to be intended to incite unlawful behavior will be deemed to be out of order zoom participants are requested to mute their microphones until they are called upon to speak the city of greensboro is committed to promoting an environment that is free of discrimination bias and bullying thus harassment words jokes actions or comments based on an individual sex sexual orientation race ethnic background age religion physical condition or other legally protected characteristic will not be tolerated in order to be considered written comments must be submitted online through the city's website www.greensborohyphennc.gov we have a consent agenda for items g1 and g2 which are a grouping of agenda items that are voted on with one single vote to expedite what are believed to be routine and non-controversial items any council member may withdraw an item from the consent agenda due to a conflict of interest or for the purpose of voting no items removed from the consent agenda for discussion will be placed on the february city council business agenda this meeting does include closed captioning depending on the length of tonight's meeting we will take a short recess around 7 30. this is the time for ceremonial and presentation items item number one is a resolution honoring the memory of the late eddie c bridges this is abusive waiter thank you madam mayor i'll read the resolution and then after we vote if the family would like to come up and say a few words and i'll present you with the resolution resolution to support and encourage the north carolina department of transportation to name a section of roadway in the memory of eddie c bridges whereas eddie c bridges was born in burke county attended public schools and graduated from morganton high school whereas eddie c bridges graduated from elon college which is now elon university where he was the first person in elon history to run the 100-yard dash under 10 seconds and established three new school records at the same meet whereas eddie c bridges owned carolina athletics supply state street greensboro whereas eddie c bridges was appointed to the north carolina wildlife resources commission in 1977 where he served two six-year terms whereas at ec bridges helped develop the north carolina lifetime hunting and fishing licenses and the north carolina wildlife endowment fund also named the eddie bridges fund by the north carolina general assembly which today is in excess of 166 million dollars whereas eddie c bridges proposed the north carolina waterfowl stamp and the north carolina tax checkoff program whereas eddie c bridges created the north carolina wildlife habitat foundation which today has an excess of six million dollars and he served as the executive director until 2020. whereas eddie c bridges has received more than 40 wildlife conservation awards and is the only recipient in the united states awarded four national conservation awards whereas the family of eddie bridges have requested the north carolina department of transportation ncdot to name a section of roadway in his memory whereas the city council of the city of greensboro north carolina support and encourage the ncdot to consider this request based on the many contributions of eddie bridges to the city of greensboro and to the state of north carolina and now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of greensboro that the city council wishes to support and encourage the north carolina department of transportation to consider naming a section of roadway in the memory of the lake eddie c bridges for his many accomplishments and contributions to our community and beyond adopted this the fourth day of january 2022. madam mayor i'd like to make the motion second and seconded by mrs therm council please vote mrs hoffman mr holston yes dr wells yes mrs johnson yes i am yes mrs abuzawader yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower that passes nine to zero yes now remove my mask my name is sam bridges and i preside at uh pleasant garden and i've got a business that is operated here in greensboro for 35 years so to speak and i'm going to try to unpack this quickly uh i brought here a couple of uh pamphlets i'd like to hand to y'all if i could i don't know how to get get them passed out to you on the front of those brochures there is a picture and it's on the board now of a deer stand that my father went to not necessarily to make harvest of deer but to allow nature to take its course with his innovative mind and ideas came to him there i went to the governor's office and i asked them to please fly the flag at the state capitol building on june the 23rd which was the day of his service and there is a service paper in there and there's also a copy of the that same picture on the board of that deer stand but we changed it up i took my younger son stone with me to help me to hang that flag up on that deer stand so i wanted y'all to have a picture of that where we had changed it a little bit i can't tell you how honored i am to be a citizen here in greensboro and i'm so grateful to have a mayor like nancy bone i have a scripture here and it says without counsel purposes are disappointed but in multitude of counselors they are established i went to council to the director of the department of transportation mike fox i went to the new engineer for the department of transportation right archer and a long time ago i went to nancy bone about something and it all worked out favorably now mike i didn't talk with him directly it was indirectly through right but one time i went to nancy and and i had an issue about a neighbor of mine she was 90 some years old and she lived in a nursing home over here off of board street and the director of it got involved and took uh control of her assets and seized her property and sold it to somebody different in the community and y'all want to know what this had to do with eddie bridges but it's the point that uh i was amazed that i got somebody to listen to what my problem was and later on because of her inspiration and not allowing that to happen to citizens that president in greensboro miss byrd got her property back that was after she passed but she did get it back and it did go to the church that she requested it to go to so thank you very much for your participation in your direction in that i'm grateful for that and i feel that mike fox and wright archer had a lot to do in helping me to achieve this objective i'm very grateful for the votes our family has started a new foundation or incorporation which will be a non-profit in greensboro and the purpose of it is for facilitating preparing and supervising the placements and installments of public memorials in the state of north carolina with related land acquisitions and promoting causes for the protection of the environment including without limitation conservation and the protection of wildlife habitats well when i got started on this mission i want to let you know that i was actually trying to fulfill something that my father had a dream about and it wasn't about naming the road over him it was naming one after the late judge osteen that's what his whole purpose was was to do something for somebody else and and i went to write about it and described and told him everything i was going to do and what i wanted to do but i never mentioned bill osteen i never mentioned my dad and i went back on monday with divine order and having a little bit of time i had to get a heart a sabbath day behind me for it to hit me but when i went back i said right i don't know if we're going to do this for judge osteen i think my dad's done a whole lot for the community why wouldn't he be deserving of it and he right looked at me and i grew up with wright and he looked at me and he said well sam he said that's who i thought you was doing it for the whole time i didn't think he was good i didn't know anything about judge osteen so that will maybe come to y'all's presence next or maybe y'all know something about that and through our organization we've raised some money to be able to help to pay for the funding of these and the only thing left that i have to say before we let michelle read this little paper she had where's your paper have you got it the only thing i wanted to say is that when i went to write i thought i was asking him that's what i'm talking about that scripture in divine order i went to write and i wanted to be on 8 40 the new 840 and when they complete them they have to have about a year after the completion and then you can have a portion of the road you can request that to be named after somebody that may possibly be deserving well council advised me that they wanted to go he didn't want it but mike fox didn't necessarily agree with the 840 why i don't know but it's okay because i respect council and i respect what he you know he has other directions or other ideas and i'm going to yield to that and and so i went back to him and asked if i couldn't have something a little closer he wanted to do it on battleground because my daddy did that frank sharp education center that's been very successful in the city of greensboro and the parks and recreation but uh he wanted to do it there on battleground to recognize him somewhat well i thought about that a little bit and every third day of the week and possibly more my dad went to that deer stand right down lonedale and went right underneath that 840 new bypass so i was asking right if there couldn't be some consideration about doing it on longdale right there at that 8 40 and i don't know if later on maybe i could be uh to speak with christian wilson now i don't know if christian's here okay christian i've never met christian in my life but boy he's a nice guy and a wonderful part of my program here because he wrote some letters for me i've never met you thank you very much for your participation and i'd like to speak with you sometime if there's an opportunity to talk about that because there's not been a decision from my understanding about where the road would be is that correct there hasn't been a designated road not yet that'll come from the state correct mary kay yes so they told me when i talked with wright that he that that that being that it would be on loandale that it would be more up to the city manager and maybe some of y'all's decision about that now i don't know but that's why i'm asking sometime at a later date that would be more suitable if we if i couldn't have some time with you to talk about that oh i'll follow up with you just so you know i knew your dad very well i worked with him on that frank sharp facility well i yield my time and i'm very grateful and i thank you for your presence and i'm overwhelmed with your vote i wasn't planning to speak but i carry this around with me and it's quotes and comments from my father it says eddie stated divine order has taken care of a lot of stuff for me the lord has blessed me in a multitude of ways lots of great things have happened to me i feel really honored and grateful to be 87 years old and still be getting those blessings it's pretty remarkable so thank you thank you both and we certainly appreciate you sharing your father with us and his legacy will truly be a lasting one in the city of greensboro and we will do our best to get that portion named as closely as you want it to i think the last um thing that needed to be done was this resolution that mary kay bought in contact with the state of north carolina thank you so much apologize for my attire i was in the middle of storm damage tree work when i got the call from miss rosa that it was time to come on item number e2 is a resolution honoring the memory of the late veda jeanette spelman stroud this is hightower thank you madam mayor and um it's always awesome to honor people near and dear to us so certainly bridges family please um wish you the very best um this record this resolution recognizes one of our oldest citizens who left us in november she was 105 uh years of age and um so as i read this but also that um her daughter who is here miss crystal mccombs um wanted you all to have one of her funeral service programs and miss mccombs after i read this you can come up and give some words of acknowledgement resolution honoring the memory of the late vida jeannette spelman straub whereas on november 7 2021 the community lost one of his oldest outstanding community leaders with the passing of the late vida janette spielman stroud whereas miss straub was born in kokomo pokemon maryland on april 14 1916 and achieved the age of 105 years whereas ms stroud graduated from lockermun high school denton maryland in 1936 attended hampton institute now hampton university in hampton virginia in 1936 and transferred to the agricultural and technical college of north carolina now north carolina agricultural and technical state university ncant in greensboro north carolina where she graduated in 1939 whereas miss stroud's involvement at ncaant included membership in the college choir she sang for several years after graduation served as