[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all [Music] you [Music] B [Music] p [Music] oh [Music] [Music] thank you it is January AR the 13th 2025 and we are all ready to begin our meeting for today so today we'll start off with our consent and action review and so let's go ahead and have um our introductions and we'll start with our city clerk Billy tons Deputy city clerk Anthony Fox interim City attorney good evening James Mitchell at large air at Large Dante Anderson mayor protm district one VES mayor Marcus Jones city manager Malcolm Graham District Two and Dr District 7even darar card is six Lana mayfeld council member at large all right so now I'd like to um address our consent agenda items and are there are there any followups from the Council on the consent agenda Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor I have a number of items that I would like to pull for separate vote okay you ready I am ready I'm trying got it got the pin and all ready to go 17 18 19 20 28 33 35 37 40 and 43 all right so um may I have a motion for all of the items with the following exceptions item 17 18 19 20 24 28 33 35 37 40 and 43 did I miss anything Miss Mayfield speak to 24 oh you want apologize I'm sorry 24 as well okay so you've heard the exceptions all in favor of the remaining items approve second we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none please raise your hands for approval okay that passes so we'll now go to the consent items um and Miss Mayfield we will start I guess with 17 and we'll just go down the list thank you madam mayor and Marie thank you for the print out that you provided to everyone I was trying to get uh understanding and this a question that I've asked previously when we worked with Lois bder this bid was around 400,000 less than the next Lois bidder and what I want to try to see if we can get to a place where we're tracking or better at staff is tracking where if we receive a bid and then we have amendments to those bids how close those amendments are getting to make sure that that bid is actually as accurate as possible versus submitting a low bit with the possibility of knowing that you will have to come back for adjustments and Maria I believe you got an answer for me hey J yes ma'am thank you and and general services to your point does track some of that and where they noted that um between 2018 and 2024 there was 78 completed projects and only 3.3% were change orders but they also wanted to make sure Council was aware when a bid is submitted is for the total package now things might come up that require um extra work different um things like if there's a rocky soil that might cost extra that they weren't planning on but to your point that isn't just the same scope and charge them more for the same scope so the any of the vendors would have had to increase their pricing based on that and I appreciate the additional information because I think that's also something helpful for Community to know when they're watching and when we're approving this so for item number 17 mayor deba toy Road Sunset pedestrian improvements phase one move to approve approve to authorize the city manager to execute discuss second all right he no further discussion all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppose the motion pass Miss Mayfield the next one thank you on 181 19 are related and this is just ensuring that I wanted to make sure that I had the understanding since we're using this particular vendor for multiple contracts there's contracts that they currently have in place and here is an opportunity with our building grounds maintenance as well as our bus Park and Ride Lots ground maintenance so I wanted to just get an understanding of the difference between the two and Marie I appreciate us going breaking down the numbers cuz one of the challenges I had was around for item 18 I believe it was 19 ma'am 19 and and I pulled both 18 and 19 so mayor would it is it okay for me to speak to them as one or would it be better to separate them no I think it would be fine to go with one is it okay for me to speak to them as one or would it be better to separate them no I think it would be fine to go with one is it okay for me to speak to them as one or would it be better to separate them I think it would be fine to go with is it okay for me to speak to them as one or would it be better to separate I think would be fine is it okay for me to or to separate think be fine is it okay for me to as one or would it be better to separate right can someone um oh there we got it Mr attorney is it all right to address the both of the items yeah I think it's perfectly fine for it to speak she's pulling the items and these two of the items that she pulled thank you very much for that clarification so really the question around the vendor and insuring capacity but also for number 19 specifically I wanted to understand the expenditures for the contract so we were able to break down that initially back in 20121 the total amount of the contract was 37,461 I'm assuming that that was for a three-year because we had two oneyear extensions on it and if we break that down and put but where I had the question is on the bullet item from September 11th 2024 that said the city executed contract amendment number two in the amount of $123,456 basically the equivalent of one of the three years if you break it down but noting increasing not to exceed value of 493940 so I was concerned with this additional extension which would be their second extension which is the amendment three that total being 617 435 where I Amie correct me what you explained is in that threee if it had started in 21 that would have been 22 23 24 and then we should have started March of 24 one year with have been 25 but we actually didn't trigger it until September yes ma'am September so I just wanted to get clarification on where we noted not to exceed 493 but now with doing this addition we're basically it's the last of the five years yes ma'am last of the five years extension which would give us the grand total of 617 435 and this should take us to March of 2026 okay that was the clarification that I wanted thank you Madame mayor move to approve item agenda item 18 and 19 all right we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor over the item please raise your hand anyone oppose no one's opposed all right um does that take us to 24 yes 24 and in actuality for item 24 I just item 20 I'm sorry I'm sorry mayor we go to item 20 item 20 was the interstate 277 rail trail pedestrian bridge I also noted that the lowest responsive bidder on that was a little around just under $3 million difference between the bids so it was still the same question yet it was identified but I thought it would be a great opportunity again when community that chooses to tune in or actually look at our agenda since it is a public record when they see they know that there is an actual process in place in there is of tracking and that was actually answered in my first question item number 17 so move to approve we have a motion to approve item number 20 we have a second all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppose that passes so the next item um I believe is now 24 thank you Madame mayor I did send an email out to colleagues yesterday when I was going through this but I sent a follow-up email earlier today after speaking with Marie because I did have some concerns but there's a bigger conversation regarding what we identify and good faith efforts so after having an additional conversation I'm not going to make Marie get into the weeds of it but if you could just let me know of I'm understanding correctly even though CBI identified a go an established goal level through good faith efforts that is where Charlotte water was able so correct so and you know um Miss Angela Charles and her team do a great job of trying to push the goals and get as much as possible with this one though they weren't able to get to the goal without GF so they did actually I'm missp speaking because they did meet the goal but it was through good faith efforts and they worked with the vendor and got I know it's a lower percentage but they this is even more than when they first bid and the vendor did work with us and increase its sum and extended the bid gave us a little extension to try to help boost it up as well and I believe moving forward that we have councel through our direction of Staff we have an opportunity and I hope we have some time in our upcoming Retreat to really look at ways that we can create a really competitive process keeping in mind that a lot of the product for this is the actual piping and the concrete and things like that and that's not something that can be broken out but there might be an opportunity for us to look at other ways so I just wanted us this one to be voted separately for us to be able to have the conversation so that our partners out in the community know that not only staff but Council has a real priority around ensuring as much access as possible for our local businesses right Mr Mitchell did you have a comment yeah let me kind of follow Maria you said something I want to be clear um because the goal so it's twofold let me talk first about process yes sir CBI established a goal of 8% correct mhm and we end end up getting 1.76 so I have a question by process if if my CBI department has identified let's say for argument sake the 10 companies can do the work then the CBI and the water department in this particular case work with those 10 companies to make sure they bid make sure they have the resources to pursue their opportunity because the C is a big disconnect that I got one Department saying in our database we have this many companies that can perform the work but bid time we only to accomplish 1.76 and and I just want to make sure we're using the right language because when they don't hit the goal we have to go to the good faith effort State requires as long as you get 50 points legally I believe ours is 60 but yes sir right 60 legally they have to be award the contract so let's start off with the first question process CBI and the water department right so they joint League work together on that right and then to and you touched on a lot of things that like so you said do they have the capacity so that's a whole different area that water is not as much involved with but CBI does the Outreach you know with the bonding program that Council put in place and different things and Outreach where we don't have enough vendors but then they work together on here's the vendors and if they don't bid you know we work back with the vendor so both CBI and water try to do Outreach with the vendor and other people they do active Outreach so it's not just like okay you know and we validate so we call and make sure did somebody contact you and you know and we try to collect some of that why didn't you bid too but yes it's we audit what they submit good faith and then we audit that to make sure that they did actually do what they said they're doing and do the re Outreach so mayor and counsil on the comment I would make thank you Maria as uh I remember my colleague uh Driggs and I we Ed committee we we had a lot of discussion about the good faith effort and how uh we like to see less good faith efforts being awarded right we rather see the participation effort because sometime the right people use good faith effort as a substitute for doing a lot of Outreach and so I just want to make sure the Council made for a point uh city manager at The Retreat we got CBI listed and one of our priorities we're going to talk about and the more we can ensure building relationships people do work with people they know I think that's the role that council could play I have to give water department a lot of credit this is probably the second good faith of all the projects they have had over the years so kudos to Angela for her work and her effort it it just once it hit the media that you have a 8% goal you only met 1.7 76 we get the calls and and how do we explain and justify it becomes an issue so thank you mayor all right so um do we have a motion Miss Mayfield with trepidation move to approve action item all you have a motion and all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppos hearing none that item 2 four is approved our next item I think is 28 is that correct yes all right Madam mayor and this one was more a consistency issue the we noted that there that we received six responses for our request for qualifications that were not listed we're having a inconsistency piece where on some of our items we'll see the bids and medals others we do not just for because again public record for also our partners to be able to see this information and it was not provided so I want to make sure that we catch that to be consistent in showing that information all right we have a motion for 28 excuse me before you entertain that uh I was trying to record who made the second on the last motion Mr dggs made the second okay thank you thank you Mr dggs all right so we're now on to do we get a I'm sorry mayor do we get a second on this one we we haven't gotten to the second but Miss Mayfield has made a motion we need a second Mr dggs will be our seconder and all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed all right let's move to the next one which I believe was um item 33 was pulled by staff I just wanted to make a note of that and so the next item is um item I think it's um 35 35 let's go to 35 let me make that note for the Airport concourse e- renovation and my question I wanted to identify initially the project is primarily funded by $ 32.2 million Federal bipartisan infrastructure law Grant under the competitive airport terminals program so I wanted to just have clarification on the 14 m772 3 $3 as far as okay what budget line item and Marie was able to let me know that that is actually funded by the North Carolina DOT airport Improvement program grants so it just wanted to make sure the community also was aware of that so do we have a motion Mo to approve am second we have a motion for am and a second um all in favor please raise your hands wait a minute I only got one two three we have a sufficient amount um anyone opposed all right so we are now at 39 Mr Mayfield my apologies mayor that's not a problem oh this one again making sure basically I just had fun this weekend trying to trct the dollars so for the airport South Cross Bill taxiway construction change order so this change order is change order number seven for $567,000 180 you know as I asked earlier and I've asked previously I always have questions when we have these multiple change orders that come in and with this being change order number seven this right here we initially approved the contract in the amount of$ 75,500 3 and 60 change order two came in to extend the contract change order three we kept extending the contract a day or two unfortunately due to the weather but change order four for 456 just under just a little over $457,000 I'm thinking cuz we added to the scope but then change order five another 18,000 so the new value of this is 80 million 7 56,3 just want to make sure when we done now added an additional $5 million to this project ensuring that we are doing the tracking mechanism the airport is growing there's a lot under the ground there's going to be some changes but I think Mr manager it would I don't know if we can if we can't so I'm asking you this question for us to consider if we can start looking at a reasonable amount when it comes to amendments and when we're getting the bids in either expand understanding what the scope should be to try to take into consideration some of the wh ifs and or looking at other at similar projects and some of the challenges they ran into so that when we put the RFP out we have a closer idea of what is a more realistic cost to do business okay Mr Jon yes so thank you uh council member Mayfield I'm going to touch upon um I think part of the solution to what you've been asking and some of council members in this pilot project I think we had three different facilities that we did