president mrs abuse waiter president mrs hightower mrs hoffman president mr holston present mr outling present and um dr wells president and mrs mister tammy i'm also here yes that's what i just said mrs thur so we are all in attendance we will begin tonight's meeting with a moment of silence thank you dr wells could you lead us in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you tonight's meeting continues with a partial opening of the council chamber with a continued option to participate virtually due to capacity restrictions a limited number of residents are allowed inside the council chamber for specific items of interest following the conclusion of items or topic for discussion residents will be asked to exit to allow room for other residents to enter the chamber staff and residents are requested to continue to wear face coverings public forum and agenda item speakers have two options to register to speak before council residents may continue to register via the jot form on the city website by 5 pm the day prior to the council meeting where residents may sign up to speak by 6 00 the day of the meeting by using the q minder kiosk just outside the council chamber door please see our community relations manager gary campino at the courier desk for assistance to comply with requirements by the state in regards to zoom meetings and hybrid meetings and to provide an optimum experience to the public council will verbalize motions and all votes will be conducted by roll call vote we do allow and welcome speakers to address counsel at the public forum meeting council respects the right for the public to speak about matters of concern that can be addressed by counsel each speaker will be allotted three minutes comments that deemed to be intended or to incite unlawful behavior will be deemed out of order soon participants are requested to mute their microphones until 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's 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 do have a consent agenda this evening for items f1 through f33 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 december city council business agenda tonight's meeting does include closed captioning depending on the length of tonight's meeting we will take a short recess around 7 30. we um we have carried over the public speaking portion of our meeting from our last meeting because there were some technical difficulties we can go ahead and line those speakers up at this point i believe we have okay and if all speakers are subject to a three-minute maximum and if you would identify yourself as you speak okay i'll begin good evening council members thank you for sharing your time with me my name is nicole gaines i live at 500 p georgia drive brown summit i am currently the north carolina chair of the sierra club which of which we have over 100 thousand members in this state and i'm a former group chair of the piedmont plateau group here situated in greensboro due to a growing concern about the destruction of the thousands and thousands of acres of forest land in greensboro some of our members started taking photos of construction sites in early 2018. a few months later two other members started researching the ramifications of clear-cutting and grading the land the results of their research photos and life experiences are reflected in the following educational slideshow which my four colleagues and i will now present next slide please so i highlighted in red we have logging surface mining for coal pipeline construction wildfires of course that which can't be helped catastrophic weather conditions and highway and housing and commercial development of which greensboro guilford county has seen much of its share next slide please globally we are deliberately terminating the most awesome splendor of the planet has yet attained so each year we're destroying a rainforest the size of oklahoma and that does not even speak to wood pellets immediate action must be taken for without trees earth cannot dispose adequately of the chemical residues and specific to the atmosphere of burning of fossil fuels next slide please even though this is an example that's set in oregon erosion soil damage changes in co2 levels loss of health and habitat and risk of natural disasters and other aesthetic concerns are also some of the things that we are concentrating on we want to continue making greensboro the greenest city uh and the state and i'm hoping that we'll be able to keep our trees uh and or do so responsibly i'll let my colleague take over from here thank you for your time hello my name is uh dennis reath i live at 5918 arcadia drive been a resident there for 21 years my perspective all greensboro land development is currently based on clear cutting how do i move it forward okay locally the north carolina department of transportation placed greensboro in high risk of carbon overload when thousands of acres of trees were destroyed during the construction of the urban loop i-840 these photos show clear cutting impact to the northern sector by 840. north elm north church north lawndale and lake jeanette road overpass were all impacted to the i-840 construction the i southern i-840 was similarly impacted clear-cutting grading and removing all trees vegetation wildlife habitats and topsoil has destroyed numerous acres of forest land and mature trees along each artery into greensboro these photos show clear cutting for construction of a strip mall multi-family housing a medical facility and future clear-cutting impact on a luxury apartment complex some of the city's largest trees and a wildlife sanctuary were destroyed along a two-mile stretch of lawndale drive in 2018-2012 due to the construction of patio homes office complexes a storage building and a 30-acre apartment complex many more trees near lawndale drive were destroyed for the expansion of the greensboro science center and zoo renovations to country park and adjoining parking lots again all greensboro land development is currently based on clear cutting clear cutting impacted hundreds of mature trees along ridge crest drive former farmland on friendly avenue and a riparian buffer to nearby stream this was part of an expansion of a retirement community in 2020 the impact of these folders hit home because it personally restructured our neighborhood the rezoning from single family r3 to residential multi-family cdrm-5 led to a clear-cutting nightmare look at the photos 150 trees removed just on ridge crest to create 10 multi-family institutional duplexes several hundred trees removed if you add in the farmland and the riparian buffer 30 seconds clear cutting and grading led to multiple storm water problems and erosion look at the area photo of the construction site the bottom right photo to see full impact of clear cutting bottom line is clear cutting really the highest and best use for preparation of land for all greensboro land development it is time for change next speaker hello my name is karen catulla i live in randolph county but i've worked at uncg in the department of biology for as a professor for nearly 30 years i will be discussing some of the relationships between intact forests in trees and environmental and human health globally carbon dioxide levels reached an all-time high of 415 parts per million in may 2019 this is higher than it's been in the last three million years human activities have contributed to this increase including electricity production transportation building products and importantly deforestation cancer heart disease upper respiratory illnesses birth disorders and viruses are more prevalent in urban areas in industrial zones due to carcinogens from fossil fuel combustion and local pollution according to the national cancer institute cancer is among the leading cause of death worldwide and locally cancer has been the leading cause of death in guilford county since 2008 46 percent of the deaths are from lung cancer these illnesses in future epidemics can be potentially curtailed by prohibiting clear cutting and enforcing strong emission standards trees act as our planet's lungs by taking in carbon and purifying our air high levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere cause climate changes and turbulent weather conditions strong winds and heavy rains have destroyed many trees in greensboro in recent years homes parks and schools have also been damaged by hurricanes floods and tornadoes as shown in these pictures from greensboro in 2018. nationally deforestation and high carbon emissions have also caused extreme blizzards mudslides droughts wildfires melting icebergs rising sea levels displaced people and the extinction of species aesthetic value is only one of the many benefits of urban forests that are lost during clear cutting and grading the land shown here 30 seconds from pictures of greensboro was a wooded neighborhood that was destroyed in clear-cut to build a duplex that included only one sapling per duplex thank you and next speakers good afternoon city council members i'm don hinza i've been a greensboro resident for over 20 years and we moved here because of the excellent schools and the attractive green spaces in town it's very attractive community i've been a member of the share club for over 30 years before getting involved in the boy scouts here in greensboro so continuing with the slide the trees in greensboro have more than just aesthetic value they provide carbon storage they do a lot for urban heat reduction storm water absorption and with increasing property values with a stimulus for economic development beginning in 2000 after the publication of the book the great work by thomas berry on global environmental crisis thousands of communities began regulating carbon emissions and caring for their lands and forests by planting trees community gardens pollinating gardens and ground covers instead of grassy yards that had to be mowed also by planting fur trees and hedges along highways and property boundaries instead of building sound barriers and fences the city of greensboro has responded in the past by forming a partnership between greensboro beautiful and the neighborhood woods programs training volunteers to plant trees in their neighborhoods and parks but the surge in economic growth beginning in 2016 led to the net destruction of trees in the city many cities have made tree conservation part of their city planning cities for forest represents nearly 73 cities with forest plans that includes raleigh north carolina something we need to see multiple other cities are developing tree protection programs including charlotte and durham north carolina in multiple nations this just recently pledged to call a moratorium on deforestation by 2030 in a 2029 climate summit in glasgow this is a critical time for greensboro to take steps to protect our mature large growth trees in urban forests forests and trees are essential they provide clean air and water they definitely cool the air in the summer in the urban 30 they provide oxygen to air and green spaces for residents well-being they enrich the soil create wildlife habitat and reduce erosion and flooding thank you i'm hazel landers i live at 2905 new garden road east in greensboro that's east of lawndale and country park as you know we are here to ask you to call a moratorium on clear cutting for development and to save our trees it's too late to save the trees that are in in the photo plus 60 other mature trees that once grew in country park however it's not too late to save thousands of other mature trees throughout greensboro sierra clubs save our trees petition states the forests of greensboro are rapidly being destroyed due to urban development immediate action must be taken to protect our forest the 1 000 signers of this specific petition urge you to take immediate action to enforce a moratorium on clear cutting that's removing all trees vegetation wildlife habitats from forest land or wooded property for housing and commercial development and to establish standards for developers to build on abandoned or already cleared properties and to plant trees in the parking lot mediums and hedges around pop property boundaries by calling a moratorium the syria sierra club requests that you call a temporary halt on all clear-cutting operations on forced land that's been rezoned or designated for urban development such a hub would allow you time to consult with the city arborist and sustainability council and to meet with the residents who will be most affected by clear-cutting operations in their neighborhoods the sierra club also requests that you authorize the greensboro planning department to establish standards for housing and commercial developers to build on abandoned or already cleared properties the planning department has developed impressive city-wide tree ordinances with specific requirements for replanting large native trees 30 seconds it's up to you to approve and enforce these ordinances please recognize the importance of protecting our trees and our basic human rights for all of us including our children and grandchildren have the right to clean air clean water rich soil and a healthy environment let's all work together to keep the green in greensboro thank you all very much i have the petition available and i would like a response or we would like a response uh by the first business thank you in december thank you um mr city manager can you do a quick update on our tree ordinance i i can uh i'd prefer to come back with that because we actually have goals associated with three tr planting and canopy protection uh and then there was some reference projects in there that are city projects that have specific plans so i'd prefer to come back with something more comprehensive thank you if you could um do that by by email and we will distribute it to the speakers thank you we will now move on to the consent agenda portion of our um agenda our consent agenda second and madame pro temp i didn't tell you i didn't have anything but i actually do have two that i have a question on i'm sorry um sharon are they quick questions which two are they um f 29 and f 33 and and i guess i'm confused um on the um i well the two items are unique one of them is for some type of air system gps system at the coliseum and the last one f-33 is for a traffic signal loop um detector installation they both are unique and they both are sold source items but one f 29 says they they requested a waiver not sure why they would request a waiver and then the last one didn't request a waiver and went through the mwb process even though they didn't find anyone to do the work and in both cases they didn't find anyone to do the work i think i'm just concerned that waivers are being asked for without merit because if you go through the mwbe program and the office they don't find anyone to do the work then certainly i mean that has merit but to ask for a waiver before you know what's happening seems problematic to me and maybe i just need to understand the clarity around that and i've seen others ask for waivers in the past mr brown how time sensitive is item number f29 well i think in today's world of covet it's certainly a sensitive issue for every patron that uh comes to any of our facilities in in an actual retrospect i wish we had uh address all these early when we first did the tanger center we did the aquatic center we did the field house to meet requirements for the nba swarm facility so this is following up on our commitment uh to provide an environment for every patron coming in to feel that we've addressed those issues with regard to covet the gps system is in in installed in every hospital in the