The Raleigh City Council convened on December 2, 2025, beginning with a high-level update regarding the fire at the Raleigh Convention Center the previous night. Council members expressed deep appreciation for the fire department's response and confirmed that while structural damage was minimal, sprinkler damage affected interiors and events like the upcoming cybersecurity conference were relocated. The meeting proceeded with standard agenda items, including consent calendar reviews, rezoning approvals, and discussions on public policy updates such as the Tax Increment Reimbursement Program and the Raleigh Engagement Network.
I'm thinking about the two rooms. All right. We'll go ahead and bring the meeting to order. Before we get going, because we had the Raleigh Convention Center fire last night, I know a number of you just uh wanting updates, and we don't have a lot of detail, but I'll give you uh a little bit of high-level uh additional um progress, and then the City of Raleigh, Carrie Painter or Evan Raleigh, others uh later this afternoon, uh, we will have um additional sort of statements uh prepared. But for for now, um the city uh has just, you know, the city manager's office uh and assistant city manager Evan Raleigh have just informed me that the sprinklers were set off in the building, so there's has been some damage where sprinklers, you know, damage uh some of the kitchens and sort of perishable goods, that kind of thing. They have looked at the um structural uh the shimmer wall. In fact, I was actually in contact with Thomas Sayer, the artist of the Shimmer Wall this morning, um, and it looks like that that structural integrity is good. Um, so that I know that's a beloved feature of that building. Um it looks like that one is okay. Um, but they are still looking at all the other equipment um and assessing damages there. Um, in terms of events, I know there's been some uh you know, concern that what is this what happens to events, cybersecurity, which was supposed to have an event starting tomorrow. They have uh decided given the circumstances that they will find alternative venues. So if uh anyone's going to the cybersecurity conference, they uh uh you know, look for updates from that group. And then uh other really kind of immediate events, we are working with those organizers uh to think through uh what needs to happen. But again, I think we can have more details this afternoon at City Manager. Anything that just high level that you want to add. No, I think that covers it quite nicely at this point. Hopefully, this afternoon after all the inspections are conducted, we'll have more to share. Okay. So just very appreciative that there were no injuries and that our um fire department responded so admirably. So more to come in in a few moments after we get through some of this agenda. Yes. But I do want to thank the fire department for their continued work and service, not just on city property, but also to all of our residents in the city. Uh uh association, and everything's open, all the lights events that were planned, um, of course, the the holiday tree in Moore Square. So no other disruptions outside of the immediate uh convention center. Okay. With that, uh we have called the meeting to order and a pledge of allegiance. Uh Councilor Patton, would you mind leading us? Under God. All right, and then we have some special awards. Okay. It's on here, but no special awards at the moment. All right. Yeah. We'll keep going with the consent agenda. We had uh a few items pulled, I believe that was C1A, although my understanding is we're good with that now. I I'll mention it just so uh yeah, thank you so much. Uh C1A had to deal with Raleigh Civil Service Act and an exemption position. This came up a few years ago, and I was just clarifying or asking questions of clarity to see how many uh if we were adding to the number of people exempt from being able to go to the community or the civil service commission and received uh great notes this morning, and I just wanted to see if um um we can have it just a summary so that the public can understand uh the questions and the responses. Thank you. So Sharnell Jones, our HR director, will be here to speak to this item. Mayor, do you want to approve the rest of the consent agenda before this item or take it separately? Uh I think if as long as Sharnell's uh Ms. Jones is right here, why don't we just go ahead with that and then we can maybe approve the rest. Sharon Jones Human Resources, good afternoon. Um as you all are aware, back in 2023, we went through this process of updating the exemption list and as well as the policy, and we went back a couple of times, and in that policy change, you all did revise the definition for division and division head, as well as immediate secretaries to kind of narrow the list of the individuals that will qualify for um exemption from the Civil Service Act. And just want to be clear that the Raleigh Civil Service Act, that is law and it dictates the individuals that are exempt from the civil service, which are the elected officials, employees or officials appointed by the city council, department heads, division heads, part-time or non-permanent officers or employees, employees serving the probationary period, and any um employees that are applying for those positions that I named previously. Um based on that, we also went through a compensation study, which required for us to be able to um to have to update our exemption list because most of the classification titles change as going through that process. And so we also have an individual's term has expired that is on the Civil Service Commission, and they um currently we need to go through a nomination and election process. And so that was the need of why this exemption list was updated at this time to make sure that we have the right people that could vote in that election process.