the room was this open so we welcome you all in and um we look forward to a good meeting i am going to do a roll call vote mayor pro tem mrs hightower mrs hoffman president uh mr holston president mr outling president mrs therm president and dr wells president um and obviously i am here mrs abuzawader is not here today um she is in the hospital and that we um wish her a very best speedy recovery and as we do our moment of silence if we would keep her and her family in our prayers um and we will start with the moment of silence thank you mr holstein would you like to lead us in the prayer yes the place in the pledge kelly we prayed you know welcome to the katie dorsett council chamber the public forum and agenda item speakers have two options to register to speak before council residents may register via the jot form on the city's website by 5 pm the day prior to a council meeting or residents may sign up to speak by 6 o'clock the day of a meeting by using the q minder kiosk just outside the chamber door please see our community relations manager gary cannipino at the courier desk for assistance as you can see that we part of this meeting will be by zoom to comply with requirements by the state in regards to zoom meetings and to provide an optimal experience for the public council will verbalize motions and all votes will be conducted by roll call vote and by using the electronic voting software each member of council must vote unless there is a direct conflict we do allow for speakers and we welcome them to address counsel at the public forum meetings council respects the right for the public to speak about matters of concern that can be addressed by council each speaker will be allotted three minutes comments that deem intended to incite unlawful behavior will be deemed out of order zoom participants are required required to mute their microphone until called upon to speak the city of greensboro is committed to promoting an environment that is free of discrimination bias and bullying thus harassment words jokes actions or comments based on an individual's sex sexual orientation race ethnic background age religion physical condition or other legally protected characteristic will not be tolerated in order for comments to be considered they should be submit submitted online through the city's website www.greensborohyphennc.gov we do have a consent agenda for items g1 through g8 which are a grouping of agenda items that are voted on with one single vote to expedite what are believed to be routine and non-controversial items any council member may withdraw an item from the consent agenda due to a conflict of interest or for the purpose of voting no the items removed from the consent agenda for discussion will be placed on the march 15 city council business agenda this meeting does include closed captioning depending on the length of tonight's meeting we may take a short recess around 7 30. this is the time for our ceremonial and presentation items item e1 is a resolution to honor the memory of the lake late mark friedman this was originally brought for us from mary kay abusivator and i'm going to ask hugh to read it thank you madam mayor the resolution to honor the memory of the lake late mark friedman whereas on november 3rd 2020 the greensboro community lost one of his outstanding leaders with the passing of the late mark friedman whereas mr friedman was born on october 5th 1957 and raised in akron ohio aspired to be a chef and graduated from the culinary institute of america in hyde park new york whereas mr friedman lived in greensboro north carolina for over 40 years owned three restaurants including one which bore his name of mark's restaurant received a rare five-star rating from former news and record food critic john batchelor and accumulated many local regional and national awards whereas as an avid volunteer donating his time and talents for over 35 years to the annual community tables thanksgiving day feast and helped carve turkeys in preparation for thousands of meals for those in need whereas mr friedman was known for his vigor love of life family and friends and his enjoyment of great food great bourbon cigars and a weekly round of golf whereas the mark angel foundation was created to honor mr friedman a non-profit whose mission is to foster a safe and healthy community where fundraisers support local community safety organizations and scholarships are distributed in mr friedman's enduring memory and love of the culinary arts and now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of greensboro that the city council wishes to express its condolences and offer its sincere appreciation and gratitude for the many years of dedicated public service of the late mark friedman his legacy will be remembered by the outstanding contributions he made that a copy of this resolution shall be delivered to the family of the late mark friedman as a symbol of the gratitude of the people of greensboro for his devoted support and contributions to the community adopted this first day of march 2022. move the items so um moved by mrs thurm seconded by mr holston council please vote and that passes eight to zero um i know that mr holstein would like to give um copies to some of the people in attendance i believe that um robin friedman is on the zoom yes ma'am there's several members of the family on zone i'm sorry i can't hear you there are several members of the family on zoom okay can we key up robin uh i'm here um bear with us one second robin can we get her camera there you go can you hear us yes okay would you like to make some comments well um my brother howard and i as well as my aunt and uncle and my brother-in-law rick and my other family members who are who are zooming in just want to tell the community and especially the city council and mary kay who's in our thoughts thank you so much for acknowledging my brother's legacy and the life that he lived in greensboro he loved the community that's why he spent over 40 years working and living in greensboro and my heart felt thank you and thank you for keeping his name very visible as we still wait um for that phone call that they will find his killer thank you so much and thank you for the acknowledgement from the bottom of our hearts we so appreciate it and robin you know i want to thank you and i know the council wants to thank you for the dedication that you've had to follow your brother's case through and to make sure that the people of greensboro knew about him and started the marx foundation so thank you so much for that because not only does that benefit mark and your family it is benefiting benefiting other people in the city of greensboro as well so thank you for that thank you so much the community has really rallied as you can see in the audience where you are some of the most lovely people i've had the opportunity to meet since my brother's death and i'm honored to be part of the marc angel foundation and i'm so honored to be associated with all those lovely people in the audience thank you so much thank you are there any other family members on zoom who would like to speak if not we do have some people here in chambers and i think i i think that uh hugh was stuff was um was volunteered yeah so i'm gonna no disrespect but i have to put this hat on because you never saw mark without his hat and this is the hat that he wore basically so i wear that in honor of our friend um just on behalf of our foundation um that was started for reasons which we didn't want to start but we've all grown um very passionate about what's happening in the city as a group of people that that care um we work with mothers standing against fun gun violence and we do this all to honor mark like we said our mission is to create a safer happier place to live in greensboro and so we're going to continue to do the good work of this organization and work with the city council and just we cannot thank you enough for this honor for him it is well deserved he had a lot of chances to leave this city and he wouldn't because he loved it with his whole heart so thank you very much thank you thank you would anybody else like to make some comments um hugh would you like to yeah give them you did you handle is it we're good other comments i i'll simply say that the mark was a was a good friend of mine and we played golf often at the cardinal i noticed in the resolution he talked about a good bourbon and we enjoyed a good bourbon we go over to the restaurant and sit on the back patio and talk uh it and also if you know mark uh mark and i didn't always agree on everything uh but we were agreeable and uh he was a good friend and i'll miss him and uh i'll put in a plug again for the the angel foundation and also for crime stoppers because we need to find uh the uh person who did this thank you all very much we appreciate it thank you now we will move on to item number e2 which is a resolution in support of the 11th anniversary of the weiland national mayor's challenge for water conservation which is april 1st through 30th 2022 whereas the wyland foundation established in 1933 by renowned environmental artist robert weiland inspires people to recognize the importance of clean and healthy water whereas the wyland foundation represents the weiland national mayor's challenge with support from toyota the united states environmental protection agency watersense the touro company national league of cities hobby and patel whereas the national the wyland national mayor's challenge the challenge for water conservation brings people and communities together for a fun educational water wise competition whereas the challenge invites cities to engage in efforts that become better environmental stewards whereas the national mayor's challenge for water conservation is a non-profit challenge to residents to encourage pollution reduction and smart water use encourage residents to register their participation in greensboro's challenge online by making pledges to decrease their water use and to reduce pollution for that period of one year thereby assisting their cities to apply for the state and federal water conservation strategies and to target mandated reductions whereas the city of greensboro continues to explore ways to manage residential consumption of water and power and to inspire its residents to care for our natural resources whereas fresh water is vital to sustained life experts predict that by the year 2030 the global demand for water will exceed the supply by 40 percent and climate change and droughts have already led to reduced water supplies in the united states whereas from april 1st through the 30th 2022 the city of greensboro wishes to encourage its residents and neighboring communities to take the weiland mayor's challenge for water conservation to reduce impacts on the environment to see an immediate savings in their water trash and electricity bills and residents will be provided with tools to take specific measurable actions throughout the year to improve the sustainable use of natural resources now therefore be it resolved that the city council of the city of greensboro that the city council agrees and supports the wildland mayor's challenge for water conservation the program will be implemented from april 1st to april 30th that through a series of communication and outreach strategies residents will be encouraged to take the conservation challenge that the city council hereby recognizes the month of april 2022 as wyland mayor's challenge for water conservation in the city of greensboro move the item second moved by mrs johnson seconded by dr wells council please vote and that passes eight to zero um mr city managers anybody here from city staff who wants this or will we forward this to water resources okay we'll forward it on we now go into the public comment portion of our meeting um there have been no written comments received for this