country and we are fortunate that hoffman at hoffman a major manufacturing facility right down the street from the coliseum represented this product line and they self install the unit so our information was provided through mike perdue working with allison staton and submitted all the documentation to the mb mwbe office to verify that there wasn't another opportunity for another mwbe firm that represented this gps model that is so intrigued integral to fighting covid so uh i i think they found that there was no such other we're very fortunate that hoffman is available and willing to put us on in front of the queue to get us going to get these products because they're in high demand and there's a backlog to get these installed in every public facility across the country well i would say i i would like us to move on with this item especially since it is our existence the question is not the nade of the item i was not i was not finished speaking i hear you i don't but i think i was addressed i am not finished speaking and i was not allowed to address his concern so don't try to cover up i i am i am addressing his concern and we've we've had these votes i asked the question mayor for a reason it was not to stop to not use the item the question i asked was around the waiver the question wasn't around the equipment none of that you said a simple question it was simple why a waiver not a matter of we didn't need it i've already heard the presentation i just asked the question that question could have been addressed earlier um so you know we have this waiver discussion a number of times it could have been addressed prior to the meeting um we have a number of things on this agenda uh you know i would say that if um missoula if if you would reach out and explain those two issues right i think we need to i think we have to get that i think we need to move forward with the gps one i don't know what the other one is i didn't say neither one couldn't be moved forward i'm going to vote for both of them i just have a question well then let's let's move on and vote on them because we say if we're taking something off for discussion it'll go on the next agenda it was a simple question that's what you said simple it was simple it got turned into convoluted unnecessary rhetoric it was simple excuse me can i respond to your your question throughout the process when we enter something to the mwbe office and kim can correct me if i'm wrong but the way the process is if it's so proprietary we ask for a waiver on those so that's the process that's currently in place when it's so proprietary and that's what this was and that's the process with it that was a simple question to a simple answer and it's the same answer every time this comes up because it's two items on the same agenda that are just alike one is a waiver one is not and if i was a source if i can just add and the difference is the mwbe office searched for vendors for this particular item and found that there were none available so when there are no vendors available that is when we use the waiver process and in the case of the traffic loop detector there were vendors that we felt like could provide the service and so we reached out to them to offer the opportunity to bid on it but no one bid on it so that's why the waiver did not apply to the traffic loop detectors so the difference okay i can accept that so do we have a motion for the consent agenda um so moved by mrs johnson seconded by mr mr holston mr holston um imes mrs johnston yes mrs abuzawader yes mrs hightower yeah mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um item number g1 is a public hearing for a resolution authorizing an economic development incentive to rpm wood finishes group inc in an amount not to exceed one hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred and twenty nine dollars and staff does have a presentation on this item thank you so um this is about rpm wood finishes we have two uh economic development projects up for consideration this evening um rpm wood finishing is incorporated as a part of an oem industrial which is owned by rpm international holding company in ohio the company is considering 7625 thorndike road for a center of excellence this facility would provide research and development and specialty coatings and showcase existing product lines the expansion will result in a capital investment of 19.5 million dollars and 53 new jobs over a three year period the average wages of those jobs is 75 000. so 75 47 and none of those jobs would pay below 15 an hour the company is requesting a three-year incentive in the amount of 160 729 dollars this slide here just shows how it meets the minimum criteria for to qualify for incentives 25 jobs over the guilford county average wage as you can see in a minimum seven million dollar of investment staff recommends that council consider the request to authorize these incentives you'll note in the attached resolution that the grant would be paid over a three-year period the 53 new jobs will be retained through that installment period the construction portion of this project will adhere to the city's mwbe policy plan and representatives of company have already spoken to with staff about what would be expected the new jobs would be posted on our local workforce development board and they will require to host a job fair in each of the hiring phases we also have here mr marvin j price of the greensboro chamber and also sharon nellenbach from the company with us virtually if you have any questions okay move the item second edit there sorry about that that was um that was moved by mrs hoffman and seconded by mrs abuzawader um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusivator yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes thank you and that passes nine to zero and thank you very much for um for considering an investment in greensboro and guilford county we certainly appreciate the raise in wages and we look forward to your decision thank you item number g2 is a public hearing for a resolution authorizing an economic development incentive to tat piedmont in the amount not to exceed 126 423 we do have a presentation by staff and some speakers for questions all right go ahead and get started tit piedmont which is also known as piedmont aviation component service is a maintenance repair and overhaul mro company they are considering an expansion at the greensboro greensboro facility or in tulsa oklahoma and they have two other facilities here in north carolina the potential expansion would allow them more capacity to service auxiliary power units which are the power units that that power the plane when the engines are not on on the runway the expansion will result in a capital investment of 13.835 million dollars and 85 new jobs over a four-year period the average wage again of those jobs fifty one thousand seven hundred six dollars and none of those jobs would pay below the fifteen dollars an hour the company is requesting a four year incentive in the amount of 126 thousand four hundred and twenty three dollars uh and the company is also being considered for an nc uh department of commerce one sea grant this slide shows again how the company meets the all three minimum criteria for incentive policy and staff recommends that council consider this request to authorize these incentives the resolution shows it would be paid over a four year period the 85 new jobs above the existing employment level will be retained through the end of the installment period and the construction portion of this project will adhere to the city's mwbe program again the new jobs will be posted to the workforce development board which will be required to host job fair in their hiring phases and we have again mr marvin j price from the greensboro chamber here with us we also have mr uh sasha ravens of t-a-t-p mart and mr um in person and then mr um dave thomas of tnt pimo virtually with us move the item second um that was moved by mr booswader and i believe seconded by mayor pro tem johnson um i am yes mrs johnson yes mr boosawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mr thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um again i'd like to say thank you for considering greensboro and guilford county on this very important job creation we uh we appreciate it and we look forward um to your considerations and this was a very good two items to be able to bring more jobs to our city and i want to thank our city staff and the chamber for working so well together and bringing this before us now move on to item number g3 which is an ordinance for a public hearing for annexation of territory into the corporate limits for property located at 238 ritters lake road um uh and item g4 an ordinance for public hearing for original zoning for 238 ritters lake road we do have speakers in favor um mike fox williams development group taylor williams benjamin hintz dion brown mark snyder benjamin rihan and allison bragg i don't believe we have any speakers in opposition um mr kirkman can you give us a brief overview of this project yes thank you mayor vaughn and members of city council the request is to annex and establish original zoning for approximately 109 acres on ritters lake road which is uh just south of i-85 and off of elm eugene street the request is to go from county ag and county rs40 to city conditional district light industrial north of the request is currently zoned county a g agricultural and county rs30 residential single family east request is zoned county ag in conditional use light industrial in the county south and west a zone county ag and county rs40 residential single family the subject property is currently undeveloped at this time north of the quest are single-family dwellings undeveloped land and in place of religious assembly east requests are single-family dwellings and an industrial use west and south requests are single-family dwellings of undeveloped land the subject property is currently designated as residential on the principal plans feature land use map and as urban general on belt form map this is the condition that was included with this request that was advertised as part of the hearing this evening again the gso conference plan does does it is urban general within an urban mixed-use quarter on our feature-built form map and both commercial and residential and the future land use map if the original zoning request is approved the feature lane use map then is considered to be admitted to the industrial classification to ensure the appropriate fit between the designation and the zoning classification staff has concluded this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan's growing economic competitiveness big idea to build a prosperous and resilient economy creating equitable opportunities to succeed and our prioritizing sustainability goal to build economic resilience expand local economies ability to withstand and adjust disruptions and changes of the regional national and global scales the proposed cdli district request allows a variety of warehouse distribution and limited manufacturing and similar uses which in their normal operations have little or no adverse effect upon adjacent properties staff would know the care should be taken with respect to building orientation materials height and visual buffers to ensure appropriate transitions to nearby lower density residential uses and staff is recommending approval of both the annexation and original zoning request these requests were heard by the greensboro planning and zoning commission at their october 18th meeting and the commission unanimously voted to recommend approval of both items there were three speakers in favor at that hearing and none in opposition i can answer any questions i'd like to second mrs hightower's motion so that was item number item number g3 was moved by mrs hightower and seconded by mr boos waiter i would like to see if mr fox has anything he'd like to say or his clients thank you madam mayor and council is this just on the annexation issue is that yeah yeah okay no i don't have anything to add i support the staff thank you yes i would like to say a few words on the other part if that's okay yes they're combined oh great thank you yes so thank you we appreciate your time here tonight um we we uh feel your staff has done a great job this is a good site for this type of of project uh warehouse distribution we had good conversations with the neighborhood uh engaged about 15 people uh and they had a lot of good questions um very similar projects along 4085 along this this corridor so this would be typical of what you have seen for these type of light industrial projects staff supports it and has recommended approval and we got unanimous approval at the zoning commission so with that we will truncate our presentation and ask you to consider uh approval please thank you thank you mr fox so the first vote is for the annexation and that was moved by mrs hightower and seconded by ms abuzawader um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero move item six four seven for g4 i just have one quick question from mr fox if you want to address are there any traffic concerns with out in that area have you all looked at the site and done any work around that yes ma'am we have engaged davenport john is here tonight if you have particular questions but he's presented a comprehensive traffic study to both gdot and ncdot and there are a number of recommendations about improvements to be made to handle the any anticipated traffic increases and our uh we're committed to doing those as what has been recommended by ncdot and g dot okay thank you thank you yes sir so the item was moved by mrs johnson do i have a second sec seconded by mrs hightower mrs johnson that requires a statement of consistency the greensboro city council believed that its action to approve the zoning request for the property described as 238 ritter lake road from county ag agricultural and county r s 40 residential single family to city cdli conditional district light industrial to be consistent with the adopted gso 2040 comprehensive plan and considers the action taken to be reasonable and in the public interest for the following reasons one the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan's future build form map and future land use map and two the proposed city cia cds li zoning districts permit use which fit the context of surrounding areas and limits negative impacts on the surrounding area and three the request is reasonable due to the size physical condition and other attributes of the area it will benefit the property owned and surrounding community and approval is in the public interest thank you i am a yes mrs johnson yes um mr boos waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr altman yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero thank you um i did forget to close the public hearing but i guess that um is automatically closed now that the issue has passed um item number g5 and g6 g5 is an ordinance for a public hearing for an annexation of territory into the corporate limits for property located at 5670 millstream road 31.688 acres williams development group llc and item g6 an ordinance for a public hearing for original zoning located at 5670 millstream road dixon pit for william development group llc mr uh kirkman yes thank you mayor vaughn again the request is to go from county ag air cultural to city light industrial for approximately 31.6 acres north south and west of the request are zone county agricultural a.g east the request is on county li and city li light industrial subject property is currently