All right.

Thank you all so much.

Welcome to City Hall.

Thank you all for being here.

We are going to go ahead and get started.

Madam Clark, can you please call the roll?

Mayor Williams.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Caballero.

We'll be late.

Councilmember Baker.

Here.

Councilmember Burris.

Here.

Councilmember Cook.

Here.

Councilmember Kopak.

Here.

Councilmember Arist.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Colleagues, any uh brief announcements.

Yeah, go ahead and start.

Uh Councilmember Baker.

Uh good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you all for being here.

Colleagues, I um just shared with you all the fiscal year work program for community planning projects.

This comes from the joint city county planning committee meeting yesterday that we had.

So folks uh at home can also access that by looking at the joint city county planning committee uh website um and looking at yesterday's agenda.

This is just to share with you um the long-range community planning projects that are in the queue and are happening right now.

So the multimodal TIA, Lakewood Small Area Plan, Bragg Town Small Area Plan, Open Space Plan, Um, Orange Factory Heritage Community, and the historic inventory update just for your information.

Um and then also I um joined Councilmember Kopak at the Environmental Affairs Board meeting yesterday where there was uh an update on the situation with uh Brentag Mid South and um the emissions into the creek that is running through uh Burton Park.

Um happy to to share more with you offline if you'd like, but you can also watch the uh EAB meeting um for more information on that.

Um that's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kopak.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um so glad to be back at work session, missed the last one.

Uh Councilmember Burris and I were at a uh training for new city council uh members and uh by North Carolina uh uh uh or UNC School of Government and North Carolina League of Municipalities.

And just want to say that in addition to going through ethics training and meeting elected leaders from across the state, it just gave me uh a kind of another level of appreciation for our staff here uh in Durham about the processes that have been implemented, the mindset of continuous improvement.

Uh and so it just left me uh uh grateful uh as well for for our staff um having gone through that that that training, that that process.

Um uh and yes, thank you, Councilmember Baker, for highlighting the EAB meeting and the and the Brent Egg issue, and I will leave it at that for now.

Uh look forward to a great session and great to see so many folks here.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Glad to see you all in Council Chambers and greetings to those who are at home.

I don't have any remarks as council.

Well, I don't have many.

As Councilmember Kopac said I did have opportunity to travel to Greensboro via trained, so it's in the ethics training, so super excited about that.

And I wanted to extend a happy birthday to our colleague, Mr.

Matt Kopac, who's turning 25 today.

So if you can say everyone, a happy birthday to Matt.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Nothing at this time, just want to extend happy birthday wishes to Councilmember Kopak.

Congrats.

We got some cake in the back there.

Please grab some cake in the back.

My mom and my kids made it.

I did.

Mine's up here, yeah.

I don't pass up cake very quickly.

You taste the cake and let me know what you think before I go against them.

I don't know who made it or anybody.

I don't feel like I'm a good judge because I it's uh I am hard missed to not like a cake.

So um yes, thank you everyone for being here.

I will be brief.

I just want to raise a couple of things.

Uh the first is that we talk a lot about um homicides and victim of shootings.

I do want to raise up that even when we don't have uh victims, we do still have shootings ongoing.

So we saw a bunch of people from the Cornwallis community at our meeting on Monday night, talking about the trauma that they are experiencing from this um gun violence that I think is is sort of on everyone's mind because there was a recent death at that community, um, but is is a thing that is ongoing for them.

And I just want to raise that up.

There was a shooting there yesterday.

Uh I don't haven't heard that anyone was injured, but again, this trauma of the consistent hearing of gunshots and um and what that does for a community and and how it tears apart communities, I think is really important to talk about.

So I just want to lift up that we are um aware of those issues and taking them very seriously, and um and it's never acceptable that anyone is living in fear or um not safely in their homes.

And I also want to say, sorry, my announcements are really dark today, but the other thing I wanted to raise up was that um there was a tenth person killed this or that died this year in ICE custody.

Um I think it was two days ago.

There was a Haitian man who had a dental complaint.

He was complaining of dental pain, didn't get treatment right away, and has died from the from that um from something that's probably preventable.

Uh so just want to lift up that and remember that even when we're sort of not seeing the the very like newsworthy uh often white protesters that are getting killed that um this is still something that is ongoing and um these deaths are really impactful in community and um and not something that we really can tolerate.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Um I Councilmember Cook, thanks for sharing that.

I was actually going to remark on that as well.

Um I'll I'll start.

I'll start reading some of this anonymously, but I'll I'll I'll read it just to protect the identity of people.

But hey, they just shot so much.

I thought it was fireworks going off.

I just dropped him off.

But I'm going to go back and get him because that was horrifying.

It was so many shots, it was unbelievable.

Hey, I know you're busy.

I'm praying y'all can find somewhere else to go because he is worried that he won't be able to be a part of the program.

He's super excited.

I truly hate this.

There has to be something that can be done about these fools.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

It was daylight at the time as well.

I got so nervous, my head is hurting now.

I wasn't sure of which way to turn or go for safety.

It sounded like we were at war and bombs were getting getting let off.

I've never heard anything like it before.

And I've witnessed guns being shot before.

Someone said they were AKs and or AR-15s since they were going to let since they were able to let off so many shots at one time.

Something has to be done.

Oh my God.

Those are messages that came in just last night from residents that are living in this on a daily basis.

And I agree with them.

Oh my God, something has to be done.

All right.

Welcome to City Hall.

Let's get to it.

I will be making some adjustments to the agenda today.

Um moving some things around.

Uh but that'll be based on what's pool.

We'll go ahead and get started.

Mr.

Manager.

Thank you.

Mayor Mayor.

No mayor pro tem right now.

Uh members of council and uh staff extends birthday wishes to Councilmember Copac.

Uh we have one priority item.

Uh that is under item number 19, which is citizen matters.

Um the second individual, Jeffy Goldman has indicated he uh no longer wishes to speak.

So item 19 uh will be removed.

Those are my priority items.

Thank you.

Madam Attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Good to see you all.

Uh the City Attorney's Office does have one priority item as well.

We would like to request a closed session at the end of all regular business.

Today.

Yes, please.

Yeah.

Sometimes you don't want to believe your eyes.

Sorry.

Your closed sessions are scaring me now, by the way.

But okay.

All right.

Um I'm happy to read the motion now or later.

Okay.

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 the following.

Timothy Evans versus City of Durham, Jack Cates Jr., Erwin Baker, and James Edward Melvin the second, which is a middle district case filed in Federal Court 26 CB 181.

And we have a second matter as well, which is to discuss the settlement or handling of a property damage claim presented by Capitol Associates and CPD Durham Center investors.

I will entertain a motion now as read to resume into closed session post uh at the end of the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

It's been moved and property seconded.

Um all in favor.

Aye.

All opposed.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Adam Clerk.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, and good afternoon.

I have the board and committee report, the Durham Performing Arts Center Oversight Committee Mayoral Appointment.

The appointee is Scott F.

Selig.

That's the end of my report.

Thank you.

Scott Seelick.

All right.

Thank you so much.

At this time, I'll go ahead and read the uh consent agenda.

You ready?

Item number one, Durham Performing Arts Center Oversight Committee Mural Appointment.

Number two, Durham Workers' Rights Commission 2025 Annual Report.

Number three, Mayor's Committee for Persons with Disabilities, 2025 Annual Report.

Number four, participatory budgeting steering committee annual report.

Pull it off another successful year.

Number five, First Amendment to SD 202502, drainage structure improvements.

Number six, fiscal year 2025 annual comprehensive financial report, ACFR and residence financial report.

Number seven, acquisition of one temporary construction easement in one area and fee simple at 114 West Cornwallis Road for the SW45 Bike and Sidewalk Project.

Number nine, construction contract for the Environmental and Street Services Yard Waste Repairs and Upgrades Project.

Number 10, Fourth Amendment to extend lease between City of Durham and LRC GB LLC at 807 East Main Street, Golden Belt Suite 2-300 for the community partnership partnerships and engagement department.

I pulled that one.

Number 10, ratification of 10.

I'm sorry.

Sorry.

It's the word 10, I'm sorry.

Number 11, ratification of 10, fiscal year 2026, festivals and events contracts.

So it's we're going to discuss both, right?

Well, that one's been pulled, I think, by the way.

I have 12 and 13 poll.

Okay, that's fine.

And number 14 and number 15.

Yeah.

And 13, FedF Street Corridor Project Implementation Update Presentation.

And just for the record, colleagues, number 12 has been pulled from the public.

Number 14, wastewater collection system capacity overview presentation.

Number 15, public hearing on the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget year, fiscal year budget and fiscal year 2027 32 32, capital improvement plan.

No the presentation.

So that would not be a that was a mistake by the person signing up.

And we have settled number 19, Jeffrey Goldman, which has been rescinded.

All right.

That's our uh consent agenda with items.

10, 12, 13, 14, 15 being pulled.

Actually, number 10 is over.

So if someone has signed up, and that's a that's for the improvements.

Okay.

Item number 15 will be uh for uh Monday night, next Monday night.

This is for the speaker to sign up.

Did I miss number 16?

No.

Yeah, Gregory Williams.

I saw them here.

All right.

Uh south consent agenda with pulled items.

10, 12, 13, 14.

And then we have our presentations.

13 and 14 are representation.

Yeah, 13 and 14 of presentations.

All right.

Yeah, no.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.

Not yet.

I have a few speakers that have signed up for public comment.

Uh first I have Isaac Woods.

Followed by Richard Davis.

And Shannon Krebs.

Welcome.

You have three minutes.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council members, and city staff.

I'll come before you, unfortunately, another time in regards to the Artmore Drive on Paid Street session.

Based on a letter from the city manager, the most recent letter from city manager, in which he expressed that I was personally attacking his staff.

And I want to make sure that it's on the record that we have no intent when we address for city services to attack any staff.

Now, on the personal tax has been on me, which I'll address shortly.

But the brief background is 1987, Artmore Drive was forced into the city.

And the law is still required to provide water, sewer, and street pavement.

They put in part of the sewer, part of the water on one half of the street.

We're still here today trying to get water for everybody in a paved street.

Now that has led to a tax.

There's no reason we should continue to pay tax dollars when we were forcing the city.

And for staff to continue to allege that we're trying to attack them personally is just unfair.

The cost of the pavement should be come out of the unpaved street bonds that the voters approved last year.

Or the property taxes we paid since 1987, which comes out to be about $4 million for all the property owners on that street.

We have no fire.

When you don't have water, let me preface this.

You don't have a fire hydrogen.

We have houses on that street that's burnt down that your fire department will tell you they have cannot do anything to save us.

That should be an urgent matter for anybody, let alone a more standard since 1987.

That should come out of stormwater, not assessed against the family, which the city gave some huge army's number.

125,000 per property owner.

That's crazy.

Since this has happened, we have been charged outrageous fees, which they say the council haven't approved.

We get charged three times the amount for sewer services because we don't have stormwater.

And what since we've been complaining, the cities went back and retroactively built us for years.

I mean, it comes out to thousands of dollars.

That is not fair.

We don't have seated water and we pay taxes and you won't charge us extra.

Also, the storm water fees have been paid to charge us extra two.

This is a gravel road.

I have a gravel driveway.

There's no imperfect service.

We need to stop the attack.

We need Artmore Drive, all of it, not just part of it.

Water and street paving in the stormwater be paid by the taxpayers in the bond that votes approved.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next, Richard Davis, followed by Shannon Krebs.

Okay.

Let me know when I'm ready.

Welcome.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

Good morning, all counselors and Mr.

Mayor.

I've been here.

This is my second time, so I'm new to this.

But unfortunately, my son was killed on guest road November 2025.

My question is to Mr.

Mayor and also the police commissioners and any um legal attorneys that's on the board.

I want to know what is uh Santana Saberry, the district attorney is doing in this community.

It's because every time you're trying to get in contact with these people or the district attorney, you can't get in contact.

The next question is that Ebony DeVay have um killed my son, and my thing is that officer just now got killed on the highway.

Um these accidents were um people that's getting killed by people that have uh DUIs, and this is constantly happening.

This is all this here person's charges.

I had to go to every county to get all of these charges, which is over 13 charges, and the only thing that she got slapped on the wrist was an ankle bracelet.

My thing is that what is the district attorney, what is uh going on in the Durham, North Carolina, what is happening with all the fatality of this hit and run.

I understand about the shooting, I support that also.

But right now, my concern is and happy birthday to you, sir too.

I am a Piscey, my son just was killed.

He's a Pisces.

He was walking across the street to get the baby birthday balloons and got struck by a car and was killed instantly.

Again, uh some legal people here.

You can anyone read these here charges?

This is 13 charges, and how do you give this person uh a bail for um shoplified in Target, and then you give her uh uh what you call a bail that she can get out for killing someone.

She she got she walked out um out of the court system with an ankle bracelet with no bail, and here it is, she sh she's still in target and she gets a $5,000 bail.

I I just want someone to explain this to me.

And like I said, these are all the charges.

We got 13 different charges in four different counties.

What is going on with people in North Carolina?

Would they kill people in one town, then go to uh another Faithfield or Greensville, and then they kill again.

What is going on about this district attorney?

Um we keep on calling the district attorney, we get no answers.

And the case is still in what do you call this here?

Traffic court for killing my son.

Traffic court.

This court this should be in Supreme Court already.

This has been already um caught is on the 31st of this month.

You're talking about five months and it's still in traffic court.

This is not accepted, and I'm gonna be here for every meeting.

I'm gonna keep on saying this here.

What is happening?

You know, well, I'm I can't blame the mayor, and I'm not blaming uh um the police commissioner.

We gotta do something better than this.

Thank you, Mr.

Davis.

I one thing I hate about uh government sometimes is how complicated it is to navigate.

And so uh I'd like to personally help you navigate getting your questions answered.

Yes.

And uh I I do know how to reach you, so I'll reach out today.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have Shannon Krebs, followed by Angel Dozier and Sharita Burris.

Welcome, you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Councilman.

Um I live near Oakwood Park, just a few blocks from here.

And I'm here because residents have actually been raising concerns about encampments in the park for years.

And we're hoping to better understand the city's plans for this and how to address the situation moving forward.

For a long time we experienced the same cycle.

Residents record an encampment, the city responds, tents are cleared, and with a short period of time, the park returns to the same condition.

There's trash everywhere, there are needles, there's human waste, drug use occurs, prostitution happens out in front, and essentially families stop using the space altogether.

I want to acknowledge there's a huge cleanup in October, and we're very grateful for that having occurred.

We really appreciate the effort.

We also know that the heart team puts in a lot of effort for outreach, but we're seeing the same problems go again and again.

When residents raise these concerns, we're often framed as being unsympathetic towards the homeless situation.

And I want to say that is not the case.

From our perspective, it just likes looks like we continue to do these things again and again.

I want to be a clear that I don't care about the aesthetics or discomfort with unhoused individuals.

I'm just really concerned about the park being a public park that's a safe place to use for families and residents.

And it's not humane for the people living there to be in the same condition again and again and essentially ignored.

It also feels like Oakwood Park is becoming this default location and where this issue persists.

I'd like to understand why Oakwood Park tends to be this location.

There are other city parks that have gazebos or larger spaces with bathroom facilities.

So I'd like to understand that if the idea is that the city parks are to be encampment areas, can this burden be shared among other parks?

Or is there a real plan moving forward?

Residents have repeatedly asked how can we help with a solution?

And the answer is often, thank you for your advocacy.

We'll get back to you.

So I'm here to actually ask what is the plan moving forward and how can we as residents be involved?

We are interested in being part of the solution and understanding what's happening.

We've raised this issue for years, so I'm not really looking for someone to acknowledge the problem.

I'm looking for our next step.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And fortunately, there is a plan now.

I can't wait to hear it.

And I can't wait for residents to be able to comment on that and be involved in that because I don't know of any outreach to any of the residents in Cleveland Colloway that have said, how can we how can you help?

Or what is your opinion?

Well, we have the information here, and uh, we'll invite you into some of the engagement that's happening around that.

I would really appreciate that.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

And uh Shannon?

Ms.

Cripps.

Yeah.

Could you speak with that gentleman right there?

Um Angel Dozier.

Followed by Sharita Burris.

Welcome.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

Um happy birthday, Copac.

My birthday was Friday.

I turned 50.

So I'm you know, celebrating right along with you.

Um I'm here to just talk about a couple of things.

Um I'm here particularly to speak about the Hey Thai Promise CDC and the presentation we'll see today, items 12 and 13.

That's first and foremost.

I want that to be clear.

Um also asking for there to be deep consideration of um what we're really doing, you know, when it comes to community and fulfilling civic duties.

You know, are we really trying to move forward?

Are we really trying to move higher?

Because that should be reflected in our decisions and in the way that we're listening, and in the way that we really do try to understand and grow in community with community, not an us versus them kind of thing.

And I I think you know, we can do better than that, y'all.

There's a word called plurality, and this is for um Mayor Pro Tim uh Cabiero's hoping that she would be here.

I'm gonna put it on record anyway.

The Hague Tech community is full of shared vision and unity.

Period.

We're not divided.

We know what's going on with each other.

There's a word called plurality, shared ideas, shared uh collaboration, talking and listening to each other, struggling with each other, principle struggle with each other, understanding, creating tolerance.

That's what we do in the Haiti community.

So it is offensive to continuously hear people say that we are not united, that we have 50 million uh Hay Thai businesses, and we don't know what we're doing.

We're very clear about what we're doing, we care about the Haitai community.

It is a very special place.

And I'm asking for you all to understand and also behave a little a little better with regards to the respect that this neighborhood deserves.

Um I also want to speak on um just the idea that there might be some bamboozling or whatever might that may be happening.

And this is, you know, to you, Mr.

Rist, in terms of um I don't think anybody here, um, especially any black woman in this room or person who considers themselves a black femme, would take the time out of their day to come here and complain about something that's not happening.

And um the bamboozlement, you know, if those such words bother you, I want you to consider the behavior that we've experienced that brought us to these words and to say these things and to have the time to like take the time to come here and talk about it.

That means something.

Thank you, Mr.

And I want you to show some respect for that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next time the verse.

First of all, I like to give credit where credit is due to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Secondly, uh to councilwoman Burris, you've been active with us.

I thank you.

To uh Matt Kopak, you have been responsive to Chelsea Cook, you have allowed a young lady to go on with her life.

Now, speaking of crime, yesterday was my birthday, and I experienced gunshots.

So it's kind of hard for me to celebrate, and I'm talking to a neighbor about helping a neighbor, and gunshots go off, and I end up in Pettigrew and Grant Street, and a body is laying in front of the boys and girls club.

Yesterday about 3 30.

I have an issue, and I'm gonna say this.

Congratulations to the comments for getting back in office.

Well, we need to come together.

This foolishness, I mean, I don't have time to go see counseling on my own because I'm counseling.

As a preacher of the gospel today, I went to the park.

Woman covered up.

I didn't know it was a woman, covered up, went up there and said, You gotta move out of Edgemont Park.

She took a blanket off, a white woman.

So I asked her, was she hungry?

I went to my house, took some of my birthday food, breakfast food, and shared it with her.

How many of y'all would get out and do stuff like that?

Point point taking.

We talk about community, being in community.

Stop going getting money off the backs of the community.

And when we ask some of y'all where the commute money is going, you got a freaking attitude.

I have an issue with that.

If if we're voting y'all in, we need better response.

And if we don't know what we're doing, how about talking to us?

Tell us where we need to go.

Tell us who we need to talk to instead of being arrogant and acting like, oh, I'm a city council.

I don't need to talk.

No, uh-uh.

We're not, we're not doing this anymore.

Homelessness.

People don't set up tents on Marriage Street.

Where it's supposed to be fed place, and mayor, it's mighty funny.

When you cleared the agenda, people left.

So that goes and tells me right there that we're not caring about the community like we need to.

We need to do better.

And it's not stop blaming each other because the Afro-American community, we can do better.

But it's not an Afro-American, it's not a Caucasian matter, it's a people matter.

And it's a community matter.

So, yeah, I experienced gunshots on my six to seven birthday.

I could have been some statistic, but thank God he covered me.

So happy birthday to you, sir.

Good evening, Council.

How you doing today?

Mayor.

I have some paperwork.

Is I don't know the formal format.

I come in today um on behalf of the youth.

I'm tired.

And I know y'all are tired too.

Something has to be done immediately.

We can't keep doing workshops and these things.

We have to we have we have to get to the source of the problem.

We have kids who don't have food.

We have kids to come outside to play.

And they raise bullets to get to the door.

To come outside and play and not know if they're gonna make it back home.

The rate as far as education for young people has to change.

