the college duty to build relationships, foster understanding, and strengthening the bond between law enforcement and the neighborhoods they serve.

Public safety is at its strongest when it's rooted in partnership and those who we honor tonight embodied that principle through their service, their compassion and commitment to Charlotte.

Please join me in recognizing these outstanding honorees.

Your dedication helps move Charlotte forward and bring us closer to the kind of city we want to call home.

Thank you and enjoy this evening.

So I want to do a special shout out.

So with all the CMP officers, CMPD officers, please stand up at this time.

All officers here.

All please stand up.

That's right.

Let's show them some love.

Let's show them some love, Charlotte.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim Mitchell.

We also have a representative from the county, Elaine Powell of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners.

Thank you.

So all these extroverts are coming up here, but I am the introvert.

And I want to tell Alex Giles, he was the first reporter that I ever had to do an interview with.

So thank you for that.

Good evening.

I am Mecklenburg County Commissioner Elaine Powell.

I represent Huntersville Davidson Cornelius, North Charlotte, the ETJ area, Mountain Island Lake, Lake Norman, and part of the Catawba River.

So I've had lots of different interactions with CMPD on behalf of my constituents, especially in ETJ.

I have lived and worked in every county district in the county, but I have the most experience with North Division and Freedom Division.

And I'm proud to know that one of our North Division police officers is nominated.

Officer Blake is here nominated.

I hope he wins.

Chairman Jurell asked me to give remarks, and when he called me, I was so happy.

I said, There's so many times where I've been sitting in the audience where I want to talk to law enforcement to thank you.

So I bring greetings from the county commission and gratitude.

It's and it's wonderful to be here.

But I want to talk, I'm gonna go way off script because these are the things that I wanted to tell you for a long time.

So in the summer of 1993, John Burnett and Andy Nobles were coming up and down the street.

They were community police officers coming up and down my street.

I lived in office Central Avenue at that time in 1993.

John grew up across the street, and his baseball coach Jimmy Edwards from Garringer High School was my neighbor on the other side.

So I could see into the dining room of the Burnett's, and I had Jimmy next door.

And the reason that John Burnett and Andy Nobles were coming up and down the street that day was not for family, it was for community.

They were coming to get some old air conditioning units to take to people that didn't have air conditioning.

And then there were children running up to the police car that wanted to talk to them and ask them what it was like, and I just remember the beauty of that, the beauty of community police officers.

That was the summer of 1993.

On October 5th, I was standing in in my yard when police officers came to meet with his mother, and we knew something bad had happened, and for hours we waited for Trisha Norcott to show up.

I just knew it was bad, and I knew that the police officers that were there, maybe some of you here were there, in our house, trying to comfort you and without knowing what happened.

We just knew it was bad.

And I remember like the grief, the grief of the family, the grief that we felt, the grief of his baseball coach from Garringer High School.

It was there every day.

And I would say to Trisha, like, what can I do?

You know, what can I do?

And she said, never go anywhere without thanking a police officer.

And so I have done that.

I want to thank you all.

Like I want you to feel it, how important your work is, how noble the profession is, how important it is to the community.

And then the other story is this year, probably many of you were there, where we had a regional simulated training exercise at Carowins.

I wanted to come to that.

Emergency management is a passion of mine.

And when I was watching from afar, and it was it was simulated, so whoever was there didn't have real weapons.

But the first responders of all the first responders, in a regional exercise was CMPD, it gives me goosebumps now, it gave me goosebumps then.

I needed some tissues.

I was standing next to former Chief Putney.

It's breathtaking, like to think about what if this was real.

But in these instances where it is real, I love you guys.

Like I love that you're running toward protecting us.

And so I don't, I could talk for such a long time, but I hope you feel it.

It is such an important noble profession.

Thank you for what you do.

Sorry, I'm kinda sorry, but not sorry for going off script.

Because I really want you to know, feel my gratitude.

To every person that wears the uniform, to every nominee and awardee on behalf of Mecklenburg County, I want to congratulate you for all your work.

You all represent the best of our community.

And I want to encourage you to take care of yourself.

You will experience layers of crisis and think that you can handle it.

It's a lot, and then there will be one layer where it's too much.

So however it is that you take care of yourself, whether it's walking through nature or talking to a friend, please, or calling your county commissioner.