undeveloped north of the request is the i-4085 highway as well as some undeveloped land east request is an existing industrial department industrial park and dedicated open space south and west are undeveloped land and single family dwelling this is designate as industrial on the future land use map of the comprehensive plan and also industrial in the future built form map of the comprehensive plan there are no zoning conditions associated with this request staff did conclude that the original zone does support the comprehensive plan's growing economic competitiveness big idea to build a prosperous resilient economy that creates equitable opportunities to succeed and the comprehensive plans prioritizing sustainability goal to build economic resilience expand the local economy's ability to withstand and adjust to disruptions and changes at the regional national and global scales their proposed allied zoning district is intended to accommodate limited manufacturing wholesaling warehousing research and development and related commercial service activities which have been normal operations have little or no adverse impact upon joining properties and again staff would know care can be taken with respect to building orientation materials height and visual buffers to ensure appropriate transition to adjacent residential uses to the west and with that i'd be answering questions i'm sorry i did note that the planning and zoning commission did consider this case at their october 18th meeting did unanimously recommend approval of both items there was one speaker in favor and none in opposition thank you um we do have one speaker for questions um taylor williams or we can have um a motion i'd like i'd like to hear from mr williams good evening and thank you all for the time and opportunity to be here tonight um as as mayor vaughan mentioned we are uh considering resetting this property and exiting into the city of greensboro we had discussed with city planning and staff to ensure that this was in in line with the long-term economic goals of the city uh we did a significant traffic impact study to to understand the impact of the traffic generation in the local community and feel that this is the highest and best use for that that parcel um are there any residents close by uh no not to my knowledge okay so nobody that would really be impacted by any change is all industrial out there to my knowledge it's almost exclusively industrial okay so no need to have community any kind of community meeting or input you didn't see a need or nobody to reach out to correct okay moving the item can we close the public hearing yes thank you mrs johnson um i made the motion mayor and hugh seconded it all right well we need to close the public hearing um mrs johnson move to close do i have a second all in favor say aye aye aye public hearing is closed i believe item number g5 was moved by mrs hoffman and seconded by mr halston correct correct okay um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mr boosawader yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr halston yes mr outling yes mrs therm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to nine to zero item number g6 um does require a statement of consistency do i have a motion move the item moved by mrs hightower second i'm seconded by ms abusa the waiter city council believes that his action to recommend approval that for the zoning request for the property described is 5670 will stream road from county ag agricultural to city li flight industrial to be consistent with the adopted gso 2040 comprehensive plan and considers the action taken to be reasonable and in the public interest for the following reasons number one the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan future built form map and future land use map the proposed li zoning district permits uses which fit the context of surrounding area and three the request is reasonable due to the size physical condition and other attributes of the area it will benefit the property owner and surrounding community and approval is in the public interest thank you we do have a motion in a second i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs boosawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero thank you we now move on to item number g7 which is a public hearing to receive public comments on the 2021 justice assistance grant move the item second moved by mrs hightower i believe that was seconded by mrs hoffman yes this is the reason i removed it i think didn't she yes mary kate moved by mr boos waiter seconded by mrs hoffman um mrs hightower did you say you had a question no okay uh i am a yes this is the well i do have one quick question to you is this part of the second grant we were talking about some time ago when we brought this up the last meeting is this yes same grant yes it is okay thank you yeah it's just to receive the funds hope to get the money fine i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusa waiter yes mrs hightower mrs hoffman yes yes mr holston yes mr altman yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um now we move on to the general business portion of our agenda item number h1 is a resolution calling for a bond referendum and i believe that city staff has resolved the issue of the question about the date in april in which this may occur um mr city manager can you address that quickly we did we had we adjusted the item in the scenario in which the date could potentially change based on uh other election activity so you'll see that that it has basically two dates there now thank you do we have a motion move the item second moved by dr wells seconded by ms abuzawader um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusa waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr halston yes mr outland yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero item number h2 is a resolution authorizing field operations to prepare and submit a grant application to the nc department of environmental quality ncdeq division of air quality daq for their mobile source diesel emissions reduction d e r a matching grant fund program move the item second um and that is moved by mr holston and that was seconded by this hoffman the council this is hoffman um i am a yes mrs johnson yes this is abusive waiter yes this is hightower yes this is hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero thank you um item number h3 is a resolution authorizing municipal agreement in the amount of three million seven hundred and ten thousand with north carolina department of transportation for east gate city boulevard project hl-0046 and item h4 ordinance in the amount of three million seven hundred and ten thousand establishing the budget for a municipal agreement with nc department of transportation for east gate city boulevard project hl-0046 leave and that was moved by mrs johnson mrs hoffman and seconded by mr halston um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusa waiter yes mrs hightower yes but i would have liked to have had a little explanation from staff pertaining to this y'all kind of rolled pretty quickly just we wouldn't roll stuff that fast um but i would have liked to have a little explanation i read the item um but um authorizing ncdot to do this work so this is not a local project i guess that's what i was trying to understand madame may i address yes know y'all in the middle of voting so i'm sorry it is actually authorizing an agreement for ncdot to reimburse us for the work so they're they're going to reimburse us for 80 percent how much so this is not the actual project itself this is an agreement that once we start the project and we incur expenses that ncdot will reimburse us a portion of the 80 of the project of 80 so we we when we put the contract out we will control right the contract yes me okay that's that's what i wanted to be sure of and make sure so that um we have a little bit more uh oversight on it okay thank you mrs hoffman uh well mrs hightower is that a yes oh yes um mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero now i need an uh motion for h4 move the item thank you mr holston and dr wells um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mr boosa later yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outland yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero item number h5 is a resolution approving bid in the amount of thirteen million seven hundred and forty seven thousand six hundred and forty two dollars and sixty three cents and authorizing execution of contract 2011-067 with sharp brothers inc a division of vasilio and grogan for the alamance church road widening improvements project and i'd like to move inside them because i've been really working on this alamance church road project and to mr tompkins out there if you're listening finally since 1998 this project has been out there and it's finally in 2021 being done just being done so we should not take this long to get projects done in this community um but finally we are here there's some things about it i'm not sure i like but uh at least we're moving forward so so that's moved by mrs hightower seconded by mrs johnson i am a yes mrs johnson yes this is abusive waiter yes this is high tower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr altman yes mrs therm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero um item number h6 is an ordinance amending chapter 29 of the code of ordinances regarding water and sewer rates outside the city um i believe that was moved by uh mrs hoffman seconded by mississippi there's blue's a way to move tammy thumb second thank you moved by mr boosawader seconded by mrs thurm i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr halston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero item number h7 is a resolution approving bid in the amount of five million fifty seven thousand sixty six dollars and authorizing execution of contract twenty eighteen dash with bris enterprises for the north elm street waterline replacement project an item h8 ordinance in the amount of 7 million 57 66 dollars for the elm street water line project second so moved by dr wells seconded by miss abusa waiter um i am a yes mrs johnson yeah mrs abuzawader yes this is hightower yes mrs poffman yes mr holston yes mr outling mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero we need a motion on h8 move the item section by mrs thurm seconded by miss abusa waiter um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mr boosawader yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero item number h9 is a resolution approving a contract in the amount of one million three hundred ninety thousand one hundred and twenty one dollars with mcadams company inc to provide professional services for the south buffalo storm water master plan remove the items they're good um moved by miss abuse waiter and was that seconded by mrs johnson correct um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes this is hightower yes this is hoffman yes mr holston yes mr altman yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero item number h10 is a resolution approving a contract in the amount of one million five hundred and seventy thousand four hundred and ninety dollars with santec consulting services to provide professional services for the north buffalo stormwater master plan move the item moved by mrs therm was that seconded by mrs hoffman mike isn't on who's the waiter wait a second yes thank you um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mr boosawader yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr halston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero item number h11 is a resolution approving a contract in the amount of one million five hundred and forty nine thousand four hundred and fifty dollars with kimley horn and associates to provide professional services for horse pen creep storm water master plan give the item second moved by mrs therm and that was seconded by um was that mrs hoffman mary kay i am a yes mrs johnson yes mr boosa waiter yes this is hightower yes this is hoffman yes mr halston yes mr outling yes this is thurm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero item number h12 is a resolution approving water resources department to utilize a design build alternative delivery method for the design and construction of the liberty elevated water tank move the item second moved by mrs therms seconded by mr halston i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes this is hightower yes mr mrs hoffman yes mr halston yes mr outling mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero item number h13 and h14 age 13 is a resolution approving a contract 2016-002a change order number two in the amount of two million five hundred thousand with adams robertson robinson enterprises inc for extended construction services for tz osborne water reclamation facility bnr upgrade package for construction and item number 14 an ordinance in the amount of 3 million four hundred and 93 nine dollars for tz osborne water reclamation facility package for project move the item circuit moved by dr wells seconded by mrs johnson i am a yes yes mrs johnson thank you mrs abuzawater yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr halston yes mr outling yes mrs therm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero i need a motion for h14 move the item second moved by dr wells seconded by mr holston i am a yes mrs johnson yes this is abusive waiter yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outland yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero item number h15 is an ordinance in the amount of four million one hundred and seventy thousand three hundred and twenty one dollars for the alamance church road improvement project oh that second moved by um mrs hightower seconded by mr holston i am a yes mrs johnson yes this is abusive waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero item h16 is an ordinance to amend chapter 16-71a penalties for unlawful parking of oversized vehicles mrs hightower thank you madam mayor um this uh ordinance came about because of some concern from the community that we've heard repeatedly i think you and i um have repeatedly heard so we've asked for a revision i think legal has been working on this i don't know if mr dickens is here and he wants to speak to it uh mr white did he do you want to speak to it just briefly briefly yeah it just addresses uh penalties associated with these large trucks being parked in on the street basically on residential streets is for oversized vehicles um particularly tractor trailers large commercial vehicles that people complain about getting out of their driveways being able to see around them and so what we did was in this instance we raised the penalty but we also gave them an opportunity the first ticket is a warning ticket so not just going out immediately ticking people but giving them a ticket um giving them some information educating them that um tractor trailers and oversized are not allowed on residential streets we've had that ordinance but it really didn't have a lot of strength to it and with the third occurrence they will be towed and so we hope we don't get to that point we hope we can do that it will also be coupled with signage this allows us to also put signage out so basically they'll be warned um and i've gotten so calls from little old ladies who are concerned about even driving in their neighborhood trying to get around it um and i talked to a company i will say on saturday about it and he told me he said we tell our drivers don't do it do not go into