the piano accomplishment accomplishment for physical education dance activities and used her self-taught cosmetology skills as a hairdresser for fellow female students and friends whereas miss stroud in april 1939 was inducted into the alpha phi chapter of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated aka held various positions within the sorority and became one of only a few diamond sorors worldwide having served aka for 75 years whereas miss stroud met her husband and married in november 1942 in baltimore maryland whereas she received a master's degree in business education from columbia university in new york new york in 1947 whereas ms stroud served as secretary to the dean of ncaant from 1939 through 1941 served as a tenured professor of business education in the ncaa department of business in 1941 retired in 1982 with 42 years of service and was named grand marshal for the 2015 north carolina a t homecoming parade whereas miss stroud was a dedicated and active member of saint matthews united methodist church since 1936 was elected secretary to the administrative board appointed to the saint matthews committee on communication for the memberships new newsletter served on the pastor's parish committee as well as the scholarship committee was elected woman of the year in 2004 for her dedicated service to saint matthews saying in the chancel choir and was a piana accomplishment for various music performances whereas miss shroud had excellent sewing skills enjoyed cooking sweet desserts monthly bridge and lunch with the ladies senior group and playing piano at home and now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of greensboro that the city council wishes to express his c his sense of loss and offer its condolences since the appreciation and gratitude for the many years of public service uh dedicated public service by vida janette spelman straub the legacy she leaves will be remembered by the people of greensboro and that a copy of the resolution shall be delivered to the family of the late veda jeanette spelman straub as a symbol of the gratitude of the citizens of the city of greensboro and the state of north carolina for her many contributions to this community and beyond i would like to move the item moved by mrs hightower seconded by miss abuse waiter third and mrs johnson um council please vote mrs hoffman mr holston yes dr wells yes mrs johnson yes imes this is abusive waiter yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower yes and that passes nine to zero and uh miss mccombs if you will come forth i'll present you the resolution but um i did not know miss drought but i wish i had known her um to find out what her secret was to long life 105 years um i mean certainly she did some great things apparently that god blessed her with the long life and certainly she served our greensboro community and i'm proud that she lived among us i want to thank the council for the proclamation i would say this mother came here as a student and after she met the man who would become her husband who was a fellow student she never wanted to go back to maryland again she loved greensboro and she stayed here well she'd go back to visit family but she stayed for the rest of her life um i taught math at guilford technical community college and one of the math problems i always used was my mother's age to figure out how old she was you can't imagine how some of them made her but one point that i would mention was she was born four years after the sinking of the titanic on the same date april 14th okay she uh roosevelt was the first president she voted for and biden was the last and woodrow wilson was president when she was born and in her lifetime she had a chance to experience 19 president i didn't notice my daughter found this out but i think when you live a life that long you get to see a lot of things in a lot of people am i right so thank you so much oh and i'm still here i don't know if i'm gonna make 105 but you know i'm going to try thank you very much i was very fortunate to have known your mom and this fantastic human being i think one of her great strengths um was tenacity never giving up i mean she was she was a um alike maybe of a better word a drum major uh in her profession and um she just never gave up her vision was clear and she followed that and she succeeded and just god rest her soul and thank thank your mom and thank her for all of the many qualities and contributions she made to our community item number e3 is a resolution to recognize dudley high school football team mrs hightower thank you very much madam mayor um i do have uh the coach couple coaches and some players here tonight and they're mistaken the principal make it okay so if you all wanna well you can come around right here i'll give you the rest it's while the resolution is not a long resolution um paper can't really describe what dudley high school has really done their football team has set a high standard this their football team has certainly set a high standard in this city uh we are proud of them how they represented us uh you know for the high ranking for the for their high score but their record and and and not only are they great athletes but they're great students too let's don't forget that they are excellent students resolution to recognize the 2021 dudley high school panthers football team on their fifth north carolina high school athletic association nchsaa championship whereas dudley high school dudley secured its 11th mid-state 3-8 regular season conference title whereas dudley claimed the north carolina high school athletic association nchsaa class 3a state championship on december 10 2021 at the university of north carolina's kenan stadium in chapel hill north carolina whereas with the 69 to 40 win over j.h rose high school greenville north carolina dudley set a nchsaa record for points scored in a neutral sight state championship game whereas dudley closed out the 2021 football season with an impressive 15 to 1 overall record and now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of greensboro that the city council wishes to recognize the 2021 dudley high school panthers football team on their fifth north carolina high school athletic association championship adopted this the fourth day of january second the resolution third sec move that is moved by mrs hightower and seconded by mayor pro tem johnson council please vote mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes dr wells yes mrs johnson yes i'm a yes mrs abuza waiter yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower yes and that passes nine to zero i just wanted to say to the to the team um for the last two months my daughter and i you're both alums of dudley lisa johnson tarkins and myself have gone on facebook to to cheer you on we knew you could do it and we gave you encouragement i hope and but you came through and we are so proud of you thank you so much mrs bruce waiter thank you madam mayor my family are thrilled about this championship when my son played center for dudley in the 90s and he our whole family is just ecstatic about this we didn't quite make it that far when he played but he played center and then left tackle so you know proud panther pride i mean really so uh congratulations yeah i have to say five years is a pretty amazing record we're sure that you're going to continue that streak and we want to thank you for what you've done for the city of greensboro by bringing attention not only to dudley and the great program but our city and um i want to if you could recognize the players that are here i know that you couldn't bring the whole team here but please let the team know how much we appreciate them and what a great job well done so if you all want to have a few words please have a few and introduce who you are coach celebrate yourself as well as you brought a couple players and principal timmons mclaughlin thank you we'd like to also thank the entire council um for the support it takes a village to raise a student excuse me it takes a village to raise a child but it takes a whole community in order to come together and be able to get a state championship i'm the proud principal at james benson dudley high school almost say timmins mclaughlin and i have been humbled by the opportunity to work with these individuals as previously mentioned they are dynamic athletes but they're good students and they're great people so walking down the hall we do have panther pride but they have pride in themselves and we know that this is just the beginning of what they're going to be able to finish um in this life and we've got i can't say enough about this dynamic coach that we have who is not just a great coach but he's a great mentor he's a great teacher and he makes sure that the boys do what's right at the school on the field and off the field so i'm going to introduce coach stephen davis and then you'll be able to hear from some of our dynamic players and thank you again all of you appreciate it good afternoon everyone first of all i want to say just thank you to the city council in the uh city of greensboro for recognizing uh the accomplishment we just had at the state championship game um i must say that uh i know this is the fifth one uh we've had in the uh north carolina high school athletic association but i must say it's the seventh overall fidelity so i want to recognize you know before we got into the athletic association everybody who was a part of the seven state championships and i just want to say it's just been a great honor to coach the guys i had this year they're such a close-knit group and it's you know it's almost impossible to get kids to be that close these days and times but we did have a close-knit group and these guys you know brought home the championship and i'm just want to say i'm so very proud of these three guys and the rest of my team and my coaching staff thank you okay will i say their name or they can come up here and say their names on james slay quarterback number one i just want to say thank you for having me it was a long season a great ride being my last year i'm gonna miss these guys good evening everyone my name is uh rj baker my running back and receiver and uh i just like to thank you on the recognition from us my name is trevor humphrey i play offensive line this season was a great one i met some really good guys and when i would have been i think [Applause] my name is betty jenkins i am the proud school board member for deadly high school and i can say panther pride [Applause] young man i don't know much about football but i'm looking for y'all on some fields somewhere soon in the near future hopefully not the pants item number e4 is a resolution to recognize national law enforcement appreciation day mrs abuse waiter thank you madam mayor whereas by the late 1880s all major cities had police forces to protect public order which meant different things to different people from that time to the present policing policing became progressively more standardized continuing its path of developing and maintaining professionalism whereas first observed in 2015 national law enforcement appreciation day also known as led will be observed on sunday january 9 2022 and observance of the day are requested to spend it thanking police officers wearing blue and turning on blue lights in their neighborhood and homes whereas there are over nine hundred thousand law enforcement officers in the united states being honored on national law enforcement appreciation day and this shows that the community recognizes the difficulty of their job and supports them as they provide a public service whereas the day is dedicated to all members of law enforcement focusing on police and similar state and local agencies whereas the concepts of having a police force change throughout history from being part-time privately funded or volunteer but as night watches became less effective the first full-time publicly funded police force in the country was formed in boston in 1838 and now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of greensboro that the greensboro city council's support observance of this day january 9 2022 and encourages residents to thank local police officers for their service and to continue to respect their profession adopted this the fourth day of january 2022 move the item second that was moved by miss abuse awaiter seconded by dr wells counsel please vote mrs hoffman mr holston yes dr wells yes mayor pro tem yes i am a yes mrs abuzawader yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower yes and that passes nine to zero and we'll make sure that that gets um passed along to the appropriate personnel item number five is a recognition of the morningside award winners and this is another deadly recognition and i believe that um dr love jones is on zoom yes i am thank you so much madam mayor i am going to take the opportunity to share screen so that we can see images of the recipients one moment please yes [Music] good evening the