There are several elements in a little package that I tried to work on and come up with the best of my knowledge.

Maybe something y'all can help me and we can collaborate or something, something has to be done.

But I would like to come up with a situation where I would like the youth employed working, giving back to the public some type of self-worth for themselves.

Booker T.

Washington came here in 1910.

And he visited a lot of southern states to see race relations.

And he came to Durham.

He said he came to Durham and he checked Durham out in Durham was very big and up and coming place.

He said, but a lot of times I go places and they put out the rings and bills for me, you know, make it look good.

He said, so I want to go to where the people stay.

So I went to Haytai.

He said on my way to Hata, I was thinking I would see dead dogs and things of, you know, like poverty.

He said he got to Hayta and he saw kids out there, clean kids playing in the yard and nice picket fences and clean yards.

And he said he really couldn't tell who was homeless or who was poor or who was rich in this town who called Durham.

That's a mighty thing to say for Durham.

When you can't tell, look like everybody's doing good.

Which one of y'all don't want everybody in Durham to do good?

To be prosperous.

Who wants to deal with the crime and stuff that we're dealing with right now?

Look out to do all the construction that's going up in this city.

No kids, nobody's that I know are on those sites.

So how can I say, yep, Durham is building Durham?

No, it's not.

Y'all are calling in corporations for these places, and y'all are not helping the youth and the people at all in Durham at all.

That's a problem.

You have some people that don't eat, they think about y'all, man, and they don't even vote.

They don't believe in nothing that y'all do.

Because it's all empty rhetoric.

Thank you, Mr.

Fryer.

It's all empty ready.

I just need somebody to help me do something for the youth in Durham.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon to each and every one of you all.

Afternoon.

As you're seeing the weather is changing, right?

Well, there's a sign downstairs that says no outside drinking.

But it doesn't explain why or what it's all about.

So when I came in here, I came in looking.

I see all these green cups and all this filling.

She got something different.

She brought in here, what she would be allowed to bring in here.

She got something what she allowed to be brought in here.

What she brought something, what she allowed to bring in.

Some of us brought some stuff where we allowed to bring in here.

Because you got a sign out there telling us that comes through that door, no outside drinking.

What that's supposed to mean.

Huh?

Watch what you put out.

Because this year, I'm coming after the bull that others of y'all are looking around not seeing.

Because guess what?

We don't understand what that means.

Because none of you all, nor your deputy managers, nor your directors come out into community and explain that to us when we come up here.

Because you know why?

Their salary is too high to come down in our area and talk to us like we're people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chavis.

Yes, I can.

Welcome.

You have three minutes.

Okay.

Well, uh, first of all, I was gonna I wanted to speak on a specific item on the agenda, but um, I'm just gonna go ahead and give my comments from listening to other speakers.

I see Miss No just spoke.

I highly agree with her.

Um I've watched some of the speakers, and unfortunately, it's almost like they come to this meeting and they speak, and it's just like they're hitting a brick wall because nobody's listening.

I would like to thank Councilwoman Burris because from day one since she was elected, she has been in our community.

She has been visible, she has been listening to the community, the people that most of the people around this table don't want to listen to.

So she has been coming in our community, so I would like to thank her for that.

But Mr.

Mayor, it is very problematic when I listen to what you say, but I don't see it put into action.

You talk about plans.

I haven't seen a plan yet.

In the 38 years that I've been on these streets of Durham talking and helping people, program after program, I have yet to see where hiring consultants to come into our community and tell us what we need and how to arrange and how to create impacts with our community.

The people that are down there now are the impactable people.

And when you say you want to have these sessions where you want community to come out, you don't really want the community to be involved in these sessions.

You want a select group of people to come that are not going to challenge you on your ideas, and those people, then you can go out and say we did something.

But nothing is going to work until you talk to the people that are closest to the pain.

When I heard the lady speak about the homeless encampments, do you know how many homeless encampments that I look at every day when I walk out the door every Wednesday and it never fails, there are fires that are being lit in the woods back here on the trail, and those fires get out of control, and I hear ambulance and I hear fire trucks and I smell it.

I smell it because these people have nowhere to go.

And the plan, if y'all have a plan, and I think it's what, like Trump said, is a concept of a plan, which means there's no plan.

If you have a plan, it's not working.

And to unveil a plan that where you bring in a consultant from Maryland, Maryland doesn't know what's going on in Durham.

I don't care what their background is and how much money you pay them.

That plan is not going to work until you include the people in the community.

And one of the last things I'm going to say is I was listening to something yesterday, and I'm going to address this about the sewer system out in East Durham that can't hold anymore.

You know what?

And no development should be taking place until after 2020, 2029.

But I did see where the council is considering given limited access to development.

I want to know what that limited is if the sewage can't hold anymore.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up.

That's for number 12.

I signed up for number 12.

Isn't there going to be a short presentation on number 12?

Oh, yeah, there will.

I had you for citizen comments, but if it's number 12, then I could.

I'm sorry.

I had you for just citizens' comments, but I can place it on a number 12.

So what was your intention?

You guys said yes.

Miss Peterson.

What is your preference?

Citizens Comment or number 12?

Both.

I would say citizen as well as number 12, please.

I misses Peterson Victoria Peterson.

I'm one of the political activists here in Durham, as well as a minister, an evangelist.

One of the things that I I just want to mention to the council, I was very disappointed in y'all the other day.

There was a meeting.

But you went upstairs.

Thank you, City Attorney.

She was there.

The planning director was there.

You folks call the meeting dealing with the zoning here in Durham.

We came.

There was probably over a thousand citizens, Mayor Williams.

But you folks did not come and address the public, even though my understanding, a day or two days before it, before the meeting, I was told that the meeting was canceled.

You sent out a letter stating that there was going to be a meeting to deal with the zoning and to talk about the zoning, about building.

No, Mr.

Mayor, I don't like when you do that.

Please, I try not to speak.

When you gentlemen and when you folks are speaking, I sit there quietly and I listen.

Go ahead.

Please don't do that.

Okay, when I'm speaking, please pay attention to what I'm saying.

If there's gonna be some rezoning on the properties here or the downside, downsizing the zoning and the development, if you're gonna call a meeting, don't cancel the meeting and the people we still show up.

Because you sent out a letter that there was going to be a meeting.

There was probably well over a thousand persons.

Now the uh planning director, I don't know if she's here today, but she did come.

She was there.

She did speak to some of the folks.

But what also concerns me that you folks were not there.

Who called the meeting, also?

Okay.

So I think some of us are very concerned about exactly what you're planning, the downsizing of the zoning, to build more houses on small lots and bill duplexes and all that.

But we're asking if you're going to call a meeting to deal with zoning, please don't cancel it, even though something might have come up from a law firm, but you never sent out a letter to state that the meeting were canceled.

And many of us came down here to hear what some of your concerns were, what some of your plans are for New Durham.

And thank you very much, uh, Mr.

Mayor.

Also, I just want to mention real real quick that when we're dealing with the zoning and some of the stuff that's going on now in the city.

If you come on Linwood, you go down Ridgway, a lot of building and development is going on.

So please look in into that.

Should I just go ahead and wait for the 12?

For number 12.

Yep.

And just uh thank you for that.

And that that wasn't rather uh complex matter.

Uh that was the planning commission's meeting as part of the rezoning of the UDO LDC process.

Um yes, they were legally advised to change that meeting to a public information meeting.

So uh council members were not expected to be there.

But somewhere we're gonna do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We we come all the time, but I I don't want you to think that we were required to be there, and then we just didn't show up.

It was not a meeting for the council.

That was uh planning commission meeting as part of a public hearing uh before we uh had to uh act in your best interest and not um get in legal troubles.

So all right.

Uh the uh person to sign up for item number can't remember which one it was.

15, I believe.

Gregor Williams was actually meant for uh public comment.

So you have three minutes.

How do you all?

Um happy birthday, Councilmember Copett.

I am here um with Bike Durham as uh just a shoulder for Mr.

Davis.

Um I'm here to offer my support.

He's handed me a paper to read of some more of his comments.

Um he says his son Isaiah died at 6.40 p.m.

on November 13th, 2025.

He had his state ID and credit cards on him.

Despite this, his family, including himself, Felicia Williams, Felicia Wilson, and their cousins were told for one hour and 20 minutes that there was no record of him.

After being told he was deceased, we were forced to wait another five hours before they could identify him.

Furthermore, the attending physician was disrespectful to them in their grief.

They demand an investigation into why it took seven hours and twenty minutes to respect their rights as parents, especially since they were waiting through a shift change while he was already identified.

He says if anyone would like to contact him for the full story.

Um he's working on the Isaiah's Protection and Safety Coalition for Human Lives, and you can email Guestroad Safety at gmail.com to send your comments and prayers to the family.

Um then there is a list of some folks who have been killed by reckless drivers here on our roads most recently.

Uh North Carolina State Highway Patrol Master Trooper, Stephen J.

Perry killed on March 1st, a Durham City Nurse and Marie Thrash killed on Guest Road.

Richard Ferguson Jr., 61 was killed in a hit and run on Chalk Level Road.

There was a car that crashed through the Starbucks lobby where people go to get coffee and breakfast.

There was someone named Sky Russiano, who is 46 years old, and he would like to see Gus Road have more patrol cars sitting at that intersection, radar signs for drivers and pedestrians, digital speed limit signs, flashing speed limit signs, and more slowdown signs for drivers that are speeding.

To that effect, I would say that our comments as they relate to the budget are always to advocate for more safety improvements, more ambitious designs, more ways to save lives in Durham.

This specifically brings up a memory that I had speaking at the sentencing hearing for the man who killed Cheryl LaRoba deer, who was a cyclist riding um along NC 98.

And just all of those improvements I think are critical.

And we would like to look at the definition of the high injury network if something like Guest Road is not qualifying for it.

And those are my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Councilmember Cook, uh item number 100 Hi Mr.

Mayor, members of council, my name is Selena Jones.

I'm with the Real Estate Division of General Services.

Hi.

Thank you for being here.

This might be a question for the manager, but I will um just address it and and let you all decide who wants to take it.

I've read the the memo this is a lot of money for space and it does feel like space tends to go not totally utilized in this building and other of our city owned buildings.

And so I'm curious about the decision to continue this rental for an extended time and also for quite a lot of money.

Obviously I know it's slightly below market rate but um it still is almost market rate we have property that we lease out for well below market rate.

It just seems convoluted to then have to acquire more property close to market rate and spend over two million dollars in five years.

So I'll defer that answer to Gina Propes, Deputy City Manager currently the Golden Belt lease includes um staff that are from community partnerships and engagement and we recently moved our audit department there there as well it's an opportunity to maximize the lease space we have it is considered class A space so we have evaluated the um the adequacy of the value as well as the ability to put um two departments in it to maximize usage of our of our space.

We also have reallocated folks that were in City Hall and we've swapped a lot of um uses based on the read organization remind you that at one point in time community safety excuse me housing and neighborhood services which was community development was on Rigsby Street and we have relocated them to City Hall.

We moved community safety to that building so that they would have adequate space to do their work as well as grow.

We continue to look at spaces in City Hall to maximize where we have our um our team members and where they're best suited for the communities and how they work.

Community partnerships and engagement works mainly in the community and having adequate space there for public meetings as well as security for those types of things assists with their um mission.

We do we do still have space here that we are evaluating through a space plan so that we can make sure that we right size um departments we do have some growth factor for some departments and we continue to um right size where folks are I would just add to DCM probes comments which were spot on that um at this time DCM Propes I I do not believe we have adequate spa sp space in City Hall that is unused that would accommodate these departments is that correct correct and uh while I would I I agree with the comment that not all the space in City Hall is utilized the process that DCM Propes identified it's very much intended to maximize the use of the space that we own by staff who need office settings and that I do believe on an ongoing basis we'll be maximizing the ability to decrease our footprint in leased space around the city to maximize our use of space here provided that that meets the operational needs of the departments that that are met.

So this comes as a recommendation from the administration that we believe is appropriate for our current space and time but I would want to acknowledge for council that that we are constantly looking at opportunities to move people into this space or to appropriate spaces that are city owned so that we don't have uh any more leases than we have to we did used to have uh double the space in Golden Belt so uh we have over our time reduced our commitment we also used to have space in the Venable uh center that we no longer maintain so we are trending in a downward direction in terms of lease space but we do still have it in our portfolio given that we are doing this uh space plan it sounds like that's in the works now why are we doing a five-year lease on this space um I would say it's typical and it creates a I would say it was it it's typical would you like to take this Selena?

It sounds like that's in the works now.

Um why are we doing a five-year lease on this space?

Um I would say it's typical and it creates a I would say it was it, it's typical.

Would you like to take this, Selena?

So we we met internally and um the needs that the department has in reference to some upgrades that the space needs for preferred utilization for community-facing opportunities financially.

A five-year lease makes sense for the the items that are in the list on the memo that are included in the upfit.

That's gonna be at no expense to the city.

So it's like baked into that five-year commitment.

So it reduces it reduced the rate.

Yeah, I mean, I I hear y'all.

I hear what we're saying.

Um this feels it just feels like we had this budget meeting um very recently we are strapped for money.

Um we have a department that doesn't really need full-time in-office space.

I understand the need for public engagement and space for that.

Uh, but they are out in the community quite a bit, so this doesn't feel like the same like need for permanency in offices.

Um and I also understand again that this is like slightly below market rate and that the improvements are included in the five years.

Uh it just is feeling like kind of a big dollar amount in this moment.

And um, yeah, especially knowing that we do have some space available in City Hall.

So um I I'm gonna ask that this move to GBA.

I'm just gonna I would maybe uh reach out to y'all and see if I can get a little bit more information on the amounts, but uh yeah, I'm gonna ask that this be moved to GBA for further discussion.

Sounds good.

Councilmember, uh, after the meeting, perhaps if you could share with me which spaces in City Hall, because uh uh that's not um immediately apparent to me, but obviously you've got some ideas and we'd love to hear them.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, however, is that the water wants to move 12 after 13?

12 is the agenda item 13 is the presentation.

Okay.

All right.

Uh we'll go ahead with item number 14, wastewater collection system capacity overview presentation.

I um, all right.

And as we're preparing, I'm going to call for the comments to come up.

Uh first I have Thomas Hennessy, followed by Trans Perry and John Warcilla.

It's coming.

It's coming.

No.

I don't want to stab it better to No.

I'm going to address comments first and then we'll do the presentation.

All right.

It's it's tough to address the comments until we don't know the plan, we don't know a plan of action.

We've I've had wonderful conversations with Mr.

Joyner, but I think I could speak a lot of people in this room where we don't really know much, which is why we're all here.

So is it okay if we speak after?

Yeah, okay.

Good.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr.

Thank you so much.

Greeley.

Good afternoon, uh Don Greeley uh water management.

Um good afternoon, Mayor, uh members of council, um happy birthday, Councilmember Kopek.

Um we're here to talk about um several things um related to the wastewater collection system and capacity.

Um comments have uh been addressed to us about um how the city has invested, how we got to the situation with the Goose Creek LTI, and you know, and what are our solutions?

So I hope to answer all of those questions today um to the best extent of uh the possible.

Um we realize the impact of the the how something like the Goose Creek LTI does to the community and specifically the development community and the residents.

So um we hope to address all of those comments in our discussion today.

Um I would like to let everybody know that since the inception of the sewer collection system rehabilitation program, which started out in 1986.

The city has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the renewal and replacement and potentially upsizing of our collection system.

And we do have hundreds of millions of dollars programmed over the next 20 years to continue to invest in our collection system.

So today I'm going to be talking a little bit about uh the regulatory requirements about the surrounding collection system, uh the rehabilitation program, talk about capacity, what our action plan is, talk a little bit about what our letters of industry, and then get into specifics about the Goose Creek letter to industry.

Um as far as regulatory requirements, um, we work under um several statutes and or permits, um the North Carolina Administrative Code and the North Carolina General Statutes.

Um we specifically have a wastewater collection system permit issued by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Um our current permit is was issued in 2018.

It's due to expire this summer.

We have already submitted our renewal application in December.

Um we work under that permit.

Specifically, in that permit, it states that the collection system shall be effectively managed and maintained and operated at all times to prevent discharge to land or surface waters.

What does that mean?

That we operate the system to prevent wastewater from leaving our collection system and spill on the ground, which is commonly referred to as a sanitary sewer overflow or an SSO.

Um it also states in that permit that we will implement a capital improvement program, designate funding for reinvestment into the collection system infrastructure, and specifically target wherever we have identified any deficiencies in the system.

So under that permit, we have to manage our system to avoid SSOs and continue to reinvest in our collection system to address deficiencies and or growth that we anticipate in the future.

Um we are also a self-permitting community for the utility.

What that means is water and sewer permits for water and sewer extensions.

Um the city has a uh a permitting program currently in planning and development.

We have had that since the late 1990s on the water and sewer side, and that allows the development community to apply to us for their permits for extensions rather than apply to the State.

And that is a benefit to the development community because we can process those permits much quicker than the State, because the State is getting permits from all the systems.

So we're a designated community.

But part of that application process is that we need to state that we have the capacity in our system to be able to transport that wastewater from wherever it's discharged into our system to our treatment plants.

So that is required for us to say that we have capacity on that permit.

Um as far as the risks that if we don't comply with that, um, we'll continue to have larger sanitary sewer overflows, which potentially could be lead to large fines from DEQ.

Um it could also threaten our continuance of having a self-permitting program.

Um it could lead to impacts to our new permit, potentially, having additional requirements that weren't there before.

And certainly it we would come under the scrutiny of DEQ and EPA.

And you know, we we certainly don't want to move into the territory of getting a judicial order of consent and what that might impact because there's um we feel that we can manage our system effectively to be able to do that.

So we want to avoid all of those risks.

So when talk about the sewer rehabilitation program, we started uh, you know, the sewer system, we have an old system, or one of the first collection systems in North Carolina.

Um, some of the older lines that aren't there now, but we because we replaced them, were built in the 1880s.

Um we also have one of the first the first water treatment plan in North Carolina.

Our system has over 1,200 miles of line.

We have 44,000, over 44,000 manholes in our system, um, 66 lift stations, 57 miles of force mains.

Um the city has is separated into kind of three basins.

There's the North Basin, which all of that area flows to the North Durham water reclamation facility, which discharges into False Lake, the South Basin, eventually all that wastewater goes to our South Durham water reclamation facility, and that discharges into Jordan Lake.

And then the Triangle Basin, which is where there's a treatment plant operated by Durham County.

Part of that, as you see in the lower right hand corner, kind of the western side of that basin are lines that are actually owned and maintained by the City of Durham.

So as I mentioned, our program started in 1986.

The first couple of years were really focused on where we saw sanitary sewer overflows in our system.

And once we got past that first four or five years of identifying those locations and building those fixes, we then started focusing on moving around our system to re to renew and replace our oldest lines.

And those old lines were of vitrified clay.

They are subject to cracking and they're shorter pieces of pipes, so there's a lot more joints, so there's a lot of joint failure with those, and those cracks and failures allow roots to grow into the sewer system, which cause blockages and further degrade the pipe.

So our methodology as we started this program was to go into an area, uh do clean the lines, perform a close source closed circuit, closed circuit television inspection of all the lines in that area, do some smoke testing, and then based on all of those results, we would make the repairs.

So we did point repairs, um full line replacements, which are from manhole to manhole.

Um we used cured in place technology, which puts a structural liner inside the pipe, and that um also eliminates all the cracks, and that also allows us to do those repairs from the manholes and not have to dig up the street to do the point repairs.

Um and we also did manhole rehabilitation.

Um as you can see here, um, right up uh in the middle here, I'm trying to right here is a snapshot of what a the TV inspection shows, and you can see those cracks in the line of the clay line.

Um as you can see, the light below that is uh that big uh can't really work too well, but in the center there where it says before, that's a big mat of roots that have thrown into the sewer line.

And then the after is what we've uh um where that lining has been put in after we cut out the roots and then put the lining in.

And on the right side is us how it looks when we actually are putting the lining into the manholes.

On the lower left is digging down and repairing broken lines.

So um we st uh uh our overall collection system is broken up into 45 sub-basins.

So as I mentioned, we started in the um in the middle of the city, because that's our oldest lines.

Um, and that gives you the the yellow there is where the Goose Creek Basin is.

Just a point of reference.

You'll see that as I click through the next couple of slides.

So as we from 1990, when we started looking at basin, it's kind of sub-basin from sub basin.

Um, we went into the basin and did all of that work.

So you can see the first two basins um were done just to the west of the Goose Creek Basin.

Um I'm gonna walk you through this basin in particular.

Um that was one of the first ones we did.

That was the Duke Branch outfall basin.