neighborhoods he said and they better not he said if you see one i was called me and i said yes sir thank you um so i think it's just certainly a way to strengthen um what we currently have on the book uh we'll also help our parking enforcement and other code enforcement to be able to have this tool to utilize um to give them a little bit more power to deal with some of the um problems we're running into and just to make it safer overall for the community so thank you madame yes yes for the city manager can you give us just a brief highlight on how this is going to get enforced and who's going to enforce it because i don't think our parking enforcement folks go outside of downtown so how is this going to be enforced i'm actually going to call on assistant city manager trey davis he's been working with all of our teams to have a coordinated effort on this okay thank you good question uh so all of the components councilwoman hightower mentioned the police department uh our code enforcement as well as our parking enforcement have all received complaints and so you know after receiving them they've come together and the the actual plan would be code enforcement doesn't necessarily go out to address these type of violations that normally falls on our police department and you're correct normally the footprint for our parking enforcement is in the general downtown area however if we need them if there are issues like this they can go out and address those so the plan is uh during our weekday and business hours that our parking enforcement are on duty then they will address some of these concerns as they come up and follow the process our police department obviously after hours we'll address some as well if it comes to the place that code enforcement does need to get involved then they're working hand in hand with them so uh this is a uh sort of a new thing that that the three different departments are coming together to address an issue that we definitely have heard from our community thank you so much man thank you mr davis for that explanation if i made madame mayor um to mrs thumb's question parking enforcement does go beyond downtown they have gone pretty much everywhere that i've had a parking concern um in areas that we've had concerns even on a saturday so they do while downtown it is of course has parking issues there are more parking concerns in the outer community than they are downtown um and so um some of it is you know that um these issues are occurring and then after five there's no way to address them um and so we need to have further conversation but parking enforcement and talking to them is very willing and all three departments are working together and as well as we are combining i think our tow companies now because all three departments got three different tow companies and three different contracts and we we just need to be more integrated in our model and consistent uh with this and i think this will do it and then g gdot is handling some of the education piece i will say that um as well we saw what hannah said to us today that they're going to help with the education in the community as well and i think our tickets will also speak to the process as well to make sure people are very well informed about this it's not something we're going to throw at people but we want to educate inform and give opportunity but the warning ticket will do that um before they actually are incurring a fine that's more than 35 because they just been paying 35 and continuing to park there so we did raise the fee to 75 and we feel that that will help to get some compliance in that regard thank you mrs hightower i assume you want to move that item yes please thank you um and do i have a second second seconded by mr holston i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um this really is an issue in some residential neighborhoods trying to get by with these tractor trailers park sometimes it's just the tractor sometimes they have trailers with them um we have noticed that as staff has gone out to enforce this that they have been moving to um to the highway ramps and i don't know that we have um control over any of the highway ramps um i would like to see if if staff can find a way to address that maybe we can get permission from ncdot to continue our parking enforcement down the ramps because that becomes a very dangerous situation when you've got people coming down ramps or up ramps whatever whatever way it was when you have a tractor trailer parked on the side of the road so if we could if we could get an answer back on that i'd appreciate it we're we're happy to look into it that particularly from an obstruction standpoint i will have some conversation and get some information back to council thank you very much thank you um item number h17 is an ordinance amending the equipment services fund and general fund fiscal year 2021 2022 budgets in the amount of 1 million 160 300 for the purchase of police vehicles and this was the yes mrs johnson i see the police chief is really directed to him is this um we had talked about uh parking having this and parking police cars in various areas of the city letting police take them home do you does your police staff live in every section every um district of the city you have police officers that live in district 1 2 3 4 and 5. i would say that we do i don't have the specific numbers about who lives where at this point it's important to for me to know and i've asked that question multiple times so it's very important i just think it makes a difference i like the idea i think when people see police cars it's definitely a deterrence i see when i slow way down but at any rate i would really like to know how many of your officers who would be qualified to receive a vehicle live in each of the districts okay we would have to get that information for you we have some rough numbers about how many live in the city limits but i do not have it broken down by district but i'll talk a little bit about uh as we present this uh i'll talk a little bit about the deployment strategy and how we would deploy these vehicles if they were approved thank you mayor and city council and i will do this presentation along with marlene drugga who will talk more about the financial piece of it but i just want to start out and we've covered many of these things before but just the benefits of a police vehicle program first of all enhanced visibility of the police department spread throughout the community that of course speaks to officers that are living in the communities parking cars there but also using those vehicles going to and from work we currently do allow officers to uh drop off children pick up children from school on the way to and from work uh where you would hopefully see some uh some patrol vehicles going through school parking lots which i think is a is a good thing for enhanced visibility and security uh but also the driving in and going home and i'll talk about that as well about how that will help us reduce wear and tear on vehicles resulting in longer service life of vehicles that certainly will impact the financial piece of course as an upfront investment but currently cars patrol cars typically last about three and a half to four years what we have found where we've got cars that are issued to police officers one for one we typically drive those cars for about eight years so over a period of time that will actually save some money on the back end because those cars will certainly last longer and then also a big piece for us which would help out is reduce loss of work time during each patrol shift as officers will no longer have to load and unload equipment from personal vehicle into a patrol vehicle at the beginning and end of the shift so right now the average officer is spending about 80 hours per year actually loading and unloading equipment so just to give you uh to narrow it down into a day an officer comes to work uh they come in they first have to find their vehicle they have to locate it then they have to unload their personal equipment or their police equipment from the personal car to the police car and then have to do that at the end of the shift so on the really on the low end you're talking about approximately 30 to 45 minutes per day per officer that's spent just transferring equipment from one car to the other and then also we talk about the competitive edge that we need when it comes to recruitment of officers we certainly want to retain the good officers that we have but we also want to attract new qualified candidates that will come to the police department and that really lends into the next bullet point when we talk about competitive edge many of the agencies around us particularly that border us guilford county high point winston-salem the various county sheriff's offices to include burlington pd they all have a take-home car program essentially a one-for-one program where the car is actually issued to the officer so we are certainly trying to uh get to that point eventually so that we can be competitive in that regard so to talk about the deployment strategy for patrol divisions and this is specifically about patrol just to be clear about that first we would deploy if this were approved we would deploy cars to police training officers also known as ptos or training coaches and supervisors who reside within the city limits uh that would be first next phase two will be police officer threes and partial police officer twos based on seniority who reside within the city limits phase three would be the remaining police officer twos as well as police officer ones who reside within the city limits and in phase four would be uh ptos supervisors as well as police officer threes who reside outside the city but within city policy that allows a city employee to take a vehicle to their home and then phase five would be police officer twos and police officer ones who reside outside the city so as you see the regardless of of rank if you live in the city you're essentially going to get your take-home car first as they're deployed uh so uh so that is uh uh something that um that we would uh that we're adamant about we feel like that's the best way to administer the program and uh and i will be glad to take any questions just on this part uh if not then i'll i'll turn it over to uh marlene so jake i'm sorry oh go ahead you no you're going james a real quick question for you uh looking at this deployment strategy say hypothetically that a police officer who is in phase one two or three living inside the city limits then moves outside the city limits what would the impact be to that vehicle then would they retain the vehicle or would they give up the vehicle because they're no longer in the city limits so if that happens at a point where we have not fully deployed vehicles to every eligible uh officer then it may be a point where you essentially take that vehicle back and reissue it to someone who lives inside the city and anytime an employee changes their address they have to notify ourselves and address change so we will be aware of that thank you yes mrs hightower thank you um so chief when you you made a comment earlier about it being an incentive i guess so a new hire police officer would get one of these cars after they're trained and fully um because you said that's an incentive well for hiring so um a person that's just coming on the force would get a car if they live in the city eventually uh assuming the car was available and i think that uh as we talk about the phase-in plan certainly it will take us years to get there to where an officer that just gets out of field training actually gets a car but under this plan what i would hope is that if we start to order cars now that will maybe by this time next year we'll start to see the first phase of officers be issued their cars but what i would say is realistically brand new officers that just finished field training that live in the city limits probably won't get their cars uh for at least uh two to three years out depending on how fast we can get the cars and get those cars set up so how many cars are you actually talking about i'm talking 20 10 20 what so so this plan here uh calls for about 100 cars over a five year period and that will get us closer to our goal but that still will not fully get us to a one for one and i think the subsequent slides will get more into exactly how many cars we would order over that period of time and what the financial impact would be okay thank you yes ma'am any other questions for the chief i'd just like to say i want i want to support this but i want to know the first question i asked because i would hate to see a multiplicity of police cars in district let's just say four and five and very very few in one and two i'd like to see see some um distribution that um looks as equitable as it can look um i i don't know if we can if i can say could we postpone this until we get that information i am i am most likely when if i have it and i see that it meets um that criteria for me i very well will support it but i need to know could i could i just offer that tonight will only vote on phase one which is really 20 cars say what we're only voting on phase one tonight which would be 20 cars it doesn't matter if we voted on five yeah or what it is i just want to see some kind of equitable distribution across the city in all of the districts and madame may approach him i i would agree with you and i i would be important i would second that motion to postpone because but i've asked that question where are those cars going and that's important i think as we talk about areas that have been had issues and how we're going to present cars being in the community and what they can prevent i think it's critical i don't want to see all the cars go to west greensboro um and then everybody says we're protected over here and then you still say i got those issues over there on that other side and we don't have anything to kind of help us in that regard and that's my concern i get it chief that you need help i do i i understand that even though i think we're putting a lot of money in the police department and that's part of the reason the workers stood on the step the other week and came before us and spoke because they're starting to see an imbalance of investment um in one area and not the other um and i want to be fair to everybody i want to treat us all we all work hard and we all deserve it and you do a good job and i know that but um i just think that if we could find out where they're going to be moving to taking these cars and then what is it that we can do to incentivize some of our offices to live in certain areas where maybe they haven't considered or they aren't living i mean i think the mayor and i spoke some time ago about having an uh an extra down payment assistance program even you may have to do a combination of things in order to to do that which is good but are we in an absolute hurry to do this i hope may i ask a question without you can i ask a question um chief could could you say to us tonight with some level of certainty that you could deploy 20 cars equitably among the five different districts at this point without having the exact numbers yes we have a number of police officers living in each district i i should think that you might be able to do that but that's up to you to tell us and whether that's satisfactory well when you look at a deployment strategy and that's why when we came up with this we looked at at city limits i would say it's really hard for me as a chief to essentially legislate where people live in the city it's your biggest decision it's um you know