All right, hello everyone.

Welcome to City Hall uh work session.

It's good to have you all in here today.

It's a full house.

And um I saw some of you all walking across the street.

You waved, but I didn't have my glasses on.

Now I see you.

Hi.

Madam Clerk, let's call the role.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Williams.

I'm here.

Here.

Baker?

Here.

Councilmember Cook.

Here.

Councilmember Rist.

Here.

And Councilmember Burris and Copac have been granted excused absences for today.

Thank you.

All right.

Let's uh take some brief remarks.

Uh from uh council colleagues.

I'll start to my left, Councilmember Baker.

Thank you for everyone who uh is here with us today, looking forward to a uh good and uh productive meeting.

Just want to honor the life and legacy of uh Jesse Jackson who uh passed away a few days ago.

Um extraordinary human being who I think changed um politics in in this country for the better, um, as part of the the Rainbow Coalition and and just did so so much work that uh I think that we need to to continue to to fight for um a more more just more justice in our politics, a more just country um the way that the the way that Jesse Jackson did.

So um wanna want to honor that legacy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Riston.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Good afternoon, colleagues, city manager, residents here and those online.

Good to see everybody.

Yeah, thanks, Councilman Baker for lifting up the uh the legacy of uh Reverend uh Jesse Jackson, an amazing legacy of civil rights uh activism and even political activism.

Um actually, you know, it's I'm gonna date myself by saying this, but I actually remember going door to door for Jesse Jackson, I think it's 1988 his first campaign.

So again, probably before some of my colleagues were born, but that was like a very fond memory, and so uh want to honor his legacy as an important leader in this country.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Cook.

Um thank you.

I want to echo my colleagues' comments about Jesse Jackson.

Um and I also just want to say briefly that um we had talked a lot about um Renee Good and Alex Predi uh when they were killed by ICE activity in Minneapolis, and I just want to um send uh my condolences out to the family of Lorth Sim, who was uh um refugee who was in the detention facility and passed away a couple of days ago.

Um and then also to the family of Linda Davis, who is a teacher in South Carolina, who was killed um when there was a um a chase uh by ice vehicles.

Um brings our total up uh pretty high.

I think there's been nine deaths that have been uh done by ICE in just the calendar year of 2026.

Uh we are only in February.

This one more reminder of how this agency is being used to terrorize communities and makes us less safe.

So just want to send out my condolences to those families and everyone else who has died in custody um and or been deported and and now is facing uh tragedy at home.

Um those are all my comments, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember uh Mayor Pro Jim.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I uh want to thank my colleagues for their great comments.

Um I'm also dating myself.

So in the 80s, my my family, we were not citizens, and so we couldn't vote on that era, but my mom loved Jesse Jackson and I definitely remember all of the presidential debates and that moment.

And I think what struck me currently is you know, there's been a lot of old footage and um beautiful footage.

Uh and the one that has really resonated me is the one with him visiting Sesame Street.

And uh for those of us, many of us grew up on Sesame Street, and uh it is a reflection.

I think right now in this moment we talk about DEI and woke and all of these things.

And it's like, no, we were we were on a long trajectory in this country uh moving towards that future.

Um I I mean product of the 80s and 90s, I read Zora Neil Hurston in high school.

Um I read plenty of books in high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, not at that time a Republican uh may uh mayor, so not uh a city that I would maybe categorize as super progressive.

Uh uh Jesse Helms was our senator, Harvey Gantt was trying to challenge that.

So this is the context and moment.

And um uh when I see those old videos, it's a reminder of in this country we have a dark and terrible history, but we've also worked diligently to move on that arc of justice.

And in this moment, uh it's a it's a good reminder that don't let folks take things away that we have already fought for, uh, that we have already won.

In this moment, we are when we are getting our rights trampled by ice or um other Federal entities or state entities that it's time to always remember to fight and stand up.

And I thought it was pretty interesting that he transitioned in the middle of Black History Month during Chinese New Year, at the beginning of Ramadan, on the last day of Carnival and right before Lent, because I think it's an expression of exactly who he was as a human being, which is that he was able to identify a variety uh of communities and the tr and the oppression that they faced.

So um thank you.

That's uh yeah, thank you for those comments.

Uh he did have the rainbow coalition, right?

And that's it.

You know, I think his uh his passing um the timing of it, it's a clear indication of uh what he stood for.

Um thank you all uh for your comments.

Um Jesse Jackson was uh it was an icon, but as I said, um he left an iconic blueprint.

And I hope that we do not forget.

I hope that we do not we do not forget his legacy.

It's a lot for us to learn from.

Um we are going to be talking about a bit of things today, few presentations.

I'm looking forward to the quarterly crime report.

Um the crisis of youth violence, and also to the uh the the neighbors who have to constantly deal with these things.

Um my focus has been ironclad on youth violence reduction, and that won't change.

Um it is something that I'm personally passionate about.

Uh that doesn't discount anyone else, but it it that is something that I'm keenly focused on.

And um there is a lot wrong in this world right now, and there's a lot wrong in this nation.

Um I'm gonna lean in on what I can impact and what I can do uh about it.

So you're gonna hear me talk a lot about this.

I get really upset.

I get really passionate about it when kids die in our own streets when they don't have to.

Uh so I may get on some nerves, but you know, um it's it's it's it's tough work.

Uh and we uh but when violence is high, we stick to our plan.

When violes is low, we stick to our plan.

And we have a plan that we're gonna lean in on.

And I'm going to invite community members.

You know, I talked about an emergency task force working on that so that we could have some community-centric response and and not necessarily reaction, but response, so that we can ensure that it is sustainable.

Um I'm looking forward to folks contributing to solutions.

I know I'm the mayor of the city.

I'm going to be the topic of a lot of folks' discussions, a lot of social media stuff.

Um people can waste their energy all they want on me, but it's not about me.

You can use me to get your clicks and likes up.

That's fine.

Just contribute to the solution.

And if you're not talking about how to save kids' lives, then I don't have anything to say to you.

Simple as that.

All right.

So let's uh let's get to it.

And I will pass it over to the manager for priority items.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor Protem, members of council.

It's a pleasure to be with you this afternoon.

Uh the only priority item is just to note that in receiving agenda item number 12, that's the fourth quarter crime report.

There is also a presentation that goes along with that.

In addition, there are three other informational presentations on today's agenda.

So just highlighting for council that we do have a number of uh agenda items uh with presentations today that uh hope will be informative, but uh will also take up a little bit of time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Madam Attorney.

Afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem.

Uh the City Attorney's Office would like to request a closed session at the conclusion of all regular business today.

And that is our priority item.

Let me go ahead and address that now.

Uh uh colleagues I'll entertain a motion to resume the closed session at the uh end of our general body, uh in of our work session.

It's been moved and properly seconded.

Do we need a statute?

Um It's a second, it's technically a second vote, but I thought he was just acknowledging the priority item.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I I was gonna go ahead and make the motion and and I would like to if you can read the motion, I'll just entertain the uh motion.

Uh the motion is to hold a closed session pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143 318.1183 for attorney client consultation regarding the handling of a yet-to be filed liability claim against the city.

So moved.

Second.

It's been moved and properly seconded.

Madam Clerk, will you please uh call the role?

Call to vote.

Okay.

Mayor Williams.

Yes.

Councilmember Baker.

Hi.

Councilmember Cook?

Yes.

Councilmember Rist.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

So at at the at the uh end of this meeting, we'll uh go into a closed session and we'll adjourn from coming back in open session from there.

Madam Clark.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, board and committee report.

The first item is the mayor's committee for persons with disability appointment.

And the um nomination is Raven Brooks.

And the second and last nominations for the Durham Historic Preservation Commission for the category of at-large, David Gawler has been the selection, and that's the end of my report.

Thank you.

All right.

I will now at this time read the um the consent agenda.

Item number one, Mayor's Committee for Persons with Disabilities appointment.

Number two, Durham Historic Preservation Commission appointment.

Number three, fiscal year 2025-2026, second quarter financial report.

Number four, Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation, uh Grant Budget Ordinance.

Can we actually poll three?

Yes.

Sorry about that.

Number five, Mayor's Council for Women 2025 annual report.

Number six, contract BR 11, National Bridge Inventory Structural Repairs 2026.

Number eight, 2025 Equal Business Opportunity Program, Evop in your report, participation goal, participatation, participation.

Pull that one too.

Number nine, interlocal agreement with Durham County for joint funding of the low-income homeowners relief program.

Pull that one too.

Number 10, limited obligation bonds series 2026, ANB.

Number 11, 2025 Recreation Advisory Commission Annual Report.

Number 12, 2025 fourth quarter crime report presentation.

Number 13, contract with Geo Convergence LLC to implement ARC GIS indoors.

Number 16, 2025 City of Durham disparity study update.

Number 18, Maria Zarados.

And Christy Emery.

So these are public comments.

Okay.

All right.

So we have uh we have our consent agenda with items polled three, eight, nine, and ten.

Not two.

12 was just a presentation.

That was my list.

Oh sorry.

So just three three uh eight and nine.

All right.

Uh entertain a motion to uh what am I doing?

No, that's yeah.

I've been at this job three years and I still get the general body and work session procedures mixed up.

So I I look at Councilmember Cook's face and she gives me the frown, then I'm out of order here.

All right.

Uh so what I'll do is I I do have some uh that's a resource person.

So I do have some public comments.

All right, and I will start with I'll start with on uh what I have on the uh agenda here.

So Maria Zaderados.

Welcome.

You got three minutes.

Oh, press that button on the right.

Hello.

There you go.

Thank you.

Hello, Mayor, Council members, city staff, thank you for having us.

Um it's great to be here today, and we're really happy to have the opportunity to speak and share our concerns with you.

My name is Maria, and I live in Durham.

I'm a volunteer organizer with Siembra's Make NC Work initiative.

Um I got involved last year after both my job and international development and my partners, um, my girlfriend's job at the environmental protection agency were impacted by federal funding cuts.

When we moved to Durham a few years ago from Texas, we were so happy to have found a place to work and live, and one that was so welcoming and accepting of us.

A friend of ours even recently moved here for safety as a trans person.

Um we're really scared right now of the escalating threats to civil and constitutional rights, uh, like the lack of due process that we're seeing, the lack of accountability for crimes committed by our federal government, especially all of this being targeted particularly at immigrants, people of color, and the LGBTQ community.

Last October at our town hall with Siembra and Make NC work, we put forth our stand-up for Durham resolution, which would direct the city to publicly document and respond to harms caused by federal overreach, including health care cuts, economic instability, warrantless workplace raids, and funding cuts.

This resolution would ensure that Durham listens to its impacted residents and takes concrete local steps to defend our constitutional rights and community stability.

Almost the entire city council has recognized this as a crucial step towards building safer, stronger, uh a safer and stronger Durham.

Since October, most of you have reaffirmed um your commitment to passing it in continued follow-ups with us, um, though we haven't been able to reach Councilmember Cook by phone or email, and Councilmember Baker was not able to join our last scheduled meeting.

We're here today to respectfully urge you to follow through and honor your promises to the public.

That being said, um, we have to be honest that this process has been quite challenging.

Having to fit these meetings into our work schedule like mine today isn't easy, and I would appreciate uh the time we dedicate to our outreach and being here to be honored and respected.

While we understand that there are reasons um for a lengthy and uh bureaucratic process, navigating the public commenting rules has also been frustrating.

We can only raise off agenda items at working sessions at 1 p.m.

on Thursdays like today, which is extremely difficult for most people to attend.

And the 10-day advance sign-up requirement also creates a barrier to participation.

Many of the folks who are here today also wanted to speak but can't, and we know there are many others who would like to speak on these issues.

And that's exactly exactly why passing the stand-up resolution is so important.

It would give Durhamites a genuine opportunity to have their voices heard and share their concerns about how this is impacting all of us.

Here is what we're asking for.

It's very simple and within your power.

One for the city council to direct the city manager to hold at least one official public hearing, ideally jointly and co-sponsored with county elected officials at the county commission and board of education.

Can I keep going or thank you?

Um but I will I will say that many are familiar with this stand-up request and will be circulating amongst council.

Um we'll get that in rotation to be considered.

Uh as and I think we've been speaking to some of you all.

It won't be exact.

Uh nothing really is, but you know, we we work through it, massage it based on interactions with each council member.

So uh but thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Next, I have uh Kristen Emory.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Kristen Emery, and I live in Durham.

I'm a volunteer organizer with Make NC Work, a multiracial group working to make North Carolina the best state for families to live and work.

I have several stories to share that highlight the challenges that our community is facing now, the kinds of testimonies that deserve to be heard at a public hearing.

First, I'll share why I'm here in the middle of my work day.

My grandmother was a refugee from Northern Worp during World War II.

Her family left their home when she was 14.

If they hadn't left at that time, they could have been separated from each other and killed by the invading forces.

My grandmother was lucky.

She and her family made it safely to the US and built a life here.

But it was a hard transition.

They knew no one and they left home with just one suitcase each, so they were starting pretty much from scratch.

That there are other people who face difficulties to come and live here to immigrate here, only to be targeted by law enforcement and denied equal protection under the law fills me with sorrow and anger.

My grandmother is a very positive person and a major source of strength to me.

I hate to think of things that could have happened to her to cause her long-term pain, such as living in fear of being separated from a family member.

And I hate that our government is causing that kind of pain to people who want to live here.

We have seen the impact of the immigration raids here in Durham last November.

And these negative health impacts get worse every day that immigrants are targeted.

The federal government's actions have also increased food insecurity.

Last November, when Snap ran out of funding, I worked with a nonprofit that paired me with a family of six that had only received $34 worth of food stamps for the entire month of November.

I was happy to help them get groceries, but was furious that this family had to go out of their way to find a nonprofit to help and hope that that nonprofit would find a volunteer to work with them just to be able for them to have food to get through the month.

Council members Caballero and Councilmember Rist, you have met with us, and we've really enjoyed hearing uh your insights on the resolution.

Um Councilmember Cook, you attended our town hall, which we appreciate, but we haven't been able to meet with you individually to hear your insights.

Councilmember Baker, we look forward to meeting with you since you missed your last meeting with us.

And we recognize that there are many issues demanding your attention, but the needs of our community are also important.

Mayor Williams, we appreciate that you've met with us twice to discuss the resolution.

In our conversations, you expressed a great passion for Durham, and we believe that this resolution aligns with the legacy you were working on for the city.

I believe you can lead the way and show other cities how they can take action.

I encourage you and all of the city council to step into leadership that not just Durham, but the entire country needs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next yeah, to a resource, right?

Oh no, that was a resonant.

That's a one.

Oh, okay, gotcha.

Um, I have one online speaker, Letitia Faison.

You see our line.

Okay.

Yes, I'm here.

Welcome.

Uh you you have three minutes.

Thanks for joining us.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Um, here about the gun violence that's going on.

Um, yes, I am a Durham native for 45 years.

Yes, I am directly impacted by gun violence.

Yes, I am one of the ones that shot down battles and time center, and yes, I am one of the ones that had hopeful who will city unite.

Now, we all are failing our babies.

We can sit here and point fingers at who is doing what or who's not doing what.

But at the moment our kids are still dying.

A simple bandage would be to update our rate centers, uh, make them moderate, um, secure them with community leaders.

Um, I feel like we got land and buildings that's sitting around and not being used.

We have to do something to attract our youth attention.

