[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you thanks everyone for being here it's April the 22nd I'm sorry thank you everyone it's April the 22nd and we're going to start our city council meeting off as in our action review so I'm now calling it to order and let's start with our introductions we'll start with our City attorney good evening Patrick Baker City attorney good evening Victoria watlington at Large good evening Lana Mayfield council member at large s 6 Malcolm Graham District 2 Marcus Jones city manager V mayor Dante Anderson mayor protim district one Temple AR at large good evening happy Earth I'm marger molinaa I represent District 5 good evening Renee Johnson and I'm honored to represent District 4 Ariel Smith lead city clerk thank you thank you Miss Molina for reminding us that it is Earth Day today and especially since it's the Earth Day um was preceded by Paso passo that's right thank you very much um so now we'll go to our agenda for the action review um the first item that we have is um the mayor and Council consent item questions and answers um are there any consent items that would be requested as a separate vote Miss Miss Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor I have asked for Marie to I would like to have 18 20 21 26 31 26 33 all right 33 all of the property just 33 through 36 or just 33 33 okay thank you all right anyone else yes Miss yes Miss watlington I'd like to uh go ahead and pull 17 through 30 I'm sorry 17 through 30 17 through 30 okay all right so we're going to have separate items for those and so I believe the first item on our agenda then will be adopt a resolution supporting the North Carolina Department of Transportation safety project do we have a motion so second we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion please raise your hand all right that passes anyone opposed all right so the next item um is requested as a separate vote item 17 traffic signal installation and maintenance change order Miss watlington thank you Madame mayor um I've got some general questions around each one of these particular items I bring them up because as we are looking at um making updates to our CBI work and really making sure that we are uh supporting mwsb through our government contracts I know that they're we're in the middle of transition so I want to make sure that we're super transparent with the public as we're seeing these each month while we wait for that next um update about what it is that we're doing and why so I've asked for staff to go through and just give a brief explanation for each of these in regards to um the goals if there are some and um speaking to how we kind of ended up to where we are so these can be just as far as I'm concerned these can be hit in one um piece uh just to answer those questions because there are three particular policy items I want to make sure it's it's clear as we take a look at them okay than thank you I'm going to ask the manager to address your question so thank you mayor members of council so Marie if it's works best would it be good to just go through the responses okay thank you thank you so traffic signal installation and maintenance change order that's the first one number 17 and this is a change order and it's under the same goal as the original contract and important note for this change order is it's not a change order in terms of different scope it's it's more of the same basically it's more we're having to do more than we projected in terms of installing traffic signals and maintaining traffic signals and the goal was exceeded is 2.1% but that was based on a review of availability Matrix of the current um vendors that would be available to participate and also due to the fact that there's not much subcontracting opportunities with this specific contract followup mate oh good Mr Mitchel I'm sorry go ahead Dr W oh I was just checking to see what make sure I'm understanding what's about to happen is Marie going through each one of these right now or she's going to just do each one she's going to do each one if there are any questions about each one we'll do that including those from Miss Mayfield okay okay M Mitchell yeah uh thank you Madam uh city manager and Mar let me sure the new contract value goes from 2 million to 5 million a change order almost $3 million so again this isn't uh terms of a change order like you think oh like we hit rock or we're building something new this is more like think of it as okay when we were originally projecting out for this contract we thought we'd do and I'm making up numbers 100 traffic signals but we're really doing 300 traffic signals based on on the vision zero and different initiatives where we're trying to update traffic lights and things like that so when we originally projected out it's just more of the same thing is what I'm trying to say and and so the may I do a followup mind please so the construction method type on this was a hard bid no so this isn't a construction bid sir this is to just install traffic signals and maintain traffic signals and so the 2% was based on the original contract or is the 2% goal based on the new it was based on the original and it carries forward to this change order since it's the same so let me make sure on on additional 3 million increase in cost we still got the two same 2% goal established correct because of the there's not much subcontracting that's available the main vendors doing most the work themselves cuz it's like said it's not a uh construction where there's multiple scopes of work this is I'm going out and installing a piece of equipment okay and then maintaining it and so MH grades construction are they part of the additional change of the new change order where they get additional work they was part the current sorry I didn't have it flipped to that page but yes the current subcontractor will get additional work and that's what makes up the the 2% is of the new Total not just basing the old total to your point wow okay thank you madam all right M Mayfield thank you Madame mayor and this is really for our manager I have a concern that with this change order for an additional 3,236 51250 that we did not specify additional opportunity because what we do know is outside of the incidental concrete work and traffic signal instulation the individuals that are out there helping to maintain traffic flow when the constructions happen it seemed like it would be helpful if we create a process where when we're looking at change orders especially at a significant dollar amount we run it back through CBI again because when this was approved in May 22nd 2023 for 2,420 th000 we very well may have additional capacity with meeting what we have identified as our mwsb goals versus saying well this company is the comat for a change order but we still have the same participation goal of 2% and saying where they exceeded the goal at 2.10 that's a separate challenge but it will be great if we create a process if we're going to actually Shore up CBI we just had an amazing event here in the government center that you attended Councilman Mitchell and I attended where we are constantly advocating and soliciting our businesses to come through the city to be certified we may have missed the opportunity here we're ensuring that the opportunities are there especially when it comes to change orders cuz that is a considerable amount additionally which now creates a total new value of 5,657 230 seven but we still have this 2.10 which is $68,000 no business is going to be able to grow on a $68,000 project when you have a five almost $6 million allocation for the totality of the work thank you and if I may point out also to that to your point Miss Mayfield um they are planning it's not immediate like to your point but we're planning to bid that out next year so we did it in 2023 and it is a time consuming and process for us and the vendors when they put in bids but we definitely are looking to your point to revisit that in 2025 thank you Miss Johnson thank you so I I'm clear so the original RFP went out and this this developer Construction Company won the RFP based on the lowest bid is that correct right it's not a um it's not a Construction contract so it's not a developer it's more a um a service correct okay so a service or Okay so this service was bid and then who submitted the change order the so staff the city based on because when we were originally planning out this contract and you know it went to bid in May last year but even before that you know we're thinking through and getting it to that process to put it to bid when we the city were scoping out our need we thought oh we're just going to need this much but based on our opportunity to do more work with vision zero and updating traffic signals and our growth we're actually saying okay we're going to need more capacity than we originally thought we're going to do more traffic signals than we thought originally when we were planning out for the contract so isn't that a new RFP no man it's the same so you we do a RFP and then on shouldn't it be a new RFP no ma'am because it's the same so so think of it's a unit but not a unit price but it's close to a unit price if you say you're going to buy gloves for $2 and we estimate to you that it's going to be $2,000 worth of gloves but we end up needing a lot more gloves it's the same it's just more of the same it's not changing the opportunity so part of the concern with this city and minority businesses and and Grassroots organizations as the same players are at the table consistently and this is to me it's more of that like if it was originally a $2 million contract and it's $5 million now that's over 100% so this might have been an opportunity for another vendor or another contract instead of having one vendor with all of the business we can share the well so I I mean I our procurement process I would also say city manager if this is something we could take a look at that that that subcontractor I don't know maybe they could have bid for that extra work I I it's it's it's unus I mean would seem unusual that this significant of a change maybe the policy polic should be this would be a new RFP because this is double the work I mean that's just looking at this yeah not necessarily but to your point it could be and that's why we're going to redo it in 2025 it takes a long time to actually put the bid on the street into your point get people that aren't used to putting in bids to get ready it takes months for them to prepare their bids and then for City staff to assess the bids so it's not something you know we could turn around in a month but we are definitely playing towards that I just had the honor of of meeting with the small or not small minority contractor and he wanted to introduce himself to me to let him me know that he's out there so when we hear the narrative they're not out there or they're not uh they don't have the capacity there are businesses out there so I just I mean I would I would definitely Advocate that this would have been another RFP that seems very very significant with over a 100% increase thank you and then when you meet vendors like that please definitely let us know and we can make sure they're certified and and on the list to get notified when opportunities arise thank you all right Miss asir thank you um Madame mayor so this might be a policy question um I know we have a policy around CBI so to address some of the concerns that my colleagues have raised uh Dr Dr watlington and council member Mayfield and others um it seems like we need a policy around change so when there is a change that comes in front of the council what process does it have to follow in terms of the mwsb commitment if any um because that's currently that's what deviates from our original contracts is that correct Dr watlington so I I I think we need to have some sort of policy discussion on this I don't know if we can address it today um but U Madame mayor if this could certainly be referral to one of the Committees to discuss this in depth uh so that we don't end up discussing this at every council meeting during our agenda discussion I think that's an excellent point that we need to have some ideas about what we're doing and how we're doing it and policy recommendation that would come from the council would be very helpful and we can do that um and I would also say that it'll give us an opportunity to look at where we have other ideas and um around how to increase our business inclusion for the number of people that live and work in this area and comply so yes we will do a referral and I was then going to ask mayor protim recognize her thank thank you Madame mayor um I love the discussion but I want us to when the city has a sourcing policy right there's a s a sourcing process rather um like all companies do right and so when we're looking at our sourcing process I think we need to look at it holistically and not just from one particular a aspect so miss ashmir I agree that if we look at the change the change process for um any of the contracts that we have if there's a particular threshold or number that if it's over that that change is over it then maybe that will trigger another step in a process um and loop back but I think we have to look at it um holistically and not just in one step or two steps because you know sourcing processes they have there's a way that methodology to go about it so it's not like we would be recreating the will exactly exactly so yeah I just would like encourage us to look at the entire process and where we have the opportunities to improve throughout the entire process thank you Madame mayor I think every Miss watlington would you have another comment on 17 item 17 yeah just building off what um um council member Air's point and the conversation around sourcing in general because it's on the table right now I'll just go ahead and point out some of the things as I looked at these that from a policy standpoint I would like to make sure it's included in that conversation um when it comes in particular to these open-ended contracts um like number 19 and the others and I know we're on 17 but just for the sake of uh brevity here um I'd like to see us consider what it means in the open-ended contracts and how that connects to our CBI program right now it doesn't appear that there is a requirement for any kind of mwbe participation I see that there are mwsb firms that have been uh included as part of that scope but there's no there's no um goal established with actually using those firms on those contracts so that's one that I want to make sure it's connected in that space um in addition I see on many of these that there are no opportunities for uh no viable subcontracting opportunities uh not so much for the single Source items but for ones where there there is significant scope um I want to make sure that we're circling back to this conversation when it comes to Workforce Development that it's not just about helping folks get jobs but it's about helping folks build capacity in those businesses and it's it's been a little bit of time since I've seen that come back before us on Council as a full Council it may be something that's in committee um but I want to make sure that as we think about next year's budget especially as we're choosing which organizations we want to truly partner with going forward I want to make sure that Workforce Development specific to building entrepreneurial capacity is at the Forefront um uh for all of our mwsb um and then there are two that I do want to speak to um a little bit later on just from the airport because it does look like they are Benchmark in this in this area and so I just want to understand and dig a little bit more into uh when we get to that and it's appropriate 27 um versus um 27 28 and 30 but as far as some of the uh the items that I have pulled those are the big picture themes that I see across them um and as it relates to uh 17 I I too share much of the concern that many and my council members were so I'll be holding my support for this one on today but I look forward to the um policy discussion this m thank you Madame mayor I have a actually I have a question for the parliamentarian um um my understanding would be that the city staff would be operating under some existing policy right that would authorize them to put this before us as a consent agenda item right or am I wrong oh I'm sorry uh the the Mr I'm sorry no actually she's chair but you still you you operate off of a policy yes so there is an existing policy right now that governs whether this can be done already so so there technically there is but this is the issue is whether they feel like for expediency you can move forward um because as you'll recall in this this particular one I think uh is one where they say that they're going to do another whole new process in 2025 okay so I think they're trying to finish this round of it uh uh first and then they're going to start a whole new process so there is some flexibility in the okay in process meaning is that something that's been adopted by previous Council I would I'm not sure if it's I believe he's meaning procurement process so just a process in general not any type of policy guidance yeah yeah that that would be at the at the administrative level I don't think that's I mean they've probably told Council about that but I don't know that that's something that you would vote on I'm I'm just trying to understand it because when we say policy discussion I'm trying to are we updating an existing policy Madame mayor or are we like is there no policy guidance at all or like I'm trying to understand because so I'm going to try this and it probably is I'm going to be close to being wrong okay no that's fine I'm asking for clarification so we had a an agenda item because we always put traffic signals on the wires okay and so we had a group of people that probably for a number of years had submitted opportunities to bid on installing signals okay so then we got a lot more money from I think a lot of sources around Vision zero and all of that so we actually got more traffic signals to do and traffic signals you know a couple of people up on wires and doing that and the staff decided to ask for the extension of this but there was also perhaps a choice to go out and get a second vendor I think that's what the council members are saying how often do you give this opportunity I can't answer whether or not that there is an exact procurement policy that t triggers this but I would expect that people said we need traffic signals we know how to get them and we're going to put them up that may have just been the simple way to get work done but we are now being asked I Believe by several members of the board to say we would like to have a policy around whether or not we just go with what's in or how do we make a decision on decide making that other decision so I don't know if I answered your question but I do I think this is a general understanding that people that have spoken around the Das that they would see this we are going to have at least half more of these to discuss so I want to make sure that what we've done I think almost everyone has spoken except Mr Driggs and I believe that what we're seeing is um that we will have a number more of these which will have the same kind of discussion so I think everybody will have a chance to weigh in all right I think the manager and then we'll follow Mr DXs Mr thank you may members of council um so I understand the a lot of the frustration that's happening tonight um I guess it was the 2023 annual strategy meeting when the council elevated uh mwsb to a strategic initiative and not something that's very below and then I think shortly thereafter we finished the most updated uh disparity study and we've had discussions about uh low bid versus um alternate bidding techniques so as um you absolutely positively have our attention tonight okay that this is not only a priority but you want to see some things that are happening differently and so I believe that the referral will be very helpful from a PO polic perspective I I like what I've heard earlier while there are administrative procedures that in place maybe there's some things from a policy perspective that once that's triggered we may do something different so that's it's it's a good conversation no thin skin we're getting it um and and I think the referral will help us achieve what the discussion is tonight all right okay Mr DRS so um to miss Molina's point we are talking about things on which our current policy is basically silent so so we're getting we're looking at situations that are not fully described and to that extent there's a need for us to talk about it some more and see whether we get more specific the other thing I want to mention though is change orders uh are not technically uh new projects and often the work that needs to be done is kind of organic like you've got somebody in the middle of construction and then you decide to do something different so it doesn't lend itself to separation now we could still have a conversation Mr manager about the rules that apply when you need to increment like you need to expand the scope of work that's being done that doesn't lend itself to being separated because that technically is what a change order is otherwise you've got work being done at this location and at that location and those two projects thank you Miss Molina yes please sorry thank you Madame mayor because I'm I'm thinking about a project Baseline right I'm you know uh an amount an adjustment of an amount would that would would that say like now I'm looking for newes to do a job I mean I that's why I ask for clarification I just you know I don't I'd like for us to somebody offline to tell me what we're doing I'm confused well I think the manager said that we're going to look at our procurement policies and when we have opportunities to address some of these issues in a different way that that's what the policy discussion will be around so okay we'll see where we put it and um how it goes all right so um we now have we need I believe the question that I have for the council is that we can approve 17 or And Delay or and and move until we get the policy or we can how I don't know what the consequences of that would be for installing in signals but so do I have a motion to approve 17 knowing that there is an effort to address it in the future we have a motion and a second I just wanted to make a comment real quick oh well let's see Mr well this one is for traffic signal installation and maintenance Char change order I don't want us to delay this regular maintenance so Dr this as a policy to address your concerns but I just don't want to to um because of our policy discussion I I don't want us to delay some of these projects that could result in fatalities okay all right so we have a motion um for approval of item 17 um do please raise your hands if you support the motion Miss I'm Sorry Miss Johnson you have a question thank you thank you I don't want to delay uh anything that would cause fatalities either obviously but the $3 million do um the I guess the increase in the scope of work is that something that that could go to committee and then we could discuss if not I mean it's not you we can we can vote on it I just vote against it but I just think that the $3 million change is because it's any policy a 100% increase it's going to trigger uh discussion and I just think this would have been a great opportunity for another RFP so um I didn't know if we could if we could um just hold off on that portion of the contract or not it's up to the motion we have a motion on the floor that asks for approval of it so I think if that motion fails then we can have another one okay I have a question right I I have a question so what change would you like us to I guess what is the change you're proposing well ra well you what you said is you didn't want to um delay the traffic signal installation main because of safety reasons so I want to I mean I want to do what was necessary but if there's if we can hold off