it's it's where your kids go to school it's a lot of things that are factored in it's where you can get the most house for your money and so um you know we could get numbers uh we have some some numbers i don't have them available now how many officers live in the city but having it broken down by district i don't have that i can certainly get that and i could report back through the city manager's office but but from a deployment strategy i think when we look at city limits and based on either uh seniority or supervisory role i feel like that's the most effective way to to actually distribute the cars initially until we get to a true one-for-one system and and chief um [Music] a quick question for you i think it was asked earlier about someone the the time critical nature of this decision and and i'll say that that in general i am in favor of this policy uh but but listening to uh mayor pro tim johnson and and her reservations about it and also councilwoman hightower um i guess the thought is is that if there's not a time critical i mean time critical nature could we get that information now also understanding your point that you don't legislate where your officers live where in the city so they may all be in district one or they may all be in district five or three or whatever else uh and those first 20 cars may end up in one of those three and what if that happens is it a bad program no it's i still think it's a good program it's just a matter of uh one is it time critical right now to make the decision uh and two uh once that comes in that we just have another decision to make it may be a tough decision uh based upon where people are living and where the cars are deployed and how many cars we have um but is it time critical right now i would say from a right now standpoint i i i would say the answer is yes and the reason why i say that is because uh the agencies that i listed that are around us they've had this program for many years and we actually uh have a plan here that would just phase it in over a period of about five years um you know we've had a lot of conversations about this and what i've said is that if we had started down the path that we're trying to start now about 10 years ago we would probably be there and it would have been a lot cheaper you know so as we delay it you know if we're going to move in that direction it's just going to become more expensive and right now cars are actually very difficult to get it's taken us about six to eight months to actually get cars if if we ordered one today right and that kind of takes me back to the to the last conversation we had regarding you know you doing what you need to do to make things happen because it is a 9-1-1 it is a hunger games and i am more apt to be supportive tonight of the of the action to go ahead and move forward because it is you know this past weekend we had some more instances of things going on and i know that staffing isn't going to solve it all i know that these these cars being deployed is not going to solve it all but but how do you eat an elephant that's one bite at a time and you're taking little bites and the faster we take those bites the faster we have a chance to have an impact understanding and being respectful of uh mayor project do i understand what you're saying hi madam mayor yes i understand um we have miss abuse waiter mrs thurm and dr wells after mr holston is through yes thank you were you through mr holston i'm sorry okay you know i i do think it is critical that we vote on this this evening and i'll tell you my reasons why after i've looked at it i've asked questions prior to this meeting trying to figure out what do we do but but ladies and gentlemen we are losing officers every day to these surrounding communities that have cars surrounding communities are also doing retention bonuses to keep their officers every time we go up and have a class next time we go down because we lose five six seven eight more officers and i'm not just talking about retirements so i do think this is critical this evening and i have every bit of confidence in this chief and this staff that they will do everything in their power to make sure that every quadrant in the police you know they do the quadrants and not the five council districts but i can assure you that i would certainly state that i have complete confidence that chief james his staff and our city staff will make sure that it is equitable across the city but i have a fear if we don't start this now and he's already told us it's going to take months it's going to take years to get up to full fleet but when you have an officer who can who spends like 45 minutes to an hour transferring all the equipment all the the things that he needs in order to do his job from his personal job from his personal car to his um to his city car you've lost 45 minutes of police time that's a lot of time and then they have to transfer it back that's a lot of time that they could have been out on the street helping either prevent crime or be when a when someone in the city needs them so i really truly do not believe that we should delay on this and i have every bit of confidence that i can muster that it will be done in an equitable way and i thank you and i i do want to say that you know mayor vaughn brought this up earlier this year to do this and at that time we kind of said no because we were worried about budget and i was one of those worried about budget but if the staff has found a way to start moving forward with this i'm going to support this wholeheartedly because we can't lose any more of our good officers thank you madam mayor thank you mrs thurm then dr wells then mrs hoffman yes the point i wanted to make and i appreciate your concerns councilwoman hightower councilwoman johnson um or mayor pro tim johnson sorry um but this is is being asked for as a recruiting and retention tool the crime deterrence of having these these cars in neighborhoods is a secondary benefit of it and for that reason i think we need to focus on right now getting the ball rolling i think by authorizing the 20 vehicles now if the chief finds that there is another way to do it that he can equitably spread them slightly a different way within the allocation of cars or something of that nature that's fine i don't think the chief and correct me if i'm wrong chief um that we are locking in while i support your deployment strategy we're not voting on the deployment strategy we're voting on buying the cars and i think if we find that there's a major problem with deployment strategy by district we'll figure out the chief will figure out how to do that but i think going ahead and approving the money and the funds now is important like mary kay said earlier councilwoman biswader said earlier um i voted against this initially because of concerns about the budget um we've kind of worked through that and for that reason i'll be supporting it this time may say one thing uh it's also about uh inefficiency as we talked about that and you know i've talked about staffing before and how we've tried to find various efficiencies and just the the transfer of equipment another issue that arises is when we have big events we typically have an issue with finding enough vehicles so this would actually help on that front as well when we're deploying for things like like the fun fourth or or anything like that uh we typically have issues finding vehicles thank you yes ma'am i i've heard the uh concerns of manpro tim and um miss hightower but i think that councilwoman but i think that we looking at two different issues here i think the car to acquire the cars is something that is for um recruiting to get more people interested i know we want we see the other areas that have other cities that have it but this would be something that would attract other policemen i think the other issue is that we're thinking about cars being a deterrent to crime if you see a car in your neighborhood maybe that will cause someone not to commit a crime so it's two different issues i think with the cars i am in favor of us getting the cars using the strategy that has been outlined and then i think a separate issue would be which goes along with our recruiting that we would recruit some officers if there none in district one that none in district two that lived there that we could incentivize or something and say if you will if you live in that neighborhood then you'll get a car but that's a separate thing i think right now we have to just go ahead and get these cars and then see how we can work it out to get people to live in those areas or to be where a car will make a difference thank you um mrs hoffman and mr outling um just a couple of things i actually am totally supportive of this tonight in fact i've had that i had this conversation originally several months ago with the mayor and and said that i thought that we should revisit uh this issue which we are discussing tonight i think the chief has he's just he shared his criteria with us in terms of how he would deploy these uh it certainly sounds uh a it's it seems like a sound [Music] methodology to me i think we certainly always want to try to be equitable in the things that we do as well and i'm certain that he will take a look at that over time but we're making a decision tonight to purchase 20 cars the deployment strategy is separate from that and we need to have a discussion about that later we can and i'm certainly attuned to those things so thank you very much thank you mr outling thank you um it would be obviously we have information as council members about how much money it's going to cost and where the money is going to come from um i have questions for the chief that are related to that but it perhaps would be helpful to have staff present the information to inform the questions that i'm going to ask i would appreciate that marlene's going to go over that piece of it because there's also a care for these vehicles that we need to discuss great and so i guess if uh arlene you make that presentation then i'll direct questions to you and the chief okay thank you any other questions for me well chief i have questions about your thoughts and expert opinion about the efficacy of the expenditure to miss wells's point both in reducing crime as well as retention but it's not in a vacuum because money is fungible and you can do other things with money to address both those issues so if ms drega could present the financial aspects i may have some questions for you after that i would just say from uh and i'm not the financial expert she she's about to come here in a second but uh but what i would say is that this is just a piece of the puzzle and really the position i'm in uh as a chief is that there are all these agencies around me that offer something that we don't have and and that's a concern and and sometimes people do leave us because they're going to get a take-home car immediately when they get to their their new agency and we don't we certainly want to eliminate that yeah and then perhaps i'll defer to ms draga but the the nature of the question um or questions where i'd like your your thoughts on it is obviously there are lots of different ways to address attempts to reduce crime there are lots of different ways to address retention so for example oftentimes in the legal field you attract more people you retain more people by having really high salaries and correspondingly the benefits are very poor because the idea is that that's the best way to attract people and you could theoretically do the same thing with cars i mean you could give an attorney a take-home car but ultimately it's about the total compensation and so my question was i think the context of what is the total expenditure because that makes a difference i'd be interested to know in your view what are reasonable expectations for what the consequence of this expenditure will look like with regard to crime and then what are your reasonable expectations for how it will actually assist with retention in other words what does success look like and what are you thinking that we can achieve by making this expenditure well somebody asked me uh what impact i thought it would have on crime the thing is quite honestly it's hard to answer that question because we've we've never had full deployment of take-home cars in this community so we certainly could track that uh once the cars were deployed to see if it in fact had an impact wherever those cars were parked i think it would be it'd probably be somewhat difficult to do it but we could certainly uh could certainly try when we talk about retention and think about it in these terms if if an officer leaves today it will take me a minimum of a year to replace that officer because of the time it takes to recruit that person to do the background checks to process that person and then to train them so from day one when they step into the academy it's almost 11 months before they answer their first call by themselves and then we take about probably an average of three months to vet that person before they even step into the academy so what i'm hoping is that again this is a piece of the puzzle what i'm hoping is that this will help with recruitment and retention because every person i can keep that's another person i don't have to find and that makes great sense you know the and it doesn't mean obviously i'm not going to support it but i think at least for future discussions because i understand that there are additional things that you think would be helpful for retention attracting officers and so on including additional compensation for more skills at least for those future discussions what i find would be helpful is kind of more granular specific what the expectations are going to be even if that's using obviously not greensboro as a comparator because we don't have it even if it's looking at other communities so for example in those communities that have take-home cars now at one point they didn't have take-home cars and so it'll be interesting to know whether or not in those areas where officers have their take-home cars whether or not any conclusions can be made including whether or not a reduced crime and for me that's important because based on the comments of others and even myself it's a big assumption that it will do those things and so the data to support or not support it just would be helpful it doesn't mean it's not worthy of support i mean you've articulated many good reasons for taking the action but that that additional information um would be helpful um including with regard to retention because i know that they're like i said there are a lot of different ways to retain people i think when you've been asked on occasion again you've kind of noted you think that it would be great if we had additional compensation for people that had additional skills or additional certifications um so but i do think for the public's interest at least since it hasn't been discussed perhaps marlene should go over the finances well and just to go back to one thing i mentioned previously uh the the time to uh actually load equipment and set up a car uh if you take a squad of eight officers which would be essentially a fully staffed squad if each one of those officers spends 30 minutes uh loading and unloading equipment at the beginning and end of the shift that's four hours that they're not out actually patrolling their areas so i think from that perspective i think that it could certainly help with crime reduction because we we are literally paying people to unload and unload equipment each day and that would actually put more patrol hours out into the community yeah to be