Um that line, that basin, as you can see here, the the red star is City Hall, to give you some perspective.

Um, and the sewer system that's in that basin, which is within the red.

So anything in red, we did an open cut and we replaced everything in orange was the the liner.

Um yellow is a patch repair where it's not a full line or manhole to manhole.

We could just put that liner in a portion of the line.

The blue is where we did a point repair.

The orange, the orange circles are where we did manhole rehabilitation.

And at that time, um, the Durham Center was now a project that was coming into Durham.

So they were going to propose the two towers.

They only built one, of course, but that was going to add a significant amount of flow to that basin.

So we looked at what the existing conditions were, and we replaced the main outfall through that basin.

That outfall goes just short of 85 near Northgate and runs all the way through the old ballpark into downtown.

So we actually replaced that and upsized that line.

Um we also at that point had to take into account the discharge from Ligat Myers because they were discharging around a half a million gallons a day during about an hour's worth of time around noontime, because that's when their process flow discharged.

So we had to take that into account.

So we followed the same methodology as we started.

Oh, one last um point.

Some of the how we determined kind of how the capacity was is we had a network of uh flow meters at the bottom of each of these subbasins.

That little kind of rectangular object at the top of the pipe there and the band that's connected to it is the flow meter.

It measures the depth of flow and the velocity that goes through the pipe.

So we had information as far as, and that's what the graph is there showing.

Um it showed how much flow was coming through the pipe, but only at that specific point.

We didn't have a model.

Um we had a lot of system knowledge.

So that's kind of, and we knew the comprehensive plan at the time.

So that's how we determined the capacity.

Mr.

Beeley, can you say so is that measuring like just a visual measure, or is that actually some kind of it's a measurement, actual measurement of the depth of the measuring the height the height of the flow and the velocity.

And the two the graph the top, the top is the height and the bottom is the velocity in that graph.

So we then, after we finished those two basins, we started to expand out from downtown.

As you can see, we we went into the Goose Creek basin on the western side, um, because that is actually Goose Creek um basin is has two solar smaller subbasins in that.

So we did the west side.

Um once again, we did all of the point repairs, line replacements after the TV inspection.

Um, so all of that renewal that was in that area.

And after we got done with them, we started to move out a little bit to the west.

We went way out to the west because we were having a capacity issue at a um in that area that is north of 15501 near the county line with a Garrett Road List station.

So we needed to study that area to determine why it was um getting near capacity.

And then we moved to the greater downtown area and we did the eastern side of the Goose Creek Basin.

Once again, doing all of the TV work, all of the line replacement, port repairs, manhole rehabilitation.

Um we also uh uh identified two and a half miles of the main sewer outfall that needed to be replaced, um, which we did during that time.

And then towards the you know, late 2000s, the early 2010, South Point Mall started to that area started to really develop and explode.

So we started to move in that direction.

Um a lot of that infrastructure was originally um built during as a result of the 1985 annexation of the southwest Durham, and a lot of that infrastructure that was built out in that area was sized for the then comprehensive plan, which everything south of I-40 was rural density.

So um when all that infrastructure was built.

So we started looking at that to figure out, okay, now what kind of uh because it's of course it turned into South Point Mall and everything else around it.

So we had to um now look at what needed to be done as far as replacing the infrastructure there.

Around the mid, uh around 2015-ish, around in there, umtown started to really develop.

Um we were seeing a lot more development downtown.

We were seeing a lot of development in um East Durham in what we call the Southeast Regional Lift Station area, which is south of 98, north of 70.

Um, we started looking at both what we needed to do downtown and what we oh, I'm sorry, one last slide.

We also with all of those assessments, we did a full assessments of all the lift stations and all of those areas.

Um we started to look at what was what we needed to do in downtown as well as out in the uh Southeast Regional Lift Station area.

Um we developed the Southeast Regional Lift Station Project to serve all of that area.

Um we started working in downtown the green area, the Durham downtown area was built with the initial street improvements.

We built Durham Central Park, we've built the first half of American tobacco, the second part of American tobacco is under construction now.

Um parts of East Durham have been done, where that's a phased project, and the we just started the first phase of the West End project.

So we're working in downtown and then working um out in the Southeast regional lift station area to bring all of those improvements to to Durham to try to get out in front of all of the development.

But there was also a big change in philosophy in around 2015, the then senior manager, Tom Baumfield shifted um a policy shift that went from the city taking care of its infrastructure and development, paying for all the upsizing of all the development to for these larger projects, he he felt that the city should bear the burden of replacing those lines.

And that that is a huge policy shift that impacts us because, you know, our projects are so long, they're very expensive, they're planned out well in advance.

And all of a sudden now to shift some of these project responsibilities to the city and bear the burden for the planning, you know, it we knew there was going to take us a little bit to get out in front of what was what was happening in Durham.

Can you state that sort of shift again towards clear?

Sure.

There is a shift in policy prior to around that time, I don't know the I don't remember the exact date, right?

But around that time, um all new development if it mandated an increase of capacity, all that burden was put on development if it wasn't already programmed by the city.

That was that was the old that was the old that was the old and the new is that the new is that these major projects to get out in front of the city out in front of development is now our responsibility.

So and we can we've done that we've built a new pressure zone and around Southeast Regional Station.

We built the Southeast station we're about to advertise the construction of the replacement of some of those pump stations that are in and around Southwestarm.

So that took us roughly there, so that was a big shift for us.

So we want to now shift to talking about collection system capacity.

Late in the 1910s or so, you know, 19, you know moving into the 20 the 2025 we realized that with this shift one of the tools that we really needed that was now available to us was the development of a full hydraulic model of our collection system.

So but to to have one of the inputs into that model is you need to under you have to have a full understanding of your existing infrastructure, what the existing flows are, what the projected population growth is, what the projected land use is, which is the comp plan we needed the comp plan information to be able to program into our long range water resources plan that would then go into the the model development.

We take into seasonal and daily demands because the flow, you know, in the morning in the middle of the night the flow is real low, everybody wakes up, the flow goes really high, and then it drops down and then when everybody comes home around five o'clock the flow goes up and we have you know it also varies the type of year.

Also the community outreach so when we're looking at planning we're just talking to RTP, we're talking to NCCU, we're talking to Duke University, we're talking to DDI all about their future plans as well as our you know of course planning and development and potentially economic development department here where we can to get information to so we can better plan our infrastructure.

And we look at our from our all of our planning horizons are 20 to 50 years out depending on what it is across the department.

So and of course we have to take into account any new regulations that we have so and on and also on the wastewater side we have to look at lift stations and force mains do we need to build new ones the topography of the land um what manola information we have high cap high priority lines from which are lines that are either crossing a creek or going along a creek and what that means to that needs to be taken into account on the water side we have system pressure flow, fire flow, storage, water quality interconnects but I'm just focusing on wastewater today.

So for our you know for the past five years we have been developing this hydraulic model that as I mentioned before we just had a flow monitor at the low point in the basin.

So now we were actually modeling all the major lines that go up into these sub basins everything 10 inches and larger and key eight inch lines in all of these basins.

So we have developed the North Basin and we have developed the South Basin model and we are finishing with Durham County the triangle basin model and that should be done this summer.

So as part of that model there's a lot of field information that needed to be done we have a GPS location for every single manhole that's in the model we have an elevation of the rim we have an elevation of the invert which is the at the bottom of the manhole where the sewer is flowing through the size of the line and we had to put a lot of additional flow monitors to do all of the calibration of the model.

There's the current wastewater flow, right?

That's the existing flow that's in there now.

Um there's there's a certain amount that's allocated to the peak flows as I talked to you about the daily flow of the wastewater, because we have this big spike in the morning and a not quite as big a spike at um around you know five to seven.

Um but we also have large spikes um during storm events.

Um to give you uh an idea, you know, our wastewater plants right now, north and south, um, have flow around 10 MgD coming into the plant every day, millions of gallons a day.

During a heavy storm, the flow into the plant could spike up to 50 or 60 million gallons a day.

So our our sewer lines have to be able to take that line, take that waste, that inflow from the storm event and move it to the treatment plant.

Otherwise, it's gonna spill out on the ground cost of NSSO.

So there's also capacity that we have allocated, but it's not tributary, and what that means is that that's that's projects that have permits that are under construction.

But there's we have to take those into account.

And once we take those three um into account, then whatever is left is the remaining capacity for growth.

Okay.

And the individual and the individual um line depends on the diameter, the slope, the smoothness, et cetera.

And we also have for the lift stations, we have to take into account the flow and other things as well.

So the inputs are on the left, the outputs on the right.

So the outputs tell us what our system looks like today, in the next five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and where there could be some potential sanitary sewer overflows.

Um the graph on the right is the long-term capital program of the improvements that we need to make in the in the South Basin.

The map in the middle is the basins that have the lines that have been identified for all the improvements that we need to make over the next 20 years in the North Basin.

And the picture on the on the left, um actually this is a more zoomed-in model, and that's a model run that shows the um where it's green, it means there's good capacity.

When there's yellow or orange, that's either coming to capacity.

Um the dots show where potential SSOs could happen.

So when we developed this model, we knew we had some issues in our system.

We were expecting the results to come back to say, hey, here's some basins that are getting near capacity.

We were not expecting to have the model results show us that we had a basin that was now at capacity.

And we then did the field verifications to actually show that did the model the results that we see, did that actually reflect what's going on.

And we came to the conclusion that yes, um Goose Creek was at capacity.

Um it also identified some individual reaches here and there across the system that had some slope constraints that are potentially issues that we might need to address.

Um the tools that we have now to also help us manage this model as we go forward is a new tool that we have that will be able to use a software program that allows us to load in as developments come in into the model, run the model with proposed developments, either through the preliminary process into the final um approvals before they go while it's under construction, and then as new developments come in, layer that on top of that so we can fully track the capacity that are in our system across our whole system.

So we're real excited about having that ability.

So our just our next steps, um, realizing that we identified three major projects that needed to be done, and um, you know, we already have a pretty heavy load for our capital program.

Um we hired the uh we recommended hiring HDR, which you just approved Monday night, um, to bring in as our project manager um to help manage these projects.

Um we've advertised and received proposals on the design of all three of these outfall projects.

Um and we're discussing right now scoping and how we can accelerate the design, and you should be um seeing those in the next coup upcoming agenda cycles to award those contracts.

And we've also, of course, uh programmed the 20-year CIP with the results of the model to be able to get out in front of all of this.

So we've, you know, Kinley Horn is the consultant we selected for Goose Creek, CDM for LAB Creek, and um McKimman Creed for Lick Creek.

So and those are the estimates of the 30 million for Goose Creek, is what we're expecting to spend, anticipated to spend.

Some of the design and construction challenges, because there was a lot of discussion about why does it take so long?

Well, first of all, we're going through an urban corridor that's already developed to replace these sewer outfalls.

We have to deal with the existing sewer as we build the replacement sewers.

So that gets very complicated.

We're going to have uh in the lower sections of Goose Creek, we're going to have two interstate crossings.

We're going to have easement acquisitions that we'll have to require.

One of the things that we have discussed with our design consultants is have early outs of the easement plots so we can start negotiations with the property owners as soon as possible while the design continues.

So talking about letters of industry in general, we don't like to issue letter of industry.

We want to be able, you know, as I said, there was that shift in 2015, so we're still trying to get out in front of that policy change.

Um we hope to with this project and the next those other two projects to be able to get out in front.

Um but we have issued letters to industry in the past, and that's as I said, usually the it's required when the growth happens faster than it was predicted.

Um we restrict the sewer discharge until the capacity becomes available.

We have issued three of those in the past.

Recent examples were Eno Basin, which is in the north.

Um we it was an outfall that and then we had the Givens and the Celeste lift stations that needed replaced to make bigger to allow development to happen.

Some of that window from 19 to 24 is extended, of course, just remember the middle of that everything slowed down during COVID, so those projects all took longer because of that.

Um to receive LTIs by email or sign up for the newsletter, um, as I know it is covered by the closed caption, but that's the um uh email or the link to be able to sign up for the and we we knew that um you know, we when we did the Goose Creek LTI, we followed the same process as the previous LTIs that that went out to the Home Builders Association, we realized that wasn't necessarily it didn't hit a lot of the audience that we uh some audience or you know, the community that needed to.

So we've had discussions with planning and development about closing those gaps to be able to, when we issue new LTIs, or they issue LTIs or other departments have to issue LTIs that they can, you know, receive those when they come out.

Just a quick question on that.

Are you saying that in order for someone to receive the letter that you have to have signed up?

Yes.

And is that reflective of every property owner in that wherever they affected the process?

No, it's mostly goes to the home builders association.

Um at the end of the presentation, we can ask um the planning director to come up and she can talk more about who gets that, who's that distributed to, if you'd like.

And we don't have a working relationship with the uh the uh, not clerk of court, but no, it's the uh the keeper of record for properties register of deeds.

Um we have not gone that far in the past.

If that's a direction that you would like for us to go to, we'd be happy to look at that as well.

I'm just gonna not take that if if you know we are in this situation where we have to inform everyone, especially considering what we have to do with downzoning, that might be a uh uh a better approach, or at least getting as many records as we can so that we can get it to people who are affected.

I'm I've just been getting a lot of correspondence that, hey, what is this letter to the industry?

I didn't get one, right?

And they may not be signed up, uh, especially if it's going to affect uh I don't want to catch anyone by surprise.

Absolutely.

And we don't want any that to happen either.

So we will we'll welcome other other ways to communicate it out in the future.

Right.

And I get that for residential goes out through the homeowners association is one sort of one vehicle, but for non-residential is the chamber, does it go out through the chamber or the LTIs?

Well, let me ask Sarah to come up to answer that question.

Well, even still with either association, the membership organizations, not everyone may be a member.

Good afternoon, Sarah Young with planning and development.

Um I would need to check and see who is signed up.

That is a voluntary list that people sign up for.

Um so I don't know off the top of my head if the chamber is signed up for that list.

Um we could certainly uh reach out to some organizations like the chamber to see if they are interested in being on that list.

And we can certainly, I think four things that are uh property specific, like this LTI was.

Some LTIs are general about construction specifications in general that apply broadly, but for specific property-related LTIs, we certainly could look at um doing mail outs.

Um there would be a budgetary impact, and we would have to work on you know how to cover that, but um that is definitely an improvement that could be made.

Thank you.

You can you can uh continue.

Thank you, sir.

Um so talking specifically about the Goose Creek lighter industry, um of course um it restricts um development within the whole basin.

Um we hope to get phase one done um by 2029.

Um that would actually free up what is shown in purple, which is the kind of the east side and the west side um and allow development to move forward there.

And then phase two for the middle section there um needs to be dependent on the phase two construction.

So um what can move forward right now?

Well, um anything that prior to the issuance of the LTI, if uh projects had a construction drawings approval permit, those projects are allowed to move forward, and any existing building permits that were are already issued could move forward.

Um any proposed housing development that has equal or less flow.

So if you're tearing down a house and putting a new house in, um as long as you are not increasing the number of bedrooms by more than one, um those projects would be able to move forward.

Um larger projects or smaller projects that can flow outside the basin, either by a pump station can go.

Um and then projects whose completion timelines allow with the completion of the project would be allowed to move forward.

So last slide or coming up.

Um what will have to be phased projects that do not have permits, building permits that were issued, building permits that are requested after the LTI that are big that increase the flow and any projects that increase flow will have to be phased.

Um currently we have had uh over 20 developers have had outreach to us with roughly 69 projects.

Um we've in current discussion with most of those developers now.

Um at the time of the submittal for the agenda, it we had 12 projects that were able to move forward.

Um we now have 14 projects that were allowed to move forward fully, and 11 projects that were allowed to move forward partially, because they met those criteria.

Um we've had two projects that we could not move forward because of uh the requirements, and we're still reviewing the others.

Um for anybody who would like to reach out to us, um you can read by there's our contact email.

It's also on our uh webpage, the water management web page DWM development inquiry at Durham NC.gov.

And then the other two basins very quickly, um last two slides.

Um the LRB Creek is at 78 percent capacity.

Um that was already on our list of projects because we had the those two, there are two twin 30-inch lines, and they were in poor condition.

We had some pipe failures on those, so we were already kind of programming that to be replaced.

But it has a remaining capacity of about 4.8 million um gallons per day.

That equivalent is about 8,600 um three-bedroom units that could be built before it would be at capacity.

Certainly the Northgate Mall is one project, a larger project that potentially could happen within that basin.

Um based on the current development in that basin, you know, we're not expecting um that basin to be at capacity for you know five to ten years, and we expect to have that project done well before that.

Um the other basin, the Lake Creek basin is at 67 percent.

Um that is the equivalent of 2375 three bedroom units.

And once again, based on the current development pace that's in that basin, we expect that to be built at capacity sometime in between five and ten years, and we should have our project complete before that.

So we don't anticipate any problems in either of those two other basins.

All the other basins are in good shape at this time, although we do have uh that 20-year CIP to look at.

And with that, any questions?

Many, I'm sure.

Yes.

Councilmember Cut.

I just I actually want to qu ask a question about that, just that last slide real quickly.

Um or the last two, I guess.

So I was gonna ask, and I know that you all have a consultant now that's gonna do help you all with project management.

So you might not have the answers to all those questions, but um it sounds like with the construction we already have planned, we will not at all at any point reach capacity.

So we only put out these LTIs when we are at 100 percent capacity, not when we're closer.

Is there a different threshold?

Um We haven't been at the point where it's been our where our project and the what anticipated um uh capacity would, you know, that that they would overlap.

That they would overlap.

Okay.

But I I think now that that's a very good point is that you know we'll need to maybe when we see this, which is one of the reasons why we brought these two basins up, is to be both build more awareness and report out on these basins of where we where we are.

Yeah, I think that the question that immediately comes to mind is like prioritization because I see that we're in the estimated end of phase one uh for Goose Creek is four years, and phase two is five years, and then you're I'm hearing you say like these aren't at capacity, but we'll be within five years.

I know then we're also working on them at the same time, both LRB Creek and Lake Creek, but um I also heard you say that we hadn't projected, we're playing out in the CIP for all of these projects.

So I I guess I'm like, could you just clarify this time frame that you're talking about and like where and are we needing to be concerned about these other basins?

Um first of all, Goose Creek is at capacity, right?

Because that that that as I said was a surprise to us.

Um but we're we're gonna be doing everything we in our power to try to like accelerate that.

And that's what we're in discussions with our engineers about how they can accelerate the design and also when can we start to actually advertise those projects, right?

And then how can we, with the construction, is there a way to either incentivize or phase or put requirements of a certain number of crews have to be working, or can we segment the work so multiple crews can be working at the same time?

So will we be working all that?

Umticipating that where else is there a problem, because we have a problem here.

I've included the LRB and the Lick Creek just to show that you know there are two other areas of concern through on our watch list, we have them programmed in to replace before the capacity is grown.

Okay, and so those were already in.

We had already budgeted for the We were already working on the LRB Creek was a new area.

And also in Lick Creek, we kind of like knew that it was going to be.

That had already been programmed in, but not where it is now in the CIP.

It was a little further out.

Okay.

So we're moving some up, and then we're adding in this new screen.

Which was a surprise.

Yes.

Okay.

I'm probably gonna have some more questions, but thank you for that.

That's helpful.

I threw a lot of adjective.

Before we get too deep into comments, let me get the residents' comments and then come back to uh counsel.

All right, I'll start online.

Ms.

Stanback, can you hear me?

Donna Stanback, can you hear me?

Okay.

It just popped up and said I'm Okay, there you go.

Uh welcome.

You have three minutes.

Welcome.

Well, I hope I don't take that long.

But thank you for this opportunity.

Um so from what I was hearing uh is the projects that are planned or approved have already been factored into the capacity for these three um um watersheds or our um areas.

Um is so and I got some others, so uh, and I know some of them may not be answered today.

Uh my understanding were that the developers were to pay for capacity issues for their projects.

Is that uh correct?

Um I'd like to better understand the areas for uh Luke Creek and Um Ellabre Creek.

There was a very good map that got down to the street level that I saw for Goose Creek.

So that was kind of what I was looking for.

I've been searching, but maybe I can get a little help finding.

Um can we get a listing of all the areas uh as far as their capacities that were um uh evaluated um that's that's the majority of my questions, and thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms.

Standback staff that we copy those questions.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving to in-person.

Uh Thomas Hennessy.

Tom Hennessy.

Followed by Transperi.

All right.

Welcome here.

Three minutes.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

Manager, members of council.

Um clearly the growth in Durham over the last 10 to 15 years is tremendous.

And I I think city staff is doing an absolutely amazing job.