morningside academic award was approved by the city council in 2021 specifically october in commemoration of the five lives lost during the greensboro massacre of 1979. the award is designed for candidates who are graduating seniors of james b dudley high school and demonstrate a commitment to further the efforts of equity and social justice in one or more of the following ways uh that would include future academic goals by way of any chosen post-secondary education path that addresses issues of discrimination and disparity or inequity it also includes future employment goals and that includes any chosen employment beyond high school graduation that will contribute to the lives of others in ways that work towards the elimination of inequities or disparities finally the third area in which a student can contribute is by way of entrepreneurial goals and that includes the development of any non-profit or for-profit business developed after graduating from high school that contributes to the betterment of the lives of marginalized populations in 2021 we were very excited to present to these three students the morningside academic award the first being khadira sebrin who has entered north carolina a t as of the fall of 2021 as a criminal justice major with professional aspirations of becoming a defense attorney specifically for underrepresented black and brown communities subject to disparity second we have faith smalls who as of fall 2021 entered wake forest university as a double major in political science and philosophy with professional aspirations of either serving as an attorney to underrepresented populations for criminal justice reform or uh developing a role in the field of education with a doctor of education hoping to address issues of disparity for minority populations in the public school system and then finally we have laila cherry who as a fall 2021 entered north carolina a t technical state university as a sociology major with professional goals of social with a professional goal of serving as a social worker or counselor specifically serving lgbtq populations as well as homeless populations and those who are unemployed um and a pool of job seekers so we are very very grateful um to these students for doing the due diligence of applying and also writing really solid applications or essays to articulate their goals in the future in serving the field of human rights and course of council to of who have been very supportive of this endeavor and here you see that the picture here is of the recipients with some i think we've lost the um audio i'm sorry can you hear me now not really how about now yep we got you perfect and so again this is just another image of the recipients of the award this summer at the human rights gala and again just very grateful to have students who are committed to furthering the efforts for human rights not only in our community but across the state and the country i would also like to highlight that we are at the place where um we have our application live again at dudley high school thanks thank you so much to the members of dudley high school staff who have been working with us to roll out the application even earlier so that we can drum up even more participation and our staff will be connecting with students at dudley um by way of classrooms with teachers who have invited us to talk more about civic engagement and human rights in anticipation of scholarship application submissions so thank you again thank you and these students will be recognized a little bit further at the upcoming martin luther king breakfast and we look forward to that this will be the first time that they will be included as part of the program right that is correct and madam mayor the principal is still here so i would like to ask principal um tim is mclaughlin come just have a few words but i look forward to working closely with principal um timmy's mclaughlin i think and betty jenkins is still here our school board representative as well uh to ensure that we do fulfill the five students because we know we have a lot of students with potential for this and so you know we are going to ensure that we complete and do that because there's a lot of potential at dudley i just every time i just love it my daughter graduated does it so you know every chance i get and we appreciate it we appreciate all the support that we get from you all uh the resources that's provided and the love that's given and shown to us um it just helps me appreciate the fact that our students are going to be okay and um and our students are going to do well we exceed on the football field as i mentioned before and we exceed inside the classroom and the three individuals that have been mentioned here i've already checked back on they're doing well at north carolina and t and exceptionally well at wake forest university and um and because of the scholarships that have been provided uh then we will make sure that we come back we allow them to come back and uh the the committee that's going to be able to come to our classes to help encourage other students i do think that sometimes we have to give our students a little bit more confidence a little bit more confidence in their writing of the essays a little bit more confidence and being able to say i can compete with other students not just in greensboro north carolina but in the state at dudley we are providing a foundation so that our students will be able to go and do well wherever and whatever it is that they decide to do and i appreciate our school board member who always comes to support also from the events that we have there at the school to the events that we have here in the community and again i truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child and look at the resources that we possibly can be give to them and uh to whom much is given much is expected and how much has been given to us we appreciate all that you do for us and we just say thank you thank you thank you thank you we we do have a number of speakers signed to signed up at our public comment period um we have a grouping of speakers who want to talk about the north eugene streetscape enclosure i'm not sure if there is an order in which you'd like to speak and i believe that you are on zoom we have john hill marianne conchogenis jimmy cartagenas and elizabeth pontigenis each speaker will be given three minutes but you can speak in whatever order you would like and i believe that we have hannah cockburn on zoom also from g dot to help address some of these concerns hi this is john hill if i may i'm going to allow the contentious family to speak first and then i'll follow them if that's acceptable yes i can see jimmy okay okay i can't see anyone else but that's okay um anyway um i'll get started here um you know as you guys know the acropolis been around a long time it celebrated its 54th anniversary uh two months ago and we're hoping that we'll make it to 55. um you know um i never would have thought we'd have found ourselves four years later back uh having a uh the same thing done outside you know which almost closed me up at the time so we're trying to be precautious this time and try to do it right so we can stay in business here um uh on december 20th we had a meeting here at the acropolis with the construction workers the city of greensboro and the three business owners um that we're they're concerned about this uh outside uh project that's going on here and prior to that day we all knew that um we were it's going to take three months but we're going to have one lane open and then we find out on that day december 20th that we no longer would have one lane open unless we had um god go to six months and stuff like that so we had a lot of questions and you know and stuff like that and we didn't get any answers then and we still haven't and um we're you know we one of the last questions was asked like what do you guys want to do go three months with no lane or six months with one lane and um we never made that decision yet or any other decisions and we had like i said we heard nothing about you know um you know uh you know that all the questions were unanswered and and stuff like that so um we would like to get some questions answered because the other items i'm about to bring up here in a minute i need answers to like in the next 24 hours because i mean it deals with deliveries and stuff like that so i can go ahead and start with deliveries to begin with um you know i got door dash and i got grubhub and i do lunch and dinner with them and they've got to be able to come in here or have a point where they can go to and pick up the uh food that's being made for them you know um uh we had a customer ask for curbside tonight i don't know that would be uh it could get done but we need to get that done as as well you know and also like um i have uh food deliveries of course wine deliveries and even myself when i go to grocery stores or go to restaurant depot or some you know place and you know get stuff for the food supplies for the restaurants i got to be able to come in and unload because i can't park at the deck and you know carry this stuff down you know um you know and all that kind of stuff and then my other concerns also are is that you know for handicapped handicapped customers how would they get in and how would they have access to the to the restaurant and the other two businesses and also how about an ambulance what about we needed an ambulance a mess i mean how would that work you know i mean like let's say we're totally clueless on you know all these things here i had uh some delivery people ask me today you know i'm saying like what how do we do i said well just get get here and get in here and get as close as you can the best you can but i got to be able to tell them something better than that you know i mean and then i'm also concerned about it um your time is expired but we did receive an email late this afternoon um which i think outlined some of the questions you just asked and maybe a few others which we'll get responded to for you um if we can finish the speakers then we can hannah address what she's able to at this point okay okay all right well thank you here's your timer go ahead okay okay this is this is elizabeth janice okay um we know that the city council doesn't want to go ahead and hurt small businesses but we're having a hard time understanding and this is the second time in four years that we've had to go through this and we wanted you to to tell us how this is going to benefit um the uh okay that how we're going to benefit from it how this block is going to benefit from it because some of the work i mean could have been done when you closed it four years ago okay and then the other issue that we're concerned about is closing both the 300 and the 400 block of eugene because technically right there where the carroll apartments end is where the barricade's going to be and where the men are going to work between that point and smith street okay and basically if you open that cart in front of the hotel the apartments and where the grasshoppers are and leave that parking for these businesses for the salon us and for select cycle at least good people don't want to walk okay they won't have anywhere to park and the people in the apartments in the hotel have the parking garage the grasshoppers if it would have ever hurt them they have parking lots in back of them so we want to know why you think it's important to close both blocks when you're not even going to work on the 300 block and you're going to work on half of the 400 [Music] so can you answer any of those but the main thing here that we're upset about is the fact that you claim to support small business and once again we don't feel like we're really being supportive because there really isn't a reason perhaps for us have to go through so much grief so much worry loss of business for something i understand thank you but but can i hope you guys can understand where we're coming from because we feel there's nowhere else in greensboro that this has happened to any businesses twice so we want to know why it has to take two times to get two little blocks right when it could have been done the first time and i don't think that's being unreasonable we don't yep that's it hello is that it well is dr contogenis there does she have any comments you guys we each have three minutes yes they do yes i do are y'all ready yes okay i'm gonna try to summarize a lot of things okay first of all and foremost at our last meeting on the 20th we were again as my brother said ask do y'all want to do three months with no access or six months with limited access of one lane prior to that we have been promised by the city staff that we would have three months and one lane of traffic the city never came back to us to say what is your decision because personally we'd rather have six months and we'll lay the traffic open okay we also the the concern is probably about small businesses it does not look at all like the city