march 1st 2022 council meeting we do have six speakers who are pre-registered for the public forum portion of the meeting each speaker will be allotted three minutes we do have one person on zoom so i thought we would start with lewis pitts mr my connected mayor um yes we see you thank you good evening my name is louis pitts uh as i've done several times i remind each of you that it's campaign season so i have a question or a point that i'd like to make but i'd first like to point out three points that were made in the deposition of chief james approximately one year ago in the marcus smith case first he acknowledged that he had been a plaintiff along with other african-american officers alleging that the then city chief in 2010 and the special intelligence division of the police department had discriminated against officers so another point that he made was and he acknowledged on questioning from flint taylor that the current police department for which he's the chief engages in monitoring social media monitoring social media and when asked if they monitored groups that were seeking justice for marcus smith including democracy greensboro he was instructed by his lawyer not to answer so that's not a complaint about the chief not answer it does raise the question is there a publicly vetted criteria by which the police department decides what social media to monitor and we're using the word monitor which really we're talking about spying so i would like each of you to have a position that hopefully you could share tonight but at least share on the stump about whether or not there is a criteria by which you select who is going to be monitored because certainly they're not unlimited resources to try to monitor everybody's facebook and twitter etc what's the criteria does only the chief decide does only the assistant chief decide can the sergeant in the criminal intelligence division and we know our nation has a serious problem with intelligence squads being really acting as political police so that's the point and the concern that i and others have and i would ask if any of you are willing to any of you are willing to speak on this point now or at least pledge to have a position one way or the other just so that we can know and your position can be transparent thank you very much thank you we do have another speaker on greensboro pd and that is hester petty good evening my name is hester petty i live at 3402 canterbury street here in greensboro it took three years five months and 24 days for the city to finally agree to compensate the smith family for the police killing of marcus smith and yet now we have another police killing of an unarmed man in greensboro joseph thomas lee lopez according to the greensboro police department on november 19th last year while confronting the subject an officer discharged their weapons striking the subject in the usual kind of no information kind of press releases they put out over there news reports in the next two days added a few details but it appears that no information has been forthcoming from the police since then and only triad city beat has done any recent follow-up that said the information that is available is troubling this is a copy of the greensboro police department public incident report you can see it's one page very little information on it but what's particularly interesting about this is where it says crime incident and it says criminal homicide murder this is what the police report says about a police killing don't you find that somewhat interesting i know i do i want you to just let that sink in for a minute because now i'm going to turn over to the uh this is the north carolina medical examiner's investigative report that was signed on december the 10th of last year and according to this report um the narrative they received said that after the police and it's more information i mean i've been trying to get information on this now for since it happened after the police arrived on the scene they heard movement inside a storage building officers gave numerous commands to exit the storage building but joseph lopez did not comply he was seen through the doorway and soon after one of the officers shot him he immediately became unresponsive and fell to the floor the cause of death penetrating gunshot wound of head and neck he got a head shot while he was standing in a storage unit apparently unarmed it's been a couple of months now since the emmys report came out and became public and still there is no update from the greensboro police department now i think i know how he died at this point i just don't know why an unarmed man obviously they were there to arrest him was shot in the head i don't know if any of you have looked into this i asked you last december to look into this to watch the video to look at the reports thank you it happened in my neighborhood two blocks from my house reverend nelson johnson is he in the um lisa mcmillan okay good evening and thank you for the opportunity to be able to speak here i'm lisa mcmillan and i'm a lifelong resident of greensboro i come to employ you and to thank uh council person hightower for being a champion and a supreme supporter of our transit system but i had two experiences in the last three months where i would like all of city council to support our public transit and the major infrastructure that is needed for individuals like me and other people visiting here just today i rode my bicycle from my house for 25 minutes as part of my therapy for my disability i do have a physical disability and once i got to a point where i couldn't go on i stopped at a bus stop to catch the bus and when the bus came it only runs once an hour it was route 15 and when it came the operator did not have masks now i knew that they were supposed to have masks but i was not given the opportunity to ride because i didn't have it and she didn't have it the problem is that i had to get off the bus and i had to wait for 45 minutes standing so as of this moment i'm not going to be able to walk for a couple of days this was a challenge to get here but it was important so that you guys could have an opportunity to put a face to a crisis because i could not get the service i know that you will be awarding a transit operation this evening but in that i'm not sure of all the intricacies of budgets and things but to have benches and seats at the least at these stops is major because i experienced a similar issue back in november trying to get from my house to my daughter's school because she just happened to have had to stay at school a little longer and she had my transportation and i had to stand at a stop in the drizzling rain just to catch a bus and it took about an hour and 15 minutes for my house to get there but because of my physical disability my condition was exacerbated because i had nowhere to sit and it was not covered and i was in my bed for almost two weeks just because of that lack of infrastructure now i know several of you and you know i try to help other people and i try to do things to help myself but as a resident here in greensboro if we won't if we want people to be contributors we at the minimum need to provide certain standards i happen to have a physical limitation but i had the option it did not deter me from getting to work or to care for my child but i could not utilize the system that is in place to provide transportation for me because an operator didn't have what they needed but i could not sit down and that's just a minimum that should have been provided for a citizen to catch the bus thank you thank you so can i ask you um ms mcmillan yes ma'am you said when you got ready to get on the bus the driver didn't have a mask on no the driver had a mask on but and she didn't have the packets that i do know that they provide for when passengers get on to make sure people have them right yes ma'am can we we'll look into that because it is a federal mandate that everybody riding transit has to have a mask on and i apologize for that no thank you that's not being a service but i i think well i'll say what i need to say later but um just trust me and i apologize for that happening thank you let's just at least get some benches and well we will we we understand the need for shelters and benches a lot of times our problems are because it's private property and some property owners will not allow us access and we understand the urgent need and we have to look at our stops maybe and base our stops on where we can provide that service because i agree at least you need some shelter out of the weather so i certainly agree and we know we've been working on that for quite a while as you know right it's good to always bring forth so thank you for your advocacy thank y'all yes um reverend johnson mayor and council members uh it's been a while since i've been here i learned yesterday of the plea of the sanitation workers that they be paid adequately that would include the amount of time that they have been on the job as i was outside at the rally one of the workers shared with me that he had been on the job for 15 years and someone came in and got six to seven thousand dollars a year more than he did so i want to say time matters that they bring the experience they have endured the long days people talked about their roots and how they have to uh work hard to make that work and to fill in for each other so i want to strongly advocate i just learned of this rally yesterday but we stood with the workers several years ago when they were demanding the step process and i want to commend the council for granting that but actually these men have families they have children they have people that depend on them and they don't need to scrape and scrap the whole of their life and then end up with very little so i want to strongly urge this council to sincerely consider matter of fact more than consider make a decision to make the time served count uh it does it works that way in most other places if you've been there for a while and you've done good work people acknowledge that by giving you a pay increase what is it about this council that you don't want to do that and actually it is causing uh de-spiritedness to take place among people who are working very hard i wish i had more time to have listened to them today i'm not altogether versed on the reasons why but whatever they might be doesn't seem to make sense to me why should someone be working for 15 years and have someone come in doing essentially the same work and getting paid so much more this is not fair it's unjust and i want to say to this council that this is another opportunity for you to do the right thing because it's always the right time to do the right thing and if there ever were a time to actually bridge the gap uh between those who have and have not this time is now uh this nation this country is in a terrible situation and i think this council can model something that may have meaning beyond this city pay the workers who have worked a long time they deserve it thank you [Applause] ramon johnson ramon johnson a heavy equipment operator water resources um anybody is uh reverend spoke so eloquently about the step plan um i think it is past time you i think by not implementing the well not putting everybody in the step plan so you guys had non-exempt workers all non-exempt workers need to be in a step plan not just the lower tier workers see me being in the supervisor status but i'm not making that much money but i'm still not in the step plan and i think that that i had told sherlock about is i had somebody that had 23 years and was making the same amount of money as i am i told him to come down the council he was scared of retaliation from from his supervisors about speaking up to that so uh for me i mean i'm here i've been here a bunch of times and i i want to be thankful for even implementing the step plan you guys