Like I will listen, I will walk with you.

Whatever it is, please take care of yourself.

Thank you to the community relations board.

Thank you, Chief Patterson, and thank you to all the staff.

Thank you to the 911 dispatchers.

Just thank you to everyone.

Thank you for committing yourselves to this noble work.

I feel the love of humanity for you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Powell.

At this time, we want to talk about the history of this award ceremony and its significance.

I'd like to bring up Dolores Reed Smith.

She is the chair of the police community relations awards planning committee.

Thank you, Alex.

Good evening again, and thank you all for being here to celebrate the incredible work of our law enforcement officers and the relationships they built across the community.

In 1979, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee created this program to spotlight officers who go above and beyond to foster understanding and unity while ensuring our safety.

The stories that we hear when we interview these officers, it's not the things you see on TV where CMPD is concerned, the noble things that they do out of their own pockets to benefit residents, students, and schools is just amazing.

Since the awards program's inception, members of the Charlotte Mecklenburg community have nominated thousands of officers.

And after this evening's program, we are excited to add another group to the more than 500 officers who have been recognized with a police community relations award.

Will everyone in the building who's ever won this award, please stand now.

See, I thought I was gonna have to call out Deputy Chief Bradley for not standing up and stuff because she knows that's one of mine, so I can do that.

The officers nominated for the 46th annual police community relations awards have showcased innovation in solving neighborhood challenges and have exemplified the true spirit of community building.

Let's take a moment to recognize all of the nominees for this year's annual police community relations award.

Please stand if you are nominated.

Thank you.

Through a very thorough process, tonight's award recipients have been selected by our esteemed judges from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee.

Each recipient will be recognized with a plaque and receive a monetary award.

Now y'all know every year I tell y'all about the little part that y'all are supposed to give to me out of that monetary thing.

And so far, I've not received my portion.

As we get ready to announce the award recipients, let's give a round of applause to the family, friends, and community members who took the time to support, acknowledge, and nominate these exceptional officers.

Your nominations fuel this celebration of service and sacrifice.

I encourage you to keep shining a light on the extraordinary work happening in our neighborhoods.

Together, we are stronger and safer.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dolores.

At this time, we want to hand out our awards.

Are y'all ready?

As Dolores mentioned, we only have 10 winners.

All of you should be proud, and we're all thankful the service you provide to this community.

We have 10 officers who have won.

We have one youth award, we're also giving out tonight.

This time I believe Dolores and Sam are going to join us up here to pass out the awards.

Here's how it's gonna work.

I'm gonna read through the names for each officer who is won.

Going to read part of your nomination, what somebody from the community wrote about you, and then I'm gonna read what you wrote about the profession and why you think community policing is important.

We're gonna go through each one by one.

When I call your name, you can come up, get your plaque, take a photo, and please stand here while I'm saying nice things about you.

And smile for our lovely photographer here.

Without further ado, our first winner is Officer Anthony McGill from Community Services.

This officer was nominated in connection with their work with the Police Activities League and the work they do to build trust and relationships with the youth in fun, encouraging environments.

Officer McGill wrote Police Community Relations to Me is about intentionally building and maintaining a bridge of trust, respect, and understanding between law enforcement and the people we serve.

It goes beyond responding to calls.

It's about being present, consistent, and genuinely invested in the lives of community members.

Through my work with POW, I focus on creating meaningful relationships with young people and their families.

Following up, showing up, and staying engaged so they know they have someone they can rely on by being approachable, listening, and leading with integrity.

I strive to break down barriers and replace uncertainty with trust.

Strong community relations are built over time through authentic connections, and I take pride in being a positive, dependable presence that helps strengthen that bond every day.

We have a round of applause for Officer Anthony McGill.

See, that's the bad thing about being number one.

You gotta wait for everybody now.

And they stuck you down there by yourself.

Our second winner tonight is Lieutenant Reggie Jenkins of the Eastway division.

This officer consistently demonstrates a strong commitment to engaging with the Eastway division community and addressing resident concerns in a proactive solutions-oriented way.

They regularly seek opportunities to communicate with residents and neighborhood leadership, provide updates, and collaborate on safety initiatives.