and be you know and this goes to committee maybe a month or so then I'd be comfortable wanting to do that to to have the policy discussion I think we have a motion on the floor do we we have a substitute motion sure I'll make a sub well I'll make sub defer until for a month 30 days yes okay we have a motion to defer till 30 days um do we have a second second we have a second all in favor of the motion to defer for 30 days discussion I'm sorry Mr DRS uh is there a hardship created by delaying this by 30 days Mr manager um so I'm not saying it's it's a hardship I guess what I would ask is that um we're going to put up traffic signals one of the things that happened in the last Bond was that we put a lot of money into Vision zero and um we just have more capacity to do more than what initially went out and so um I I'm not sure what the delay would do and I see some of my folks who've come in from there's any issue with that that'd be great thank you good evening mayor and councel uh Charlie Jones deputy director for cot um the question about the delay is we already have several locations identified uh through all the vision zero funding so this would delay some of the those implementations um because of the backlog of work mayor pro thank you Madame mayor I'm also if we are speaking to having a referral um to go and clarify the process then if we delay this one vote that Pro that entire process for the referral won't be complete within and and the solution won't be complete Within 30 days and of course jump starting another RFP that's a that's months um and not just a 30-day process so you could be looking at um anywhere from 3 to 6 months right at at a minimum for an RFP can you speak to that um I can speak broadly on the RFP it would be at least 3 to 6 months to to get that out to you know vendors and do all of our due diligence to identify vendors make sure they have subcontractors and others that can do the work sure so I think I'd advocate for if we're going to do a referral uh the mayor is going to do a referral then we go through that process and make sure that we're not rushing it uh so we can have a a complete view uh but I certainly wouldn't want to hold up something like item 17 that it has impact throughout the city for potentially you know four four to six months with 30 day delay plus a 3 to 6 month RFP process um from a safety perspective I I would want us to move forward but simultaneously going back and looking at our policy and looking at how we can address when there change orders at certain thresholds so that's what I'd be an advocate for all right so we have a motion on the floor and I'm sorry I think you've already spoken to the motion okay can I respond then um I understand that but from a transparency and almost almost ethical perspective that's the it feels like you you like you can't do that from a transparency perspective but if that's we don't have a policy surrounding it that's fine but as a public sector when you issue an RFP for a certain amount to increase it that much without allowing an opportunity it just doesn't it definitely it doesn't feel transparent to me but um if we don't want to um delay it that's fine I I can simply vote against it Miss watlington vote I'm sorry Mr Graham has not spoken Mr Graham no I I'm totally in agreement and Alignment in terms of the policy Direction sending it to committee I I I think um council member Wallington and others are are really on to something uh the manager has agreed and the marage committee uh I too believe that it's going to take more than 30 days for us to figure it out and while we have something already in the process of being installed I think it just makes good business sense to continue that with the understanding that we know we got work to do to figure out um a policy change that is probably needed thank you all right Miss watlington just one follow-up question in terms of the missir just in terms of the impact of the project I know that of course any delay to schedule is delay but I'm curious about the the slack in the schedule if you will um for my folks over in SE do what is the projected spical path um I would say it's somewhat of a critical path because one of the key components to this contract is maintenance um and maintenance is an ongoing um activity that this contractor performs so it's not you know there are specific projects for Signal installation but another key piece to that is the maintenance aspect where it's the day-to-day go out and change the bulbs or um you know reset things in the cabinets and so when it comes to the project schedule right you're forecasting spending which is how we got here when do you anticipate that spending to occur the bidding for a new contract would be sometime in 2025 we would likely start that process uh toward the latter part of this year just to build in enough time um to get that done so there would be overlap between the bidding of the new contract and while this one's still occurring forgive me I may be asking it in a way that's um not super clear what I'm seeing here is an additional $2 to3 million of spin right so there are certain projects that are out there because I don't read this as this is what we need to finish a particular scope this is additional scope that's just more lights more whatever happening across the city what I'm asking is this date of council decision is tied to some execution in the future on the project schedule and I'm wanting to understand is there're slack in that schedule or no um I I I do believe I understand the question uh the nature of the signal work there there's not a a specific project we don't have a a six-month lead time out for this work um a lot of this is as it comes in so a new project for a signal installation or a change to a signal may be identified by staff or others at some point in that process and we may have a backlog of 10 I'm you know throwing out wild numbers right now 10 to 15 that we've identified and that built in that was used to build in this additional capacity in the contract got you thank you so much so it sounds like we it sounds like there's not a direct connection to project delivery and deferring this three to however or many months so just so that we're all clear on that it doesn't feel like it's a Ono one every day that there's a delay that there's a delay in the project just wanted to be clear about that piece thanks Miss and then I believe everyone that chose to speak has spoken yeah thank you Madame mayor so it may not be one to one relationship but there are over 900 um there are over 900 um intersection that we are talking about and I would be concerned about safety of our residents and could this be setting a precedent that anything any change that comes in uh between now to 30 days for any other agenda item would we be delaying it by 30 days um so I I get it I think we are going to address the issue here through policy I think it's important from the safety perspective that we don't delay it and don't set a precedent on other items as well that might need council's immediate attention that's all I have thank you all right we have a substitute motion on the floor um you've heard the discussion all in favor of the substitute motion please raise your hand The Substitute motion all right all of those opposed please raise your hand CL all right so that moves to takes us to the motion the original motion um to approve the traffic signal installation and maintenance change order on item number 17 all in favor please raise your hands all of those opposed three of people are opposed Miss Mayfield did you oppose yes all four people sorry I could not see that far all right so now we have um 18 which is um for HVAC and Miss Mayfield asked to speak to that this one was a simple question we earlier when we get downstairs we're going to be looking at approving some updated CA language I just wanted to verify these new products the products that this vendor will be using will be consistent where I where our seea facilities goals because there have been some changes on the federal level as far as what type of products can be used for repair and or maintenance so that's what this question is in regards to all right does this company products meet the new C goals that are on our agenda for when we get downstairs and yes ma'am to confirm that definitely are we double confirmed with General services staff and thank you thank you we to approve 18 so we have a motion and a second to approve any discussion Miss watlington yeah I just had a quick question I'm happy to see us moving towards this kind of remote BAS system um what does it mean by Cooperative purchase contract I noticed that that was something different so I just wanted to understand what that meant is all so those are and the City of Charlotte actually has their own as well that we bid these sometimes for other organizations especially beneficial to smaller organizations but this one were capitalized on it was a competitive process that we didn't do but the vendor in order to get the better volume pricing and things like that they agreed to offer us the same pricing so it's a competitive bid but it's not one the city of Charlotte staff ran gotcha I love that you said that because I just wanted to put in a plug as we look at policy to what extent can the city leverage our economies of scale I know often times we talk about the hardship that small businesses may have when it comes to material purchasing and we know we're going to purchase a certain level of materials each year across the Enterprise and so to the extent that we can operate in a way in a manner similar to this so that we can balance out that uh that pricing disparity that that I think that's opportunity thanks all right um do we have we have a motion from Miss Mayfield and a second I believe um and so all in favor of the motion please raise your hand anyone opposed all right so the next item on our agenda is the general contractor Services item 19 um do I have a motion move to we have a motion to approve is there a second second there's a second all right any discussion yep I just wanted to I pulled this one because I had the question about the CBI opening at cont or CBI goals for open-ended contracts so just wanted to lift that up I know that we spoke about it a little bit earlier but thank you okay Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor and just for clarification that was a question that I sent to Maria as well what I wanted to find out for 19 is were the projects we brought back to council prior to payment and CBI review because again we have shared and this is not the first time and when we had to retreat wasn't the first time that we've shared concerns regarding how we're growing mwsp but I do want to thank the manager and the manager's office for the work that we have put into supporting and lifting up our CBI program even with the realignment of the report out and Reporting directly to the manager's office but for this as we're looking at General contrac and services out of these six seven contracts five of them are MBE SBE certified we have on here goals were not established I think we if we're going to have a broader conversation in that conversation Mr manager I would like for us to look at creating more opportunities like this and stop looking at CBI just as subcontractors so as we're growing our businesses if we're doing what we should and that is as projects are coming before and if there is ever a time where it's said where we didn't have anyone that fits in that scope that is cbi's responsibility to help go out and identify those companies to come in we should be helping those companies get to the point where you can bid and actually receive contract not just be a sub so I am happy to see that five of the seven are listed as sbes or wbees want to dig a Little Deeper to make sure that we're allocating accordingly since we're saying the annual aggregate will be around 1.6 million making sure that we're given real opportunity because just like with the other one almost 5 million close to $6 million less than 70,000 that's not helping the business grow if that is our commitment to the community and commitment to the department thank you all right we have a motion and a second all in favor anyone opposed all right our next item is public auction for disposal of Mr manager question for you I would like for us to rethink how we do our public auctions so when I went through the list on one particular item we have a 2024 Transit 250 cargo van that has about 40,000 Mi on it one I'm trying to understand why we have a 2020 vehicle we're only 40,000 mi in in the Surplus but outside of that we have nonprofits that we fund that we have supported in the community that have reached out to council members and or your office seeking guidance on getting access to buses access to Vans different things for that one particular item pul D David a apple 856 2024 Transit 250 cargo van that has 4,25 mil on it and has not been anere I want to ask you if we can pull that out council member Graham and I had the opportunity to attend a community celebration this past weekend a grand opening of one of our partners and we had a chance to have a discussion regarding Transportation because we fund a lot of our non propit one of their challenges is actually connecting with the community who don't have private transportation or not not easily accessible to public transportation being able to help transport them around so what I'm asking for my colleagues to support this evening and for you to see a opportunity in is to pull out this one I'm not going to have us go through all but to have a broader conversation that come makes its way to committee and I believe that it will come into housing and Neighborhood Services when we think about who the opport and the partners to rethink how we do our auctions to see if there's some opportunities that if we have no low mileage vehicles that are in good condition working with our partners before putting them to this public auction space I have no problem no problem with that thank you yes and there'd be different state requirements but it is something we can definitely look at so I just heard you said no problem so I need us to be very clear that in those minutes I just said want to pull out PDA 856 2020 Ford Transit 250 cargo van that has 4,25 miles on it that's on page three thank you okay any other comments on item number 20 all right do do I have a a motion to so for clarification and my apologies for for clarification Mr attorney I'm going to make an amendment I'm going to make a motion to approv with the amendment that I suggested to pull out PDA 856 2024 Transit 250 as long as everybody understands that motion that's that would be the motion on four so you're making a substitute not a substitute Mo that's the motion the amendment the motion is to approve with the amendment that I added to pull out PDA 856 20204 Transit 250 cargo ban that's 4,25 Mi okay you have an amendment to the motion and a second okay all right I think we're at a point where we can vote now correct discussion Mr Mr bar I just there's it's a noble cause obviously but this is if we take it out we're essentially taking money out of the general fund that would have come back in so essentially what we're doing is making a one-off decision on providing resources outside of our financial partners timing and all those things and I'm just saying it's a it's a fine Noble idea but it seems to me not something we pull out of a consent agenda it's something we put a macro policy and process in place to ultimately do those things it help because who's getting this vehicle how how does this work what what money coming back in is being converted away from what would have been used for it through the auction so I have more questions than I have answers and I'm just yeah it's I'm I'm uncomfortable with hold on hold on I I want to um do a check because I think I recall once that we had and Mr Jones we had a request from jcsu to provide police cars that were pulled out of the system and if I don't remember how we actually made a result of that and Brent do you recall have we done this before we have for um as you mentioned for police vehicles to other governmental or university type organizations I'm I'm not sure about nonprofits but we definitely have to um Johnson C Smith as you mentioned I I think um I don't know if this is something we ought to look up and see whether who we can donate to or who would have to pay Mr Jones if you recall yeah we're both uh Phil and Bren have into the the room so let's see this must be specific to uh their area so let's address this St mayor members of council good evening Brent Kagel interm CEO cats uh the the vehicle in question that U Miss Mayfield is asking about is actually a cat's vehicle oh um um so so we we would be happy to pull it from uh the surplus auction to answer your question are there occasions when we would donate Vehicles rather than send them to auction yes um those donated Vehicles would come before city council uh before we would do that in fact we did that recently I believe in October November or December time flies um I'm on cat's time um for a vehicle that we donated to roof above we actually are talking about um making some donations to another nonprofit or a donation to another nonprofit why the vehicle would come up for Surplus it's in very good shape um but it is uh nearing or at the end of its Federal useful life um and what we are seeing with those types of vehicles is we have more Fleet than we need which creates cost of maintaining the vehicles if they just sit inactive and clearly a this vehicle with its age and mileage it is not being utilized so but we would be happy to remove that from the Surplus list uh because there are nonprofits that support city as well as cats or Transit objectives that we would make recommendations for donations thank you very much for that explanation uh I just want to say I I agree with Mr barari you run the risk of initiating this halfhazard process where hey you know this is a good organization why don't we give them a truck uh I just think we had need to have a little bit more organization around that we we have a financial partners program um I I would suggest that in furtherance of that idea we sell the truck to the nonprofit at the kind of low price that it would realize in an auction so that that opportunity isn't wasted but it's not a gift once you make it a gift you're you're starting a whole new chapter all right um Miss Molina Mr Mr Mr Molina I um I thank Brent for coming forward and and kind of articulating what we've done in the past um obviously there needs to be some structure to it but I think once we take it to committee I think you heard something like that then I think once you hear the story I won't go over here that it'll make sense to a number of the council members Miss Molina thank you Madame mayor um and actually that's what I'm alluding to um I first of all I want to say that I'm I'm not in disagreeance with the need for there being some kind of structure from a policy perspective if it's not existing right I don't want to pretend that I already know that there is one that's you know it could have been adopted by a previous Council that authorized the you know City to operate under whatever um rules are being oper ated by up until this point but I um I'm I'm just I'm uncomfortable doing this on a item by item basis because it's really not we are we are a policymaking body and I feel like I'm hoping that you know these conversations that we're having right now which are are good some of the points are really good um I hope that it instructs us to to take it a step further as the policy banking body that we are to have the conversations to guide our staff so that they can execute on what we would like to have happen because right now we're acting as staff and we're not acting as the the the governance body and that's why I've been sitting here confused cuz I'm I called him the parliamentarian and I'm I think my head is like out of the game um but I like I said I just I don't want to sound as though I think that these are you know invalid points i' I've been a small business owner I know how hard it is to survive um I got a real soft spot for anybody who has the courage to you know erect a business or do it themselves but I I just believe that we have to have a real policy discussion to provide guidance to our staff instead of picking this apart because you know somebody's project Baseline is attached to some of the decisions that we may make and I'm I don't we don't even know what would be the rebuttal for you know making a one-off decision tonight so that's what I offer to my colleagues my very capable colleagues that we you know Elevate this to a policy discussion and maybe you know I'm I'm willing to go through this and hear what everyone has saw maybe there's something I didn't see but I'm hoping that we'll have the discussion today to to guide our staff so that they can you know provide the autonomous service without us being so Hands-On because that's not what our body is designed for that's all I have all right now we we have a motion on the floor mayor prend the motion yes sir we have the motion on the floor to approve item number 20 with an amendment to withdraw um the and it was second yes it was I'm just repeating it um the to withdraw the particular vehicle that uh Miss Mayfield outlined and it is captured in in the notes so I believe we're ready to vote all in favor please raise your hand care one two three all opposed four I believe four those was five I'm sorry all in favor please raise your hand one two three four five okay all opposed one two three four five okay so um I'm going to go for the process I often hear from people that I'm process oriented I believe in this case process is determined I don't care whether or not we have there there will always be equipment available so once we have a process in place and make a decision on how to get it done or how to give it away or how to sell it whatever the council's policy turns out to be I think that that is better um structure for what we need to accomplish okay so so you're officially a no vote I am officially a no vote so yes move to approve the initial original agenda item all right we have a motion to approve item 20 all in favor please raise your hands I just have a comment I was supposed to speak um we already have Financial partner referral to our committee so this could be discussed as part of that process that's will be at our next meeting committee meeting that's on in 10 days so we'll do our best okay all right so what does that mean we'll do our best that mean we'll do our best to get a definition out but her meeting is next is this week I mean you know we've got a bunch of stuff that's coming out but I I think I think it's a conversation worth having um because I think it it meets some of the general goals of what we're trying to achieve as a council and so um I would love to have that conversation um in committee right okay she's got I just just wanted to make sure that she has the referral already I think this fits nicely in the scope I think we can talk about it right we already have the referral the question is about the equipment I think in presenting the information about what how do you value equipment and all that other stuff all right so Mr barari okay all right so that um motion passes so the next item that we have is um tree 21 which is tree maintenance and removal service Miss Mayfield what was cbi's involvement in the Outreach for this contract we only have two register vendors that are being included so yes ma'am thank you for that question so CBI maintains the list and does outreach and works with the procurement lead in this case and they queried all the available vendors and reached out to 75 firms on this one in particular but specific to MBE we only had the one spikes out the one that actually um responded thank you all right are there is there a motion for approval of item 21 tree maintenance and removal service