I mean, managing and handling that growth, it's hard to be perfect.

Nobody's perfect.

I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, you're not perfect.

No one's perfect.

But I mean already, Mr.

Rob Joyner reached out a few times.

We've had absolutely wonderful conversations, just personal conversations and then pro conversations about our projects.

And I know that we all share a love and respect for Durham.

I know we all care.

I know we want the best.

But in this situation, it is extremely and terribly frustrating.

I mean, Madam Attorney, this borderline almost amounts to an unconstitutional taking of property rights.

There was absolutely no notice, right?

No due process.

Basically, this letter, a letter to industry, like you know, the news said, like, who is the industry?

I I don't know.

I was literally designing the cottage court, one of the first cottage courts, I think, uh in the urban terrain of Durham over on North Got 3, which we're obviously super excited.

My business partner, Matt's here today.

He's a resident of Durham.

He walks by, he drives by it every day.

It's amazing.

Ideals is one of the best sandwich stops in in the whole country, right?

I could just imagine building these homes, walking to an amazing sandwich.

Just great things.

And all of a sudden we're designing it, talking to the landscape architecture, and my friend sends me uh an email and it says, Hey, did you hear about this letter?

I said, No.

I start reading it.

I'm like, oh my goodness.

This is crazy.

Mr.

Manager, all due respect, right?

You send letters when we forget to cut the grass, you send letters.

Right?

Mr.

Manager, I have a tenant move out, and you know, a couch furnishing is left outside.

Okay, we don't do bulk pickup, no one called.

You send a letter.

And then if I don't act quick enough, you come over and do it.

You send a lien on my property, 400 bucks, whatever it is.

You send letters out.

Oh, we're doing the new UDO LDC, we send letters out.

You have the ability to send letters out.

You didn't.

Okay?

No notice.

That is extremely concerning, because it's not just here, it's other parts of the city, clearly.

And you know, lack of transparency, lack of trust, that's huge for any city on any issue.

I mean, the trust issue, the timing, and yes, we you know, we have a lot committed, a lot of energy, a lot of time committed to this.

I know you say three, four years, 2029, 2030.

Think about the other projects that are going on under your supervision.

They're not necessarily happening at that very quick speed.

I know Carl talks about it often.

It's it's a bit of a concern, and we don't know when things will get done.

I really, really true.

I have 10 seconds left.

I love everything we do.

I know we're on the same team, and I know together we can fix this issue together.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Transperi?

Welcome.

Yes.

Followed by John Warcilla.

Hello, Mayor Williams, uh, counsel, uh city manager.

Um I've been in residential development since 2010 here in Durham, born and raised in Durham.

Uh started with renovating historic homes over in Cleveland Holloway.

Um, transitioning to single family spec houses and currently smaller scale developments and eventually into multifamily commercial projects.

Uh I've seen firsthand the growth of Durham.

Um key word growth.

And you know, no surprise.

You know, you know, no surprises, like, you know, for me, you know, in the past 10 years.

You know, I've been in for 15.

The past 10 years has been, you know, this way.

And in response to the memo dated December 19th, 2025, regarding the Goose Creek outfall, sanitary sewer basin improvement.

Um I own property at 203 Mallard, 205 Mallet, 214 Mallet, 713 Mallard, 601 Gurley, and the find that my ability to develop any new construction is severely hindered until 2029, if not further.

Um this was this is a significant hardship for you know, for for me, for me to provide for my family, grow my business.

Furthermore, the short note is provided by the memo and the fact that no direct mailings were sent to property owners is highly unacceptable.

It should not be the responsibility of property owners to bear the consequences of the city's overcapacity issues with the Goose Creek outfall.

Furthermore, I have attempted to contact public words.

People, you know, they they really didn't know what was going on.

Like now we have the email, so I can reach out and you know inquire about it.

But I urge you, you know, I urge that the property owners within the Fed area any will be issue any feature building permits.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next up, John Warcello, followed by Blake Anderson.

Uh council, staff, mayor, thanks for having us.

Um I just wanted to start by saying somehow I was lucky enough to get on that list, and I did get the letter.

And I was pretty shocked when I got it.

Um primarily because we had a project over at uh Miami and Hoover, about 23 acres that had gone through a two-year process with the city, uh Planning Commission approval, council commission approval, um, and we're well on our way to taking that to market when all of a sudden this letter hit.

So that that project is effectively dead in the water.

And the only reason we found out about that was because another project we're deeply involved in over at uh Garland, which is uh South Driver and Peabody was going through the review process, and that's where it got flagged.

And our consultant said, hmm, that's interesting.

Can you scroll up the screen a little bit and what about this area, which happened to be the Hoover area?

And sure enough, he said, Oh, yeah, that's got a problem too.

So to say we were caught by surprise is is the understatement of the year.

Um of the things I'd like to do is express that this, I mean, obviously we're working on this from our perspective, but it affects an entire part of the city, as you can see.

And I would like everyone who's been affected or impacted by this who's here today to stand up.

So while I'm here speaking, this speaks for a much broader pool than just our projects.

And it's going to take everybody involved in it to get it fixed, because a five-year solution does not work.

I mean, I'm sure a lot of these people will go out of business.

We're going to struggle mightily.

And the pool that you're working with here is all local Durham investors.

We are not some big out-of-town developer who's come in to try and, you know, rebuild an entire part of the city.

We're local people who are working from the ground up to revitalize neighborhoods that have seen no improvement for decades, and we're fortunate enough to be able to get our hands involved in it and improve it, only to find that stop.

You can't improve it because canonly, in my opinion, the city hasn't done the work it needs to have done to maintain a system that can support local people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues.

Uh those are all of the sign-ups that I have.

Oh, yeah, Blake Anderson, that's right.

Welcome, you have three minutes.

Yeah, thank you for allowing me to speak.

I think it's worth um painting a picture of what it felt like as a developer when we learned the news.

We've heard a lot of stats, statistics, the sewer needs replaced.

I appreciate that.

Um the eight sites in the Grease Creek area represents what will be 86 units and 166 beds.

A sizable component of that will be affordable housing.

Uh the letter was issued on a website that most of us don't know about.

It was issued on December 19th.

And if you check your calendar, that's the Friday before the Christmas holiday.

So none of us really heard about it until January, when everybody had gotten back to work.

And I'm meeting with the pr uh civil engineer about one of these projects who said, I've just checked this website for the first time since getting back.

I think you need to check this letter.

And the letter basically states that all eight of these sites, all 86 of these units will be on hold for the next five years.

Now, have you considered the damages that a small company like mine now holds because I own all this property that I now can't develop and I can't sell either.

And the hundreds of thousands of dollars that not just myself, but other people in the room have spent to design projects that now we've been told five-year wait and you can't sell your project because it can't be built upon.

So Neil is to say it was the shock of the year, and I doubt there's anyone that's been affecting this room that hasn't thought about this other day, every day to think, wow.

I mean, I I I didn't get a letter in the mail.

I didn't get an email, but they knew it was coming and they didn't even tell me.

Like how many of these lots would I not have bought?

How many of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of design fees would I have not have paid for, knowing that I've got five years to hold on to something that isn't going to be relevant for a while and no compensation for it?

It's uh rather discouraging, to say the least.

In other towns, I get proactive emails from the other cities all the time.

When they have anything going on with their portal or UDO change or whatever, if you pulled a building permit for any reason in any of the other municipalities, you get an email.

And they're thinking about things.

Most of the stuff doesn't involve me.

I get an email.

I pulled hundreds of building permits in Durham.

I've owned dozens of properties in Durham and have been building in Durham for 20 years.

My email address goes back in the city for 20 years.

I don't, I mean, Raleigh sends me an email, and I built a quarter of the amount of properties in Raleigh.

So I think the biggest disappointment is that the city knew it was coming, even if it was a mistake, and yet there wasn't uh proactive involvement or conversation.

It really wasn't the um surprise we were looking for after Christmas.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Those are all of my items.

And I'll now address any council comments.

Councilmember Baker.

Thank you, Director Greeley for laying out all the context for us.

That was a lot of history and geographic context, so I appreciate that.

Um it's uh it's a complex issue.

Uh I've got a few questions here.

Um can you so this is going to be in the CIP.

So the folks who pay for these upgrades, and you talked a little bit about the change in policy in 2015, not the details on what exactly that is, but you said the change in policy shifted from developers paying for upgrades to the city getting out ahead and anticipating growth and making those upgrades.

Does that involve does that involve developers then down the line paying back portions incrementally, or is that uh burden completely on taxpayers?

Um in the case of the Southeast Regional Lift Station, um, once again, we were a little bit more out in front with that.

We established the Southeast Regional Lift Station area, and that required any new development to pay a fee in addition to the normal fees for development, uh a specific fee to reimburse the city for the construction of that lift station and force main.

Um we expected, based on the current growth, we expected to be the city to be reimbursed for the cost of that project, which when we build the second phase of the force main should be around 60 million.

Um, and that uh we expected a 20-year payback for the city currently with that project, we're we're ahead of that right now.

Um we have we did not propose anything as of yet, although we've been talking internally in water management about whether we should bring something to the city manager's office.

So that's certainly something we can engage with the city manager's office about any potential creating areas around this for potential payback for the Trevor Burrus.

And this is only kind of tangentially related, but I want to get to that stuff too.

Uh I just want to make sure I understand this.

So that change in policy shifted the burden of upgrading from private developers to the public, and it also shifted the cost to pay for it to the public?

Is that is that accurate?

To all the ratepayers, yes.

But that was any project that was outside of our planned work that we were already going to be performed.

So if we had identified a project but wasn't in our CIP, let's say for 15 years out, but they needed it right then.

Then that's the one.

Okay.

Okay.

That's helpful.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I understood that.

Yeah.

Um, is it safe to say that this it is accurate to say it caught us by surprise?

Yes.

Yeah.

And do you know uh can you just do that?

I hate saying that.

I really say that because we do we pride ourselves in such, you know, being long-term planning.

So but it we weren't expecting the results to show that one of our basins was at capacity.

Okay.

And um can I just why do you think through our processes and there's been so much intentional work, why do you think this caught us by surprise?

I I think, you know, with uh the information what we had prior, you know, having now the a complete model of the whole infrastructure within the basin to be able to actually identify um what sections are you know at capacity and what aren't, and recognizing that, you know, where and are or whether where are we experiencing SSOs and we mow all of our outfalls, you know, at least once a year.

Some we were are there several times a year.

But when you when we actually found evidence of uh actual SSOs occurring where the model predicted, that was pretty shocking to us.

Pretty surprising to us.

So having that that tool is such an advanced tool from what we had prior that um, as I said, we we now have that tool and can it's going to be able to prevent this from happening again.

Is this kind of thing um how common is this in in other cities?

Do we know do we know how common this is to occur in other cities?

Um most of the larger most of the larger cities are moving to models if they don't have one already.

Um the larger utilities, the smaller utilities do not have because of the investment in the model.

Um these kind of letter to the industry and um pausing development in certain areas to be able to upgrade.

Is that something that we see in other communities happening, particularly you know, older communities who have grown substantially?

Yes, I think a lot of you know, I we have seen letters industries in other cities across North Carolina.

Um is there any way I'm just curious, is there any way that uh of expediting the process uh where you know developers could could potentially pay in uh extra and then get get it expedited?

Um we're exploring all of that with our design teams about how we can expedite the projects as not just the design, but also the construction.

Um it once again, as I mentioned in the slide of what the challenges are.

Um we have to, you know, get the survey out there and then get that information in for our designers um the our design firms and then have them start looking at what are the solutions and how can you build a replacement line, right?

Do you build it in parallel?

Um or do you have to build it right where the existing line is, in which case, how do you set up the pumping that you have to establish to collect the sewer upstream, discharge it downstream while you are working in the section in the middle?

So it's very complicated.

Yeah.

So we've got these timelines for phase one and phase two.

Do we know at this point how confident we are in those timelines?

So you had a few different we had a few different ways that uh developers or landowners or residents could could move forward and it's you know up to 20 percent increase in in density, or um, if your project is moving forward with an expectation of being completed at the same, you know, 2029 or at the same time.

So do we do we have confidence in that amount of time, or do we still need a little bit of more time with the consultants to do that?

We were very deliberate when we put those time frames in because we realized the impact that was going to be to feel that we could deliver the project at by that time.

So uh we're hoping to be able to deliver it before those timelines.

But you know, we did not want to push that out now.

Any strange things happen.

Yeah.

Right.

Um, that was anticipating that we would have to, under the two interstate crossings.

Um there's two methodologies.

You can bore across and then you have to tunnel.

More than likely, we will have a hybrid based on previous experiences where you you'll bore and then you hit solid rock, and that means you actually then have to have, instead of a boring machine, you actually have people that are going in that tunnel shaft and actually drilling into the rock and then doing sub-blasting and then you know, of course, they're not in there when that happens.

But you know, that's very laborous, time-intensive work if you have to get through those sections of rock where we're gonna have to bore under the interstates.

Thank you for that.

And um so obviously that you you mentioned how complex this is to do in an urban environment, an urban setting.

Can you talk a little bit about how much we know now what residents might be able to expect who live in these areas and what kind of communication they might receive, you know, if if something is to be happening right around where they live?

Yes.

Um all of these contracts have extensive public outreach, and what we've done in all of our projects, especially in urban areas is we'll have some initial outreach to the communities that are affected with the community before we even start sending surveyors out.

So as soon as we have those firms under contract, the one of the first things they will be doing is we'll be sending the letters out to the affected property owners in the area that might be infected by the construction to let them know about the project, what's going to be done, what we'll have to do as far as just the design coming on, you know, with surveying and maybe some geotechnical work.

Um then talk of, you know, and then we'll have we typically we continue that process where we go through the whole, you know, where we get near the end of the design, here we have no exactly where things are going to go.

We have an idea of what how the traffic is going to be affected with the construction to get their input, and then we have the same type of um uh outreach when we have a contractor with the community to let introduce them to the contractor and let them know here's how, you know, here's who we are, here's how you can reach us, if there's any problems, here's who will be on site, et cetera.

And we continue that all through the project.

Thank you so much, Direct Director Greeley.

You have uh you have a challenging job.

Um and uh the folks that work in your department have have tough work to do.

Um this is complicated stuff.

And um, you know, I'm sure that we we would all have uh a time machine um for for this one.

Um it it does seem, you know, these things are bound to happen from from time to time.

It does seem like the communication uh piece is one piece that we definitely could could improve upon.

Um I'm curious to to hear other questions and comments from my colleagues, but I do think that um staff should look into how we can improve communication and and what are best practices there and and what we can do, you know, if if and when this happens again.

Absolutely.

But thank you.

Yes.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Baker.

Um Thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

Um yeah, I appreciate the comments from my my questions from my colleagues.

Um I have some similar um questions.

On this uh this issue of like was this a surprise?

I appreciate Councilmember Baker raising that.

And some of the residents were you know I think that and the either the folks who are here, actually I should start by saying thanks everyone who's come here.

I really appreciate this is a tremendous surprise for you and also tremendous disruption to your business to your to your um to your property.

So we understand that.

And you expect the most of our staff, we have great staff to do this work.

And so I think we're all trying to figure out like what happened, right?

And so and I have questions later about what do we do about this, but in terms of this kind of so what happened?

Um I understand we have this new hydraulic model that's helped us to more precisely measure capacity, is that correct?

Yeah, and uh and understand our system.

Yeah.

And so is that hydraulic model, is that a new thing that's new across the country, or were we sort of late adopting that or like what?

We're in the middle of of bringing a model online as far as that.

Should we have should we have sort of acted sooner to develop that kind of model here in Durham?

Um is it a cost thing?

It was very expensive to to build.

And as I mentioned, we've only done part of the system.

We did all of our larger lines and the key smaller lines, the key eight-inch lines.

So to do the whole system, we probably captured maybe 20 percent of the system in that model.

But it's the critical 20 percent.

You said 20 percent.

Yeah.

Right.

Um because all of these smaller lines that are through the city streets, the small eight-inch line and the collector neighborhoods that that feed into these lines.

Um that is one of those things we would like to develop long term, but the cost on that is very prohibitive.

And no one in North Carolina has the model to that extent.

Um what you what you will have for Raleigh has a program that's similar to other cities like Charlotte, where the city models all the larger lines and it puts on the developer to bring to the city when they're proposing projects to ensure that the lines in between their project and the model lines of the city that they do the modeling and the city reviews it.

So I appreciate that.

In addition to that, I appreciate you identifying the LB Creek Basin as well as the Lake Creek Basin as areas of also that you're looking at.

Should we know of others that are out there that are that are similarly?

Those are the only three the three that I showed you today are the three of major concern, obviously for Goose Creek, but the other two, since they were you know beyond the 50 percent, all the everything else is under 50 percent, Harmon in general.

All the other basins are below 50 percent?

Probably 50.

Yeah, 50 to 60, but you know, we're not anything there all nothing of can the concern like the those first two basins, because once again, those basins we're looking at five, 10, 15, 20 years of programming within the CIP to take care of those issues.

Um, you know, folding in the comprehensive plan and the you know projected growth in those areas.

Um so for the for the cost for for Goose Creek as well as LAB Creek and Lake Creek, which are um substantial costs, are those are those already built into our like models or are those new that we need to build into the rates?

Um the design or we have pretty substantial programs for you know the sewer collection program.

We have you know significant money is appropriated.

We have moved some projects around.

So we have money this in this current fiscal year to um sign the all those three contracts and have programmed the construction in the next coming years.

So that's not the whole cost.

So that's part of the cost.

No, the design costs we have the money for in in this year that we go on to contract, and then the construction is programmed in the out you know, starting in 27, 28, 29.

It is all the costs there.

So it's so these are not new costs we need to add into our model.

Oh, long long the long-term rate model.

Um as I said, we we've moved things around a little bit because we, you know, the um Goose Creek was kind of the surprise, so we moved some projects out a little bit to accommodate them that that project happening earlier.

But Ellibree Creek was a project that we were already going to be doing in in the short term, and Lick Creek was kind of one of those next level up projects, but we've also moved that project ahead and push one or two other areas out.

If I can maybe connect the dots between the two question and the answer, I I think the bottom line is we are updating our model, our rate model constantly to reflect operating costs and capital costs.

Uh and we have flexibility within the capital program to move things around to prioritize.

So I think the the answer you're looking for is this does not the these new costs will not cause a dramatic increase in the rate model.

Uh we do have our our rates have been increasing uh fairly significantly as we've been predicting the council for a number of new investments.

These investments can be paid for within that framework, but these investments individually will not be driving of significant change in costs.

Don, do you think you disagree with any of that?

Yeah, no, I agree totally.

Well, thank you for that.

And then I guess the the perhaps most important question that I think you referenced is you've talked about how you're working with your staff and consultants to try to speed this up.

And what like what else can be done to accelerate this?

Because I know for the folks out there, it's four years feels like a long time.

Yes.

So what are the possibilities for accelerating this?

And I know that often we get into things like other similar projects around like sidewalks or bike paths, like the whole right-of-way acquisition process can take a longer time than we expect.

So is right-of-way something we can speed up somehow?

Like what like what are some of the variables that we have some control over that we could speed up?

Um as as I mentioned, you know, we talked about easement acquisition, now we're going to need additional easements and or construction easements on the project.

Typically those are produced later in the design cycle.

So we're going to be asking uh we've talked to all the design firms if those could be produced earlier.

Um we've already talked to all three of the firms to do some um you know program with the some of their sub-consultant work that could be um happen faster, especially when you now is the good time with all the leaves off for them to fly to get some LIDAR for ground elevations, um, some of that information.

So they start they hit the ground running with a lot of that work.

So we we're continuing and then talk about um, you know, how can we potentially break up the construction and release packages faster?

Is it just one contract or multiple contracts so we can get things started faster?

So we're having all of that discussions now.

When I realize that these things, as you laid out, this is uh this is a major investment of major infrastructure improvements.

So I understand that that takes a certain amount of time.

I mean, I wonder is there any way like can we shoot for like a year earlier, right?

So can we like with all these things you would say like 2028?

I know a lot of folks in this room would be like really happy.

And even that's still, you know, three years out.

But is that is that a possibility?

Uh until we get into the design of the project, I I I would not want to venture moving that date until we have much more detailed discussions with our design firms and or pulling in some contractors in discussions, the potential contractors that would be um because we also intend to have some outreach with the contractors that usually bid on our projects of similar to this to get some feedback from them during the design process of how we can incorporate um the projects and the contracts that would come out to to accelerate this project.

And I know I understand I'm sure for the you and the manager, this is a high priority.

I I think you understand that.

So I appreciate that.

Um is there anything that the council can do?

