The Raleigh City Council held a public comment session on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, at 7:00 PM in the City Council Chamber. Mayor Janet Cowell presided. Twenty-four speakers addressed the council on a wide range of topics, including the city budget, public safety, affordable housing, transportation, homelessness, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No council discussion or votes occurred beyond the public comment period.
Note: No council votes or formal decisions were taken during this public comment session. The meeting was adjourned after all speakers were heard.
Good evening. We will call the public comment for this evening to order, and we have uh 24 speakers lined up. Uh the first person on the list, Terry Turner. Okay. Uh second, Alex Lafonde. Hello. All right. Uh so hello, everyone. My name is Alex. I'm a resident of District D off of Wade Park Boulevard. Uh between December and last week, I attended a number of the budget listening sessions put on by the budget management services department. Uh so let me start off by acknowledging how well put together these were. Saudia, uh, you and your team uh fostered an environment which was informative, infective, and gave our citizens an area to speak about the things they care about most. So thank you to you and your team. So attending these budget sessions was also far more informative than just how the budget is created. It showed me that people have a lot to say and that they care about a lot. But of these things, the three that kept coming back uh were affordable housing, transportation, and public safety. Uh so over the next couple of weeks, I encourage and implore all of those here and at home uh to uh contact the four council members that represent you to make sure they fund the things that matter to you. Uh for me, I just want to make sure it's clear where I stand. So we need to invest even more in our downtown. We need to do this by funding grants for residents who dream of owning a small business. We need to continue zoning downtown in the immediate areas for more residential development and stop the suburban sprawl, which is massively increasing our infrastructure maintenance and spending costs and is a large contributor uh to car dependency and traffic in the city. We need to fund projects that make downtown much more friendly. Uh oh, yeah. Uh for uh much more correction, sorry. Uh we need to fund projects that make downtown much more friendly for those in Raleigh with a disability uh so they can also enjoy the downtown businesses. Secondly, we need to fund separation allowance for our city firefighters who have earned that benefit from sacrificing their bodies and their mental health over the time that is required to collect that benefit. Uh finally, we also need to increase pay for all of our city workers. While the Milken Institute report today releases great PR for the city, uh it does neglect to acknowledge the real picture. Raleigh is unaffordable for our city workers. In other words, all the people who are keeping this city running and making a place which ends up on all of these lists. So I just ask all of you here today uh to keep that in mind as we go through the budget process over the next few months. So thank you very much for your time and consideration today. You know, have a good rest of your night. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Next we have Mr. Robert Quartz. Good evening, Mayor, City Council members. Our city's budget is far more than just a financial ledger. It's a blueprint for our lives and future. It shapes the services we depend on every day, from police and fire protection that ensure our safety, to public transportation that keeps us connected, and parks and green spaces that enrich our quality of life. Mismanagement or has haphazard budget cuts don't just affect numbers on a page. They harm our safety, accessibility, and overall quality of life. Before I continue, I too want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to our budget department for their outstanding work. In my 10 years of local government advocacy, this year's citizen engagement has been the best I've ever experienced. The budget listening sessions were informative, interactive, and allowed for meaningful feedback. Thank you for prioritizing transparency and community involvement in this critical process. To my fellow citizens, now is the time to engage.