so move second we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppose all right that's an item item 22 electrical equipment parts do we have a motion to approve so moved we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed all right the next item is item 23 industrial protective Coatings maintenance and concrete repair services do we have a motion so moved we have a second is there any discussion hearing no discussion all in favor anyone opposed all right the next item is W item 24 water main replacement construction we have a motion some second we have a motion and a second any discussion Miss Mayfield for clarification is this $13 million request in addition to the previously approved over $1 million request therefore having a grand total of 25 million on this project of which only 1.4 million of this is actually allocated through our CBI program I'm just trying to no for for clarification this the portion you see listed on your RCA is just for this um Amendment so so if you look at the three this is the third one coming before you if you add them up it's roughly 2.9 Million okay so we have including this one before you tonight excuse me repeat that okay so the there was one that was 11% goal and then there was one that was like a 17% gold and then this one is almost 11% gold so the the reference you're asking or the sorry I don't have this one pulled up in front of me the amount the 1.45 million is specific to this amount before you tonight not correct that we're looking at a total of a $25 million project right with 2.9 participation for the whole project and a 2.9% participation for the total project which now is totaling 25 million correct and then but it remember it's different Scopes you know because it was the design then the design constru but yes you correct so for the request tonight of the 13, 198 the commitment is 1.5 million but again in totality we're looking at 25 million manager this goes back to the earlier discussion as far as how are we utilizing our CBI program but also the question of if we had a beer process the lowest responsive bid because actually according to language from members in the North Carolina General Assembly we don't have to go with the lowest responsive bid because if we're tracking and here's the question if we can do a tracking mechanism because if two or three amendments come in and if that amount then exceeds a responsive bit that may have included the scope that was actually a little more accurate to the actual cost of services as well as pay giving us the opportunity to really investigate that more because again between two or three amendments if that has then gone over other bids that we said you weren't the lowest responsive bidder how effective are we staying with the lowest responsive bidder and understanding that do we have an opportunity to look at the totality of the bid when it comes to our CBI program versus each individual amendment that comes in and saying with that piece here's our CBI goal Char you good evening mayor mayor and counsel and manager Angela Charles director of Charlotte water this project um was implemented in phases so when I heard the word Amendment um we broke the HD this is Hidden Valley so we broke the project up into phases and then for each phase we have a CBI component so it's not like we went in and said okay let's add on we planned because of budget to implement it that way instead of doing it in totality so M Charles just for clarification that thank you for that piece when we move up to for me this is going to be a four-phase a five-phase project so even though we have noted on here that this is phase two phase two of of four phase two of five and identifying cuz again looking at the totality of from design to phase one to now phase two at the end of the day still what we're approving is for RH price their bottom line is this cor and here's our opportunities with with through through our CBI program and are we making sure that we're keeping it as accessible of an opportunity as possible and whether or not we can break it out more to create more opportunity sure sure so you want that clarification on mylees might not on the RCA yeah well just for this is this will be the last phase we're going to finish up hdden Valley with this phase um yeah cuz it's been a long time yep uh coming here and uh again we get it I just wanted to make sure that that you knew this this isn't a case where we just decided where we're just going to amend something from the beginning we decided to do the project in phases for controling for budgeting and so that's why we have separate phases coming before Council on projects such as this thank you m Charles thank you so much please raise your hands anyone oppose thank you um we have an action review and we have guests that have come to address the items that we have so I'm going to move to our action review agenda which is the municipal Service District update as well as a home for all update then we will come back and go to the chamber for the Quorum and then we will take the remaining operating um decisions on the consent agenda at the end of our agenda so um I'm going to go ahead and recognize the manager thank you mayor members of council so we do have tonight on the action review uh two of your three uh MSD uh updates and so I I think U Adam and Keith have arm wrestled in some kind of way um Adam won so we'll have Adam R come up and talk a bit about South Park thank you Mr manager Madame mayor members of council great to see you and uh offer an update on our work thanks for the partnership that uh we enjoy with you and with staff uh as you all know uh but just as a reminder South Park is the newest of the city's Municipal service districts Council authorized the MSD in South Park in the spring of 2022 uh and we began operating at the beginning of FY 23 the South Park MSD is one square mile it's uh signified by the the light bluish gray on your on your map there and uh it represents really the True commercial core of South Park uh our team focuses every day on uh creating vibrant places and dynamic communities so that South Park continues to fulfill its promise as an economic engine for the entire Charlotte region uh quickly uh just a reminder of South Park strength is a submarket it is a strong and growing submarket a billion dollars of new development in the pipeline worker foot traffic at 88% of pre-pandemic levels and more than 18 million nonwork visits last year within the MSD there are 32,000 workers four Fortune 1,000 headquarters our uh Workforce in South Park lives in every zip code in mecklinburg county and roughly half of our workers live more than seven miles outside the MSD uh South Park as you know has a wellestablished record as a regional destination for shopping and dining uh we're particularly proud of the fact that South Park is a sought-after destination both for Global brands that want to plant the flag in Charlotte and the Carolinas uh but also for our local entrepreneurs that want to start scale uh and really grow their businesses since our organization was established two years ago our full-time team of three has focused on building those vibrant places and dynamic communities starting with developing a district brand uh implementing marketing and Communications tools and programming to connect the business community that takes the shape of a number of things including our free concert series South Park after 5 last year it drew 25,000 people to Symphony Park for free uh afterwork live music and food uh this year's season kicked off last Thursday we had a great concert at Symphony Park almost 3,000 people uh we'll do five more concerts over the spring series and then bring that back again in the fall uh last year we also launched the South Park holiday hop this was an initiative designed to drive uh deeper connectivity to our small business Community during the holiday shopping season the 2023 holiday hop drove a 10% year-over-year increase in visits within the MSD a 133% increase year-over-year in visit length compared to the same period in 2022 uh and you can see our South Park Shuttle this was a a little pilot program we ran over a a period of time during the holiday hop last winter we ran this microtransit service over 4 days gave 50 free rides in South Park and that was a little bit of a test case for some of what we shared last week with the South Park Vision plan about uh the potential for shuttle service in South Park to get people moving and Empower mobility in different ways we're also focused as we've shared with you before on implementing the loop this is a three mile urban trail that links those different destinations in South Park unlocking new amenities like open space and public art uh as you'll remember this is a project born out of the CET program and and has a ton of support from our residential stakeholders that envelop the commercial core um the loop you can see the alignment there is 8% constructed today there's another 177% that's committed and in various stages of progress many of which uh has come before you through rezonings and we continue to be committed to implementing the loop and building the entire thing is part of our South Park forward 2035 Vision plan it was great to see several of you mayor ly councilman barari thank you for participating in the launch event uh on the stage last week building the loop is one of those Catalyst programs Catalyst projects in this Vision plan as we think about knitting South Park together stitching together those patches into a more complete quilt uh the vision plan articulates the community's vision for a more cohesive South Park it's a walkable energetic Community where people connect and businesses Thrive you have copies of the executive summary of that report in front of you uh the plan calls for more than 60 projects focused on public space walkability and Mobility Innovation it's $250 million in projects that the public private uh and some combination thereof can complete over the next decade and I'm really proud that our organization has committed a million dollars over the next 3 years to accelerate implementation to find projects that we can fulfill on our own using the MSD resources uh that we have and begin to to be the first money in to show that we're serious about this plan and the vision that the community is articulated for South Park um I just want to briefly touch on a couple of things related to the plan one this is the community's vision for South Park uh this is a plan that was borne out of more than 500 touch points with the community a variety of focus groups and listening sessions we tried to start with our stakeholders and keep them centered in the process uh we had great input from City staff and I just want to commend the relationship that we have with staff and the partnership that has informed both this plan as well as our annual program of work uh we've got a great cross- departmental team of City staff that we meet with regularly and that has been really key for our relationship in engaging uh staff and we're eager to work with you and with other partners in the public sector to bring this uh to bring this plan to life and we'll obviously be back in front of you with projects uh when it's appropriate to do so uh but for now we're excited about this community-driven vision for a more walkable energetic South Park and we know we've got some hard work to do to begin to implement it uh but are excited about the opportunity to Steward this District into the next decade uh quickly the QR code on the screen takes you to our South Park snapshot that's our data uh report our submarket report that's full of some of the insights that I shared with you tonight uh and with that I'd be delighted to take your questions all right so U Mr Graham and mayor protim were at the event as well and are there questions for and Adam okay hey Adam thank thank you for all the work that you've done um and I shared this with Mr barari as well but the the level of insight and vision that is in the big book you you passed out the small book but I I grabbed one of the big books before I left um because I think the the devil is in the details and I've had a chance to peruse through it um over the last few days and I just want to commend you on the intentionality of of continuing to uplift the South Park Corridor and having a vision for how it can come together to enhance the overall community so looking forward to working with you and of course keeping updated with Mr barari but great great work really good work thank you mayor ptim M air thank you madam mayor um I certainly Echo council member Anderson's remarks uh great partnership Adam it's just been a what a year or two since South Park Partners was established and in two years you have a vision uh certainly that speaks a volume to your leadership and to the entire board um I had an opportunity to read about the vision plan and I certainly appreciate how uh walkable neighborhoods are and interconnected where we are trying to also use other modes of transportation that aligns with our overall overall City's Vision so certainly commendable and um we've certainly enjoyed going to Symphony Park for free concerts uh and uh we'll we you'll probably see us uh over next couple of weeks so but thank you for your leadership I hope we do thanks council member all right Miss watlington thank you my question may not even necessarily be for you Adam but it may be for um our development staff I'm just curious as I look at the Loop and that is definitely an exciting addition to South Park I'm curious as to when we talk about a catalyst how much land is available there for development is it relates to housing or additional office space or anything of that nature how how are you linking the economic development component to the loop does that make sense I'm asking it it does um and it's probably a longer answer than I can give in the amount of time that I have left but we we do have some analysis in the in the big book the full vision plan which we're happy to uh get to you that looks at opportunities for developable land developable land in in the commercial Cor perfect that'd be great happy to follow with you on that than all right any other questions hearing none thank you very much thanks for the opportunity I know and now we'll ask Keith Stanley to come up on the University [Applause] City I got eight p no I think you've been you're betting better than that thank you thank you mayor uh thank you council member thank you mayor um thank you city manager for the opportunity to be here um I'm hop right on into the slides when they appear while we're doing that we do have some board members here and some staff I know we have Liz bapson on our board also ccil member Renee Johnson and we do have some our staff members here if you can stand real quick Renee I mean Janelle Janet and Drew thank you thank you for coming um I wanted to just start off saying prior to my start I want to thank the council for your work in bringing a lot of these projects that I'm highlighting today together uh meeting many of the projects highlight in this presentation you have been instrumental and bringing to fruition and your leadership is in Partnership is key to the work that we're doing do you have I did send it man is not help you come on we we do have your slide deck in hand as we work to get it pulled up if you want to start to speak to the slides and just call out the number the slide number that you're speaking to thank you you have your C yep yep yep thank you I appreciate it thank you uh real quickly I go to a couple of the highlights that I want to present for this past year one being just the new staff and I highlight the new staff yes under your book under your book Thank You couple the highlights for just this year I think that are really some headlines I would say is the new staff we have our staff that's really covering our major uh areas Economic Development connectivity Mobility engagements Partnerships and operational planning we also leaned in on our Signature Events really making sure that University City is a place where people can have fun free events and then our small business initiative working closely with the council members and uh working with the city manager we've been able to really engage our small businesses a couple additional highlights uh that I'm proud of is really the commitment to Safety and Security we convene our safety Community safety committee meetings we also have been able to install nine flock license read reading cameras within University City reporting over 200 C violations and Contracting with Phoenix uh Landscaping uh to to keep our streets clean within University City we're Guided by three areas the vision plan our 2021 Vision plan our University City Partners mission and vision and then our performance objectives which aligns with what's been aligned with the Council University Works to guide our our vision plan 2021 with our mission and vision and performance OB jectives are by the council these three areas align with our organizations on economic Vitality for all uh we're going to discuss now some of those accomplishments the one I want to focus on is number one uh in regards to the one billion dollar investment uh made by many for the blue line extension and development that's occurring along North Trion uh we're really excited about this opportunity what has happened we've seen over 30 projects uh throughout uh North Trion covering about 114 Acres 15 of them being in a quar mile of the blue line extension um that includes 754 affordable housings 336 hotel rooms 1.2 million nonresidential square fet and $2.9 billion in projected um value UCP is working closely with parks and recs to activate the greenway with programming and providing funding to support native plant life we're also looking at connectivity Mobility arts and culture let's go a little bit further with that uh USP is glad to be a part of the work around JW Clay Boulevard redesign this 11 M 11.5 million project was awarded uh earlier this year this project will support bike Lanes cycle tracks a muse path grading storage drainage concrete sidewalks ramps striping curb and much much more projects be completed in q1 of 2027 another Community activation which we are really excited about to is the Improvement on on University in University City the triangle project at where 29 and 49 meet you can see that where actually today if you go out there they're planting at the intersection of 29- 49 or Tri in University City Boulevard as a ncdt owned land that we partner with the city to keep clean maintain and plant beautiful welcoming mat which includes uh Landscaping a landscaping burn native grass Evergreens and mulch again around our vision when it comes to our mission and vision we're supporting economic Vitality for all promoting University City has not only a place but a city brand that is unique with businesses like small business like tax and te the ice cream shop 9s and the Carolina's only Ikea and pxg as I mentioned earlier part of the vibrancy is activation with our Signature Events but also supporting other UC events like the famous toastery bowl we had earli this year and the Queen City Arts Festival led by Mr Tommy Nichols we're also focusing on supporting development that increases density and around our major corridors bringing updated Community amenities like the University City Library coming in 2025 when it comes to the vibrancy of our community as we speak about vibrant communities University City highlights our achievements at our annual meetings with Community stakeholders the novel presented by Crescent Community is one of those developments that highlighted our highlights our vibrancy these items also highlight in our are highlighted in our annual report um which includes the farmers market and many more of these cultural events that we have and as far as our Signature Events conern talking about our Signature Events you see a list of them there we host seven Signature Events one program aimed at and one program aimed at small businesses these events are reflective of the diversity of our community and promote tradition these events also give space and place for students families renters homeowners and many of the people that make up University City and most of our sign events are free you can see a couple there we're getting ready gearing up for juneth Arts Festival had a great time uh at the Charlotte Kids Fest and we're making those events really so we can create space and place within University City when it comes to our performance objectives there's a lot there uh for our Workforce we focus on small business we are are are the organizational lead for advocating for growth that is responsible and adds to quality of life that University City provides we convene safety Leaders with the UCP safety meetings having conversations around issues that impact all of us including partnering with cmpd and other anchor institutions in the area of Transportation development we support some of the following projects we currently on the working on a wayfinding project to support The Branding of University City and allow for better traffic flow we're also revisioning what university city research what University Research Park looks like as far as our future and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that we're also advocating for infrastructure project that support our growing neighborhoods lastly UC uh University City is proud to be a well-managed organization clean audits strong brand policies and uh we'll get a little bit more about that later new business is opening including the C the coffee shop we're pretty excited about Mike's vegan if you've been out there UCP is embracing our small business in this area and that's important to us we're hosting several events at the real African art gallery and we're promoting our business not just on social online on media but also on print and radio uh and working even on podcast to make sure our businesses are promoted in the area transportation and development we're pretty excited about the I8 I85 North Bridge which would be a major connector for UNC Charlotte and you are a University Research Park uh this $30 million project will include Aesthetics components including lettering crown logos pedestrian lighting that's important adds more character to University City another project that we're also looking forward to is also the $1.5 million WT Harris infrastructure light project uh this project from my understanding we here is the largest ever as far as street lights along WT heris uh starting from Mount Holly Huntersville Road all the way to I 85 North ramp a distance of approximately 8 Miles when it comes to safe and clean communities as mentioned earlier we're partnering with cmpd on working to improve safety in the city UCP has promoted several events around safety we educate Community stakeholders on how to use 311 and uh using video and social media we're also glad to work closely with ncdt on the city on the truck parking issue I want to thank council member Graham for his work on that we support our truckers and understand their need and their value at the same time we know there's issues around safety cleanliness around our intersections and our entrance and exit ramps on on our on our interstates um I want to thank and and a part of that is also the better regulations signage and now an app that we're pretty excited about having to get that out to our community how they can use that app to solve this problem when it comes to governments I mentioned clean audits uh strong policies engaging a form board um best practices that we follow as far as nonprofit management and MSD and business improvement district management and increas in diverse voices and representation and that's important to us we have residents homeowners anchors and businesses of all sizes on our board University Research Park is a major asset for us uh just want to spend a few minutes to talk about that University City Partners sees University Research Park as