What can we do here?

We I know we we're counting on the staff doing this work here on this 24-7.

What can the council do?

Um nothing at the moment.

You'll have certainly the rate presentation will be coming in in a month or two that will incorporate the having the construction funded for this project.

So I guess that which is if if we need any uh special dispensation from uh our purchasing processes or policies to expedite it, we'll certainly bring those uh to council for your consideration.

Uh if if there are uh budget adjustments to the size of the projects that we think could meaningfully expedite the process.

I think we understand the direction uh and have already made really an internal commitment that I want all of those options brought forward for our consideration.

So I don't think there will be any stone left unturned to accelerate the project.

And if those require support from council or council deliberation, we'll certainly bring those forward for your review.

Thank you for that.

We would be happy to consider those.

I guess the last thing is maybe you know, I think that this is such a high priority that I think it would be great for the council to have either quarterly or sort of uh semi-annually, some kind of updates on where we are.

Because this is the this is a real high priority, and I think people are counting on us to really get this done.

Well, we we'd be happy to bring those to council, but we also as you said it's important to for us to continue to have those updates too to the to the community.

Thank you, Ms.

Reeley.

Yep.

I want to just interject to one other step that I know the department has stressed.

It was in the presentation, but I want to because I know uh we're getting coverage of this presentation, a lot of folks listening.

Uh it is extremely important that anyone that had projects or pending projects to talk to the department.

There are circumstances under which projects might be able to move forward before anyone makes assumptions that their project uh is impacted negatively by this, we encourage them to reach out to the Department of Wire Management, the Planning Development Department to have those conversations.

It is certainly possible their projects are impacted, but we don't want people making that assumption.

So I know our department has emphasized this messaging, but I want to reiterate that we are available for conversations on a project-by-project basis to see if there are circumstances that allow them to move forward.

Counselor Kopeck.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

First of all, I just want to associate myself with the comments and questions of my my colleagues and reinforce kind of my um just just sense of being sympathetic to the concerns of folks who are here today and others who are affected by this.

Um I want to see us be able to find those ways to go faster.

And I appreciate that you're looking into that, having conversations with uh our local builder community.

Um I like the idea of of trying to move up the easement acquisition uh and just thinking how do we kind of shake up the the standard process while still doing the project right to try and parallel path more things to move faster and if there's anything that that I can do as well to help support finding ways to go faster, I certainly would want uh to be able to do that.

Um and just want to, you know, just uh agree with the importance around improved communication.

And that sounds like a real learning experience on this.

I know there are other areas where we're very proactive.

Uh and so this seems like uh an opportunity there uh as well.

Um a couple questions, Director Greeley.

Um of the 57 projects that have not been resolved.

Um I'm curious how many of those projects and how many units fall into phase one or phase two.

Um I don't know if we've done that delineation yet.

But we would be happy to provide that.

Okay.

I think that would be interesting to see.

And you know, you talked about potentially kind of looking at a one project at a time kind of thing.

And I'm just wondering like to what extent can we kind of you know, as you do your further analysis, you know, not only speed up but understand how we can kind of sequence the projects that are in the queue.

Yes.

Um rather than an expectation or a you know, uh uh uh that that you know we have to kind of wait to like the the end of the timeline, for example, to to to finish all of them, right?

You know, maybe we can kind of chip away as we go along.

So I think that would be interesting to see.

Um also would like to know that you know, of those uh projects that were identified.

Um are there others that we expect uh to hear from?

I know the city manager just asked other folks to reach out, but like these are ones that sort of at like a certain test of having a uh applied for a permit or were we already sort of moving.

But I'm sure there is folks also who maybe were a step before that.

Yes, and they've reached out to us.

So that's the same thing.

They are aware of that, right, to date.

So we've probably most of the communication that we've had, the inquiries we've had are um developers in that situation that they haven't they're just about to start the process.

Yeah.

Right.

All right.

So that that's included in the set that you've heard from so far.

Many of we have many of those in that situation.

Yes.

Okay.

Um we'll keep trying to get the word out, encourage those folks to come and speak with with you and your team.

Thank you for your work on this.

Uh and I just encourage folks to share, you know, with you and with with council uh kind of what else is needed to be able to um be able to make progress on this.

So thank you.

They're still on this set thing.

Uh as soon as they finish, I'll be outside.

Thank you with stand back.

Enjoy outside.

And we'd be happy to keep council up to date as far as how as we move through that the process of all those projects about where they all landed and what phase they're in and whether they can move forward or not.

We'll be happy to give you updates on that too.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

So I'll associate with my um colleagues' comments and just want to reiterate the need to make sure we have streamlined communication processes.

And so want to think about if we know that there's a threshold, maybe it would trigger reaching out and communicating with people that, hey, just if it's just information only, because it's not a really a good look.

If we're approved as development, but then we find out on the back end that we don't have the infrastructure stain that.

So I want to make sure that this doesn't happen again and just think about how we can just be more intentional about communicating when folks at the onset of this oppose the weight into like things happen.

I understand it's like a one-off situation, but moving forward for those that are like at 60 in 560 um percent capacity, at what point do you start communicating with folks letting them know like, hey, we're getting out there, but we have plans, or if anything is set back.

So we know that we're on a verge of some interesting economic situations in the world and in life in general.

So I want to make sure that we have any delays as we can communicate with folks as well.

So just thinking about how do we streamline processes, make them more efficient in a project.

Yeah.

I guess I'll turn my microphone up.

Um I had a bunch of questions that my colleagues have have addressed, so I'm not going to go back and re-ask those.

Um I am curious about a couple of things moving forward.

So now we have this um hydraulic modeling and we have a better accuracy in terms of predictive uh capacity levels.

And we also have seen a previous shift in policy.

And I'm wondering if, given the this new uh more accurate modeling, if we have space now to potentially see if we can shift around that burden a little bit again to not have it lying on the public solely, and if there's been any conversation and what that might look like.

Yes.

As I mentioned earlier, it it's we've had had we have had some of that discussion on a preliminary basis internally within water management.

We would be happy to explore that further with the city manager.

And in I know I heard you say that there was um y'all are working on solutions.

This isn't an ideal solution, but is there is there a method for speeding up this current crisis uh with community economic input?

Is that something that has been looked at at all?

I'm not sure the question.

If if there was um contribution from folks that were impacted, would that be able to like drastically speed up our timeline?

Um I I don't think it's a question of funding.

I understand.

But I'm like if it makes it happen in a year instead of in five years, and it would be in the long-term beneficial, like that's a conversation that I imagine folks might want to have, but it sounds like they don't want to have it.

So I guess never mind.

Um just thinking about creative ways to speed it up.

Y'all know that we are limited on tax dollars.

So we have we have the necessary funding for the design, right?

So and we anticipate having the funding in in the out years as we move through you know the rate discussions and talking about the proposed capital projects.

It's been embedded in our rate model.

Um so we we feel comfortable with what we've been projecting that we'll be able to move forward with these projects.

Um, assuming you know, count the council continues to have the support that they've done in the past.

Um the um I uh the it's a question of the burden of the cost, because we know the cost we can do the, you know, is how how are we gonna do in the future for projects like this?

Is there going to be some sharing or deference of partial of like like LRV Creek or Lick Creek?

You know, do we start creating these areas of basin areas that you pay a fee in if you're gonna go.

Now, currently, you know, new development pays capital facility fees.

Right.

And those fees are mostly oriented towards the investment that we're making at our treatment plants.

But if we want to start considering looking at those fees, whether you're going to incorporate more of the capital program, that's another option we can certainly look at because those capital um capacity fees would go up.

Potentially shifting them around.

Right.

But all of those we we could talk to our um Rap Tell us, who's our financial consultant and the city manager's office to look at um how we can how that cost could be shared.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Well one thing about going last is most of the questions questions you have are already asked.

Uh so thank you, colleagues, for those questions.

Um I just want to sort of bring it home by just simplifying the understanding.

Um we found ourselves in a situation because we obtained a resource that helped us better assess our capacity.

Yes.

Yes.

And we are moving forward going to look at better methods of communicating not only to just the industry in general, but to specify impacted property owners.

Property owners.

Yes.

All right.

I know that the development community when well when an applicant is applying for whatever zoning or an ex whatever application it is, there are development fees that go into planning, correct?

That's serious.

Yeah.

Yes.

In regards to this, I the reason why I'm going along along with this line of questioning is the reason why I'm taking this so seriously is because what's happened right now with this stoppage of applications means it's a stoppage of expanded tax base, which is a stoppage of resources for us to do other things.

Yes.

So it's not a I I want to make sure that the public here is not a developers versus the city.

It is a team because those are the folks that are building the capacity or the ability for us to, you know, um be able to, you know, get that tax base to pay for the fare-free buses and pay for the heart team or whatever public safety things we're doing to pay for the door minimum living wage, all of those things that we pride ourselves in.

So it's it is important for us to get this figured out.

And I can appreciate my colleagues, because I agree, uh trying to explore whatever ways that we can expedite this.

So my message to you and you know, to the industry, no pun intended, um, is just don't approach it as business per usual.

Um in America, we tend to stack our uh political system with lawyers, no offense, Councilmember Cook.

Uh whereas other countries, they tend to lean heavily on engineers.

And one uh one of those are getting things done a lot faster, right?

But I'm an American and I want to make sure that we can get things done too.

Uh so uh whatever whatever ways we can explore, I hope that we will explore that and not just say, all right, can we move faster in the status quo in the way that we normally do it?

Can we look at being creative in the process itself?

And maybe we can find and explore ways that uh this could you know resolve itself.

Yeah, we're we're we're definitely gonna explore outside the sandbox.

Perfect.

Um Mayor Pro Tim, uh, would let the record reflect that you were here and have joined us.

Do you have any comments on this?

Yeah, good afternoon, colleagues.

Um since yeah, we are we are still in session, I came straight here.

Um I don't know if these were already asked, so apologies.

I just was curious if if if it had been if the thing was broken, what would be our um kind of plan of action?

Because right now we're we're pausing the thing, but if there had been like an actual infrastructure infrastructure breakage, we wouldn't be taking four years, would be my assumption.

Right.

If if there was a breakage, it would just be repairing what was broken.

And then we'd be doing the analysis of why it broke and what caused that.

And is there a you know there's a short-term solution of fix fixing uh the breakage, and then if there's a is that just a um potential just a an inkling of greater problems, right?

That then we would look for a bigger fix.

Thank you.

And that would be kind of seen as an emergency.

Yes.

So I guess my thing is that I would like the shift to be seen as this is an emergency.

Um so I don't know what everybody else asked, but I think that there isn't a psychological orientation to treating this like an emergency.

And so I can say as a council member, I would like regular updates.

I would like to understand what is it in our processes because this happens, you know, we we keep talking about this.

We're tripping up on our own feet here as far as and it's not just with with this.

Infrastructure in the U.S.

is uh is a broken model, a broken system.

I agree with what the mayor said.

And so is this an opportunity for us to really look at our processes and change some radical things.

And if that means that we have to think about um legislative action, uh I'd rather know that that's a thing.

I'd rather know that that's the barrier than just pretend that this is somehow an okay thing, because it's not.

Right.

Um it's not it's not about the rezonings, right?

This is not a part of the city where we've seen a ton of rezonings.

These are just, again, by right, smaller developers.

And when I say developers, meaning just somebody right, you know, trying to do a remodel on their house, right?

And all of a sudden, because you're going to have a bigger footprint, or maybe there's going to be a question on capacity for the sewer that they're, you know, intake that they're going to need or whatnot.

And that's that's a lot of people to impact.

Right.

Um that's a lot of residents to have a negative impact.

And so I would like us to treat this like the emergency that it is.

So whatever needs to happen from us, if that also means like, look, we had a model from the water department that said we this is our CIP model.

If we need to move this project up, this is going to be the uh you know, the kind of effect on these other projects.

I would rather understand that uh and make that decision than kind of be uh kind of moving through the dark, which is how I feel right now.

Thank you.

That's all.

And go ahead.

Yep, go ahead.

Yeah.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

That just sort of sparks something for me.

It's just trying to think more about the risk analysis.

And clearly 100 percent capacity sounds right, 100 percent.

Um I guess I'd like to understand what goes into determining at what point we're at 100 percent?

Is that just through like everyday use?

Is that taking into account the ability to avoid larger SSOs in the case of major weather events?

Like what is 100 percent mean?

100 percent means that if we if we uh continue to grow, then we are gonna have sanitaries who are overflows.

And they're gonna be larger.

And by as I started out the presentation, our permit requires us not to let that happen.

Okay.

And so I understand that we will face large storms.

But that, for example, is that in is that factored into a hundred the hundred percent calculation, or is it just like just standards?

It is nothing else change if we have to.

Yeah, and that was part of part of the calibration of the model is that you know, we had to go through an extended time period of multiple storms so we could see how the how the how the system reacted to those storms and where the flow was at all during the different points of the all the in the model with all of our infrastructure.

So it it is taken to account.

So that means that it's at capacity with all of those storms that we that we are required to include in the model.

Include in our capacity analysis.

Okay.

And to say whether a line is at capacity or not.

Do you think it's an important clarification?

It um just for transparency, it does 100 percent does not mean every new gallon would overflow.

100 percent is taking into account capacity for some storm, but but it is fairly detailed within the model.

Certain level of storm inflow and infiltration is presumed.

A certain amount of that does up the frequency of SSOs, and so um it it is fairly complex, man.

I think if if you would like to dig deeper into what 100 percent looks like and how those decisions are made.

But at the staff level, I think we we spent a fair amount of time before bringing these recommendations forward to explore how much risk could we accept and understanding that we might be uh subject to state fines or state regulation.

Uh and so we are this is not um this is not an effort to get to zero risk.

I think we have the risk of SSOs throughout our system that we mitigate through all of these processes, uh, but it is a fairly detailed analysis that the department uses to get to you know at what point does that risk become too high?

So I I would want to uh reassure the development community as well as the council, uh we are not trying to design for zero risk, and this LTI was not designed at zero risk.

There there is some risk of SSOs uh and there is some capacity uh that wouldn't result in overflow every single day, but that capacity uh is reserved and this determination gets made when there would be enough frequency of SSOs that we would be uh a significant regulatory risk.

Don, I encourage you to clarify or uh dig in on that if I generalized too much.

No, I uh you know that that that was a good summation.

So I don't need to get into the details of the model.

Um I don't you know hear uh uh you know uh folks calling or or expressing a higher tolerance for risk of SSOs, clearly it's not what we want.

But I appreciate you getting to the heart of my question, which is trying to understand the extent to which the risk analysis was coming into play.

So thank you for that.

So what's this question about capacity?

Can you go to slide twenty-five that you showed us the one that had the pipe and then sort of different four different sources?

Yeah, yeah, right.

So is is that if would that be hundred percent capacity with all those with all those factors built in?

Is that what you because that includes that includes the the peak and wet weather flow, right?

And also but also the act capacity if that we didn't have any of the blue, that the the yellow the the orange, green, and yellow went all the way to the top of the pipe.

That'd be a hundred percent.

Yes.

Okay.

So the so there's no right.

That's what's happening is great, because there's no capacity for growth.

Yes, okay.

And I I just wanted to define part of what I mean by explore.

Um I mean, this is an opportunity for us to be innovative.

Uh moving forward.

Uh looking at every material we use, looking at every type of, you know, uh, whatever function it is, from product to practices.

Uh and I know that this is a rather urgent matter, and I know that contractors are listening.

So I would also employ that we look out for price gouging.

Yes.

Uh and and just yeah.

I never want to be I never want to govern in a in a state of emergency.

And I don't plan to declare states of emergency.

As a matter of fact, I can't do that for something like this.

But I do want to say our eyes closely keen on the products and practices.

I'm looking at the dollar figures, and these are really big numbers.

And uh, this is one area we never really talk about.

Can we be more efficient?

Can we be more um you know, can we be more not only efficient in practice, but also efficient in cost?

And because it's such a rarity, not many people you're not walking around finding civil engineer companies on each corner like a Starbucks or something, you know, the the industry sort of can dictate.

But um and this is not knocking the contractors that we that we uh selected, but I I do want us to watch that.

We will.

All right.

Uh colleagues, thank you, Mr.

Greeley.

It is uh three thirty-two.

I'm gonna have to take a take a quick break before we go into the next topic.

And um, let's take about five minutes and get back to it.

We're in recess.

All right, let's uh we can get back get back together.

Let's get back to it.

Um, this is so colleagues.

If we address item number thirteen before twelve.

Director Gunn, we were told you were a bit behind because of the three-piece suit.

Apologize.

Just wash my hands.

Clearly, this is close to God.

Good afternoon.

Oh, check, check.

Test, test, test, okay.

Good afternoon, members of council, uh, Ms.

Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tim, uh, Ms.

Manager.

Excited to uh update you all on the Fayble Street Corridor Project Progress and respond to the uh list of questions that we received uh from council.

Gonna use some index cards to keep me on pace and uh uh first things first want to acknowledge uh the complexity of the uh work that's happening in the corridor.

Uh the questions were very detailed, and uh each of you in your packet has a more detailed version of this presentation.

Um and so my goal today is to hit all of the points that you've requested, uh, but if there's additional detail, uh we may refer to your packet from time to time today.

Uh want to thank the Hate Promise CDC board uh for their work on uh answering much of this, as well as uh Summer Austin, who is uh the city's liaison project manager for that that work.

Uh today's presentation has two goals.

Uh the first is to share what Hate Promise CDC has been working on under their ARPA award.

The second is to clearly answer the questions raised about governance, spending, oversight, and sustainability.

I also want to clarify that Hate Promise is a separate nonprofit organization, which I know that you all are aware of, but want to consistently remind us that Hate Promise operates separately from the city.

However, the city's role is to oversee the federal ARPA funds and ensure they are spent properly and legally.

Uh today I will be clear about what they are responsible for and juxtapose that against what the city is responsible for.

Focus today is simply transparency and facts.

Uh the Hate Promise CDC's vision is in line with the scope of work that was defined by council to revitalize the Fayetteville Street Corridor, to stabilize the homes and businesses that are there, to preserve historic and cultural identity, and to drive equitable growth.

The goal is improvement without displacement.

That means improving the corridor while protecting long-term residents and businesses.

Uh, and this is the their areas of focus are on the slide.

The goal is also to stimulate economic activity for the future beyond just the scope of this initial grant.

Uh so uh I'm gonna go line by line for the the topics that were given to us as questions uh from council that were generated by public input.

Uh the first is what's been built so far.

So in 2024 and 2025, they worked to establish the CDC and receive their nonprofit status.

That was secured in December of 2025.

Uh at that moment, they expanded their board to be consistent with the guidelines and best practices of a 501c3.

They adopted their strategic plan, and they began contracting with their implementation partners.

So the foundation work was necessary.

It takes a little bit of time to do that, and that's what happened in the first phase uh of organizing the CDC and establishing their key partnerships.

So that happened between 24 and 2025.

Uh where are we today?

Sorry, I jumped ahead.

Work is happening in the corridor.

We are in the early implement implementation phase, or they are in the early implementation phase of their work.

This includes neighborhood stabilization partnerships, historic preservation surveys, a historic preservation plaque campaign to recognize the historic properties in the corridor, youth workforce development programs uh centered around uh training local youth to do the work in the corridor to uh help them become preservationists, become contractors, become construction workers, so youth workforce development programs are underway, as well as additional planning work to support corridor businesses.

So they are in the early implement implementation stage of a multi-year timeline.

Uh another set of questions we received was around governance and leadership structure for the CDC.

Hate promise CDC is is currently governed by a volunteer board.

Uh the board biographies for each board member were requested, and you have each of those in your packet.

Um if you'd like to refer to those.

The CDC does not have a full-time executive director.

We received a question about whether or not they had a full-time executive director.

They do not.

So how do they operate with a volunteer team?

They have a contracted board administrator who helps with admin tasks.

They have a part-time communications coordinator.

They have a contracted bookkeeper, and they have legal counsel.

And separately, the city has assigned a liaison staff member to ensure that they are compliant with all of the complex federal ARPA rules associated with the funding that they receive.

The city for clarity provides oversight but has no operational control over the work of the CDC.

So we also receive questions about how things began and how we got where we are today.

In 2022, a public land use report identified the need for focused investment along the corridor.

That study uh was conducted by the Urban Land Institute.

And the result of that study recommended the formation of a community development corporation to uh execute the council approved strategy in the corridor.

In 2023, the CDC was incorporated.

In 2024, council structured their ARPA award and chose the HATI Promise CDC as the recipient of that award.

At the time, the organization was new, and the city required additional safeguards and monitoring based on some uh risk analysis that the city's financial department uh recommended.