clear i i understand the the logic of it but for me when we can look at data to help inform the decisions like that that information would be helpful at least in terms of my analysis again it doesn't mean that it's not worthy of support but to kind of misses johnson's point like if we can have the data and have the information to have the decision informed by that that would be terrific especially where some of these things were making assumptions as to what it will do i think there's sound assumptions and be quite frank i'm going to likely make that assumption myself tonight but i you know where we have the information available i would prefer not to make the assumption uh because the money is fungible i mean we can give the police department 1.5 million dollars tonight it can be for take-home cars it could be for additional certifications it can be for additional equipment it could be for bonuses and so just having that data to me would be helpful to make sure that not only is the expenditure effective but in terms of prioritization it's the it's the next thing that's best to be done so i appreciate your answers thank you could mr just give a brief presentation yes i think mrs hightower may have had a question for the chief or or do you want to wait until after mr ruga's presentation let me ask him this question before she comes i still want to hear what the cost is and all of that and chief don't um you know there's a perception i don't like to put lease and that's okay um but i understand my community and i know how to feel about some things but what i also know is they don't see a police car from time to time and so maybe having a police car maybe they'll be able to drive through the community but um you say there are other cities that have take-home cars what have they said what have they seen take-home cars do i'd love to hear from somebody who says yes we identified that we have take home cars and because of that and it should do two things golden it shouldn't just be separate yes the presumption is if there's a car sitting in a neighborhood that's why the highway patrol on holidays put empty highway patrol cars on the highway because they know they slow people down uh duh so i mean people assume that if you see a police car that um it's going to kind of be a deterrent so i don't see it as one separate issue i see it as two as as i'm sorry see don't see it as two i see it as one whole issue of what we respect would expect to happen but what has been um the what have you seen from other departments that indicate okay these people take a car home and they see reduction in crime so like every city is experiencing high crime right now but are they not experiencing the highest crime because they're driving home police cars and it is a concern that they're not going to be in my community and i ride my community a lot i you know there might be one or two of your offices that live in district one i don't think it's a matter whether they live in the district it's where they live on the east side um and and i don't know just how many of them would do that but i would feel better if you could tell me that or give me some semblance of some numbers around that and say well you know if we give it to police training officers they five of them live on the east side six of them or whatever the case may be i i just would feel a little bit better about that um just because i don't want it to look like we're giving you all the money to do everything under the sun i want us to see if this is going to really make a difference well the the problem in in trying to actually type talking about other cities is that and i'll give an example i've been with the police department with gpd almost 26 years now and as long as i've been with gpd winston high point and the county have had one for one cars for their officers so to ask them like what difference has it made well they probably can't tell you because they've had that program for so long it's become the essentially the mean or the average of what's going on in the community so whatever impact this had quite honestly is probably undetectable at this point do you understand what i'm saying yeah they've had it so long i mean it's been over 25 years that they've had this program so i don't know that they have anything to compare it to and over time the the populations have grown and things like that and it would really be hard to say well take-home cars did this for this community yeah and winston's actually crime is actually higher than now it's running to be honest they're having you know so that's that's why i'm not sure if saying that um would really help me to process what the benefit of a take-home car is but we'll see how it goes we'll see how it goes so let's do the 20 and see how it goes okay well the question that i wanted to ask was these cities that around us um if their crime is lower than ours if we talk about the comparison and how long they've had cars and all that i guess we don't have we can't do because it's not just like apples apples and oranges to oranges what we need to decide tonight is whether we want to move forward and get some police cars everybody around us has them why can't we go on and get the police cars we'll find out whether they helped or not after we get them and i'm thinking they will help the chief has made his recommendation the mayor wants us to do it and when i look around and we try to be competitive and all these little towns have police cars and then we're coming up with um you know asking all kinds of questions before we get on board and we're 26 years behind so i think it's time we make this decision whether we're going to do it or not because we can talk about it all night madam mayor i had one question for chief james and one brief comment okay chief james when we put an officer a prospective officer through the academy what is the average just a ballpark figure of how much it costs this city to put that off that prospective officer on the street how much you think it's uh i'd say ballpark it's about a hundred thousand or a little bit more for each officer yes that includes salary benefits and understanding the entire that first 11 months there's always someone with that officer uh who that officer is under their direction whether it's an instructor in the academy or a training coach so yeah between equipment the instruction uh and the recruitment keep in mind the hours we spend to recruit and do backgrounds we've easily put a hundred thousand dollar investment in that person in each officer so yes i want to take it from that angle very quickly because i know we need to go ahead and vote on this yes so we have the hundred thousand dollars per officer we have the time spent where they're loading from a personal card to a police car we have where we might we hope be able to recruit officers we hope we will be able to retain officers i can't see any way to gauge anything about whether crime is going to increase or not but i can guarantee you that we will at least have a full police force unless something else comes up and our neighbors start giving all of these incentives that we aren't giving i think it's time that we just oh gosh i don't want to say bite the bullet but you know i really think that we need to see about this and we leave it up to our chief to figure out the equitable part and i know we need to hear from marlene but it's just very important to me that when we talk about money and all of these things people need to know how much it costs to recruit that officer and put that officer on the street because that's very very important that we're losing all that money when these surrounding communities entice them away from greensboro and i think that's extremely important for people to know thank you and madam mayor from may okay thank you and chief earlier this month we had a conversation and we talked about your staffing numbers 690 currently you're below 600 you're losing about 60 per year in attrition right uh to to help ally some of the concerns that you heard tonight you know for instance you know hypothetically i'm not sure if marlene's going to speak to this but from from a retention standpoint do you think it's going to impact 10 20 if it's you know 10 20 percent that's 6 12 uh persons per year cumulatively you know 12 2 years 24 36 uh do what do you think you could do with in a sense 12 additional officers per year 24 in two years 36 in the in the future years what types of impacts do you think you could you could have with that type of cumulative effect well when you i'll focus on the number uh 12 because that would essentially be a fully staffed squad to include the uh the supervision of that squad so uh so over time i mean if we're able to uh retain those people you know again those are people that we don't have to go out and find and and recruit um and losing you know five per month uh which that number has been pretty steady for about the past uh two to three years uh we're having a higher uh and train at least 60 a year just to keep up just to keep from losing ground so so really and i'll give you this in terms too we can run a capacity class of about 40 recruits at a time and we can run about two classes a year that's just people with no training to come in and so even if we were able to do that and successfully graduate and deploy 80 officers a year we're only going to gain 20 within a calendar year so uh so so we certainly in this conversation came up before working on this with hr but we also need to look at how we can recruit officers that want to come from other areas to come here as well because that's the only way that we're going to close that gap of vacancies within a reasonable amount of time i hope i answered your question you did it it's just a matter of uh if you have in a sense every year 12 additional resources yes how would you deploy them where would you deploy them what could they do to help impact the things that are going on outside of the fact that that you have people that you're pulling in or that you're holding on to uh we all know in business that you know the hardest thing is to keep keep the employees you have before you start going out and and it seems to me that this is a method of keeping the employees the officers that you have and it gives you the opportunity to deploy them if you if 12 people just showed up walked in the door right here and said deploy us where would you put them and that's in effect what this program could do if it's up to the twenty percent they would savings yeah and i can tell you to cut you off sorry um i can tell you they would all go to uh our patrol divisions uh and particularly in the in the areas where we've got the most uh the most crime uh that's where they would go uh we certainly uh and right now just to fill that gap again we've been running uh overtime uh which was authorized uh through the city manager's office about a year ago to try to fill some of those gaps i worry about that too because i think officers need to take a day off sometimes you know but we've got officers coming in working overtime and we're also deploying occasionally specialized units to include detectives that are putting on uniforms uh you know daily from different divisions that are actually also going out to supplement call answer that's a concern as well because some of those detectives follow up on very serious cases and of course when they're out answering calls there's not another detective that's actually working at cases for them right so you have extra resources just from having the 12 who didn't leave and then you're actually relieving that burden of overtime and overtime is a burden if it's not a short-term thing then it's a burden and it's stressful so you're also having a chance to relieve the stress absolutely and and i think that's important because uh you know uh there's all kinds of studies out there about you know no matter what you do you need a day off and we certainly don't want anybody to we don't want to rely on that that's not a that's not a that's a band-aid it's certainly not a cure for our staffing issues thank you yes sir thank you if we could move on and have marlene give her presentation good evening mayor mayor pro tem and members of city council um in order to implement chief james's plan it really involves also the work of the equipment services division and this is a group of about 50 employees who actually are part of finance and they're located at the patton avenue facility and so equipment services actually um centrally purchases maintains and then they lease back the vehicles to the various departments so they do about approximately two-thirds of all the city fleet and that is about two thousand or more than two thousand vehicles that they they service including the heavy-duty refuse trucks dump trucks and hauling trucks as well as all the light duty and all the police vehicles so we currently have about 500 police vehicles or more than 500 and of those 190 patrol cars and so it costs about thirteen thousand dollars just for the upfit of a vehicle to turn it into a police patrol um including the light bars the partitions but primarily it's it's mainly the electronics that go into it and and the parts and labor for that so um it takes one technician approximately two weeks just to update one vehicle and put it into service so um here's our cost estimate and we we estimate to phase in 20 vehicles over a five-year period and this is now using an increased life of eight years and what we're being asked to vote on tonight is the year one the 160 um purchase of the vehicles and then the setup which is including uh all the upfit that i just mentioned so it goes from 1 160 all the way out for five years and at that point there would be a hundred vehicles in service and the total estimated cost would be 2.7 million but just tonight is the 20 vehicles in this budget and then in each subsequent year it would be part of the annual budget process so you would have an opportunity to vote for potentially 20 more or more in each budget but this just shows kind of our estimate of what we think it would be based on adding one to two technicians to be able to accommodate this this program so just our final comment um the existing garage is really at or over capacity right now for our current service levels and so adding on this program really just brings in in the needs into sharper focus so we had initially talked about this at some of our bond referendum conversations where we introduced the possibility of using two-thirds bonds for the actual improvements at the garage facility so the oldest part is over 60 years old so 1963 and that's where all the light duty vehicles are are maintained and then in 2007 there was an addition put on for more of the heavy duty and so but then again that's 14 years old as well so um if we were going to potentially use two-thirds and that would be about 16 million dollars in this next capacity in the spring or summer we would need to be coming back to you to introduce that and request funding for that particular purpose and so we would propose to do it in two phases so the first phase would be for the light duty and if this program for police were going to continue then that's where we would try to plan that so that we could accommodate adding on more um police vehicles as we went forward so phase one would be um just the light duty and then phase two would be about 18 to 24 months out from that and at that point there would be anticipated another um capacity of another maybe 16 million in two-thirds bonds as well so if we broke it into two so there's a piece of city land right across the street from