Um, another simple band would be just to listen to the citizens, because it's a it's a smack in the face when we come up there and y'all so vague and like uh nonchalant.

Oh, three minutes the next person.

Nobody wants to come express their feelings and feel like they're being disrespected.

Uh we also, I'd have said this a thousand times.

We can give the youth as many tools as we want and put them back into their environment, and we are a product of our environments.

So we could use the same thing that we was going to use for the time crime center and build a training center to teach our youth living skills and structure and discipline and traits that they could use to come be a productive citizen.

This always makes me aggravated, and like others have said, people can't stop their day like a one o'clock meeting.

People are at work trying to live and survive.

We're barely getting livable wages, but to come out of our jobs to come to a meeting that everyone needs to be at hard.

And I feel like yeah.

We could do something besides sitting here pointing our fingers and saying who is doing what.

Y'all are the leaders, so start leading and stop leaning on the community.

Let's do something now.

Like it's simple things that could be done.

And open our parks up that been testing for lead for years, like remodeling.

We gotta do something besides just talking.

It need to be action.

Every time people just can't come talk.

We gotta do something about it.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for uh calling in the last speaker I have is uh Donald Hughes.

Welcome, you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Um good afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, members of the council.

My name is Donald Hughes, and I am a resident and native of Durham.

Durham is in a crisis.

Our young people are dying in our streets every day.

The City of Durham has a nearly 800 million dollar budget annually.

The county of Durham has a one billion dollar budget annually.

We have more than two billion dollars taxpayers dollars that we're spending each year, yet we're continuing to point the flat finger and blame parents for the crisis of our young people dying in our community.

We're gonna have a report from the police department, a crime report.

And while I'm thankful in the community is thankful to be able to get this report, it doesn't go far enough, members of council.

We have to disaggregate this data.

Where's the data down to the zip code level?

Where's the racial data that shows exactly where the crime is happening and who is being impacted by the crime?

And we're gonna be successful in addressing this issue like they have been in Baltimore.

We're gonna have to take a different approach than what we're taking, and we're gonna have to prescribe solutions that speak to the data that I hear you talking about so much, Mr.

Mayor.

Again, the solutions have to be targeted just like the data shows.

In our community, people come down here and they prescribe solutions, they ask you all for the support, and as the speaker just said, they're continuously dismissed.

No one wants to come down to City Hall and to be lectured about what they're not doing when they're actually in the community every day doing this work.

I had a mentor who has since passed away, Dr.

Sharon Elliott Bonum, who used to always tell me we don't have to come up with the solutions for the community.

All we have to do is talk to the community and listen to them, and they'll tell us exactly what we need.

We have to marshal the resources and help support the community in addressing their own needs.

Mr.

Mayor, you said that we can't social work our way out of this crisis.

You said that we can restorative justice our way out of this crisis.

But I disagree with you.

That's exactly what we need to do.

We need to social work our way out of this.

We need to employ our way out of this, we need to house our way out of this.

We need to educate our way out of this crisis, Mr.

Mayor, and we have to start finger wagging at the parents in the community and the members who are doing the work every day without the resources of this vast government.

Our community needs resources and not rhetoric.

Our community needs care and compassion and not condescension.

Our community needs love and not lecture.

You talk a lot, Mr.

Mayor, about this Bull City uh future fund, and you say you've raised close to a million dollars.

The community wants to know well, how much of that money has made it directly to the streets and directly to the hands of our young people and organizations that need it the most.

We also want to know, members of the council, who's donating to this fund?

Are they members of this community, developers that have business before you all as the council?

Transparency is needed.

Again, stop lecturing us, stop being condescending to us, stop giving us rhetoric and ridicule and work with us as a community.

I was born and raised here, and I'm tired of seeing our babies die in the streets.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving on, next part of the agenda is item number three, I believe.

Good afternoon, Christina Reardon, budget and management services.

Hey, Ms.

Ridden, thank you so much for being here.

Um I just have one comment about the stoplight report.

And the first thing I want to say is like I really appreciate the sort of the increased sort of attention and sort of thought and care that goes into the stoplight report and some of the changes that I think you've talked about in past work sessions.

I just want to mention, and I think a lot of the council members got the emails we all got before the meeting.

So the good thing is a lot of folks in the community are looking, they care about this stuff.

And so we've got some good feedback from them, kind of detailed feedback about you know how to like in what case do the the the rankings the the red, green, yellow change, under what circumstances there's some concerns about things that seem like similar projects that are some are green, some are red, and so it's pretty detailed comments.

I want to make sure I don't know if the manager got those comments as well or staff.

So we're gonna make sure the staff have those comments and can take those into consideration as you continue to improve that report.

I just want to make sure y'all were aware of that.

Yeah, we did receive some comments just before this meeting, and I think that we are, you know, I'm actively looking at it and also kind of working um to um address some of them and as well as kind of incorporate some into the future um iterations of the stoplight as we look at the same thing.

Thank you, appreciate that.

Um The next item is number eight.

I need to ask them.

Good afternoon, Sheila Fawcett.

And Council members, Mayor Williams, Mayor Pro Tim, here to answer any questions that you have for me today.

Hey, Ms.

Fawcett, thanks for coming back.

Um I pulled this one.

So I just had thanks for the um for the report, and I know you are going to come back later and talk about the uh the new disparity study.

So look forward to that conversation.

I just had a question about some of the the data on um participation for particularly for minority underutilized business enterprises with respect to CMR contracts, professional services and services contracting, all of which seems like there was a pretty substantial drop in the most recent year from the previous year.

And so in addition to that data, which is great to share, I mean we want to be clear that we're sort of data-driven here.

Do you have any sense of like what the dynamic is, what's going on that we should be aware of as we because again, this is this is such critical work we do as a city providing the resources that minority businesses can use to grow and strengthen their businesses.

So just kind of curious what your sort of analysis is of what's going on in the marketplace.

Right.

Um and you're talking about the prime contracting data to make sure I know which page you are on.

So that was on page 17.

Of the annual report.

Of the annual report, exactly, yeah.

Yeah, the all the contract data.

Just want to make sure I address the right spot.

Yeah.

So yeah, starting page 17, 18, 19.

Okay.

Yes.

So that was our prime con um prime data.

And as there's nothing, there is nothing really specific other than what we've listed in the report for you.

And that's again, our decline was based on just participation, excuse me, participation goals, the ability of minority vendors to actually participate.

And that was again in accordance with our ordinance.

Right.

So but again, is there like is there behind behind the numbers?

Is there a story there about like why firms have not been able to participate?

Is it simply that firms don't exist, aren't there, don't have the capacity?

What's the story if if you're if you have any sense of that?

Not much of a story other than again for our data from that perspective.

I would say not really much of a story.

I mean, we still go from multiple Sorry, don't have much.

It's really just the data, the data for what we had, the contracts that we had to of the projects that we had available during the year and how those bids were, the bids came in and the minority vendors that were available to do the work.

I know that we're again we're gonna look at the disparity study, but it would be helpful going forward to have some sense of like what like for the for the council here, like what are the policy recommendations we need to be thinking about to improve that participation.

That's kind of what where I'm thinking.

So as we go forward, I want to be able to understand exactly what's happening.

Do we need to invest more in the pipeline of minority firms?

Is it our process?

I mean, that's kind of the questions I have.

So would yeah, would appreciate your thoughts as we go forward.

I am with you.

So that's why we're doing our disparity study.

So our disparity study is going to help us identify any barriers that may be out there.

We have community forums coming up on March the 18th and the 25th to help the so the community will have the ability to come and give us that feedback.

And so that's again, that's part of the disparity study so that we can identify what barriers that we may have be having here within the city so that we can actually address those.

And you will hear a little bit more about that from Mr.

Miller today when he gives your present, gives the presentation.

Thank you.

Hopefully that's helpful.

Are there other questions?

I might just augment.

Yeah, I I think Councilmember basically you are asking sort of a fundamental effectiveness question of the program, which uh and obviously we we have the program to try and maximize our performance on these goals.

Um we don't always have the story, uh, especially when we we don't get the kind of response that we want.

But to Ms.

Fawcett's final final comments, I think we very much are focused on the disparity study and the research and the data that brings us to help make sure we can target our program within the somewhat restrictive laws that North Carolina and the Federal Government have to try and maximize that participation.

That will that will always be our goal in any sort of policy recommendations or structural changes that we think are possible and needed to maximize those goals will absolutely bring those forward.

So we wanna we want to understand that better.

So look forward to those conversations.

Okay.

Thank you.

Other questions for me today.

Thank you.

All right.

Last item pool is number nine.

In our local agreement, Durham County joint funding for the low-income homeowners relief program.

Good afternoon, Tim Flora, Finance Director.

I think it was Flora.

I guess I'm the prolific one point agenda.

Like not like this, Councilman McCook, sorry.

So first of all, just say like the low-income homeowner relief program, as we have talked about in the past, is something I am most proud of that we and the county are doing.

It is something that I worked on before I got on council.

This is one of the key tools, if not the most important tool we have to address displacement in Durham, so this is critical.

I am excited that since this was enacted in 2022, participation has been going up steadily.

So I saw last year 642 households benefited from our low-income homeowner relief.

That's awesome.

As I do the numbers roughly, that's less than one percent of all homeowners in Durham, so it's still a small number.

And so I don't know if I have seen the numbers, but I'm I'm guessing the county would have these numbers.

It would be helpful to know like what's the because I know this is for families that have owned their homes for at least five years and they can have lived here a certain amount of time, um, income sort of requirements.

I would be curious to know if the county has any data on actually what's the sort of like what's the what's the pool of households that would qualify?

Like what are we are we getting, you know, half all the households?

I'm guessing we're not, but like what would it be good to know like what's the pool of the target market we are trying to reach with this?

It's great that people are increasingly knowing about this and increasingly applying, but it would be good to know as we go forward and as we think about resources for this, like what's the how much are we reaching our target market?

So I wonder if you could reach out to the county and see if they have any data on this topic.

Absolutely.

I am more than happy to reach out to my uh friends in this uh in the county to get try to get that information.

I also this so this is for the FY26.

Um I know that uh this discussion will be coming up for FY27 budget.

So um if you like, I can try to get that information and add it to this agenda item, or would you like to have that as part of your presentation going into the FY27 budget?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And also I know that we I think we appropriate half a million, the county does maybe three quarters of a million, right?

Yes.

So to know like, are we using all this funding?

Yes.

Uh if you were to look at the chart, uh last year we the the city's cost uh our total cost was, I think uh for the program.

We spent 444,000 of the 500,000 that we have for those.

And so I suspect that's the same.

So I suspect we're getting very close.

Uh I I suspect we will hit hit hit our max number this year.

And so I suspect as part of the discussions going into FY27, there may be some um ask for some additional funding for that program.

That's great.

That would be my that's my expectation.

I like that recommendation.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

That's it.

Thank you.

I had two additional comment um public comments sign up, and I was a little confused because of the title.

Um, so I apologize to the residents about that, but please come on up.

Um the first I have is Bridget Hogan.

Follow.

Okay.

I got first.

Betsy Ross.

Is it okay?

I go first, Betsy Ross.

Yes, Bessie Ross, and then um.

Thank you.

I have two thousand feet.

I had a cart for Bridget Hogan.

And then do you have a card for the same thing?

I don't.

Did you fill out a card?

Both of us did.

Okay.

No worries.

Just uh I'll find it.

Here it is.

It's hiding.

Okay.

Um I have two thousand people here today.

You can't see them, but they are here.

Um I hope you have read our petition with over 2,000 signatures addressing the picket road rezoning and have viewed the beautiful video on the petition.

We disagree on the grounds of procedural mistakes and omitted information.

Staff report failed to meet the graphic plan requirements, naming this as the New Hope Open Space Plan with permanent protection status stated in New Hope Open Space Component B Part 3, plus the North Carolina conservation protected area and part of the City of Durham critical areas protection plan area for Sandy Creek.

The Durham inventory of natural areas listed the New Hope Open Space Corridor is one of the highest priorities for conservation, quote, which restricts development of specific parcels, unquote.

The DEQ stated that a large development of the site will degrade quality of drinking water, which already struggles because of the flooding from 15501 and three 100-year storms even in one year.

The city was aware that the majority of flooding at the Sandy Creek location is from 15501.

The city knew that 15501 will add another lane soon, further exasperating flooding.

The site plan stated that the buildings and parking lots shall not encroach the floodplain.

That's a quote.

With prior knowledge of 15501 widening, the city knew that this was simply untrue.

And Policy 95 and the cop plan, quote, there is no commitment to prohibit all development or disturbing with disturbances within the floodplain, unquote.

The city is smart.

We demand that the flood study a flood study be conducted on hundred-year floods.

The site plan states that there is quote possible encroachment into 100-year floodplain.

And a traffic engineer has stated that there are problems involved at this state site that may have not been addressed.

And also they will uh by widening the road there, they're going to create more flooding that possibly will encroach upon picket.

The city is an outdated and incomplete traffic assessment.

We demand a current and complete traffic study.

The site plan states that this is not a wild wildlife quarter, it is.

Keystone meant that it's critical or foundational to the ecosystem, to the health of the ecosystem.

This is a burning hotspot in Sandy Creek Park.

It was also a corridor for wildlife, part of the important uh New Hope corridor project.

And I don't think we ever got a response to why this parcel of land was allowed to be incorporated into where the apartments were going to be built.

The other thing we never got an answer to was the fact that the this uh buffer zone and the hundred-year flood floodplain um line comes right up against where the impermeable surface is going to be.

The developers repeatedly said, well, there's going to be no more water going into the creek because it is the same amount of water is going to fall onto the apartments as before.

But now it's impermeable and it's going to be contaminated by parking traffic cars there, and it's going to go directly into this valuable buffer zone.

And the and the other thing is that there was a hundred-year mark.

We never managed to find out when this line was actually generated.

And we repeatedly talked about climate change.

And I think it was Councillor Cook, who was the only person in the discussion who actually mentioned climate change and what this was going to mean to know where the floods were going to come up and the more water and the more contamination of the of the creek and the surrounding vital area.

So, as Betsy said, we got 200 people for the first thing, and we've got 2,000 for the appeal.

But there's only one Sandy Creek Park.

That brings us to the question.

Thank you.

Thank you all for your comments, and sorry that I I missed it earlier.

Our first presentation.

Yeah.

Item number 12.

Police department.

I'm ready.

Good afternoon.

Mayor Williams.

Madam Mayor Pro Tem Caballero.

And Durham City Council, Manager Ferguson, City staff, and those in the room and those that are watching online, this is your Durham Police Department 2025 fourth quarter report that will cover the time from January 1st, 2025 to December 31st, 2025.

It is also going to be the last time that I will stand before you to present as your chief of police.

So I'm going to go through this in 10 minutes or less, I promise.

So as you know, um we always start this time off with talking about violent crime and property crime.

So violent crime is made up of our part one crimes, which are homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

And so what do you want me to pause while you're bringing that up?

Are you okay?

Okay.

So what we immediately notice about our violent crime rate overall is that we are down about 17%, so 16.9%.

We saw noticeable decreases in aggravated assaults where we were down 21.5%.

Our homicides remained relatively unchanged from 2024.

In 2025, we had 39 reportable homicides.

So I always give you a year to date, so year to date.

And the weapons last year included motor vehicles.

We had six uh of those.

We had three um weapons that were used that were knives and then personal weapons.

When we look at our forcible rapes, so we've seen that also go down about 10%.