council's concern with small businesses i mean she brought up the question has any other business in greensboro been affected like this have y'all had to close your front door and if you did how did you assist them okay we asked many questions about access as my brother did access for our customers for goodness sakes how are they going to come to the front door if right now you have a blocked off its mystery which is the under the 400 block but you have gone up to the 300 block at belmy and you have blocked it off how are they going to come how are handicapped people going to get here i'm a physician i said jimmy how is an ambulance or an ems going to get in there if you have problems or john has it to select cycles or olivia has it at her salon these are all issues that have not been addressed okay and with our business income being affected my goodness jimmy has had already had his but he didn't tell you today his lunchtime deliveries were cut in half the door dash grove hub etc because they couldn't get in here his fun traffic has been cut already this evening the phone is hardly raining charlie customers are coming in and that's most unusual for tuesday night so these are all significant things that he faced with my mother at the time four years ago and nearly lost the restaurant had we not owned the business it would have been awful for them okay and then think about buses there's a buses come out from the restaurant all the time what about these city routes for people that come here or have to work in the area and take their buses how about trash collection how about when electrical changeover is going to happen we cannot even afford an hour for there to be lack of electricity to this business here we have refrigerators and freezers that contain thousands of dollars of food we cannot afford to lose that okay as my sister liz brought up you have the three in the 400 block if you close just the 400 block which is basically from roy's development on to smith street they could do that and leave the other part open so that would be the best for people to come okay and then you take the 300 block so then our block will be totally open no one has addressed that to see why can't you do that plenty of room for all their equipment to do it and then messaging i'm going to show you all pictures of the messaging that's up there i hope you can see this this here on one end all it says is you're not in front of the camera can you move it over okay can you see it no down a little bit okay at one end it says three cloves it says it says street clothes business is open and it's got a very small logo of our businesses we were promised digital signage because your staff at the city said that metal signs aren't good enough we need you to do a campaign for us we need you to get out there and get the message out for us that we're open and we're thank you we will we'll get a comment in a minute um mr hill do you want to close us out yes i'm ready thank you are we set yes we can hear you i'm cutting my video on real quick yes we got you madam mayor and council members we came before you in august before you approved this bid and told you of our concerns at that time we had been under the assumption mainly from eric tart for over a year that we would only have a closure a partial closer never both lanes at any time and it wouldn't last no longer than three months we had our meeting on december 20th and all of a sudden the message has changed that the contractor has suggested closing the entire block and we said why didn't you consult with everybody before you made this project and why did you ask for our permission to enter our property which i gladly gave with no fee to the city that they can come in my premises and do the job they need to do assuming that i wouldn't have total closure but now all that's flipped when we ask the questions on the 20th we ask numerous questions anything for marketing and we were to hear some answers before we made a decision whether this would be a three month with total closure or six months with some lanes open and we never received any responses and all of a sudden on the 30th last thursday there's a press release that north eugene street is going to be closed for 30 days and the only question i had invest me during the entire time between the 20th and the 30th was when i get a copy of your logo by chris spencer we've repeatedly asked how do we get services i am a franchise dealer i can't do business at another address i can't go a block away dmv when i'll allow it my franchisee are set up for my address my deliveries are set up for my address and when i'm denied access to that address then i am breaking every dmv regulation i cannot operate a motor vehicle on a closed road or a sidewalk we've asked permission can we shuttle back and forth to the parking deck with such as a golf cart on the portion that is finished and we were told north carolina statues prevent such so you've really not given any consideration and have only allowed the contractor to run it free will again which is what happened before that we expressed our concerns to you in august that there's no direction no restriction the contractor runs the show which they're a great third party and they're neutral in this they don't they're just doing work and getting paid and they do a great job i think you chose a great contractor yates construction but the way this went about and they just got total control and we were given a chance to ask questions to which we never received any answer and then all of a sudden the press release appears that the road is totally closed for 30 days you lose trust and you wonder why and you ask questions in the meantime i've asked melinda king i've asked numerous questions to numerous people and every time i'm pointing to another direction i call nobody answers their phone nobody is able to answer things like where will my customers bring their motorcycle to unload it so that they can get it serviced how can we access the store to load new merchandise to make a delivery for a new product that we sold that we have to sell in our store we can't sell it two blocks away is that my time limit yes um okay so we we did get an email this afternoon which i think outlined or reiterated most of the questions that that you've asked hannah are you on zoom yes ma'am i'm here if if you could address some of these questions because i have to say i i share their concerns you know they were closed for a very long time a few years ago um you know the the motorcycle shop and the restaurant we really were in a mess of a situation and i think we should be moving kind of heaven and earth to make it the least bit inconvenient for them that we can and still carry the project on and i want to know that we have been communicating um adequately and also taking you know what's happening to them into consideration absolutely and we share those same concerns madam mayor good evening mayor and council i'm happy to give a high level overview of the conversations and the um commit to providing a written summary of the discussions that we have had because many of these questions were addressed in the meeting on the on december 20th and discussed at some length and i'm sorry folks feel like they haven't gotten a sufficient uh amount of detail from us we're happy to continue to follow up there are a lot of individuals in that are invested in making sure that this project is completed in a very timely way and demonstrating that we are committed to ensuring that the impact to these businesses is minimized to the extent that we have the ability to do that so um some of the questions that were raised this evening according to my notes and thank you for sending in those questions in writing that's helpful so we can respond to those adequately again i am deeply sorry that these items were not addressed four years ago i wish i had a time machine i do not have one if any of you have one please let me know for us to complete this in a way that minimizes the disruption to all the stakeholders our engagement with the contractor has indicated that closing the street is the warranted step here i don't like to do this none of us like to do that it is inconvenient for everyone you know i'm sure the contractor is going to take the the path of least resistance what they think is going to be easier for them but this is an unusual occurrence because they've been through this already correct the i'm sorry i just requested we just we discussed this at the end of the last time that this road was shut down towards the end and we committed to these businesses that we would not let it go again and not let it happen again i'm concerned because i found out this afternoon that there was no incentive put into this contract to incentivize the construction company to finish this sooner or with minimal disruption to these businesses and i just feel like we've let these folks down and i don't know what can be done now but i think we need to to figure out what can be done to keep these people viable um it's just impossible to completely shut these folks out of any access whatsoever well i think we ought to be talking about mayor on a weekly basis it seems like we need to be updating them on a weekly basis to know what's actually going on every week because they're counting on this business to eat and feed their families and they're not they can't do that um period so i mean this this got to take a different turn because i remember john from before mary kay and then hugh thank you madam mary i remember when we all went down to celebrate the opening of eugene street back up and we were right there with them and yeah we were all saying you know we can't let this happen again um i appreciate you know everything transportation does i appreciate you know contractors trying to get things done in a timely manner and as fast and as as quickly as possible but i'm telling you what if i if i were in their shoes i would not have survived that last one i i really don't know um luckily they were able to pull through but um it was devastating and then i drove by there today or yeah today and yesterday and tried to figure out where would i park if i wanted to go eat at the restaurant or you know wanted to look at bikes or something like that i mean where where would i go there's is nowhere around there so um you know i don't know if there's a solution at this point but i mean it if we've got to support our small businesses and they're the ones that have suffered the most during covid and now they're suffering again um i'm all for streetscapes i'm all for everything you know hannah you and your department do but also as a previous small business owner this one hurts this really really hurts so um that's about all i can say about that um hugh it's not america thank you so much uh i guess my question is in listening to the uh comments from transportation how much communication has there been with this business throughout that is not just at the beginning but as things have changed throughout and the planning or the closing whatever else uh like my fellow council members i'm also concerned about [Music] them not seeming to know what's going on with their business what's going on with the streets going on with the closure when it's going to end and when they can get back to normal and i think they do deserve that and we should provide that to them as quickly as possible is there a plan to uh complete the work what is the timeline of it does the do the business owners know it and so therefore they can respond appropriately it's tough enough out here as it is uh in the world without having to have the streets closed and business further cut off they deserve an answer yeah i i think it would be helpful to have a meeting with them and to go over these points because when we approved this contract a few months ago these items came up and we gave them assurances that we would make sure there was as little disruption to their businesses as possible and it doesn't appear um that that happened and it doesn't appear that the communication has really been two ways dr wells um i would uh think that we need to ask the contractor to be more creative there has to be some other way to do it you know we don't close the highway down and when they're improving the highway they work at night or do something but i really i remember the um these um business owners coming to us before and we said that wouldn't happen to them again and we don't want to break our promise to them so please see can't you work out something with that contractor so that he can do something to keep that street open for those uh prop downs madame um yeah if you all can allow us to go back and and convene another meeting and also include the residents that are downtown because we did receive complaints from them last time about the length of construction so we want to make sure we have everyone at the table so that we're all we have a consensus of how we move forward and make sure everyone um is on board and