You're watching WSTV Digital Media, and I'm not sure if you're not going to be able to do that.

Chairperson, Councilmember Clark?

Here.

Vice Chair, Mayor Praetham Adams.

Here.

Councilmember Scipio?

Here.

And Councilmember Taylor.

Present.

And by the way, I do have and see all you folks in person.

We'll start with the consent agenda.

Are there any items anyone wants pulled?

Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Second.

We have a motion.

I think that was Adam second by Scipio.

Are we voice voting this?

Yes.

Okay.

All in favor of the consent agenda?

Respond with aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

That is approved.

We will now go to the general agenda.

If the clerk will please read the first item.

Item G one resolution authorizing early termination of lease and conveyance of the Fourth and Church Street Parking Deck to RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company.

If the staff will please give a report on this, this is a very important item.

Everybody needs to be up to speed on it.

So this um this deck came to be around the year two thousand in a partnership between the city and Reynolds American in an agreement to really construct this deck on land owned by Reynolds American.

Subsequent to that agreement.

So that was a one-time payment.

So that put them up to 725 spaces out of the 1,500 spaces in the deck.

So that prompted a series of discussions between the city manager and the county manager staff on both sides to try to get to the bottom of that.

You kind of had a little bit of a culmination of things.

You had the county first prompt in that discussion.

You also had, I think at the same time, we were going through our process of switching over our downtown parking program to go to kind of the pay by phone app and then kind of the camera license plate readers in and out of the decks.

So we were holding off on making some improvements to that deck until ultimately that got over the finish line.

That in turn was causing, I think, some safety issues for the folks at rentals who were parking in that deck, and they voiced frustrations to the city about some of those issues.

So you kind of had a convergence of issues that all came to the table really at one time.

So we had conversations with the folks at rentals and they inquired about accelerating the termination of essentially the city's management and operation of the parking deck.

We were basically slated to manage that through 2037.

They inquired what would that look like to end that agreement sooner.

So we basically tried to work through some values on that.

Um in December of 2025, Reynolds presented to the city an offer of $1 million payment to the city to basically accelerate the termination of that agreement.

Essentially, um, should council desire to do that.

Um basically rentals will take over the operation maintenance and full control of the parking deck there.

So that's that's what essentially has got us to this point again that came in December.

Um we've been working back and forth with their team up until this point.

One of the other concessions that Reynolds has offered to the city as part of this is they have um since we would be losing some uh public parking in that deck, there is a surface lot that's owned by Reynolds, the K lot, which is north of Fifth Street there.

Uh they have agreed to allow the city to have some public parking in that surface lot.

If they ever sell that lot, then obviously that public parking would go away.

But up until that time, the city would work with them to have some public parking available for our downtown area.

The other piece of this, and to kind of put a bow on this, um, it's not necessarily us selling a parking deck, it's us ending the agreement that the lease and operation of that that goes back to rentals in exchange for a one-time payment of one million dollars.

And should council decide to do this, we would settle up with the county.

And I think we've got that number in the staff reporting of the fiscal impact out of the one million approximately 328,300 be remitted to the county.

671 coming back to the city, and essentially, I think the proposal there would be to relieve that money in the parking fund.

There are some upgrades to elevators and six charity six trade and charities parking deck that needs some work, and that's potentially some money to go to help funding those repairs there.

So, with that, I'm glad to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Um, would you go to the well, Robert's on the screen, so we may not be able to see.

If the council will go to the map that's in the agenda of the parking deck, and can you put the map up on the screen for everybody?

What I need to know is I know you have the legend, uh K lot boundary, the tax block, K P lot.

Where is the K lot boundary?

Is it is it I know SP.

So the P is K is the K lot boundary.

That's correct.

As well as it's kind of shaded and blue over to the one with the P on it.

Now, where would that be that you say that we may be able to have some parking or something that the city it's in that K lot that the area hatched in that blue shading?

Okay, and that's 133 spaces.

That's correct.

Well, we be we will be utilizing our app uh parking.

That's correct.

We would bring it the same ecosystem with the rest of our downtown parking.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'm one of those people, you know, I'm glad we're getting out of this because we all know that the agreement was between three parties.

It's like we all kind of co-owned this thing, and uh as times have changed, uh, some of us don't want to do this anymore, and it's not just the city.

Uh, there is a lot of upkeep.

That's a that's an old parking deck as well.

All of the decks that the city built were collaborated with a very, very old.

So to try to maintain the infrastructure of these parking decks would just be another, as you say, monthly or whatever tax bill to the city that we have other capital needs on the infrastructure that's uh I'm not saying the parking decks aren't important, but we also need to realize the importance of our infrastructure of the buildings that our citizens and our employees either work in or they visit on a day to day.

So I will be supporting this.

Mayor Protein, you mentioned something else that's worth noting that I didn't get into.

We end up, I think kind of the maintenance and operating costs of this aren't helping the city out.

So I think you've got in your report basically at approximately it'll result in a net income of about 300,000 to the city annually in the other piece that you mentioned there, kind of long term or the capital needs that are kind of laying out there.