a major asset not just for University City for Charlotte in the region specifically in the areas of innovation research and prototype manufacturing this is in Partnership of course with our great institution UNCC Charlotte our vision is more flexibility marketability as we work to work with City representatives and welcome our uh latest and greatest announcement Vanguard speaking of Vanguard uh we're excited to welcome this financial Powerhouse to University City we're thankful for all those who played a role in making this happen this announcement will impact office vacancy rates in University City from 24% to 18% 6% decrease uh and that's from coar we've seen numbers even higher than that and we're looking forward to partnering with leadership with Vanguard the small business initi has taken off with the support of the city I want to thank the city manager for helping us get that Grant together $236,000 Grant and of course council member Johnson for the advocacy uh UCP is attempting to engage over 4700 businesses in University City it is quite the task uh we have online engagement inperson engagement we're emailing mailing knocking on doors to offer resources and marketing promotions advertising in addition to having them complete a survey to understand their needs postcards went out to these businesses early March we're going to follow up again with another postcard we've already identified 10 businesses that need our support and what we're hearing from these businesses is really about promotions and marketing yes we have businesses who are closing and they don't have the business acument and we're supporting with that there's an example of Mr Neville Mr Neville Taylor he's in uh maler um Point Shopping Center just a really good guy he needed Professional Service we got a photographer and resources for him to promote his business the help behind this I just want to point out these are some great people who going to help me with this grant um if those of you I'm sure you probably familiar may be familiar with pride PR an amazing firm to help us with some of the marketing efforts along with white label management uh they actually with this grant we were able to hire white label management to transform our youth from the community to knock on the doors of these businesses um the biggest challenge we have with these businesses they're not they're throwing away our postcards they're not listening to our emails but having people come and knock on the door that's key and so we're getting more surveys throughout their way and uh I promise I'm almost finished this as we wrap this up I want to highlight just our Partnerships I mentioned the CM PD already I'm uh I do want to talk about UNCC Charlotte we're leaning in our homecoming uh working with them as far as Vision strategy and safety strategies we have a robust intern internship uh with UNC Charlotte we're also welcoming our University City Library coming up in I believe Q2 Q3 of next year uh we're with the library we're working on arts and culture with events like the juneth festival uh and we're promoting um we're promoting our local artists within our community uh you may have heard about our spoken City Podcast with some great people that you may know up there also a number of art installations going around the Barton Creek entrance way also wanted to highlight a few other Partnerships uh that's not listed there Hidden Valley uh mayfit Memorial CD c new elementary and classroom Central with that that is it thank you thank you thank you um couple of things just first listening to both MSDS I am I'm pleased to see how each of you are leveraging your unique strengths in your area um so that that's exciting to think about how each area can offer something different and unique for um for the city I did have a couple of questions um the first question you answer my piece about the cultural component because I was I was very interested in understanding that because one of the things that I noticed if I'm comparing and contrasting the two um is and Adam heads up I'm probably going to ask you a question here so you may want to make your way over as I'm comparing and and contrasting the two it seems seems that there is a particular focus on small business support in uh in UCP whereas the sense that I'm getting and definitely I know that this was just a a quick overview it the sense that I'm getting on South Park is that it's a little bit more um scaled like a little bit more focused on Regional I don't want to say tourism but recognizing that South Park is a particular um tourist destination for the region I want to understand as you think about Keith UCP beyond the regional play when it comes to uh Research Park how are you thinking about uh the future of University City as it relates to tourism and so if y'all could maybe compare and contrast the two I'd appreciate uh I would say quickly I think for us really we wanted to focus and working with the board we really wanted to focus in our small business we have so many of them we have over 25 retail centers uh within University City so there was a coming in this first year there was a value add in us really trying to solidify working with our small businesses when it comes to University City and sub submarket we're robust when it comes to hotel and tourism we have over 30 hotel properties over 6,400 Hotel Beds uh we hosted like I said the famous toastery bowl we are leaning in and working with our hotels to understand their needs and how do we once again bring the community together and then Market that also I don't want to Discount un UNCC Charlotte um the major asset for us and so they have the Marriott and some other assets how do we lean in on that how do we really make sure that it's economic Vitality for all and we're able to see what revenue is generated when they have big events and the homecoming you may have saw up there we lean into their homecoming we make sure the lake is activated around the homecoming time so people can come to bwalk billies and go to Dave uh padol days so we do see a value in the hotel and tourism I think this first couple years though we really want to make sure and it really speaks to the to the discussion you guys were actually having earlier we want to bring in our businesses there are so many businesses and quite we had a number that didn't make it the University City ax house didn't make it we had a blackowned um bookstore that didn't make it and so we're trying to lean in on some of those business what do you need because as we grow and as we bring in big companies how do we then pair together um so I think that's where our focus is and on the flip side Adam can you maybe speak to how you all are leaning into that piece now and then what is your plan um for small business and is is there a play similar to what Keith is really uh leaning in on as far as small business inclusion yeah great question and thanks for the opportunity one of the things that we know in South Park is that uh it is a regional destination for shopping and dining and and serves that purpose for you know not only Charlotte but but truly for the region and so we want to continue to ensure that we're strong on that front that we are attracting people uh we are the the premier shopping destination between Washington and Atlanta and so playing that role for our community is really important uh but what I would say is that part of the reason that South Park's able to do that is that about a third of our uh consumer facing businesses in South Park are locally owned small businesses and so uh we know that those businesses need to thrive in order to play the role that that they need to play to support our visitor economy so thinking about uh places like a Jesse Browns Outdoors that is you know a a shopping destination for people from the region who are fly fishermen uh who who do that as a sport that's where they go to to get their gear um and so those small businesses are an important part of the play and I think what we as we think of the Charlotte region and a place where our small businesses uh can start and scale and continue to thrive so we're thinking about both of them and certainly our team uh every day is focused on those smaller businesses that you know don't have the resources of a major a major fashion brand thank you for that I appreciate it and then um as it relates to the neighborhood piece I really like Keith what you were sharing in regards to your Partnerships with the neighborhood I'm just curious again compare contrast uh the local neighborhood participation yeah so we're uh we have great Partnerships with span the South Park Association of neighborhoods which represents 43 residential neighborhoods that encircle the commercial Corp they were a big part of the process in creating the vision plan uh and we've already got a list of a couple of things that we're excited to work on together there's a real symbiotic relationship between those those residents and obviously the small businesses that depend on them in the commercial core thank you Adam my last couple questions are for Keith I appreciate you uh jumping in just to compare and contrast the two um Keith you mentioned specifically about trying to leverage uh the local businesses and really engaging them on a door-to-door standpoint I just want to make sure that I'm thinking about this right are these businesses that are already opted into to the MSD by virtue of paying additional taxes and now it's just a matter of hey you're already a part how do we get you to see the value in it council member that's exactly right so our goal is working with white label and work with pride PR uh we outlined our MSD which is a little bit under eight square miles um and we said let's go to these business door too um we knew that sometimes people don't they're busy they're not going to answer the postcard they're not going to return the postcard um and they're not and going to their emails we work closely with the alliance and a few others to get some email list and that just happen so we focus in on that boundary of the businesses that are like you mentioned paying the higher tax or paying the higher rent that in addition pays the higher tax fabulous and then lastly um the university um you spoke a little bit to really leveraging them not only as a destination for tourism and that kind of thing but how do you think um the university and that student population in particular and the talent that is coming out of there how do you what role do you think the MSD may be able to play in really just bringing that um to bear in the community uh Council Council we uh member we see a um a tremendous asset with UNCC Charlotte as a talent pipeline so and the work that was done prior to my tenure of bringing development and bringing businesses in that is a key selling point that you have these 30,000 students that people can type tap into so whether it's our large we have over 204 1,000 companies within uh University City mostly in urp understanding that they can tap into that Talent pipeline is important us working closely and having conversations with UNC charlot and the administrator so when we're out selling University City that we can include that not only that we're including that we got cheaper parking than many parts of Charlotte and there's just a number of assets that we're trying to lean into and UNC Charlotte is a major part of that awesome thank you Keith you've done a phenomenal job since you come on board I'd love to see the work thanks thank you Mr gr thank you madam mayor uh Keith I just want to thank you for for your leadership over the University City Partners um uh University City is is where I live U resident for 30 years and I can see a lot of the projects you talk about um taking fruition couple of thoughts and and and going back I thought you buried the lead in your presentation and the lead is is Charlotte UNCC Charlotte right uh and um the momentum that they could uh um they they have done and they can continue to do to kind of boost what's happening in University cities so I look forward to maybe Wednesday for me and you and Betty to get together in Phoenix and just kind of talk about that in terms of branding marketing and how do we get those students outside of the gates onto the streets which is always been um problematic right uh uh I don't know how we solve that butd love to uh engage I've had some conversation with the chancellor about that as well as Betty for sure so hopefully we can just have a drink together this weekend as we kind of network um when we go to Phoenix but also we can lean more into the race track and Speedway we we seen that have been losing that kind of focus uh especially on Race weekends to kind of activate more in terms of what's happening in University City uh and then just The Branding marketing peace with UNCC sh it's a great job uh would love to uh help more if I can um certainly council member Johnson and I still have some more work to do Mr manager on on the tractor trailer that continues um to be an issue um for University City as well as um uh issues around um um uh litter uh um despite their best efforts so continue to work with with City staff for that but uh really enjoy what you're doing over there and look forward to continuing the relationship thank you I appreciate it we are definitely looking looking North as you mentioned as we look at the racetrack look at even PNC Pavilion how do we just partner with them that it's a large market submarket for us in University City and leaning into that and getting the students across Tron and getting even getting across University City Boulevard is going to be key and so I would definitely look forward to have that conversation how do we continue to do that thank you Madame mayor um Keith um I certainly appreciate the partnership you all also have with um with the key to IMCA and the work that you all do together um I worked in Research Park for a number of years prior serving on Council so in 10 years area has grown tremendously uh if you drive through Research Park where it has transformed uh where we see number of businesses that have been displaced as well uh as a result of the growth we have seen of multif family and other developments so I appreciate what you're doing in terms of the business support uh also University to your point it's very diverse area we have uh we have a number of immigrant-owned businesses uh in University uh area um I know you mentioned about partnership with the um Pride magazine and I think that's great um I I would also encourage you to partner with immigrant own uh Publications such as Sati that helps with uh reaching businesses that are immigrant and Refugee owned in University City areas uh Jamaican restaurant in the same shopping strip where there is African art places there are number of asian-owned restaurants so uh we got to make sure we are reaching those businesses and um congratulations on that big um um site uh certainly that reduces uh the vacancy rate by a big margin and I think that's tremendous to have Vanguard at that uh big employment Hub that we have in University Research Park and it's great to have great to see your new staff here um all of them uh just one last question I have is about any efforts and you don't have to respond to it today uh you can send us a memo later I know we are running out of time but any efforts to beautify Boardwalk area because I know there are number of projects that are underway and there is an access where you're not able to access the certain part of Boardwalk which we often visit uh I think if we can if you can just talk to us about a plan because that is an attraction where a lot of families go to uh for recreation so how do we beautify that area and how do we promote businesses there there is a vacancy rate I have seen that's higher than what it used to be so certainly what are the plans around that so maybe in a follow-up report if you I'm happy to do that I will address now that we are pretty excited that we've been able to get the blue construction uh fencing down so you can walk around fully around the lake however the lake is a major asset and we love our 15 acre Lake we're working closely with the library uh to when they uh do their ground break or done the groundbreaking but when they break move forward with their development we're also looking forward to work with a new property manager that's handling the shops uh we want to need some TLC I will be the first one to admit uh but but a part of that is really bringing people around a vision and what that lake has meant for the past 20 plus years um my first 15 months being here that's we talking about my prom my wedding and so we want to make sure we bring that out so we have some ideas working Clos with the Owners Association on how we can really bring it back and of course working with UNC Charlotte we have events in partnership with them like our homecoming event we're going to do more majority of our events our signy events are posted around the lake and so the lake is truly an asset and we're going to do more but I appreciate that uh you recognize that it is an asset I think if we can also address cleaning that water uh because you know we are one of the 15th largest city and to have a have a lake that's not clean um I mean we take great pride in our clean water so when I see that when I walk around uh if somehow University City Partners can adopt that CU I think we need to preserve uh the beautification and the natural resources there so if you can if you could look at that that would be great thank you sure you just made a couple people on the staff really happy about that they're excited about getting into that thank you thank you Madame mayor I just want to piggy back what everyone else has said um it's an honor to work with you and to be the university representative um I work very closely with Keith and I you're just your commitment to the small businesses and I know that he's he's walked you know into those small businesses as I have and you know I can call Keith and say hey go over here and he's right on it so so so you're doing a phenomenal job um I'll absolutely support council member ashme if she wants to increase the funding to University City Partners so that we can make the lake a priority I think that's a great idea and I second that motion thank you so um yeah so thank you and welcome to the new staff and um I just want to piggy B pack off the um what you talked about the lake being an asset all of these festivals they're wonderful um the the Arts Festival hosted by Tommy Nichols is getting bigger and bigger the University City Lights Festival the lighting of the tree and it's just our downtown area so it's an exciting area and I'm honored to represent and I'm honored to work with you so thank you for the work that you do thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you so um we have almost 100 people downstairs that have been waiting probably about 30 minutes so I would like to ask if we could at least get six people to the Das pretty quickly so that we can open up the public forum and yes fine I got that so um and then we also have two closed sessions tonight so um we'll be we'll be here for a moment but please let's try to get six people to the DI so that we can begin [Music] a [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] afternoon everyone thank you for your patience um we often have meetings before this meeting and often those meetings are very important and as well as what you're doing tonight that's very important so it's always a difficult balance but please um accept any apologies that we have all of our apologies for um the time delay in the meeting but I promise you we're working just as hard for the city we'll work just as hard with you tonight so I'm going to call this meeting um to order and I'm going to begin with introductions and we will start with our City attorney good evening Patrick Baker City attorney good evening Lana Mayfield council member at large Ed DRS district 7 good evening and happy Passover Dante Anderson mayor protim District 1 good evening I'm VI L and I serve as mayor good evening James Mitchell I serve city council at large good evening happy Passover and happy Earth Day I'm marjerie Molina I represent District 5 welcome deol asira serving you as your at large member and happy Earth Day good evening Stephanie Kelly good work all right we begin our meeting with an invocation this invocation is really about to keep us um focused on the service that we do provide to you it also helps us um solemnize all of the things that we talk about to act and treat each other with kindness and Civility and tonight we have council member Molina who will give our invocation and immediately following that we will have our Pledge of Allegiance now we understand understand that not everyone um chooses to make a decision to join in any kind of um um effort that we would have around prayer and Faith but we and also for the American flag but we would ask you to stand if you choose so I'll begin with Miss Melina thank you Madame mayor um good evening everyone um happy Passover and happy Earth I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the profound teachings of Passover a time of Liber ation and renewal I hope we draw inspiration from these holidays to Foster hope within our community just as Passover encourages us to embrace the promise of new beginnings Earth Day invites us to renew our commitment to our planet it urges us to protect the Earth our shared home and this and to cherish and sustain its resources for future Generations today let us enter twine the spirits of these observances may we find the strength to liberate ourselves from indifference to act with Compassion Care for our environment and pave the way for a future that honors our planet I hope today inspires us to work together for a healthier sustainable world for our communities and our city I pray we proceed with a heart full of love and gratitude mindfulness of our duty and the profound opportunity that lies in the convergence of these meaningful celebrations thank you Miss Molina if you choose to stand we'll have our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you I'd now like to represent um call on representative Mitchell for a special note mayor council thank you so much we have the pleasure of having some honors students from UNC Charlotte who are here for extra credit so I told them we're going to be on our best behavior this evening as we do the work of the of the city so those students are attending can you stand and be recognized at this [Applause] time thank you mayor thank you um our next um action is our public forum and on behalf of the entire city council I ask that all speakers and audience members be civil and courious in the use of their language neither insults profanity gestures inappropriate behavior at to address the councel is not really cool okay um likewise audience members should not Jer applaud or interrupt speakers I think everyone knows that um everyone wants someone that would respect ECT them be polite and listen to each other so that we can make sure that everyone is heard so if there is any question about how we conduct our public forum let me just talk a little bit about our protocol one if you are a speaker at the podium and in your time which we give you which is 2 minutes because we have over 15 speakers tonight um I will ask you to stop and then ask you to um go back to your seat if you do not stop you are violating this is the hardest part you are violating GS 14331 1817 and are subject to being escorted out of the meeting chamber and charge with a misdemeanor if you do not follow those rules so um we will now um go ahead and come back to that um we're are now going to go ahead and have our public forum again thank you for your patience and what you've been doing and I have a list of speakers um if you would come down and please be careful with the um steps we will have our first set of speakers um Jus deor um f and taboo L Lounge Lan um if you would come down and speak