we can address the concerns that came in on the letter okay is it possible to keep to open that street while we're going through the process of having the meetings we can do that yes we'll make sure that that happens and may i ask madam mayor um what happened to the digitized sign that we said because we did say that from even up here that we ensure they had advertisement to make sure people knew their business was going what happened to that we can address that as well they they did the um the physical signs and not the digitized signs that's what's out now but we can go back and address that well that's not what we said we said we would do that so as people were coming to they would know that the businesses were open and we're in right and so if if we could pull that meeting together as soon as possible and include the contractor and you know they've left a pretty detailed list of questions if we could have those answered i think that would be appreciative we'll do um so at this point um you know what we'll say to the speakers is that we will um get back to you within how long or how long to set the meeting up so we'll try to convene the meeting within the next week okay and then follow back up with you all on what what our next steps will be okay all right thank you can you can you all speak with these business owners tomorrow the concrete i know the meeting within the next week but let's sure talk to these people tomorrow we'll do so um while we're on streets in parking um phillip marsh and deborah rondo happy new year happy new year to the baron of people and the council people i still have my problem um i didn't hear anything back friday i did hear something back monday which is not conducive to the problem that i have on lewis street it might help out the folks that are on south side but it is not helping the parking on lewis street uh we were promised permits um i want to see about going through with the permits parking because it would you know it would help me out and it would help out my business also if we cut down the hours that are on the um signs and be able to um for me to stay in business i'm trying to do the best that i can i don't lost my barbers so what more can i do i'm dependent on something to happen and any other business that comes into that neighborhood whether we're supposed to do um we were basically uh we look at the problem as um the other businesses down the street don't have prop don't have parking for their folks so their folks are parking on our street so parking garage people's not gonna park in the parking garage you gotta have some place where we all can come to i'm looking at right now looking for me i was looking for everyone right now i need me satisfied uh and i've been i've been there 20 years and enough is enough thank you thank you good evening um yeah i just find it um strange that you know that proceeding conversation the same things we've been asking for for five years five years um we were promised by adam fisher for parking for this we've had dr wells america that was a way to come down there they talked with staff again this is what i talked about last time staff just does what they want to do hannah didn't saw no no problems there she started talking about other things um staff has got to get out of this problem of thinking they're going to do whatever they want to do um i know kim was asked to call me once before that call never came um and it just gets ridiculous like we've had five neighbors move from that street because of this problem and i mean these aren't hard problems to solve we can't solve one parking problem and it seems like two and multiple others if you research it online about the business community downtown i mean how can we expect to run a city of this size and we can't even solve the smallest problems like like parking it's parking permits um if if kim has the right new uh policy to do what we need to do then do it i mean but this is ridiculous um and again i just don't understand how kim can say we can call people back we can have site visits we can do all these things but when we ask for it nobody knows what to do i mean we got to stop this door for one and not doing for others again we can't run a city of this size doing these types of things we expect the same thing the same courtesy too you can't call the board of our homeowners association and ask them what they want to do they're not coming down here complaining we live over there we run businesses over there so again we have to get this together and i mean i just don't understand that it's like night and day seeing that previous conversation before we spoke that's that's that just can't happen it's ridiculous like um we expect to be called this week too we expect to be called and then uh met with as well our concerns are valid too i mean so i mean again i'm just really appalled at what i just saw with that previous conversation and everybody had comment for um but when we came at him we spoke last month um and and miss hightower said she wanted answers by the next friday we didn't even hear from city staff we didn't even hear from nobody that's ridiculous again this is a small problem and parking decks are not going to solve it for us um it's as simple as do what adam fisher said we've tried everything he said we moved the time we did everything he asked and he said the last thing we would do is get parking permits and now all of a sudden everyone runs and hides when we get to that point of solving this issue i mean in this ridiculous we paid too much money to stay downtown and to run our businesses for us to get this treatment thank you i did speak to the city manager earlier today about the parking permits and i don't know what you're prepared to say at this point well i think if we could get an update on what's been discussed so far and then we can talk about it well before you give us an update plea please don't give me just a generic answer update i want to know what are you gonna do for them i said it when i when he was here before and you're right i heard nothing no follow-up no nothing and they are a black small business that's an even harder struggle sometimes when you're trying to be in business we are running people out of business we can't be small business friendly and we've got to do a better job of this and follow up and so i i don't want to hear a generic answer if you don't have a solution today then we need a solution tomorrow and i'm going to start calling in the morning talking to folk and getting and getting somebody or sitting in somebody's office because this has got to get resolved now well i i do have an update whenever you already okay so i will say that um i called miss rondo myself and miss um cockburn was in the meeting with me and so i apologize if mr marsh expected a call i was never asked to call him i didn't know that he also was involved in this but we called him his rondo with a solution and we explained i will ask miss cockburn to explain the process but we do have a an agreement with the homeowners association to manage parking spaces for that area and we provided an additional number of parking spaces that we will allow the hoa to manage to accommodate the the needs of that area and so that was the solution that we came up with was to provide additional parking spaces for the hoa to manage we can't manage parking spaces for private owners but we will work with hoas to do that and so miss cockburn if you can go through kind of what the process is now and how many additional spaces we did provide to the hoa to accommodate these concerns or matter mayor i'm happy to follow up on that please do so i understand the frustration about the parking issue this is an instance where there are no good solutions that address all of the competing interests in this location it is unfortunate that there are a number of properties in this location that have no secure off street parking that is dedicated to those specific units that is not something that will be addressed through a permit process and we have looked at this location numerous times now to determine if it qualifies for and meets the standards that are set in the the city ordinances for permits and it does not so we have two [Music] ways to address this that we have presented to the hoa because we will need a private partner in order to execute the what we are proposing as a next step we've identified an additional 20 spaces that from their on their face are currently public street spaces that could be transferred to a private street and be reserved for specific use of the h for the hoa members the residents and the businesses um based on the conversations that we've had with the hoa representatives we have not heard back from them i am happy to follow up with them to make a determination if that is something they'd like to pursue but as downtown continues to grow and the diversity of businesses and the times of operations continue to grow there is continued competition for on-street parking spaces uh dr wells all right the the solution that uh ms cochran just gave cochran just gave you it does that help you does that sound what none whatsoever it doesn't none whatsoever and i don't understand how um mr fisher can say it does meet the requirements and she's saying it doesn't again again that doesn't make no sense whatsoever now i have had conversation mary kay and i went to you i know it's been three years ago and as you said adam came up with what i said to miss cochran i think it was maybe i left a message on she told me that nothing could be done because of the ordinances so i propose we're the ones who change the ordinances something has to be done these people keep coming and i you know i was listening to the scenario too how concerned we were about making sure that the business those businesses did not suffer she's been suffering it's been over 12 years phil has been to us up teen times we've been and talked to them we can't do anything if there are ordinances on the book that prohibit the progress and just as she said with all of the new companies coming and businesses coming they're all going to be competing so it means we are going to have to change something we have to look at what will work for the citizens and the business owners and it does look we don't want to look at black and white all the time but when we have two cases that come up so close to each other and then they're dealt with in a different way because we have talked about this mary kay and i have promised i think sharon's promised we we've done all we could and kim can't do any more than what the ordinance is allowed so it's back on us we need to find out what kind of ordinance needs to be written so people can have the parking spaces they need for their businesses so i don't know what that is don't know how it needs to be written but i think the people who are affected need to be listened to and get their advice as to what they need because we give an answer but if it doesn't satisfy them it's not helping so he's saying what what they've come up with that solution will not help them and and what about you doesn't help you either okay so something else has to be done and that's up to us we have to do something agree everyone agree with you dr wells we do have to do something and we ought to do it as quickly as possible and get the attorneys to look at that and to um design uh an alternate ordinance right so mr city attorney i want you to tell us how quickly can we revisit this ordinance and make those changes uh we can look at it uh certainly this is first it's kind of my attention uh i was for losing the status i mean the ordinances at this point um it's something we can get on well i think we need to get on it so i'm not trying to you know i know you got a lot on your plate because i'm always but i think this is too important um to kind of put it off and you're right um we can't keep sending two messages either we're real concerned here but we're not concerned here we have to send the same consistent message period but we're not doing that we've got to do a better job of that as well so if you could do that and just come back to the council representative to let us know what uh that looks like work with dr wells and because it's her district i believe it's in your district dr wells right as well so part of that um because we got to get that done i'll speak to him not a mayor yes i'm i'm gonna have to leave you i'm i'm sick as a dog i'm sorry i hope you feel better um motion to um excuse me moved by um mr hulston seconded by um mr boosawader all in favor say opposed that passes without exception feel better um so madame could we what could we say that we would like for our city attorney and and um our assistant city manager and the people over there find out what they want and well and i i think they hear that um miss abuse awaiter thank you madam mayor um it was about three years ago goldie and i went and talked and um there were some things promised but that there was no follow through