And it's similar trends regarding both categories that we've seen in the past.

Um 22% of those have been reported from prior years, and then 19% of those um reported offenses were involving intimate partners.

So I do want to just note when we talk about clearances, we did have a very significant, and this highlights it's just one highlight of of all of the great work that staff that our investigators are doing, specifically as it relates to um belated reports of sexual assaults.

On December 15th, uh 2025, 61-year-old Kenneth Nathaniel McNeil was indicted on nine counts of statutory rape, sex offense of a 13, 14, and 15-year-old, three counts of indecent liberties with a child, one count of attempted rape, two counts of rape, and one count of incest.

All of those crimes, alleged crimes occurred to have occurred over a span of 26 years from 1999 through 2025 and involved multiple teenage victims.

So I think what I want to highlight there is just showing that no matter when it happened, please report that there's always a likelihood, there's always a chance that we can bring the offender to justice.

So our robbery series, we noticed that we were down in both trends of of individual and commercial robberies.

And then our aggravated assaults.

What we did notice is that there were fewer incidents, so we were down about 13% of our aggravated assaults, but we also had also fewer victims per incident.

So that's about 113 or so gunshot wounds.

So I do want to note that there were 26% fewer shootings involving aggravated assault offenses in 2025 compared to 2024.

So all of that said being said that the trends are moving downward.

Obviously, it's not as far down as we would like to see, but I do believe we are we are going to get there.

Next, please.

All right.

So you all have seen this before.

This I'd like to we like to demonstrate um what it looks like if we were to put it up on um on a chart or on a graph.

So this shows the raw number of violent crimes.

We do it over the last 10 years because it's important for you to see some of the trends and what that looks like.

I just want to highlight what we're seeing some downward uh trends.

So the robberies, that's gonna be your green line, those have trended steadily downward overall.

There were 50% fewer robberies in 2025 than in 2026.

And we also noticed as as um I'll often talk about was some of the robbery trends that we have that pop up with Hispanic victims.

Um we're still showing disproportionate impact.

However, um we do show that the um the rate has decreased for 20 or decreased in 2025.

Our aggravated assaults, again, it was a sharp increase that we saw in prior years.

Uh however, 2025 has seen the lowest total over the 10 year period, and uh intimate partner domestic violence incidents were about average uh with 25 percent of the total.

So the next slide shows us um our Durham violent crime rate uh from 2012 to 2026, and it's the violent crimes over the last 14 calendar years, and that's reflected in the per 100,000 population.

So we have seen year over year declines uh for five consecutive years, with the rate being um this year, it went really down far down um in 2025 to 482.

Okay.

So next shooting incidents.

Um there was someone that uh commented about where where are these things occurring.

Um we provide that information.

What we want to be very careful of is creating a situation where any one community is becomes almost targeted as far as for bias, right?

Is this a overly dangerous community?

Is is this a community um more black and brown people, and does that equal dangerous?

So we want to be very careful when we start naming specific communities, but we do want to provide you what does it look like for your shooting incidents within the city of Durham.

So you have it here by beats, these are all response beats, um, how all of our districts are broken up.

So of all violent crimes in 2025, 26.1% of those involved a gun being fired.

And we've seen decreases from shooting incidents to person shot for fatal to non-fatal.

We've seen all of those decrease.

There were 831 guns seized in 2025, and so that is actually down 15 percent from prior years.

And these all the the seizures themselves, these came from about 631 incidents.

So still seizing, um having less incidents but more gun seizures.

So that's about 1.32 guns per incident.

Next, please, thank you.

Just real quick as well.

Sure, do we know where the guns are?

Do we know where they're coming from, how they're getting getting there?

Um, so we we can we use NIBEN, so um we use the national incident uh national incident ballistic network.

Am I correct on that, Chief Py?

I put them on the spot.

Okay, it's close.

Um so we use that to be able to find out where where these guns originated from.

There are times where we recover stolen guns, so we know that that car that gun was stolen and where it was stolen from.

Um most of these guns you see are going to be stolen firearms.

Um that, and that's why we we I don't want to say a harp, but we really talk about and drive home.

It is very important not to leave firearms in cars or your vehicles, right?

And leaving them unsecured.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right.

So the next next um slide was the cumulative number of um gunshot wounds by week.

So again, just want you to be able to see what it looks like by week through the calendar year.

And so this actually shows um 2020 2020 through December 31st, 2025.

So 2023, we saw fewer gunshot wounds, um, and then the most was in 2020.

Year over year declines have occurred since then until 2024, but uh there were 170 gunshot wounds in 2025, and those were well below kind of the trajectory from all of the the prior years.

Now we've had questions in the past about how you know how are people we've had people arriving, victims arriving by um by private vehicles to hospitals.

There are about 45 of those cases, they did arrive by private transport, which you know you've heard me say sometimes leaves a little bit of um issues for us being able to solve them quickly.

Chief, one question on that previous slide.

So I appreciate the sort of week to week sort of like um sort of cumulative progress.

I'm just curious, as you look at that.

I mean, I see a pretty much a straight line, kind of mostly.

Is there something else you take from that data?

But certainly there's different differences in the totals for year to year, but like anything you take from the like the shape of the line there.

I I I do think it really does depend on what's happening, right?

Um it does depend on, you know, have there been prior gunshot wounds?

Is this a retaliation, or is this is there it does really do it does depend on what's going on and and maybe who's in jail, who has been charged or indicted, um, who has been removed from the community and who's been back put back in the community.

I guess like the timing over the county year, because that sometimes we talk about it seems like there's sometimes in the summer there's a spike.

I don't really see that here in the numbers really.

I think we would have to really drill down and look at month to month, right?

And so I think that's something that um staff can look at is so isolating a time period.

So if we're talking about summertime, more you more kids are out, you know, or are we are we seeing the same kind of crime trend or same kind of trend with gunshot wounds as we do for say um larcenies, right?

Um in at certain times of the year.

We can look at that for you.

Okay.

Good questions.

Thank you.

Uh so this uh let's transition over to part one property crime.

And I will tell you when we talk about crime that occurs the most in the city of Durham, it's property crime.

If we talk about prime crime that makes people is shocking all, it's violent crime, right?

Um but in um what we've seen overall is there's been a decrease with burglaries, larcency, larcenies just across the board, even including motor vehicle theft, which has caused a decrease for us there.

So I do want to highlight our Larcenies.

So this is where we have we have seen uh Lars needs from motor vehicles.

39% of the Lars needs were from motor vehicles, but that is a small decrease from 2024.

It's about a 2% decrease.

And then Larcenies from shopliftings, um, we have seen an increase in that that drives um some of our Larceny numbers.

When we look at motor vehicle theft, we're down 14.2, 14 14.2 percent, which is great.

Um 86% of the vehicles that were stolen, they have been recovered, and that but that doesn't include the attempts or the vehicles that are unregistered, and then we still have people leaving um keys in their vehicles to the tune of 23 percent.

All right, let's talk about again.

Let me give you just the line.

I just want you to look at Larsnees, that's our orange line.

Um, it's trended upward over the last three years.

2025 has been kind of the second highest for us overall for uh highest total for the 10-year uh period.

Uh three-quarters of all Larsonies are related to vehicles being broken into in shopliftings.

And so what we're seeing is in motor of all of our motor vehicle um of all of our Larsonies are vehicles being broken into and then shopliftings.

Uh motor vehicle thefts are are the green line.

Uh it is increased significantly, as you all know, in 2022.

Uh, but now we're starting to kind of moderate and come down a little bit over the last two years.

So that's a good, that's a good trend that we want to keep going.

Thefts while they the thefts are down 14.2 percent from last year, they are up uh more than double from 2021.

Kia and Hyundai continue to be some of the vehicles that are stolen the most.

Next.

All right.

So this will show you your property crime rate, similar to the violent crime rate.

So our target is to have fewer than 3,500 property crimes per 100,000 residents in our community.

And that is depicted by your dash.

We did observe a rate that was just below that with 3405, just below the target.

And so we like to see, we'd like to stay below the target.

All right, let's talk about guns stolen.

Um these folks that are breaking into vehicles, they're looking for guns.

Um, and you know, if you if you smash the windows for enough vehicles, you're gonna get a gun, as we've seen by the by the data.

So of all the guns stolen in the force first quarter, 73% were from motor vehicles.

That is a significantly higher than normal rate, which is about 56%.

Um and then the rest, so second, third, and fourth quarter, it was 62% in the remaining quarters.

Of all the guns stolen from vehicles in the first quarter, 68% were by breaking a window.

That's the three times your normal rate.

So that's gonna drive it up.

Next, please.

So part one, violent crime.

Do you always want to talk about the clearances because that that really tells you the great work that that's being done by our investigators and our officers in general, as well as our non-sworn staff.

So as you see the clearance rates here, um, we do a comparison for uh FBI clearance rates to DPD 24 and 25.

We cleared above in uh the three categories in violent crime of our high homicide rape and robbery and just slightly below in aggravated assault.

And then we were slightly below uh clearances in violent crime at 34.1 percent.

Larcenies for our property crime, we did clear below with 10.8 percent.

Those are very hard to uh to uh prove and investigate, but they've done investigators have done a great job with moving this forward, but we did clear higher than we were in 2024.

I do want to say that our homicide uh clearance rate was significantly higher than the FBI national average and and then also our 2024 average.

So I want to highlight that.

I know you're gonna open up for questions, but what what contributed to that um so I I will say that um our investigators work tirelessly because we we have we have to get the evidence that we can get as soon as possible, but also it's the follow-up that's done afterwards, it's the canvassing that we we we do when we talk to community members.

We have had community that have come forward, and it's also our networks with other jurisdictions that also help us um connect some of the dots, and they have been very, very helpful in uh some of our recent uh homicides that we have we have experienced.

So and clearance on your end and a DPD means you've like completed the case and arrested someone.

Correct.

So that doesn't that doesn't equate to necessarily like conviction that's separate, that's on the DA.

That's separate.

So you're just arresting or some other whatever they mean.

So like our clearance type, so um 85%, 87.5% of the violent crime cases that we had were cleared or cases cleared were cleared by arrest.

So the re the remainder percentage were exceptionally cleared.

So there was something there.

We had a suspect or we had a person that we've identified, but there was something that kept us from being able to charge.

There wasn't there wasn't enough, or there was prosecution declined or witnesses wouldn't didn't want to come forward.

And then 97.8% of the property crime cases cleared were also cleared by arrest.

Uh so someone was taken into custody for those cases.

One quick question on that.

Yes.

Um that could that's cleared within a certain time frame.

So I I can get that for you.

Um, what it what our time frame is.

Generally, we count clearances on that on the annual basis, right?

Um, but we can take a look at how quickly what is our general time frame given.

So, what is it for homicides and aggravated assaults?

We can provide that for the if a case were cleared about what not within that time frame, does it factor into the clearance rate?

Yes.

Okay.

Correct.

All right, let's talk about something really, really good.

Um let's talk about fourth quarter staffing.

So this team has done a tremendous amount of work.

I want to shout out my recruiting and training unit, recruiting for bringing them in, training, training for getting them to the end.

And our sworn staffing rate at the end of the fourth quarter was 74.8%.

As you may remember in 2020, 2021, we were 70, 71% staffed.

Today, we are 76.1% staffed.

Um, and that means we have a 23.9% vacancy rate.

I am incredibly proud to have been here to be able to witness the work that that team has done.

This is worth celebrating, thank you.

Yes.

Yes.

Maybe so 71%.

When when I in 2020-ish, 2021, we were a 70, 71 percent.

And that was staffing and not figuring in resignations and just overall turnover.

Um sorry, I have a quick question.

Is there a way?

So in our slides to sound as that we've seen those trends, those trend um slides over the years have gotten better.

It would be really helpful to have the same thing for the staffing, because um like I know how hard that team has worked, and I know it's been really, you know, it took a lot of work to get us there.

Um, so I think it just would be helpful to include a slide showing that trend over many years as well.

Yes, that questions come up, yeah.

Yeah, and I know I know it comes up with the recruit class like later, but that's not the totality of it.

Right, right.

So we absolutely we can show that to you.

Um we'll have that for you.

Um, so we will be graduating.

Um, so currently we have 404 positions filled out of 531 sworn.

Um we will be graduating in March.

Um that's Academy 62.

We're gonna be graduating 30 from that academy.

We held on to them, and it was a lot of work, not work on my behalf, but work on training and recruiting um and the work that they everyone has done to keep them here.

Um starting in April with Academy number 63, we will have 38.

And so we are um we have currently have 73 recruits in some phase of training.

Now our non-sworn, we're currently staffed 92.4 percent at the end of 2025.

Um we are holding study with them with uh the vacancy rate.

Um, and so we're we are as soon as we have a vacancy, we are hiring on and having those hirings.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Um was that the the class is gonna graduate as a 62 is gonna graduate soon.

Do you have a date for that?

What's the great March?

March the 26th.

Yes.

All right.

So in the third quarter of this year, we had 104 applicants actually go through testing.

So we're seeing more applicants coming in and staff are doing a fantastic job.

It you know, it meant a lot to be able to bring them in at a higher rate of pay and then be able to keep staff that were here and then roll in some extra incentives, and it's just it's been it's it's we've done we've done a great job.

So recruiting initiatives, I'll breeze through that very quickly.

We are still doing our 30 by 30 um our initiative.

Um we have our DPD run club.

We're going to a lot more um races, um, a lot more exposure for the Durham Police Department.

One of my favorite pictures is the bottom left, those are the Stokely's, that's a husband and wife that we have.

Um he actually held held the Bible while she uh put her hand on it and swore her in.

Um and so we're just doing some some great work.

We're bringing lateral more lateral officers in that are coming from other agencies.

Those are quick trainings, couple weeks trainings, and they're out on the street.

Um, and so it's been very productive for us.

Yes, I did I wasn't gonna say it now.

I don't know how you're gonna undo that one.

Yes.

So um again, our lateral officer initiative.

You heard me talk about uh talk about that, and then our DPD pre-academy training, we invited um some media to come in and actually cover that.

There are not there are no other agencies doing a pre-academy training program the way that we are doing it.

And um, and so I think that that needs to be um highlighted, and they need to uh give themselves a hand for that.

So this the next slide will show the um the actual law enforcement training, our academy recruits.

So I call it the getting them and keeping them slide.

So we get we get them and then we keep we want to keep as many as possible.

And so what you're starting to see is a tremendous spike in how many we're bringing in, and we are leveling off now with how many we're being able to keep.

So between uh Academy 61, um we started with a higher rate in Academy 61, but the state developed a new training program that that we had to work through some kinks and we had to learn as trainers.

Uh but also we had to we had to figure out how our recruits were learning.

And so when we were able to tweak that, we saw uh that that we've kept more of the recruits in the academy because we know how to help them and we know how to help them learn.

And Chief, just quoting what you said earlier, that line, the orange line is going to shoot up with this current academy.

I know we can't mark it until they graduate, and I know they haven't graduated, so I'm not counting those chickens, but because that chart doesn't show it, but your prior comments I just wanted to make clear that we should see that retention rate in the next update.

Uh we should see that orange line going very high.

Yes, correct.

Well, and speaking of that, um I guess we can do the meth.

So that would that's gonna push your staffing rate up to like close to maybe like 80 percent.

So in well, so yes, so that will um because that had that um that does take into consideration these 70 some officers that we have in some phase of training.