construction manager at risk so when we think about low bid um you may have a $10 million project they come actually developing the project I believe you've already approved one where we saw the goals much higher than what we've had with low bid and I expect to see the same with the other two projects so one of the things that we did to address some of your concerns with Amendment after Amendment after amendment is there a different way to go about getting the goals on the front end and construction manager at risk seems to be a viable solution to that so that is something that we've instituted in the pilot and we will continue researching you're starting to approve some of these projects with much higher participation yes okay cuz is the ultimate goal for me reducing the number of change orders because being as close to Accurate on your bed amount as possible taking in consideration some of these things are we could probably look at some other projects and get a closer idea of what it actually cost agreed yes thank you madam mayor do we have a motion so we have a motion down here um and a second we have a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor of item 39 please raise your hand all right um let's see that takes us down to 40 40 land acquisition for tree canopy preservation programs is that right miss m yes ma'am so we are looking to approve the purchase approximately 3.95 Acres of property and what we're looking at 40 and 41 will go together they're both land Acquisitions and Marie here's the crazy question for this does the neighborhood development Grant fund which is the grant fund that is funded by our development Partners thankfully do we have 72,000 $75 plus 59487 to cover these costs in the neighborhood development Grant fund yes ma'am thank you that is what I wanted to ensure that we actually have the money to pay this all Bo to approve ab and C AB second okay um we have a motion and a second for 40 um and 41 and 40 oh no the meeting minutes are 41 number 4 just 40 AB andc just 40 AB andc and so um all in favor please raise your hand anyone oppose Mr dggs also second that Mr Fox all right the next item was 41 is 41 of which I asked the same question move to approve ab and C 41 okay thank you we have a motion and a second um any further discussion hearing none all in favor raise your hands okay anyone oppose okay so we're now I'm going to set a few public hearings um set a public hearing on bam area voluntary anation which is 40 item 43 item 44 set a public hearing on part Crossing phase one voluntary annexation and then item 45 set a public hearing on River North Area voluntary annexation do I have a motion mayor i p 4 Mayfield I have pull 43 for a side 43 yeah welome okay we will now go to 44 and 45 and come back to 43 we have a motion for 43 44 and 45 second any discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hands okay now we'll go back to Miss Mayfield for item 43 thank you Madame mayor Marie do we currently have water and soil capacity without it impacting not only the Kataba River but our current capacity that we have meaning and I had a question for you as far as do we have any current projects that have not moved forward because of our water and sewer capacity thank you ma'am and definitely we have the capacity and I double checked with Angela Charles too so we're Regional already so the infrastructure is already in place we're not confined by the city limit she's Regional County and and Beyond so she's already and they and they planned 20 30 years out so they've already planned for this capacity and then the second did I answer all that one you did okay thank you and then the second part we double checked with water and with planting and they don't know of any they were looking to make sure they didn't miss any but they do neither one of them knew offand of any of them that are stalled for water capacity thank you and for my colleagues I asked that question because whether there was accuracy to it or not or maybe just some misinformation I had heard from some developers that their projects were not moving forward and they mentioned or gave the impression that it was due to our capacity levels so I wanted to find out one do we have any outstanding projects out there so thank you for following up and thank you to miss Charles for always being so sponsor because I know you're watching to give the answer so I just wanted to make sure that we have the capacity especially in light of what we're seeing happening Across the Nation right now when we're looking at our access to water move to appro all right have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hands okay that passes as well so we are now down to I think our property transactions is there a motion Madame mayor I believe you approved those Mr we've already approved those as a consent thank you we got through that all right so now thank you mayor we've finished our consent agenda and we will go there was a lot of consent so we're getting a lot of property and activity working going on so the next item we are going to go into close session so now we're going to go into the police chief um coming in and talking to us as the manager and the um Chief have been working towards discussion around Public Safety and what we have for recommendations and um suggestions as well as questions I think that um I was saying that I heard Mr Graham this morning on um the radio talking about this so let's go ahead and dive into this issue Mr Jones thank you uh mayor members of council so um a couple things uh mayor we we do have foreclose session and um so what we'll attempt to do is if we can get through this um then I guess a close session would be after the chamber um but if we get through this in ample time we could have a Clos session here I I will say that it is a public form so people will ask to start speaking at 6:30 so I don't know how I got 11 slides out of this so I'm going to make it a lot faster than that so with that said uh so thank you uh mayor and Council for allowing us to have this comprehensive um look at what's happening around uh Public Safety here in Charlotte and uh we started in December we talked about this a bit last week uh today is the safe Charlotte recommendations update uh the chief will have his uh annual crime report this week of we do have uh our annual strategy meeting coming up at the end of the the month and what we committed to you is that as things come up there may be opportunities to have further discussions during the annual strategy meeting and then we come back with um violence as a Public Health crisis on February the 10th in between that time we will have uh as you look at my 30-day memo budget work sessions other committee meetings so there's a a great deal of time to have a thorough discussion and while maybe a topic um that you want to talk about tonight maybe further down the road or we may have talked about it previously one of the things that we've I think done a good job is tracked all your questions and been able to uh give you those responses or at least let you know where we are with getting the responses so with that said I'll be very quick with this um as we go back to you know may 2020 and following the murder of George Floyd in the subsequent uh protest there's a lot of activity that was going on uh in our community not just from the city council perspective or from the staff perspective but even the business Community trying to figure out how we can do more than make this about just a police effort so if we go to the next slide uh we have the um safety and accountability for everyone so safe Charlotte and what I thought was somewhat unique for what happened and the City of charl is that each committee took um an angle whether it was Workforce develop vment whether it was Mobility you name it and there was a thorough discussion not just within the Committees but also with the community input group that we have worked with over time and this resulted in these six recommendations which are on the next slide I won't go through them all the chief will focus on two through six I'll talk a little bit about uh one on the next slide um the council appr unan unanimously voted to approve appr the six recommendations identified the safe Charlotte report and uh since then we have adopted a bunch of strategies that are related to it other aspects that are important as I mentioned earlier uh affordable housing Economic Development Transportation it's kind of interesting if we start to think about a lot of discussions we've talked about over the course of the last couple of years it's been a good paying job a place where you can afford to live and the ability to get back and forth so this is even um transitioned over into a conversation about safe Charlotte uh with that said again the uh We've address addressed all six of the safe Charlotte recommendations and I'll talk just a little bit about the first one before I turn it over to the chief one of the things and and um I think extremely important there's been a great deal of federal stimulus dollars coming and flowing through Charlotte I think something close to 300 million and 200 million of that actually went out into the community and there have been various initiatives and sometimes we focus on one thing and we lose the the picture of how all of those funds uh flowed throughout our community whether it was small business or even some of the Grassroots organization so one of the things that came out was this concept of maybe the city shouldn't try to do everything on its own and there are a number of Grassroots organizations in our community that can help us solve some of these difficult uh problems so what we've had is two tranches as it relates to investing in the Grassroots U communities and it also results in in uh 17 different Charlotte based organizations receiving um up to $50,000 I think it's important also that this has been a learning process sometimes we realize that some of the Grassroots organizations didn't have some of the let's call it the training or some of the the um support that they needed to try to help us address this so we won't get everything right but we did try I'm sorry with that said we did try to pull as many levers as we could so that this could be a CommunityWide uh approach so that's kind of the setup for chief Jennings as I see council member Mayfield M Mayfield thank you thank you Madame mayor Mr manager before we head over to Chief I just want to verify we've identified the 17 Charlotte based nonprofits do we know that all of those monies have been allocated out to the organizations cuz I heard over the holidays that there may have been one or two that had not received so I just want to make sure that what we're seeing is these are the ones that have been funded sure and that's why I say what I said earlier $300 million of um stimulus funds I believe what you are um indicating are some of the um Financial Partners that were a part of the FY 25 budget process we didn't have any contracts with them to begin with so before we could put any money out we had to establish a contract so that that's a little bit different than this thank you okay all right Chief you've got the podium thank you Madame mayor members of con uh members of council I'll say congress you're not Congress yeah right um that was yesterday too much yeah that's right yeah thanks for having me I I certainly uh my goal is to get go through these as quick as the city manager went through his but I don't think I'm going to be able to accomplish that so one I want to acknowledge uh members of my executive My Command Staff sitting over here uh thanks for being here a lot of the hard work that's going into over the last several years is is due to some of the men and women sitting right over there so uh thank you for that so I will I will start by one I will start by saying that we are certainly a better Police Department than we were when this report came out and certainly better than in 2020 uh We've made a lot of great strides you're going to see a lot of things that uh that we're going to that we can talk about that we've done uh and a lot of that has been due to our Council that has allowed us to uh have the opportunity to add positions to change positions uh and to uh do a lot of the things that we're going to be talking about here so first is we one of the number two was to examine the civilian roles uh in dispatching responses to lowrisk 911 uh calls for service I will talk about the cares team uh and the CPC RT team uh here in another slide but uh just before we get to that I do want to talk about our civilian crash unit that was launched we civilianized uh the uh ability to be able to take uh calls for service that are low-level minor crashes uh and uh we had to do some lobbying with um the state to allow this to happen and and they passed that legislation uh and we started this unit on December the 12th of last year and to so far since they've been active they've responded to 497 calls for service and taken uh 306 crash reports and that has uh we we talked about why we need this and part of that was the the fact that officers spend an average of 40,000 hours a year on Crash investigations and so we were able to take some of that or minor crash investigations mind you but we able to take some of that and now use civilian crash investigators to do that and and free up our sworn officers for other duties so since 2020 we've civilianized approximately 40 positions 40 positions that we did a deep dive analysis on what positions definitely need to be sworn roles and what positions can be take be taken from sworn roles so that our sworn officers uh can go out and uh do other things uh particularly like answer calls for service and serve other roles that need sworn positions uh and so uh we talk a lot also and you've heard some stories about the um amount of special events that Charlotte has been having over the last several years uh that is only going to continue to increase as we continue to grow as a city one of the things that I am looking at and we are getting ready actually we are moving forward on is to develop a civilian crash Traffic Control Officers we already have a small uh contingent of that approximately 60 and those are civilian Personnel within cmpd that can go out in direct traffic for special events uh I'm given the authority by the state to allow to as long as I have them trained and equipped that they can uh do that with my authority and they they have been doing a stellar job but since that uh started uh we have now are getting ready to move forward with adding hopefully hundreds within that uh pool of people that can go out and handle traffic uh Direction during special events particularly a lot of the road races that you see uh and those are off-duty jobs that allows for the civilians to uh get to make a little bit of extra money uh as well as free up the pools that we see when we have these events I was going to say next slide but I guess that's on me right all right so these are a through G these are some of the things that to provide an independent analysis of police civilian interactions I'm going to go through each of them uh hopefully quickly and uh one of the things we'll start with a is to improve and enhance the data collected in cmpd's Internal Affairs case management system uh we've done some really uh robust things with our icms uh and these are some of the things that were added to the data points that will allow us to better uh track uh the and analyze our use of force and you look at B is to link icms data sets to provide a more holistic view of officer and Resident interactions and we have been able to if you put uh if you put the complaint number in if it has a complaint number associated with it we are now able to link that with our CAD events and KB cops reports and data collection report as well as uh we are looking at different icms system uh through a vendor the one we currently have is made through is homemade BAS basically through CM cmpd uh and we are looking at reviewing axon and Benchmark who we currently have contracts with on other