The Raleigh City Council met on April 1, 2025, at 1:00 PM in the City Council Chamber. Mayor Janet Cowell presided, with Councilor Mitchell Silver arriving late. The meeting included a consent agenda, a rezoning case, a text change authorization for stormwater regulations, citizen-initiated street closing petitions, a bequest to the police K9 unit, a strategic plan update, a comprehensive classification and compensation study update, and committee reports. Several items were voted on, while others were referred to committees for further discussion.
All right, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Thank you, everybody, for being here. Um first, I'll just say Counselor Silver will be arriving late today, so I guess he has an excused absence up until that time. And um next we will do the Pledge of Allegiance, and I'll lead to the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Next uh we've got the consent agenda, and there was one item pulled, which was H two on Pull and Park. Uh do I have a motion to approve the remainder? So moved. Second. All in favor of the motion, aye. All opposed, nay. All right. And then for H two, I think we just wanted to have a conversation, and I believe Nikki Jones, right, had a comment. Yeah. Oh yes. Adam Foreman from Parks. Yeah, ultimately, uh we think that uh starting this contract and this project uh in June would be disruptive to summer operations, um, and also potentially would run into holiday express uh preparations. So it'll have severe operation, operational and revenue impact. Um I think maybe it could be finished, but this is we are uh have a very inexperienced contractor. Um they haven't done work of this magnitude of this type. The largest project they indicated was about six hundred fifty thousand dollars for locker room replacement. This is a lake draining with retaining wall construction. So given the uh the time frame, given the operational impact, and given the experience of the contractor, uh, we thought it was appropriate to bid this out in June, begin in January. We'll be able to close down the park entirely. We'll just simplify the contract and simplify the logistics uh of the project so that the next the next bit is poised for success, and we think we'll get more experience and more bidders. All right. Do we have questions for Mr. Foreman? Oh yes. Um cost escalations for with the delay. It's you know, of course, uncertain. Um we think that with by simplifying the project and logistics, that will put downward pressure uh on bids. Waiting four more months might mean a rise, but we hope that that's counterbalanced by just simplifying the project. At this time, we wanted to keep the park open during the summer, and that made it very hard for bringing in materials, removing materials. Now we're just gonna close in January. We'll make it very simple, and we think based on what we've heard from the pre-bid hearing, that that will lead to more bitters and easier. So we're hoping it counterbalances. But regardless, the revenue impact of doing it now would be so significant that um on the whole, we think this will be much better, much more fiscally responsible for the city. All right. There's no other conversation, I would um make a motion to support the rejection of the bid. All right. All in favor of the motion, aye. All opposed. All right, thank you so much. The next we have the um report of planning commission. Good afternoon, Hannah Recau, planning and development. So start off with upcoming holidays over the next few months. Um currently scheduled public hearings. Uh there are four uh rezoning items scheduled for April 15th, none for May 6th.