This all followed and was in line with the Federal ARPA guidelines for distributing award uh like this.

A quick financial overview.

Lots of our lots of the questions that we received from council and generated by the public were related to the finances.

What's happening with the finances, where are they in terms of executing on this award.

Uh as members of council are aware, the total allocation for this work was 10 million dollars.

As of January 2026, uh roughly $853,000 has been spent with $5.4 million placed under contracts uh for approved work in the corridor.

The funds are only released as work is completed, which is why the amount of funds that are being contracted, as you can see, is uh the amount of money that has been spent is a lot smaller than the the amount of money that has been contracted because the funds are only distributed as milestones are met.

These figures are detailed in the detailed transaction report that you have in the more exhaustive version of this presentation.

Another set of questions we received were related to why the funds are moving slowly or why the perception is that they're moving slowly as they are phased.

Uh we had a 30-month federal grant period uh to spend the funds.

These are very complex, large real estate projects, uh, and they take time.

Uh this the CDC doesn't have the ability to unilaterally do anything to anyone else's property without property owners' uh agreement, and the scale and complexity of each project uh does take significant time.

Uh federal rules also require competitive procurement, documentation and approvals.

So any of the contractors that the CDC selects, because these are federal dollars had to go through RFPs and competitive procurements, which also extends the time.

Spending is sequenced across the full type timeline and not front loaded.

What I mean by that is uh just to reiterate, uh it was the goal was to carefully implement the funds and not exhaust any of the resources until the work is completed, uh and this work takes time.

So also a set of questions that we received were around where is the money going?

What is it going to do?

Where is this investment going to show up?

Uh and I think you can carefully place each of the investment categories in the following buckets.

There is a residential stabilization and anti-displacement program designed to help uh current re current property owners whose whose uh properties may be uh in disrepair, repair those properties, stabilize them, get them up to a certificate of occupancy at some point eventually.

And what's unique about this approach is there's also an anti-displacement model embedded in this approach, which encourages the property owners if they participate to keep the properties owned locally and in the community.

There is a historic preservation component, as you all know on our corridor, it's rich with history, and many of the homes are historic in nature based on their age of the property, but also based on who occupied them.

You have some of Durham's most prominent uh black residents who once occupied these dwellings, and there's a ton of historic preservation work uh embedded in this strategy.

Also, energy efficiency improvements, property tax assistance for residents in the corridor, business corridor planning for commercial and small businesses, as well as the youth workforce development programming that I mentioned earlier.

We also received a question about city staff and salaries as related to this ARPA allocation.

Wanted to be clear that no city staff salaries are paid as a percentage of this ARPA allocation.

No city staff, no city staff is receiving funding or payment via the ARPA funding.

Another set of questions we received was around the expenditures of the organization as it relates to their office space at WG Pearson.

Uh their total rent and utilities are $1,400 and $1,416 per month.

This is used to cover cover their rent and the utilities at their WG Pearson Center office space.

Another set of questions was related to why this organization doesn't just use free space at the city.

There also is a strategic uh desire of the CDC to intentionally be located in the corridor.

So they intentionally chose an office space that is directly in proximity to the place that they will serve.

We also talked about the fiscal agent uh conversation that we have had uh at a few council sessions so far, uh, and wanted to point out a few points of clarity regarding our dis uh our conversations about transitioning from St.

Joseph's Historical Foundation, uh, which operates the HATI Heritage Center and uh removing them as a fiscal agent uh and the CDC operating without a fiscal agent.

Uh as we've stated in previous council members, the decision to no longer operate as the fiscal agent was the decision of the St.

Joseph's Historic Foundation board.

Uh the original agreement with the St.

Joseph's Foundation allowed either side to end the agreement with their notice.

Uh and the CDC's board received notice from their attorney that they would no longer uh like to participate as a fiscal agent.

Happened under the contract terms.

Uh nothing unusual about it.

Uh the financial systems and bookkeeping procedures were established during the period of time that the CDC was operating.

The city saw no compliance violations related to the transition, uh, and our finance team recommended uh the continuing of the CDC operating without an additional fiscal agent, which is the matter that will be before you, I think, as the next agenda item.

Also asked questions that we were also asked questions about compliance and oversight.

Uh the city monitors ARPA spending in real time, as it does with the several projects that the city used to uh fund, the city used ARPA fundings to fund.

Uh the city reviews documentation, invoices, and eligibility costs.

Senior leadership at the city has received multiple updates over the past two years about the work of the CDC.

There was a formal update in September of 2024, January 2025, April 2025, September of 2025, and November 2025.

Each of those compliance and oversight reports uh showed no deficiencies or audit findings.

Dropping my index card.

Sorry about that, y'all.

Um the question was about strategic partners.

Who have they decided to partner with and what is the impact of each of these partners?

Uh preserving home incorporated is the partner to stabilize the homes in the in the corridor.

Uh this program will enable property owners to uh whose properties have been in disrepair or dilapidated to stabilize.

That means stabilizing the exterior of the home to catalyze additional investments for them to uh ideally bring their homes up to a certificate of occupancy.

Uh preservation Durham is the historic preservation partner for the historic homes in the corridor.

The Hope Crew and Conservation Corps is the organization chosen to do the youth workforce development work that the CDC uh is has launched in the corridor.

Central Pines is the energy and tax relief support entity, and place economics is the main street strategy partner, helping to build a main street-style economy to support small business in the corridor.

Umgagement.

Uh lots of questions we had were about how has the CDC engaged the community.

They held several property owner meetings, many of them at the WD Hill Center.

They hosted youth and preservation events.

They hosted historic workshops and public exhibits, one most recently that launched at North Carolina Central University, and they continue to conduct ongoing outreach in the corridor as many of their board members are uh residents or business owners in the corridor and work and live there every single day.

We had another set of questions that I put into the bucket of what is the sustainability plan for the organization, how will they sustain beyond this additional grant?

Uh the organization just received their nonprofit approval in December of 2025.

So this is a very recent uh approval.

It was an arduous and complicated application process.

If any of you have stood up a nonprofit before, you know that the federal requirements can take a long time to get through.

Uh they have engaged a fundraising council uh to help launch their fundraising campaign.

It is their intention, as was the design for them to fundraise beyond this initial ARPA award.

They are developing a multi-year fundraising plan.

They have begun that process this year, and the ultimate goal is to hire an executive director uh to help them with that process.

We also received a set of questions about our rationale to request an ARPA amendment uh to uh create some additional flexibility.

ARPA funds, as you all are very aware, have to be spent before December 31st, 2026.

Uh, in the beginning of this project, I think there was a general rec uh a universal recognition that this was a highly complex issue and would take a lot longer uh than many of the others.

Uh part of this project does fall under a funding category that allows some flexibility, which is the revenue replacement category.

The proposed funding adjustment ensures that we do not risk losing the federal dollars and having to send them back to the federal government, uh, which we don't believe would be in the best interest of anyone uh in the corridor to lose those resources.

So the decision uh or the recommendation and rationale was a financial management adjusted adjustment, not the request for additional funding or to make any unusual changes in the funding structure just to create additional flexibility.

Uh we're also asked about citywide context around the ARPA award.

The city received approximately 51.8 million dollars in ARPA funds overall.

About 34.3 million has been spent citywide as of 2025.

All ARPA projects are monitored the same way for compliance and risk, and this project is monitored under that exact same framework.

So no differences or unique set of uh standards or rules unique to HATIP Promise CDC.

So uh I ran through that really quickly.

Uh wanted to make sure that I addressed each of the buckets of questions.

Uh, and I can't emphasize enough how complex this project is.

Uh it is challenging to revitalize a corridor that has been systemically disinvested and disadvantaged for decades and generations.

Um, and we're still in the early phases of the implementation of this strategy.

The strategy, though, does have safeguards in place, which is the careful fiscal stewardship of the resources.

It has documented oversight.

The city has uh received multiple updates as I've shared with you and found zero compliance violations.

Uh in the future, you'll be asked to approve a funding adjustment to protect Durham's federal allocation and maintain project continuity.

Uh, and I hope this was helpful in informing that decision.

Happy to answer any questions.

All right.

Uh, thank you so much, Director Gunn.

I'm going to start with comments and then I'll bring it to council.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh, have Angel Dozier.

Missing something.

Uh I think Amanda Wallace changed.

Good evening again.

Angel Isat Dozier.

I live in the Hate community.

Um this year's my 27th year here as a resident in Durham.

And um, you know, I've done quite a bit of things in support of community because community is important to me.

And um, I have to say I'm very disappointed that we, you know, are such a powerful city, like the little engine that could.

And this is this is where we are having this conversation about Hate Promise, CDC doing this work.

The plan that Hate Promise submitted was supposed to be a fund, not a neighborhood revitalization plan.

That is the plan they submitted.

How were they selected to carry on this work when that was their plan?

I was the project leader of this work.

I know it in and out.

How in the world do we get to a point where we're having a presentation done by Hate Promise CDC, a fraudulently leak fraudulently created CDC, like I said in these last few meetings, like y'all have all received documentation about?

The neighbors that they have claimed to engage are saying they can't answer any of their questions.

Brother Kassib is on record saying that.

What's really going on?

This was supposed to be a fund, not a revitalization plan.

That's why our plan was chosen.

I was selected by the former mayor, Elaine O'Neill, to do this work because I was already doing it through my organization, Be Connected Durham.

Many of you have been witness to this work, and here we are having a conversation about moving funds from St.

Joseph's Historic Foundation, forced into fiscal sponsorship, by the way, because you didn't need a fiscal sponsor, but you insisted they did.

And now Angela Lee is on that board where you're switching the money to help me understand.

Make it make sense.

How is this benefiting the people who lost their homes and their businesses?

The people who are responsible for the city being as special as it is.

That's what that money was supposed to be for.

Period.

We need to make this happen.

I need y'all to look into this.

We shouldn't be talking about anything having to do with Hate I promise right now.

Thank you.

Next slide, Ms.

Fake Home.

Welcome.

You have three minutes.

Good afternoon.

I am really pleased to be here, and I thank all of you for your attention to this matter.

And I understand that you've been trying to get answers to questions that you've had, and you've gotten some answers.

I mean we are anxious to answer any more questions that you have.

I just wanted to ask the board members here.

There's a volunteer boy for HADO Promise CDC, and some of the members are here.

Would you please stand so that they will know that you are here?

Also, thank you very much.

Yeah, they've and I'm a volunteer member.

I am also a member of uh Durham uh Historic Preservation Commission.

I'm a commissioner on that, and my love for for the preservation of historic properties is well documented.

I own a home, 1200 block of Fayetteville Street, renovated, spent a couple of hundred thousand getting it from nearly demolished and condemned up to uh uh uh you know a very nice house.

So anyway, um that's where I come in.

If we had unlimited funds, if the job was uh what I thought it might be when I um said I was gonna participate in this, here you are.

You're gonna have 10 million dollars, and your job is to renovate the homes, the historic homes on this corridor.

Oh my God, that's easy.

All you have to do is get a historic uh architect, uh somebody, some cop and contractors that have uh history of experience and working on historic homes and um and you are off to the racist that plus uh you approached the homeowner, you said, Look, your home, you have lost uh generational wealth because of what has happened in in Durham and 147 and la da da, on and on and on.

And now we're gonna help you rebuild your home.

They would be extremely exciting if we could give the money to a contractor, and they would go directly to the homeowner and uh restore the property to uh to look like it did when it was originally bought in the in the 1930s, and um and you know, paint paint it up nice, and we could do that in no time flat, and that would be that'd be that the business is on the corridor.

Uh we've got the historic grocery store, page grocery store that's there and it's condemned.

Okay, there's no such thing as a historic property that cannot be rebuilt.

It's condemned it can be rebuilt.

So the same thing with everything on that corridor.

If we had the money that we could directly use to make a difference in the individual properties on that corridor, that would be it.

What we what do we have?

We have $10 million worth of opera money.

Opera money.

Thank you.

Okay, that's the end of it.

Okay.

All right, thank you very much.

I have uh next Mr.

Frederick Davis.

Good evening, uh Council, uh City Manager.

My name is Frederick Davis.

I stay at 3706 Suffolk Street in Durham.

Uh I am a product of Durham Public Schools, uh graduate of Hampton University in Architecture, uh, and a master's of city and regional planning uh from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Uh I have served as vice chair of the Planning Commission uh since 2009 to 2011.

Uh I have served on the Board of Adjustment.

Uh I have served as chair of the neighborhood improvement.

Um I'm here to tell you that our board members are very qualified uh in this big task.

Um and I will ask you that if I gave you 10 million dollars, would you know how to spend it today?

And many of you will say no.

Uh, you would go home, write your list of what it is you have debts, what would it you'd like to do with this money?

Uh, and that takes time.

And so I'm not here to uh rejudicate it how we got to this point.

I'm just telling you that I am one board of directors that are committed uh to making sure we make improvements to the economic corridor of Fairville Street.

We know uh there are a lot of distrust with the city.

Um we know that the same city and systems that we want to help us are the same city and systems that have created some of these things.

And so that takes time to build that trust.

Um but what we do know is we have qualified people on this board that are volunteering.

Uh I told some city council members before, this is almost like a public-private partnership, which is some of the things that you say you want to do, and as a citizen of Durham, I commend you for upholding that.

Um, what I can tell you is uh we may not spend all of the money.

Um, but what I do know is that that is seed money that will help what we say we want to do for Durham and specifically the Fairville Street corridor.

Um as Mr.

Josh Gunn stated, we spent over a million and a half dollars of the first opera funds, which is half of the spending.

Um, and so there's activity going on in the corridor.

Um my profession is uh public goods, and oftentimes I have to tell boards such as you and the community is that we understand you want a fix right now, um, but there are things that people don't know.

Um, I am happy that the city has uh used their services like neighborhood improvement uh in the city permitting office to ensure that those hurdles of time won't be for us to make some developments.

And so in the 30 seconds, uh I'm just here as a resource.

Um thank you for devising this plan.

Uh I think we have more to do, um, but uh I don't want to have a us versus them mentality.

Everybody wants to do work in the corridor.

And if work is going on in the corridor, don't stop the work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Hewitt, will you speak on this item?

Speak on it.

I think they're very similar.

There are two items similar.

So if you have you grabbed it when I spoke on um, yeah, actually uh do have you.

Go ahead, Mr.

Hughes.

You have three minutes.

All right.

Um Good afternoon, members of the council.

My name is Donald Hughes, and I'm resident and homeowner in Durham.

Uh own property about a couple of blocks from Fairville Street.

Um this, let me start off by saying impact versus intent.

This isn't about attacking any particular organization, but it's about ensuring transparency and accountability for more than 10 million of public dollars.

Um I've worked in local government, I work for nonprofit organizations.

Um Mr.

Risk, you might remember some years ago you came to meet with the deputy mayor and she sent me to meet with you.

So I've done this work for more than a decade and a half.

And even most recently, I manage 25 million dollars in American Rescue Plan um funding from the state government on behalf of the North Carolina Legal Municipality.

So I know this work in and out, so I'm coming from a perspective as a community member, but also as a professional who does this for a living.

I want to refer you to Section 4.4 of the contract for the $3.2 million.

It says that the sub-recipient shall submit to city such reports and backup data as may be required by federal government or city.

And it lists what these reports are.

It says monthly financial reports due by the 15th of each month, bi-monthly report reviews due by the 15th of every other month, desk reviews, on-site reviews, annual audit review, and procedures engagement.

While I recognize that there may be some latitude of city staff to amend and adjust when those reports are due, there's a response to community questions that says that there are no compliance deficiencies and that HATIP promise submits invoices and require support and documentation and that those invoices and monitoring is excuse me, conducting according to those invoices.

As this project is risking not actually being completed on time, I would just uh encourage you all to actually adhere to that plan of receiving those reports.

There's also a response that there's no independent audit required.

But however, on page three of the contract for the six million dollar grant, it says the grantee at the grantee sole expense shall obtain an audit of his financial statements, which shall be performed performed by a certified public accountant, and it goes on to say that this should be done within six months after the close of the grantee's fiscal year.

My time is running out, but I'll go through some other stuff.

Um by December 2024, there should be three partner organizations contracted to do some of this work.

And what we have in the report that was submitted to the council is that not one contract, excuse me, only one contract was completed by December 2024.

All of the rest of the contracts were completed after December 2024.

So if the requirement of the contract was that this organization was to contract with vendors to do the work by December 2024, if only one contract was completed within that timeline, how is there no compliance issue with this organization?

So again, I'm coming to this from a perspective of making sure that we are adhering to the requirements set forth in this contract.

If the city is audited, they're gonna evaluate the organization against the contract.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Those are the items that I have, those are the comments that I have for item.

I've got number 13.

Yes.

So you sign up for 13?

You didn't want to change it to 12th.

Not anymore.

Okay.

Ms.

Peterson, I have you for number 12.

Yes, that's what that's what we're number 13.

All right.

So my name is Amanda Wallace, and I'm here today as a resident of Durham.

And I always have to like breathe when I come in front of especially this body, um, because I feel so much rage in my body when I have to come and talk to you.

Especially like the leadership of this board, because it could be so condescending and act as if people do not understand what's going on.

But what I would say is that I believe that my rage is justified because it should be a no-brainer that this should.

I don't even understand why it's back on the agenda for you to put it on the general body um meeting when this presentation has so many holes in it.

So many holes in it.

So again, I I'm here.

I want to be very clear that I'm opposing that number 12 go to general body meeting because there's a lot of questions.

First, my first question is how did an organization that was formed in 2023 get 10 million dollars in 2024?

Is it because it Bill Bell was the director of this agency in the beginning?

I'm just I'm I'm just asking.

And then also I think how you evaluate this organization is looking at their mission and their vision.

And like I said at the last meeting, it says it's a catalyst for building a vibrant future for the Fayetteville Street Quarter.

And its vision is to have a thriving district, cultural destination, and hub reflecting the spirit and heritage of the historic Hayti with opportunities to thrive and upward mobility.

So look at their financials.

I think somebody said if there's investment happening in the quarter.

When I look at their financials, Moss and Ross got 250,000 in a contract to develop the nonprofit.

Maybe I would have saved some of that money if you would have given it to a nonprofit that's already been developed.

So how what was the impact of that investment?

And then what what's the impact to preservation Durham?

When I was on my way back here, I heard Mr.

Gunn breezing through this presentation.

There wasn't a picture.

There wasn't anything to show what has happened with this money.

And then they want an extension when they haven't even spent half of the money.

But when I was talking to an elder, they said, y'all ain't had no plans of this money coming to Hayta.

Y'all just want this money to go right back.

Right back to the city.

You're gonna fail them again.

And so I just wanted to in these last 20 seconds.

If you go to Bull City 150 and you look at number seven, which is dismantling Hayta, and you see the question, who supported urban renewal?

Durham City government.

The city of Durham was the most powerful decision maker at the table.

City officials were eager to receive large amounts of money from the Federal government, which was earmarked for demolition and clearance of so-called blighted areas.

City officials believe they, not the poor themselves, had the solution to the problems facing poor neighborhoods.

I know I'm out of order.

You're out of order.

The violence that's happening here in Durham is because of this council.

Just want to make it very clear.

All right.

Those are the comments that I have.

All right.

Any questions?

Yeah, go ahead.

Director Gunn.

Hello and happy Thursday.

And thank you all so much for the presentation.

I know that it's been driven by a lot of questions, so I want to extend gratitude also to the board for High Promise for accommodating us and making sure that we have some of these questions answered for you.

Um I'm gonna start off and I'll pause to give my colleagues some time if they have questions they want to open or offer anything.

To clarify some things, the question, I believe, wasn't necessarily about um if city staff is being paid out of these dollars.

The question was on the expenditure sheet, there is a reimbursement for a city staff person, and we wanted to have details about what how that process went and to get a city staff to be in reimbursed because we want to be transparent with that.

Sure.

So that was not necessarily answered in any of the items I received.

If I overlooked it, I apologize for that.

So can we please give additional insight about that reimbursement?

Yeah, I believe that is referenced in the Ms.

Brown.

Yeah, it is referenced in the report of Ms.

Brown answered.

My name is Cheryl Brown.

I am a longtime a lifelong resident of Durham, and I am the current chair of the board of HATI Promise.

And that reimbursement was uh it was actually an era when we were purchasing some items that we needed, and our QuickBooks, it somehow captured Summer's credit card.

Because initially we were new and we were having to formulate things.

I had to pay for the post office box.

You know, those type of simple things.

We didn't have any money, and we were getting things moving forward.

And so Summer, it was a she purchased something and we had to reimburse her for what she purchased for the Amazon that we ordered for the office building at Dub G.