So this next class will actually help bolster that that number a little higher.

So we'll we're gonna be there shortly.

Um I told staff that it's I told them a year or so ago that it's probably gonna be two, two to three years before you'll you'll start to feel the difference, and we started our um our meetings with all patrol staff on the weekends, and some of them have cited that listen, it is we're starting to see a difference.

Um so it's a slow process, but we're getting there, we're getting there.

Yes.

Could we see so I I know that there's been a tremendous amount of of work done?

It would also be helpful to because I know that in the last budget retreat and you were there, Chief Andrews, um uh the conversations of the full HR analysis includes benefits.

Um I would love to when we're getting into the weeds with those consultants, where are we losing folks?

Like what year are we potentially losing people to other police departments?

Um and and then what are we offering, you know, what are the support like in teachers?

We know that the first year is the the year you're likely going to lose them, and then the first five years, that's the next percentage.

So how does it relate to police officers?

What are the supports that we can put in place to keep them here?

Is it incentives?

Is it you know, we we talked about housing for city workers?

What is it that we can get folks to commit to Durham?

Because I what I also know is that our training program is I'm just gonna brag way better than a lot of other training programs, and so we're investing in them and we want them to stay.

Um and so what are the things that we need to offer those folks to commit to Durham after they've gotten really excellent training.

I don't want to lose them to other communities.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

All right, next.

All right.

And so this is our social media where we place everything there.

Um we are going to be starting up.

I want to highlight we soon we are going to be new initiatives coming forward.

Um we will be starting up a podcast.

Uh, we receive grant funding for that, and so shout out to my team for bringing it forward and writing the grants.

Um we will um unveil our new um mobile tutoring vehicle, which um we will use to to tutor some of our kids in communities that often are not at the table and um and and really mentor and tutor them, expose them to a little STEM, and very excited about that.

I won't be here for that, but I'll be really excited about seeing that.

Um, and I really do just appreciate all of the work that staff has done.

So thank you.

Impressive.

Um colleagues.

Thank you.

We're gonna miss you.

Thank you.

Ditto.

Um we are gonna miss you, but I have like a lot of questions.

Sure, awesome.

Yes.

So um, okay.

I just I want to follow up on a couple of things that we've talked about in the prior um quarter reports, just to just kind of get a sense of where we're at.

So you talked about this a little bit, but can you go through the guns per incident and victims per incident of the shootings?

Yes, okay.

Yes.

Could you just I know that we had kind of been going down.

We had been going.

We had trended down a couple of those, but could you tell me what they were for this quarter?

Yeah.

So we are still along where we're we are still trending down.

So we're seeing um we're seeing less um the the incidents have decreased and uh compared to where we were in 2024, and then also the number of persons shot in those incidents have also decreased.

So we're starting to see all of both of those two numbers.

I think last time we talked, there was we had low shooting incidents, but we're still a little higher in person shot.

So we had talked about that there was an average of 1.29 guns per incident.

Do you all have do you have that for the fourth quarter?

Yes.

So that we have 1.32 guns per incident.

So interesting.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

I had to think about how that worked.

Um we had talked about too that there was we had um an unfortunate trend for youth or young folks, and that they y'all had started looking at um being able to are we able to decipher under 18 now?

We are and so and we had um a few that were 14 to 18, and then I know that we had several that were like 18 to 24.

Do you have those statistics for that this quarter?

So um that uh I'm just I had to pull the uh the the attachment.

So what we've done is we've looked at uh juvenile offenses January to December 2025.

Um the age ranges are 10 to 17.

We kind of expanded those out a little more.

Oh, okay, okay.

Um then each will it breaks them out per incident.

Okay.

Yes.

Um could because there's been a lot of talk about and of course with the the recent shootings of several juveniles involved in that.

A lot of talk about juvenile crime in Durham.

And this is great to sort of have the breakout by by the offense and by ages.

Can you say anything about like the sort of trend lines on juvenile crime in Durham?

Over the like the last five years, whatever.

Yeah, I I certainly think that we've just from the numbers and some of the numbers I looked at from 2024, we have seen an increase just in juvenile involvement in crime all the way around.

Um we especially when it comes to our uh our larcenies from motor vehicles, so our motor vehicle break-ins.

Um we did uh we had we've seen more secured custody orders on juveniles, higher charging rates because of those series.

So they are definitely more involved than they have been over the last few years.

So that is that is remaining steady, but they are more involved.

Thank you.

That is where I was going to help.

Um and then I'm trying to see if it's in here.

Um, but we had talked to that there was a high rate of um Hispanic or Latina um victim.

But it was like 30, I mean it was high, it was like of larcenies, I think it was like 30 percent.

Yes.

So that was um on the robberies we specifically started tracking because what we see we have seen are pockets each year of um of of trends where Hispanic residents are being targeted.

Um and then we have seen that it's still happening, so they're still disproportionately impacted.

Um with 34 percent of the individual robbery robberies in 2025 having one plus one or more victims that are Hispanic, but that ratio was lower um than the normal 38 percent.

So I mean it's lower, it's slightly lower, but it's trending downward.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, you're welcome.

Yep.

No, I'm good.

Thanks so much.

Okay, I I do want to say that in the time, which now I feel old.

Um that the amount of work like folks are getting better.

We see it at the holidays, right?

Like it's every year, and folks, I know your department has done a tremendous amount of work of just like outreach um at certain key times.

I know it's it is often the holidays where folks are um out buying gifts and maybe there's a little bit more money flowing, and then they're targeted.

Um and in certain apartment complexes, and there are those kinds of trends, and it's not great because it means that folks are just trying to live their lives, right?

Um, but I would um I appreciate all the work and I appreciate there has been a lot of education campaigns around how to um be more aware of your surroundings, um, and then also things around lighting if your apartment complex or your home or whatever like to help alleviate some of that.

Yes.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Baker.

Thank you, Chief, for being here and uh presenting to us again.

Um I wanted to ask uh if you see any advantages or disadvantages between um recruits from the academy and people who are moving into the police department laterally.

So I think the the biggest advantage is that someone that comes in laterally already has law enforcement experience.

And so they generally will come with a certain amount of time experience, whether it's you know, two years or three years in law enforcement.

So they have that foundation.

Um and then what we do is we bring them in and really talk to them and train them on Durham specific policies, and uh when you have that familiarity, it makes it really a much easier to put them on the streets quicker.

So that is um that is certainly the um the quickest route that that we have.

Um but I would also say when we fill these large academies, I really do like to go down and talk to the academies when they're in their pre-hire phase, and they're so diverse, not just in either you know, gender or um or ethnicity, but in their experiences.

I mean, we have military members, former member members of the military, we have people that that just want to start a career later on in life in law enforcement.

Um to people that that either are residents of Durham and want to continue to serve.

It's just I I think there's advantages to both.

We really do get the richness of diversity and background in just B LED classes.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um and um there are some standardized things to the academies.

I'm curious, uh I'm curious uh how we kind of build the culture of of Durham values in into the into the academy itself.

Yeah.

So we I think that we do that rather well.

Um so we we have uh trainers um that will actually come in and talk about the history of Durham.

Assistant Chief Pyot, he hates it when I brag on him, but he is he I call him our historian.

He is from Durham.

He knows a lot about the civil rights history in Durham, um, the the implications of policing in Durham, and so he will come in and actually talk, we'll we'll have those classes that are very Durham specific.

Um so in each trainer brings their own experiences, but we we that's one of the things that we do is we we speak really about Durham.

Well, thank you so much.

Um you have always lent your time whenever I've reached out to be able to sit down with me or sit down with myself and community members who have questions.

You've never hesitated to do that.

Um I think you you leave giant shoes to to fill to to be honest.

Um if I had critical things to say, I would say them.

Uh but I I really do think that we are going to be losing someone that has been really, really fundamental in building uh a healthy culture in the police department because um the chief is vital to that.

See the C word culture in police departments is vital.

I mean, North Carolina doesn't have um, you know, that there are many downsides to being a right to work state.

I think one upside is um one potential upside is is the lack of uh really formal police union.

Um I think there are some good things that come out of that, but but I think that uh that leaves more room for culture building from you, from the council, from the community um and all the oversight that that that that provides.

And so I think that you've done an amazing job of of that um and uh really instilling uh Durham values in into your work.

Um it's not it's not easy.

I mean, you're stuck between a rock rock and a hard place in a lot of situations.

So I just want to really, really celebrate uh all that you've done.

And um, you know, I'm sure that we'll we'll have more occasion to do that, but I want to do that here as well as you deliver your final your final report.

And you know, we sit here looking at um, you know, tables and charts and blue percentage uh percentages of things going down.

Um but these very, very large numbers uh are some of the worst moments in any given person's um life.

And um that can obviously never be never be lost on on any of us.

And then our city workers or emergency services workers are showing up to those moments and have to make really, really difficult decisions on the spot.

And um and that's that's really hard.

We need to we need to be constantly thinking about that.

We also need to think about the fact that many of the most impactful policy initiatives are ones that we will that won't have the title of of fighting violence that won't be intended or implemented specifically to fight crime that won't be celebrated for any kind of uh any kind of um intervention that it might have on what could have followed up as a as a crime.

Um and so I I think that it's important that we we think about all of the tools.

Obviously, we're treating downstream pollution for upstream polluters and really, really bad federal and state policy.

Uh we can't solve everything.

We can dole the sharp edges of the bad policymaking at higher levels of government that that we have to deal with.

Um but the the approach that we need to take has to be comprehensive.

Uh we need to um continue to celebrate uh uh the the good work that happens at the police department.

We also need to continue to invest in the broad array of um services and infrastructure that is necessary to address some of these some of these issues, and I appreciate colleagues bringing up the uh issue of uh violence among among young people.

That needs to be something that that we need to keep top of top of mind here.

So again, thank you very much.

Back to me, sorry.

It's the questions.

Um I was wondering, I I know that we have this chart about the misdemeanor diversion program.

Yes.

Um but I was hoping you just like speak a little bit more to it because I think it's important and I'm curious to know about the breakdown, how many folks we enrolled in the last year out of this 463 participants, and um and if you're seeing like any trends with people participating, or I mean, obviously we have like such a high completion rate, so um I'm not sure you would see like major trends with completion rates or the very small recidivism rate, but if you could just comment on the last year.

Sure.

I don't have specific um um data from from the last year.

We can certainly pull that.

Um but the here's what I will say about the misdemeanor diversion program is that we know diversion can occur at any age.

Um we also know that people make mistakes and should be given opportunities to learn from those mistakes and be provided the resources that they need to be successful.

And that is one of the the many great things about the diversion here in that the city of Durham police department participates in.

And we've been doing it for a long time.

Um I remember when we started doing the diversion program, um, and it, you know, to to be able to know that there are more cases of of people doing well than there aren't.

That is that is very good.

That's a success.

Um our officers are trained on diversion and when to divert and when it's appropriate.

I think though, um, and I will have to have the numbers provided to you.

I think we are seeing less opportunities for diversion because of the rate um of more serious crimes that that do not fall under the diversion umbrella.

Um so for the juveniles that are being um formally charged and um and and are being um they're being charged with more serious offenses, that doesn't mean that somewhere in that there can't be some sort of diversion built into the their overall adjudication.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

That's helpful feedback.

And I we I think that maybe in my first ever violence report with you, I had this exchange where I was like, I feel like you probably want your job not to exist in the same way that I want my job not to exist.

Yes.

Um and I just uh I want to appreciate some of the comments from my colleagues.

Um but just to it's not the the right time.

But just to say that like we really appreciate.

I think during this specific quarter that we're talking about, um there was an a major incident with a person with a weapon in the middle of a very busy street.

I know that your officers went and um were able to disarm that person without any force being used or deadly force being used.

And I just want to appreciate that like that's not how all police departments are run across the country.

And um and I I appreciate that it is it is reflective of Durham's values and um just how open your officers have been to working with heart and how much I feel like there's been shared information pathways, both directions the hard workers have the social workers have helped your officers and your officers have helped the social workers and their responses.

Um and just overall just I have a lot of appreciation for the culture.

What did we say?

The C-word, the culture of this office.

It really is like pretty incredible.

Um so thank you and and thank you for this work in diversion and taking to heart what you said about that um that diversion can be done at at any age.

And um and I totally understand that people make mistakes, and that's how I feel about it too.

I don't feel like folks should be the summation of their worst error, and um and I appreciate that you all look at it the same way.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Um I know we'll see you again.

I know you'll not be presenting in this way.

Um my colleagues have also had great comments.

Um but um so much of our success around community safety broadly has been because of your leadership, and I know I've said that before.

Um so I know you're gonna enjoy your retirement.

Uh we will all enjoy from afar as well.

You definitely deserve it.

Um I think that uh I'll I think that it's great that you were able to come back to Durham and end your career in in your home city.

Thank you, Madam Chief.

You are um you're the best there is out there.

And I appreciate you and um all of what you have done to help define Durham.

And what a way to end your uh what a way to end your your your career with this this report.

Um it's showing the efficacy of your leadership and your entire team, your entire department.

Um you give us a lot to brag about in this in this you know presentation.

And and it's it feels good.

It really does feel guilty, feel good to see, especially I know when I when I got elected, I mean, we were losing, I think 12 officers a month, I believe.

It was a mass exodus.

And now to see those numbers, matter of fact, beyond the numbers, to see them training and running out early morning downtown.

And folks, if you ever get up in the morning early enough uh on Blackwell Street, you'll see uh the uh recruits um in their workout early in the morning.

And uh it's it's just really cool to see that we are trending the right way in recruitment and trending the right way in violent crime, which is downward.

Um, you know, this this report is indicative of the department's capabilities.

Um it's it's it's indicative of the ability to be really effective with what with what you have, you know, as a department.

Um but also I think the the elephant in the room is what we're dealing with in the immediate in the now and being able to celebrate today, but you know, in the next quarter, we may not be celebrating as much because we are collecting data now to be reported on in the next quarter for this quarter.

And so uh we're gonna have to figure out how that works, uh, how we want to be able to really address the concerns.

Um I appreciate, again, the work that you all have done, but I cannot help but think about where these numbers would be if you had the actual resources you asked for.

And that's not on you all, that's on us.

And I think that we've been very clear on where we stand with that on this council.

Um that's not to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

It's just it's just a fact.

Uh and uh so I I can only imagine, you know, uh on the community side, I can only imagine if folks will just listen and lock the daggone cars up, uh, how many guns we wouldn't have to deal with, you know, when it comes to the data, um, you know, if if we were being honest about what the technology actually was, then how could you use that and and how could it help you all perform?

You know, um we may be celebrating double 17 percent, you know, um but we wouldn't know because we haven't given it given it a chance.

And I don't think that you all have asked for anything that is going to stop crumb.

I think everything you all have asked for would contribute to it, contribute to lowering crime.

And um, you know, when it when it comes to other resources that we do have, we followed the data.

I only wish we would follow this data, because we're trending in the right way.

And considering that, you know, if we're trending in the right way, and you all ask for resources, then that's that's what would it should inform it.

But we'll get there one day.

We'll get there one day.

But I do want to say publicly that from you on down in your department, you all are appreciated.

You all are.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Just one of my comments were brief.

I just want to say since my my colleagues were very like had some nice words.

I just want to say, you know, as a as a council member when I got elected, a lot of us don't have a lot of law enforcement experience when we come on on the council.

