I'm happy to do which either is your preference.

So what works for you?

Okay.

So does that online discussion?

Great.

Good morning, everyone.

Really appreciate everybody's attendance in in person and online, and uh really honored uh to bring greetings from the administration of the of the city.

Uh my name's Bo Ferguson.

I've been the city manager since January 1st uh and employed by the city as a deputy city manager starting in 2013.

So going into my uh uh thirteenth year, 13th year as a city employee.

Um it is uh absolutely been uh an honor and a privilege that the city council gave me an opportunity to move into this role, and uh I've I've thoroughly enjoyed the 24 days uh uh uh of of being in that role.

Um this is uh a phenomenal organization to be part of.

It's a it's a really exciting uh time to be in Durham, and of course it's also a time when Durham is facing uh a lot of challenges, uh challenges that uh we as a body of employees um seek to to follow the guidance of our city council in trying to address and help our community address.

Um I've spent uh my early days in this position uh trying to hear uh as much as I can from uh the elected officials from meeting with them individually as a group to understand their priorities as I transition into this role.

It's also something I've uh spent a lot of time uh out in the community uh just meeting with people who uh want to uh share their thoughts on our priorities, want to share their opinions on what's working well and what could be improved.

Uh and I certainly welcome anyone uh in the room listening to this to reach out to me and if uh we can go grab coffee or just hear you out on on things that are working for you and and things you'd like to see improved.

Um people uh hopefully listening are pretty familiar with our form of government.

Uh I don't set policy, I follow a policy that the city council sets.

Uh we do our best to help inform them, bring them recommendations, uh, bring them analysis so that they can make decisions, but the the city council sets policies.

So I've gotten the question once or twice as I move into this role what my priorities are, and my priorities are are their priorities.

Um that said, I believe and have said uh pretty publicly and to a lot of our partners, so I don't mind repeating here.

Um I do believe that we have a tremendous opportunity in Durham City and Durham County uh to collaborate in ways that other communities across North Carolina and the country don't uh we have uh twelve elected officials in uh that that run city and county government.

Um that is a very small number compared to almost any other jurisdiction you might think of across the state when they put their city and county leaders in a room.

If you just look at Wake County next door, uh you are into the hundreds when you want to get your city and county elected officials in the room.

So um it is it is certainly a fantastic opportunity to have alignments uh in the city and county of Durham.

I know that is a a uh uh strong ethic and value that the elected officials share, and certainly something that we as administrations, I think can can foster and lean into, and that that is certainly something I feel very strongly about.

So spending as much time as I can with uh our colleagues across the street uh and finding out how we can collaborate on Durham's priorities is uh is a really important thing for me.

Uh I think I'll leave it there as an introduction.

I'll be happy to answer other questions, but I know you want to get to other folks, so thank you very much again for having me.

Thank you, Mr.

Beethoven for those online classes, good morning everyone.

It's great to have you all here.

Um it's probably my fault.

Uh it's great to have everybody here, and um it's great to have this committee here.

I'm a former member of this committee.

Uh when I was uh serving on the board of the chamber and also have my chamber panel on today to poll.

Um but yeah, I I uh don't really have a lot of comments other than I I do think that we're in a good little time to do uh some pretty groundbreaking things here in Durham.

Um we I think we're uh we're on the cuff of just index phase.

You know, uh there was a time where downtown drum was a bit dry, and during the Bill Bear era, Bill Bell, Bill Kelkoff, Tom uh Bonfield days.

Um there were uh there was a a almost like a renaissance in a sense economically.

And uh we we enjoyed the benefits of that for a while now, and I think that you know, as time has evolved, um I think it's time for us to do the same.

You know, so how we um how we respond to this this moment in time is going to be kind of this uh it is up to us.

And uh I believe it's far from a government side is gonna take us being a lot more proactive rather than reactive.

Uh which means that we need to have strategies in how we approach some of our uh you know, uh some of the biggest issues that we face for our community from homelessness to housing prices to transportation.

Uh so that's big big items.

And I do think we ourselves a disciple when we say, all right, we have a health problem, that's such healthy.

We have a homeless problem that's just homelessness, and we totally omit the the holistic approach to it.

And so from the private sector to the public sector, I think that we we all need to, you know, have a strategy or strategies that we can that we can all buy into and work work in tandem with one another, and that's the way I see us, you know, in our uh in our moment in time for the next renaissance here at Durham.

You know, we take that approach.

We realize that we are you know ongoing uh on the path to generating uh attace and generating revenue that can really tackle a lot of the issues that we're that we are facing.

Expecting it to come just from one city budget.

Budget as small as ours is not gonna happen.

So we find ourselves uh rolling around in civilism, and that has to stop.

So um uh that that is gonna be my focus as mayor, and um I I will do as much as I can with my colleagues, and what I can't I will come to the private sector to do.

And I just need the private sector to be ready for that.

And um, and also lastly, you know, uh we in order to make this truly happen, we have to really awaken the philanthropy community.

Um and we have to make some significant investments that are going to be for the public good.

Uh so uh you've heard me talk a lot about a convention center.

Uh uh we also evolved that to an arts and innovation center.

Um something that can have like indoor virtual reality, you know, like a feature center for our youth, and um something that has city modeling and digital to digital twenty and um but also can host the capacity at a convention of thousands.