did and who voted on it i definitely appreciate that but when you don't bring the guys up that's been doing the work for the longest you cause friction in the workplace so you have guys coming in and then you have people doing favors hiring people as at a higher rate more than guys that's been doing the work these guys are training the guys that are making more money than them that's how bad it is now who's going to come down and address this who's going to watch the budget all the way till it gets to the worker that's not responsible you guys it's not responsibility you have to guarantee that employee is going to be treated right then this treatment is started already and you're not going to you can't put a band-aid on you've got gotta go all the way you gotta fix this thing all the way you gotta put some money into it we've been like we've been fighting this for a long time and like i said i wanna be thankful about the step plan um also i'd like to speak about going through the code phase we have every other city in north carolina has gave their workers something for covert we never got nothing from city council for for from it no type of relief how is that even possible that's embarrassment [Applause] we had seven workers on my jobs in the hospital at the same time one worker was forced to retire because he could never come back to work this guy's 27 years old and can't work no more and can't even follow with the city because they claim that it didn't even happen at work when they know it did who's going he's going to watch that who's going to be there to protect that it's embarrassing i like that this is a great city let's get that let's get that down it's a great city because everybody makes it work and you have rivers in here that don't even make that much money and still do a great job better than every other city of north carolina but we need somebody to recognize that thank you i do want to say that we have the step plan on our retreat agenda march 23rd and 24th so we will be talking about it at the retreat some madam mayor can i ask mr city manager though have you met with these individuals not since i started but i do know that we've met with them twice one in november and one in december i know i have with me correspondence between our hr and mr johnson um with regards to the fact that we've committed to cancer that we were going to consider this pay inequity as part of the fy 2223 budget yeah we're going to do that and as part of what may have just said we'll have more details for that but i would be happy to meet with a group yeah i really would like for you to i mean i mean they have been fighting for quite a long time and while we did implement the step plan i wasn't aware that they weren't going to have pay equity either yeah and i hope that i just want to say i'm sorry and i'll cut you off you know but your time your time is up one more thing if you guys don't watch it all the way down till it gets to work it's not going to make it there you can't give people a lump sum of money and think they're going to do the right thing with it right you got to watch the people under you we got to thank you madame yes so if mr city manager if you could do that also i think it's very important um you know because our employees should feel like they're valuable and a couple months ago when we had snow and ice and all of that everybody was up here talking about oh they did a great job clearing the street great job great job great job well great job done by bread so we need to look at that to help them to be able to uh be at the level that they should be in even at other cities across this state and i think i asked for a study some time ago and um i don't make that's happened either as well so i would appreciate if you could do that for me we do thank you thank you mr holston yes i'm madam mayor are we good in our council retreat on the 23rd 24th are we going to have a full and comprehensive review of where we've come from where we are and where we're going when it comes to the step plan yes okay that's the plan yeah sorry mr city manager thank you it is it is on the second day of the retreat i believe it's on the 24th okay thank you and you know maybe you could also outline the coveted benefits that we had i do know that our our employees did get extra days off and they got a five percent premium pay and anything else that might have been included [Music] leroy harston hairston everybody doing my name is leroy harrison i've been with the city for going on five years this uh this gentleman right here step up for a second he was outside he was saying some wonderful things and i just i don't know how this works it's my first time here you guys are going to be seeing me a lot from now on but i want to share my time with this man because his name is not on the list but what i have to say i'm really speaking from no i don't have any notes because it was kind of like last minute for me but what he has right here in his hands is very valuable and i want you i want you guys to hear but i just want to say uh thank you reverend thank you ramon for seeing what you got seeing what you guys said but uh yeah um mine is in regards to covert relief uh just because i've had covet twice and both issues were because of the city and the second time around i had to jump through leaps and bounds to get a check just a paycheck a basic paycheck a regular no extra hours on top of that and i and it and now i'm on departmental leave and i'm having to pay that back how to make that make sense to me i'm a city worker i'm working for the city putting my life on the line and i have to pay that back because i got covered i'm literally taking this home to my my family and i'm having to uh quarantine for my family be away from my daughter for several hours weeks at a time because i come here to put my life on the line to make sure the city is able to flush if um if we could get a follow-up on what mr harston hairston i'm sorry is referring to obviously you can follow up in a memo i'm sorry okay uh yeah um i don't i don't have like i said i don't have much i don't i don't know how much time i have so i just want a lot of spending step up and speaking good evening city council appreciate y'all time for this um i just want to do some show y'all some research since the city said we need numbers um i work for solid waste i've been here since 2004 to now could could you give your name douglas speaker okay and i've seen a lot of changes going around the solid waste and i've never been there in this department and seen so many openings people are trying to crawl and get outstanding problems getting in we can't even get guys to get promoted to come up to the automated side but what i want to show you is if an employee is out of work this is one this is one truck driver's route right and when he's out of work that means each driver on this on this under this supervisor have to pick a color and that's the color we gonna get all right once we get that color we gotta turn around and go get our own rap and that's why the kid that um carlson is getting so many calls about we going to the neighborhood going too fast well they got to understand something we are short we understaff and we work like this all the time all the time dodging cars mailboxes basketball goals people walking and they expect us to do this and the thing is we're not getting paid for we go to any other city and talk to these guys in solid waste how many cans dropped up a day oh we don't three or four hundred cans a day we going home but we dumping 900 to a 1200 a day and that's pushing it we got two roll mechanics that can't keep up with us the shop can't keep up with us so we get two or three trucks go down because we run them so hard they can't fix them because they don't have the manpower in the shop because the guys are quitting in the shop because they're not making money so they said why we're gonna work here this hard and we can go somewhere else and work with the money i mean we share the same story but if you don't like working quit fighting another job well if i didn't have time invested i don't find another job but i'm at the door right now and with cdls i mean with class b cds you can go and get a job anywhere but i choose to work at the city of greensboro i like working with my co-workers i like working for the city but the thing is i don't understand why we can't get paid well we can't get the money that don't make sense if we should we shouldn't have to go through this to try to get the money to pay the drivers people just making above 50 000 a year they ain't got no complaints the ones under thousand dollars we got a complaint and it don't matter we got guys that couldn't work tired because they have to leave the work leave work at the city and go to work part-time jobs and then they come back to work the next day we can't get no work out of them because they're so tired have an accident sleeping can't you know they can't get it together so you know the super bowl they want to push it because it's not their fault it's the whole system itself if you got a whole bunch of power in one area and you don't know how to use it and trying to be a leader i ain't gonna follow you y'all can't follow each other how you special how you expect for your co-workers and your congress to follow you and y'all can't get along and follow each other everybody have their own opinion about something everything is done different i want to do it this way and do it that way thank you but we need to fix it thank you eric rivera if you start my clock i'd like to congratulate myself on your new job we're gonna miss you i'm here to um talk to you tonight about transparency and the very fine line between legal and ethical it seems that the current trend focuses on legal technicalities instead of the basic premise of what is right for the many instead of what is profitable for the few the first topic i'd like to address is um public record request the law states that the city needs to respond within a reasonable amount of time well i have a few requests out there regarding matt brown and the coliseum some of them since august of 2021 even by city standards six months on existing public record is definitely not reasonable the second thing i'd like to talk to you about is the very very stealth request for proposal regarding the management of the downtown business improvement district which was initiated and awarded a year ago the state mandates three things from you the first one is to obtain input from stakeholders and here astonishingly the city actually has dgi a competitor in this rfp to request input from stakeholders it's kind of like having zimmerman and methane doing a survey on the benefit of having a grocery store in a food desert or while trying to hijack that same parking lot it's probably legal but definitely not ethical the second thing that the state mandates is that you use a bid process and unlike the previous ifps which was managed by the planning department and widely publicized this one was managed by the finance department and sent through the procurement website mind you you have to be a registered user to be able to get those email that being said i'm told that the finance department sent out 2 000 emails and received three responses two were from people thanking you for the consideration but this ifp had nothing to do with their core competencies and there was one enthusiastic response and of course it was zack mercedes of dgi the last thing finally that the state mandates is um a two weeks publication and advertisement of a public hearing and hey i'm glad that you decided to support the peacemaker but i have to ask how was the public hearing did anyone show up the answer is yes one person showed up mr matheny ready to go almost like he knew something no one else knew like the fact that it was actually a public hearing so that