So I just want to thank you on a personal level for welcoming me in, showing me the ropes, and helping me understand this whole I mean, what you know, we do our our resident survey.

This is one of the top priorities every time, every time, right?

So this matters deeply to our residents.

Um you've been such an amazing leader and a great friend as well.

I want to appreciate that.

Um yeah, you'll all you'll be my forever police chief.

So uh really thank you for that.

And want to say, as we say in our church, um, I want to I want to I'm so excited about your retirement.

So happy for you as we say in church.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Totally agreed.

I didn't have one data question that I forgot to ask.

I knew it.

I knew it.

Yes, sir.

Um this could get in the weeds, I don't know if you know this yet, but the guns that we're finding that are still the guns that we are we are uh getting on the scenes or that we are you know confiscating.

Are we lining those up with any guns that have been reported through broken and cars that have been broken into or stolen from cars?

I I don't have the answer to that.

I can get because I want to be exact on that.

Um but we do recover uh stolen firearms and we recover firearms that have been used in crime.

So I want to be able to get you that number.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

And uh Yeah, I I there uh there is a lot of alignment here that I biasedly want to attach, such as the resident survey, um, which is 30 percent higher than the national average, and then I'm looking at crime going down, trending down.

Um how that may be aligned.

I we probably haven't disaggregated at that level, but I want to say that that is tied together, that Durham is an amazing place to be.

You know, um we in in uh in yes, we are very high sensitive when we lose one life.

Um, but that I would rather be high-sensitive than nonchalant and numb.

So thank you all for the work you do.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Next up, item 15, participatory budgeting.

Welcome, I'm gonna be a good idea.

I didn't hear anything you said.

Could you repeat it?

All right, good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Petemt, and members of council.

My name is Carmen Ortiz, and I manage our participatory budgeting program.

And I'm here today to provide you with an update of our cycle four, which we just wrapped up, as well as to share our anticipated uh cycle four winning projects.

All right, and before I get started, I really wanted to come in and shout out my team.

Um, have an incredible team.

And just to give you some context, we are overperforming basically all PP programs around the nation.

Um, the only city that we're underperforming is New York.

I mean, can we compare ourselves to New York?

We are overperforming Chicago, Vallejo, uh, Richmond, um, Cambridge.

They've been doing it for 10 years.

And so I attribute this to the hard work of my team and definitely their commitment to serving the residents of Durham.

And so um uh Fallon Thompson, she's been with us for almost four years.

She joined us when we launched our cycle three.

Um, and we have Luis Bean and Cameron Brown.

They joined us last January as we were preparing to launch our cycle four.

All right, perfect.

And so today I'm gonna take a minute and tell you a little bit about what is PB, why it matters, touch on the history and goals of PB, and then I'll give you a quick overview of our highlights for the different phases of PB.

And then, of course, I'll touch on our winning projects and then answer any questions that you may have.

So basically, what is PB?

It is a program that started back in the 80s in uh Puerto Alegre, Brazil, um, with the idea of engaging residents to be part of uh identifying some gaps in their communities and find real solutions out how they can address those solutions.

It's basically a deliberation process where residents come together and work together and are part of the decision making of their city's resources.

And so why does it matter?

Um, it increases civic engagement, and so as residents work together with our technical staffs, with our city departments, they're able to see uh how you know government works, how local government works, and see real results, right?

Tangible results of their engagement with the city.

Um, it also builds you know stronger and more collaborative relationships between residents, the city.

Um, and my favorite part is it's really exciting for me to see residents come together that are from different neighborhoods, different backgrounds, have different lived experiences, different genders, different uh race, and so it's really exciting to see residents come together to really identify what are some of the things that we need to work on to improve Durham and together um you know come with real solutions that they then will see um you know happen through PB.

Okay.

And so this is generally how it works.

Um there's sort of like a four-step process.

The first step usually is called what we called idea collection.

This is when residents, you know, come together to really identify what are some of the things in their communities that can be addressed through PB.

Um, and then the next step is the proposal development process.

And so this is when actual residents, you know, come together, work with our technical departments, with the city staff, and look at all those different proposals that were submitted and go through a process of vetting them.

And so the projects that advance will then go into a ballot for voting, and the projects with the most votes will then be implemented or funded by the city.

And then one part that's also pretty unique to Durham is sort of that evaluating and planning phase.

One of the things that we've incorporated in PB is that constant evaluation.

So we're consistently growing, innovating, um, and just developing, um, which each diff each cycle.

Right.

And so this is the scope for PB Durham.

Uh, we fund one-time capital projects, which may include physical infrastructure, technological improvements, and community enhancements.

We have 2.4 million dollars citywide.

Um, any Durham resident or student who's at least 13 years old can participate.

And so this is just a quick history of PB Durham.

And so uh we launched our first cycle in 2018 when the council approved the guidelines and 2.4 million dollars in funding, as well as a PB steering committee, which is a resident sort of governing group that supports with the guidelines, the goals, and overseeing the program.

Um, and uh in 2020, we launched our second cycle of PB, and as you're aware, uh we were in the middle of a pandemic in 2020, and so council approved a million dollars to fund um the nonprofits that were supporting those residents most impacted by the community.

And then our third cycle was in 2022, um, and we returned to our you know original scope of funding capital projects, and during this time we had about 12,000 residents participate in the voting phase.

All right, and so as I've mentioned, we have a PB steering committee that you know help with the guidelines and oversee the process.

And so before we launch every cycle, our P B steering committee work together to establish the goals that they have for their cycle.

And so here are the three cycles established by our PB steering committee, and I'll go ahead and read these for you.

Um, the first goal is to engage Durham's diverse population and increase participation uh for those who face barriers or are excluded from traditional government budgeting and decision-making process, two to implement projects that are impactful, equitable, and benefit the most underserved communities in Durham, and three to provide an avenue for residents to engage with city staff by building long uh-term relationships.

All right, and so I'll take a minute and go over uh the different faces of PB and share some of the highlights.

All right, and so uh we launched our idea collection at the beginning of 2025, January through February, and we were so excited that we increased our idea collections by 52%.

And so we were able to collect 964 ideas, and we did this through various methods.

We hosted five citywide events.

And so these were events where residents were able to come, learn about PB, learn what is feasible, what is not feasible, engage in conversations with other residents to brainstorm ideas.

They went through sort of a sort of a mock small um proposal development.

So they were able to go through how we could potentially vet the ideas during these events.

We had dinner, we provided with you know child care as well as raffles and giveaways, and we gave all residents that participated a $25 gift card.

We also had four community center events, and so these were events that we hosted in specific communities, primarily um you know elderly resident communities, and this is to ensure access, right, for all residents that would not be able to join us in one of the large five, you know, one of the large statewide events.

And of course, we did a lot of tabling events.

I got to see a lot of you council members and a lot of these different tabling events.

Um we were at the Department of Health and Human Services every day, we were at the Durham bus station every day, any event happening in Durham, you know, we were there, and um we also, you know, we were very intentional in engaging our student population, and so we work very closely with Durham Public Schools, a student you, Durham Success Summit, um, and other programs that engage youth.

Um, and some of the most popular um uh ideas were transportation improvements, those were very popular, as well as public safety lighting, uh, you know, sidewalk improvements.

We also had park improvements, um, which tend to also be one of the more popular um ideas.

Okay, and so here are some demographics from those residents that we engaged during the idea collection.

And so, as you see here, um, we had a great diversity, um, which shows our efforts in going out, engaging residents.

Um, and so what you see here is uh the race and income.

And so we're very proud of the fact that we were able to engage residents across race and income.

And here is also the residency and age.

And so, again, um, you know, we were very we were very intentional in going to different communities so that we're able to capture the different voices of Durham, residents that are new or near residents, as well as those residents that have been here for a long time, and those that are you know born and bred in Durham.

And so for us, it's very you know, we are very intentional in making sure that we hear voices from across our community.

Okay, all right, and I'll go ahead and touch on some of the highlights of our proposal development, which took place between April and July of 2025.

And so here are some highlights of our proposal development.

And so our proposal development, as I touched earlier, this is roughly a 12 to 16-week time frame where residents come, um, our budget delegates meet with it with their prospective committees and develop the proposals.

And so they go through feasibility, they're able to work with our technical staff, actually meet with our um technical department director who help him, you know, guide, help them guide the process, and so they go um they vet the project for feasibility for equity, and they also write impact statements.

And so all of our budget delegates go through significant training before uh you know they're given projects to develop.

And so here are some of the trainings that they go through.

Um, they go through equity and inclusion training, they um went through neighborhood compass, which is um a mapping tool that lets residents determine um the differences in the communities, they go through clear point data training, and this is a tool where residents um manage their project and you know do their assignments, and of course, our budget delegates also support us with community engagement, and so we provide with community engagement.

And so um we were very excited.

We uh about we had 38 budget delegates with an 80% retention, and so we were very excited about that.

That you know, budget delegates came, um, which was a huge difference from cycle three, where we had a huge dropout at the beginning, and so um in cycle four, we were able to you know have an 80%, I'm sorry, 88% retention, and so we were really excited about that, and about 55% of our budget delegates were residents of color, which again highlights um the value and the diversity of our budget delegates.

Right.

And um, here are some of our really exciting cycle four innovations.

And so um during cycle one, three, um uh we were able to partner with the Durham County jail, um, and residents at the Durham County jail were able to submit ideas as well as uh vote.

In cycle four, we actually led an entire proposal development at the jail, and so we were very excited about that.

We're very thankful to Sheriff Burkhead as well as his team who allowed us uh the opportunity to do that.

And so we went to the Durham County jail every other week, and the gentlemen there were able to vet the ideas, and so they were assigned ideas that they were able to go through the 12-week process vetting the ideas.

And so some of the things that um we provided them with the same trainings, uh, the equity and inclusion, we provided them with the the mapping um training as well.

We um put together a Durham 101 civics class.

And so basically, what this was a training that they got to learn about Durham, um Durham history, the differences between the city and the county.

Um, and we also introduced them to the welcome home program.

So they came and spoke to them, and it was very powerful, you know, how they shared their experiences, and just to you know take a minute to add, we had someone who came in and shared his story, how he was a formerly incarcerated, and how he going through um the welcome home program, his life was changed, and now he's doing this work.

And so I think that was very impactful um to the residents at the jail.

Um we were also very excited.

We were able to collect 15 ideas from the jail.

We did have a cohort of 10 through the 12-week program, as I said, and we engage 133 um in the voting phase.

All right.

And so I'll go ahead and touch a little bit about our community engagement.

And so this community engagement is um before we put projects in the ballot, and so right before we finalize our ballot, we have you know 10, 11, 12 projects that we're ready to advance.

And so what we do is before we create our ballot, we go back to the communities where these projects would be implemented if voted to ask residents if they support this project.

And so we know that these residents would be the ones impacted if the projects are funded.

And so we ask them do you support this project if it goes into your community?

If you do or you don't, what are some changes that you you recommend or you would like to see?

And so we have seen you know, in cycle three and cycle four is that the projects do significantly change from that.

And so um, you know, we hear the residents' voices and we implement those changes so that when the projects go in the ballot, it reflects what those residents that would be most impacted would like to see.

And so what you see here is um the demographic of that community engagement, and so most of our projects that have advanced have advanced because they're equitable and impactful.

And so here what you see is a representation of those 188 residents that we engage over the summer to get that final confirmation or approval before projects go in the ballot.

Okay, and so I'll go ahead and touch on our voting right before we get into our winning project announcements.

And so here are some highlights from our voting.

Again, we are so excited that we engage over 16,000 residents in in voting, and that is a huge thing.

Um, and just to give you some some numbers, um uh Richmond, they engage 6,000 residents, comparable size.

Cambridge, they've been doing it for 10 cycles now, they're at 10,000.

Um, and so the only one, like I said, we're falling behind is New York.

They're at 77,000, but but they're New York, right?

And so that's a huge, you know, that I'm really excited about that.

Um, and that's because of the work of our newly formed department, our partners in the community.

Um, and so this is a huge attribution of the collaboration and partnership uh and commitment of the residents and and staff here in Durham.

And so, yes.

So percentage-wise, we're probably higher.

Well, we've hired in New York.

Yes, absolutely, yes.

Because people like talking about Mamdani all the time.

But Durham is Durham is doing better.

People need to know that.

Percentage-wise, I think um when I looked, don't quote me on this.

Um, New York was around 7%, and Durham was at the highest across the board at about 9%.

We're gonna talk about that data point.

Oh boy, all right.

All right, and I'll go back to this.

Oh, I think I lost the case.

I'm a bit competitive.

So, yes, we are overperforming basically the entire country.

So 9% is represents percentage of folks involved as a share of the.

I believe the population.

Um so don't quote me 100, but yes, we are um overperforming just about any state every city in the country for sure.

But yes, that that is a known fact.

Um, and so what you see here, um, we engage over 8,400 online, um, 55,000 uh 5500 residents in paper, and 20 about 2700 uh Durham public school students.

And so before I like you know, to go over the demographics of the residents that are participating about you know through the voting phase, I'd like to just take a minute and show you um what the demographic breakdown for Durham is.

I think that'll put give you a good perspective of how incredible our our you know we've done sort of um highlighting the the Durham, the Durham residents.

All right, and so here is our combined ballot demographic.

And so this is for our paper and our online, not Durham Public Schools, and so we do not collect demographic information for students for Durham Public School students.

And so we do not collect demographic information for students for Durham Public School students.

And so what you see here is um we have about um 33% were communities of color.

Um and then what you also see in the income is we have about 35% of the residents participating, making under 99,000 dollars.

And uh you also see that um a lot of especially the questions around income tend to be the most question that goes unanswered.

And then it's really important for us to sort of separate or disaggregate this data.

Um and so what you can see here uh online, the residents that primarily participate online are usually your non-residents of color and the residents with you know higher income.

And so this really sort of highlights you know the accessibility and why we put so much effort into our paper ballots and and having our team in the community where residents are.

And so when we go into our paper ballots, you see completely opposite, right?

Most of the residents participate here, as you see, it's over 55% were communities of of color, um, with and residents of significantly lower incomes.

And so this is why the paper ballot and going to the Department of Health and Human Services, going to the Durham bus station, going to all those events where I continuously bumped into a lot of you guys is very important.

Because if we would not be doing this, then we would not be hearing from our entire community in Durham.

We would be hearing for for the same residents that we always tend to hear, which is your non-residents of color, your residents with higher wealth or sort of higher education.

And so this is one of the things that makes you know PB Durham so unique that we put so much of our resources and effort in going to the community to ensure that every voice of all voices in Durham are represented through this um.

And here what you see is uh the combined demographics for age.

Um and so again, what you see here is a representation of different ages, age groups, as well as uh levels of education.

Um so we have about 40% of the residents that participated are you know, residents that have a you know bachelor's degree or lower lower.

And uh here uh what you see is the combined um for residency and gender.

So again, we're very proud that we were able to engage residents who are new to Durham as well, residents that you know have always been here in Durham, so that is really important for us to capture all those different voices and stories of our Durham residents.

Um when you look at the gender, um, it's throughout you know, four cycles of PB, we've seen that women tend to be um to be more engaged in PB.

So we're continuously, you know, brainstorming ways that we can continue to engage more men in the process.

All right, and so here this is how our residents get to vote, and so we give them a ballot with we had 10 projects in the ballot, and they're asked to rank their top five favorite projects.

And so, one of course being their favorite project, two their you know, second favorite, and so on.