This officer demonstrates consistent accessibility, responsiveness, and a genuine commitment to building trust and problem-solving partnerships with the community.

This is what Lieutenant Jenkins wrote.

He said to me, community police relations is about building genuine trust through consistent presence, transparency, and accountability.

I currently serve as a lieutenant in the Eastway Division.

I'm responsible for community policing efforts.

My expectations are for the officers under my command to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the people we serve by having an open line of communication, mutual respect, and consistent engagement.

I see it as creating partnerships where community members feel heard, respected, and safe, engaging with officers.

Community policing is about connecting with people and working to solve problems together.

Congratulations, Lieutenant Jenkins.

I've seen him before in the headquarters, and I'm like, I think he's taller than me.

That doesn't happen often.

Our third winner tonight is Officer Keywon Harris, a school resource officer.

You tell the kids you got nominated for an award.

This officer has consistently demonstrated professionalism, sound judgment, and a strong commitment to community safety.

His presence has been invaluable in situations that require both firmness and compassion.

He has shown the ability to tactfully and prudently de-escalate tense circumstances, ensuring that interactions are handled with care while maintaining the safety and protection of everyone involved.

This officer is respectful and attentive in his approach and those he serves.

He listens, communicates clearly, and treats community members with dignity.

This is what he wrote.

For me, police community relations play a very important role in today's society.

I strongly believe that officers should be in the community, developing positive relationships by having conversations with people, going to community events, getting out of the car, and walking the neighborhood, speaking to the youth, volunteering to coach, etc.

You do a lot.

He said, I do these things, and it builds trust within the community, and we all need that.

Police community relations also deters crime while being visible in the community.

Police community relations is why I became a school resource officer.

I wanted to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community.

Congratulations, Officer.

Our next winner tonight is Officer Jasmine Nivens of the Central Division.

Unfortunately, she could not be here tonight, but we still wanted to honor her and acknowledge her.

We've got her picture up on the screen.

She has helped strengthen trust between the CMPD and the communities they serve through sustained engagement, transparency, and responsiveness, through consistent presence at community meetings, proactive engagement with stakeholders, and a solutions-oriented mindset.

She has helped foster an environment where residents and neighborhood leaders feel heard, respected, and supported.

She wrote that police community police community relations to me means the relationships I build and foster between the police department and the community.

These connections are essential as they create trust, understanding, and collaboration between both.

How about another round of applause for Officer Nevins?

Our fifth winner tonight is Officer Samuel Rouse of the Hickory Grove Division.

He's also getting an award for best mustache tonight.

It's a good mustache.

This officer has demonstrated a strong commitment to building trust and positive relationships between law enforcement and the residents he serves.

Through his approachable demeanor and steady presence, he has become a trusted resource for both individual residents and neighborhood groups.

As he transitioned into the role of community liaison officer, he quickly connected with our neighborhood board, meeting with us to talk about meaningful ways to improve communication, connection, safety, and security within the community.

He wrote strong police community relations are essential to maintaining an effective and trusted police force, especially in today's climate.

Without strong police community relations, it is the community that suffers.

Officers routinely rely on information and cooperation from the public to solve cases and prevent crime.

Police work can sometimes be difficult to watch, and too often the court of public opinion is quickly influenced by clickbait headlines or short context free video clips.

A consistent and positive presence within the community can help counter the constant flow of negative news and highlight the many good things officers do every day, even the small acts that often go unnoticed.

Congratulations, officer.

Now, I want to let you know we're gonna have this on the news tonight and on the news tomorrow morning, because the positive stuff does matter as well.

And I know y'all probably seen yourself in clips on the news for the negative stuff that happens, but we want to acknowledge the positive too.

Congrats, man.

Our next winner is Detective Joy Emanuel of the Metro Division.

Now, when they gave this to me, they put six nominations, specifically six nominations.

This officer embodies the very essence of community service that this recognition celebrates for over a decade.

She has been a beacon of compassion and dedication in our community, relentlessly working to forge positive problem-solving relationships with residents.

Just name a few.

I've seen her quietly purchase car seats and essential supplies for pregnant teenagers, provide warm coffee for the unhoused, buy groceries, mentor, tutor, and coach at both Philip O'Berry Academy and West Charlotte High School.

And that is that's just a snippet of it.

It was the longest one.

