The Raleigh City Council convened on March 18, 2025, for a work session at 11:30 AM and a regular session at 1:00 PM. The meeting covered consent agenda approvals, public comments, planning commission reports, a special item on Brookside Drive safety, a discussion on advisory boards and commissions, a downtown progress report, several public hearings on rezoning and nuisance abatement, and appointments.
Okay, that's the picture of the thing. As uh Counselor Silver is got an excused absence, so uh we'll mark that for the record. And then as always, we start with a Pledge of Allegiance, and I'm asking Counselor Lambert Melton to lead us. Liberty and justice for all. Then we start with a consent agenda, and it's my understanding that nothing has been pulled. Move to approve. Second from Counselor Patton. Any other discussion? If not, all in favor of the motion. Aye. Aye. All opposed. All right. And then I believe, right? That takes us all the way up to public comment. And we've got eight folks for public comment. And I will uh just call you up as as you know with public comment. Uh this is uh the city council's time to hear from you, so we will not respond uh directly to your commentary. Um, but it is possible you could follow up with staff afterwards if it's an item that's you know relevant. Okay, so with that, uh Ricardo Fuentes Ricardo here. Okay, next we have Josh McIntyre. Uh hi. My name is Josh McIntyre. I live at seven two seven Gas and Street Apartment H. Um, and I'm mostly here actually just to thank uh the mayor and counselors for your service to our community. Um I feel like you give a lot of your time to this, and uh I appreciate it. Um I also want to say that uh I I'm really pleased to see go Raleigh system. Uh getting more amenities on the street. And I wanted in particular um to invite those of you uh on this council to uh give yourself the opportunity to ride the bus if you have it. I really um would strongly encourage it. We'd love to have you on the number twelve method. Um I speak just for myself. But uh one of the busier routes, also like the number one and number twenty-one. Um I think you will see uh some things in the city that you might otherwise miss. And uh with that, I do have to apologize. I may have to leave to get the bus back to work, but thank you all for your service. Thank you, Mr. McIntyre. Matthew Brown. Thank you for your service, and thank you for letting me speak. Perhaps the most important element in Raleigh's success is its good quality public schools. You can live anywhere in Raleigh and send your children to a safe, healthy school with good teachers. This is not the case in most cities. A key to maintaining our good schools is our magnet program and diversity policy, which ensures that no school has too high a percentage of disadvantaged students. Research is unequivocal that such schools tend to suffer from poor academic outcomes, poor discipline, overworked faculty, and middle class flight. The disadvantaged students who remain receive a second class education. Research also indicates that a diverse student body is better for all students. Our magnet program is funded in part by grants from the U.S. Department of Education. These grants will soon be eliminated because they have the purpose of promoting diversity, which is anathema to the recently elected president.