being said some of you allowed and have taken pawn into too many deals outside of the public eye and all i can tell you is that if the public can know about it chances are you shouldn't be doing it thank you for your time mr bill marshburn um bill marshburn 4693 long valley road we live in a time fluid situation i've just pinned this a little hard to read the revelations of moderna and pfizer documents from court actions is even somewhat mentioned in mainstream media in the past week or so our so-called county health department will have to deal with that the ukraine another tragic war in our times my age many of you up there one ongoing for eight years however to call it an invasion is not exactly proper putin outlined several weeks ago in great detail what russia's intentions are the same ones he had negotiated and were accepted with the deposed president in 2014 no nato or nuclear weapons in ukraine george soros has publicly stated he is responsible for the overthrow of the democratically elected president and the installation of the present one russia is not going in for plunder to take resources but to secure its safety maybe you would call maybe we could call it a police action a term we should be familiar with in fact it is a civil war with russia and russian intervention the governor of north carolina has a long list of sanctions against russia all rather curious no hammer and sickle emblems well that's the flag of the defunct soviet union the russian flag is white blue and red these are vertical white blue and red stripes our flag is of course red white and blue all sanctions will hurt all the world's people prolonging the hostilities the west is responsible for the troubles in ukraine the crimea since the 1990s clinton bombing regime senators and representatives have even spoken out to russia threatening among other things a nuclear first strike so mr putin has now targeted coded target coded u.s targets we have had an agreement previously to mutually not target each other this is equivalent to our military's staging posturing right before defcon 1. any questions any answers well something to think about thank you council thank you our next speaker is philip marsh okay excuse us one second guys city staff has gone rogue i think it has been a horrible mistake in your last um uh retreat in four years ago when you let city staff lead we've seen that city staff has almost ran this city into the ground and so i would like to hear from mrs becker about karen kitzmiller taking over this project and doing a horrible job with it and see what is the status of this and when can we deliver on this project for predominantly black citizens that want art in their communities too and ms therm has failed them and so you want black votes but you can't do what black people want you to do uh so again if we can get a follow-up from mr um decker and mrs thurm to this matter so i can take this information back to the community if we could get an update if we could get a memo by the end of the week really on the status of all those projects and also i know that we did need to get ncdot approvals have we started that process where are we um maybe we can get the for the record for that and i'd like to know thing um i just want to say for the record for the ncdot thing i had a liaison with ncdot uh miss karen kicks miller who is not a tedx speaker on creative projects i am decided that she knew best and that's why this i've been told that this project has been um horribly administrated but again to your point excuse me for um energetic that's all right i want to know why the length of why it's been this length of time as well when we get the report and i see that we've got a lot of summer 2022 projects on this list it would and we've seen one january 2022 to see what the status of those are as well thank you very much louis medina hello my name is los medina i'm here to represent the working classes in the households organizing alliance so the city finally settled with the smith family after three years of struggle i think um we should take a moment as citizens of greensboro to uh clarify for ourselves if we think that's justice obviously is not they're all eight officers still have their job all the eight officers killed marcus smith still have their jobs seven of which have raises the city council um every member still has their seats uh none of them have admitted any wrongdoing even though they spent their time sweeping under the rug except for i mean michelle kennedy who is now making six figures kicking people out of their homes i think right that's her job i want to uh kind of understand take a second to understand why we can't get justice right what would constant and then maybe from that we can clarify what would constitute justice so here's the serious questions what is a boss a boss is someone who gets rich by taking credit of your work what is a landlord a landlord is someone who makes money sitting on his couch while you sit on your couch what is a cop you know what a cop is a cop is someone who breaks strikes brutalizes people breaks up unions kicks you out when you need to be evicted and the question is a politician a politician is someone who lies for all three we can't take this justice my opinion i mean y'all could have erected a 100-foot statue of marcus smith in the middle of city and it still would have been justice right we need a different type of justice we see what their justice amounts to we still got what 275 cases of hog tying that haven't been addressed you think that's going to get swept under the rug i don't think so we need a different kind of justice right we need our kind of justice a people's kind of justice a racial justice a housing justice an economic justice working class justice as you can see that there was a union here today to ask for something of that justice i don't think that's enough but if i were you i would concede to them because the truth is none of the conditions that had marcus smith killed that night the conditions i put him on the street in the first place and the racial psychological disposition of the police in our nation has been changed period and for there to be justice of any kind those things would have to change a lot thank you thank you um our last speaker is dell stone if i've missed anybody please let gary know otherwise she will be our last speaker hey friends i'm del stone i'm a greensboro resident i'm also an organizer with the community organization whoa and tonight i'm here in solidarity with city workers you spoke earlier and i'm going to try to make this very clear i'm here for one reason workers deserve fair pay and with all due respect to everyone in this chamber we're dealing with some serious incompetence here four months ago workers from the departments of city utilities and water resources were here and they were speaking and they're addressing the way that they are paid most of those workers who are here trying to speak end up having to leave because the mayor left the chief of police grandstand for two hours and those workers have to work in the morning so tonight they we are here again we're here to address what was apparently very confusing to the council the fact that the city implemented a pay plan which is not recognized years of service time on the job this is longevity pay and it matters the greensboro city workers did win historic victory in eliminating merit only raises and establishing a step they play in the first place and we recognize that that is important at the same time it was a minor reform and what really what it showed was that workers do have power when they come together and we want to exercise that power further council did vote for a seppay plan meaning that they will make pay increases predictable instead of based on a boss's choice but the pay plan is not retroactive which is key workers who have been with the city for decades can still make the same as a new hire some workers in the city are making as little as 30 000 or a little above 30 000 a year they can't even afford to live in this city and i think that is unacceptable we should pay workers what they deserve because they are the people who make this city run i know city council was confused about the complaints that city workers brought forward in november and today i'm going to try to lay it out simply it's not really my thing but i'm trying to lay it out simply everyone who has interest in this city running has interest in these workers being paid what they are worth the six the excuses that you give for what you pay workers less than they're worth are actually they're frustrating but they're kind of hilarious i know there was one comment from one council member who said that this pay plan based off of actual time on the job instead of merit would encourage mediocrity had to take a deep breath when i heard that because mediocrity does not seem to be something that city council is worried about when we bring these concerns to city council and we actually bring forward the concerns that city workers do not get the p pay that they deserve on the job and we are met with confusion about the fact that council did not even understand the play plan that they had voted for we have to really question whose mediocrity is that issue here workers are serious they're fed up and so are we all and you can pretend that you don't hear us or you can act like you don't understand but if that's the truth that just brings me back to my final point there's incompetence on display here and if you continue to treat workers this way the real concern is that you will not have workers for the city thank you thank you i believe that that is our last speaker okay we will move on to um our consent agenda items g1 through g8 will be added moved by mr holston seconded by mrs johnson council please vote and we do need to um confirm that by voice vote as well mrs hoffman mrs hoffman okay we'll come back mr holston there she is yes dr wells yeah mrs johnson i am a yes mr outling yes mrs sturm yes this is hightower mr hoffman yes and yes i mean yes and that passes eight to zero um we will now move on to the business portion of our agenda we will take items um i1 and i2 together item i1 is a resolution approving bid and authorizing contract in the award in the amount of four million two hundred thousand five hundred dollars with eco flow for household hazardous waste disposal and item 1.5.2 is an ordinance amending fiscal year 2021 22 general fund budget in the amount of 350 000. an item that was a motion for i one second and that was moved i think by mrs thurm seconded by mr holston council please vote um we also need to move in second on the screen um just to confirm mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes dr wales yes mayor pro tem yes i'm yes mr outling yes mrs thirm yes and mrs hightower yes that passes eight to zero um can we have a motion in a second on ip2 moved by dr wells seconded by mrs johnson council please vote um mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes dr wells mayor pro-tem imes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower yes that passes eight to zero we'll now move to item i point three which is a resolution authorizing award of transit services contract in the amount of 122 million six hundred ninety four thousand eight hundred and seventy seven dollars with retp dev usa inc and i did ask for a brief presentation so that people watching at home would understand what this is and we did have a work session on it last week and after that i moved that okay and now second all right so um it will be high tower johnson good evening madam mayor and members of council i'm hannah cochran the director of transportation and i'll be happy to present this very brief overview of this contract for public transportation services so last summer keolis north america who is gta's current provider