And as you can see here, each uh numerical value, each rank has a numerical value that we use to determine the projects with the most votes.

All right, and so I'm gonna go ahead and you know, we'll gonna share the winning projects and the next steps.

All right, and so here are our cycle four winning projects that we're so excited and so proud.

And so it is on that order, and so what you see here is um are the six projects that are gonna be funded through PB Cycle Four.

And so um we've uh we will be funding a playground at Bethesda.

We will be rolling over 550,000 unused funds from our cycle one, and so that will be in the next CIP amendment, and so that will allow us to fund the playground at Bethesda.

Um we are skipping the Northgate Park because as you know, the ongoing uh situations with the lead.

And so I'm gonna go ahead and touch on each of the projects.

Okay.

So the first project is uh the self-cleaning public restroom.

And so this project will build an accessible public restroom in central downtown.

The location is not determined at the moment.

We will be working with our community safety and other departments and residents to determine the most appropriate location for this.

And so this will provide an option for residents, visitors, our house, an unhoused uh residents to you know use the restroom.

Um, and of course, also uh reducing strain in local businesses.

Um, and so this project will go for 350,000 dollars.

All right.

And the next project is uh called Walls That Speak, Honoring Neighborhood Culture and History.

So this project is a combination of a lot of ideas that were submitted around different murals, murals to honor the rich legacy of Durham, to honor the LGBTQ community, to honor mental health.

And so through this project, we will be funding eight murals in different neighborhoods, and it will depict the history and the culture and identity of Durham.

And so we will be working with our public cultural arts program as well as residents to determine the location for these eight murals.

And so this is gonna go at 150,000.

All right.

And the next one, um, some of the most popular projects on the ballot, you know, again since cycle one are those around safety and security.

And so this project will fund uh cam lighting and cameras at Oxford Manor.

And so this will get 150,000.

All right.

In the next is called Durham Digital Access Station.

And so this project will install public charging stations that provide multiple electrical outlets for residents through you know USB outlets.

And so these stations will be will be strategically um positioned in high-use community areas, um, places of transit, or um to ensure broad access to residents.

Um so we have identified four locations where these um charging stations would go.

And this project will go for a hundred and thousand, a hundred thousand dollars.

We we have one at Central at the Plaza, right?

Yes, okay.

It's kudos to the design team because I I saw someone standing recently and they were just standing at a poll with their phone.

I was like, what's going on with them?

I had not, I didn't know we had already installed uh one of them, uh, but it's definitely being used.

That one's not through PB, though.

We haven't is that Google or who I'm not sure.

I know that there's actually a lot of different programs right now going to install you know Wi-Fi and different electrical apps.

Yeah, it's well is that same big design that's in the uh in the display there, and but it's it's heavily used.

So that does we're so dependent, right, on our phones and technology that that's definitely important.

The have like wild sale.

Yeah.

And so this project will support unhoused residents and residents that take public transportation significantly.

And so this will go for $100,000.

All right.

And the next one, which is uh pretty popular, um, the Durham Skate Park Repair has been submitted on three different cycles of PB, cycle one, cycle three, and you know, it received enough votes in cycle four to get funded.

And so this project will fund the renovation of the Durham Skate Park.

Um, and so this will go for 1.2 million dollars.

Yay.

And lastly, um uh the Bethesda Park.

So this project will fund a brand new park at Bethesda, and so this will go for 750,000.

The park will have, you know, shade structure and ADA equipment.

All right, and so here are next steps.

We've already gone through the PB steering committee approval process, of course, our council update, and then we'll be working with our technical departments to start the implementation of these projects.

And as I've mentioned, one of the things that we focus before we prepare for the next cycle is really evaluating our cycle, meeting with other cities, learning what worked, what didn't work, and what are some areas that we can improve.

So we'll be working um with our PB steering committee and our innovation team to lead that evaluation.

We're also partnering with UNC Chapel Hill.

They're leading a study on how participation in PB shapes political perceptions and processes.

Um, and the innovation team and the University London in Warwick is also leading a study to determine um how participatory um shapes the visions and engagement in resident participation.

All right, and uh before I go ahead and close, I want to take a minute and shout out, like I said, all of our partners.

This work would not be possible without the support of our technical departments, um, their support and their expertise during the proposal development process, and of course, the implementation process is incredible, and we could not do without them.

Um our colleagues in the new engagement department, like I said, um, you know, their support uh with without sort of this support, we would not have been able to achieve our 16,000 plus votes.

Um, Sheriff Burkhead and the sheriff's team for allowing us and trusting us to go and lead a proposal development at the jail.

This is something unheard of.

We are the only city in the country doing this, and so definitely I'm a big shout out for their trust to allow us to go and do this.

And so definitely I'm maybe a big shout out for their trust to allow us to go and do this.

Durham Public Schools for their partnership, StudentU, Durham Success Summit for partnering with us for supporting our work, Durham Housing Authority, Durham County, North Carolina Central.

Of course, our PB steering committee members, they not only show up every month to meet and help us brainstorm and build this process, but they're out in the community engaging residents.

They're supporting us in any way.

And I could not, I could not be more proud and excited of the commitment that our PB steering committee has shown throughout the years.

And of course, our budget delegate.

Our budget delegates are residents that come and serve for you know 12 to 16 weeks.

And you know, they meet every week, they're uh submitting assignments.

And if it was not for their commitment um of doing this, we would not be able to do this.

And so it's it's it's a a team that works hard, that loves the community that are committed, and like I said, that they're diverse, and I'm just thankful for all their work and thank you.

Well, questions?

Any questions?

Um, Ms.

Ortiz, thank you so much for the presentation.

This is exciting stuff.

A big fan of PB.

I also just want to thank you personally for your like your complete enthusiasm for this.

It's so infectious.

So really want to thank you for that.

Yeah.

Appreciate your work.

Um I have one question about the um bullet beer.

The winning um uh project, the Saver Bright or Oxford Manor lighting and um cameras.

Um, I'm the the council's liaison to the German Housing Authority.

And I know that in the previous round, there was a similar one that won for Cornwallis Road.

And after we after the award was made, folks realized well, there's some additional things that were needed.

I think we just approved a contract not recently to provide additional security to make sure the camera is in the and the lighting was secure.

So and uh it sounds like that was maybe something in the process, maybe some step that was missed.

I just want to make sure on the Oxford Manor, is that sort of that sort of that need also incorporated into the final price tag here?

Yes, that's a great question.

So, yeah, so we did increase, I believe uh cycle three funded about $99,000 um to you know fund the lights and security cameras.

And so with each cycle, we work with our technical departments and as well um with Durham Housing Authority, and so the price that you'll see reflected on cycle four, it's 150,000 to account for you know inflation, higher cost, as well as things that you just don't foresee.

And the housing authority appreciates the partnership and yeah, this makes a lot of difference for the residents here.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Others?

Yeah, go ahead, Councilmember Clark.

I just out of thank you so much for this presentation.

And I saw you many times out in the world.

Um I just just out of curiosity, can you talk a little bit about the cost that goes behind the self-cleaning restroom?

Like, is that a continuous are we gonna be paying for a continuous service?

It's more than my house.

I'm just curious about it.

I'm not the best person for that answer, but I know that it's um one of the things with for PB projects that you they can they do not they cannot require additional expenses.

So we worked with our general services department, and they do not foresee that it's gonna, you know, we're gonna need to pull more funds to fund it.

Um, however, you know, for the exact questions to that.

Um Gina will answer that.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Gina Propes, W City Manager.

Um, I can share that I've not been involved in the Skyping of that project.

I'm happy to follow up to have a little bit more clarity around um the functionality and what happens after it's installed.

It's just out of curiosity, but I imagine that it also like needs to be maintained.

Correct.

In a way that some of these other projects don't.

So I've I'm just curious about it.

Happy to follow up.

Thanks.

Um I guess that's kind of a question for a couple of other ones, but the other one I'm interested in is the uh digital access station.

Um so this accounts for like some number of years, I would assume of being able to have access out there.

Once we wire it up, it'll work, but then it still has to like, we still have to like pay for utilities and such, right?

So how does that how does that calculation work?

How many years?

Yes, so it's gonna have solar.

So it's gonna be connected to solar.

So once they put the hardware, there's gonna be a solar device array to, you know, for the continuous charging.

Oh, that's great.

Okay, cool.

Um and then my final question is that I remember talking to a couple of the um community advocates about that the paper were all because of the they were all printed in the same order that y'all were seeing some like trends on the paper ones that you were not seeing on the online ballots.

And I was just wondering if you could speak to that a little bit.

Yes.

So I think it wasn't randomized.

For the most part, residents do um we see that the same projects are popular across the same board.

And so just for example, um, you know, the re the restroom was number one across the board.

And I I believe the you know the top three were literally um kind of a mirror security, you know, security and lighting.

That's usually number one across the board.

Um and then the murals were pretty much the same across the board.

And then what we saw, for example, um in our paper was the skateboard did really well, right?

And that's because for the most part, there was a lot of students that participated and Durham public schools.

And so naturally, if we have a lot more you know, youth age um voting in paper, then you're gonna see things that are sort of more important to them.

Cool.

Okay.

And yeah, I mean these projects are great.

I think you heard the collective.

Woo on the council about this, particularly about the skate park repair.

Uh we've talked about it up here before, but just like how many of our residents use that.

Um that is a really safe space for so many folks and particularly for youth, as you were just saying.

So I'm really excited to see that.

Um I think these are all great projects.

And I want to thank you for your work and your whole team.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good to see you, Kerman.

Um, I'm the PB liaison to uh the council liaison to PB.

Um and I have been either the liaison or the alternate since its inception.

So um very close to this work, very proud of this work.

And your team is incredible.

The steering committee is incredible.

Uh y'all just keep getting better and better.

Um the only question I have is is there going to be an opportunity for to do this type of presentation in front of our school board um colleagues.

Uh we know that we really rely on DPS students.

Um we designed a process to very much include them.

And so that I know that that's come up.

Um so uh I don't know how that needs to happen or or or whatnot, but I I do want you to be able to present in front of them so that they can also hear how involved their students are and how important it is.

Um there are projects to your point, like the skate park that wouldn't necessarily have won had there not been that youth youth participation, and so it links it back to yeah, your voice actually matters and you're getting a thing that maybe you wouldn't have had you not participated.

Um I know you know our director Starla, um we at you know we are having conversation with you know Durham Public School Administration, and we are planning to schedule a meeting in the months ahead to talk more about PB and sort of you know our partnership.

Uh perfect.

Thank you.

And I'm very glad that that skate park um won, because I think that's probably the number one that's been on my kids' ballots for years.

Um as as a mom of two uh skaters.

Uh just if you can put a note in your calendar, we I forget how many how many times will we meet with the city county in schools a year?

Twice.

So later this year, we just had the meeting with all the trifector, all three bodies.

If uh we're working on meeting more, um, but probably put a note in your calendar when we meet again.

Um we'll be going back into participatory budgeting.

Um it'll be great to probably find a way to present that in front of that body at the time because we can get more engagement from the schools, I'm sure.

If I can take that out to say that that was actually discussed for this meeting uh and uh what we pivoted to is uh the superintendent was actually not uh very much aware of the work of PB in the schools, and so we agreed to get him a briefing and then potentially to have PB uh present directly to the school board at a separate meeting so that they could kind of have their full attention.

So those are discussions that we have started, and uh I know our staff is excited about the opportunity to do exactly what you suggested.

Perfect.

That's gonna blow participation out of the water.

I'm really excited about that.

Yeah.

That's great.

You you guys are going you know, far you know, above and beyond.

Um I'm just really proud of the work you do.

Um I talk about inclusivity.

That I mean, this is the work you're doing with the jail and the sheriff's office and the schools and just a community in general.

This is great work.

And uh just do note it.

It's appreciated.

It's a direct reflection.

This is more democratic than anything we do.

It's a direct reflection.

Uh and and that skate park is highly used every day.

They are all terrain, all weather proof kids out there.

Adults and kids, actually.

And uh it's a very committed um community.

So putting the putting the investments where it's used a lot.

Um that's that's all I have.

So um, Mr.

Baker.

Yeah, I'll just um associate myself with all of my colleagues' celebratory comments.

Thank you so much.

Um, for all of your work for the the team's work and for the thousands of residents that participated.

All right, go celebrate you your team.

Good job.

Sixty.

I don't remember sixteen disparity study.

So we need to take a quick break.

Yeah, let's take let's take five.

I've lost core.

Oh, I'm sorry.

All right.

Welcome.

Let's get back to it.

That was pretty uh pretty uh savvy to time to break.

Thanks to the Madam Clerk for keeping the fellow to have.

All right.

Welcome.

Good.

Thank you for having us again.

Good afternoon.

Mayor Williams, Mayor Pro Tim, Councilmember Sheila Fawcett, Deputy CFO of Finance.

And today we're gonna have Mr.

Dave Miller from Miller Three Consulting, and he's going to provide you with an update on our twenty twenty-five Durham disparity study.

Mr.

Miller.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Fawcett, Mayor Williams, Mayor Pro Tem, uh distinguished members around Council.

I greet you.

My name is Dave Miller, as Ms.

Fawcett mentioned, and I'm here to give a brief update about the disparity study.

Uh, in general, the disparity study aligns well with three of the council's priorities: shared economic prosperity, racial equity, and community engagement.

Okay.

So this slide provides a broad overview of the disparity study.

It endeavors to answer some of the most common questions we are asked about why you're doing the disparity study, what it does, and more importantly, what it does not do.

As an aside, this slide is at the end, so don't feel compelled to have to zoom absorb everything that you see on the slide right now.

With that shared context, we'll spend the next few minutes define what a disparity study is, its goals and objectives.

I'll talk a little bit about the firm, share our approach and methodology, as well as the timeline and the stakeholders we have engaged with the city thus far, and then conclude with next steps and leave some time for QA.

So let's talk a little bit about defining the disparity study.

For counsel purposes straightforward, to provide a legally defensible objective foundation for policy decisions to promote fair competition and ensure public dollars are spent in a way that reflects the city's values.

At its core, the disparity study provides council with clarity, so decisions about contracting are guided by facts, not assumptions or ideology.

A little bit more about the firm.

We are a second generation management consultant firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

We have over 35 years of experience of inclusive policy, program design and implementation.

We've done a lot of work in the phenomenal state of North Carolina, even with some of your neighboring jurisdictions, Durham County as well as the City of Raleigh.

We're also a North Carolina hub certified firm.

And we complete over 150 disparity studies.

Today, many of our clients retain us not just to conduct studies, but to assist with implementation.

Because evidence is only valuable if it leads to effective action.

Here's our project team.

Not only do we support our clients in economic inclusion initiatives, but we also, as part of our workforce, are intentional, intentional about having inclusivity in our team, as well as working with subconsultants.

For this effort, we've engaged QA Research, who is a WBE owned firm to support us in our survey analysis.

Each team member plays a critical role in ensuring timely delivery of services within budget.

More about that timeline later in the deck.

So let's endeavor to take a somewhat very technical process and explain how a disparity study is done.

So I'll walk you through our 10 part methodology.

This framework integrates both quantitative analysis with direct community engagement.

It is structured in three core pillars of the industry analysis, the statistical analysis, and market analysis.

Together, these allow us to evaluate not only outcomes, but the systems and conditions that shape them.

We begin with the legal analysis grounded in Crocing and Adoran, where we want to understand the state and federal constitutionality and concerns that we must consider inside of the disparity study.

