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Good morning, everyone.

Morning.

Thank you all for being here.

We will get right to business.

This meeting is called to order at nine thirty AM.

Thank you, colleagues, for being here.

I'm here.

Mayor Pro Tem Middleton.

I'm here.

Councilmember Baker.

Here.

Councilmember Caballero.

Here.

Councilmember Freeman.

Present.

Councilmember Rist.

Here.

Thank you.

Uh this uh we're here today to select the uh person that will fulfill the third the uh War Three seat that was vacated by myself uh on December 4th.

Uh colleagues, I will um I this will be a very short meeting, I'm pretty sure.

Um I'll state, you know, the case and uh I'll name my selection and then I'll open it up for the rest of you to state your selection.

And um if we get four votes, then we will uh have that person.

Um if we do not, then I will open the floor uh for uh further discussion and if we are not able to identify uh four votes on one person, then um it will it will send us to a special election.

Uh and then we'll go down the uh the process of what that looks like and you know the cost and the um just all of the procedures for it.

All right.

Uh I want to I'll get right into it.

I want to thank all of the candidates for uh for being crazy enough to want to serve publicly here.

Um Durham is a special place.

Uh we are a hyper political town and uh it's it's it's a good it's a good thing, you know.

Um how how messy it can get sometimes.

It is a good thing.

Um I appreciate each of the candidates um who who care and love enough for the city to want to um serve your community.

Uh I'm especially uh proud because just knowing, you know, of course they're you know uh professionals all across the city, but just seeing the talent that comes out of war three.

Uh that's special to me.

Um you all are my most immediate neighbors.

Uh so um I appreciate you.

Each of you uh to the candidates, each of you all had uh very impressive resumes.

Uh each of you had uh very strong supporters.

Um I actually appreciated the diversity in which you all bought uh from through your supporters, and I appreciate the diversity in your backgrounds.

Um and and just showing how beautiful the city is.

Uh I also appreciate some of the specificity in your skill set from you know, just from you know, land use to uh, you know, our senior care, you know, and aging and youth engagement to our you know, just the general wholesomeness of understanding politics to housing, um and I I all of those things matter to me.

So uh after going back, looking at the videos again of your interviews, going and and and looking at you know, really assessing this council and looking at the expertise that we have on here, and as the leader of this council, I'm the one that have to govern us, and I'm the one that's gonna have to um work with each of you uh to accomplish not only the things that you want to accomplish, but also the things that that uh that's gonna help define us as an effective council.

So I have looked at you know the strengths and weaknesses from my point of view on the council.

I've looked at you know what the city needs, I looked at, you know, I've looked at how we can work with the actual city staff.

I've looked at your resumes again, I've looked at um what what is that missing piece and and and how we're going into this this year and how hard this budget year is going to be.

The ability to make tough decisions, uh being passionate about serving, but not so passionate that you're blindly or irresponsible to the point where you can't see anything else beyond a particular uh point.

Um and I thought that was a trait that many of you all share.

So for me, colleagues, I have uh decided while all the candidates are great.

I've decided to select uh from my position, uh Sheila Huggins.

And what I'll do now is um I'll open it up to who would like to go next.

Don't all jump at once.

Councilmember Baker.

Um I agree.

I think the um candidates, including the candidates that didn't move forward, I was impressed by by a number of those folks, but the the four um who who made it to this final round, I was deeply impressed by um, I thought that each person had skills that would complement the skills of the council members up here, and I think that's that's important.

Um is is being able to complement one another in order to effectively advocate um in a comprehensive way for um Durham residents, and that's that's what I saw.

I saw competence, um I saw folks who are deeply respected by their peers.

Um, you know, uh Ms.

Mr.