you will have two minutes each do I have the second speaker that I announc I I'm Gabriel man Gabriel Gabriel Sor me and yes sorry that's Gabriel so I thought about your name name as being what you're talking about sorry yes ma'am all right please go ahead good evening city council my name is Jesus stator I a member of the Charlotte Running community and a Mobility safety advocate for starters I'd like to again thank cmpd Runners have continued to report higher presence on certain parts of the greenway while dealing with Personnel constraints uh however the events that take place our REM why we need to continue talking about it since the last time I was here about two months ago there have been at least four in inces or attacks on the greenway all of which were reported to police officers Charlotte meber has poured Millions into the greenway system in an effort to expand microt transportation and all of its goals however we've heard from Runners that they don't feel safe running on the Greenways and instead they'll use sidewalks and streets to do it which kind of defeats the purpose of the Greenways themselves as far as safety measures go Mount Holly the city Mount Holly approved a stretch of Greenway to have five cameras installed on it as a result of incidents that took place so is that something that we might be able to look at with warmer weather rolling in there's a chance of increased firsttime users on the greenway and with that as well people that might have to use it High School cross country teams that might not be cognizant of the greenway system and their safety needs for that uh our main ask for the future and going forward is for you to help us help you help us uh we understand that the County Commissioners are the ones that primarily are responsible for the Greenways and parks and wrecks so we are asking for city council to Champion our voice with respect to uh uh requests for the greenway as well as what how we work with sustained CLT in in regards to getting Greenway safety and budgets move forward with them you can look up more info at runt run.com safety or the Instagram page for runt run thank you thank you Mr s serento s Meo yes ma'am thank thank you uh well greetings mayor and and honorable members of the Council thank you for granting me the privilege to address you today uh my purpose here is to discuss pressing concerns regarding the operations of taboo Lounge which is located at 710 West Trade Street this establishment which serves as a club hookah bar and smoke shop has repeatedly come under scrutiny for seemingly contravening several city ordinances firstly there are issues pertaining to improper advertising practices illegal parking um safety issues and violations of noise ordinances it is imperative that we consider these matters seriously and ensure that our City's legal standards are upheld taboo Lounge is located at the bottom level of a condominium and parking garage um under Charlotte's noise ordinance Amplified sound definition it is defined as the intentional production or participation in producing sound through mechanical or electronic devices that result in unreasonably loud or Ruckus noise it is my lived experience that every weekend from Friday through Sunday taboo Lounge operates as a nightclub playing music at volumes that that persist until 2: a.m. which clearly breaches these noise standards as I claim because I have personally used a decel measuring device after 11: p.m. achieving readings over10 consecutively this problem has persisted for over a year according to meinberg County procedures a business can be um leave from a chronic um can be labeled a chronic noise producer um that brings with it fines and mitigating steps that the Violator must abide by however in discussions with Lieutenant Spindler and other sergeants from the Charlotte meinberg Police Department it was revealed that difficulties in adhering to the procedures for measuring noise levels have preventive effective enforcements against this establishment or any establishment for that matter so in conclusion I urge the council to conduct a thorough investigation into the operations of tab Lou thank you very much all right I think we got the gist of it the request thank you all right effective noise control all right so um our next speaker is Tanika Nicholson and Patrick Madson Nichol Nicholson Patrick Madson yes um is is na here okay Amy dong would be I'm sorry I cannot see what that says oh we're going to do that after we have our public hearing okay we'll be okay all right thank you all right Jennifer y did you do Amy D Amy's with is Amy dong here okay you're sorry thank you first off yes please all right Mr Matson thank you very much how's everybody doing tonight happy Monday my name is Patrick Matson I currently work at UNCC Charlotte so I'm in the university area and I'm here to talk about the animal care and control uh there's two things that I'm asking for one is it's time for that unit to be a freestanding Department unto itself and the second thing that I'm asking for is funding to help it get new facilities uh I've been here a long time I help students find jobs and I help companies or convinced companies to come to this area and I can tell you that we got great trees we got great buildings we got great roads we got great people but one of the things that we don't do very well in this city is funding our animal welfare and so that's something that we really need to look at we are number 67 out of 100 in the nation Raleigh is number eight Winston Salem is higher than us Greensboro is higher than us the the one thing that we are second in the nation of for this state of North Carolina is how many animals we put down in shelters so so last thing I want to say and then I want to turn it over to others who have other things to say is it's time we know this it's time we know in our hearts it's time so let's get these things going and I'm happy to show you guys around the the shelter whenever you want as well wear your dog clothes thank you than you all right Miss dong how much time do I have two minutes two minutes okay okay good evening council members my name is Amy dong and I'm a district 6 resident and I've lived in Charlotte for 10 years I'm a devoted m a retired Peace Corps volunteer a former ESL and elementary teacher a CMS volunteer a feeding Charlotte board member and a Charlotte meberg Animal Services volunteer in Foster today I come to you with a plea that stems from a journey I unexpectedly embarked upon but one that has left an indelible mark on my heart my involvement with the city's animal shelter I didn't grow up with dogs and I don't even like them very much but when my youngest went to kindergarten I adopted a dog named Charlie and he's my third child but in 2022 I heard that dogs in the shelter desperately needed walks their simplest needs weren't being met and so I signed up to become a dog walker volunteer I had never been to an animal shelter or a prison and to me the shelter is like a prison um the moment you walk into the kennel area it's like an assault on the senses the stench of urine and feces hits you straight away the cacophony of crying barking and whining dogs fill your ears the sight of each dog you pass fills your eyes with tears your fingertips are damp from the little licks of the pups through the fence and often when I'm about to open a kennel door I have to still my mind just to drown out the sorrowful cries of the dogs many who haven't been walked for days I walked dogs for four months and I became a foster in 2022 I have fostered 10 dogs in 19 months back to back with almost no breaks and the influx of dogs is too much for the shelter to keep up with so in 10 years I've seen the city explode with people and therefore their companion animals I love fostering but I'm exhausted tonight I urge you to consider two critical actions make animal services independent city department and secondly invest in a new shelter that is adequately designed and staff to meet the needs of our growing Community thank you oh wow great job yay [Music] that is a true role model okay our next speaker is jennif um Jennifer Y and catlyn C C Campbell Kaitlyn Caitlyn Kaitlyn sorry all right Caitlyn Jennifer please jennif Jennifer thank you Miss Johns okay city council thank you for your time my name is Jennifer Y and I'm here today as a Charlotte resident of 14 years and a passionate advocate for our City's animals and community members in my years here I've witnessed the remarkable growth of Charlotte but I've also seen the challenges that accompany such rapid expansion particularly when it comes to Animal Services I wear many hats at the animal shelter I'm a foster dog walker front desk assistant and I train new volunteers and Lead events every day I witness the joys and the heartaches that come with this role but there's one site that never fails to haunt me the image of will barrels full of euthanized animals waiting to enter an incinerator we're here today to ask for your support and build a better future for our community we're asking for two crucial actions from this Council first we urge you to make animal services and independent city Department secondly we implore you to revisit the issue of building a new shelter in 2017 you allocated 7 million for this purpose only to retract that funding later on now as our city continues to double in size the need for a modern well equipped shelter has never been more urgent our current facility is outdated and resembles more of a prison than a safe haven as a front desk assistant I have the privilege of interacting with the public I witness firsthand the heart-wrenching decisions faced by pet Guardians who find themselves unable to care for their companions it's a painful reality one that often ends in heartbreaking surrenders and while some may be callous many are simply facing circum cumstances beyond their control the emotional toll of working and volunteering at the shelter is immense every day we are confronted with the realities of animal overpopulation and limited resources it's time we provide animal services with the support it needs to continue to continue this vital work thank you for your time and attention to this critical issue thank you very much all right Kaitlyn Kaitlyn thank you hi my name is KAIT and Kelly Campbell I'm here with my neighbors tonight to register our strong opposition to the proposed landfill in Oakdale as a reminder this landfill would be in my backyard just over my fence line 50 feet feet from my one-year-olds bedroom to hear see and taste for the rest of our lives I now ask those attending who also oppose this landfill to stand if you're able council members we are here to keep this important topic top of Mind knowing some of you thought you had Tak care of it before unfortunately the property owners the Sanders family continue to work behind closed doors leveraging people they know from their ongoing City contracts trying to hide behind an LLC with a new name but the same ownership working angles at every level of government such as city courts County Fire Marshals State regulators and the good old boys network as a result this landfill can still become a reality I want to thank you publicly City attorney Baker for looking into this very secretive legal appeals process process earlier this year wherein Mr Sanders apparently induced a city employee to directly and effectively win his appeal thank you for putting a stop to this misconduct as you listen to remarks this evening remember that earlier you and we thought this matter was resolved put to bed the zba ruled in our favor last year City attorney Baker was able to freeze the back door appeals process but here we are again seriously threatened by a Six-Day a week functioning dump in our backyard we're asking tonight that you put formal time on the agenda for this topic the citizens standing here with us tonight have done things the right way we have followed the rules to a te we've asked for full transparency from every level of government we are the good guys and yet we continue to meet resistance excuses and coverups after two years unfortunately doing things the right way has gotten us absolutely nowhere I request and urge you to stand with the citizens as Councilman Mitchell has to keep this landfill out of our backyards and out of our city please help us stop this land fell thank you Daniel Daniel Campbell and Terry mace Mr Campbell I want to thank you city council for being on the right side of this issue from day W you cared so much about this that you passed a law in 6 months time that would prevent a landfill near houses in the future I wish your attorney cared as much about preventing landfills near houses as you do but I'm here to speak to you specifically about the variance application for this landfill's entrance I've printed my initial communication to attorney Baker to you for reference the Sanders family applied for a city variance to use Kelly Road for the entrance during that June zba meeting the City attorney held a private sidebar in the hallway with the zba chair the owning administrator and the Sanders Attorney when this case came to the docket before anyone knew what hit them the zba chair recused himself but didn't leave the meeting before asking the Sanders Attorney more questions the City attorney then guided all parties through a continuance citing rules and procedures that were not yet adopted as legal Doctrine those rules would be adopted later in that June CBA meeting watch the tape it's on YouTube 2hour 25 minute Mark noticeably absent from the June 2023 zba meeting was Steve Sanders although he's probably busy as Sanders utility was awarded a $66 million contract from Charlotte water that same week which brings us to the July 2023 zba meeting where even more people turned out in opposition of this variance the city the city planning department did not recommended for approval and after hearing evidence from both sides the zba eventually voted to deny the variance the landfill couldn't proceed because they didn't have a permittable entrance we had won or so we thought we learned then in Fe February that a judicial review was heard at the Sanders request by the County Superior Court who remanded the varian's denial and ordered the variance to be approved the City attorney did not inform you their client nor the citizens or other elected officials that attended that meeting this variance was handed to the Sanders against the wishes of the planning department the opposing citizens and you the judge's order leaves more evidence that the City attorney is cited on the petitioner side than the defend inside thank you very much all right Miss mace thank you for your time um our community has a real concern based on a direct quote from Steve Sanders 75 trucks 150 trips a day I'm going to do some simple math based on this comment if operating 9 hours a day 5 Days 7 am. to 5:00 P p.m that's 8.33 trucks an hour or every 7.2 minutes standard width of a single axle dump truck is 8 8' 6 in to 8' 7 in and a length of 19 foot and 6 in so taking Mr Sanders comments equate multiple periods of time when two dump trucks would be passing on Kelly Road that is only 20 foot wide leaving a mere 30 in this doesn't take into account any dump trucks that are utilizing extended non-compliant mirror mirrors additionally this also doesn't take into account the slope and curvature of Kelly Road during ascending or descending on that road additionally who will be responsible for keeping Kelly Road Clear of debris from trucks that do not have an apron covering also quote this is from the LCI sitting sites should have an adequate access that prohibits traffic from back into public rways or blocking primary or secondary roads to the site based on Mr Sanders quote of 75 trucks a day blocking is exactly what will happen ironically as a resident off Kelly wrote since July 1992 Steve Sanders filed numerous complaints against Brewer and love grading during the time these land Fields were active isn't that irony thank you thank you our next uh next speakers are Amanda canup and Lee Anne cable okay hi I want to thank each and every council member for passing the updated Udo so this cannot happen to other neighborhoods I also want to personally thank Councilman Mitchell uh he's been helping us and staying in contact with everyone who has reached out to him since this has all started I have lived in my home for 14 years and I chose this area specifically for the quiet and peaceful neighborhood however last week my house was rocked by loud noises between the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 700 a.m. uh which according to Charlotte norise pollution construction Machinery cannot be operated from 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. in the residential areas within 300 ft of residential area My Little Slice of Heaven is going to be interrupted with a dump that has no liner for the soil that we share trucks that pollute the air loud explosives no management of what will be going into this landfill and I'm sure multiple other irritant landfills can release toxic Gases such as methane and carbon dioxide which contributed climate can change and can harm the environment landfills can also leak pollutants into the soil and groundwater contaminating nearby water sources and potentially harming human health which a lot of our neighborhood is on well water landfills are just accidents waiting to happen despite State and Fe Federal Regulation landfills each harmful leech harmful chemicals into the ground and water supply it's not an if situation but a when this situation will happen I'm also not sure how our small roads are going to be able to handle these oversized trucks coming in every day multiple times a day especially with all the growth in the current area I see more traffic accidents ready to happen I employ this Council to find our loophole sorry um especially with all the growth in the the area I employ the council to for to find our loophole find our way out of this mess this dump belongs in an industrial site not in our backyards we're just middle class citizens trying to live our life thank you very much and could you give us your name hi my name is Leanne cable lean I just wanted to make sure we had the right names correctly Miss Campbell please you have two minutes uh Leanne cable uh thank you for the opportunity to speak before you Council this evening I just wanted to take the opportunity to let you know that we appreciate your support thus far in this Oakdell landfill opposition I would like to start by also just recognizing your effort in putting the new policy in place for no longer allowing landfills to be in in a residential area I congratulate the city council members for the forethought and the learning opportunity that this particular situation has afforded in preventing any existing and future homeowners from enduring what this particular Community residents have been enduring over the past year this is our home this is not a place for a landfill it sometimes just doesn't feel good when all of these things are continuing to happen when we see that there is work that is going on in this landfill when we're seeing the explosives it feels like our voices are sometimes not being heard and we are just asking that you please continue to help us this is not a place for landfill and we just ask that you just continue to support this effort to not allow this to go forward thank you very much thank you our next speaker speakers are Jim Aon and Tony Barker [Applause] is is Jim here okay so then our next speaker would be Janette Wilson Miss Wilson she's called all right you have two minutes if would you give us your name please for the ref my name is Tony Barker um I really just wanted to thank everybody for what you've done to make sure that these landfills are not put in somebody else's backyard it is a very difficult situation for homeowners to deal with the the knowledge that our land value our home values are going to plummet who's going to want to buy our house even if we wanted to leave so we're going to be subjected to listening to the noise of all these dump trucks all day long every day the dust and debris that's going to float over into our yards it's going to be difficult um but I really wanted to take time to thank you for fixing the problem across the city um you have taken the impact that we're having to deal with into consideration and you understand what it's going to do to each individual in our neighborhoods all around um You probably saw our local media coverage or the signs all over the Oakdale area we tried to get our message out for the little people without any power up against big money power and greed we listen you listened to our concerns and you were empathetic you understood what a horrible predicament we are facing and you took action you cared so much that in six months time you passed a law Banning new landfills in residential areas across the city that is unprecedented you are the only governing body that has shown any support for us I want to thank each and every one of you for listening to us and hearing us today and hope that some action will be taken thank you thank you all right so Miss Wilson Janette Wilson resident over 30 years this landfill Journey has given me A Tale of Two Cities to have to explain to my children for real life Civics in City number one you've got the government the way it's meant to work the respectable side with Representatives that actually answer emails and Miss Mayfield comments on next door post and obviously Mr James Mitchell that's met and worked with citizens I'm happy to discuss City number one with my children and I'm grateful for it in City number two however if you already have multi-million contracts you must get some type of preferential treatment wealthy Lake Norman residents with connections get sweet deals made but Westside peasants get short answers or no answers from City number two staff we're left as Outsiders on issues in our literal backyards someone in City number two's been offering insight to maximize this landfill loophole with pre- submitt meetings someone on City number two has redefined mining for them and coached them on certain terms being removed from their application do his contracts with the city like help him know someone in every single Department Sanders privilege has been showing and we don't like it the ink hasn't even dried on their appeal but we've already got survey Flags down dumped material materials Mining Company trucks permits for explosives an open excavation pit and a spoonfed solution for their landfill entrance to be on my residential collector Road the one that I drive on that the city of Charlotte is obligated to protect it sounds like they're not even waiting must be nice to have Sanders as a last name you represent City number one for me my children and my neighbors and we sure hope that you're going to come through for us your decisions will impact us and the environment permanently L if the special use requirements in city code aren't met then they don't get the special use they're not supposed to mine and they're not supposed to use Kelly Road as an entrance I don't want to tell my kids that the systems that run our city only work for the favored few use your Authority and influence over the city attorney's office to fight for us on this appeal we're not done thank you our next next speakers are L Lon Jason love it and lri rangle please we the Charlotte Metro Democratic Socialist of America and the shelle Dunlap Thompson in partnership with the NAACP Charlotte meinberg County Branch the southern workers assembly and black workers for justice bring forth a community safety initiative ride or CSI which will address ongoing safety concerns on cats buses and this is a direct effort to reduce the dispatching of the other CSI crime Scene investigations units on to cat's routes for us at DSA addressing safety concerns is a natural extension of our Charlotte public transit campaign focusing on improving bus frequency expanding routes and