items to uh see if that their icms systems are uh will greatly enhance ours and make it we can go over to those so we're going to be looking at that and possibly moving over to another icms system here soon so C is add data validation checks to uh traffic uh traffic stop data collection uh as you probably know the traffic the stop data collection is managed by the state uh but we do have a quality assurance Professional Standards team that is responsible for completing uh annual staff inspections to ensure that these are being completed properly uh we've had in the past we've had issues with making sure that officers are completing them when they're supposed to complete them uh and this team has really stepped up and not only that but the the fact that we have direct supervisory review uh to hold these officers to to ensure that they're completing those uh stop data um reports uh and so last year very proud to say that we did a review of last year and there were no deficiencies that were identified in 2024 so our officers are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing when it comes to stop data information so incorporate uh D is to incorporate more officer detail officer resident inter details of Officer resident interactions into use of force traffic stop data to precisely uh detect disparities um and we pretty much covered that in response a uh and talked about the Strategic policy unit being added uh for uh strategic policy unit added a new addendum for deescalation uh onto the response to resistance policy and E is to launch a strategic policy unit to pro pro to proactive research review update policies directives and plans as needed we did actually create a uh strategic policy unit in 2022 which is made up of both sworn and civilian staff uh and they have been very uh their goal is to ensure that we're looking at National Trends we're looking at local Trends anything that would affect the uh operations of our Department that they are they're either um making recommendations for policies updates for policies new policies uh and and also ensuring that we maintain uh accreditation through our accreditation process and we go to F which is refined the model for individual officer analysis to improve accuracy and establish outlier review process within cmpd's professional account accountability Bureau uh this is dealing with our early intervention system that I spoke of uh earlier that we are uh we have added the cost for service uh data on top of already collected data which includes employee demographic data icms data and arrest data so the new icms system or I'm sorry the new Eis system that we uh implemented early last year is more robust it's uh and it it holds a lot more information and also gives more options as far as supervisors are concerned uh to help with early intervention of their officers that they supervise it's also not an I got you tool so it's nothing that uh we're looking at to do use as a disciplinary uh tool whatsoever it is designed specifically as it's as it's labeled uh as early intervention so uh Eis just so you'll know is not anything new within cm PD we've been doing that for decades uh but as we've accumulated or as we've uh grown over the years so has our e Eis system and it has been U continues to improve I think we're on since I can remember I think it's our third iteration of the early intervention system within cmpd and going to G improve cmpd's Commission on accreditation of for law enforcement agencies reporting for more holistic view that's our Kalia standards that's our accreditation policy um you know we this this has been referenced but we have not necessarily shared this on anything uh it is uh something that we've uh referenced in different reports but the um the accreditation process goes from March until March uh and we recently will be we're sending actually one of my Deputy Chiefs deputy chief Hy will be going to California to go to the accreditation hearing for Kalia uh this March so she's going to have a little trip uh in ahead of her but uh also that is also open to anyone that would like to attend it is an open session uh for the accreditation hearing as well that includes Council uh and the mayor city manager anyone who's interested in that um but the uh accreditation we've always had a good standing throughout throughout our accreditation process uh and always received high high regards and high marks with with uh with the kala Kalia Team all right and forward to expand crisis response and develop a civilian response model for mental health and homeless calls uh this is where I talked about cpcr and cares uh no need to get too deep into that because I'm sure each of you are already aware of it uh there are some numbers up there that that we're going to share with you that shareed up there with you as well as far as their calls for service what I will tell you is the cares team we pilot that uh went very well the county has taken over uh the car's team I think as of December 4th uh so that has moved over to the county that also is responsible for more resources when it comes to mental health and mental health response so I think that's a good spot for it to land uh and uh very proud of the the work that we were able to do to get that cranked up and started and then cpcr uh thanks to council uh a few years ago we were able to double the size of our cpcr uh which is a dual response with um officers and mental health clinicians uh that go out to these calls for service another thing that's exciting that just happened here this past December is uh we went from Contracting out with those clinicians to now they are actually cmpd and city employees so uh that's going to allow them to have the benefits that uh we have throughout our city uh I think a lot of them were excited to that about that and they are now our current employees I think they just finished orientation um like last week or this week or something so uh it's it's exciting to have them on our team uh as employees now all right so we're going to go to Five is evaluate our youth programs uh I will say so this was about adding a civilian uh employee to support youth programs and identify metrics associated with each youth program and goals and objectives so uh we don't have a full-time person assigned to that yet uh we did get just receed funding uh in FY 25 budget that uh allows for that so we are in the process now of of hiring an individual uh to take over that position but in the meantime uh to evaluate our youth programs we brought in UNCC Urban Institute and Roi impact Consulting Group that did help us do that evaluation they looked at a total of 3,768 participants in our youth programs and what they found was there was 88% of those uh within 30 days to 36 months did not there was uh had a did not recidivate they did not uh um reoffend and then if you look at just an 18-month observation period there were 94% uh recidivis no no one none of the 94% of them did not recidivate and reffin so that's uh that's a pretty good high marks for uh those youth programs that we're talking about and so this is kind of what they looked at this is their graph that I'm going to share with you real quick the uh green uh the green bars are the enrichment programs which means those are young people that were on had a propensity to go into the juvenile justice system that we officers recognized they were recommended uh to go through these programs they haven't offended yet uh but we saw the path that they were going to and you look at the uh recidivism rates uh there for the green and those enrichment programs and then the blue are the intervention programs those are the young people that we have um actually have been involved in Criminal activity that we have stopped we the goal is not to get them in the system at all for like a minor misdemeanor offense but we don't do an arrest we don't do anything other than put them in this intervention programs that uh that can help us out that um to ensure that they get on the right path so and we'll go into Recruitment and evaluation of training programs and some of the things that came out of that I'll try to go quickly here that they one was uh suggestion was to create three civilian positions including a curriculum developer a learning development manager and a training specialist to support cmpd Training Academy staff uh I'll tell you this started in uh 2021 that we did hire two training Specialists we've also hired a curriculum developer and there are three on top of that three civilian background investigators that does take the eat the burden off of some of our sworn officers uh that were doing some of that work as well and cmpd continues to uh inval evaluate our uh training and Academy staff and Implement civilian or we've already imp like I said implemented civilian background investigators as well so we're going to keep uh we're going to keep um evaluating the staff needs uh at the training academies particularly as we start to fill a lot of our vacancies and have bigger classes that we have that we been seeing over the last year or so and review course specific recommendations from icp's report and prioritize courses for enhancement a lot of what you saw from the uh civilianization of some of these positions did come from the iacp report uh on cmpd for our course for our training and in uh um Recruitment and what has come out of this though has been uh not just the above but also our cmpd serves training uh in we also enhanced and incentivized our tactical medical uh training and our CI CIT courses so those are incentivized now it's part of our what we call our uh senior police officer SPO programs that are financially incentivized if officers are completing these trainings uh then that gives them a little bump and pay uh to say that they are reached another level of uh uh of training and service for our department so and go to see research to Staffing models of training acmy and similarly size police departments uh will tell you that we have uh been in contact with several other agencies across the country uh our staffing models are consistent uh but what I also know is that a lot of agencies it's how you use the Staffing and I can give you some examples but uh you know you might have an agency that says they have more staff assigned to their Academy class but they also they don't use adjunct adjunct instructors for example like we have instructors that their day job is to uh uh uh radio response Patrol or out in the field as officers but uh there's also times when they are pulled in to help with firearms training or TR uh drivers's training and things like that so there are some places that they don't do that they just keep full staff so but when you put compare it and and evaluate it it's pretty much similar IL in the Staffing Models All right so D is further development of a process for identifying and prioritizing future needs such as creating a training advisory committee and incorporating uh officer performance and data decision making so uh we continue to U have mandatory training such as our cultural competency cmpd serves we added ethics training as well and and also additional uh we are looking at or I'm sorry we already also implemented what we call the lead training at the police academy which allows for disciplinary hearings that if uh if you're sitting on the board for a disciplinary hearing you can make a recommendation for certain training uh for that individual if you recognize that that that discipline are uh that action that that officer is sitting for disciplinary reasons for um could be helped remedy by additional training so that's a formal process that's in place now and also officers who are suspended for we've been doing this for a few years and also looking at enhancing this even more but if you're suspended for 40 hours of train or 40 hours uh or more then you're required to go through a mentorship uh process uh which takes several months to go through that you're assigned a mentor uh and that person will ensure that you continue growth and development uh personally uh and that hopefully that you don't go out and continue patterns of behavior that that got you those 40 hours in the first place so and then develop a plan to strengthen duty to intervene training and curricula for uh current officers and new new recruits and CMP cmpd implemented and strengthened duty to intervene policy in June of 2020 as part of the Department's 8 can't wait uh program or initiative and you know we did work uh if you remember we worked with the citizens review board and we were able to add deescalation uh section to uh duty to intervene as an official addendum and to the response to resistance policy uh we did add that to a rule of conduct duty to intervene is under uh neglect of Duty for officers and we've we've also without with through our training academy have implemented uh courses uh through our basic Law Enforcement Training as well but uh all of that has been is is incorporated uh through our current training of different kind of training scenario based trainings that we're doing within cmpd and I think I get to pass it back to the to the city manager now right so or answer any questions thank you very much Chief um what I'd like to do is give everybody the opportunity to have some time to have a conversation or a dialogue so I'm going to start with Miss watlington and I want to also say to Miss Brown thank you I appreciate you sitting over here because we're having a little bit of chair differences and all that stuff I want to say thank you for that and if we will go around and everyone will have one opportunity to speak and we'll start with Miss watlington and come around to all of the council members and then go to Miss Brown and I say that because it is 6 o' and we have a public hearing at 6 30 so please be respectful of the time that we have thank you Miss Brown all right Miss wat lington thank you madam mayor um I will be brief first of all I'm so happy to see this Chief you guys have done an excellent job with the work um since safe Charlotte as the city manager was saying it's been some time and so I appreciate that you've come back U line by line really with what the recommendations were and uh certainly a tremendous amount of work done so thank you to each and every person who has been a part of this process and thank you to our cmpd officers um I'm curious given what we've seen here how much of this how much of the recommendations that came out of sa Charlotte um was a departure from your business as usual I'm I'm I'm trying to get an understanding of a lot of it probably the the main thing is the civilianization of a lot of these positions we you know we used to I remember being an an office or I'm sorry the Command Staff member and talking about how difficult it was to get civilian positions this opened the door up for us to basically you Council and the city manager gave us cart blanch to say evaluate it and see what positions and I think out of all of that was probably the biggest thing uh but you know like I talked about is you know as bad as 2020 was it still opened the door for us to make a lot of changes that we otherwise would not have been able to make so uh you look at I would I'm just off the top of my head you know 80 90% of it is probably stuff that would not have happened had it not been for the safe Charlotte report I love that I thank you that um that you were a wonderful partner during that time um and kudos to this Council and to previous Council for taking a situation that had um had really really tough implications here in our city and turning it into something positive so I love to see that I just want to dig a little bit deeper on the program evaluations that was particularly interesting I was extremely encouraged to see the uh to see the numbers here um two questions the first one is do we have any um qualitative data in terms of understanding why recidivism numbers look the way they do what was most effective about the programs yeah I I don't write off hand off the top of my head but that's that is a very good question I don't even know if that is