this facility on patton that we're looking at to possibly make a new facility or actually construct a new facility in these two phases that we're talking about so they could ideally um still be in the old building for part of it and then as they're phasing in they could start to phase in in the new if we did it in that manner so that's been all our discussions on on how to approach the project if we were going to actually need more facility for it and um we're actually starting to look at a design contract just to get our ideas and on numbers of total costs so because we eventually do need the facility um at some point so those are mainly all of the prepared slides if i can answer any other particular questions we need the chief back i don't have any questions but i'd like to move the item i i have questions on this particular point um what what you know bonds are borrowing money right so it's just taking on debt and we have to pay on the debt just like people when they have credit cards have to pay on their credit card debt what are the options aside from taking on more debt that would allow us to accomplish this goal this evening but not take on more debt because it gives me a little bit of a pause to say or suggest that we're going to take on more debt when we have over 50 million dollars of money that's not been allocated and certainly in my own household i wouldn't go on and just take on debt if i knew i had tons of money in the bank account and i didn't necessarily need to take on the debt um so you're meaning just for the facility portion of it or i imagine the facility is going to do more than just things in connection with this item and so to the extent we're not discussing those other things that are going to happen at the facility and whether or not those other things are worthwhile as compared to the city's other tremendous needs i'd be interested to know what other options are there for proceeding with this item tonight and providing the additional police cars if there are any other options other than taking on i guess 32 million dollars in debt to accomplish it marlene i'm going to jump in at this point thank you very much um don't go too far okay i'll be here councilman outland regarding options at this point given the size of the project we're talking about we really don't have any immediate or obvious options it's one of those projects that we've been gradually trying to get in front of council and keep in front of council now for quite some time the two-thirds bonds use is somewhat unique to greensboro we haven't used it a lot we have used it from time to time and we recognize we're asking you to exercise that authority i would just note in this case when you do use two-thirds bonds you are effectively reusing debt that you are paying off so you're actually not increasing our overall debt ceiling um you are like you're using the the ability of previous paid off debt to be reissued and traditionally it is used for projects that can be difficult to structure for a community vote like a garage which is oftentimes while we can completely document its need um very often does not fare well on a public referendum so from our perspective again as marlene said the need has been out there it's been growing as the as the fleet has been growing this particular focus on the police take home car really just kind of brings into focus that this is an infrastructure need that we need to address yeah and then and that that that's helpful i would say it's still debt i mean it's we burn off an ability to borrow and we then come back and borrow more but it's still borrowing money and if we borrow money today it means that we can't borrow money in the future for other projects and as a result i think everything where we're borrowing money including through bonds whether it's you know general issuance or two-thirds bonds we should really look at it carefully is it in fact the case that there are literally no other options other than borrowing this money to execute on this project because i assume that you know from what i understand we're talking about to have this facility is 32 million dollars for example i know we've received over 32 million dollars from the federal government and if for example staff's thought was that even aside from this item tonight that this facility is really really important it's a high priority i would expect that staff would say council with your american rescue plans money priority number one is build this facility and if that's and that's what staff thinks is a high priority it'd be helpful to know that but that's why i'm pressing so much on what are the other options other than borrowing money which burdens us and means we can't borrow money in the future for other things that we'll presumably discuss and may be of a higher value i would say again given the particulars of this project the additional long life that we would expect to get out of the project which also tends to lend to borrowed funds because you'd like future generations to have to pay for i'm sorry future generations to have to pay for uh a facility that we hope to be in for another 50 or 60 years borrowing money in fact is actually an appropriate and a prudent process with regards to american rescue plan i will acknowledge that um we do we had not considered whether council would be willing to allocate literally half of our funds for this particular project if we get direction to that uh we'll certainly consider that well well i mean i'm not going to believe the labor of the point but i think would be helpful to benefit from staff's expert advice expert thoughts as well as their thoughts on prioritization and if for example staff in his professional judgment believes that this facility is at the top of the list for city needs it'd be helpful to hear that even outside the context of this item because what to me this kind of puts i'll speak for myself myself in the analytical bind as a 32 million dollar facility is kind of being attributed and being latched on to something that's for a much lesser amount and for something that we've actually had a discussion tonight but the other things in connection with that facility don't have a discussion and by definition the city's resources are limited if we spend 32 million on a facility that means that we're not spending that money elsewhere where it may be something really important and council as elected legislative body might decide that something else is really important and so it's really a matter of having the benefit of expert staff and the benefit of having a full robust discussion about when significant expenditures are made but you know if we if we don't have that information and staff doesn't have a recommendation obviously we vote without having perfect information frequently but that information would be helpful to have i appreciate that point let me just offer this to assist um yeah this facility would have to be built regardless because of the capacity challenges we have outside of this item and you're you're absolutely correct about that um and we are due for another conversation about this and we're getting some design work done so that we can give a better accounting of what that would look like um to the point we've grown our fleet in general and we haven't grown our mechanics and we we've got to start talking about those things in addition to some of the other capacity challenges we have but for the item tonight specific to the cars uh that is a fun balance accounting and we will come back to you with regard to the the garage and how we would fund and the details around that great excellent thank you much that's very helpful let's just nothing on your agenda tonight regarding the garage you're not voting on a a you know a project or design or anything like that we just want to continue to keep that project in front of council for much of the the reasons you've stated tonight because it is a top priority we want it to be something that you're aware of as we go into a multi-year uh expansion of our of our rolling stock that's helpful and i understand that that goes to the point made by the interim manager that there may be options effectively for doing other things whatever facilities are needed that's not a part of what's happening tonight and we'll hopefully have an opportunity to have a real discussion about the facility its merits including for things that are completely unrelated to the item that we're discussing tonight thank you yeah i just wanted to comment i i think that there is one of the other things that we should think about here there's a return on investment to making this investment there's a return in terms of the life of the automobile in terms of the retention of the officers and in terms of the the wasted time that they can be deployed at their job so uh i think i think there's justific there is clear justification in terms of what the return on investment can be here madam mayor i made the motion i'd like you i'd like to make a comment too um and i do think this has been a great discussion i don't want us to get confused about the garage the garage is a separate issue um and it is something that has been brought before us on a number of times i want to thank the chief for his leadership and i know that this is just part of the overall discussion at our last meeting mr halston brought forward that he wants to look at other things too this is just you know one step along the process the chief has stated unequivocally that this is going to help with recruitment retention and efficiency and i can't think of three things more that we are asking him for recruitment retention and efficiency he mentioned over time i know that many of our officers all of our officers are working overtime and i am very concerned about overtime fatigue good things don't happen when people are fatigued and we owe it to our police department and to our city to make sure that we can do everything we can do to make us the most attractive city um i think mrs hightower brought up the and and mayor pro tem johnson about where people live you know we have a very robust down payment assistance program i think um we had identified in our housing study other areas that should be um redevelopment areas i know glenwood was one where if people moved to glenwood and four other neighborhoods that they could actually qualify for more down payment assistance i think we need to make that discussion a priority so we can have city employees living throughout the city and not living outside of the county so i do want to i appreciate everybody for their comments today and i know we've this is the third time that i've brought up the issue of the take-home cars and um i hope that it will pass this evening um so i believe we had a motion by mrs abuzawader yes in a second seconded because by dr wells um so i am a yes um mrs johnson um the chief i respect you i'm gonna vote yes but i want counsel to know if we look at this in whenever after a year and we have just not enough in various areas that we go back to this drawing board and fix it and i hope that we'll do that we have some incentives to do that with and we fix it i vote yes thank you mrs johnson and i commit to you that we will have this follow-up and make sure that it's right um so um mrs abuse waiter yes mrs hightower chief i'm i'm gonna support this because you say you want more cars in our community but i piggyback on ms johnson we need to make sure where these cars are going is very important i think in the community that they don't saturate one side versus the other um and if it takes us building up our down payment assistance program even more to make that an incentive um as well not just having cars or having um higher pay if they're going to get higher pay that's invested in our community let's buy homes and i think that's critically important it's very important for me in my area so i'm going to support it um tonight for you to get this done but just hear the concern um as well but also know that i i want to also emphasize we got to support other departments to this tune as well we've got to invest in other departments because when they see us doing this okay and they don't we don't do it for other sides it creates some morale problems and we want our city to be safe so i understand your goal um as well so i just want hope you hear me out so thank you thank you thank you mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero thank you very much i do want to follow up on the down payment assistance discussion the mini discussion we just had i'd like to see if we could get it on a work session and see if there is a possibility that we can assist specifically our city employees and maybe county school teachers on with additional down payment assistance um you know we have the 10 10 000 down payment assistance for um for certain um economic uh parameters i'd like to come back and look at how we can make that program even more successful i know that we started out with the 100 homes initiative we're now you know well over 700 homes what can we do to encourage our employees to live in the city in which they work and how can we show them additional appreciation with this down payment assistance help that'll be if the whole council is going to do that great but if it becomes a committee i'd like to serve on that committee thank you mrs johnson um we will certainly ask you to serve on the on the bond committee as we're talking about these these issues um but i'd i'd like to um get staff to bring us all up to speed and and how we can be more flexible and um more targeted in some of these investments so thank you um boards and boards and commissions i believe is next um if you if you have any boards if you would say who you are replacing mrs johnson no mrs abuzawader none mrs hightower mrs hoffman mr holston no mr outling none this evening thank you mrs thurm none for me and dr wells and for me thank you um council comments um mrs hightower okay um thank you two things first off um we have not had our work session for the mwbe um that got postponed it seemed like it's just dropped off into the wind and i don't know where it is and why it's not brought back up but i'd like to have that before the end of the year i'd like to hear from griffin strong as well to get understanding where we are we're going to be in another rfp process soon so we need to understand where we're going to be and i know griffin is strong who's not a cookie cutter organization who does a very good job um you know with mwbe analysis and they've done it for the department of administration department ncdot so they've had and they're doing it now even for the county as well so they they are a good organization they set the bar high um on what that study looks like and i want us to go back um and when we start looking at moving forward with an rfp to make sure we have something to compare to and i think they're a good company but i'd like to see if we can circle back with that work session um the second thing and i'll just repeat what i said earlier and that was in reference to make i don't know where we are with a staffing study or a salary study for the remainder of the staff um i think there is some concern around the step increase um that was brought to our attention the last council meeting and certainly um i understand um that there are some things we we need to look at more and investigate and make sure we want all our employees to feel like they're valuable um to this organization and if we identify that money is is the way to feel valuable then we need to make sure that that's happening across the board and i do know for a fact that