schedules and building shelters we call on the community and for City officials the mayor city manager and all of city and county staff to ride the bus on May 4th on routes covering Betty's Ford Road at Rosa Parks Place Transit Center North Tron at the Charlotte mecklinburg library at Little Sugar Creek and the Eastland Central ab area via the Eastland Community Transit Center the goal is to convene at these locations on May 4th at 1:30 p.m. and ending at the Charlotte Transportation Center around 3 p.m. during and after these rides we plan to collect data from the community and with this data have a future conversation via Town Hall in July hosted by the great the Greater Mount Mariah Primitive Baptist Church we stand before you with a sincere appeal appeal for you all as elected officials of Charlotte to participate in this ride May 4th 2811 Betty for road at Rosa Park Transit Center we have strong confirmations that Ethan Rivera's mother will be in attendance and participating in this ride this community needs to shower her in love and support and we are hoping that you will be present to do the same thank you thank you angle I'm sorry yes oh uh Lori Wrangle yes good afternoon um I come to you as all the people have before me to speak on uh being a Community member that will be directly affected by this landfill as well if it is approved I want you all to know that I appreciate all of you and in particular uh Councilman Mitchell and aiding Us in fighting this and I understand that it has not been easy my topic of concern here is safety regarding the permit for this landfill my family and I enjoy sitting on the porch on afternoons after work we take this time to wave at passing neighbors and enjoy a breeze we live approximately 200 ft away from this property in question in the past 3 months we have observed noises that sound like blast and have been more and more frequent we contacted the chief Marshall's office and while I commend them with being promp with their response we were disappointed to be told that their s their office simply has no time to investigate the reason for this was that the size of the property would take too long to look through the other was that the land owners have been holding a permit to hold explosives for so long and have never violated it so that they therefore could not possibly be violating it now meaning it warranted no investigation and not to sound crass but I have never in my life committed a crime that warranted an investigation and yet I feel like if a deceased body showed up on my property regardless of my previous record someone would come to investigate we were also posted with the idea that it could be gunshots as if gunshots would be a better alternative to explosions as a responsible gun owner myself who has shot for target practice in a safe and legal setting this is even more upsetting even though I believe this to be incorrect if it happened to be true and struck a Community member that is even more alarming when we were told that the chief Marshal's office did not respond to gunshots they told us to call Emergency Services when an officer arrived to take my statement he asked what I wanted him to do since no one else had called or gotten hurt even though I showed him a phone recording of these lasts to get to my point I ask you all what has to happen for you to take our concerns with this development seriously thank the owners on this land have thank you very much your two minutes are up thank um that concludes our public forum for this meeting one more one more okay one more person it would be Lisa Landrum please miss Landrum hello thank you for having us here this evening and I am here to speak on behalf of Mobility safety as well um first of all I would like to thank you I am one of those Runners that has seen continually improving and more uh police officers on our Greenways trying to keep us all safe um I'm also Mom and a coach of Youth Runners so in the past there have been some really unfortunate horrible accidents and incidents that have happened on The Greenway um even with cross country teams running as a group there's certainly somebody who's going to be lagging behind um I worked with a team that had the girl who was attacked and it definitely affected them all so I just really urge you to continue to please keep Mobility safety on your agendas we will do our best to try to continue to engage the community and support what you all can do for us thank you thank you very much now that concludes our public forum Grand this question okay so in conclusion of our um public forum um I would like to make sure that people understand that while we have you speak to us tonight we also have staff here that is really recording and looking at the information that you're providing as a result of that they you will hear back from the appropriate person inside the organization on Remar s or comments as well as any report that's necessary or needed so thank you for telling us what we need to understand better and we'll have additional communication with you as a result of your presence here today so thank you all for being here and we will have I think from a number we'll be talking about animal control in the budget we'll be talking about um the land use in from the city attorney's office so thank you very much we appreciate you being here today all right so the next item on our agenda is a celebration of Arbor Day I would like to announce the winners of the Charlotte 2024 Crown I'm sorry is City attorney providing so I'll ask the question that hasn't been asked would you like for me to say absolutely like to speak on it tonight Mr I'm I'm happy to okay um and this is on the landfill matter just want to make sure that the uh Council and the public is is informed uh as I mentioned to you the last time I talked about this we have filed uh the notice of appeal uh that's a process that is a monthlong process so we're in the process of pulling all that information together uh to uh to put uh and eventually there will be a a hearing uh I would expect that in the court of appeals where it would be discussed uh in front of the judges and ultimately the the court will make a decision at some point in time uh we are repres representing the board uh and basically our position is that the board had the discretion to make the decision that it made uh and that the judge uh basically overstepped his bounds by reversing uh the the board's decision and inserting his own opinion into uh the the decision so that's that's the nutshell of what the um what the appeal uh is about um one thing I I I want to be make very clear because I've heard some accusations about my office and I think when people talked about the City attorney I think you're talking about my city attorneys but I take full responsibility for the good the bad the ugly that any of them do I have two City attorneys were that were at that particular meeting one uh T Haggler gray represents the staff they make sure she makes sure the staff uh when they're making their presentations is consistent with the ordinances or whatever the the subject matter is uh the second um is Jill Sanchez Meyers her job is to work with the board directly to make sure that the board follows its rules and procedures uh going going forward uh so when the this is a quasi judicial hearing which has a certain higher level it's not just a public hearing it's a certain higher level quasi judicial as close to judicial as possible and and that's one of the the ways in which our decisions can be overturned is if we are not following those processes um and I do want to um specifically talk about the recusal uh of the chair uh during that first meeting and and how that went down I don't know who the chair is um I've not met that person what I've been told is that the chair uh once realizing who was in the room decided he could not be fair and impartial uh in that particular hearing and there were five people and it's usually a five person uh board that hears these cases so once he recused himself and that attorney uh were they willing to go forward with less than the full uh board that is four board members as opposed to five which they declined to do uh and that apparently has been a a procedure that this board has had for a number of years uh and is now codified into their rules in fact I think they did it that particular day but that's been their longtime procedure so that's why uh things were were set back uh for for another time for folks to come back and and do that but that's again uh Miss Meyers uh Miss Sanchez Meyers role is to advise the board which is what she did on on what their rules were and when there's four people and not five it then goes to uh the uh the applicant uh to see if they want to go forward with less than the full compliment or if they want to wait until we can have five and apparently although sometimes there are alternates that are there just in case this happens there was no alternate there that particular day so we are moving forward with the appeal um we are representing the board and basically their decision-making Authority uh as to the decisions uh that they made and I will'll advise folks uh as we get uh our further instructions from the court in terms of uh deadlines and and when uh the uh the actual oral argument if there is oral argument would be help so Mr Baker you've given an oral report it might be helpful to actually have something that would be written for these folks to so that they can have some understanding of it um my apologies I did not know that we were going to respond tonight so my apologies to you but we now are on course and I believe that Mr Baker has talked about what's going on but there's a Next Step mayor may I ask Patrick attorney Baker a question of followup to what you just shared with us just for clarification it was noted that movement is already happening we're in the process of challenging the ruling that came afterward is there any language or opportunity to basically do a cease and assist while we're going through this process if movement is already happening in the community on something that we're still in the middle of litigation on so I would need to speak to the staff on that in terms of because there's an enforcement staff and I need to know from them exactly what is going on no variance has been issued um because of our appeal that has stopped the variance that the court actually ordered to be um granted to the applicant so there shouldn't be anything that relates to the variant because they don't have one but I need to speak with staff I've not heard from staff about any specific specific violations I have seen some emails about concerns that have been raised by uh members of the community but I I need to speak with staff to be able to fully answer that question and we're cross cross referencing the calls to code enforcement and whether or not staff is going out yes thank you I I have a question s yes thank you Mr attorney thank you for the report so uh number of public speakers had expressed their concerns around heavy trucks in their uh neighborhood and um every seven or eight minutes so that's already happening is there anything we can do to stop that now not the truck traffic that's on there now but the issue is to landfill yeah the the issue is if it's going to if they're going to get that variance there's going to be a lot more trucks uh because you you that's that's really the essence of what's being discussed is that if it's a fully functional landfill you're talking about a lot more trucks on a road that's not designed for that and this gets back into a DOT uh issue where the do has made a particular ruling and and the court basically has sought relief from the do not allowing an entrance on a more appropriate Road okay so that would be part of the next step where it goes to appeal core that's part of the discussion that we're having yes and it it is part and parcel of the appeal okay well I look forward to reviewing your memo uh that would be helpful with some background thank you all right so my understanding is that you will communicate something in writing to the neighborhood leaders or however you guys have been communicating and that the next step is um to take action as you represent the board yes um so the question that I think was asked was um they if they are who said the noise in the morning 5 a M um the noise and and is that noise truck noise or is it other types of noise and I'm I'm sorry I probably I know we probably my understanding is that they are are they using fire blasting M materials blasting you're blasting materials so I think that's something of great concern Mr Baker certainly and and I'll speak with staff because again there's an enforcement staff that's not in my office that that would bring bring that to us and then get guidance as to whether they're in violation of the ordinance or not uh and we just need to bring that right close that in I've not had that come to me and I don't believe it's come to our attorneys but but I'll find that out for sure and I know that they're watching this right now so thank you thank you again um you'll be getting more information as it develops all right thank you okay thank you madam mayor all right um so I'm going to turn us from blasting and and all kinds of things to something that perhaps is a little bit more joyous um it is celebration of Arbor Day and I'd like to announce the winners of Charlotte's 2024 Crown tree Awards this Awards program celebrates Charlotte's amazing Urban forest and the citizens partners and stakeholders who preserve grow and advocate for it the program has four award categories and is administered by the Charlotte tree advisory commission chair the tree advisory commission is Mr Robert Scotts where are you Mr Roberts is he here not here okay so he's not here um he was planned to be a part of the celebration because the program went dormant during the co pandemic but it was revised by the tree Commission in 2023 earlier this month award winners received locally sourced wood plaques I think I saw a few few of them up there to commemorate their effort or their tree tonight I would like to acknowledge their effort so please help me congratulate the following 2024 Crown tree Award winners I'm going to come around this way I think behind let's see more room over here yes come you're not going to say their Nam from the microphone from the microphone I believe do you need me to have a microphone here their names I have the statement I have the names here written down so all right so the winners of the fear of the tree award there are three Brad's baby willow oak tree nominated by lesie Bivens Albert has Albert the ash tree nominated by lri Reed and the Spring Tree nominated by Taylor ston the winner of the corporate friend of urban Forest award is the Wallace stale nominated by Milton McAn winner of The Proud partner of the canopy award is Charlotte Wildlife Stewart nominated by lri Reed and finally the mayor's tree of the Year award goes to Park Road monor school with let me see if I can do this d d come on I see you up there holding your see you nominated Heather Rucker stool congratulations to all of you thank you for what you do so earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with um the parents but more importantly with the family and so I of children that care deeply about what we're doing with tree I think all of us would love to have that kind of Joy continuously and I really want to make sure that everybody understands that there's opportunities for these young people to change the world and change it and make it a better place so thank you all for attending today with that we will go ahead and begin the completion of our action review and I'm going to recognize Shan Heath to um address the um last item on our action review which is the for home for all report that we are going to have um a review of of which we will review sorry about that thank you mayor lyes good evening even everyone Sean Heath City manager's office a home for all is the brand name for the initiative focused on housing and homelessness that the city's been involved in for a few years and tonight's really an opportunity to do a level set on the current status for the work the priorities and the next steps it's been a while since we've had a discussion at full Council on this topic but over the last year we've had two committee conversations including the most recent committee for housing safety and Community got less than nine slides I'll try and move through this fairly quickly and I'm also joined this evening by Katherine Ferman sers the chief impact officer from the United Way when I'm done with the content I'll invite her up to say a few brief remarks and then she'll join me for Q&A see if I can control here so the work of the home for all initiative is early grounded in a few fundamental questions and we kind of frame these as as questions that we're hearing from the community I think they're also questions that we're hearing from from Council they're questions that we ask ourselves first of how to decre decrease the unsheltered population we know based on work that's done on an annual basis that right now in meinberg County there are anywhere between 2,500 and 3,000 members in the community that are homeless within that range the subset of the unsheltered population is roughly 300 individuals in the county there were a lot of conversations here in the chamber over the last few months as it related to ordinance enforcement and the importance of having Holistic Solutions to bring to bear as it related to the unsheltered population another question frequently Asked relates specifically to how to prevent unstably hous residents from slipping into homelessness if you once again thinking about meinberg County metrics there are over 100,000 households in the county that are cost burdened and by cost burden that simply means that they're devoting 30% or more of their household income to housing related expenses we also know last year that there were roughly 20,000 evictions in meinberg County a number that's been on the rise and and back at or maybe even above prepandemic levels one thing we've talked about a lot over the last few years is vouchers and Rental subsidies and we know that having a voucher or a subsidy does not guarantee housing and livian did some work a few years ago just to really get their arms around some of the specific data we know far too many households in the community with vouchers are unable to find housing before those vouchers expire and even for those individuals with vouchers that do find housing it's not uncommon for it to be 60 days 90 days or more for them to find housing another question certainly that's always on our mind is how to build and preserve more affordable housing this is something that Deputy or that director Hefner spoke about at the Last Action review and something you'll vote on tonight as it relates to opportunities to to continue to support Housing Trust Fund Investments we know there's a shortage of affordable housing in this community that's not a surprise to anybody the mayor's referral from earlier this month will give the housing safety and Community Committee an opportunity to chew on these issues over the next few months and identify best practices and Innovations and then also have some conversations about possibly allocating your housing trust fund dollars in a specific more intentional way going forward to be responsive and reflective of some things we've heard from Council related to home ownership for example and then the last thing we've captured here is thinking about imagine if you're homeless in the county and you're trying to navigate the system it can be a difficult system to navigate for anybody right it it's good that we're in a community where that we have many agency providers involved in this work it's great to be in a community where we have different funding streams that are supporting this work but if you think about this really from a consumer experience perspective it can be very frag M it can be very challenging to understand where to start where to go and and kind of how to have someone walking by your side through that Journey so one question that we've asked and that's foundational and fundamental in at home for all is how to provide consistent and coordinated cares care for individuals that are facing those types of challenges the the last thing I would say is as we as we transition into a home for all specifically is those questions kind of the underlying challenges beneath those questions and potential Solutions related to those questions all of those are things that the city's already working on but at the same time we know these are things that the city can't solve by itself so we need Partners we need an opportunity to leverage funding and that's just where a home for all comes into the equation a quick Refresh on a home forall in terms of when it started so it was really in late 2021 when a home for-all was born uh the city of Charlotte has been involved in a home for-all from the start very early on on previous housing director Pamela Pamela Weidman was involved council member Graham has been involved actively from the start I've been involved actively from the start the vision of a home forall it's straightforward uh it's bold it's easier said than done uh this is not something that you can accomplish overnight but it provides a bit of a North star so to speak homelessness is rare brief and non-recurring and everyone has access to affordable housing and the resources to sustain it in terms of the timeline this has really been a progression of work over the last few years in fy22 the Strategic framework was released that really provided an assessment of the current state and the challenges there were 99 recommendations included in the Strategic framework they were not prioritized but but it gave the community a good sense for here here's the list of things to consider as we're deciding how to prioritize efforts going forward also that year the United Way was asked by and contracted by meinberg County to serve as the quarterback agency to coordinate efforts associated with the home for all in FY 23 an implementation plan was released which was provided to you an executive summary was provided to you in FY 23 taking the 99 recommendations from the Strategic framework and really distilling it down to 10 to 12 key priority areas that that the community could focus on in the years ahead FY 24 is really been about staging the work and designing and and piloting some some Concepts and then fy2 to FY 28 is the expectation for when the rubber will really hit the road on participation in go governance uh many diverse organizations have been represented in this work from the very start and that's a good segue here this is not an all-inclusive uh visual for the organizations that are directly involved in a home for all but I just wanted to make sure that we were leaving you with the impression and understanding that this is it's bigger than the city it's bigger than the city and the county it's bigger than the city and the county in the United Way There are dozens of nonprofit organizations that are directly involved some large uh some more Grassroots emerging type nonprofits developers are involved both for-profit and nonprofit Higher Education Health Care and the various working teams involved in the home forall initiative also have individuals from the community with lived experience so just wanted to give you a little uh visual impact there on the diverse representation in a home for all one question that we get and one question that came up in the committee meeting is with all of those players how does the city fit into the work what's the role of the United Way who's on first all of that sort of stuff so this is really just intended to be a very simple graphic to to kind of drive home a few key points and starting in the middle section there in green as I mentioned before with the implementation plan for home forall it it's really driving out 