Is this council knows?

We've talked a lot about our capital needs from the city side and our facilities all the way around.

So this is just something else out there competing for those limited capital dollars for facility needs.

So it also helps that area as well.

Yeah, uh, anybody else would like to speak.

Can we uh go back so I can see the meeting space meeting room?

Yeah, anyone else wants to speak uh James or the mayor, whoever.

Oh okay, there it is.

Mr.

Chairman, uh it's Alan.

Uh go ahead.

I just wanted to say that this is a really good deal for the city once and say I want to congratulate uh Pat and Aaron for working this out.

And we built this deck in the year 2000 in order for us to get the one West 4th Street building, which is like a 60 million dollar project.

So the the facility has served as well over the past uh 26 years or so.

Uh it is basically used a lot mostly by my rentals and by some of the other.

As Aaron said it's gonna save us 300 grand a year out of the park fund.

We're gonna add 671 capital back into the parking fund, and we're gonna get access to that surface law, which will give us the turnover parking that we really need in that area.

So it's it's a good deal for for the city, good deal for the RG rentals to take it over and they go pay all this maintenance expenses that they need there.

So I congratulate staff on a hard on a good job pulling all this together.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Anyone else comment?

I I would like to echo comments from uh Miss Adams and the Mayor.

We really do not own this deck.

Uh in 2037, which is 11 years from now, rentals gets the deck whether we want to or not.

That's the agreement.

So we basically have rights to the income from half the sparking spaces, but we have the le the obligation, the liability of maintaining the entire deck.

So for the next 11 years, this will be a negative cash flow.

So what we what we own is rights to a negative cash flow, which to me has very little value.

Uh rentals is willing to take it over.

Uh we do get a surface lot to use, and I I think this is a uh home run force in that we will actually be making money versus losing money.

Uh can I get uh I don't see more questions.

Can I get a motion on this?

Move forward.

Mr.

Chair, I move for approval of item G1.

Is there a second?

Second.

We have a motion from Ms.

Adams, a second from Mississippi O.

Uh Ms.

Clerk, are we going to vote by uh by voice or voice vote since you're a remote?

Okay.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Thank you.

This is approved.

If we'll move to G2, please.

Item G2, update on fiscal year 2026-27 local community agency funding process.

Okay, who's gonna talk about this?

Mr.

Tesh is up to speak about this.

Okay, Mr.

Tesh, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chairman, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem members of the City Council.

Uh, what we have before you today is an information item again on local community agencies process for fiscal year 27.

Uh, we spoke about this at your January retreat, had an update in February as well, and this is a secondary update.

The intent here is simply to provide information uh for the public and for you.

Uh there is no expectation of discussion of individual agencies or funding recommendations today.

That is scheduled to take part at a budget workshop later in May, tentatively scheduled for May the 14th.

Uh so uh if this is working, I will use the clicker.

So we're gonna talk about uh just overall budget assumptions for community agencies.

Again, we're talking about the local ones and the general fund and the occupancy tax fund, a summary of the input that has been provided uh by the mayor and city council, and then again look kind of at the selection process that'll take place in May, as well as the overall timeline for budget and community agencies.

Uh so two sides of the the slide here, one for general fund and one for occupancy tax.

The FY26 number is the current amount that is in this year's budget for community agencies at just under 930,000.

As we discussed, it is growing at FY27 based on a policy change for per capita funding.

And what you see that number at the bottom, the 841,000, we'll talk about is the average of the elected officials who recommended funding for a specific agency, that added together.

So what you see as a starting point potentially for discussions is a little bit less than what we expect the budget for 27 to be.

On the occupancy tax fund side, again, just over 400,000 for FY26.

We had discussed that amount increasing as well.

The occupancy tax revenues are not increasing, and therefore for the FY27 budget, we are holding that amount flat for community agencies.

Again, the kind of average funding of those that are recommended, slightly below what's there as a starting point.

Overall summaries, both for the general fund and the occupancy tax fund.

So if you look at the top table for general fund, we have here the number of agencies who received four or more recommendations or input from city council, what percentage of the total number of requests that is, what their funding amount was, and then that final column is the average of those who recommended funding, what that average is.

So for the general fund, 15 agencies received input from four or more of the elected officials with a funding level of $841,000.

Same thing you see below with occupancy tax.

Obviously, there are many fewer agencies on the occupancy tax side.

There were only eight of them, so the vast majority of them, all of them got three or more recommendations.

But you can see there again, five that received four or more, and the numbers.

Again, these will be the kind of the starting points for for next year.

Looking uh a little more in-depth at the analysis of this, what it means for some of those agencies.

Again, recommending on the general fund side.

I'm not sure if you can see that because of the Zoom bar at the top, Councilmember Clark, but this is the uh general fund analysis slide.

Uh so for agencies that received funding from four or more, uh, again, 15 of those, uh, it's about 115,000 less, that $841,000 number less than what's in the FY27 budget for general fund agencies.

Uh, seven of those agencies do not receive current funding in the budget.