She wrote the relationship between law enforcement and the community is incredibly significant to me.

As a lifelong resident of Charlotte and a police officer through the past ten years, I view law enforcement as a vital partner and collaborator within our neighborhoods.

The role extends far beyond enforcing laws.

It requires professionalism, building trust, and working alongside the community to de escalate situations and solve problems, all while ensuring fairness and equitable treatment for everyone.

My passion for service began as a teenager when I volunteered with the CMBD's community engagement division and was specifically inspired by Officer C.

Ratliff.

Since then I have carried that inspiration with me throughout my career.

Every day presents an opportunity to uplift the community, and even in challenging moments, I strive to exemplify respect, integrity, and compassion.

Congratulations, Detective.

And I like that you shouted out the person who inspired you.

Because I bet in 10, 15 years, I'm going to be up here and somebody might say the same thing about you.

You're welcome.

Our seventh winner tonight is Officer Peterson Jean of the North Division.

This officer has served our school resource officer at Ranson for two years, and his impact on our students has been transformational.

He has built positive relationships with our students and staff, resulting in improvement in our school culture and reputation.

Moreover, he has been an agent of change by creating the future Young Leaders Club at Ranson, a leadership and fitness program for the kids.

Officer Jean works with our FYL students weekly, helping them improve their grades, their self-esteem, fitness, and confidence.

Officer.

Officer Jean wrote, I come from a diverse background that has allowed me to experience many aspects of life.

These experiences have given me a unique perspective and strengthened my passion for supporting those in my community.

Strong communities are built by individuals who create opportunities and support one another.

This brings to mind the saying, quote, it takes a village to raise a child, end quote.

That sentiment extends beyond children.

It applies to all members who are willing to contribute to the village.

Through these connections, I've gained valuable experience, forming partnerships, and have witnessed the positive impact we can achieve together.

Congratulations, Officer Jean.

Our eighth winner tonight is Officer Antoine Patterson.

We have Officer Patterson in the house.

We're going to acknowledge him.

This officer was nominated in connection with their work with the Citizens on Patrol Program.

It is a cool program where community members help officers with crime reduction and community improvement.

He wrote to me, community policing means being present, involved, and committed to building those genuine relationships with the people we are sworn to serve.

As the volunteer liaison for CMPD, I help onboard individuals who want to contribute to our community and support programs like the Mayor's Youth Employment Program, where I work with 16 to 18 year olds through mentorship and internships.

One more round of applause for Officer Antoine Patterson.

We have two more left.

Our ninth winner tonight is Canine Detective Jonathan Serdan of the Airport Division.

Where's the dog?

Not tonight.

I'm sure.

All that chicken.

This officer delivered an engaging and informative canine demonstration for a community aviation program showing strong commitment and professionalism throughout.

He volunteered to present during a weekday evening, communicated consistently during the planning process, and even conducted a site visit in advance to ensure a safe and effective setup.

He repeated the presentation for smaller groups, tailoring each session to the audience's questions and engagement level.

You're all about the details.

The first word that comes to mind is impact.

This is what he wrote.

I believe you only get one shot at a first meaningful impression, which will impact that person's outlook on you for the rest of their lives and the lives of the other persons involved.

The other part is follow-through.

Get the job done, do it right.

I am going into the job, making a conscious effort to be positive, regardless of the outside negative influences affecting our society.

I make sure I acknowledge people as human beings first.

A simple smile or head nod or handshake.

My reputation in every community I work in is very important, and I want the people I serve to know when they say my name, they immediately say he is one of the good ones.

He can be trusted.

He will get the work done and do it the right way.

Canine Detective Jonathan Serdan, congratulations.

Our final officer winner tonight is Officer Veronica Cruz Santos of the Community Engagement Unit.

This officer has consistently shown her commitment to building positive problem solving, empathy, active listening, and cultural understanding, making youth feel supported and seen.

Her presence as a Latina officer also serves as a powerful example for our students, many of whom relate to her background and leadership.

She is deeply involved in the broader community.

Families often share that they see her at neighborhood events, school functions, and local gatherings, where she continues building trust through genuine, respectful engagement.

She wrote police community relations means the public and officers are able to effectively work together toward a common goal.

It allows a relationship to be built and for both parties to learn about one another.