Pearson.

You're referring to Summer Austin.

Yes.

Okay.

She does.

And the QuickBooks account captured her credit card information somehow in the system, and we reimbursed her back her money because she purchased some items erroneously with that card.

It was a simple mistake.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Um that being said.

So um just what we're saying, I know that people, there's this misconception that we are not providing enough time or you know, not just engaging correctly.

I just want to be clear, I didn't meet with um several members of the board yesterday, and I stated this during our conversation that when you receive public dollars, you are subject to public scrutiny.

And that's just simply put.

That is still taxpayer money.

And so we want to make sure that we are being transparent in how that money is being utilized because of the urgency in this, and also knowing that, well, I'll say that part for later.

I do want to know in terms of like the residential real estate improvements.

I see that there's been no applications.

Is there any justification as and I'm looking at Exhibit eight, so that second um graph over there, and can you explain why no one's applied or for the um stabilization green energy plaques, land loss, or property tax?

Yeah, I can't answer the question about why no one has applied and no significant conversations have been had with property owners.

I know that there are multiple buckets of the stabilization program.

There are also two pro two houses currently under construction that have engaged in the neighborhood stabilization.

Uh, one at 1111 Fairville Street, uh, and the other is is it Dawkins uh summer, and there's another home on the Williams home on Dawkins that is also enrolled in the program.

So there are two two current active projects underway.

Okay.

It may be helpful if we all update that to reflect it, or I just know, or just better organize the information which how it's presented.

Um then I also want to notice back for the um board of the organization.

As we discussed yesterday, typically I don't want us to create the illusion that the city staff is super involved in a day-to-day operation.

So I want to know why there's been delay in hiring an ED or someone, at least a program manager to actually execute the day-to-day.

Because in typically nonprofit settings, you have a paid staff member who answers to the board.

So I want to know like who's driving your vision daily if you don't have a paid staff member.

And at this point, this org has been around for how long?

Like two, three years, and we have yet to move forward with hiring someone to conduct the um the strategy work for this.

Yeah, I don't I don't want to speak on behalf of the board in terms of their decision uh to delay hiring the executive director, uh, but happy to uh engage Summers in that conversation.

Yes, I would love to hear the logic.

Good afternoon again.

Summer Alston Economic and Workforce Development.

It is actually written into the scope of work.

It was actually a thoughtful measure on behalf of the staff team led by former manager page to actually build in safeguards so that monies were only spent on certain things as the CDC met other milestones and was ready to move to those stages.

And so if you actually read the original scope of work carefully, it actually says that there is a point into the grant period where if they have met certain milestones and are on track, that that's the point at which it is likely that the city would agree for funds to be used towards the salary or the payment of an executive director.

It was intended as a safeguard because in the early iterations of some of these things, there was an expectation of exorbitant salaries paid to people right out of the gate, and no one wanted that.

And so safeguards were put in place against it.

So they are complying with the scope to the T.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so next question.

Um, referring to, I guess, Section 4 fiscal agency and compliance, basically in the packet you all prepared for us.

Um it says that in May or June 2025, the city became aware of the um changes in uh St.

Joseph's Historic Foundation's active leadership and impact of his working relations to avoid disruption, hate how promise contract directly with a bookkeeper, independent contract with multiple clients.

When I look at your detailed expenditures, it says that the contract for the bookkeeper was executed in December 2025.

Can you explain the discrepancy, please?

I I wasn't here in December 2025, so it's difficult for me to respond.

You were here in 2025?

That was like a couple months back.

The simple answer is the contract was still being processed, and so it doesn't show up as a signature until December, but that bookkeeper was working before that at the time frame that we talked about.

And who specifically is the bookkeeper?

It just says bookkeeper.

Is there a reason why that's so vague in the documentation?

I I actually want to defer to the CDC's attorney as to whether or not I, as a city employee, should be giving that kind of personal information about their staff people and their contractors.

But it is our tax money that's utilized.

So we can't know that I'm giving body.

I am not going to violate anything that that is their right to disclose or not disclose, and I'm not an attorney, so I don't know the answer to that.

Thank you so much, Ms.

Austin.

So we can I think there's a nuance that exists here.

Yes, it is taxpayer dollars that have been awarded to the CDC, and we are just trying to stay legally compliant with allowing them to disclose who they are paying for a staff.

These are not dollars that are directly those dollars have already been awarded if that if that if that helps.

And so we're just trying to be we're trying to give respects to the entity as they are not a city entity.

Okay.

So and then I'll land on this one.

Um just looking at question around sustainability and fundraising, it specifically states that, you know, we asked about the independent fundraising plan and progress towards goals, and I find this kind of ironic in here.

So it may not be a question more of a statement.

It says fundraising best practices dictate that successful fundraising must be in service to a mission and aligned with accomplishments of projects and service programs that fulfill that mission.

Before funders contribute to a new nonprofit, they need proof that an organization is stable and can be trusted to use donations will care as a mission.

Going back, and I'm not here to um to settle anyone's score.

Just as someone who's been working in nonprofits most of my career, typically when you apply for a grant or any type of funding, you have plans that you present.

And you have metrics and scope of work that's presented in that.

We took a risk and by giving a new nonprofit this money.

And that deeply concerns me because you had no traffic before it.

It feels like this was created solely, I know of the ULI report more so.

But as a city, a city, that gives me a little bit of pause in terms of thinking about equity and how that moves forward.

That we, they're telling us that, you know, best practice say you don't give money to new nonprofits, but we gave $10 million to a new nonprofit, right?

And so I just want to highlight that and make sure, and also just on the record, we have other entities who have received ARPA dollars that give the money back because they were unable to spend it by that timeline.

So we've made an exception here, which also creates the not the illusion, but it also gives me positive around equity.

Um we didn't give it to everyone.

My thing is like we're not trying to, again, provide extra scrutiny, but it's a significant amount of money, and it shouldn't have taken all of this to get answers if we're running like a straight operation, honestly.

And I respect everyone for coming down here today, and I'm still just I'll pause and see if anyone else hear from my colleagues.

Any other questions on this item?

I don't have any questions.

I just have comments if that's what you want right now.

Go ahead.

Just a couple of questions here.

Um, just um something that I I didn't get a chance to look deeply into, but but Mr.

Hughes listed a few provisions from the contract that he he was sort of lifting those up.

I'm curious if there are any responses to the provisions that he listed.

Yeah, I don't have a response to the question regarding the uh execution of the partnership agreements.

Um I I know that this is all operated under city's oversight.

Uh and as we stated in our presentation, there were no uh issues with audits or reports over the 2024 reporting period or the 2025.

That is the only information I have.

Um just one other question here um for now.

Um of the work that's listed here runs parallel and maybe even some overlapping with work that the city does.

Um, you know, uh there's small area planning listed in here.

There's um design, capital investments.

I'm just curious if there's coordination with th the relevant departments.

Yeah, significant coordination happens, for instance, and one that I can point to is in the residential property stabilization, housing and neighborhood services is a key partner in that work um with the CDC.

All right, that's what I've got for now.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Um so I understand that the plan was not to hire staff initially, right, as the organization getting off the ground, but the plan was eventually to have staff capacity.

Yep.

As my colleagues have said, uh the organization, any nonprofit has a volunteer board but needs some dedicated capacity to do the work, so I guess my question is I just want to make sure that because you um you talked about the 30-month ARPA window.

But then you talked about this uninterrupted implementation.

So with this with this um revenue, we call it replacement piece.

Like how much runway does that give the CDC now to actually hire staff and have the time to actually execute on the on the sort of plan that got?

Yeah, great question.

Uh I'm going to defer to finance for the timeline piece.

Uh, but we'll offer that um I just appreciate lifting up the fact that uh hiring uh staff on the front end is a significant cost, right?

And and uh now I'm editorializing a little bit and uh uh I'm not off off base here.

I've witnessed a few nonprofits front-load staffing costs when they have limited funding and it ends the nonprofits, they run out of money really fast.

And so I think built into the scope of work, it was structured to intentionally be fiscally responsible in that regard.

In terms of the runway, I may defer to Tim or the uh Director Floor.

Good afternoon, Tim Floor, City Finance Director.

So uh I I will say I want to make it clear up front that that the organization, Hey TI Promise, was not aware of the revenue replacement piece.

That was actually an internal city decision.

And so really, as we were spending the money, we were spending all of the other money before we got to the revenue replacement money.

The 10 million dollars of revenue replacement money really was sort of the wild card, is what I would call it.

And could have been spent for anything we wanted to, although the city chose to spend it for programming specific to ARPA.

Since this was the largest contract from ARPA, and it was also one of the later contracts being awarded, it it it sort of just naturally fell into that revenue replacement bucket.

But we also were somewhat strategic in that, knowing that eventually, if time constraints came upon us, we would be able then to leverage that revenue replacement bucket to extend uh the obligations that we had committed under that under that $10 million bucket.

So there are so if we if we were to swap that funding, it what it ultimately does is it removes all sort of Federal compliance restrictions because we're just replacing it with another program cost that is just a city expense that that is not have the same compliance rules.

And so we really were trying to hold everyone accountable for uh for the ARPA.

We wanted everyone to hit those ARPA deadlines.

But this was just an internal city decision that we that we made.

It really wasn't specific to the organization, although this was one of the largest uh uh uh awards uh from that bucket or from the from the ARPA um uh fund uh ARPA funding.

Um and so that is uh that's that's how that's how we got to where we're at now.

So I appreciate the explanation.

I don't pretend to understand all the ARPA rules and sort of like detailed stuff.

I guess my question is so so there's there's contracts that have been awarded by the by the CDC, right?

And there's a plan to hire staff.

Yes.

And so does that mean that by December 2026 that's all done?

Or do they have do they have the flexibility to keep like how how long can they continue to spend the 10 million?

So it would be unlimited uh idea.

We we've we've put a there's no there's no time limit there.

So there would be no time limit.

We we had sort of put another deadline of June 30, 2027 on there because we're also wrapping winding, we will be winding down the ARPA team after December of 2026.

After this December, the next six months, we will be winding down that team.

And so ideally we would like to wind it, we would like this contract because we're still going to still do the same oversight.

It's just we don't have all the strings that the Federal Government is requiring, but we're still we're still providing that oversight, and we still want that oversight to be done by our ARPA team.

But the ARPA team will really will ultimately disband in June 30, 2027.

But again, they can get the goal.

Because the goals are much longer longer term, right?

Right.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

So your point.

So basically, when the Federal government looks at us, it looks like we've spent our money.

Yeah.

Right.

So that revenue swap basically gives us flexibility and extension.

That way we don't have to put the pressure on volunteers to expend 10 million dollars by the Federal government's deadline.

Yeah.

And it gives the city additional oversight then because you're no longer beholden to the Federal guidelines of the money.

It is now city resources that you all, the city has the can determine the rules of that money.

All right.

Thank you.

So my second question is much more sort of detailed.

So I understand from the um the partner matrix you sent to us.

The Central Pines Regional Council is doing some, sounds like work on um property tax relief for homeowners in the corridor, and also some energy kind of, I guess, access to energy tax credits, is that what that is?

Correct.

Yeah.

Um can you say more about like why Central Pines was chosen and in particular on the um property tax relief?

Like how much what like why Central Pines and sort of what's the impact of the work of Central Pines?

Because we looks like we have paid them today at almost half million.

So what's what's the role of Central Pines here?

Yeah, I'll I'll pass it to uh summer, however, uh all of these are competitive uh procurements, right?

And so um we follow cities procurement guidelines, we were we follow Federal procurement guidelines and making sure that we're choosing the appropriate vendor.

But I'll let Summer speak to the why Central Ponds.

Thank you, sir.

Summer Alston, economic and workforce development.

So I'm gonna go backwards if I may, Councilmember.

So the first thing is the figure that you refer to, that's almost a half million dollars, is based on a payable status.

But that money hasn't gone anywhere.

Because in fact, Central Pines's contract was severely delayed in being executed in part because of the tremendous amount of effort that has been put towards these agenda items.

So that's the first piece.

That money has not gone anywhere.

We originally put the fee schedule together and had the contract being negotiated and worked through the system, and then it stalled.

And it actually was not signed until maybe December, early January, which is unfortunate because Central Pines is a great partner to have because they've done this and they would have been able to hit the ground running.

And now that they are under contract, they are prepping for the work that was in the publicly advertised scope of work.

So to go to your prior question.

It is not payment of taxes out of ARPA money.

Right, right.

What this is is this is a partnership that we actually investigated and learned was a good possibility and a good choice for the residents of the corridor as far back as September of 2024 when they invited the tax assessor to come and speak to a group of property owners at a meeting at WD Hill, and the tax assessor was in the process of educating everybody about the upcoming reval and what the information that he shared with the group that night was about all of the available programs that you all have already funded and that the county is already funded to get tax relief to people, but that the programs are undersubscribed because the folks have difficulty getting through the paperwork to get the relief.

And so what is written into Central Pines' scope, because they have that expertise with actually being able to manage personal information, people individual people's personal information, which everybody does not have.

You don't want to give your social security number or your your income statements, personal information to just anybody.

We actually we're trusting in Central Pines as a partner because they do have that expertise in-house, and it's something that they do all of the time, to be the ones to actually do the technical assistance to help people actually access the existing streams of funding that are provided for tax relief.

Have I answered the question, sir?

I think so, yeah.

And uh because I and also as as you probably know, there's there's a couple different forms of tax relief.

Some are probably provided by the state, right?

But as I understand the state tax um exemptions for love for homeowners is based on sort of deferral, right?

Whereas the stuff that we funded locally is actual tax relief, right?

This is this means the specific.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you up.

Yeah, so I think what so from my from my understanding, the property tax relief we provide in Durham with our dollars is actually better for homeowners than sort of a tax deferral that the State would offer.

So I just want to be clear why we're going through Central Pines to help folks access property tax relief that we in the county are funding here locally anyway.

But as you described, potentially this is about sort of personal information, social security numbers, that kind of stuff is not.

It literally is just to help seniors and anybody who needs help navigate the paperwork process to submit their applications to the county or to human services or whoever the entity is, and it actually names a specific two or three or four programs based on information that came directly from the tax assessor that said people in in in the Fayetteville Street corridor need to apply for these things because there is help for them that they are not able to access.

So it's about capacity.

That's all it's about.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Do you want to do that?

Oh, go ahead.

Go ahead, Councilman.

Okay.

Um feeling a bit anxious because I again it feels like the more that I hear, the more questions that I have.

It seems that I don't like the the answers just raise more questions.

Like I continuously like can't seem to get a grasp on like I understand maybe like the basis for decisions at the beginning, but then as things didn't line up, we like made changes, and then I don't really understand the changes that were made.

But anyway, all that to say, um, I do have a couple of very specific questions.

One I've asked before, and I'm gonna ask it again.

Um I want to know how much of this 10 million was used by was came out of the ARPA bucket versus we shifted it over to the city.

And then I also want to know what other projects and the percentage of their money was shifted into city into the city bucket.

Do you understand my question?

So how where else did we lose those federal restrictions and like what percentage of other projects?

Oh, okay.

So I I think that's let me just restate the question so I think I understand it.

You're asking which other projects, not Hate I promise CDC, not Fable Street Corridor, were also used using revenue replacement.

I want to know if we was all of this 10 million revenue replacement dollars, or did some of it come out of ARPA percentage-wise, I want to know how much, and then I want to know how that compares to other projects that we awarded under ARPA.

Okay.

I can answer the first part, and then I may look at the other projects.

I don't have any insight into any other project.

So maybe my question is not clear.

But there are two agreements with HATI Promise CDC, one for roughly three million dollars.

So about 30 percent is true ARPA, right, right.

And the other the other revenue replacement contract is around $7 million.

$7 million.

And that $3 million, nothing changed in that.

No, that agreement still is the same agreement.

Yeah.

And so that money has been spent or will be spent with the Federal Guidelines.

That money will have to be spent with the same Federal guidelines.

Yes.

Okay.

And then at the time of the award, was that already was that disparity already clear that there would be 30 percent of it and 70 percent of it outside of the Federal guidelines?

Clear to the CDC or clear to the city.

Uh the public, I would say, yes.

Yeah, uh it was on the agenda in that format, yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that that both contracts were approved initially with public hearing the same way that we would do anything of that scale.

Okay, yeah, because this was before my time I wasn't here when we were awarding the ARPA dollars.

So I just want to understand how it was presented.

Um, and then I am curious to know maybe if there were other projects that were that happened like this where we had some of the money that came out of ARPA or that we shifted any money so that to allow for extended time.

I do want to be clear.

When we're talking about all of the money, that $52 plus million dollars, the 10 million dollars of revenue replacement is that ARPA money.

It just had a special category that allowed you to spend it differently than the rest of it.

It was it was a standard, a standard uh for lack of better words, standard deduction that the Federal Federal government, Federal government gave to all recipients of ARPA money that you could spend up to 10 million dollars, whether you had 2 million dollars in ARPA funding or whether you had a 100 million dollars ARPA funding, up to 10 million dollars could be spent as revenue replacement because one of the one of the one of the um circumstances of the whole ARPA funding was that they thought organizations, uh governments were losing revenue as a result of that.

And so there was two ways to calculate that.

We could have calculated, we could have taken that standard deduction or of ten million, or we could have run the numbers ourselves and then given them if it was a bigger number, we could have done it.

But what we what we found out was sales tax uh exceeded everyone was staying home, and so they were buying things online.

And so our actual sales tax revenues, uh if you would if you remember at the same time was going up.

And so the city did not suffer any uh negative impacts from lost revenues, but that's why we chose to do the standard the standard deduction of 10 million dollars.

Right, because we couldn't prove above that.

Right.

And so the second part is so of uh of the 6.3, 6.5 million dollars that we used uh of the 10 million dollars for uh Hay Type Promise was revenue replacement money.

That other money did go to other contracts.

I don't know exactly which ones they were.

I don't know that we have any issues.

I mean we can we can we can find that out.

I uh I just don't know off the top of my head.

But we can get we can get you those um we can get you those contracts.

But we have committed all of the ARPA money.

Um so I'm I'm hearing that you want to know the list of the other.

I I am curious about it.

Yeah.

And I think that the reason that I we're talking about sort of changing timelines, and so there's this like allowance now to we had some things that have to be expended by a certain date because of the federal restrictions.

We have some of this money that's outside of that federal restriction, and I'm curious like other projects that were awarded that same potential.

And I know that this one's different than other projects that we awarded.

So I'll just say as we are getting closer to that December 31 deadline, we are evaluating all of our ARPA of our contracts, and we're seeing where uh there may not be everything may not be able to be spent.

And so we are working on background strategies, contingencies to make sure that we as an organization uh spend all of that money.

It is uh as I've mentioned before, it is it is my intent not to give the Federal Government one penny back of the money that we we've got.

And so we we are trying to maximize that resource for the city.

And so that is what we are uh constantly doing over these months is you know, it may be that uh some organizations are not able to fulfill completely fulfill their their contract.

So we're looking at how we are going to deal with that excess bucket of money.

And so we are we are currently working on that strategy, and I suspect we'll be coming back to you in the coming months with uh with with that information.

Okay.

That is helpful.

Yeah, and I will I'll be interested to see that.

Um while you're up here, Tim, sorry.

Um I asked this question before and I just want to ask it again, just to have it on the record.

So we had a brand new CDC that we gave money to.

Um at the time we felt like we needed a fiscal sponsor.

Later on, we decided maybe we never had needed a fiscal sponsor.

We don't feel like we need a fiscal sponsor now.

Can you walk me through this?

It it's still it's just such a new such a new agency organization.

I mean, it only got its 501c3 accreditation where I saw literally.

Because it was a new organization is why it sort of failed that risk assessment, which is why we required the fiscal sponsor.

But as they were working with St.

Joseph's, they set up, they got the bookkeeper, they set up the books.

Um, we were uh monitoring the progress that they they had.

We were getting information that we were paying on.

The documentation looked good when it was the bookkeeper for St.

Joseph's was is the same bookkeeper that they have under contract now.

And so when things started to shift, it w it was the same bookkeeping.

And so the QuickBooks account, nothing really changed in that financial.

And so looking at that information, uh evaluating uh their spending patterns, evaluating the documentation that we've been receiving, and uh everything, everything we have no issues.

The we have seen no issues.

And so as they train as they continue to transition and we become the fiscal fiscal agent sponsor, you want to call that.

Really we're we're just really providing it oversight.

And so we will be uh continue to look at their books.

We probably will help them uh as they end their fiscal year and they start looking for an auditor.

We will probably, you know, be plugged in to who's who's your auditor, because again, we will be monitoring their finances.