there are departments that don't feel quite the same way um as others do that they're valuable so i'd like for us to look at you know maybe i don't know how recent we did a salary study but maybe we need to do another one moving forward to see where we are covet has brought about a lot of changes um and i've heard people have even left some jobs to go to work for mcdonald's because they're paying 17 and 20 bucks an hour who knew you would flip a hamburger for that that's pretty good um so i would like for us to really look at that let's get a cheeseburger ma'am what unless you get a cheeseburger well put cheese on it yes ma'am just kidding i do i do um so i would like for those two things i i really would like for us to look at those um one of them we may not get to by the end of the year but i'd like to see where we could get with the work session um i do want to say uh on november 6 woodley had a very good event um you know which i enjoyed um i think mr holston made sure people got vaccinated um and children even got vaccinated at that event that was the first time children could do it and um there was a right good amount of children who came so i i was excited out there even though it was cold it was still fun time um also we got a new black-owned business that opened up downtown a young man by the name of amir blackwell height clinic it's called i don't really know what height clinic is because i'm not that cool but um nevertheless it's a nice space and i'm certainly proud of any um entrepreneur but when you see black businesses and black entrepreneurs opening up even during a covet period you know um we want them to be very successful uh congratulations to the up churches who run the baby world daycare for the last 50 years of taking care of children on phillips avenue um and that's another black-owned business that's been around for 50 years um and so certainly congratulations uh to them i enjoyed hayes taylor wise banquet we've been real busy lately um and that was last sunday as well as nccj virtual banquets are really cool too because you don't have to get real dressed up for that um so i like that um but it's been a busy month so happy thanksgiving to everyone don't eat too much turkey thank you thank you mrs johnson yes um you mentioned nccj i attended that in person and it was a beautiful um event and congratulations to the citation recipients betty cohn was one of them of course she has been a dear friend of mine for many years and um also the tanger center for the donors the other night was was really lovely for those of you who weren't there um your representative kathy manning can sing she sang a song it just shocked me to death but she's saying very well but i enjoy that that's about it mayor happy thanksgiving be safe be safe be kind and do something for somebody who needs something done for them thank you very well said dr wells [Music] well i i um virtually attended the community housing solutions um annual event and i was really impressed that they highlighted the growing gracefully program and that's a program they go in and not only fix up the house but they bring some mental health and physical health all those things that a person would need so they could go gracefully aging gracefully in their own home so they had those people who had been recipients and they were telling how important the program had been to them and i was really impressed with that um and i serve as the liaison for the for the library board and tomorrow night that we've had one city one book there there by tommy orange well on tomorrow night at um the terrace at seven o'clock at the coliseum complex the terrace he will be there and if you want to hear a flute concert come at 6 40 and there will be a flutist there uh rendering music but this is uh a tribute to the um the i think we have one of the largest populations of indigenous uh citizens here so this is a great book and uh we want to welcome tommy orange on tomorrow night thank you thank you mr owl yes thank you as others mentioned a lot of terrific events in the community the past several weeks obviously the acc dinner last night to recognize the career in retirement of now former acc commissioner john swofford one of my favorite events every year friendsgiving a fundraiser for greensboro downtown parks inc which manages center city park in la bauer park uh but perhaps my most favorite event over the past couple of weeks woodley neighborhood really did a terrific event with the support of a commit council member holston in north state medical society my children were able to get their first shot for their vaccine which was wonderful my wife core and i were able to get our booster shots that kicked my rear end a little bit a few days later but it feels great to know that uh we have some additional protection and a layer of protection for our children so lots of wonderful things and a special shout out to uh council member holston for his contributions that wonderful event organized by the woodley neighborhood thank you mrs hoffman i'll just mention the tiger center again i was there thursday night last week for beautiful and i sort of do my own little gr gr gorilla marketing when i'm there yeah i'm sitting around my two the two seats that i have are uh four couples three of them from burlington and the uh fourth couple is from roanoke so i had chatted with them the night of wicked and they had told me where they had dinner and then so last thursday night i said well where did you have dinner this time so they had chosen another downtown restaurant you know i would calculate that you know eight people eating at either of those restaurants the bill could be you know six to eight hundred dollars or so and so they said they said we've already made our dinner reservation for the next show so again this is this is just what the uh uh what the tanger center is doing for us and actually um uh stephen tanger made that point on what in his remarks on monday night at the donor meeting and and you know as i said to zach the knight of wicket i said we need six more restaurants downtown now now that's you know opening a restaurant is a major capital investment so it doesn't happen overnight but it will happen and it will happen with other businesses as well so it was a great weekend with shows and with the donor event and then the acc event last night by the way we had two university presidents with us last night for that event the president of duke university and the president of wake forest uh so a really nice crowd and the night glad it's nice on that midnight train to georgia yeah i hate we're missing that yeah mrs thurm um like many of the others i've been to several events um in the past week it's been a really really busy week um but just wanted to mention that i had the opportunity today to serve as a panelist representing greensboro at the national league of cities virtual 2021 city summit the topic was what coveted 19 tech is here to stay ensuring equitable service delivery and resident engagement in a more virtual world it was a really interesting event it was a great exchange of ideas from cities of many different sizes and i walked away with not only sharing some innovative things that we've done but picking up some ideas for us going forward that i thought were really unique and interesting and i'm excited to share those with staff so thank you very much to the staff people that suggested that i participate and it was a great event so thank you oh also thank you for those meetings the prep meetings for the with our i.t department it was very helpful thank you miss abuse waiter thank you madam mayor i'll echo everything the nccj citation dinner and our own betty cohn was uh received the citation it was wonderful uh then let's see what else the friendsgiving at lebauer park the parks are amazing the john swafford retirement dinner and welcoming jim phillips but i do want to say through all of these and and the events at the tanger center especially um you know it's it's just an amazing facility the the from the moment you walk into the door to the moment you're in a seat listening to something uh it's just fabulous and they did a a wonderful job on catering making sure everyone felt safe entering um all of those things it was just fabulous all the events that have been there in the last couple of weeks um i did want to take just one moment and give an update to council and the community about crime stoppers since the rewards have been raised they were raised on uh september 21st for up two to five thousand dollars from up to two thousand dollars well um of course we wish that we didn't have to have any tips for any crimes because we had no crime but unfortunately we do and we live in a day and age where we want to assure the community from crime stoppers that they will be anonymous uh in 40 years not one tipster has ever been identified that means has not been identified to the police to the community to anyone so but the stats i want to mention are in september and october of 2020 and september october 2021 and we can only gauge those couple of months because that's when the reward monies went into effect in raising the rewards so from if you take september october 2020 and you compare it to september october 2021 tips have increased to crime stoppers 31 that is a huge number if you take september october 2020 and again september october 2021 in 2020 we only had nine homicide tips in 2021 we have already received 25. not only that but since the inception of the rewards being raised we have been able with the help of the community the detectives and the crime stoppers staff solve three homicides and that is amazing we've never been able to say that we have done something like this so i just want to thank my colleagues for voting for it chief james for bringing it um and the crime stoppers board for bringing it up that maybe we should ask for that and uh you know the community for calling in those tips and keep them coming we will continue to make sure that as many of these crimes or criminal activity or drug activity or anything the community sees if they can call them in so thank you madam mayor that's my remarks for this evening oh you're on mute thank you mr holston yes and uh i do apologize for being a little bit duplicative but uh it kind of comes with the territory uh i will say that as many have said the the woodley community really came together on november 6th and uh it was food fun fellowship they had a walk and they also had those vaccinations and it was one of the first locations uh in greensboro to vaccinate the kids five to eleven and they really did show out so thank you to all the council members who did show up that was absolutely wonderful next is the nccj dinner which was awesome it was nice to have that back uh at the corey sooner some of us did attend uh with betty cohn and others uh being honored it was just uh nice to to try to get back uh to start giving back and then finally you know we talked about the tanger center tonight and i'm going to continue that conversation my wife and i have been four times now and it is just a phenomenal facility uh but even even more than that it's an economic driver and i encourage everybody to go see that engine they're having an open house tomorrow from two to seven it's a public open house so we invite everybody to please go and tour the tanker center and just see what it's about uh see see what the future of greensboro is gonna look like uh as it uh continues to grow and we continue to drive it madam mayor that's all i have thank you so much um q you're right it's always hard to go towards the end everybody has um picked a lot of the highlights i also enjoyed the woodley neighborhood association meeting it was a lot of fun and it was good to see different meetings come together and i appreciate the the good discussion and the vaccines and the pickleball and um gpd being out there providing food and it was really it was a great it was a great day it was a beautiful day in our city um i do want to mention downtown we've got the festival of lights that first friday in december um i think the mount zion gospel choir is going to sing normally it's a t but i don't think they're coming back after thanksgiving break um that following saturday is the um i was going to say macy's day parade but it's the greensboro day parade but we will have a lot of um macy style balloons do want to remember everybody to um shop small we know that that is um coming up right after the holidays please um sharon mentioned one of our um small businesses downtown that just opened up hype clinic we've got many great small businesses throughout our entire city and i hope um that everybody will will spend a little bit of money in each of them i do want to recognize mrs hoffman she was appointed by the governor to the local government commission thank you for agreeing to serve in that capacity and we'll be you know we'll look forward to the information that you bring back um mr holston um i'm going to appoint to the place that michelle kennedy had as the liaison to the war memorial commission and there is a new committee that opened up with the mwbe and i would like to um to appoint sharon to that and i know that sharon will keep us up to date on everything that's going on mwbe and we do appreciate her advocacy for all of that um people have talked about tanger and all the great things that have happened we've now had some community events i hope people will go through i think i think projects like the tanger center and like the aquatics center show that sometimes you have to go with the gut analytics doesn't always do it when we voted to move forward with the tanger center you know some of the numbers said maybe we shouldn't do it but we needed to stand up and show leadership just like we did with the aquatic center we invested in the aquatic center when everybody else was uninvesting because of the economic downturn and the aquatic center has turned out to be one of our greatest economic generators and you know the thing is you're not going to find anybody who will publicly say they're against the aquatic center because it has turned out to be such a great um economic boom and the same will be with tanger and that's important because as hugh said we need more restaurants or nancy i think said we need more restaurants that means we are investing in small businesses people who need jobs we are investing in the greensboro brand and i just think that that is so important people think that the tanger center is you know just a playground for people who have money and that truly is not the case it is an economic generator that is going to put money into our community so we can spend it on other projects and i think that is one reason why projects like this are so important and why sometimes you have to take a leap of faith you're not going to have a spreadsheet with all the numbers on it you're just going to have to go with your gut and make difficult decisions and i'm glad that as a council we were on the right side of both of those decisions i want to wish everybody a happy thanksgiving and if we could get a schedule for our meetings going forward in december as far as what work sessions we have i know everybody's calendar is getting very busy and what those topics will be um mr city manager do you have anything nothing this evening thank you thank you um mr city attorney i have no comment tonight thank you all um i will take a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second moved by ms abuzawader seconded by mrs johnson and that passes without objection thank you all and have a great holiday thank you thank you