It allows officers to learn more about the people we serve and protect, while it allows the community to learn more about the officer or about the department.

It allows the community to see beyond the badge and the uniform.

Congratulations.

We have a round of applause for our officers winning tonight.

We're going to do our youth winner, and then we'll get a big picture.

Is that sound good?

We do have a youth award that we wanted to acknowledge tonight.

Dolores Hamrick.

She is not here, but I'm told she's got a good reason.

She's a senior prom.

She was like prom awards with a bunch of older people.

Prom.

She goes to West Charlotte High School.

Oh.

She's a battalion commander in the JROTC and a student leader in SGA.

She leads with integrity, accountability, and a strong commitment to collaboration, earning the respect of those around her.

She's extensively involved in programs such as Right Moves for Youth and Young Life, and it reflects her dedication to service and her ability to build trust, uplift others, and foster positive relationships.

She was nominated for this award in recognition of her outstanding leadership, service, and meaningful impact on her peers and community.

Dolores Hambrook, our youth winner.

At this time, the elected leaders want to get a big picture.

If you guys don't mind sliding over, uh-oh.

Okay.

She's getting calm.

No, no, no.

Um, like that.

Thank you for that.

You know, talking about that.

While they are doing that.

I want to see something real quick.

All the officers in the room, do you mind raising your hand?

Who here has been a CMPD officer for three years?

Chief.

Don't, don't, don't make a cry.

If you've been an officer for seven years, leave your hand up.

Hi.

Been an officer for 10 years.

Keep your hand up.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

Twenty-five.

Thirty.

Do we have a winner?

Uh oh, uh.

Uh-oh.

Do we need to go until we get a winner?

Thirty-one.

Right there.

Chief, are you still up?

Are you still on it?

Congratulations.

How many years?

Say it?

Woo!

Round of applause for that.

At this time, we'd like to call up Chief Estella Patterson of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department.

Thanks, Alex.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Estella Patterson, and always I say it is my distinct honor and my pleasure to serve as your chief of police.

I'm not only the chief of the officers, but I am the chief for the community.

I'm here to serve you.

And being here tonight, just looking around the room and seeing all the nominees, all those who received the award, just warms my heart.

All week we have been celebrating National Police Week, and we started the week with a bicycle ride.

We had 60 or so of our officers and community members riding, pedaling to DC in honor of our fallen officers, our brothers and sisters in blue.

And then we continue the week with various events.

But the most impactful events this week have been the award ceremony that we did on Wednesday, the command college graduation on yesterday, and then tonight the awards, the CRC awards, because truly this is what it's about.

And I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that many times things are amplified that it's negative as it pertains to the police, the community, the crime, that kind of thing.

But every single day, 10, 20, 30 times a day, our employees are doing magnificent things.

They're doing amazing work every single day that you don't hear about.

So tonight is that night to be able to celebrate their successes and hear their stories and the things that they're doing in their community.

As the chief, I'm extremely, extremely proud.

And so I want to say to all our awardees tonight, thank you for the work that you're doing.

For all the nominees, thank you for the work you're doing.

For my executive team that's here.

Thank you.

I work you hard.

I know I do.

I stretch you, stretch you, stretch you, but you keep showing up.

So thank you so much for that.

And lastly, I just want to thank the CRC for being such an amazing partner, always with us, always working with us.

Terry, you and I have many conversations.

You're always so gracious when we talk about things.

So thank you so much to all at CRC for what you do.

And for our community members who are here among us, we are here because of you.

It is our joy to serve this community.

One of my pillars be coming back as the chief is that we will make sure that we're building stronger partnerships with our community because we know when the community is on our side, there's no limit in what we can do to make Charlotte the safest city in the United States.

Thank you all and have a good night.

Thank you, Chief.

To close us out, Terry Bradley.

Thank you, Alex.

So, Commissioner Powell, I know your feeling about all the extroverts that have come up, and we're going to follow suit, so I get your pain.

Um, so um I'm supposed to close out, and I want to uh at least make sure that I do this in a uh correct fashion.

Um, we've been doing this, and I I was sitting here looking at this sign up here, and I believe there was a one up here when I first started in front of this Psalm 6.

So it's been a while for us having these celebrations, 46 years.

