Good evening.

I'm Alan Joins, Mayor of Winston Salem.

It's my pleasure to call to order this March 17th meeting of the Winston Sotom City Council and ask the city clerk to call the roll, please.

Councilmember joyner.

Present.

Councilmember Clark.

Councilmember Andrew Bowen.

Here.

Councilmember Scipio.

Present.

Mayor Peritim Adams.

Here.

Councilmember Taylor.

Present.

Councilmember Hall.

Here.

And Councilmember Burke here.

Thank you.

We normally do a moment of silence here tonight.

And before we go into that, I just want to say a minute that we're grieving the loss of one of our former uh Board of Alderman meeting members, uh Virginia K.

Newell, who served uh in this council for a long time.

Uh died last week at the age of 107.

So uh she's a great lady, made a big difference in our community.

So let's think of her and her family tonight as we have a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Would you join the city council meeting the pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic.

One nation under God with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much.

Our Sergeant Arms tonight is Lieutenant Bowen.

Thank you for being with us.

And is that I'm sorry?

There was a quick change.

He tenant must have got a call.

Our fire marshal tonight is uh Nate Brown.

Um thank you for being with us tonight as well.

We recognize our city manager for his uh update.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um several different items tonight.

Uh first let me start with uh the Winston City Council had a very informative trip to Washington, D.C., or members that could attend for the many of them attending the National League of Cities Conference uh March 10th through 12th.

Uh but Mayor Pro Tem Adams, Councilmembers Clark, Scipio, Andre Bowen, and Joyner were along with the Assistant City Manager Wright and myself and our federal lobbyists were able to visit each of our congressional representatives and our senators uh on the Hill while we were there in DC.

That discussions focused on a lot of issues, including a continuation budget at the time that was going on, affordable housing, how to keep maintain safe communities, uh a whole series of topics that were there.

So in in these meetings, uh again with Representative Pat Herrigan and Addison McDowell, we discussed uh many concerns for the council and representing the community.

And our a big topic of focus was our pending request for support for existing uh community projects and our existing federal funding.

As uh Council I know is well aware.

Uh at current, we're expecting about nine, there's about ninety-three million dollars worth of federal funds that have been committed to us in one fashion or another, but have not found their way into our uh is as actual cash to us.

Many of those are because they're reimbursement projects, and some of those currently we are waiting because of the current uh things that are going on uh in the in the federal government, we're waiting on actual allocations of those or awarding of those or even getting allocations or information that says that we can move forward on those.

There was also uh town meetings held with Senator Tellis and uh Senator Budd.

Um during those sessions.

Uh, no councilmember Clark asked about how the city could plan its budget without clear insight into the federal budget for next year.

And that was a concern shared by many of the council members with other folks there.

We were advised that they hope that the funding streams could remain stable.

We are not expecting to see any increases in our federal funds, and there was a lot of emphasis on hope that we would maintain the funds that we have now, which is a variety of transportation projects, a variety of our federal uh bus system projects, um, a number of housing projects, our community development block grants, which we just spent a uh uh serious amount of time talking about in our uh sessions before this.

Um there's some public safety grants that we have out there, uh any number of uh projects that are going on that right now we're trying to focus on.

Can we get that money that's already been allocated to us into the city coffer so that we can continue with those projects that have already the public is already aware of and wants us to continue on with I in general?

I would I would describe the conversations as cautious, maybe optimistic, but cautious in that they felt like the federal government would honor obligations that they already committed to, but no real promises for moving forward uh into the future.

They emphasize the importance of maintaining our communication with them regarding all the allocations around federal uh federal funding, as again programs remain uncertain.

At least one of the programs we talked to them about, which was a program to help with unhoused individuals that are in apartments here close to the downtown off of 5th street.

At that point, we had not gotten any information that those funds would be released to us, and that could have left us with a 150 to 200,000 gap in just helping those individuals through the remainder of this year.

Uh since then, we've gotten some information that they are looking to move forward with those, but with some additional contract and a whole series of additional restrictions on the city to receive those funds.