if there is a legitimate answer U but what I can say is that uh there have been St studies that I know that if if children or young people are giving Pro given programs an opportunity then they're less likely to be involved into the criminal justice system we are able to identify the right oh did you see did you want to say that I'm sorry um but we we're talking about we're in a unique role to be able to identify those young people that need assistance more than probably anybody because we are coming into contact with them and their families on a regular basis so we're g we're actually blessed to be given the opportunity that we are I mean people say all the time it's not really the Police role to do the intervention and to do the programs but uh to be able to be in this position and that we're allowed to do this uh is a great benefit to us and our community thank you Chief and my last question and this is can be homework for the next time we meet what do you need to do more of this resources um we you know Staffing is always an issue and you know th this this is not easy we we go out and we get grant money and grant funding and private Partnerships to to help with the majority of this and um uh but it also takes a lot of Staffing U summer programs for young people uh we are we are able to move Staffing around to be able to do that but uh as we continue to grow uh you know it it's it's mainly the the biggest thing would be the resources to do it so thank you Miss Mayfield thank you Madame May Chief thank you for the presentation along with the books that were included in our packets over the weekend that went into more detail you all have done some amazing work and I'm glad that you were able to present all of this to day to us and to the community cuz perception and reality sometimes don't necessarily line up we have challenges but you all have been doing some really good work listening to community yes and moving forward I would like to add while we're on this slide later on it might be helpful if from what you all see if you can share with Housing and Community Safety Committee some of those partners that are really doing that exceptional work as we're going to be going into this upcoming budget cycle we had some that receive first time onetime funding we're looking at trying to streamline our model with our partners so we'll be helpful if we can get an idea for Council and for committee to know those organizations that are helping you get to these levels and Beyond yeah that would we would absolutely do that yes that would be very helpful I also want to say how happy I am and I know a number of others are very happy with number six and E the fact that you're that cmpd implemented a strengthened duty to intervene policy that has been something that across the nation has been a concern and question that Community has if some if a situation were to escalate knowing that we have policy language to say what is the responsibility of the other officers that are around certainly and that is something that I believe you know you mentioned other communities and what lessons they've learned and the fact that we've implemented it and put it the language in place just shows the commitment that you have to listening to the community and being willing to learn that some things can be done differently and it just doesn't have to be the old way of doing things and I definitely appreciate that I attempted to go online to just look up the civilian opportunities don't have to answer it now cuz my colleagues also have questions but it will be helpful to if we can just get a one page what are the qualifications unless you want to touch on it quickly for these civilian roads when we're going out in into the community and and trusting individuals to step in to assist you all yeah and and I mean we can certainly look at that a little bit deeper but just right off hand there's different civilian roles that are have different qualifications and and and uh uh mandates you know like a dispatcher might be totally different than having someone who's working in property uh property control or animal careing control so um we have to kind of weigh what level of civilian position it is uh and see what those requirements are but every one of them is probably going to be a little bit different cuz I'm thinking specifically those that are going out for the crashes yes for those and for the street racing cuz sometimes that could be something that could be a situation that could lead to something that's escalated quickly yeah we'll leave the street racing to the sworn though thank you so that is good for you're absolutely right there a civilian crash like our civilian crash investigators uh there are certain requirements but main thing is uh the requirements can be minimal but the training is is a little bit more intense and uh we just want to make sure that people are capable of doing the job and doing it correctly so well thank you Chief and thank you to your team that's here with us y'all are doing amazing workk and it I'm glad we're able to highlight it tonight thank you appreciate that Mr barari thanks um Mr manager I continue to applaud you for bringing this ser series to us I think it's critically important it elevates this topic in our own minds in the community's minds as they're seeing us talk about it and as we've discussed you know the outcome here is we're marching towards our our um our offsite at the end of the month so that we can take the action that our constituents expect of us I think on the you know glasses half full side there's a lot of men and women in uniform doing a lot of really great work and I and I think that has resonated through all the presentations we've gotten uh on the glass half empty side I think it remains that um we have to figure out whether it's perception or reality that is driving a lot of this in from our constituents uh the fact of the matter is you know homicides were up over 20% last year we're going to get more data as it relates to the tens of thousands of people impacted by property crimes and that list just goes on and on and on and I'm not sure at this point based on what we've gotten that we're in a position to take action and and established new policy yet I think we need to see some of that glass half empty View and I think our big opportunity is coming up next week with the the the look at the data so I I applaud all the work that's been done I don't want to take away from that but we have a job that our constituents are expecting us to do which is wrap our arms around and start taking action through policy on what's going on in the public safety front and I just I I feel unequipped by the end of the month month for us to go and take what we've gotten and say okay here's what we need to do to change that that not just narrative but Trend in the data and whether it's 110 homicides up by 23% year-over-year or what we'll see more deeply in the property crimes like that that's the Insight that and why next week I think is so important because if we go and just have a general General conversation about Public Safety at our Retreat we will have failed in our preparation to do what our constituents are are expecting of us right now on this front Mr DRS thank you mayor um my comments are very similar to Mr B's I think what is evident from this is that we have a very well-run Police Department uh and the foundation uh the police foundation found out a few years ago we can be proud of the professionalism and dedication of our officers um at the same time as Mr barari says and Mr Graham I won't anticipate I think I heard you say this too uh we are answerable for the outcomes uh and we have been talking about sort of dramatic initiative safe Charlotte and so on for four years at least um and we can't point to um you know big success uh my personal view is that a lot of these problems are social just as the school problems are social and therefore where you look for answers uh or how you what your understanding is of the root causes of these things uh is critical um I I do think that based on the experience of some other the cities like New York there is a tradeoff between how aggressive your policing is and what kind of crime you have and the tension there is the the the rights and the First Amendment and and so on so how do you uh conduct effective policing and keep people safe and not either offend ethnic group or trample on someone's rights but I think we need to recognize that and confront it headon this conversation is not going to give anybody a sense that they can look forward to feeling more safe and uh so that's a a comment I think for all of us here it's a tough subject and we represent a variety of constituencies I might be seen as uh the guy who is inclined to be tougher but I I really don't speak out of any uh desire to to oppress any members of the community but simply to talk in terms of what works and what doesn't as opposed to talking about actions that we are taking that do not result in observable changes and people are expecting to see a decline in these crime rates uh and I don't think that's an easy thing to do so uh I will just say that the other point is you did mention uh resources I hope during our budget process we're going to look carefully at Staffing and resources and not let us situation persist where there is any shortfall in our investment in cmpd while this public perception continues because it's easy to say hey you guys aren't spending enough and look at what we're getting uh I can tell you that in D7 I was told by officers recently they don't have those robot radar screens and they've been trying to get them they said those screens are very effective Matthews has beautiful screens Pineville has them we don't have them they have two displays that are 40 years old and don't work and so when the officers and I won't name them I don't want to get them in trouble but when they brought this up they were told there's no money for that and this is like $330,000 and I'm wondering why isn't there any money for that that is a way to keep people safe on the roads I'm told by the officers it's a it's not a policy statement it's an experienced statement by the officers that this is an effective means of calming traffic and because in district 7 our traffic coverage is pretty thin because most of the officers go where the dangerous crime is uh there's a lot of bad behavior on the roads not by me but by other people uh so uh I I just don't want to hear that right uh while we're trying to be responsive to public concerns about safety um the idea that cmpd is underresourced strikes me as something that we need to take very seriously but uh Chief and unto all of you uh I have the greatest admiration for your work appreciate what you're doing Mr Graham I concur with many of the sentiments that's been expressed today and chief I want to thank you for your leadership and your support for the work you've done um four years since uh the safe Shallotte report and the accomplishments that you've made certainly want to acknowledge the leadership team that's here as well I mean you don't do it by yourself uh there's a team of folks and even the line officers I had an opportunity last week to spend some time in Freedom and welson with officer um Garcia at a community meeting uh and as I make my way around the District the officers are there they're present they're accountable uh they're informing they're engaging the citizens as they should so I think we have a really really solid foundation in terms of what the police department is doing uh there is no microwave solution um to getting these numbers down and I there's some hard work ahead of us and I look forward to U receiving More Level setting information as we're getting today and for a more meaningful conversation after we received the results of the 2024 crime statute released later this week uh and then we have a more um a greater policy discussion about crime as a public health safety crisis later uh in the month thank you thank you all right thank you Miss Madam Pro protim excuse me Madame protim thank you Madame mayor and uh Chief thank you for the presentation um and the line by line walkthrough is very helpful information um a couple things just from your presentation in general it's good to hear that the car's team is going to be a part of the county because they'll be closer to those resources but I hope that you will still um have line items around their performance and what they're doing as as you continue to update us um because I think this information is very interesting it's seems like there are um several repeat offenders that the car's team is interacting with with based on the unique users numbers and um and the number of interactions so I just really like to keep that top of Mind as that team grows and expands um that we we we have that information around their performance and then the other question that I had was really around the uh program evaluation of number five when you look at the the blue numbers here which really are the intervention numbers you know that you you have it some solid success rates there uh but there's some significant difference between the enrichment programs and um the intervention programs yeah that and that just shows the value of getting intervening early uh because the enrichment programs are before they have actually committed criminal activity yes uh and in the diversion and reach out are after so yes and that's that's what I was seeing in the numbers as well it's just you know with with the intervention programs just be really interested in seeing how what we can do to increase those numbers I mean it's it's a it's a hard story right once they offend then that proximity to offend again um it's just very very very close um but getting those numbers up I I think would will benefit the community overall and I know you're doing everything you can in terms of looking at what's going on at a national level um and how we can um incorporate those into what we're doing but really really strong work with these uh with the youth programs and lastly I'll just say you know for district one I'm going to spend some time with my officers coming up in the next uh week or so to really understand I think you know just neighborhood by neighborhood you know what what are the unique environments that uh we're facing um not only within district one but throughout the entire city to ensure that we're addressing um the crime numbers and I I believe your office sort of uh preferenced the numbers in particular with the homicides um in alignment with other cities that are our size yes um and and that was helpful for me because it allowed me to to to Baseline this information um even though these numbers are going up Bas baselining this information along um with other analogous cities you know we're still below where where we're seeing some of our peer cities at um but of course as we continue to grow as some of my colleagues have already said it's inevitable that we have to um be on top of these numbers and make sure that the crime doesn't increase a as as the growing growth rate of the city yeah I'm and I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of uh if I don't I think people have forgotten that after 2020 a lot of these major cities had record number homicides yes uh we were at one point the only one of the only uh major cities that actually had reductions in homicides so uh a lot of what they're you look at a city like Baltimore uh who has they're praising their numbers that went from 300 and something homicides down into the 200s I said definitely don't want to be sitting at that number uh uh celebrating the 200 homicide year so uh there are certain things that we've done uh up until this point that it's at at some point you're always going to be facing those numbers and the successes you might have had earlier so absolutely absolutely yes um that's all I had Madam mayor thank you mme thank thank you madam mayor uh Chief uh I also would like to Echo my colleagues uh appreciation for your work and your team's work uh we appreciate the work