Um as we close out, um, the 46th Annual Police Community Relations Awards, I want to leave a few things for us to reflect on.

Tonight is not just about recognizing outstanding officers, it's about celebrating trust, partnership, and collaboration.

Um, and the ongoing work of building stronger relationships between law enforcement and the community we all serve.

The partnership between the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations and CNPD has always been rooted in collaboration, communication, and transparency.

Uh, when concerns arise in our community, we work together to address them.

The CNPD can't do it alone.

Community relations can't do it alone.

Uh we've tried to create a better path forward for everyone involved.

We remain committed to bringing a community perspective that helps strengthen outcomes, improve relationships, and build bridges by listening.

At the same time, this partnership is also about recognizing and uplifting the good work that we all do.

When I say that sometimes there are opportunities where the CNPD can't tell their story, and I think that's where we step in.

We're able to highlight and uplift those stories, the good work that often goes unseen.

Tonight we heard highlights of meaningful work CNPD officers do every day.

We wouldn't know about it, and the lasting impact it has on our community members.

This event is an opportunity to celebrate those acts of service and connection.

I want to thank the many people who made tonight possible.

Thank you to the city of Charlotte, uh, the elected officials, um, Charlotte Mecklenburg County leaders, and the elected officials that are at hand.

Thank you to the community relations committee.

Again, let's give them a round of applause.

I want to acknowledge our community relations staff.

Could you guys stand again?

You guys can take a big deep breath after this weekend.

I know there's been a lot of work.

I mean, they work tirelessly behind the scenes to organize this event.

But a special thank to two people I want to uplift today, and that's Delores Reed Smith.

AKA Cookie.

And Diamond Davies, could you take us?

Diamond, um, this is I think her first year doing this event, and I think she did a phenomenal job.

So let's give her a round of applause.

Thank you for your leadership in planning and coordinating this event.

Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations and took the time to recognize officers making a difference in our community.

Please encourage uh others in your neighborhood to do the same.

And networks to do the same, and nominations remain open all during the year.

So you can start nominating now.

And before I leave, I'll close with this little Friday night wisdom.

Remember to smile, and I'm gonna look at all of you to the person that has the mic.

It could be the difference between staying here longer or getting out a little bit earlier.

Thank you all for being here tonight, and we look forward to seeing you guys next year.

Congratulations to the winners.

I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you guys all.

Congrats to our winners, congrats to our nominees.

Everyone have a wonderful weekend.

If you won an award, please return to the front.

We're gonna get a picture, forensic interview is a specialized conversation with a child.

It's meant to elicit the child's own statement about something that a child has witnessed directly or experienced directly or experienced indirectly, meaning if they have been a victim of any type of child abuse, or if they've witnessed a violent crime.

My name is Kelly Wood.

I'm the director of response services at Pat's Place Child Advocacy Center.

We are part of a multidisciplinary team of professionals who work to prevent identify and combat child abuse.

At our center, it is the opportunity for children and their caregivers to come participate in a forensic interview.

They will receive family advocacy services.

They will also have an opportunity on site to receive a forensic medical evaluation.

And then the family advocates will link the child and the family to therapeutic services to ensure the integrity of the interview to remove those influences.

We are there to provide care for children and the non-offending caregivers.

Another branch of Pat's Place is linking parents, community members to trauma treatment.

Parents can absolutely call directly and be connected to a coordinator who can provide those therapeutic linkages to them for their children.

For crimes against children, we investigate cases regarding juvenile sexual abuse and felony child abuse.

So whether it's rape, anything that's for sexual assault on a child, we focus on the ages of 15 and under.

This also includes sexual exploitation.

So that can involve the possession of pornography.

That can involve influencing, you know, someone online to send you messages that's underage.

The perpetrators try to like manipulate them.

They will try to make the kid feel like it's their fault.

Like it's normal and it's not.

Over about 90% of the perpetrators, they are people that we are close to.

These like individuals, they try to become very, very involved in like a child's life.

Children who are possibly experiencing this abuse start to thumbsuck, have bad wedding.

Some of them are having trouble with memory, or they start to lose the language that they've already acquired.

The fiscal, I think most of us can agree that that's one of the most obvious, right?

That's something that we can see.

That's something somebody could say, okay, well, this, I'm reporting it because I see this.