provided us notice that they would not be executing the first year extension on their three-year contract that contract ends on june the 30th staff then began working on uh a new rfp in conjunction with the city attorney's office outside council and our procurement services here inside the city to release that in october of 2021 in january the city received four responsive proposals that you can see listed here on the slide rfp and the selection process followed fta guidance for procurement to ensure both a full and open competition fta best practices informed every aspect of the rfp development and review process some of which those are shown here on the slide the committee completed individual reviews virtual interviews with all the proposers and reference checks between january 20th and february 16th of this year i'd really like to thank our procurement services as well as our committee members that was made up of city staff transit advisory commission members and outside trade transit agency representatives for their assistance in supporting this very important process this rfp is being awarded on a best value approach which considers both the technical proposal of services in addition to the cost of those services the committee recommends award to ratpdev for a five-year contract totaling just over 122 million dollars if approved staff will begin execution of both the startup contract and the service contract that includes relevant performance metrics as outlined in the request for proposals that's all i have i'm happy to answer any questions that council might have any questions for mrs cochran i believe that sharon moved it and it was seconded by mrs johnson did you say you had a comment or a question well i i don't have any questions um but i do have a comment um do you want to vote on this first let me make the comment after all well your comment might change someone's mind i don't think it we okay but what i would like to say um first of all thank you uh miss cockburn thank you to your staff for the last three years they have struggled they have done a yeoman's job of trying to keep this transit system going and provide excellent service in spite of the many barriers and obstacles that they have faced and i have heard from many um riders who have been concerned about our system and that we did not care about the rider and how they got around and that is just not true however it is because of many of the handicaps that we were encountering that didn't allow us to provide the service that we need and with change of the contract and the approval of this this will make a difference as i wanted to say earlier to the lady who came and spoke that this should be a better approach um there should be masks on bus there should be drivers that i think that would be more pleasant more pleasing um because you're right when you come to work you want to get paid um you want to feel value and you want there's good morale and in the past three years it's not been that way um and what you all and your staff have endured i'm telling you appreciate it more than you know i'm the liaison i attend all the gtac meetings i've heard from the public many times and so i think this contract is necessary um i'm very hopeful um that it will help us achieve this goal i know that the city manager who is big on transportation we're looking forward to doing some creative things and having a partner in that regard um where you're right it's the best value it's not a lowest price and we've never recovered from it being selected as a low price we can't lowball everything we have to put investment in our transit system um and i'm expecting this one uh this time around i think the mistakes that we made before and that have been made some of the stuff that happened previous we caught those mistakes and they will not i'm sure not happen again um so thank you um miss scotland for seeing this process through and thank you to bruce and the staff only seven staff members over here people don't even realize that the gta staff is very smart but they've done a great job and i appreciate that as well and to this election committee and the transit um people that participated in this process thank you no more complaints i pray any other comments um counsel please vote mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes dr wells yes mayor pro tem yes i'm a yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes this is hightower yes i do want to say i don't remember the exact amount you know we worry about making sure that people are paid a livable wage and we heard from some city workers earlier um i believe the average wage for the bus operators was forty seven thousand it was in the high forties um twenty eight something per hour yes it was it was twenty eight dollars and change per hour i think that's pretty yeah impressive proposed yes ways yes so that's plus benefits mayor because all that factored into that too um because that's something that um our previous employees just had bare minimum benefits so i think it's important and that passes eight to zero um i am going to move item i8 up with um four and five but i'm going to read them together resolution establishing a mass housing displacement program and authorizing two hundred thousand um fund services item i.5 ordinance to approve funding for mass house housing displacement program in the amount of two hundred thousand and i point eight a resolution to authorized contract in the amount of two hundred thousand with greensboro housing coalition for mass housing displacement and i do i move this this was something i'm very and i know most of us are very concerned about given what we've had to deal with um it may not happen every year it may not happen every two or three years but when it happens it's devastating and so we need something in place so that we can can give some positive response and take care of our citizens and i do want to say it has to be for low and moderate income residents um mr holston i think you this is a quick question uh and uh mayor pro tem which item are you moving are you moving all three are just no just four we do one at a time i know we have to come back for you on eight so we have a motion by mrs johnson do i have a second second seconded by mr holston um council please vote mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes dr wells yes absolutely yes mr outland yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower yes and that passes eight to zero now i need a motion for ip5 second moved by dr wells seconded by mrs johnson council please vote mrs hoffman i think i heard a yes in there yeah um mr holstein yes yes mrs johnson yes i'm a yes mr outling yes this is stern yes and mrs hightower yes and that passes eight to zero mr holston um do you need to recuse from i point eight being on the board on i8 because of my uh status as vice chair member of the executive committee and the finance committee i asked to recuse myself of the greensboro housing coalition i dr wells yes yes mrs johnson yes this is therm yes and mrs hightower yes okay that passes seven to zero now we need a vitamin moved by mrs johnson second second by mrs thurm um council please vote um mrs hoffman yes um dr wales your pro tem yes i'm a yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and mrs hightower yes and that passes seven to zero um now we move on to items let's see um i point six and i point seven 5.6 is a resolution to contract with family service of the piedmont to provide home buyer education and housing counseling for housing connect gso program in the amount of 200 000 and item 1.7 i.7 resolution to contract with family service of the piedmont for homebuyer program administration services for the housing connect gso program in the amount of 200 000. so madam mayor i moved to deny i6 um the staff recommendation um of accepting uh this service um i believe there was some flaws in the process and process was circumvented um in various ways and there were some underlying concerns here um and so i moved yeah to the i6 and i7 as well okay um any any comments okay so we i'd be interested to hear if councilman hightower is willing to expand on that some of the deficiencies and underlying flaws that might be helpful in i coming to a position on item one of my primary concerns is that the letter of award went out prior to the council accepting or denying this contract and i've never known that just occur in the past that a letter of award goes out to a vendor saying you've received it and yet it's a council item action so i'm very concerned that the process was circumvented in that regard and i think that's the flaw that we need to address mr outland sure that's that's all i don't know if staff would like to address that point so there was a letter of award that went out to family services the piedmont and it was an anticipatory we're looking forward to working with you is basically how it was worded the facts of that situation are that this this particular letter was one that had been used by the department for some time and it was not a document that i was familiar with nor did i know that it had gone out so as soon as that was brought to my attention we've gone back and revamped what that notification letter reads to indicate that your item is being brought to city council so that was a departmental error but one that was not known and as soon as we were made aware of that we've corrected that issue director kennedy a good question if i may it was family service of the piedmont the only organization that received that letter or was it just a generic letter with for all my understanding when i approached staff to inquire the status of the letters it was a standard form they've been used for some time by the department it goes to whichever organization staff is making the recommendation for so it's assumed typically these are not matters that are very contentious and so it was just something that had been used departmentally but we've made that correction that it now indicates that your item is being brought to city council for decision thank you mr outling does the award letter affect the scoring or the applications no that's that's sent at the completion of the staff recommendation portion once scoring has been finalized okay so irrespective of the timing of the letter being sent that doesn't have an impact on staff's recommendation no it has nothing to do with the process mr sir well i was just gonna follow up councilman outlinks comments that i understand and i agree with you on the concern of the timing of that and the error of sending something out that we're voting on prior to the vote however that doesn't impact the quality or the rfp that went that was scored or the quality of the analysis that went into it and therefore i really see a reason not to support the staff on their recommendation um i think quite a bit of time was was spent on this and invested in this when i followed up with staff to inquire why exactly items were scored the way they were and what the impact of that was i was very satisfied that it was scored accurately from their viewpoint and i trust the staff to do their job just as we trusted the staff and the committee to do their job on the transit rfp i view this like we do in multiple rfps that and we ask professional staff to do the analysis that quite frankly i don't have all the information and all the skills and all the knowledge especially when it comes to federal government and keeping up with the records etc etc that the staff has and you know and as far as i'm concerned yes that process was flawed but that does not change the results of the rfp and the results of the analysis that went into it so i will support the items on the agenda if we're voting to not accept it then i will be opposed to that um mrs hoffman and then i have a comment i i too will vote to support the staff