on that and i'm certainly not uh demanding a prior employee by any means um in his heart he felt that you know we could do the permits but then he got in and looked to the ordinance and all that stuff and i assume that's why it didn't go any further but i i do think we need a solution and uh deborah and i have corresponded a few times and it always seems like yes but we need more parking and i understand we need more parking but this is a situation once again where we don't want to hurt a small business and you know i feel like we do need to move forward with something that will help them i'm not understanding all about the ordinances and why the permits aren't allowed and all that you know i know uh residents have permits around uncg uh in the glenwood area so you know i don't really have the knowledge for all of that at this point but um i know that we have great staff who can certainly try to in a timely manner expeditiously see what we can do for this i recall years ago you know there was uh unrelated in a way but also related there was an old taxi ordinance on the books that was shutting down um people from earning an income and you know it took it took a little while but we got it solved and the ordinance was changed so you know i know they can be changed so whatever stuff can do i i really think that you know they've kind of suffered long enough with this mrs hoffman you know i think this is something important enough for us to to maybe somehow look at it comprehensively and maybe that needs to be a work session but what i can say you know we live in a city and that city is continuing to grow and downtown is growing both with businesses and with residents and that's a really good thing but i think we also have to realize that downtown you can't park in front of the business that you're going to and every time you want to nor can you park in front of the building where you live and so we we need to look at the parking for downtown comprehensively but also as a city we have to realize that you know you're just oftentimes we have to park and walk a few blocks to get to where we want to be and that's the reality of downtown living but i mean i certainly don't want businesses harmed in any way and you know so i i just we're like i saw this tonight but i think this is something that we as a council need to look at comprehensively and how we're going to deal with it thank you so i think i think i was going to madame thank you yeah i was going to say that it it seems like uh if i if i heard correctly either it's been three or five years that this question has been before council and i think there have been some promises made but not promises kept uh obviously there there are solutions that can be held whether it's through the city attorney or whether it's through city managers solo but we need to as we did with the other case we need to move on this very quickly if it's something as as ms cockburn said that uh you know there's not a whole lot we can do but then we heard the previous words that there there are some solutions again we have to find a way to get to yes and get there quickly for uh just general purposes and not let an issue like this hang around for three or five years so we must get on it there's a solution out there and we're going to find it thank you so i think staff um understands what the expectations are thank you thank you um our next speaker is louis medina followed by del stone hello happy new years so this will be the fourth year of uh my comrades and i and others have been fighting for justice for marcus smith and i'm gonna do something different this year i'm not gonna address city council i'm gonna address the people of greensboro i'm pretty sure that city councils pretty much ran by robots at this point it's obvious that we're never gonna get justice for them so i appealed to the people greensboro just two months ago joseph lopez was shot and killed at his home by greensboro police and there was no evidence he had a weapon there was no sign that he was a threat his family's been asking for videos and evidence and haven't received them again three years ago marcus smith was hogtied and murdered in the street by greensboro police and this city council has smeared their family has hidden it has lied every one of them but somehow today they're all able to unanimously vote for cop appreciation day was that correct national cop appreciation day how was that how is it that we keep getting murdered while police get honored how's it that our murders keep getting ignored i'm going to try to explain they also vote unanimously on developer projects every time a millionaire comes in here all of a sudden all their hands go up when developer projects get passed our rent goes up we get evicted right and then after we are evicted if we try to fight back if we try to stand up for ourselves at any given instance there's a cop they kick us out of our homes and if we're in the street and houseless remember marcus smith was a houseless man right they'll kill us if necessary marcus smith again was a houseless man he was killed and from this analysis from this understanding he was a calculated consequence to the development of wealth in the city so they're not going to get us justice their interests are opposed to us and as i said i repeat if i can find it in speech that police function in the society that junction between those who have and those who have not these city council members work for the rich and they'll continue to do so that's how they got in this position all right if we want something to change we're gonna have to do it ourselves and anybody listen to that anybody who is poor and struggling anybody that works for a wage and you know that it's between us and them and it always has been thank you i have like our next speaker is dale stone followed by hester petty good evening i'm del stone i'm a greensboro resident and a community organizer with the working class and justice organizing alliance so tonight as we all know city council passed a resolution nine to one to recognize national law enforcement day which is a day honoring the cops his egregious violence and racism has plagued this city for decades whose method of keeping order in this city involves as it does across the country harassing houseless people evicting people pushing people into the streets targeting black people above all and enforcing laws against victimless crimes that end up with our community members chained and caged celebrating this as a holiday is a slap in the face to the thousands of citizens who know the reality of police racism and brutality it's an insult to all know who his who know the history of the city in particular its long legacy of racist police violence going back to the 1970 massacre and long before it's a direct affront to the families of marcus smith and joseph lopez and so many more city council members make grand gestures like they care about the people of the city they sit above us like they know what's best for us like they actually represent us like their priorities are ours but honoring cops is not the priority of working-class people people without shelter are not going to vote to glorify the armed guards who kick them out of public space and patrol their every move the city must know this because they have made some paltry efforts at changing policing they have established a so-called hospitality team with what they call ambassadors to reduce the amount of times greensboro police respond to non-emergency calls they brag about the number of responses they have made to various issues like a camping presence scout and panhandling but what do we think these ambassadors are responding to calls like these are they there to help the camper and the panhandler are they are they there to shoot them along perhaps detain them so the upstanding tax paying city homeowners can go unblithely about their clean comfortable delusional lives this is just policing and comfy or closed another response greensboro implement in the wake of the george floyd protest is what is called a co-response program this attempts to address well-founded complaints against overpolicing and it signals recognition of the fact that greensboro police go too far that they do too much that they hurt too many people these alternative models are supposed to solve the problematic ways police address people in mental crisis people like marcus smith but where was the consideration of such co-response team when joseph lopez was in crisis last november and ended up dead by police bullets what is needed is a fundamental change where the response is not a collaboration between police and people but a direct one people helping people what is needed is the basic provision of resources that lay a foundation of material security so police never have to be called in the first place mental health care needs to be widely freely immediately accessible shelter water and food need to be treated as the basic human rights they are the solution is not co-response policing hospitality policing softener of the edges policing the solution is no policing we need to call each other and not rely on the cops to solve our problems we need community-based networks to make police obsolete thank you thank you esther petty and then we have two speakers on zoom lewis pitts and christine hoffner okay my name is hester petty live at 3402 canterbury street here in greensboro i'm speaking tonight again about the smith lawsuit against the city both city attorney chuck watts and uh councilman justin outling have stated they believe the smith lawsuit will be dismissed by the federal judge that may be so but even without a jury trial the lawsuit has produced information about the greensboro police department previously unknown to the public last year judge magistrate in the smith case ordered the city to produce body worn camera footage of 50 prior rip hobble incidents that preceded the death in custody of marcus smith in 2018. body worn camera footage was eventually produced and this city's council subsequently asked a superior court judge for permission to watch the footage and were granted permission to do so attorney flint taylor has summarized what the uh smith legal team saw in the video footage and i quote our review of the body worn camera footage of the incidents also established that of the 50 incidents produced 38 of the victims 76 were black by all uh by now all of you should have watched the videos i hope of these 50 videos 50 incidents and i have a question for you tonight in those 50 is that were 76 percent of the people rep hobbled black simple question i recently looked into statistics from the greensboro police department on the use of force in 2018 of the 186 incidents that of use of force that were documented eight people were hispanic 38 were white and 140 were black putting the percentage of black people at 75 percent and although all the data isn't in for 2021 on the use of force as of today it's one asian person eight hispanics 34 whites and 171 blacks putting the percentage of black people at 76 percent so although i already know the answer to my question i will repeat it for you in those 50 incidents in 2018 were 76 percent of the people rip hobbled black this is not a question about the lawsuit you can answer this question because this is a question about the use of excessive force perpetuated by the police against black people especially black men in greensboro look at the statistics something is wrong with our police department you can't even get the parking how are we supposed to get the police fixed thank you lewis pitts good evening my name is louis pitts first i want to say three cheers to these previous speakers that have been so bold in speaking to you but also want to say happy new year to council members you will each either win or lose in an election this year but maybe to your surprise i'm also very excited about the fact that toyota electric battery in the locate plant here near our city and there's a possibility of a company building supersonic jets near here i support that but if our current and growing majority non-white population of our city does not feel safe from racist and violent police conduct businesses will not thrive business will not stay here and businesses will not come here greensboro will remain divided along race and class lines crime and homicide will grow yet none of you have taken any action to hold our notoriously bad police department accountable nc medical examiner rules that the hog tying death or marcus smith was a homicide what have you done you spent over 1.3 million dollars of city money on private lawyers to fight the lawsuit you've tried to cover up the crucial fact that he was hogtied you've tried to cover up and ignored the pattern of racist 50 uses of hog tying that miss patty just referred to the list could go on as you know and yet today also front page of our news and record daily paper the district attorney has dismissed all the charges including felony charges against