Durham City Council Legislative Committee Meeting on Lobbying Strategy – December 16, 2024
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Durham City Council Legislative Committee Meeting
This meeting of the City Council Legislative Committee took place on December 16, 2024 from 3:04 PM to 3:42 PM in the Second Floor Committee Room at 101 City Hall Plaza. The agenda focused on preparing for the 2025 Long Session of the North Carolina General Assembly and establishing a working relationship with the newly hired lobbying firms: Checkmate Government Relations (state level) and the Ferguson Group (federal level). The meeting was chaired by Mayor Williams, with council members, city staff, and lobbyists John Easterling and Nelson Friedman present.
Discussion Items
Introductions and Lobbying Team Overview
- Lobbyists John Easterling and Nelson Friedman of Checkmate Government Relations introduced themselves and their team, emphasizing their bipartisan experience and work with other municipalities (Charlotte, Fayetteville). They described their role as helping the city craft an achievable legislative agenda, building relationships with legislators, and serving as a force multiplier to tell Durham's economic story.
SB 382 Update
- Lobbyists provided an update on SB 382, a bill that was overridden by the General Assembly. The bill realigns election offices, commission appointments, and includes a down‑zoning provision that affects municipalities statewide. The lobbyists noted that the General Assembly will not return until January and that substantive legislative action on this issue is unlikely before February 2025. The city attorney confirmed that the down‑zoning section is in effect and is not being challenged by the current lawsuit.
Council Member Questions and Expectations
- Council Member Mark-Anthony Middleton requested that the lobbyists first review the city’s past legislative asks to understand recurring themes before proposing a new agenda.
- Council Member Carl Rist asked about the working relationship: weekly calls, newsletters, and the ability to engage with the executive branch (agencies like DEQ, DOT) on permits and funding issues. The lobbyists confirmed they provide agency-level support.
- Council Member Javiera Caballero emphasized the importance of aligning the city’s legislative agenda with the county’s efforts, noting that overlapping asks could yield better results.
- Mayor Pro Tem (name not clearly stated) highlighted the need for the lobbyists to provide early intel on upcoming legislation and to effectively tell Durham’s story as an economic powerhouse while respecting the city’s progressive identity. The lobbyists acknowledged this challenge.
Legislative Landscape for 2025
- The lobbyists described the upcoming General Assembly: the Senate retains its longstanding leadership, while the House will have a new Speaker (Destin Hall) and significant turnover. They noted that about 30% of the legislature is new each cycle, presenting an opportunity to educate members about Durham. They advised that the first substantive bills will likely emerge in mid‑February 2025, after the session starts in early January.
Key Outcomes
- No votes or formal decisions were taken at this meeting.
- The lobbyists will receive copies of the city’s previous legislative agenda and work with staff to draft a prioritized list of goals for the 2025 session.
- The committee agreed to have the lobbyists begin regular weekly calls with the city manager’s office and attorney’s office once the legislative session begins.
- The city will explore opportunities to coordinate with Durham County’s legislative efforts, as noted by Council Member Caballero.
- The meeting ended with a commitment from the lobbyists to keep the council informed and to help the city “get our money’s worth” from the lobbying contract.
Meeting Transcript
All right, this call is getting ordered at 304. We are ready to go. Welcome everyone. Are we recording? I mean, we're streaming. Sorry. Good afternoon. Carmesha Wallace, uh, assistant city manager in chief and staff. Thought it'd be helpful for us to do um some brief introductions just to make sure we do have some new faces in the space today, so um, thank you. Um so uh obviously I'm Mayor Williams from AWS. I am uh engaged with these guys quite a bit through the league. Uh but colleagues that we will just kind of go around and introduce themselves. I'd like to staff introduce themselves as well. And um, and then we'll pass it over to our lobbyists, and um we'll go from there. Council. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm having a call, um, one of the Durham City Council members at large. Afternoon, Mark A from the Minister of Air Protection City of Durham. Good afternoon. Thanks for coming, Carl Risen at large city members of City Council and the newest one on the on the diocese that's been serving for a year. Thank you for that. I'm Kim Ray Burke, and then the city attorney. Diana Schreiber, City Clerk. Awesome. Thank you so much for that. I do want to turn it over um to our lobbyists who are who have joined here today. So I do want to recognize um the city attorney's office for helping this effort to get that contract underway. If you don't have a copy of that contract, I will make sure that you get a copy of that contract along with A. Remuse and A. Marie Tasco. So thank you all so much for your work on this. So this is the first time that the city of Durham has had lobbies in a really, really long time. Um we have we've hired checkmate to assist with efforts at the General Assembly. Um, and then we've engaged the Ferguson group to assist with at the federal level. The purpose of today's conversation is to um talk about our path forward. We know that there have been some change, obviously, at the national level, but also want to have some discussion about um what Durham can do to get our money's worth out of these folks. Um, and not just about the money, but also make sure that we are seeing um the things that we need to see here in our community. Understanding that some of it will require us to be asks of the legislature. Some of it will require that we ask the legislature not to do something. We're very familiar with the More Recent bill that's come up. Um thank you, John. Uh, for your work on that. But at this point, I'll turn it over to um Nelson and John. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, Mr. Mayor, uh, members of the committee. It's good to be here with you all today. Thank you for having us.
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