recommendation here uh apparently three organizations responded to the rfp uh clearly the the scoring indicated uh one two and three they went these these organizations then had to come back and make a second presentation and the scoring didn't change so i i will be supporting staff recommendation on this agenda item tonight so you know i think this is a very difficult discussion decision because we're we're talking about two really quality organizations um when this first came on the agenda in december i had questions about it because i work very closely some of us on council work closer than others when it comes to housing and with the housing providers and quite frankly i was shocked at the ranking knowing firsthand the amount of work that goes into both of those the the counseling and the down payment assistance and the down payment assistance is something that that only one of those organizations has done and quite frankly i'm not willing to switch horses midstream right now because they are unqualified success prior to them taking over the program there were 12 down payment assistance grants that came out of the city now there are over 903 years and that takes into consideration the low housing inventory that we have in rising prices and covid and i think that they have done an outstanding job after the tornado they uh greensboro housing consultants came up with along with city staff city staff is very integral in all of this it's not just greensboro housing consultants but it was to do to change our our renters to homeowners and it was the 100 home initiative and we have just absolutely knocked that out of the park being a realtor i know how closely that housing consultants group works with the real estate community and just two weeks ago she had a zoom meeting for training people and there were over 114 people on it some lenders and some realtors and i think she does an amazing outreach she actually exceeds what the contract originally said that she's doing more trainings than was originally asked for so i really don't understand the scoring because i know what i know and it's kind of the way i felt with united healthcare when we had to reject staff's um recommendation and keep united healthcare there have been other times when we have um changed our minds or actually thrown out all beds um so this is not something that i think we're doing lively it's something that you know there was a lot of research and knowledge and you know it it's tough we have a lot of momentum right now we know that we want to get people in housing i don't know why we would switch the supplier at this point um and so many can i speak to miss thurm's comment well yeah but i was just whenever you finished playing you know and i i think that there were some basic misunderstandings when when there was some and having i know five of us watched some of the oral um presentations we observed them and it seemed to me that there was just a misunderstanding of what all of the projects were not everybody on the panel was from neighborhood development and you know there are a lot of different initials being thrown around and i think that there was a misunderstanding on the capability of what the organizations were talking about so i feel really firm that we should take a look at this again and include what we've talked about i know michelle is already working on it as far as including worse workforce housing which would include city city employees similar to the to the employees who spoke here earlier today and make sure that when we do the take-home car policy that there are police officers living in our neighborhood so they can take them home and fire department and we were going to also work with the school system um you know which would be another benefit to um to our teachers so i think that this is a good opportunity for us to just pause and take a more comprehensive look at the program absolutely but but let me say this too um to ms darms comment you're absolutely right staff recommended um the transit contract yes they did and we took it but you know there's something called experience you can have a positive experience you can have a negative experience transit had a negative experience and therefore it was time to make a change staff saw that but we have had positive experiences in this housing process down payment assistance it has impacted east greensburg to the tune of 68 of new homeowners bringing generational wealth to this community and when you see positive experiences you have to capitalize on it and build on that and that's important it's important as we talk about abandoned houses trying to get them back in circulation so people can buy them it's important to leave your child something when you pass on to another life that's important so this has been a positive experience when the tornado hit us in 2018 we didn't know how we were going to recover and it was a positive recovery experience that made people feel like their community was going to still continue to thrive so you have to look at that and evaluate that and you have to see also who's there and who's not there who's missing and who is there who's present who's actively a part of something and i'm just not willing to sacrifice that positive experience for my community to be very honest so the process was very concerning because i think we circumvented the process in such a manner that it created this problem and i would like to see us to redo this again and look at this maybe take the pause re-look at everything and re-evaluate it i think also with transit the selection committee was important it was people who understood transit same thing needs to happen perhaps in this regard um to really understand the dynamic of what you're trying to accomplish it is important i i am still a no i've still made the motion to deny i just i just want to say i think it's important to say that you're right it does matter that you have experts evaluating the process and because i will always stand behind the work of my staff it's important to know that this evaluation team was made up of a cpa who's with the neighborhood development department who oversees this grant it was made up of a member of the neighborhood development department who used to underwrite these loans for the city and it was made up of our federal compliance officer and then a member of the mwbe staff so to that end just in defense of my staff they are experts in this field mr ellen mr outling the mr holston well i i certainly agree that if there are defects with a request for proposal you know the council should evaluate that potentially reject it you know if there's an issue there and so kind of my follow-up questions are about the rfp which isn't included with the agenda materials uh miss kennedy how long has the city been offering or providing the services that are the subject of these contracts for the combined contracts we've been providing both services since 2018. um there at one point there was just down payment assistance and not the loan underwriting portion of it but they've been combined since 2018 and the reason we had to put this rfp back out for bid was because we were out of compliance with re-bidding regulations so it it is something we have to do um so that was the reason that the there was a renewal rfp okay so for this particular rfp now how does it compare to the rfps previous this rfp looks exactly the same or with minor changes that have to do with programmatic changes since 2018 um it except for that it looks the same as the rfp from 2018. okay so before the most recent rfp was issued so on the prior contract where there was a previous rfp that was identical were any issues raised about that rfp not to my knowledge before this contract was i guess preliminarily awarded to one of the three applicants were any issues raised with the rfp before that time not to my knowledge no so um i'm not sure what you mean raised with rfp because i know that when we when we read the award and looked at the rfps there are some of us who actually read all three rfps that there there was concern um and i believe the first rfp was the very first respectfully i was i was just asking miss kennedy and if i could finish out my questions i thought you had yeah um miss candy what defects do you perceive in the rfp that doesn't capture kind of the work that your department is doing in this regard in the rfp from this year yeah uh so this is in all fairness this is an rfp that i inherited it was already in process when i came on board i would have likely if i were producing this rfp for the first time have included a public service component outside that the standard parameters of the rfp have no deficiencies okay we could enhance it but on its face it's appropriate and certainly you're you know certainly a an expert on this topic to what extent is that a material significant defect or area that you would like to see improvement such that you would perhaps otherwise suggest that the council not accept stats recommendation i'm trying to understand kind of your statement that it's an area that you would like to see differently but the recommendation is for staff to for us to accept staff's recommendations i'm trying to balance those as it relates to the way the rfp was written and presented in the contents of the rfp there are no deficiencies in that process okay thank you except mr holston very quick question for uh mr city attorney relative to the preliminary award letter is council bound by that no okay thank you you know let me say that when you know i didn't really want to get in the weeds but when we looked at the rfps there was a question in the housing consultants group it would the it was actually said in the write-up that they only worked with one lender and that the rfp said that you had to work with more than one lender and they actually worked with six lenders and that i think is a big problem that the um that the um evaluation committee seemed to think they were working with one the one bank that they were working with pinnacle i believe has their own down payment assistance program and there were times that this group housing consultants group was actually able to leverage both so that down payment assistance could come from the city and you could also get some from pinnacle and that was something that they um that was unique to greensboro housing consultants that um they had that relationship with pinnacle that could really benefit um could benefit our down payment assistance as well there were there were other items where it said that they were not um providing any one-on-one um consultation and that was just that was just wrong so when i you looked at the grading criteria it looked like there were a lot of things that were were missed and i could go on because i did send a memo of my concerns on what i saw so i do think that the process was flawed and i think it would be good to start over and includes that work workforce housing when there when there is that when they say that there were that housing consultant groups was just working with one lender when clearly that isn't true um it also um you know housing consultants group help us helped us rewrite um how we were doing down payment assistance um after i think it was after the tornado and there was some um they basically said that she had misrepresented it that she didn't revamp it she revised it with city staff and so i don't want to get into the weeds on this stuff but when you're asking about why i would want to reject something i think because it is there is an issue with the process and the way it was graded and um i don't think it reflects the quality of the um applications dr wells i don't have a lot to say about it except when i listened to we listened to the interview you know on zoom and i thought about the difference in experience and presentation the presentation was done very