mr hector lopez who had been falsely accused of selling narcotics several months ago mr sanchez i'm sorry hector sanchez mr sanchez owns and operates a hemp store and he sells legal analyzed lawful hemp and cbd products like 15 or 20 other store owners do and yet he was the one that was rated had 25 000 worth of property seized and falsely charged what are you talking about let me ask you for the campaign record will you act immediately to fairly settle the marcus smith suit apologize and hold police accountable will you do the same for hector sanchez before he has to bring a lawsuit you have the floor silence will speak volumes time has expired thank you our next speaker is christine heffner my name is christine hoffman it's just two years since i moved to greensboro and found out about the greensboro police department's homicide of marcus smith by hog time then this summer more troubling information came to light when the smith family legal team filed documents in court hester just described these written summaries attest to racist practices perpetrated by the greensboro police department and the basis for the summaries gpd's own body-worn camera footage surely demonstrate that these practices impacted many more greensboro residents than just marcus smith for me it was most heartbreaking to find that a pregnant woman and an elderly woman with dementia were among the victims of hog time but they're just two of the more than 300 victims of hog tying over by gpd over four years that we learned about from the smith team and we learned from them that three quarters of the victims of hog time were black the black people make up less than half of greensboro's population but we've learned nothing from you all about this in fact at last month's meeting the city attorney stated that the videos were irrelevant to the smith case this makes me wonder what the advice no wonder about the advice you're getting on the case because what he said is very misleading that is two judges made clear when they ordered the police to make the videos available that the videos are indeed relevant to the smith's case against the city but the videos are also relevant to a much bigger problem according to the smith's team statistic about racist policing so it's especially important for voters to know what city council what each of you has seen mayor vaughan said she has to go back to the judge and see if you all can speak about them can you tell me if this has been done meanwhile mayor vaughn has also said she'd be willing to defy the judge's gag order if she saw something in a body cam video that she sincerely believed represented outrageous police misconduct or brutality could it be that she doesn't think that racist policing is outrageous voters also want to know what you will do about the situation thankfully the hog tying has been stopped but what about racist policing in general if you doubt the smith team statistic how about an investigation the videos would provide a good foundation for that mayor vaughn has dismissed the written summaries of the videos as flint taylor's talking points but the smith case aside the video evidence still stands surely you won't ignore the troubling information the videos reveal unless you don't see racist policing is a problem greensville residents are looking to vote for those who will take this serious 30 seconds on thank you thank you um i believe that is the end of the speakers from the floor segment nope you're saying we no i'm here oh catherine holcomb yes thank you mayor and city council my name is catherine holcomb i live at 1911 rose press drive i want to first thank sharon hightower for speaking up an unpopular opinion that i read about in yes weekly opposing the social drink drinking district i appreciate your boldness in that now today we are in january our national holiday for martin luther king is included in this month but this year there will be no martin luther king parade though north carolina a t state university is hosting some day of service activities for the public on their campus and i noticed this the western north carolina conference of black methodist churches are sponsoring a contest to create art or an essay to answer this prompt what can i do to stand up for peace justice and love in our world i'm pondering that and encouraging people in my church to ponder it for yourself what can we do to stand up for peace justice and love in greensboro my answer as a citizen i can show up and speak truth to power about peace i can never again think well i'm okay because all the violence and crime are happening in other districts in greensboro not my neighborhood about love to truly love another means i want the same things for others as i want for myself especially in housing and food and transportation i cannot ignore the pain of brothers and sisters not in district 3 or people black people riding the buses when i have a car about justice not to tolerate how greensburg police department has not been accountable for excessive force used on both people like me and on deadly force on marcus smith there is camera footage to prove his case not of mine therefore i stand as an ally with the smith family for justice and reparations for the loss of their son marcus and i stand as an ally for those being evicted unable to access affordable housing i hope before i die having lived all my life in greensboro i will see it become a place where number one greensboro police department adopts courtesy shooting to maim instead of killing no immunity for wrongdoing number two that i will see citizens starting as children learning why it pays not to be mean to people different than you three that we could cooperate to share across districts seeing each other not as strangers over there on the other side of town but as friends we have not met yet and four citizens who ask questions of city employees always get answers we saw tonight it doesn't happen nor does it happen when you're arrested by police and you say why are you arresting me they don't even give you an answer every teacher in guilford county should require students to watch a city council meeting if they saw what happened tonight they would be shocked at the lack of transparency the promises made and not kept i myself am horrified thank you so i believe that is our final speaker yes okay we will now move on to the consent agenda portion um do i have a motion sentence by dr wells seconded by ms abuzawader um council please vote mrs hoffman mr holston yes dr wells yes i am a yes mrs abuse waiter mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower yes and that pause passes eight to zero um that is the end of our agenda boards and commissions mrs hoffman mr holston i have none dr wells mrs abuzawader mr outling none mrs thurm non mrs hightower well i have i think i have one but one let me let me get some clarity because and let me get this clarity again um something came over to my email that was a interest form are you all automatically putting them in because for me i prefer per fur to put them in myself so i got one the other day and i printed it out but of course it's at home because i got it at home so are you all automatically putting them in so i guess i am okay so the the person is already in the database okay all right so did you want to make an appointment or just put them in the database i just was making sure they're in the data bank so tonight anyway and then i'll have appointments thank you next meeting um council comments mrs hightower um well what what i want to say is it is kind of disturbing to me um that it appears we're not transparent or that we don't keep our word um you know old people say your word is your bond and if we don't do what we say we're gonna do then it does make us look like we're not very concerned about people's issues and i'm very concerned and disturbed this evening that two issues very similar have been handled um or mishandled i should say and um that's just not the way that we should be operating um it worries me because the social district drinking district policy went through very quickly was put together very quickly wasn't discussed at all but yet it went through and then there are other ones that we talk about for weeks and months and days um i've approached you know trying to expand the 700 600 feet uh zoning ordinance to 750 and yet we got to have conversation about that we got to have a meeting about that i'm told oh we got to have public input about that and yet here we are we haven't done it yet um talked about the appeal process being put strengthened into place when it comes to zoning matters we got to have a meeting about that we got to have a public process about that and we haven't done it yet but we had a drinking district policy that went into effect almost immediately somebody wrote the policy somebody put it through and it showed up at council this stuff is not equal representation is not equal here certain things are done in in a haste other things are taking months weeks uh well we gotta talk about it this is not the way government should be that's why people don't trust government because it does appear like um we cater to some and we don't listen to others these issues are important to the community and we need to be addressing them in a much more expedient way in a much more transparent way and we need to be doing things on an equal basis um so i'm just asking us to do a lot better job than what i saw and heard tonight and what i've experienced in the past because um we are representing people and they all have a certain you know they have a voice they use us sometime as their voice to get things done and some of this is being slow walked and not pushed as fast as it needs to be and we just got to do a better job of that so thank you thank you dr wells it's been interesting and but i do think uh um councilwoman hightower were saying that it looks like we're not keeping our promises but i'm i'm hopeful that our discussion tonight will thank you i hope our discussion tonight will bring about um some change sometimes you you don't realize things that how things can appear and it appeared as if we were not concerned on an equal uh basis for the two situations but i really in in heart i don't think that we i like that but sometimes we make we make mistakes we do make mistakes and i hope tonight we'll correct that kind of mistake that we look at trying to follow through and keep the promises that that we made um i'd like to urge everyone if you have not had your vaccination please do it and please wear your mask i i sat here and i wrote the names of the people in my circle that have uh contracted the virus and they're 11 on my list and one of them the 12th one died so there are lots of people who are being effective so let's do all that we can to uh prevent that and i'd like to invite you to take apart and to look at the mlk uh day celebration that will be sponsored by the pulpit forum that's going to be on sunday the 16th at 4 00 p.m on their face on the pulpit forums facebook page at 4 00 p.m on the 16th the theme is wake up and remember the dream wake up and remember the dream it will be uh quite interesting so please join in for that thank you thank you um mr outling thank you uh i really want to support and express my sharing of many of the beliefs raised by councilwoman hightower i think tonight as well as in many other circumstances it just reveals an opportunity for improvement in terms of how we address issues in the city especially in terms of how we manage them as i sit and reflect on them i just see opportunities for improvements especially with regard to systems you know it's it's remarkable at times when you look at various topics and councilman hightower did a good job of giving examples on how things are just categorically treated differently you know many months ago for example this council voted unanimously to direct staff to come back with a proposal for how we can make sure that residents across the city when there are rezoning matters there are required meetings just like there are in areas of the city where there's a neighborhood plan like frontline so that in east greensboro which hasn't had benefit of a neighborhood plan can be put on equal footing like the residents in the friendly area notwithstanding what i recall is the unanimous council vote it's probably been over a year and that has been back brought back to the council when it was a specific direction for it to be next month there are certain situations where there are internal departmental policies to councilman hightower's point they come to council very quickly sometimes they get on our agendas in less than 48 hours we're put in a position where we have to vote on it where there are other policies where i'm not sure the distinction for why they're treated differently i can literally tell you i've been having conversations with staff on one particular policy for well over a year you know for a matter for which the former city manager said we have a solution