10 to 12 areas of emphasis this is not an all-inclusive list but it's pretty close you can see on things on here like critical home repair emergency shelter so these are the workstream areas these are the things that all of those organizations represented on the previous slide are working to advance getting to that list of 10 to 12 was not done by the United Way behind the curtain um all of it was very much an engaged process with with various organizations including the city of Charlotte at the table uh a home for all kind of moving to the left side here has always been and continues to be envisioned as a public private sector partnership in terms of funders with the city and the county and and the private sector all all coming to the table and then finally moving to the right with with an initiative like this where you've got multiple funders and multiple Focus areas and a ton of stakeholder engagement and a need for a lot of project management uh if there's a secret sauce in terms of helping to ensure that's successful you need to have somebody that's serving as a program manager a quarterback agency a coordinating entity and that's really what the United Way has been asked to do so their role as it suggests here is really on alignment and coordination and helping us collectively ensure that we're driving out for Maximum Impact in terms of of governance each of the work streams has representations for multip organizations housing director Hefner and Warren Wen on her team are directly involved in the work I'm directly involved in the work there's also a smaller technical committee that on which I serve that provides overall guidance to a home for all it's a little bit of of an eye chart from a distance and some of the content here is a little redundant with the previous slide but I wanted to show it because this is the way that the a home forall initiative is Being Framed in conversations with external stakeholders um so taking those roughly 10 to 12 work streams are priority areas and um putting them under what we're referring to as four pillars is what's being shown here so moving from left to right quickly emergency response is really focused on the unsheltered population and this was actually something where the city uh working with the United Way was really responsible for kind of driving the conversation in that direction knowing that with the unsheltered population not just in uptown Charlotte but including Uptown Charlotte being one of the most visible representations of some of these challenges that while we were doing all of the very important work associated with prevention on the right hand of this slide in parallel to that we needed to identify and accelerate some solutions related specifically to the unsheltered population um in recognition that kind of earning the right to do this work over time with the committee I'm sorry with the community that we would need to show some progress there so the unsheltered pillar includes things like Street Outreach which we talked a bit about during the ordinance enforcement conversations and some of the work that both the county and the city are standing up with a local organization called hearts for the invisible uh I'll talk a little bit more in a subsequent slide on the idea of an eem of a very specially focused emergency shelter the three other Towers shown here in the Upstream priorities uh one focuses on people here system navigation is a reference I made before kind of thinking of some of this from the end user perspective on prevention that includes things like critical home repair which you're very familiar with and then production is how do we get more units online that are accessible and affordable to folks whether they're dealing with homelessness or in need of affordable housing on the right here just trying to reinforce that there are a number of things of direct relevance to a home for all that we believe connect very well with the types of questions and expectations that City Council has established with staff okay just a couple more slides here so this is really turning our attention more towards what are the specific areas of focus engagement and investment opportunity for the city as we have C FY 25 around the bend these are six specific areas that are on our radar from a staff perspective on the next slide I'll give you a little window into how we're thinking about things from a funding perspective first on critical home nothing new for us we've been doing it for years with Comprehensive rehab and emergency repair but what we're excited about here is the opportunity for more partnership and collaboration uh to give you a few examples on desired outcomes um kind of the market reality for some of this work is it's not enough to just have funding available you also need to ensure you've got the workforce in the community that can pull this kind of stuff off so a piece of the work here that we're excited about is expanding the pool of contractors that do this sort of work uh with a particular emphasis on minority contractors uh one thing that director Hefner talked about at the Last Action review was this idea of improving the customer experience through a Consolidated application because imagine you're someone in the community you want to stay in place in your home they're multiple providers one's the city of Charlotte where you can Access housing rehab dollars so wouldn't it be nice and what we what we will explore here is there an opportunity to have a single front end for someone to go through and then here just to State the obvious opportunities to grow system capacity accelerate the volume of repairs that can be done through braiding together funders from the private and public sector and then also through enhancing the contractor capacity in the community on eviction pre eviction prevention this is really direct reference to the kind of work that's done by legal a of North Carolina they work with low-income individuals that are facing eviction on average their client household income is about $22,000 and uh I learned a new word today and I and I practiced saying it before tonight meritorious so the emphasis here would be on like meritorious cases where there's an individual who um you know imagin different scenarios there are different reasons that someone could face eviction um and they different claims for for the could dve and eviction and they different defenses as well so the idea here with Legal Aid North Carolina is for low-income individuals to have access to legal representation basically to help guide them through a legal process um and defend their rights protect their rights uh if there's a retaliatory eviction that's the sort of thing where they need they may need an attorney to help demonstrate that if there's a scenario where the landlord has not maintained the housing in a safe and and decent fashion then that could be another scenario where they need a legal adviser to help guide them through that in order to prevent an eviction emergency rental assistance if you think about covid and all the co relief dollars that came into the community and you add add up funding received by the city and funding received by the county much of what was put through the rant program administered by dream PE dream key tens and tens of millions of dollars well over $50 million you know those days are gone right but we're asking oursel the question because it's not uncommon for us to get get calls uh from members of the community that are uh facing financial hardship and in need of emergency rental assistance so what are some things we could do to build on what's already in place today in the community focused on both the financial support paired with some targeted prevention supports on property provider recruitment this is something we've also talked about a fair amount over the last few years think back to the source of income at ad hoc advisory committee and one of the recommendations that they had which we've said for quite some time now as we're looking forward to an for an opportunity to respond in a meaningful way to their recommendation is how to bring more landlords into the community that are willing to accept voucher holders rental subsidy holders and that could be through a number of different types of incentives holding fees uh signing bonuses for leases UPF front risk damage funds there are all sorts of things that could be done um the ultimate objective would be to put landlords in a position where they're indifferent or as close to indifferent as possible between renting to someone with or without a voucher that system navigation is an area where uh there's still more work to be done to Define exactly what that would look like but just wanted it here um in transparency because we think it's going to be around the bend and and something we'll want to participate in with the last one here on the list emergency shelter the United Way facilitated a number of meetings over the last six months helping us ask the simple question of what if what could we do to demonstrate a meaningful impact on the Uptown unhoused population let's get real specific what could we do to to Really move the needle there uh Street Outreach bubbled up and and as I've said before that's something where we and meberg County are leaning into that together already and this notion of having a new emergency shelter focused on the unhoused population individuals who are often resistant to going into shelters and also having some specialized Services embedded within the the shelter itself focused really on individuals with severe and persistent mental illness Andor addiction related challenges okay rounding third base here so this is just a snapshot of each of the items on the prior slide along with an indication of what the FY 25 investment opportunity could look like so I'll quickly go from left to right I I I won't spend a ton of time on this because we can come back I'd rather drive it based on the types of questions that you have um United Way operations is something we discussed at the committee level this is a 130,000 request that came to you as a financial partner request so it's it's working its way through that process uh you've seen it and you'll have the opportunity to to make your choice as you see fit and this would be for a contract manager position related specifically to the federal funding um and other contract management requirements that the United Way is handling as a result of being the quarterback Agency for a home for all critical home repair as I'd indicated before this really is an incremental amount here we've been doing critical home repair for many years this 1.5 million referenced on the slide is really embedded in our fy2 CIP request and it's about the same as what we've had in play for the last couple years so I don't look at that as as an incremental ask on eviction prevention and emergency rental assistance those are both two examples where most of what the city of Charlotte received from the US Treasury Department related to what's referred to as emergency rental assistance too which was stimulus funding most of that a lot of that a vast majority of that was spent through the rant program that was administered by dream key what we had behind and what we've shared with you previously what we've left behind is available to support displacement events which we've had in this community for various reasons weather related uh Hotel transaction related and also to support initiative such as a home for all so there's a bit of money available to support these types of initiatives and they've already gone through Council RCA process in 2023 so long as what we're contemplating to do is consistent with the eligib eligible uses that are defined under the er2 program uh the punchline for the for the next two on property provider Recruitment and system navigation would be more to come on that and whatever we would contemplate doing we would need to be in a position where we could explain it in great detail in great detail and bring it back to you in the context of a request for Council action so it wouldn't happen without your awareness it would only happen with your approval once we had something specific to present to you and then the last one which is of course the largest one on here would be this notion of an emergency shelter which just as a placeholder we've put in $ million and once again this gets back to the point I made about what something specific that we could do that I wouldn't suggest would solve it but could make a meaningful impact on the unsheltered population this is an idea that's kind of bubbled up based on a number of stakeholder conversations if there was something specific and tangible that was ready for a discussion and ultimately ready for a vote that would only happen through an action review presentation and then a Housing Trust fund request so it would go through the formal process that you're all accustomed to we would of course have to wait on this until calendar year 2025 since the Housing Trust Fund pending your vote later this evening uh will will potentially be depleted so for now it's just something that we're sharing with you as an idea around around the bend uh at the very bottom of the slide I've made reference to the fact that when Katherine was with the meinberg County Board of County Commissioners earlier this year she shared a similar slide and meber county is entertaining uh FY 25 investment opportunities that equate to about $14.3 million in aggregate so once again back to this has always been envisioned as City working closely with the county and the private sector last slide just as a summary the reason that we continue to really want to stay very strongly connected to and supportive of home for all is we feel like there's a direct connection to council priorities clearly public private private partnership a lot of stakeholder engagement is embedded in this work and not to be ignored is the importance of having this enduring structure with unit with the United Way really helping drive all of this to sustain the work and monitor progress because if you think about going from design phase to Pilot phase to potentially scaling work you know we're not really at that scaling Point yet but the only the only way we would ever present scaling opportunities to you or the private sector would be ready willing and able to invest in scaling opportunities would be if we've got the data to prove that the things that we're doing are actually working so that's why it's so important to have an organization like the United Way that's helping kind of keep this thing moving along so I will stop with that I'd like to ask Katherine to say a few brief remarks about the work that United Way is doing and then we'd be happy to answer any questions thank you very much Sean and thank you Katherine sers for joining us tonight um your your experience and research and comments around this topic are absolutely essential to us so thank you please take moment with us you so I want to thank you first for the opportunity to present the home forall effort to council um and I just have a few remarks and then be happy to answer any questions first housing is a basic human need and a home for all is the plan the community's plan to address homelessness and housing instability I think the need for Action is clear lowcost rental units are disappearing lowcost housing now accounts for only 133% of the affordable housing stock down from 45% in 2011 and more low and moderate income households are struggling to afford their housing uh as Sean related in his remarks the number of rental households in meinberg County who are housing cost burden has increased 51% since 2011 United Way through a home for all shares council's commitment to adopting a collaborative data and research-driven approach to addressing these daunting challenges second United Way's mission is to lift children and families out of poverty and having a roof over your head is a critical First Step so that is why when the community asked United Way to lead a home for all's implementation we were honored to say yes United Way stands at the intersection of the public private and nonprofit sectors we recognize that everyone involved every elected official every philanthropic investor and every nonprofit is doing tremendous work United Way's role is ask what might be possible if we drive collaboration and Innovation at a systems level to amplify our Collective impact finally a home for all is the product of the work of over 250 community members city and county staff elected officials corporate Partners nonprofit providers and those with lived experiences of homelessness and housing instability together these community members developed ambitious solutions to pressing challenges and our community's ability to execute hinges on a robust public private partnership it requires resources at the federal state city and county levels and from private philanthropy and we would urge city council to join in that public private partnership so thank you thank you so we really appreciate the work and the efforts so we now have opened this up for a discussion I want to recognize mayor protim and then council member Johnson and then we'll I tell you what maybe this why don't we just start around the DI we'll start here and then we'll come back around okay mayor mayor protim okay uh thank you madam mayor and uh thank you mellers and and Sean for the presentation I've had an opportunity to sit down with you at length and and go through the plan and and ask some questions so thank you for that additional time you know I think that adding the emergency response aspect of the unsheltered is um a huge opportunity for us to to make a win here right um there there are fewer than 500 families that are unhoused unsheltered and one is too many but they are very visible right and I think if we have an if we have an approach to get them safe secure housing as well as wraparound services to get to move them up and out that is fantastic so I know that that wasn't your original intent with the home for-all program but seeing what was going on in the city and being able to be nimble and make a pivot I think is critically important the other the other Upstream priorities and I'm referring to P slide six in your presentation but I I want you to just comment on you know how do we how will we know that we're making traction right and specifically in the in the Upstream priorities because I'm sure as we work with individual families and some may move up and out then you have others that might be become a part of this process can you just talk about your thoughtfulness around that and and how we can ensure that we're making some tangible progress of course um so uh as I think Sean alluded to we do have a commitment to um have an evaluation plan associated with each of these individual activities as well as um a collect a collective impact approach if we are able to accomplish work on all four of these pillars what happens at a system level so we will track both measures as things progress certainly um we do have a commitment for all of the uh initiatives to make sure that data intersects with our homeless management information system so that one of the things that we can track is uh preventing or slowing entrances into homelessness so that would be one of those uh system level indicators that we would track that would be indicative of making progress thank you and it it's interesting Sean you you mentioned the whole um percentage of housing that is cost burdened and how that has increased significantly I believe that's one of the underlying areas if we can systematically address an attack why those costs are going up and figure out a way to address that that that would keep um families and individuals outside of this rotation Loop um have you given any thought to how we might do that Sean or just any perspective yeah I I didn't Veer outside of this swim lanane but you know we're in conversation with Daniel Frasier for example and where the opportunity to connect the emphasis on affordable housing with the focus on on Workforce Development and Skilling and reskilling you know I think it's interesting one of our partners has done Community assessments our Noah partner Mark Ethridge with Ascent real estate and it's always helpful to do the assessment because you can't assume that you know exactly what people need most right um so child care for instance came up a lot in some of the assessments that were done in transportation for instance so thinking of some you know the benefits of having a community health worker in a community which is what Mark has done and what Rebecca Hefner director Hefner is doing in partnership in some of our corridors is a real wonderful way to tie together some of council's work and priorities things that we're doing at the staff level so it's very much very much on our radar that's that's the Holy Grail if we can find ways to go horizontal on a lot of this stuff y you know I've mentioned this uh several times but I I really do think the power power of the community healthcare worker and being a liaison and the quarterback to help families navigate these systems and certainly the things that we're standing up here mellers I think that's an area that we got we have to ramp up on um because it's uh it's loow hanging fruit you know they're out there they're available and we if we can introduce them into our ecosystem um at a larger number I think that would help significantly lastly I would just say I completely agree that we need the partnership across the board um not only the 3p partnership but as you mentioned mellers from the federal state and Municipal level I'm happy to see that the county um is is uh has skin in this game as well at the level of 14.3 million in Aggregate and I I'm happy to support this as we move through the budget process because it absolutely aligns with the synergies of council's priorities thank you madam mayor council member Johnson thank you mayor I just have a point well I I may have some questions but also a point of order for um Mr Jones um during the committee meeting in April this was presented to the greater neighborhood committee and uh we asked for this to come back there were some unanswered questions we were still massaging and we asked for it to come back so I'm confused or concerned how it's being presented to full Council before going through the committee sure uh so council member Johnson on my last 30-day memo I put it on as a topic for um the full Council I know it's been in committee a couple of times uh one of the things that was extremely important was that um the budget comes out on May 6 and having some feedback from the full council is extremely important before we put a budget together so is this going back to committee or is was that process just usurped no I I don't know if the committee ever I guess reported it out um but it had been in the committee a couple times and again on the 30-day memo I just wanted an opportunity for Council to hear it too so I I I just want to share like a concern and the and first of all United Way you all do a phenomenal job this is not about United Way this is about the process um and one of the speakers alluded to it earlier sometimes it I just have to be frank it feels like there's a uh an outcome that's determined and the Machine as I call it moves toward it and this is one of those times let me ask is this a done deal um whether or not Council agrees to it is it already is this already a established no I would really return back here and you know thinking about the examples at the bottom we will not make any of those Investments but for having conversations with council at a very specific level and but for Council ultimately deciding to vote and approve those ideas so I I I believe that the most significant component pieces up there where there's some question whether we're going to you know go left or right and you might ask what exactly does this mean and we can't answer those questions yet you will you will be fully briefed