well i thought and i all of the the slide deck and all of that it's good but the other person talked from experience now activities are all right but it's results you want when they've done 900 houses when they start with starting with a goal of 100 and they've done 900 so i think that was something that caused me to have a pause one of the things are you done i'm sorry one of the things and i agree with a lot of what the mayor said but one of the things that's important for us to remember whether we have a great we have great organization this is a great organization that have to do with it consistency has is the is the issue and we need to be consistently consistent if we have rejected others because they have not followed the directions and protocol then we ought to do it across the board and then nobody can say well they were um biased and we've gotten that before so we need to be consistent yeah mr holston yes uh relative to the uh the thought of uh of the staff recommendation uh many of us here on council have have heard staff present the planning staff for instance uh i is serving on the previous uh planning and zoning commission and also the board of adjustment staff comes in with staff recommendations and there are times that we accept those recommendations then there are times that we do not accept those recommendations based upon the information that we have in front of us and i think this is one of those situations that uh we listen to the staff recommendation and we make uh the very best decision that we can make as council as the stewards of uh mr city attorney has shared that the preliminary award letter isn't binding and so therefore uh it is uh incumbent upon us as the stewards uh in the roles that we are in council to make the very best decision that we can and i believe that that's what we're doing now and this this discussion is great staff is great and we have to very make the very best decision that we possibly can at this time with the information we have right call a question so we do have a motion on the floor to deny um counsel so yes would be to deny and that is this is for the um i point six yes this is mrs hoffman no mr holston yes um dr wells mrs johnson yes i am yes um mr altman no um mrs therm no and mrs hightower yes so to deny passes five to three and now we have item number i point seven six more six move six that will say we got seven sorry yes no um there were three three no's um no justin didn't you say yes oh so i beg your pardon okay okay you're right i beat your party thank you i thought i heard him say something um item one point i point seven moved it uh um okay um so that was moved by mrs hightower seconded by dr wells um mrs hoffman yes so this is to deny i'm sorry this is to deny yes so this is to deny the awarding of the contract correct yeah correct that is correct then i'm voting no of course sorry okay mr hulston yes dr wales mrs johnson yes yes mr outling no um mrs thurm no and mrs hightower yes that passes um five to three so that is the um that is the end of our written agenda i do want to take a couple minutes to recognize miss mrs sowell she's had two big things happen and one was her doctorate which was real exciting [Music] and um and of course there was an announcement i believe it was uh yesterday um regarding your new position as county manager in durham and we really wish you the best we work very closely with durham so i know that our paths will will cross a lot especially on the county level and in durham most of the county is the city so i know that we'll have a lot of things to continue talking about and so we're really happy for you on this great move but we're sad for ourselves that um that you're leaving us but you're not going that far i just want to thank you for all you've done and your follow-up and you're getting back with people very quickly and your professionalism and your brilliance i wish you well i wish you the best god bless you thank you and director seoul i want to say uh it's only been a short time for me with you but but i've appreciated your experience but also your passion uh for everything that you touched everything that you you've done here and i know that the durham county is going to be the beneficiary of that and we're going to miss you thank you for all you wanted us we will miss you but wish you the best we know you do a good job i bless you mrs thurm i just want to thank you as well and wish you the best dr soul um you know i really appreciate the fact that you're always willing to step up that you'll go and sit with me in people's living rooms to work on problems and solutions to their problems and brainstorm and i appreciate all that you've done for greensboro for the citizens of greensboro and for me so thank you and i wish you all the best so congratulations doctor so well uh i hope you i know you'll do well in durham i'm not worried about that going to d.c durham county um so um we'll see you down the road it's not goodbyes just see you later and um derma they'll do well with you down there so congratulations we'll miss you so congratulations and we'll look forward we'll be we'll be watching you in the newspapers and and i know that you'll be rooting for us too so that's that's good when we can expand our relationships like that um boards and commissions mrs hoffman uh i have none thank you mayor mr holston i have none tonight dr wales john i've known mr outland done this evening i have none this evening but i do want to let folks that may be watching know that um district five has a opening in the community sustainability and i am looking for folks to fill that slot so if there's anybody out there from district five give me a call send send in an interest form thank you thank you um mrs hightower boards and commissions yes i have two um first i want to say congratulations to my good friend frankie jones who is now going to fill the seat of my wonderful departed friend commissioner carolyn coleman and so he has resigned from the planning and zoning and so i would like to appoint erica glass attorney erica glass to that seat and um is she already in the database she's already in the database okay she she was in the data bank okay is there a second second um all in favor say aye aye opposed that passes eight to zero and then i'd like to appoint patricia and i'm gonna try to get it right uh where's nicos wiznicki yeah where's nick it's nesky that's it i had to spell it out but patricia who lives over in glenwood to a participatory budget to replace allen jones who had not been attended and she's excited about that thank you um all in favor say i i opposed that passes um unanimously council comments mrs mayor pro tem oh boy um yeah i did i spoke for black history month sunday and enjoyed the young people especially that were there um i used to get asked to speak 15 times so i guess with kovic it could cut down a whole lot but it was it was an enjoyable occasion and the mayor and um dr wells and i went to a wonderful 80th birthday did we talk about that last time um celebration for nicholas bright who has given so much to the city in the way of um designing programs for young people to improve their lives and so we enjoyed that very much the mayor spoke beautifully and i did okay and it's that way and goldie did great yeah so we enjoyed being there with him and celebrating his 80th birthday he was he's a great citizen of greensboro well i think one of the most fun part of that was when um the kids that he had mentored who are now in their 50s came back and did um dance and did uh you know those steps show after all these years could still do it um they were getting a little slow there at the end but that was because they said a few decades ago they didn't end up in intensive care but they are fine it was really great to see the love and admiration that was there um mr holston uh nothing tonight okay this is hightower yeah i have a couple of concerns um one is a concern you know a few months ago and i know everybody's excited about toyota i get it um but in in what we did a few months ago we approved the design bill process however there is no minority participation and i need to look at to that because there's no need to celebrate something that we think is going to help people and it doesn't help the very people we're talking about helping and to improving their lives and so while we can't control the randolph county side we certainly can control our side and i know this is the water line um project initially this is building the tower um so i really would like for us to do a little bit more and dig into that a little bit more because i've heard from some who said they also got put off of the project because they claimed they didn't have experience yet they have experience and they've done other projects so i really would like for us to look a little bit more closely at that um so we can make sure that all people uh have opportunity but particularly the minorities who typically aren't at the table and so we i'd like to see where we can get with that i also have asked for in the past a pace study um and i talked about that pace study back when uh field ops and water resources came before and i asked those questions around how we looked at that and i was told yeah we have but apparently listening tonight um i think we need to do a little bit more looking at that um and to become more equitable um and pay less be honest people come to work to get paid um and the people that do the dirty work i mean all work is you know important that our city does but um i heard the passion and the gentleman tonight who talked about um the routes and the routes they have to cover and we keep annexing property in the city which is a great thing but if if we're stretching the rubber band to the point that they're not being able to pick up all the cans then i think we're doing a disservice to those who are annexing into those we expect to do the services especially when the pay is not equitable um so really would like for us to get further details on that and then help let's invest in the field ops department we need to put some money in that area and in that department so i really would like for us to do that um and maybe come back at the retreat and talk about that um and see where we are we have to commit to invest in certain areas so i really would like us to do that um and and couple that too with whatever i think the mayor mentioned earlier about covet relief um i know that one municipality took some of their arp money and um maybe gave like a little stipend to all the employees um you know 500 or something like that not a lot but it's a thank you and so i would like us to look at that and i think i talked to mr davis about it once before what did that look like what does that cost and i don't think it was a lot um you know so uh i would like us to really consider that and let's see how we can do that to uh for our employees thank you dr wells i i had a chance on last um tuesday was to go over to print works meals and they dedicated their club room to the memory of josephine boyd bradley and she was the first african-american student to attend then greensboro high school is now grinsley high school so that was a nice experience her daughter was there and the clubhouse has a nice mural on wall with her picture i've read some of the the um ordeal of going through being the only black person in the high school she left dudley in 10th grade but she was very smart and was able to end um being the top 10 of her class so she went on to become an educator uh and then on thursday i want to invite all of you who are in northeast greensboro to come to the concerned citizens meeting it will be a virtual meeting you can find the zoom meeting on the facebook page on my facebook page both of them so we'd like for all of you to come to to hear things that are going on in the community to