that you all do uh I know your job is very tough uh I've done a ride along when I first started serving on city council and I saw firsthand um how you all put lives on in danger to protect all of us so we appreciate you thank you um some of my uh questions were addressed um councilwoman watlington nailed it when she talked about safe Charlotte program how in 2020 our committee uh that in fact um a lot of the ground work uh was done by councilwoman watlington and how it was unanimously adopted so it's great to see and update on that and just this past week I was asking the manager about performance metrics on our programs so it's great to see that we have that so what I would like to see Mr manager as we go into the retreat and our budget discussion is how do we scale this because now we have performance measures in place we have metrics that shows this programs are working and this is where we should be investing in so I would like to scale this program at um where we can really engage uh our youth early on and uh where we where it's needed we also do more intervention uh that's first um I also agree with my colleagues um council member Drake Spar and Graham on uh homicides uh I don't think it's just the perception issue I I I think it it is a reality where many members of our community do not feel safe and and we and I I said this La this past Monday but we can never be truly a great City where where all residents across the board do not feel safe um regardless of their zip CT uh so we certainly need to work on that I know cities like Boston I gave an example this past uh Monday where they had a very ambitious goal of reducing their homicides by 20% and they've surpassed that with the truly collaborative approach um what is your recommendation in terms of us adopting uh that ambitious goal of having some sort of accountability that we have ambitious goal for other things whether it be Transportation Vision zero uh environment why not have that for our crime rate um yeah first but it it's you have to be careful comparing to other cities particularly Boston you know Boston's 40 40 squ miles yeah we're four or 311 I think it is we 313 okay thank you I was close but um uh so and and then also you look at the surrounding and I I have some very good friends the commissioner in Boston is a good friend of mine uh and some of his staff as well uh you look at the surrounding areas around Boston they're not so uh fortunate as far as the homicide numbers so uh I think we we look at this and like I mentioned earlier is that uh per capita for our city uh in I think there are plenty of um major cities that would love to change places with us uh however uh I understand the perception uh that people are dealing with but the reality is that the majority of our homicides are people who know each other there are arguments that escalate uh very rarely do we have a so uh and it's also looking at the lifestyles of of some victims victimization high-risk Lifestyles that are involved as well so uh we have to be able to get that at the core before they get into those Lifestyles or before uh we have the conflict you know how do you do conflict resolution when um two people are arguing over something and one decides to use a gun to settle the argument so it's it's a difficult situation not just for me I don't say that just as me for Charlotte but that is a difficult situation we talk about regularly from major City Chiefs is do what kind of impact can you actually have when it comes to uh homicides so so let me say this um I do not want to Discount the work that cmpd does right so when we adopt a goal it's not just cmpd's responsibility it's us as our community is the county is the city it's it's a truly a collaborative approach to um to dealing with homicides right um I get it a lot of the homicides that we are seeing is relationship based where conflicts are not being resolved in a peaceful manner um um but this is really how how do we deal with how do we address that um it it's programs like this right it's the prevention uh and it's not just cmpd alone like I said it's the faith community nonprofits government agencies truly working in a collaborative fashion to address it uh but I I personally think that as a community we do need to adopt some sort of goal to work towards that uh because yes even I understand relatively when we look at other large cities Charlotte is relatively safer um yes but you know our numbers have gone up signific signicantly from where we were um and and data shows that so certainly there is something that needs to be done um in a collaborative fashion to address this issues at the ru that's all I thank yeah I don't want to have homicides Define the crime what's going on in Charlotte right I mean it uh it it as we've seen it does e and flow and I think the biggest one of the biggest things that I saw as far as homicides Baltimore I mentioned Baltimore earlier and their their number but they accredited their District Attorney's Office the resources that are put into their District Attorney's office to where they're actually if you look at our homicide suspects it's it's likely that they've been involved in the criminal justice system multiple multiple times and so uh one of the things that they talked about in Baltimore was to have that robust district attorney's office that is uh holding people accountable for some of the minor crimes before they get to uh ended up taking a life so I I I agree and I think District Attorney's office needs to be at the table as part of our collaborative uh Vision to solve this it just can be cmpd's responsibility alone yes thank you thank you Mr thank you mayor Chief uh thank you I'm very excited about the budget you're going to find someone that uh will be in charge of our youth programs and you can count on me as we have budget conversation to make sure we can give you the staff and resources so you can continue your success thank you sir thank you all right Miss Molina that was good colleague thank you madam mayor um and I and I want to Echo the sentiments a lot of great points have been made around the table thank you thank you uh for all that you do for our community uh Chief and all your Deputy Chiefs that are here to support um and I and I've listened actually I think the uh Boston conversation has come up several times times and your sentiment the um city manager uh Iram Faruk she was at Harvard with me over the summer great lady but again their geography is much much different than ours is so I don't want to get caught on that particular um example and mayor Brandon Scott in Baltimore um who you know we correspond through MBC Leo and a lot of the things that we're able to do at the NLC level um and sometimes we share ideas right and they share what they're doing what's working what's not etc etc um but I'm I'm really cautious to alarm the community with what we're not doing as opposed to what others are doing um because there are distinct differences in all of our cities right some good some bad for all of us um and so with that being said I'm looking forward to the policy discussions you know based on the information that you're having the only thing that I think I would ask if there's anything first of all I Echo the sentiments of my colleague I absolutely love when I'm with the officers and I see them engage I think I wish more people knew how much engagement our officers take place in it just we don't give enough emphasis to it um the youth programs the the you know engagement processes I just I'm I'm a big fan of that type of work because I think it it works as far as mitigation is concerned but I my only question and I've wondered this and I alluded to it but I'm not really sure what the process is if you let's say in evaluating this quantitative information you discover something that you say this needs more emphasis is that something that you didn't instruct Marcus and then Marcus is to instruct us or kind of what is the pipeline for how that goes yeah certainly I mean uh uh city manager and I have discussions all the time about things that we need uh within cmpd I think the hiring of the full-time staff keeps has this an ongoing evaluation not just uh come in and and you know take the information we have at the time but we'll develop a process to where we're constantly reviewing and and making adjustments and uh and there may be a situation where we say we need additional resources um to hire someone to help in that role as well so uh uh those conversations do happen and um we uh the city manager always been very receptive ccep to uh requests and needs that I've asked for so okay that's good to know cuz I I just wonder sometimes things Bubble Up I don't know if it's perception or not from the community right and then you get the emphasis from us saying hey this needs to be taken care of and it and often times what I see is a Divergence in what you know as far as the data is concerned and what the community perceives right 100% yes so I mean we could have more of an offline discussion I'd follow up with the manager but I just wonder you know kind of how we connect those dos but that's good to know that's all I have thank you madam May thank you for that Miss Johnson thank you Madame mayor thank you chief for the presentation thank you um I've had I had the honor of just last week I think of reaching out to you twice to to share uh comments from the public on how wonderful Captain crumb and the university uh Precinct does I also had the pleasure of attending a community meeting um with officer Logan last week so they do a great job thank you for the presentation I just have a couple of questions regarding some Community programming and and Staffing levels I was at a presentation in the university area and they were talking about the pal program and it's one of the youth programs did you talk about that today I think that's a program that we should really lift up it sounds like it's very success successful for youth can you either share a little bit about it today or so our police activities league is actually run by a different board it's not a cmpd board that runs that but we do participate with the police activities League where a lot of our um our staff will volunteer to be a coach or to assist in some way but we do have full-time staff assigned there as well uh so uh it's it's less of a uh intervention type uh program that we have but we do have some uh we we service at risk young youth that can give them activities that they would normally otherwise wouldn't have uh and and I think that's a huge part of if you keep kids young people busy they're less likely to get in trouble and a police activities League does a uh an excellent job uh doing that so we support them through cmpd we don't run the police activities League though okay thank you yes and then there is a program where families can register their address if they have someone with a mental illness or someone at risk or vulnerable in the home what's the name of that program wow I I ask me the name outes safe outcomes yes safe out saer outcomes yes yes that was started I want to say in 2017 somewhere around there yeah safe outcomes if if I we can get some information on the on on how that program is going or then if it's successful or if yeah that's that's a great when the the the thought process is excellent where if you can get information that can go directly to the officer before the officer even gets there say uh for example if you have a a subject who might have uh mental health concerns that you somebody can put in there well he or she does not like Bright Lights well that might tell the officer not to shine a flashlight you know there there's data that can be put in there uh it it it was promoted pretty heavily when we started I'm not sure of uh many Registries that we do have but uh it is a good really good program that gives us data prior to uh our arrival or dealing with someone who might be having a mental health crisis as a mental health brain injury Advocate I've shared the information but I think it it could be shared more in the community I think it's an important program well we'll get we'll get some information over that to council again I don't have uh numbers or anything like that with me right now but I'm not sure how uh how much it was embraced with the community that they actually participated in it but uh we we can find that out okay thank you then as far as uh Staffing levels a couple years ago you and I talked about the recruitment process I know there's been some changes as far as the certifications but we discussed dissecting the recruitment process or the hiring process and taking a look at where we're losing minority applicants on how we can look at that through an equitable lens and improving those numbers um could could I get could we get some data on that um certainly I I remember us doing that um year few years ago yeah uh and uh we have done some had some changes in how like particularly our delpo program which is a uh reading level program that was showing some disparate impacts uh as well so we discontinued that we also discontinued the jar PAD as a requirement to enter the academy which had a disparate impact on female applicants so um we can let me see what we have and we'll share we'll get that shared with you and okay I think that's great information um the delpo and you said jar jar jar all right if we can take a look at that and then 911 Staffing I know we've been talking about 911 Staffing levels and just callers being on hold when they call yes that's been a challenge for a long time so can you speak to that a little yeah I I I you know I'm trying to figure there's there's really not a remedy to say that um if we had X then then this won't happen a lot of times uh when we have high call volumes uh if you imagine that a a a major crash on an interstate could truly affect our call for service come or calls coming in if you have uh 50 people calling in an accident at the same time or or very uh close to it uh and that that can really bog down the system uh we are we are looking at some um well let going say we we're looking at some ways to mitigate uh these calls for service where people don't have to be on hold uh we've been looking at that for years uh however we also implemented the process to where if the phone is not answered within a certain period of time uh to 911 uh it goes over to fire dispatch and if fire dispatch doesn't answer within a certain period of time it goes over to uh medic dispatch and and keep in mind a lot of times people the call will be answered it's not necessarily on hold it's telling someone to stand by your your call is being answered or we're getting someone to you uh and so we try to answer that Within so many seconds uh and then to make sure that people don't hang up uh we want to make sure that they know that their calls being answered so sometimes people mistake there are times they're on hold but sometimes people mistake that for being on hold when within seconds you're going to have a a a someone with a 911 that will actually pick up so it's always going to it's a challenge I know uh but uh I don't again I don't have a direct answer but uh I do know that we are increasing on those numb numbers as far as the percentage of uh of of answering 90% of the calls within 10 seconds is so 9010 uh I think we are around 80 something right now uh and but we still have to continue to improve on that so well thank you great job and Mr manager if we can have some data as far as the kpis or information about the 911 calls I think that's an important issue to address if if more resources need to go there but that is a a a challenge for us thank you thank you all right thank you m brown finally I actually forgot about you I I was getting ready to leave wait a minute Chief now don't you go there uhuh no we're not doing that she's been so quiet over here so man say don't even try no um I'm sitting here and listen attentively to my colleagues I did take some notes they did have uh a lot of information and good feedback because everybody see back is important cuz we all make up this councel