we will do this and it hasn't been done and so the the consequence i think is a lot of missed opportunity for progress a lot of frustration um her remarks about the lack of transparency and i think it's really just an opportunity for improvement so i look forward to [Music] the next city managers and other staff persons really looking at ways in which we can improve processes to help move our community forward and i would even include what happened tonight i know city staff has been at all these meetings and you probably noticed that i don't talk when residents come up here and make comments and that's because we agree to a process by which these meetings will be about people making their comments not about us responding but we would follow up with them give them solutions and address their concerns part of that i think as a systems matter is to help ensure that this board is focusing its collective time on the really big issues that's again is an opportunity for improvement because while parking is very very important last year the second highest number of homicides in the city's history 2020 the highest number of homicides in the city's history the year before that you know to date it was the highest number of homicides and so you know again i'm just looking forward to more work especially from staff and hopefully from this board and thinking about the systems and processes that we can proceed with to help ensure that we're being fair we're being equitable and we're also being good stewards of our time and staff's time in focusing on the really significant things as this board working with staff to address constituent concerns and alike because again while parking permits are very very important and i don't mean to minimize any of those things there are a lot of other really important things too that equally deserve an hour's worth of this council's deliberation and discussion so thank you thank you um mrs hoffman mrs thurm um yeah i just a brief comment um i agree with comments made earlier about the need for improvement and room to go and at the same time i understand that this past year the past two years have been really difficult for staff and i acknowledge that and at the same time don't want to use it as an excuse but i understand that we've had some really unusual circumstances to live through the past couple years i also want to thank staff and staff our first responders duke power for the efforts yesterday to get us back to some normalcy um i know i called metro 911 yesterday morning at about 5 30 to report downed trees that they already knew about by the time i came back through that same intersection an hour later at 6 30 people were out there they were working and they were you know marking out the area so that cars were safe and that people were safe on their way to work um we've got room for improvement absolutely there's room to grow and and there's improvement that's drastically needed and at the same time we have to acknowledge the good work that's being done and i don't want that to get lost for our employees that that there's really good work being done in our city we can do even better work but we need to acknowledge both the need for improvement and the good things that are happening in our city um you know sometimes in frustration city staff get frustrated too and they don't always respond the way we would like for them to respond to a situation and they get pulled in multiple directions at the same time and things get lost as councilman outling said speaks for the need for systems and for tracking and those kinds of things and things that are are fixable but at the same time nobody's out there trying to do a crappy job everybody's trying to do the best that they know how to do with the tools that they have and it's appreciated thank you mrs abusewater thank you madam mayor um our next meeting is until the 18th and i wanted to remind everyone about the martin luther king day virtual program normally there's the mlk breakfast sponsored by the human rights commission but of course it's going to be virtual again this year um and you know i believe the right decision was made on that uh the commission had debated you know could we try it in person but with the increase in the cove it was a very smart move about six seven months ago um so that will be on monday january 17th at 9 00 am nikki giovanni the famous poet will be the speaker keynote speaker so i encourage everyone to tune in on that i know it'll be listed how to get on in the human rights commission page so i wanted to remind everyone of that um i do want to mention mrs thurman and i were able to go to uh the funeral for captain dan moore that was on saturday and um 24-year veteran of the force and i did want to read one paragraph out of his obituary that was that day it was just gives an idea of the person the man i know that when we saw all of the photos on the screen of his life you came away feeling that you knew him that was just a beautiful service thomas daniel moore dan was a 24-year officer with the greensboro police department who recently retired as a division commander at the rank of captain he was the consummate student teacher and warrior poet captain moore embodied the essence of a servant leader with a writing operational brief briefings teaching firearms to new recruits at the range going through a door commanding a division dan always raised the bar created a new standard and has left a hole that will not be filled i thought that was just a nice way that that he was remembered there um also i want to mention that i'm appreciative of what our city is doing in reducing crime i realized that crime is still an all-time high everywhere but there has been some reduction in greensboro on our percentages in all of the different categories so thanks go to um the chief and public safety director trey davis and the department uh and i believe and i've read many many times the reason it is starting to show some result is the added efforts by pd to work more with the community of course i'm going to give crime stoppers a little plug here too because crime stoppers has really done a lot of outreach uh but those are are things that have happened after a crime has happened with crime stoppers and the pd has gone with community engagement they have they are going out into the communities even during a pandemic so i i think a lot of that hard work is showing and i truly appreciate it um and that's about all i had happy new year to everyone and please wear your mask or you know make sure you've gotten vaccinated and boosted um this what our one day positivity rate the other day was 32 and the two-week average is 18 or 19 so we really need to try to get a handle on this thank you ms thurm you said you had a yes i'm sorry i forgot um i want to make sure everybody knew that on february 2nd from 7 to 8 p.m we will have our participatory budgeting kickoff event it's a virtual event online and you can go to www.www.pbgreensboro.com again that's pbgreensboro.com for more information on how to register for that and how to become a part of the pb process for the upcoming year thank you mrs hightower did you um madame since um councilwoman thurman brought up participatory budgeting i i need an update um there is a project all the way back um the first phase of pb and it is not done and um i need to know when will it be done what are we going to do about it it is at glendale and random road and it is what the tyler run neighborhood came up with um and i think it was a crosswalk and yes there has been some property brought or donated to the city in that area but that doesn't mean we not can not still do that particular project so pb is great i support it i was on the committee that actually started pb um and it works well when it works but when there are things that have not been done we need to find out why and so it's been a few years now so i need an update on that project and where we are with that that is a transportation pv project and there's one other pb project i'd like an update on and i believe that there is a city-wide project for trolley downtown um and what is the status of that because if there was a trolley if there was a way to circulate people downtown they could park further away from where they're going if if this was in effect and i thought it was one of the projects that did pass all five districts but um in fact it did mayor and and we owe you we owe council an update on all the pp projects when we delayed funding for a year we we we slacked off a bit with that that's our fault we'll get you an update on all outstanding projects right away okay thank you mr holstein thank you madam mayor uh just very briefly uh to follow up on some of the conversations we've had today it's gonna be important that we focus on on engagement and communication and working on solutions when it comes to uh city staff and our citizens here in greensboro and also i want to say that uh as i usually try to mention in is that please wear your mask and please get vaccinated and if necessary based on the holidays and all the gatherings we've had uh also consider getting tested and remember we aren't doing it just for ourselves but doing it for those that we love and those who are close to us thank you madam mayor thank you um yeah i i do want to say thank you to staff i know that they do hard work all year long this has been a really difficult year people were out we were understaffed they were doing things that they don't usually do things may fall through the cracks but for the most part we've got a really well-run city and we had really good news last year and that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the efforts of city staff across the board so you know while we're not perfect and while things you know could use some some changes in tweaking i think it also needs to be put in perspective that we were in the second year of a pandemic some people were working from home some people were doing double duty and we had some great projects coming up which were extremely time consuming so i think me things need to be put in a little perspective and i also want to make a clarification when we said we were doing the town hall style meetings what we said was that we wouldn't vote on an item that comes from the floor but we didn't say that we wouldn't speak to speakers we didn't say that we would just sit here and listen to them what we said was that we wouldn't vote on something that came from the floor in that meeting and i think that that is a um a specific distinction that needs to be made um you know we do need to to wear our masks and get vaccinated the coliseum will be working with guilford county health department and with moses cohn to stand up another facility which will be for testing and for vaccinations you know if we can just move that vaccination one percent it will make a significant difference in our population um you know one message that the hospital system wants to put out is that if you need a test don't go to the emergency room that is one of the reasons why the emergency room is getting bogged down mr holston i know you've been working hard on vaccines and and testing and i'm not sure if if you're aware of other facilities that people can go to get get tested but i know that the north carolina department of human services has a listing of testing facilities but the hope is not to go to the hospital and we hope to have this at piedmont hall up and running and it will be running through the end of february um i was on a call with guilford county health officials and cone health and i was surprised when they mentioned the top three places where people were likely to get infected and number one was the home it was the home dormitory style facilities in the classroom and you know as far as in the home that's hard for the city to um to control what people do in their own home and the result of that was i think what we knew it was all holiday parties and get togethers and things that people were doing so it is important that you wear a mask when you're out so you don't come home and unknowingly um infect your family so um just those those words um mr city manager oh what okay the mayor probably would not mention this but um she was noted as one of the 2021 achievers in north carolina mayor via lyles of charlotte marianne baldwin of raleigh and nancy vaughn of greensboro have gained respect for steady leadership of the state's three biggest cities mayoral power is largely limited in our state so it isn't right to assign too much blame or credit but they are professionals with big hearts for their cities each has distinctive strengths but we'll count them as one because of their similar roles congratulations thank you for that i appreciate it mr city manager happened this evening um mr city attorney i have nothing okay thank you may have a motion to adjourn moved by mr holston second by mrs thurm um all in favor say aye aye with that objection word adjourned i'll get that right eventually you