And and so it's just it's just a matter of we didn't have the staff resources before because we were in the business of trying to get all these contracts awarded.

Now we have that capacity on the ARPA team to actually sort of sit there uh and and sort of keep an eye uh answer any questions that they might they may have.

Okay, thank you.

Um sorry, Director Joshua, that's another question for you.

Um in the uh to your knowledge, and I know it's this might be a uh summer question.

Um we talked about sort of the delay in an executive director and sort of the the reasoning behind that.

Um but we do have some paid staff people, so we talked a little bit about the bookkeeper.

I'm curious also about the legal services and whether there was like intentionality behind that or whether that was a a decision made by the CDC.

Which piece of intentionality to to hire an attorney or that was part of the city contract, because I know that we had we talked earlier about delay in hiring executive director and that that was part of the contract.

Was the was the legal services part of the city's contract, or was that a decision that was made by the CDC?

Might be a summer question.

Sorry.

That is a summer question.

Go ahead.

I have I have a response as well, but I like some more.

Summer Alston.

Economic development.

The the attorney that represents HATEP Promise actually is their pro bono attorney and that uh status predates the timing, like all that was actually a relationship that they had secured at the point that the ARPA grant was awarded.

Oh, so they just are okay.

So it didn't we did not contract around that.

That was already that support was already there.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, and my response was just that he's pro bono.

So there's no there's there's no money being spent on that resource.

Thank you.

Um I think those are my questions for now.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um first of all, I just want to express appreciation for the responses to the community questions, council questions, my own questions that I've posed.

Uh it's been a helpful exercise uh to ensure accountability and transparency and to help educate me, perhaps others on some of the history of this work being done, um, some of the reasons for the slow start, uh, where we are now.

Um as part of my past work, I used to run a philanthropic foundation uh that used fiscal sponsors, and so um I understand the value in that approach to help work with uh uh smaller community organizations without uh 501c3 status.

And so I've been interested to learn more about that uh usage, the history of the grant, the build up the organization, the strategy and now the plans for the implementation.

Um and I want to give respect to the Hate Prime CDC uh board, um uh dedicated volunteer group uh giving their time to help support uh this work uh with close ties of the corridor and it seems like you've recruited some great partners uh and also thanks to uh um Ms.

Alston and staff uh who've who've helped uh along the way um I I do want to also um you know so to highlight that it does seem you know unusual to give a big grant to uh a new organization uh and I don't have you know the full uh uh history of of kind of that decision at the time but it does seem that we're in a better place now uh with the folks who are uh involved uh with a board of strategy partners in place and so I see that differently than trying to look back to kind of where we were at that time but I think it's a fair question to to raise um and you know I know we've had kind of a slow start you know we're at the point now we're starting to implement um we've also seen other community partners struggle to spend the money right and I think that you know whether new or not that is a hard thing to do with these federal restrictions and I think we're seeing that play out you know versus giving the money to a united way or some you know large established organization but may not have the same community ties.

You know I'm sure that was a strategic decision that the council uh made at the time um uh about how to deploy these funds so some of the questions that I have you know first of all kind of relates to the the the city liaison staff support um just I'd like to understand you know uh how we're thinking about it now with some organizations that are giving the money back about the kind of the staff support that you know we're providing to Hate Prima CDC which I'm appreciative of and other community organizations that you may have not have received that support and are reaching a decision to to give the money back to the city to be used for other purposes.

Yeah I don't know that I'm in a position to answer that question uh council member um I only have insight into what this project this is the only project that is use leveraging ARPA funds in this way in my department so I it's difficult for me to answer that question.

But to make sure that I understand it though are you asking me if other organizations have had similar staff liaisons?

Yes and if not kind of what was the decision you know I know we have said that this you know there there are definitely you know special aspects of this project and why we really want to make sure we do everything possible as a city and I'm committed to that for this to be successful.

So maybe Mr.

Chadwell is a better person to answer that.

So it's like other groups didn't get staff support right and are giving the money back and just how we reached that decision.

Yeah Keith Chadwell City Manager's office on that question uh there is a uniqueness to the depth of the technical assistance provided this for two reasons.

One, a great deal of the work that was proposed by it and assigned to it through contract had a great deal to do with the a large volume of connectivity and synchronicity with city operations, city liaison from the standpoint of compliance with the ARPA regulations and the necessity to contect to connect functionally with city organizations and the size of the grant vis-a-vis all the other grants thought we thought thought thought this kind of an investment and our prior city manager approved it would be appropriate.

No other organization it was rare that anybody got more I think than a million dollars we did not we did not disassociate or did deny anybody that level of of support and recommendation.

And based on those those decisions functionally in operation and the size of the awards we thought that the ARPA team was providing the necessary technical assistance where the kinds of things they were doing didn't have the level of synchronicity with the government.

So we thought that Lee Hagel should be provided for the enterprise so the size of the grant and also there was just so much collaboration needed with other work the city was doing which other groups may have had their own project in their own community but it was not the same sort of connection needed I think again neither of us were here during that time period but I mean the size and scope of this and the complexity but I do want to acknowledge my colleagues in the ARPA team having worked with them they do provide a significant amount of technical assistance to each of our ARPA grantees and are consistently checking in with other department directors who have projects that are ARPA funded in their purview to to help people get the money out the door and make the more importantly make the impact in community.

So while this resource is more of a dedicated daily oversight component the ARPA team does provide that to all of the grantees.

Okay.

All right thank you.

I wanted to go back to Mr.

Is it have to do with um kind of different levels of of kind of compliance requirements?

Um yeah, I just would like to know more about that if the reports weren't filed, but we're you know being told that there was never any you know compliance issues, and I think all organizations have some issues, right, where like a report doesn't get done at some point in time.

Just yeah, help me understand that.

Some are all done.

Economic and workforce development.

So the ARPA contract that the city used to contract with HATI Promise is the same ARPA agreement that's used with everyone.

It's boilerplate information that was pre-vetted by budget and finance and CAO when they were creating the ARPA apparatus.

And so my understanding of the the uh, and I don't have it in front of me, but the term that was read off, is that it actually lists the different levels of purview and different levels of mandatory um monitoring that can be applied by the ARPA team, not that is requisite to every single grantee all the time.

It's a we can do this, this, this.

That's my understanding as a non-attorney of that particular provision and why there's a list of things there, they don't all apply at once, and they're sort of based upon performance.

If if you have this issue, then we can mandate more frequent, more stringent this, this, this, this.

And I'm um I'm sure the CAO, or I can pull it up, but but I'm I'm sure that they can correct me if I'm misinterpreting it as a layperson.

But that's the thing.

Thank you for that distinction, and I would like to hear from the CAO.

Thank you.

Afternoon, Carlos Hernandez with the City Attorney's Office.

Uh so yes, the uh measures that you were you were told about were based off the risk assessment.

So depending on the risk assessment of the entity, uh you had different uh monitoring tools and and reporting requirements.

Uh so like a desk review usually is well, I won't go into it, but uh there's different levels uh depending on on your risk assessment.

And so again, that is why a fiscal agent was requested was to be able to mitigate that because they were a new entity.

And uh so um does that answer your question about the It does, yes, thanks.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Um I better understand now some of the reasons for waiting to hire an executive director.

Seems like it was a very conservative approach to building up this work.

I also know how challenging it can be to lead and grow an organization all volunteer without paid staff.

So I'm glad to hear that's coming soon in the work plan.

Can the can the ARPA funds or I'm gonna call them the post-ARPA funds, uh the revenue replacement funds be used for that purpose?

Summers rising again.

I feel like that's a legal question, but it's a legal question, and it's it's it's a compliance and finance question.

But what I can tell you for sure is what uh the ARPA team made me acutely aware of is that quite a number of ARPA recipients, uh probably a majority of them are in fact paying salaries out of their grants.

And that that is very common, and that there are uh thresholds and limitations that folks often hit up against because they are trying to pay more salaries out of their grants.

Okay.

So you actually can't.

So there's some limitations you want to put in place there.

But I just know in the philanthropic.

But this entity didn't do that.

I mean, it's something that in the nonprofit world in the philanthropic world is always undervalued is the importance of staff work being done.

You know, there's always these like really tight restrictions on like what percentage can be used for overhead and you know, it's the people who were involved in you know any of these community organizations that really make it possible.

And so I just think that's really critical.

And so I hope that that is something that will be considered, uh, even though that's not a decision that we'll make up here.

But you know, I think it's important to invest in in staff.

Um I understand that there is flexibility with revenue replacement around timing.

So that also helps to ensure that we can be successful.

Um, you know, I you know it uh once again, I think it's a great thing to do to pay pay staff.

Um I'm also wondering both about the use of funds from a revenue replacement standpoint and also um just from like a strategic standpoint from the Haiti Promise CDC board, if there's an opportunity over time, is like we learn to be able to adapt and even if needed pivot on the use of funds.

If, for example, we learned that we had this really great idea that people in community said they wanted to spend money on, but we find through implementation that it is just really difficult to get the uptake and be able to deliver and deploy the funds.

I mean, every organization goes through this where you have to have occasionally a strategic kind of refresh.

What are the limitations in what is the and maybe it's too early to say, but what does the board have any thoughts about potential changes in use of funds over time?

Yeah, I'll do I'll defer to Ms.

Brown uh before before doing so want to acknowledge that the this the work that is being carried out and the strategy that is being deployed is directly connected to an approved scope of work that City Council approved.

So any any such pivots would uh likely require some different process, right?

So this entire scope, everything that we shared in the presentation today is directly in line with what City Council told the CDC to do in an approved scope of work.

Just to clarify, that's helpful to a new council member.

Thank you.

Yeah, just to clarify that the I'm sure that uh the Chair has some thoughts, but this this work was directly driven by what they were told to do as a part of the approved scope.

Cheryl Brown, Chair of the Hate Promise CDC.

When we were forming and coming together, we were trying to figure out what the neighborhood wanted, what did the neighborhood need?

Were we hearing from my neighborhood?

Because as a resident, I didn't feel that I was being heard.

I didn't feel that I understood, which was why I became a volunteer person with this board, which is why I accepted the charge, because I wanted to know more, I wanted to understand the process, and I wanted to make a contribution.

So because I felt that way, I felt we needed as a group, we decided we're going to go to the community based on our scope of work, what we have to follow, and find out what it is that our neighborhood wants.

The number one thing our neighborhood went, which was echoed here today was safety.

We are thinking about businesses, we are thinking about children, we are thinking about elderly, we were thinking about everybody being safe in a community that wasn't.

So that was first.

We came up with a plan for what we wanted, what we felt as people who lived in the community.

Then we went to our community and we held a meeting and we asked them, what do you want?

Tell us.

And people just could not believe that we were asking them to tell us what they wanted.

It was almost foreign to tell us what they wanted for their community to feel safe was number one.

Once we got the ball rolling and people started talking and people started opening up, then they told us we want to feel safe.

We want to be able to walk up and down the street.

We want to have businesses that we can go to.

So we went back to the drawing board as a board, we looked at what we would told we had to stay within the scope of work, and we came up with these programs.

And that was how we designed it.

We didn't come in saying this is what we're going to do, this is what we're telling you all we're going to do, based on what the parameters that we and understand when we first started, we all thought we were getting ready to go get some paintbrushes and some hammers, and we were going to start working on projects.

Because I'm a person of action.

I work in the private sector.

It is like I got to get it done now.

So even learning the government way was a little bit difficult for me, but understanding that we would not dealing with money that didn't have ropes and chains attached to it with requirements that we had to meet.

That's all very helpful background, Ms.

Brown.

I appreciate that.

And I guess like then to build on that, the question is with a revenue replacement approach, there could be greater flexibility.

And so I just want to understand how much flexibility is there, if in the future, based on the continued listening and community and because sometimes ideas don't come to fruition because there are barriers that a nonprofit can't surmount, you know, is there an opportunity to be flexible over time as needed with the use of funds.

But it's really helpful to understand sort of how you got to where it is now.

So thank you.

Yeah, councilmember, I I think um the short answer to that is yes, uh, but also acknowledging that a lot of the work has already been committed, right?

And so uh in the presentation we share that 5.4 million dollars has been committed to work that is already underway, right?

And so while a significant more amount of the I mean you know how this works, right?

The significant amount of money isn't out of the door yet, but these are funds that have been agreed and the majority of the ARPA funding has been spoken for.

All right.

Okay.

Uh uh Summer has one more thought on that.

Just to punctuate the question, as I think I heard you say it.

So we're not amending the scope of work right now.

So they are the HATA promise is still to adhere to the contracted scope of work.

But that's the what it's not the how.

And I think that may be where some of the confusion lies.

They have an economic development charge.

So those are sort of standard bucket of economic development 101 kind of carve-outs.

But then the how within that can still be molded.

Yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

And it's a good call out from Director Gunn that, you know, majority of this fund, these funds have been spent.

I think what I was really trying to get at was that like for the record, I'm not looking to change the scope of work.

It's just that the scope of work was painstakingly developed under what I think I heard one person say with some handcuffs.

And now with you know, of the Federal requirements, which are quite difficult to comply with, right?

And the development of that, like, and now we might be entering into a future where with revenue replacement, there may be greater flexibility.

And so there may be things that folks wanted to do but they couldn't because of where things were.

But but please, you know, continue scope of work, you know, like as is.

That wasn't my intention to suggest that.

I know a lot has been contracted, but that was my intention for the questions.

Uh it wasn't trying to kind of lead to a different outcome.

Mayor Proton.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I really appreciate the presentation.

I appreciate the detailed responses to all the questions.

As one of the council members who was on the actual council at the time of these decisions.

Uh I just want to lift up the City of Durham approached ARPA in a fundamentally different way than almost every single city in the United States.

We gave half of our mill half of our money to community organizations, and actually more than because of the CDC.

And so for me, I think what is frustrating is that that process was onerous.

It meant staffing up, it meant a lot more work for our City Attorney's Office, and then a lot more work for folks trying to figure out how to get community organizations to meet these Federal requirements.

It pro it meant that the ARPA team had to be deployed for longer than other cities.

And so we residents charge us to really listen to community to really um put that kind of process forward.

And then we did do it.

Um obviously hard decisions were had were were made by two councils ago because we certain organizations that applied didn't get funding, right?

We made some uh clear, hard decisions around, well, if it was around public health, we felt like the county's process should really cover that.

It wasn't really a lane of work that the city usually funded.

There were hard decisions that had to be made in that process.

I think it's um it's disheartening.

Sometimes things don't go your way.

And that's just a basic fact of life.

And it's disheartening to hear many years later, after a lot of diligent work uh that was done uh with a lot of support of city staff, that folks are still not satisfied, and that's fine.

Sometimes I'm not satisfied with an answer, and that is that is your right.

Um but I really commend staff for the work that they've done.

I commend the CDC board for what they've done.

I look forward to uh a more, you know, uh a Fedville corridor that the residents who live there can be proud of.

Because it's something I've been hearing about for many, many years.

I think all of us, when we go down in that corridor, we see many of the things that are frustrating to residents and are often unsafe.

Um I look forward to the work, and if scope of works have to be adjusted, they have the flexibility now uh to do that.

Um I think I was able to meet with several board members a few uh weeks ago.

I applaud their volunteer efforts.

Uh it is not easy to sit on a new board that is learning its way and learning its charge.

Um the Federal requirements were also changing at the time.

When staff got original original rules would come down and a few months later they would shift and staff had to pivot and nonprofits had to pivot.

Uh and we knew that that was a risk.

The council who made the decision to put $25 million, actually $35 million back into community.

Knew that that was a risky proposition.

We knew that it wasn't the most straightforward thing to do, and we knew that many cities weren't going to take that risk.

But we felt in that moment in the pandemic that that was the right thing to do.

And there have been many, many successful projects.

I have gone to many community celebrations because of ARPA dollars that were spent.

And I am proud that that council made that decision.

I'm proud that we put $35 million back into community instead of keeping it for city operations.

Because that is actually what most cities did.

They backfilled their own dollars instead of putting it out in the community.

So I'm I'm proud that we made that decision.

I'm proud of the council that made it.

I'm proud uh Mayor Williams and I were two of the folks on the ARPA subcommittee team, along with um former mayor pro Tem Johnson.

Um so I get that there's questions from community.

I get that this is technical.

I get that folks maybe aren't satisfied.

Um I hope that we get to have lots of celebrations and wins in in this community because they're they're deserved and they're overdue, and it's a way to wrong um to write wrongful things that have happened that the city of Durham was involved in the Trevor Burrus.

And thank you so much for all of your patience as we navigate this.

It's um again, as I stated earlier, when you receive public money, you have public scrutiny.

And so it's not a situation of dissatisfaction, it's more so accountability.

Because as we said before, it takes money to make money.

My concern is that a large amount of this money is being um utilized for consultants.

And so if we probably had a more established organization, that threshold wouldn't be as high as it is now.

Because what I don't want to have happen is is that this money is spent and captured and it did not meet its intended purpose, right?

Because when you look at the ULI report, it was very this is what this whole thing is based on, right?

The recommendations of having a CDC and how you utilize this, and then also promote promoting black entrepreneurship.

And looking at some of the partners, I'm like, well, where are the people who actually are in the community as the entrepreneurs?

Why are we reaching outside of the community if this was economic development for, right?

So I want to be sure.

And then also I'm still stuck on the fact that somebody's credit card accidentally got on file and we had a reimbursement.

It's small things like that are just small things that I'm noticing that are inconsistencies that are being planted in the field of I have a field of red flags right now.

And that may not, it's not up to you, Director Gunn.

I appreciate you again for all of that.

And I also appreciate the CDC, the volunteer board, but this is what happens when you experiment at Thanksgiving.

I'm going to keep using that reference.

But what happens with that is that typically you don't create a new nonprofit and then give the money, so now we're spending a lot of money on consultants, setting everything go.

That doesn't make the greatest amount of sense to me.

And so I want to just ensure that as we move forward with however we move forward, that there again is a clear plan for that work.

And it's not about pacifying folks, or it's not about, but if you that's a blighted community, and I really do not want, we have a great opportunity to do things.

And when I had some meetings yesterday, some folks were like, well, there is no community here.

It gives me pause to, yeah, we met with Ms.

Brown, the director, and she said there's no community here.

And I'm like, I got a church down the street.

I worked over here for years in the houses over here on Grant Street.

I was a part of organizing work.

There is community here.

And when you have a CDC, a community development corporation uh board chair say there's no community, the key word in their whole thing is community.

That's that's alarming to me.

So I just want to make sure that we are casting, and then also you don't, I know people may not, you know, everyone isn't like each other or whatever the you know personality conflicts are, but you do have one of the largest like commercial business owners who are missing right now from this conversation.

And it's not about life or dislike, but it's about economic development.

People have to figure out how to work together.

So that's just my spill on it.

It's not about dispatch fashion, it's about efficiency and effectiveness, because what we don't want to do is remember the time that we invested 2 million dollars and got nothing.

I felt safer walking down Fanetville Street in 2005 than I do right now.

And that's crazy to me.

When I was 17, I felt comfortable going from NCCU down to Phoenix Square, do we get my hair done, my nails done, whatever.

I wouldn't dare take that journey right now.

Like what are we promoting here?

And what's our legacy moving forward?

But I really want to make sure that again that we are holding each other accountable, and it's not about blaming folks, it's about just being more intentional, and I would hope for our city moving forward.

I don't want another pandemic, so hopefully we don't have a situation like that, that we just really are intentional about who we give money to, so we can probably mitigate what you said.

Yeah.

We might be.

But so we can make sure that we're being equitable about the process moving forward.

Thank you.

I'm gonna sound a little bit like a broken record because I always say that everything is always harder when we don't have a small area plan.

Um and this is a conversation that I've had um with Ms.

Dozier.

I've had this conversation with the Hesters specifically to the Fateful Street Quarter, but in places all over our city, and I think it communities reach a boiling point where there's there's just this need, and um, if that need goes unmet, it makes everything so much harder.

One, because it's a process that brings everyone to the table with all different perspectives and all different stakeholders, and two, because it sets a vision and uh and a document that anyone can open up.

It'll be on the city website that shows how to move forward within a certain geographic area.

We saw Wall Town, uh the Walltown neighborhood organize and basically conduct their own small area planning process before we came in and downtown Durham Incorporated did their own small area plan, and then we came in and um and adopted the small area plan.

So again, I I think it's I think it's so important.

Um I I did notice in exhibit two under the 2024 approved budget ARPA, the consultant item seven, the consultant professional services, um they're listed there is small area planning uh among a few different items, and then also 2024 approved budget ARPA revenue replacement right-hand column also has um small area planning.

So just one last question from me here is um can you just tell me what what that looks like?