but I do not want to take away from the great work that you and your team have done if we can concentrate on your efforts to listen to us and respond and you did that accordingly and attentively if we can go to slide 16 please I would greatly appreciate that I like to consider myself expert in this line of work I just badge and wouldn't want to yes but I honor and respect you guys to the fullest so on slide 16 um you went through it but I wanted to go over to the cpcr and go up under the 437 assessments completed and the 77 diverted from jail I'm most interested in the 77 diverted from jail what took place and you may not even have all the data in front of you but if I can get some of that that is what I like to see I think any type of diversion from our youth going into the jail system it it doesn't rehabilitate them anyway yes and I think a lot of times that you all spend with investigating them being out on the spot with them having civilians in front of them I'm I'm a big advocate for that and and the work that's being done in other places when it comes to um I'll let you answer that oh yeah well I can tell you when you talk about diverted from jail these are people that are likely having a mental health crisis of some sort that uh have probably committed some crime that they would have normally an officer by him him or herself would have uh taken that person to Jail uh and instead of going to jail they are getting resources that they need on the mental health side of it well I know I can say that the sheriff is happy to yall send him back probably so I know he's happy for sure yes and I would like to say also on slide 17 if you can go to that one for me please that's good to hear because I think when someone's dealing with a mental crisis or if there's some type of brain Indy as uh council member Johnson use that term quite often they certainly don't need to go inside of the mberg Detention Center or any other detention center for that matter you said something about UNCC Urban Institute and I just wanted wanted to you to dig a little deep for me on that and and what is their a contribution into the the program that you're trying to to implement well the these are um these are Consulting groups that came in to do the evaluation so when when I talk about the uh what they've done is they this is they looked at these participants uh and we brought them in because we didn't have a staff member that can do a deep dive into our youth programs if if if anyone can recall in 2020 we talked a lot about the youth programs that we had but we had no results from those and that was a a demand from counil is that we want to see if what you're doing is working uh and so uh uh this is this is who we brought in these groups we brought in to take a look at our programs and uh to do an evaluation of it so all right so that's great to hear that you had the outside Consultants the experts go in and do some of the work that was actually required now with the youth programing how much participation from parental are parents involved or the caregivers anybody that's overseeing the youth are they involved do they get to put any type of input yeah um that's a good question I I'm not I don't have that data to to answer for we certainly find that out for you but it's all consensual obviously that um that we are looking uh and parents should be involved uh in what we're doing sometimes we get better cooperation from uh some parents than others but uh I think we pretty much have I have some of my staff nodding their heads that uh that that parents are heavily involved in that so that's good to hear but even if they're not then there's also alternatives to parents not being able to be there if they're absent from the home or they can't be there yes or older grandparent or something like that and so I just have a few more um just taking notes because uh colleagues said great things I know that um council member Graham barari Driggs and I think ashir said they want to make sure that you know Community feel like they're safe yes if they don't feel like they're safe then they're not safe that's true a person perception is just their perception but we also want to make sure if we can start with small nuggets and low hanging fruit and be able to move forward um I think that we are on the right path in doing so I also would like to share I'm always going to say this I know I heard you say something about the civilians in the animal care with me since I came on I've been doing a lot of work with Dr fiser and his staff and I know this may not cannot even happen while I'm here but that's one thing to take off your plate if we can get those little four legged creatures up under their own entity that people love so much they treat them just like babies and you know those furry creatures that people love so much that's something that I'm always you know I I want to advocate for that and I want to speak you know in maybe with the city manager a strategy meeting or whatever um if that's something that's off of your plate along with the 911 calls and different things um I also went into a detailed 911 call you want to respond to that oh well I was just going to say our animal care and control they do a phenomenal job they to be honest I've talked to the city manager that uh as far as as many headaches as I have that's uh that's not one of them because I know they run very well I think they would agree that that they should be a separate entity from police so uh but yeah I certainly understand that that sentiment when it comes to taking that and putting it in another location well no problem and then I think this will be my last cuz we got the Consultants mental health the diversion piece the last but certainly not least it would be um you said that you need more resources to be able to move this forward and so when you say resources are you're saying how we allocate for you in the 2025 budget yeah mainly Personnel yes mainly personnel and then you know there's obviously some equipment and things that go along with that but and then funding for certain programs but yeah Personnel would be the main thing okay all right and so again I commend you and your wonderful staff for all the work that you're doing for me I am not a fan of going the wheel has already been invented right but what goes on in Baltimore I love what uh the mayor is doing in Baltimore he's doing amazing things with the da and there's some things that we certainly can learn from them but I think the city of Charlotte is our own unique and specific growing city at an alarming rate and we have a lot of tools and resources on hand where we don't need to look outside and get anything from anybody we can take a look at it but I think what we have is right here in the community if we use it all hands on deck Prof organizations I've said um multiple times and I'll continue to say that um for someone that is at uh involved with Justice and and have definitely been um implemented by the justice system from from a very very young age which most people don't know um I started getting in trouble at the age 15 and I was living in 28208 Southside homes Community but I wanted share that the path to uh Redemption for a lot of these young folks one what they're looking for in their zip code may not be there so having the civilians come in yeah and and take them to John C Smith or wherever they need to take them to for these programs as a diversion is amazing and this is what I say when I say reimagine justice reimagine what community can look like and um just taking the civilians and having them Implement their expertise into the program so I like what I see uh homicide is a totally different ball game I think it's a different subject alog together yes our youth could be diverted from committing a homicide or being on that path to where they can be detoured but we have to just take uh one measure at a time and I think this measure the amount of progress that's been put in this me it's it's hard to please me right I been unapologetically in my truth when it comes to supporting those that have been in the justice system and for me for this I like what I see yeah okay still a lot of work to be done yes it's a whole lot more work to be done but if we're talking about what you presented today take your flowers from me please there'll be days when you won't get any yes today I'm taking them thank you Miss Brown um before we go down I I want to give you kind of an overview of where we are we will have a closed session tonight it will be after we have the agenda but I do want to say something about this um I think a lot of you spoke around the idea of how do we get collaboration and how do we do this and I just it it came to me that and we're about to go down to listen to um several people talk about homelessness for children and I wanted to just say if we can think about how we are going to do work in a collaborative way that is the number one way that we need to start with it and I and I say that because you know when we start thinking about what's next summer is going to be here very very quickly I mean and it's going to be hot and there going to be things that are going to be going on that I think we must take take some effort around the idea of how do we address the they're they're going to come and talk about the McKenna vento homelessness act and this is where you try to get kids into immediate school enrollment to get them in good school choices to give them transportation and Ed Educational Services support services and remove barriers to what they're trying to accomplish now we're going to hear and and people are going to ask us to weigh in on this but it is not just our responsibility just as we've been talking about what are we trying to do but I do think that these um efforts around how to collaborate with the county how to begin to think about um what we can do more with the police department and thank you all you I know you've been um given lots of accolades today but you deserve every one of them and we need to begin to think about how what this means by the time we get through our Retreat um so that we have the time and the energy and the connectivity that's necessary for this to happen so we are going to go downstairs it we were supposed to start about oh an hour ago um with our close with our public session public forum we also are going to have the um West Charlotte football team who win who won the Statewide championship and I think that's why Mr um Mitchell is downstairs now probably trying to catch some um balls or something like that we'll see [Music] [Music] la [Music] for [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you for um being present um we are running a little bit late today or this evening but we hope that you will understand that what we are doing is um working to serve the city and the residents and so we really want to appreciate you doing this so um our first um effort is to um have our introductions and we'll start with our city clerk Stephanie Kelly city clerk hi good evening thanks for joining us tonight I'm Tiana Brown Charlotte City Council District 3 y'all know what the west side is the best side there she go already knew it was coming there she go good evening I am Marjorie Molina I represent the East Side District Five good evening Renee Johnson and I'm honored to represent District core university area go go 49ers absolutely uh good evening James Mitchell class evad of West Charlotte senior high school you can have it Ms we only do that when you guys come that's right that's right right okay all right Marcus Jones city manager VI mayor good evening and happy Founders Day to my Sor of Delta Sigma Theta ser Incorporated oh my now we're going again Dante Anderson mayor protim district one and district one is all over we're we're Citywide uh bcol gaham District 2 the home of the West Charlotte High School line y'all still my school all right at dgs district 7 Just Like Heaven thank you district 6 we'll leave it there Lana Mayfield city council at large and I am a West Charlotte alarm through Mar so I'm good evening and welcome everyone I'm serving you as your at large member um we begin our meeting um with the appropriate um willingness to understand that this is greater than all of us here and so if you would car to join us in our invocation which is going to be done by council member um Driggs and then following our invocation we will have the um oh I forgot we're we're going to be at the flag and we will have our Pledge of Allegiance so if you choose to stand with us to do that please do so and we will go ahead and ask Mr Driggs to address pleas Alle first Al Heavenly Father accept our thanks for this day and all its blessings we ask that you guide and direct our efforts to serve our community and everyone who lives in it grant that each of us may be just and fair and act as good stewards of the trust that our citizens have placed in US bless those who work with us to serve our community particularly those who do so at grave personal risk to themselves May Charlotte always be a that we all can be proud to call home amen thank you Al I pledge allegiance to the flag flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you everyone for um joining us and this oh she left oh um we also I would also like to um bring forward um our new interim City attorney who just joined us here and this is Anthony Fox and if you guys need a lawyer you can call him right and I did go to West Charlotte oh okay all right so I think that this is the appropriate time for me to recognize James Mitchell mayor and Council and and to the citizens of Charlotte it's a great honor I'm publicly say this may thank you for allowing us to be on our agenda uh you all don't know the mayor was watching the game and so soon as we we won she tweeted out uh we going to recognize West Charlotte so uh I know we supposed to do this three times but let's do it one time dubc you know all right I want to recognize uh two people they can come down to the podium and uh coach grinder and and the principal Paula cook to verying brief comments uh about the West Charlotte 3A State football champions [Music] [Applause] coach at good evening and thank you for having us I had um some words planned but in the interest of time I just want to say congratulations to our boys um we are very proud of them this is something that we have not um experienced at West Charlotte in 29 years I remember I was a student I had just graduated from Chapel Hill at the time and we I went over to watch the game since I I was a native charlot I wanted to see West Charlotte and here we are I've got a a child that was the age I was then so that's been a long time coming we appreciate y'all and we are very proud to call you West Charlotte Lions State 3A Champions yeah I really appreciate being here it's it's definitely a pleasure to be a the coach for this team um it's been a a blessing more than anything just to be able to coach these student athletes I don't just get to coach great football players but great men and uh I always tell my wife all the time if anyone ever had a babysit my children I look no further than this team they do great things outside of football and that's probably why this Championship came it's just because of the great people they are and they showed up here tonight I just want to congratulate you all because you're the ones that won the football game I'm just a part of the team and it's a beautiful thing we always say you know when we get off the bus and I always tell people we're not scaring a lot of people um we're not the biggest sometimes not the fastest but when we leave you're going to remember us forever and uh this year they will remember y'all forever congratulations thank you additionally I would also like to thank um all of the West Charlotte alumni if you are familiar with the network it is like nothing that you have ever experienced in your entire life so I just want to say thank you to all of the various classes that are here to represent and that continue to represent us everywhere we go all times thank you so uh with with the football players