We then examine the procurement operations to understand if policy aligns with practices and how they're leading to the participation that we're finding with the City of Durham.

From there, we define the market availability, identify qualified firms, measure utilization, and statistically compare availability to actual contracting.

Finally, we evaluate race and gender neutral tools and broader marketplace conditions such as business formation and access to capital.

Each of these components builds toward a tailored, actionable conclusions, and recommendation.

This next slide shows the dual structure of the study, both quantitative and qualitative.

On a qualitative side, as I mentioned, we look at your contracting data, who's available in the marketplace, and who you actually utilizing.

On the qualitative side, which is equally important, we conduct interviews, we conduct surveys and focus groups to understand the perceptions and experiences of businesses when attempting to do business with the city of Durham.

Together, these elements ensure the findings aren't just statistically sound, but grounded in real-world insight and aligned with Durham's operational realities.

We're not providing findings today, as we are still working with city leadership, but we are highlighting some of the activities as you see here.

So let's talk a little bit about the timeline and stakeholders we've already engaged with.

This 12-month timeline is to meant to show council the depth and rigor behind the analysis and how it's been intentionally structured from start to finish.

Since the project initiation in July of 2025, this work has evaluated data, procurement practices, market conditions, and internal operations across the organization, not just one department.

Importantly, this sequencing reflects lessons learned in internal refinement based on best practices.

We are currently ahead of schedule, having provided a subset of the draft chapters for the policy committee review in January.

This work is designed to position council not to just receive findings, but to be fully prepared to act on them.

This work session is about making sure council sees the full scope ahead of the public information sessions, which are in next month in March, so future decisions are informed, deliberate, and effective.

I did want to note the disparity in the amount of time of other presentations got in this one since we're talking about disparity.

This next slide shows just how engaged the Durham has been in its internal teams that we've worked with.

The project manager has provided day-to-day oversight and coordination, while the policy committee has been very uh tremendous in helping us bridge gaps and access information in a timely fashion.

Departments with buying authority, IT finance, communications, and purchasing have contributed data, operational insight, and supported stakeholder engagement.

In total, more than 15 departments have participated directly with over 20 departments supporting the data collection effort, demonstrating this has truly been a citywide collaborative process.

As I began to conclude, I want to share the next steps, our post study support services and flash those questions and answers again that you saw briefly.

These next steps show that the disparity study itself is only the first step.

The real value comes from what happens after council receives the findings.

In Q1 and Q2 of this year, the focus is on closing the study responsibly, responding to policy committees input, finalizing the findings, and presenting clear, actionable recommendations to this body.

At that point, council will have credible local evidence and a menu of options from recommendations, not mandates.

The items marked TBD are intentionally sequenced after council review because implementation should follow your direction, not precede it.

The TBD phases represent implementation planning, targeted support, and performance tracking.

This is where the authorized contingency budget becomes important, not as new spin, but as a tool to act decisively once evidence is presented.

Using the contingency funds here allows the city to move from study to action without delay while maintaining full council oversight.

The final item, KPI metrics, KPIs, metrics and performance dashboard is really about accountability.

Council doesn't just approve recommendations.

You receive ongoing visibility into outcomes, participation, and results.

We provide a dashboard that is real-time, dynamic, and with granularity.

And so Councilmember Riss, when you're asking about what are those trends that are driving some of the outcomes you see in relative participation, that dashboard is designed specifically to answer that question.

This ensures the any contingency funds used are measurable, transparent, and tied to performance, consistent with Durham's values of fiscal stewardship.

In short, this approach protects the city's investment by ensuring the study leads to informed action, not inertia, that any implementation is data-driven, phased, and accountable to council.

Lastly, once the findings and recommendations are presented, the opportunity before council is not simply to receive a report, but to strengthen how public dollars work for Durham.

A study only creates value if it leads to thoughtful implementation.

We offer a full range of post-study support services that you see here.

Importantly, these services are structured to ensure that any steps for allow are aligned with council's priorities and fiscal stewardship responsibilities.

The contingency funding already authorized by council creates a flexibility to act deliberately and effectively once the recommendations are received.

I do note that the study does not dictate outcomes.

It equips council with facts to lead with confidence.

I now want to thank you.

I do want to note that I save three minutes for any questions and answers.

And I may be the only speaker today who got a lot of information in within the allotted time.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

We've also been quite equitable.

We've been uh giving our presenters the time they need, even when the alarm goes off.

So we're all in the mix here.

Thank you.

Thank you for this information, and um, these have been a great company as well.

Uh your the diversity of your team is quite impressive.

Uh colleagues, any questions.

Thank you.

Mr.

Miller, right?

Yes.

Yeah, thank you so much for the presentation.

This is really critical work.

And I think we're, I think we're a bit overdue on having our disparity study updated, right?

So I'm so glad you are here to do this work for us.

Um I had a couple of questions.

One is on the recommendations for implementation.

When will the council see those?

So it'll be in Q2 of 2026.

We're at the point now we are delivering the draft chapter studies to the policy committee who are responsible for reviewing what we have written.

And the policy committee is made up of staff.

Staff, city leadership is across a number of different departments here in the City of Durham.

And so we'll see.

So there's also a hearing, right, on this in March.

There was a public information session.

I like to try to stay away from public hearing because it has different connotations.

There's a public information session that allows for any businesses or city residents to share their experience when attempting to do business with the City of Durham.

Those will be folks who have not already sat in on a one-on-one interview, those who may not have responded to our survey or participate in the focus group.

So this is a last ditch effort for anyone to have their experiences captured and share in the public form.

So I'm just trying to get to the sort of like the, I guess the end game.

So we're gonna we're gonna approve this as a count.

I'm looking at the next steps.

Do we do we formally approve this or what's what's the ultimate process on the council side?

So generally you we we come back, we share the findings.

Uh inside of those findings will give you a menu of options to consider.

You could then select from that menu based on uh feasibility, timing, et cetera.

That is the recommendations for implementation.

That's right.

And you then begin to decide how aggressive you want to be in implementing those recommendations if you want to take a phased approach, if you want to do it over fiscal years or over time.

But for us, our charge to council is to not allow this investment in terms of disparity study, find its way on the shelf and not take action based on those recommendations there.

In fact, there were some recommendations in the 2014 study that created a challenge for us in conducting the study today.

So this is sort of the the dichotomy of things if you don't act.

I am so unsure though.

So do we are we gonna take a formal vote on this at some point, or what's the what is our what is our action as a council?

Yes.

Once we have the final report, we will do another presentation, and we will also present those findings and um recommendations for on how we would like to move forward.

And then we'll so it will be up to the council then, yeah.

But okay.

That's great.

And then I guess my last question is um the I appreciate the the slide on the post-disparity study support services.

And has that been have you been providing that to us in the previous round, or is that a new thing you are going to provide in Durham?

No, it's I think it's something that we can address within I mentioned the contingency funding.

I think the the city was very strategic in how they structure this uh uh agreement.

Initially I was a bit apprehensive about it, but now it makes a lot more sense once once we've got started.

All that to say I think it can, all the many of the posts that are support services depend upon the recommendations you elect to move forward with, can be addressed in part by the contingency funding that exists within this uh engagement.

So there may be resources to be determined exactly what it is, but there may be resources to do that.

I will say that the dashboard, for which I think you are really good uh interested in.

Yeah, uh, it's something that the city should really consider.

I recognize you're going through an ERP implementation.

Some of the things that uh ERP systems do are not considered inside of uh not considered that are inside of the dashboard.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Look forward to this work.

All right, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let the record show that you didn't have a lot of questions.

I mean, there was a lot of information that was really well presented.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Our final presentation, number 17.

Western Integrity Partnership.

Western Intique Partnership.

The most exciting, the most dynamic, the most entertaining.

I feel a lot of pressure.

Um good afternoon, Mayor Williams, Mayor Proten Caballero, City Council, City Manager Ferguson, City Staff.

I am Sid Miller, Assistant Director for Administration, Communication, and Compliance in the Department of Water Management.

How come water always goes last, right?

It is always the most entertaining.

I asked.

No one knows.

Anyway, it's good to see you all.

So we just gave a presentation about the Western Intake partnership last September.

And the reason I'm back is because since then we made a big change.

And we want to bring you up to speed.

So that's not not a spoiler alert, but more of a teaser.

I'm not sure.

Oh, there it goes.

So this is a little slow.

This is what I had talked with you about, or Don did you Don had talked with you about in September, which is the project that is as it was originally envisioned, which was to have the intake in Jordan Lake, a regional water treatment facility adjacent to the intake, and then a finished water transmission line that would bring the water all the way up to the city of Durham.

So since then, what we've realized is that it would make more sense to have the intake in Jordan Lake, have a raw water pump station adjacent to that intake, and pumped raw water up to the City of Durham, where we will instead build a Durham water treatment plant that will distribute the water to our residents.

So that's the short of it.

So we did a lot of work to figure out whether we should do this.

We have property that's just south of the South Durham water reclamation facility that we already own.

It's large enough.

This is an aerial view that shows the South Durham water reclamation facility, the property just south of it.

You can all read this, but it offers a lot of opportunities for the city.

One thing it allows is a synergy between the existing water reclamation facility and the future water treatment plant.

It brings it much closer to our other facilities.

Rather than having a water treatment plant 16 miles away, we have one that's right in the city.

This property will allow us to build the water treatment plant that we had envisioned, same processes.

It will fit in this property.

It offers some modest cost savings because we will not have to build an intermediate water storage tank or a terminal water storage tank in the transmission.

So it's not a huge savings, but it is a savings.

More importantly, are the operational benefits that it offers.

And it also will improve the water quality by having the water treatment plant right next to our distribution system.

So this is where we landed, which was to instead build a Durham water treatment plant in the city of Durham.

Once we realized this, our department director talked with his counterparts in Chatham County and Orange County, and our city manager talked with his counterparts in Chatham County and Orange County to make sure everyone understood and was okay with this change in direction.

We will have to still make improvements to our transmission system within the city.

That was something we were going to have to do anyway.

What's next is we have to update the preliminary engineering reports that we had done.

So we're in the process of getting those launched.

This is kind of where we are.

We're still in the process of procuring the progressive design build teams for the intake and for the water treatment plant.

That's still ongoing.

Even though this change has caused something of a delay in the process, we're still on schedule to bring water the water treatment plant online at the end of 2031.

We should be pumping fresh clean drinking water to the city of Durham.

Next steps include so we're in the process of updating the intake interlocal agreement just to reflect this change.

And it's currently being reviewed by our City Attorney's Office and by the attorneys for our Western intake partners.

The intake is still a Western intake partnership intake.

The transmission of the raw water line is still a Western intake partnership transmission line, but the water treatment plant is a city of Durham water treatment plant.

We're still going to buy the property from WASA that's down by the lake.

So there are a number of things that you're going to see coming to City Council.

You're still going to see a land sale agreement with the Orange Water and Sewer Authority.

You're still going to see an intake interlocal agreement with our partners.

You're going to see progressive design build contracts for the water treatment plant and for the intake.

You're going to see a contract for internal water system improvements, that transmission line I talked about within our distribution system.

And you're going to see a small agreement with North Carolina Parks because we're going to shut down the Vista Point recreational facility on Jordan Lake while we build this.

Yeah.

So any questions?

Can I make a few comments first?

So you did a great job and a concise job.

There's there's two details I want to make sure Council has in considering this, because uh my and please correct me either of you if if I overstate this or get this wrong.

A key impetus for this change from September to now is that the participating utilities in the Western Intake Partnership indicated to us that their confidence in their need for the water from the intake has dropped since when the Western Intake Partnership began, such that it became less likely that they would be needing finished water from their Jordan Lake allocations anytime in the foreseeable future.

The purpose of locating the treatment facility on Jordan Lake was because it would be most efficient for the combined utilities to have the treatment facility there if everybody was getting finished water from the lake.

Now that they have less confidence due to some understandable but to me unfortunate uh changes in their circumstances, um, this is looking much more like a project that will be primarily of service to the City of Durham for the foreseeable future, which then means should the partner utilities ever want to access their allocations, they will be accessing raw water, transporting that raw water to their systems and uh treating those systems, treating that water uh on site.

So we made what we think is a rational change to our plans as a result of them making changes to their plans.

Um there is a downside uh to those change in circumstances, which is we think it is now less likely that those utilities will be uh reimbursing us for a lot of our costs.

Uh we have long indicated to council that at some point those utilities would be buying in and paying us back.

Um the good news, the silver lining on that is your rate structure that you have already seen, reviewed, and approved.

Um that does not change because of this.

I think the likelihood that that rate structure might be moderated down the road is now less likely because it may have to stay at the higher level.

So this isn't a new, you're gonna see a new higher cost, but the cost that we were going to incur and then hopefully some sometime see those mitigated are are now not going to be mitigated.

So I want to before uh council discusses first.

I'll look at Don to see if I got any of that wrong or if you're pretty comfortable with how I frame that.

No, I just the uh good afternoon, Mayor, the Mayor Pro Tem members of Council, Don Greeley water management.

I just wanted to piggyback on Bo's comments.

Bo's comments were very accurate.

I just want to add, you know, as we started this process way back in 2008, you know, we've done various presentations in front of council and about participating in this project.

And a lot of questions, it's a very expensive project, has always been to ensure knowing that we were going to be leading and putting in the infrastructure where we were going to get our investment back for the shares that our neighboring utilities would be coming in on.

And with the advent of Tri-River, the city of Sanford taking over Pittsburgh and Chatham County as their utility provider, and the fact that you know their their plant was recently expanded for economic reasons in Chatham County.

So their need for water in the short term and even the long term or medium and mediate term, you know, they're unknown at this point.

They don't know when they might need water.

So that kind of gave us pause to step back and look at this.

So knowing, you know, how could we save if we moved it to Durham, there's obviously some advantages.

You know, water quality, um, we can eliminate some tanks or maintain a facility that's really close.

But I think with the where the costs, there is a lot of cost savings that will kind of offset our cost, not in the way we originally anticipated.

And those two are the fact that now we're going to have two facilities adjacent to each other that are both producing one biosolids, one solids.

So now we can consolidate those operations.

What I think is the biggest reason and the advantage that we're going to have is eventually, you know, we're about to, the in two or three years, or very shortly, we'll have PFAS rules on drinking water.

Following that, we're going to have PFAS rules on our discharge.

There's high PFAS levels in Jordan Lake.

When all of that comes to pass, we are going to be discharging a very high quality effluent in our South Durham facility.

That water is going to go into Jordan Lake, mixed back with the high PFAS water, and then we're going to be pulling it out and having to treat it all over again.

This provides us a great opportunity to take that high quality effluent, mix it with the raw water coming in from the lake, and then treating it, which is going to make a huge savings for us.

Because when you look at the cost of where PFAS and emerging contaminants is going, you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars.

So the savings that we thought from a long-term perspective that we would be getting back from our neighbors, I think, are now being replaced by the fact that we're going to have we're going to be able to save a significant amount of money in our treatment in the long term.

So hope that made sense.

I just want to add one more thing, which is that partners, future partners were actually reimburse us on the intake.

So we will see some back.

Yeah.

Thank you for this.

Um this is very important.

Umergusson, you uh trying to remember how you artfully put it, but you said that um partners have lost confidence in their need, I think that's how you said it, for water.

Does that mean like lower population projections?

Uh so I'll summarize and uh Don or said if if you want to elaborate, please do.