voice your concerns and we will be a better community as if we as neighbors get together and share and learn from each other thank you mr oatley yes thank you two items this evening first and foremost um a heartfelt congratulations to miss silwell on her appointment as an ex-county manager for durham county certainly greensboro's loss is durham county's gain but we're all excited that you're still staying in north carolina i have been remarkably impressed by you by your time as an assistant city manager a couple of things really stand out that i think are exceptional first your willingness to provide information and share with everyone whether it's a council member whether it's a member of the public irrespective of ways in which that information might be received or characterized um it's really something i think is valuable in government that transparency and sharing information and you did that superbly and very consistently second you are a real problem solver and you know certainly the council and the city does a lot of things that are apparent to the public and meetings such as this one but by way of example i remember one situation in which a very large organization was very concerned about whether or not it would be able to be in a building um because of permitting that was happening in that building and you're talking about gosh probably hundreds of millions of dollars that they were concerned about losing and you and your team were organized prepared uh making sure that the processes were such that everything that should operate well in fact operated well and also providing that reassurance to that organization which um is something that the public may not ever get a preview or a view into but it's really significant and it leaves a tremendous legacy of your work and so congratulations to you and thanks for your contribution to the city uh second i would be interested for an update on american rescue plan recommendations it was my understanding that the council would get recommendations at the end of february and so i'm curious as to what the timeline might be for recommendations from staff because obviously that affects when the city might make expenditures and if there's no update that could be provided now if it could be provided subsequent to this meeting but soon that would be welcome councilman ali i'll try to speak to that we staff has completed its preliminary reviews we did extend the process towards the very end of the month uh just to help with the sheer number of of recommendations so i'm i'm working with manager now to go through that that first cut and we'll be sharing it with you i know in early march great thank you much mrs hoffman oh thank you very much mayor um i would really like to um extend my best wishes and congratulations to mrs samwell on her appointment as the next county manager in durham um i have particularly enjoyed working with you and two things stand out i think you always have a sense of urgency uh when it came to um getting things done and uh and then secondly i felt that you were really always very creative in terms of how we could accomplish something um sometimes you you you really just have to figure out out a way to get good things done and and i felt that you were always able to do that with um with the areas of the city that you had responsibility for um and then secondly um we had our monthly um abc board meeting last week and um really looked at our financials for the first half of the year and um really just i did a quick calculation and i think probably if we if sales stay on track for the remainder of this fiscal year the uh contribution that the abc board will make to the city of greensboro's uh general fund will be somewhere between eight and million eight and nine million dollars that's a significant contribution uh to the city of greensboro and i would really like for us to keep that in mind as you know we continue to hear discussions about privatization and there are many reasons i think to object to privatization uh one of them being the significant financial contribution of this board and this business to the city of green tomorrow thank you and i also want to thank you for your service on that board you have really been engaged and kept us on top of things for a long time as our liaison to the abc board um mrs thurm yes just a couple of things for those that may have missed it today we had a great announcement about procter and gamble who decided to expand their presence in greensboro with over 100 million dollars investment 46 jobs and i think the average wage was 64 000 um it's exciting that they're expanding here it's they've been here it seems like forever but they are a great corporate citizen and we're very excited that they chose to expand in greensboro only place that makes pepto-bismol in the world that's right we make the pepto-bismol for the world there you go that's quite the state yeah um the other thing is i just want to acknowledge the um what's going on in ukraine and the tragedy there and just say that um i was pleased that greensboro had an outpouring of support for ukraine this weekend unfortunately because of my limitations physically i wasn't able to participate but my heart was with those folks and as a daughter of our granddaughter of first generation immigrants leaving the land that you grew up with and the language that you speak and everything about that situation is just horrendous um and i wish for peace well said well said that's kind of a hard act to follow but i'm going to give it a shot um we uh i know that goldie and um isa and i visa who's kind of the the 10th council person at times um we're at mother standing against gun violence that was in the plaza on saturday and it was a it was a really nice rally um there were many people from our police department who were there and people from the community uh really to talk about solutions to um to the violence in our community and the homicides um today mr outling and i were at the united way it was their 100th birthday and they really celebrate oh i'm sorry city manager was there as well and they really celebrated in style and at the end we planted a tree that will hopefully be there in another hundred years obviously we won't get to see it and i think that's what they say is the definition of an optimist is that you you plant a tree and you just know that it's going to grow maybe you want it mayor maybe you will not okay i ain't going nowhere i thought you and i were going off to the restroom together um so that that was good um tammy mentioned um the procter and gamble announcement and that comes on the heels of last week's um rpm announcement which was another 53 jobs and 23 million dollars so that's just about 100 jobs and um 150 million in investment in two weeks and we continue to get to get announcements like this where the the 50 jobs don't sound like a lot lately but they are really um really the backbone of our community and procter gamble is on swing road and so their motto is swinging into the future i think is what they said um and also last week gpd graduated a class um 28 graduated i think it started with 40. maybe 30 eight showed up but we graduated 28 and it was a good diverse class and looked like they had a lot of camaraderie we look forward to them hitting their hitting the streets once all of their training is complete so it was it was good and there was also a promotion service um later on that day so it was it was a good day for gpd and i know that um the police chief and the sheriff hosted a law enforcement day yesterday and that was well received there were black law enforcement officers from throughout the state and we had a great lunch at lux um so there are a lot of good things going on those are just a few that i can think of offhand um mr city manager well thank you mayor um so i also want to say thank you to dr manager kim so um it's a pleasure definitely working with you i'm glad she gave me at least by the time she's done 45 days at least uh but we've worked well together and i've enjoyed every moment of it so um we're behind you and we'll continue to make sure that we champion you on the sidelines um so over the next week we have two more listening sessions and we have one in district four on match nine and then we have another one on march 10 in district five and so we want to encourage you to continue to participate and also encourage um those who have not been participating to show up but we've been getting a fairly decent attendance for this evening meetings so thank you very much for getting the word out the community survey i believe should start soon and so that would dig deep into especially reaching out to those who might not have been able to show up at this meeting so at the end of the day we'll have really good information to share with all of you uh when we pull all this together that's it from me and thank you very much for a good meeting tonight mr city attorney i'll uh join the course and say good luck to uh dr saul it's been good work but i have nothing else thank you great um moved by mrs johnson seconded by by dr wells did you need um mr deputy city manager any comments [Laughter] i i'm never going to do this again but i will just say really quickly kim we love you and you are the heart of this team and we appreciate you so much um i won't get choked up but i'm gonna miss you your good friend your good teammate and you've had a huge impact on this community so best of so before i get corrected again mr larry davis [Music] oh this is a unique pleasure to be able to speak at this point in the meeting and like chris this may be the first and last time i do it but kim you are a treasure and i'm glad you're staying in the public administration family i know you will always be a phone call a text away you're the best thank you for everything and his cousin trey davis i want to say thank you kim has been so amazing um it's i'm going to miss her her her presence so much she's been a mentor friend uh a big sister and and all those things uh and i've learned so much from working with her uh it's going to be amazing to see what you're gonna do in durham i've got uh i'm my hometown is very close to there uh so i am really excited for well i got a lot of family in that area so this is going to be amazing thank you so much we love you and madam clerk i don't want to leave you out you're worried about it thank you madam mayor i will definitely get choked up because kim knows how much she means to me and the friendship that we've had for several years and she has been a huge mentor for me and i have much appreciated the time and the energy that she has put into not just our friendship but in her guidance that she has offered and for what she has put into this city you will definitely be missed kevin torre i know that you're not used to public speaking but we can use this opportunity in tandem because i'm going to cry but we just want to say how much we appreciate you as a woman as a mentor as a leader and as a guide every morning we knew that you were going to bring it with your color coordinated outfits could not wait for it and that strut of confidence and we were both proud to know that we were in the same office with you so we know that those blessings are going to extend to durham and that nothing but goodness will come to you thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you i just want you to know that i love you and i look up to you and i will continue to bug you so don't don't just leave your email but we love you so that's tough to um that's tough to follow up so kim you know that you're in all our prayers we know you will be back for the greatest homecoming on earth so we know that we'll see you then and i'm sure that we will see you um before that um with that i believe that mrs johnson made a motion to adjourn second by dr wells all in favor say aye aye