that are here please stand right now all the football players the Champions could you please [Applause] stand all right no um say one thing that's really cool um a lot of these players are still coming back so we're planning on repeating and coming back next year um but among amongst these football players you know it's all about the next step total with everyone that's here tonight there's probably close to 50 scholarships um going into college football and to be a student [Applause] eff coach I'm sure that you've made a great impression upon these young men so thank you very much for what you've done and anybody that's a principal God Bless you that's all I can say you know um Mr Mitchell anything else oh uh no the alumni please you travel to Riley you travel to Hickory you travel to Greensboro I just want to thank you to the most powerful alumni in the nation West so thank you for your support and supporting our team thank you now I guess that means you should go home and study right you there's probably a few of you that might need a open a book I was watching a football game last night and this guy was opening a book and reading it yeah it makes you know that you should never stop learning and being a part of something so thank you very muche all right so we are really glad to have you and we're really glad to translate things are about to get very boring if you want to now you [Laughter] better downhill from here coming got a towel oh yeah thank you okay wait a minute North Carolina we are we got him we got it yes thank you thank y for y to I just thank y' for the tows you have the misses a hug I will do that e even the E all right the photo op are going all around so is is you you want to autograph my e out I ain't got no pen though I ain't got no look sure okay okay so um if we can come back to order the city um has a proclamation that will be read by mayor protim thank you thank thank you Madame mayor um whereas in 2024 in North Carolina more than 350 women will be diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer and over 100 women will die of cervical cancer according to the estimates from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and whereas per the National Cancer Institute the the 5year survival rate of individuals diagnosed with cervical cancer is 67.4% due to improved treatments early diagnosis and vaccinations and whereas according to the National Institute of Health cervical cancer incident rates and death rates are still high among certain populations in the in the United States largely due to the Limited access to cervical cancer screenings and vaccinations and whereas the city of Charlotte recognizes cervical cancer awareness and encourages all residents to know that cervical cancer is treatable and that routine screenings and HPV vaccinations can save lives and whereas the results of the simple P tests and HPV co- tests can be used used to help prevent cervical cancer or D detect cervical cancer in its earliest and most curable stage and whereas patient advocacy organizations like Survivor which inspires and empowers those affected by cervical cancer by educating and motivating them to use their voices for creating awareness to end stigma influence decision and change and in cervical cancer now therefore she V Alexander L the mayor of Charlotte does hereby Proclaim January 2025 as cervical cancer awareness month in Charlotte and commend its observance to all residents thank you very much thank you and if um Dr Dr Fitch is present can you come down and I'd like to uh provide you this Proclamation I um wanted to just take a moment of personal privilege um yesterday I went to the um service for Karen Alexander who was the mayor of Salsbury and it was a lovely service but it made me really remind us that you just never know when life is going to be and Karen was um found her cancer 3 months before she passed away so I know that they are having a vigil in Salsbury this evening Candlelight she was such a great mayor for them so while I can't be present to do that today I just want you to recognize that we lost someone that was just a lovely person and a great mayor so thank you very much for that moment to have that time um we are now going to begin with our speakers list and we have nine people to speak on that have signed up to speak and we have 3 minutes um which is pretty unusual for us to be able to have three minutes so I mean hopefully you have a lot more time I'm going to recognize um Neil Samson and Margaret Reynolds and if you'll come up and we have the podium and then we'll um hear from you and your recommendations yes yes if you would give us your name and write there and you are I'm Margaret MC Margaret rynolds MC reyolds um is Neil Samson available okay in the honor of Neil Samson I'm going to ask the Quail Hollow um troop 256 to stand stand up and be recognized thank you for being [Music] here all right thank you very much um I think as you know you could be very bored but maybe you brought a book okay thank you all right Miss Reynolds good evening council members my name is Margaret McReynolds I recently moved from Austin Texas to District 2 I work for truest and attend First Presbyterian Church Charlotte while living in Austin I volunteered for over 15 years at the Austin Animal Center during which it achieved no kill status with a 90% Companion Animal save rate this was the result of deliberate planning funding and a shift in mindset something I believe Charlotte could also achieve I now volunteer at Charlotte Animal Care and Control primarily helping with public animal health clinics my husband volunteers with Habitat for Humanity and we're both committed to supporting our community my faith teaches me that we are responsible for nurturing and caring for all of creation and that includes the dogs and cats who rely on us for protection other cities like Austin prove that it is possible to operate an open admission no kill shelter and Charlotte can do that too it's particularly difficult when animals are euthanized simply due to lack of space the constant cycle of overcrowding impacts not only the animals but City shelter workers volunteers Fosters those seeking help with their animals and the broader Community I also have concerns about how Charlotte's shelter is structured among other things having it sit under cmpd has led to a bureaucratic and often discouraging volunte here process I'm speaking from experience I put off applying for over a year because of the application's process time the full the time commitment and invasiveness I have seen a more efficient community-friendly approach be viable Animal Care and controls director is dedicated and capable and makes the most of what he's given but it's clear that much more could be accomplished if the shelter had adequate resources and if Animal Services were an independent Department with better funding funding Staffing and more modern facilities I believe we can be a first class City in every way including in How We Care for Animals pets are integral members of families and a Wells supported animal shelter is key to supporting All Families regardless of income or circumstance please continue prioritizing shelter expansion and please make animal services an independent Department thank you thank you [Applause] our next speaker is Kenny [Music] Robinson hello Dr Robson thankful to have my full three minutes this time my name is now Dr Kenny Robinson founder uh and executive and president of Freedom figh missionaries don't look so alarmed smudgy if you pay attention online you would know that and I am here tonight to talk about um the homeless children that we currently have in the city of Charlotte and mecklinburg County who are are labeled as mckenny vento children because they are ncms schools and they are experiencing homelessness we will end this school year with about 5,300 of them over 4,000 of them will be black students a little over 230 of them will be white students so we can see the disparities there Freedom figh missionaries have been working to bring awareness to the plate of our children and CMS who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurities as a part of that advocacy we worked with students at Queens University and I task those students with researching the mckenny vento program and to create an opad on their findings we are very thankful for the work that they did and I am here seeking to inform our city council on this issue in hopes that we can gar to support and that support is not just funding but also so the city can encourage the private sector to contribute to this effort to make sure that we leave not just no child behind but also leave no child homeless while expecting that same child to perform as well as their peirs we are thankful to our C our partners at crisis assistance Ministry United Way and the home for all initiative housing collaborative and Hill Charlotte and all of our funders and donors who in 2024 for utilizing City of Charlotte meinburg County ARA funds we are proud to report on the data that have come from that we used our funding to shift our housing Focus to Target mckenny vento homeless children who have a parent or caregiver whose barrier to Safe affordable housing is due to a previous background or their involvement with the justice system some of that data from 2024 utilizing $1 million from the city of Charlotte and funding also from mecklinburg County uh we were able to provide 178 identification Services 84 healthc care services 126 Employment Services uh we served 190 families with housing 384 children that were in mcken vento small percentage compared to the amount of uh youth that it is but we were able to take 384 children out of hotel and shelters and place them into permanent housing utilizing that funding thank you so much for your [Applause] time I see um Judy Schindler is joining us good evening thank you all for your leadership I'm Rabbi Judy Schindler and I share these words written by my Queens University student Sydney Jackson who work closely last semester with Kenny Robinson with freeding freedom fighting missionaries Kenny is an amazing leader he has a heart for everyone in our city and for all our children so I'm here to address an issue that deeply affects some of our most vulnerable residents are children specifically I want to highlight the intersection of housing instability rental incarceration and education within the framework of the mckin vento homeless assistant act in Charlotte mecklinburg County far too many children are left to Bear the burden of their parents' mistakes their past mistakes these children facing face housing insecurity disrupted education and a host of other challenges simply because their parents were formerly incarcerated the mckin vento program was designed to ensure educational stability for children experiencing homelessness while it has proved provided a safety net it's clear that the demand far exceeds the resources children who qualify for mckenny vento are often shuffled between temporary housing or shelters creating constant uncertainty imagine being a child trying to focus on school when you don't even know where you'll sleep that night children with incarcerated parents are already grappling with the stigma and emotional toll of Separation add housing and security to the mix and we're setting them up for failure failure before they even have a chance to succeed amen studies show that children in these circumstances are more likely to experience lower academic performance higher Dropout rates and greater involvement with the Juvenile Justice System we are essentially perpetuating a cycle that keeps families trapped in poverty and despair this is where we as a community must step in we cannot allow a parents incarceration to become a life sentence for their Childs it's our resp responsibility to expand programs like mckin vento provide more robust housing assistance and ensure these children have the stability they need to thrive in school education is a great equalizer but it can't work its magic if children do not have a stable Foundation to stand on if we don't act now the long-term impact of our community will be done on our community will be devastating these children will grow up carrying unhealed trauma affect their me affecting their mental Health their relationships their ability to contribute positively to society I urge you to allocate more resources to housing initiatives for families affected by incarceration let's provide wraparound services that address not only housing but counseling academic support and Community SP mentorship these children deserve the same shot at a bright future as any other child in our County thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Lula Cheryl Miss Cheryl so nice so sweet you may lower the mic if you need to and you're if you want to lower the mic so that you can speak into it easily yeah that thank you thank you my name is Lula cherl I'm not a pastor nor I'm a part of an organization but I have compassion for the homelessness and God tell us to help the poor and one in needed that I would like to introduce to y'all um to take a look at it takes more than 3 minutes for you to look at this plan and my plan is not to build projects but build a communities and that we can help bring down crime if we go back to what old folks used to say it takes a village and I would just like for y'all to open up y'all Minds open minds and open up your hearts to take the time to meet with me at some time and the chief of police to just take a look don't dismiss me or the plan cuz it's not about me nor you it's about helping the ones that are less fortunate to us and I like for y'all at some point in time anyone and in here to take a look at Luke 16 19 through 31 thank y'all but don't dismiss the plan thank y'all open you very much Miss Cheryl thank you our next speaker is Darlene pigram miss pigram you can get right right behind this if you walk right up behind there and the microphone is right there for you thank you I always worry about all of us coming down those steps so thank you for thank you mam mayor good evening Madame mayor uh city council members and staff my name is Darlene Pam and I've lived in Charlotte for over 50 years uh first I just want to uh give my condolence to uh council member Graham sir for the loss of your family sir thank you for your braveness the reason I'm here is uh to bring the attention to uh Juvenile and team violence uh that is going on in the city today from A to Z uh if you touch something that is so hot you burn your feet sers do you touch it Again One Bad Apple spoils the whole bunch so why don't we pluck that bad apple out and save the apples or just save our children or the youth or the uh juveniles and now the meinberg County Juvenile justice system is releasing um criminals juvenile uh youths back into um to the parents Guardians which comes back to the public um I am sorry to say that I am a victim of juvenile crime and the same juveniles that committed the crime I watch them every day walk in in front of my house because of the juvenile system uh the government there are government plan uh programs and non-government programs to get them back on the right track if they're willing to do the work um juveniles that uh commit crimes over than two times more than two times do not deserve the same uh benefits um the same juvenal I am referring to they are responsible for the Uptown break-ins the car thefts uh vandalism and a lot of stuff wearing cmpd bracelets so and it's like 45 counts I believe they times they've been in and out of the system and they're still walking around today so watch your cars um we teach our kids they can be anything they want to be not do do anything they want to do um I am here for the safety of Charlotte tonight that's what why I'm here and I just want to thank you all for listening to me thank you so much thank you thank you so [Applause] much thank you all right our next speaker is Donna Dunlap the St laap good evening mayor ly and City Council Members my name is Donna Dunlap I the president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of