So uh Don mentioned one of the major factors is that from the beginning of this, uh the City of Pittsburgh and their utility were one of the major partners.

There was there was a merger that happened in Chatham County, and that interconnected them with City of Sanford and what is now called the Tri-River Utility.

Tri-River utility, they have a different source.

Uh and so now they have, well, while this was going to be a primary future source, it they now have access to different source of water.

So I don't think with Chatham it is at all related to a change in growth projections.

I think in Chatham, it is uh a complete uh uh completely tied to that merger.

In uh the the other partner, major partner was Owasa, uh, and that's Orange County water and sewer.

Um that may have more to do with growth projections as well as I think their modeling of their existing uh raw water sources and believing that those raw water sources may have more supply, but that I'm a little less clear on, so maybe I'll let Don talk a little bit about OWASP's change.

Yeah, for OWASP, it's a little bit of everything that Bo just mentioned.

So they they're not looking to need water for a very long extended period of time, 2050 and maybe and beyond.

As far as Tri-River, Tri-River just went through a 200 million dollar expansion of their water plant.

They received a large grant from the state of North Carolina uh associated with that project.

Um they have a lot of uh they have a lot of capacity at the time.

Certainly they were into, you know, they expanded because of Chatham Park, Finfast, Wolf Speed, and the other kind of economic um endeavors that were targeted to go into Chatham County, those have slowed down a little bit.

So but the the plant is still being expanded and finishing up.

So that's the other reason why they don't believe we'll probably have to tap into the allocations at Pittsburgh and Chatham Head that they'll be able to, but their next step is to come into this, but it's going to be much, much farther out.

Were we misled at all?

Or was there always uh kind of risk that we were slowly walking through, kind of knowing that this might happen.

Um the risk is the time that we walked through with, but a lot of that time is the regulatory.

I mean, we started um the the process right after the drought in you know 07 and 08.

And um, you know, first we had to go through opening, get the state of North Carolina um and the Department of DQ, the division of water resources to open up another round of allocation at Jordan Lake.

That took uh several years.

I mean, the Jordan Lake Partnership helped them in that process cut years off of that.

And then as to be perfectly transparent and blunt, you know, we did a um as part of the Jordan Lake Partnership, we did a economic feasibility study in 2014, and it showed a projection for each of the partners, which was you know, Durham, Owassa, Chatham County, and Pittsburgh, what they needed to do with their rates to afford this project, um when and still on the same timeline.

And um we raised our rates, embedded that in our long-term rate strategy.

Chatham County and Pittsburgh did not.

I would also at least it's been portrayed to us.

That said, I I think um one of the realities of this process, which I have also been involved with uh in my time with the city, is that um regardless of those partners' participation, this absolutely is a it is the most efficient way for us to get to secure our future in terms of water.

So we were always going to need this supply and to develop this supply.

The state required that for any of those uh participating utilities to have their allocations, that there would only be one intake.

So it was you know, their participation from the beginning was somewhat forced on them because the state basically said if you guys ever want to get this water out of Jordan Lake, you all have to talk to each other, uh, which is not to say we didn't all go in willingly, but there was some extra incentive.

Um so that conversation started in part because we we said we're gonna start moving, and if you guys ever want to touch this, you you need we all need to move together, and they did.

And I think throughout that time they had more aggressive, you know, expectations about when they might need it.

Um there was never a contract signed where they said we will and we shall.

Uh and so I think we always knew this was possible.

Um I I will say I think kind of throughout the process we we've been fairly realistic and done a lot of checking in, and it was really up until the last six months that we received we were getting a lot of assurance that they thought they would need it.

But I do think the reality is sometimes the situation changes under our feet.

I think we've seen that with the economy, we've seen it with other things, and so now we're seeing it with this arrangement.

So we I believe we had very thoughtful governance procedures throughout the discussion of the Western Intake Partnership that were designed to protect us as much as possible.

Um, but I do not perceive this as a pull as a um I I don't believe we got a bait and switch.

I do think those utilities, they have participated and paid for their share of all of the work that has happened to date.

So this you know, they have paid their way, uh, but there was never a requirement that they be in it from the beginning.

And I suspect if there had been, they probably would have said no.

Because I think we always needed it more than they needed it.

Um so their participation was was probably always a bit more at risk.

Once again, I'm gonna look to Don to see if he thinks I overstated anyway.

Well, the only thing I think they were all in until the until the opportunity that there was another opportunity.

And that other opportunity was, you know, as we went through the process and and did all the preliminary work and all the construction um projections, you know, they started looking probably looking at internally, you know, how can we afford this?

And there was an opportunity with um Tri-River, you know, City of Sanford that wasn't on the table before.

And so I think, you know, if I was in their shoes, I would have done the same thing.

Right.

And um so um so but they were a willing partner up until you know we were at the junction where now we're spending large m large, you know, it's not just millions of dollars, it's hundreds of millions of dollars.

And that's a huge transition point.

And you know, knowing that that was coming within a short period, you know, within a year or two, I think over the last year or two, you've seen all of this happen.

So I don't think there was an intention in the end to but it was just more of real reality that they had to deal with.

Council Member.

Thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

Um Yeah, thanks for the presentation.

This is really critical stuff.

And thanks for the manager for filling in some of the gaps that I thought I understood, so thanks for clarifying that.

So um just to make sure I'm clear on this.

So the the Western Intake partnership is that's still alive, right?

And they their allocation to Jordan Lake still exists.

So they they may not want that, but at the point they want their allocation, then we sort of then we facilitate that through the through the intake, right?

You're correct.

And that is that so does do they do they pay us for that, or is that sort of they will.

Okay.

For the for the raw water.

Well, they will pay us to reimburse us for any allocation that they buy in the intake and raw water pumping facility.

So when they want to access their allocation, they they will have to come through our intake and they will have to buy that capacity and pay us back for that capacity.

Right.

Okay.

Um and I do want to say that that's important not just for the region and you know, for the them, but it's also important for for us who are going first, because having that as a regional project, you know, you know, 150 million dollar project, it's a regional project that opens the potential for getting grants because it's a regionalization project.

So whether grants were the state of North Carolina or with EPA.

And we're we're pursuing that to offset our costs.

So it's important that this is a regional facility to be able to pursue those ends.

That's great.

Yeah.

Second thing is I appreciate you sort of referencing the PFAS because I've because my senses are my from the water work I've done both in in uh falls and Jordan, is that there's way more PFAS in Jordan Lake.

And so addressing that, but I'm some I'm glad that we're uh on top of that, because I think that will be an issue and certainly involves costs.

Um the next thing is so so you talked uh Mr.

Miller about some of the the benefits.

We don't need the the sort of tanks or whatever.

We have as as um Mr.

Greeley, as you mentioned, we now can sort of take that treated water from the reclamation facility and put that right in the raw water.

So it's less less treatment for all the PVAS and stuff.

So there's cost savings there.

But in terms of the the way the partnership has changed, um I know there's some cost savings, but what's the like the total in net was our what's the total increase in our cost because now we're in this by ourselves, right?

So what's the total increase in cost that that we're now because I think the manager referenced that in terms of like so it means that our rates may not be able to sort of go down over time.

I mean, I appreciate that we've raised the rates to sort of to begin to plan for this.

But yeah, what's the what's the change of the delta?

Right.

So you know, currently in the 10-year um financial model that we have, um the last year or two, we have not projected that we would be that our partners would be coming in, we would envision them going out, but you know, the 10-year window keeps moving.

It's because we were expecting them to kind of come in around 2035 or between 2035 and 2040 into the project if they weren't coming in right away.

Um because a lot of the discussions um were when knowing that the project was going to come online in 2031 is when do we need to do the next expansion of the plant?

And we expected to do the expansion of the plant to accommodate their needs um within that time frame.

Um but so I think from the rate standpoint, we're we're saving a little bit of money, so it's the same.

So it's not driving our costs up or up or down, but right our rate model had projected them not coming in.

It's now we'll have to look in the next couple of years to see what that does does from a long-term perspective.

But certainly within the 10-year window, we weren't it it's not really impacting what we're projecting on rates.

So it means that so our capital costs haven't changed, because what you're saying.

So credit costs are the same.

As they as they sort of begin taking finished water would then sort of reimburses in a sense to help back.

Raw water.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's before it would have been finished water before, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

To be clear, we were always going to pay the upfront costs because we always knew we were going to be the first movers.

So our actual upfront costs haven't changed.

It's the fact that somewhere down the road, we were hoping that we were going to be getting a lot more money back.

And now that is not impossible, but less likely and probably farther out.

And now less money because a lot of the money that would have been shared would have been for the finished water.

Now the finished water is going to be on us.

Right.

But that money that we would be getting in at a future date, I think is going to be offset by the fact that we're going to have a lot of operational savings with what I mentioned earlier.

All right.

Go ahead.

Way, way down the line, will this have been a better outcome or no?

And in 20 years from now, and then they our partners suddenly need much more water.

Is there any sort of benefit to this route, or are we simply making the best out of a less fortunate situation?

I think 20 years from now we'll still look back and saying we made the best decision for Durham.

It'll be the question for Tri-River is to say, did we make the best decision by not participating up front because it's gonna of whatever options they have at that time.

Okay.

So and I hope it's a win-win for everybody, right?

Because that's what you want.

So for Durham, I think it's we won't regret the decision.

I I think it's a little bit of a loss for regionalism.

Um I think what I'd like to commend the water management department and some of the effort I took myself was before we made this decision, we checked in with both stakeholders who were part of this decision, which were the utilities, and also the governments, because in Orange County and in Chatham County, it the governments don't own the utilities.

So we're the only place where the city council who is also looking at growth, looking at land use, also oversees the utility who's developing this capacity.

In Chatham and Orange, my concern was that the governing boards who may have questions about how their growth is going to be served and what their costs are going to be, uh were not necessarily at the table when the utilities informed us of their changes.

So those conversations uh I think were appreciated by those governments who were not as aware as they might have wanted to have been about the change, but once those managers checked in with their utilities, they came back and said, we've heard their case, we understand the case, we're comfortable with you guys making this change.

I think we all we always touted the Western Intake partnership.

So I uh you know I think there's a you know, there is a sense of loss that we have that this is a good way to do infrastructure planning.

Um but I think the reality, as Donto capably said, is for us, we still need to move forward, and this this will be a good decision for us.

I think it would, you know, if they ever need the water, I'd love for them to have stayed in and for us to be doing the original plan.

But I I commend our department for bringing what is the right thing for our city.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I I'll just add, and you mentioned land use.

Um, I I assume that, and I see that Director Young is in here.

I assume that if there are any uh changes in consideration that we need uh for the new LDC that those will be uh incorporated as a result of of this change.

But um lastly I just want to say thank you.

Your job is really, really important.

Thank you for providing water to people and for all of your work um making these last-minute you know decisions.

Right.

Thank you.

And thank you for your support for the utility.

So Mr.

Mr.

Manager's point, uh, in some ways, like I think we actually have a benefit here that the the treatment plan is on in Durham County.

It's not like whatever 16 miles south.

So that that's certainly in the end a benefit to us.

Um again, thanks for that for the thinking you know, a generation in advance about water and and building into our rates now, so we are sort of that we've got the sort of we've got the revenue side to to meet all these costs.

One other thing that um that uh Director Greeley highlighted for us in the executive team that was not something I immediately thought of, but I think is interesting uh is the water quality in Durham will be better because of this, because if the if the water were treated down at the lake, it would it would age as it comes up and into our system.

So now that the water is being treated in our system, the water in our system will be fresher is you know and therefore work that we may have to do to bleed off our system or to try and keep the water fresh in the system that that will be an efficiency as well.

So I thought that was another in addition to the efficiency of operating the plant much closer the water being treated closer to Durham is also going to be a benefit to us.

Yeah thank you thank you so much for this I um my my biggest concern was you know the the regionalism here we we're trying to grow together as a region.

But you know um this this does seem to be the best decision for us for us and I'm excited about that.

The capacity is still there if they ever want to partner I'm I'm curious what data are they looking at when it comes to comes to North Carolina.

But you know that's why these regional governing bodies are so important I am grateful that we have regional transit with Go Triangle and the MPOs excuse me.

And it's also why I am trying to establish a regional mayor's council for all of us to also coordinate and you know remove some of the bureaucracy so we can talk ahead of things coming in a formal manner manner.

I was not aware of this until I saw it in the packet and and it's like wow this is different.

So I I could uh now better understand your suspense as you were bringing it for to us.

But I thank you all for your work.

Thank you.

And um we'll we'll continue to make sure Durham is Durham is good to go with the best water in the state it's going to get even better.

We'll charge a premium on it next time though I I did have one last one question um when it comes to just the technicalities of the raw water versus uh finish so if they in the future come back and say and I think we just mentioned this but I'm going to ask because then it's technical and they say hey we we you know we made a mistake 25 years ago we want to come back they would did you say it was finished water that they would they would get a raw water raw okay so if the facility was going to be at down at the lake then it would be different correct okay right yeah and we would take the raw water and pump it in the facility the original facility at the lake was designed to expand out our needs were you know we had a six 16 million gallons a day um allocation from Jordan Lake that treatment plant was um laid out in the preliminary work to expand out to 70 million gallons a day for all of the and it was going to meet all of the allocations from all the different um entities.

Yeah I'm just out of curiosity now that we're going to have ours next to our uh reclamation facility where we are would they have to build their own facility where they are well they would have they would have two choices.

They could actually build it where we were in originally going to intend or if they have the um ability to expand their plant where it is now then they might just pull the water from the intake and and pump it across the county and just have it at their expanded facility.

So they'll have a couple different options to consider um where they want to put the dynamics of their meeting when they had this discussion they're still working about their long-term plan.

You know they are originally you know and they're also merging with Silar City as well.

So they have a lot on their plate to do for their water resources planning to look at their alternative source is what Halloween the Hall River That's going to be interesting.

Well we're good well thank you thank you so much.

But you know just for the record Durham is always open to being a partner.

Absolutely and we're still working together through the triangle um water partnership we're still doing regional water planning together we still are working together with our region we you know we have the one of the largest water hydraulic models in the country because all of our systems are integrated in one water in one model so we can figure out and look at how we can move water across the whole from Johnson County all the way up to Hillsboro if need be.

So um all of that work continues.

We all work closely together and how we can improve.

So even though we didn't quite get a hundred percent regionalization on this project, we're still looking at ways how we can do that and work together.

It is interesting how technical this stuff is when you ride by and the water is just still and you know serene.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Well at this time uh that's the final item on the agenda and you'll need to settle the agenda and then we'll go into uh closed session thank you mayor members of council uh prepared to settle the agenda uh all items uh items one through fourteen are on consent for your forthcoming council meeting and entertain a motion to accept so moved second property second all in favor aye aye okay cool comment before you adjourn us I forgot I need to excuse absence on March fifth March fifth so move second all right I'm sorry I'll entertain a motion to accept an excuse absence for Mayor Pro Tim property second all in favor aye all right at this time we are uh we are going into closed session and then we'll come back into open session and where we are and adjourn from there.

Thank you all for tuning in today you want to do it for the sorry I thought I lost my glasses and I could not see the entire meeting.

You guys getting four presentations done and it's I'm super impressed.

I actually want to add my comments on the well psychological it is definitely working for staff but you guys are also you have been judicious with your comments as well so everybody is getting a little bit of credit what's happening out there before