That would be city with dwellings, a bed and a book, seven hard second harvest food bank, salvation army senior services, the dwelling and union CDC.

So those all received at least four votes and are not currently funded via the normal community agencies process.

A few of those do have money through ARPA, um, which will be ending this year.

Bullet point number three uh would be agencies that would see still have at least four votes, but the average of what they got would see a reduction if you were to use it.

That is just a context note to tell you what what you have recommended for funding on average.

Um then uh down at the bottom.

I would note there are several agencies that did receive general fund community agency support in the current fiscal year that did not uh get four or more votes, and so they are tabled uh at the bar, bullet pointed at the bottom for you.

Um this question has come up a couple of times in different venues and came up last year as part of the county's community agency process.

Uh but what agencies do they fund?

So this is a list of um community agencies from the county side.

There are quite a few of them that receive money both from the city and the county.

If you look at that list, Harry VCOS, senior services, the Shepherd Center, Arts Council, the International Black Theater Festival, River Run, ESR, Collideum, and Old Salem are all annually uh annual community agencies, and then again, you would see things like uh Union Community Development Corporation, uh Crosby Scholars, and a few other Salvation Army that were ARPA.

So there are quite a few of these, obviously, that both the city and the county are funding.

I do not know currently what the recommended funding levels will be at the county.

We may potentially have those when we're having this discussion in May.

If I can get those numbers for you at that time, I will do my best to get those either from their proposed budget document or directly from county staff, so you have updated numbers.

On the occupancy tax side, again, there were only eight of those that we had total on the occupancy tax side.

Um five of those received four or more votes.

Only one of those agencies does not currently receive direct funding.

That was the Winston-Salem Symphony.

I would also say they do receive money from the Arts Council, so they receive money from an organization that we are currently funding.

Um again, uh one organization currently funded that the average of the recommendations there would be uh less than what they are currently receiving.

That is old Salem.

Um then for agencies with funding input from uh fewer than four, there's there's nobody on that list uh that would get it.

Again, I would say here these are not a recommendation from staff at this point.

This is simply a compilation of what we have received from you.

It is, and I'll get to the end say a starting point, I think, for discussions uh in May.

In terms of what that timeline looks like, you have seen this slide before.

I have highlighted the May 14th budget workshop as that is the day we anticipate having this open discussion.

It will be on the agenda for that day.

I will also note the May 18th date is the budget public hearing.

Anyone and everyone who wishes to be heard on the budget can be heard on that day.

That includes the general public as well as any nonprofits uh that would like to petition you for funding as well.

The last two slides are simply excerpts from the uh exhibits, and again, these are the uh agencies that did receive uh recommendations from at least four respondents.

Again, you can see this directly in the exhibits, both for general fund and occupancy tax fund.

I would call these again the starting point for those discussions that we would have in May.

Um, and we will make sure that we work out the appropriate process and any analysis that council is looking for, we would bring to that agenda and make sure that we have it ready.

So, generally speaking, we are providing you back just a summary of the input that you individually provided to us.

If you have any questions at all, I am more than happy to take those.

If I can answer them now, I will.

If not, again, we will put together a more thorough analysis for the discussion that takes place in May, but wanted you to have access to this.

That is all I have for uh before we get to questions.

As Scott pointed out, this is for information only today.

Uh, I will be back in town Thursday and we'll be in town for at least to the end of June.

If any council member here present or others have any specific comments they would like to pass on to me, I'll be happy to take them.

And we will start dealing with this specifically in May as we work on the rest of the budget.

Any questions today?

Yeah, I just want uh Mr.

Tess, if you could please you and your staff put together again a matrix, the one that you have with the agencies that the county funds put them like bank them up against the city so I can see the good complete picture because I have to tell you I didn't know that, but I'm glad.

So if you could do that, and also again, like I asked uh housing yesterday, any funding that these these uh other agencies have gotten from us from other sources outside of the general fund with a title.

I'd like to see that whether it's ARPA money, home money, CDC, see uh community development block grant money, it doesn't matter.

Thank you.

We will produce that that is already on the list of things for the 14th.

Um, and I was trying to do it for this, it's very hard to get it to fit on a slide, but we will have an exhibit for you uh attached when we have that conversation.

Absolutely.

Okay, any other questions or comments at this time.

Well, with that, this is information only, and we will keep this all in mind.

And again, if anyone would like to chat with me, I'd be happy to talk in the day and a half.

Okay, city clerk, we'll go to G3, please.

That's it.

That's it.

That's the end of the agenda.

That's it.

Oh, I knew that.

Thank y'all so much for putting up with this.

Uh, me being uh out of the building.

I know it's been an inconvenience, but thank you for it.

I do think we made an extremely important recommendation to the full council with the parking deck and the other item, the nonprofits.

Uh I say this every year, it's less than one percent of the budget, but it's probably 80% of the time we talk about it, but we will talk about it, and at the end of the day, we will come up with something hopefully that at least five people can support so we can get it approved.

Thank y'all all very much.