central Carolinas January is also mentoring month and I'm really excited to have this opportunity to share with you that we will be hosting an impactful youth mentoring Summit January 30th from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the UNCC charlot Center City the rise in youth violence the Mental Health crisis young people are experiencing and the increased academic performance gaps continue to persist since the pandemic you've heard about it throughout this whole meeting young people urgently need our support mentoring is a proven solution that we as a community need to deploy support on a larger scale City County officials mental health experts cmpd CMS Executives parents mentors nonprofit funders and youth services organizations will be attending and participating in the summit the desired outcome is to inform the community of the challenges young people are facing and to inspire advocacy so that we can Empower young people to realize their full potential think about who changed or influenced your life mentoring is the answer we hope that you will join us and be a part of the solution and I have invitations here if anybody has re if you would give them to the clerk we'll make sure that everybody gets one right here thank you okay our next speaker is Don Cole mang good evening mayor and council members it's good to be with you tonight so my name is Dawn Nicole M and I stand before you tonight representing a firstof its kind organization named Queen Queen City women in business that is absolutely dedicated to the success of helping women small business owners get Contract opportunities faster let me tell you something a story about how we started we started this company right here in the Charlotte area in September of 2023 after I personally was an award-winning company who had sold my services to billion-dollar companies outside of the Supplier Diversity Program like Boston Consulting Group however I found it extremely difficult in the city of Charlotte to do business to have awareness and to have advocacy now you might be asking why there's resources out there there's information but we needed more than resources we needed relationships we needed more than that so I started this company to reduce the barrier to access for every single woman out there let me tell you how that went in one year we grew this Community Way Beyond the city of Charlotte we grew it into 17 States we're in four chapters Georgia North Carolina South Carolina Indiana those are established chapters we helped women-owned businesses secure 2.25 million in contracts one year 300 hours of training and development and we helped 177 women get certified now I don't know about you but that's pretty impressive we did this in one year and we did this by using a sourcing and development platform that's online that enables itself to teaming this is something we're not thinking about we're thinking about the one contract but what we've done is we've created the Facebook of women and business suppliers we've become a model and now Alabama California and others want to do business they want the model they want the secret sauce but you know what I want I want to put the city of Charlotte on the map I've had about five meetings with the city of Charlotte CBI I've tried to get the attention and I'm more than proven what I want is someone to take what we've put together and work with you to create a sustainable supplier ecosystem so that we are thinking about suppliers ship from a proactive nature not just in time so that we can hit those mwbe utilization and participation goals it's time to put the city of Charlotte on the map and you have the talent to do it we have a proven track record let's do business let's grow together we believe we have your solution now we need your attention I'm hoping that someone from your office will give us a call and let's do business together let's change the trajectory on March 5th we're doing our first national supplier Summit we have other markets coming here there's no reason why we can't amplify Charlotte as a Top Model City we can do it together thank you thank you very much March 5th okay all right thank you our next speaker is Robin Hamilton ironically I'm one of her customers I bought your LMS system absolutely so um good evening it's good to see everyone here this evening so um Madam mayor uh City Council Members it's a pleasure to be before you my name is Robin Lake Hamilton and I serve as the president and CEO of the Urban League your Urban League of central Carolinas and I want to express my sincere gratitude for the ongoing support that the city has provided for the Urban League of Central Carolina and specifically the alternatives to violence program that we facilitate for you on the nation's Ford and Arrowwood Corridor um there's been a lot of Doom and Gloom and conversation um about uh violence but I'm actually here with good news and just nobody's asked us but we thought we'd come share the good news with with you uh the Urban League has of course been a pillar in our community for over 47 years champing economic uh opportunities and social justice for African-Americans and other underserved populations our commitment to Southwest Charlotte especially through the AP program is making a real difference in the lives of residents I want to thank city council mackenberg County for recognizing the value of ABP and for supporting its expansion into the Southwest Charlotte Area your investment in this program program is an investment in the safety and well-being of our community while it's true that Charlotte like many other cities has experienced an increase in homicides we are seeing encouraging signs of progress within uh the alternative violence program which is a 1.5 mile en catchment area we're seeing an increase in the number of key individuals that are collaborating with the alternative violence program and we're seeing positive feedback continuously from the community about feeling safer in their neighborhood one significant success we have had uh with our alternative to violence program is aligning Community residents with Alternatives we actually provide them with an alternative to violence and that's with jobs and we provide them with Workforce Development training uh that leads them to a career and we've secured additional funds through the National Urban League who has added us as a subrecipient for the United States Department of Labor sub uh uh growth for opportunities goal and we'll be lever leveraging that um that funding for folks that are 18 to 24 starting next week there's three areas we have identified as strategies that can that can continue to decrease conflict on Nations Ford one we need your help we want to bring long-term stay providers hotels Extended stays together with Community leaders and residents to Foster understanding and equip providers with the tools to address resident needs proactively to empower these providers we need your support to convene the companies that own these long-term stays two we want to empower apartment communities equipping apartment managers with appr proven strategies to bo uh resident engagement and resolve issues before that they escalate to empower these communities we need your support to convene the companies that own them I'll give youall three another time thank you very much Robin good to see you and thank you for the work that you do so I I wanted to make sure that um each speaker is aware that um we are grateful that you come down and help us understand what's going on in our community and we also um have a process by which um you will have a followup from someone on the staff and we'll have the opportunity to go into further details or deeper and I guess we really know how deep some of this needs to be and appreciate what you bring down and help us to understand best around our community so um hopefully we will have the opportunity to hear more um from our team who will contact you over the next several weeks okay thank you very much for participating in our community's leadership and really understand have a great understanding of what we need to do so we are going to move now into our public hearing um we have um a public hearing and a decision on Miranda Road Firehouse number 46 area voluntary annexation um we do we have any speakers Madam clerk there's no speakers do we have a motion to adopt an annexation ordinance with the effective date of January 13th so Mo we have a motion and a second is there any discussion hearing no discussion all in favor please raise your hands is there anyone in opposition hearing no one in opposition we'll go to our next item which is item number nine and that is the city manager's report thank you mayor members of council uh just two quick items I know we have uh four closed session items for later I I just uh wanted to bring your attention to our 30-day memo which uh I know it's only January 13th I think we're almost a quarter of the way into the year with so much that the the council has before all of us but uh January 21st is the uh zoning meeting but then the 26th through the 29th so this is the only business meeting for the month will be the annual Council strategy meeting I'll will make sure that you get some additional information in your Thursday packet about where we're head it with um some of the thoughts it really goes back to the um budget committee meeting where we had an opportunity to get uh feedback from you uh we will have the council committee discussions and in the February um budget um committee meeting I will bring forward um or ask what are some topics that the council would like to have in those budget workshops as well as um feedback that we get from the annual strategy meeting and the first budget Workshop is on the 10th of February wow and also as we've talked um earlier tonight the um violence is a Public Health crisis which we'll have an opportunity to really show a lot of the collaboration that's happening um between the city and the county across the board I think Sean last time the question came up he was able to jot down like a dozen opportunities so I think there's more we can do but there's definitely more that we are doing and then lastly I we started off I guess last week we talked about quarters of opportunity and uh my goodness that we have a great week in terms of federal grants that the city received so $3 31.4 million wow in federal grants last week that they were announced so again if we go back to three or four years ago when we started talking about the corridors the expectation wasn't always that the City by itself would fund these we would show um some promise we would get opportunities for state grants federal grants as well as the business community so that that's a uh that that's that's really really big and I just commend everybody on the team that's been working so hard to actually apply for the grants as well as the council to uh continuously support um the team as we you know try to emphasize the quarter's opportuni so just good news I know mentioned a couple of million but a lot of things happened since that last meeting and I just wanted to make sure the council was aware so thank you mayor members of members of council thank you very much anything else any what any other good news that's all I have oh shoot okay all right so let's go to our next item which is agenda item number 10 the action is to adopt a resolution authorizing the donation of a surplus Charlotte Area Transit System van to promise Youth Development to approve second we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing no discuss oh we have discussion we will start with um Miss Molina and then Miss Johnson Miss Molina uh thank you Madame mayor I'll be brief um so you guys um if you Rec call back during the budget budget session we had the discussion around supporting promic Youth Development which is um an easts side nonprofit that focuses uh on teen development and they have a lot of M ation um opportunities for Youth and they've they've done an outstanding job on the east side for residents children and and children throughout the east side for nearly a decade now the uh leader of that particular organization she's a registered nurse um and like I said she you know I think in our earlier agenda we see where she's actually partnered with cmpd um for mitigation services so she's already an existing partner and this ask was so small and I remember when I reached out to our interim cat of this and I ask you all to support me and um us providing this you know valuable resource to that nonprofit um that serves our entire Community that's all I have thank you madam mayor M Johnson thank you Madame mayor and thank you for your advocacy councilwoman Molina um it's so important to support Grassroots organization it's it it is a small grant for us or small um resource but for the organization I know that it will be huge yeah so councilwoman Brown and I met with cat staff it's been a few months regarding a van donation to uh to an order would if you can send that to us um the status of that there was what we're doing to serve that population um there was an organization that was asking for a van so this is a just a good time to ask thank you all right move to close we have a motion on the floor um any further discussion I'll in favor of the item to second we have a second thank you much Mr D so all in favor please raise your hand two one two three I think that there is unanimous um anyone else anyone in opposition okay with that so you now have a cat's F our next item is item number 11 it's a municipal agreement for a new traffic signal installation adopting a resolution authorizing the manager to execute um a an agreement with ncdot in the amount of $2 from $114,000 and adopt a budget ordinance appropriating that and this is for a traffic signal at the intersection of East WT Harris Boulevard and University Ridge Drive Rose Heather Court we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing no discussion all in favor please raise your hand okay that passes and unanimously the next item is the belt Greenway connector phase one supplemental Municipal agreement to adopt a resolution authorizing the manager to execute a supplemental agreement with the North Carolina Department of Transportation to adjust the project limits for the belt Greenway connector phase one so moved we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing no discussion all in favor please say I I anyone opposed here no we know one with opposition we are now prepared to go into our close session thank you all um to the scouts up there um appreciate you now you can go get home you know so um we will be going into um I need a motion from the attorney sorry Mr Fox if you give us a motion to go into close session please both it Madam mayor members of council the motion is to go into close session pursuant to North Carina General statute section 143 d381 A3 to consult with the city attorney to preserve the attorney client privilege on um in in regards to the following matters us doj doj suit against the city of Charlotte North Carolina pursuing to sections 706 and 707 of title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended the second matter is Shaquita Gad versus city of Charlotte SL Solid Waste claim number W4 95848 and the third MTH matter is uh regarding just an update regarding Lindsay Cully at all versus the city of Charlotte um at all 21 CVS 20 12505 um and then the other matter is a motion to go in the close session pursuant to North Carolina Journal statute 143-30570 four to discuss matters rela relating to the location or expansion of Industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body including agreement on a tenative list of Economic Development incentives that may be offered by the public body in negotiations those are your two motion I mean we have a motion all we have a motion and a second all in favor please raise your hand anyone in opposition all right so let's go back into the room behind us here and get this done be long right [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music]