on those before any dollars are spent and you will have to authorize us to spend those dollars well I I just will say I the committee um who we really take a lot of Pride and work really hard and I think it's a great committee we ask great questions and um I think we were expecting this to come back to committee I mean the committee members are shaking their head so I I this is concerning for at least four council members uh Mr Jones and and it's just really about the process um secondly if you can go back to the slide oh yeah there it is well and and I if I don't know if this is going to go back to the committee but one of the things that I talked about was um I feel like we're going I feel like we're going the wrong way with this um I we we use private public partnership on in a lot of areas where we're condensing Services uh the Arts is one area and different areas so I I want to see I think competition is a good thing um I you know I've advocated many times as a Frontline worker who works with homeless individuals and low-income individuals I can call crisis constantly and so many of us can I don't want to see an organization like that collapsed under United Way um there's other organizations I think competition is a good thing I think it um helps with service level of service so I think we're going the wrong way with this um with all of these services in one organization I think we need to be careful as a big city and I use the word monopolistic in the committee meeting but moreover the process I I just have a concern with that we take you know there is a process and this did not come out of committee um so I'm I'm just you know and i' also o shared concern that it only you know takes six of us to get things on the agenda as it is so this is one of those areas where I feel like our process was was undermined um and possibly our Authority as well thank you who's who's who's next going around go around I think she said go around yeah actually I believe I'm mayor now oh wait I am I am okay oh she's back the cat Mr Graham thank you um I you said go I thought you said run by run um first let me let me thank Sean and and and the staff and the United Way for uh running this Marathon um of trying to provide a comprehensive collaborative approach for the community for um homelessness and housing for our community um commissioner Juro and I had a at a zoone meeting with the city manager and the county manager um years ago uh when tent city was a thing uh and uh I think Mr Jones remember that meeting we said we we got to find a way to collaborate we got to find a way to cooperate we got to find a way to bring the corporate Community to the table to provide a comprehensive approach for homelessness and housing in our community uh and this is how this thing got started uh it was corporate corporate driven with a wide variety of Community Partners well over 200 um grassroot grass toop organizations uh led by Kathy bant who was in with BFA now she's with the foundations of the Carolinas and um Jean whts with Atrium and and we really spent almost a year um discussing um homelessness and housing uh and how do we begin to address the problem comprehensively as a community with a um all working together and some of it came from some of the conversations we had around this dice when we would ask the manager Mr manager we want to help with homelessness uh and we would get and I would say it too well we don't do that that's a county thing uh and then we will go uptown and see homelessness or we would see homelessness on I 85 in Sugar Creek and and while that's technically true we don't have the resources or the the capability in terms of social workers and mental health counseling and and all the type of Supportive Services needed uh we had a a moral uh responsibility to participate uh uh and be involved in it and so I spent the weekend uh studying it again right this comprehensive report so if council member hadn't seen this 100 page in length and it really does a good job in terms of providing the framework talks about housing and homelessness challenges uh it talked about community and Supportive Services uh it talked about prevention uh and Outreach and grassroot organization and I was happy to spend this weekend with councilman member Mayfield uh at block love Charlotte as they open up their brand new Resource Center uh to support and help um homelessness in our community at a grassroot level and so this is just not about working with grass top organizations like United Way and others our corporations is really working with uh grassroot organizations as well who are at boots on the ground doing the work and so I am very um supportive of of the the approach um I I I think as we begin to talk about a wide variety of issues relating to homelessness whether it's in the airport or is it um putting the ordinance in place or we still have a number of issues and I see it on I 85 in Sugar Creek I see the guy every day uh there um working with our um providers someone has to coordinate all of this uh and I'm thankful for the work of the United Way and we've had numerous conversations over the last three years uh with your CEO and with you um uh in particular leading this program so I want to thank you for the work that you do uh and there's a price tag that comes along with it uh this work um is not cheap and that's what the council from what I heard is that we wanted to invest more uh in what we were doing now the line items that we talked about I think can you know it's it's it's it can change right I don't think we're I'm married to the line items in the dollar amount but I'm I'm married to the framework uh and that we have a community framework that all of us all of us being the city uh the county in their aggregate $14.5 million and I think there's room for uh the corporate Community to play more as well to invest uh in this issue in reference to homelessness and housing and so I think this is a I'm not sure if there's an alternative right if not this then what um as we uh on a weekly basis uh deal with issues relating to uh the an house in our community and what are we going to do and what's the strategy behind it and so I I think this comprehensive report uh um uh your presentation doesn't do this report Justice right because your presentation was was 10 pages this is well over 100 and it really outlines and details from a very high level grass talk level what we need to do as a community in terms of providing the uh the vision providing the framework uh identifying the dollars that may be needed from both governments and you know here's an opportunity for uh the city and the county to really collaborate together on issues relating to homelessness and working with an organization like the United Way that has the ability to um provide the type of day-to-day operation management needed someone and this community every day needs to wake up thinking about how can we res um resolve the unhoused issue in this community and how do we make housing affordable uh every day uh and I think this gives us an opportunity uh to do this and really put a price tag to how do we begin to resolve this issue now money doesn't solve everything right but it certainly is needed to really um um put gas in the car uh so that this report this presentation really has meaning at the end of the day and so I'm I am optimistic um that this is the right way to go uh I understand that there's a lot of flexibility in what we have to do um but it's really good to know that the city uh potentially will be investing uh in a significant way um greater than we have done before along with other Community Partners like meinburg County and the corporate community and the federal and state government right because as you've been watching news lately there's been um the Supreme Court is taking up a decision about what cities can or can't do and so this issue is not going away uh we need to make sure that as a community there is a framework and approach a direction that we have um taken and that we are willing to put our money where our mouth is and I think this is the right way to do it thank you madam mayor thank you Miss Molina thank you Madame mayor um I'll start by saying Sean thank you to you and your team um director Hefner thank you for your work on um really ideating around um the how I think um that's really important as we think through you know what our responsibilities will be as a body you know how to instruct you guys from a council perspective on on what those deliverables could look like um I I think I think I'll start by saying at the most recent vision of rewards um the CEO Jean Woods he spoke very firmly about a call to action for our entire community and that room was filled with an enormous amount of stakeholders um and and I thought that call to action was profound when um the primary directive was an end to homelessness um and I think that is something that um I got to say I'm proud of about the city of Charlotte we have this community where our public our private our you know as our council member Graham said grass top you know grassroot level Community organizations can really have conversations work together for the greater good I am a firm believer in a community being the sum of its parts there's nothing greater we can only who we are as a community we can only have and and reap the results of what our community collectively is willing to put in and and I think we have the ingredients for that across the board um I'm extremely heartened by the fact I mean the county and the city are no um strangers to working together to to see that an aggregate they have some level of commitment already on the table you know we say public in private all the time but we don't say nonprofit right and I think that is the there's there's no shape stronger than the triangle the triangle is the strongest shape on the planet when you get all three then we're actually looking at you know the strongest opportunity to really attack this so um I like what I see I have some questions that I feel like we could have offline um as we continue to instruct you know the how um but I so far from what I see so far I really think that um we've we've at least ideated properly around you know what we have at our disposal so um thank you for your work director Hefner Sean team you know staff I know that this isn't easy and and I know we have a lot um to to contend with but you know to hear you know Titans in our community stand in front of a thousand plus member audience and say that's something that as a community we want to do as a collective and to have all those heads in there nodding and and really saying that they're ready to tackle that among a few other things that were listed I think I think we're moving in the right direction and I'm really really excited about this and and how we unfold and you know to speak to I'm I'm not a member of the housing committee so you know I'll look forward to some of the you know report outs from myi one of my colleagues over she like uh but I I'll look forward to some of the you know conversations and Report backs that you guys have in that committee and what you come up with and and you know how we can help as a full body so thank you again all right Mr Driggs thank you mayor uh I first heard about United Way's commitment to this a couple of years ago and I must say I'm very impressed with how far we've come it seemed like a Grand Vision then it seems a lot more detailed now uh one thing that does go through my mind is we can't uh minimize the challenge this is not just about money uh we're going to run up against a difficult situation where we're trying to help people who don't want to be helped and I've had some engagement not a big career but engagement with PTSD victims and and other homeless and at some point they get angry uh and drug addiction is is a brutal Affliction so uh I think we should pursue this work we should explore every Avenue but I don't want to send a message out to the world guess what we can fix this it's going to be okay in a couple of years because we are going to be grappling with this we will continue to Grapple with this and we're continue to make tough choices about how to get help to people who walk out again when you give them a place to live anyway so let's keep at it again appreciate United Way and all the work that's gone into it and uh I think we can make a difference thank you Miss yes thank you Madame mayor so uh first let me uh thank United Way and the work they have done uh partnering with uh so many organizations to bring this forward um um this was presented at the committee meeting as council member Johnson had mentioned and I shared her concerns around the process I think there are times it does feel like we are working against a machine uh that's that outcome is already determined of without committee's input and that this certainly feels like it I think at the committee level um council member well chairwoman watlington and vice chair Mayfield myself and council member Johnson we appreciate the key coll the key here is collaboration with the county and nonprofits private sector and I think that's great but I think there is a bigger concern and question is around the process um I noticed that your presentation Mr Heath addressed some of my questions uh that I had asked well I was able to get through six or seven questions out of 18 that I had uh and I I see uh you have addressed the six that I did ask um specifically around breakdown of the budget and I I see here on slide number eight you do have that breakdown um I see there is management fee I um as part of our financial partner package I did notice that application so now it clearly says um that's first line item here that gives me a little bit more information uh other line items I have questions about is on eviction prevention and emergency rental assistance it says it was approved in 2023 I I don't remember us signing on to this initiative I think the first time I was introduced to this initiative was just couple of weeks ago at the committee correct me if I'm wrong Mr Jones no and and Sean do a much better job so um but I'll take a shot um some of these items are things that uh the city's been doing for a while through various pre-existing pots of money and so let's just say that even if um the city decided not to do this package per se there are just some things that we've been doing for a while it was just easier to pull those together because it should be consistent with things that um you've already approved and I'll also say that even you know things like um and don't take this the wrong way even if you said that you have an issue with United Way being the quarterback or you have an issue with how some of the grants may be competitive and who may be a part of those grants that process versus some of the vendors that you've worked with in the past I think ultimately is if these and I guess the slide before that seven if these areas make sense to to the council it is how do you go about implementing them either in total or partially align with your priorities but Sean to the question about the RCA that was very well said uh just to kind of complement that it just so happens these are examples where well first of all we're trying to live within our means so we're looking for those opportunities to connect things that we're already planning on doing with United Way but then to how do you dovetail it in so eviction prevention and emergency rental assistance unlike all the other arpa that we've talked about the 141 is million State local uh fiscal Recovery Fund where there was a great amount of discretion we did digital divide and we did arts and culture and housing and econ and small business Etc with er2 it's a very it's a much narrower set of eligible uses and it just so happens that those eligible uses overlap really well with the with eviction prevention and emergency rental assistance so we're just trying to get the peanut butter and choc chocolate matched up here because it seems to fit go no that that's fair enough so that funding source was at the covid funding we got so er2 was one of the the covid funding streams that's correct yeah so I I get it I think Council overall approved the funds for housing right whether that's emergency home repair eviction prev prevention or uh other areas I I get it but I I I think this is sort of misleading because this gives a signal that we approved a specific program I I think we approved overall area but not specific program I don't think we endorsed it uh in so I wanted to ask about this line item um eviction prevention so I I don't remember us approving that back in 2023 for eviction prevention I know is this going towards legal fees and I know you mentioned certain cases of uh eviction in um for low-income families what happens in the case of non-payment of rent would would our funding be going towards non payment of rent or would it go towards attorney phase or would it go towards everything all of it all of the above right so because ultimately I think we what we are trying to get to is that we we are addressing the root issue if the root issue is non-payment of rent are we truly addressing that or are we just putting a Band-Aid by paying the legal fees so this particular line we're looking at eviction prevention $200,000 at it links back to the prior slide where there's direct reference to this would be for legal aid of North Carolina which is a nonprofit 501c3 organization that provides assistance uh among other things to low-income households facing eviction um and it would really depend on so it's not going to attorneys I mean I'm uncomfortable with saying it's going to attorneys it's going to a nonprofit that provides those types of services there's a real imbalance if you look at the eviction process in terms of representation know landlords are generally often most always have representation in that process low-income households do not so the idea the idea here is how to allow these not these low income households to have access to individuals that can provide legal counsel to help protect and defend their rights there are multiple reasons why someone why an eviction filing could could come about it could be non-payment of rent it could be breach of their lease it could be criminal activity it could be they've stayed in their apartment longer than the lease allowed so you know long list of reasons why the eviction could come about And Then There are a handful of of reason reasons that a household could seek legal support in order to defend themselves in that eviction process I I understand that there are multiple reasons and this is really an equity issue in terms of legal representation but I guess what I'm trying to get to would our funding go towards the root issue whether if it's a non-payment of rent are we paying the rent or are we just paying the legal fees whether that's going to a private attorney or a nonprofit attorney it's going to an attorney I guess are we paying the rent that's past you that that's what really my question is okay yeah the direct answer to the question is that this funding would be provided directly to the nonprofit organization it would not be paying the rent so that doesn't address the underlying issue and I think that was my concern because if there is a non-payment of rent are we addressing the underlying issue that will ultimately eliminate eviction in the first place yes and these are connected because if you go One Step Up dream and you think about the emergency rental assistance there the emphasis is on uh working with households before they get to that eviction process and not just providing the financial relief but also having targeted supports to help get at the root causes that you're mentioning right so I think council member Johnson mentioned about um crisis assistance where they actually pay for uh non-payment of rent right I that addresses the underlying root issue um which we often refer residents to that nonprofit so that that brings me to my follow-up question um organizations like block love uh that council member Graham mentioned um crisis assistance they work in this space how would this funding model change uh for them and what what would be the process change should I may tag over to my colleague here so under the current system and again I want to stipulate everybody's doing great work this is not about um yeah I'll stop right there everybody's doing great work under the crisis assistance model they will pay um one month of that past due rent most typically and so what we're trying to what we're asking the question is do we need another layer of an intervention where we could pay the P du rent but also pay forward and give people a real chance to stabilize the issue that um has led them into financial crisis so could we do more Upstream before they're in they're have that eviction notice help them get not just their past due rent caught up but forward-looking rent and then what additional wraparound supports do we need to offer that family in order to maximize a likelihood that they will never enter into homelessness so it's it's asking a question will a deeper investment help us achieve better long-term outcomes with the goal of preventing someone from entering into homelessness for the first time there are a number of communities that have worked with really uh data informed targeted prevention models and that's what we're trying to to replicate here right um I appreciate the focus on the prevention side of things because as our a city council our priority has always been the housing right how do we address the prevention whether it's through Noah whether it's through building more affordable housing or whether it's through uh home repair kind of programs right that really addresses the underlying issue of creating or preserving the housing that we have uh if $200,000 gets us um few um few where we can help more residents with the rent uh subsidizing the rent I think that it really addresses the prevention um so if if I might uh council member ARA what eviction prevent that legal representation does if once you've got that eviction on your record it is much harder to find the next unit right and so all of these things have to work in tandem together so yes you have to provide the financial assistance that will help people stay in their homes but you're also for those who are facing eviction if we can provide legal representation and prevent them from having an eviction filing on their record it's going to make it that much easier for them to enter into the next home so again I think I will I would encourage us to think about all these things working in Tandem and somewhat holistically I I understand that we got to working tandem but then we certainly have Focus areas right a city has our Focus area county has theirs with his with his um Services ours is more on safety and housing right uh so we also got a make sure that we are addressing the core needs and staying focused on our our areas um I I have more questions which I'll ask later um I see a management fee of about roughly 10% and I know that was one of my questions at the committee meeting um is that contingent upon this $12.3 million approval so that question is for Mr Heath or Mr Jones well I wouldn't so the 130,000 isn't a management fee per se it's it's it's a specific ask for a specific position a contract management position that would be that would do work that's directly aligned with a home for all and and the funding from different government sources so just in full transparency we wanted you to see the whole thing stacked up here together that's what that is okay so regardless of how much we approve $130,000 is that contract worker fee that will be incurring yes for that participating this program yes that's a financial partner request yes that's correct okay um in ter so this under Council role column where you got the last four items future RCA so would that be so that would be coming in front of the council to approve our partners is that correct each one would be different um but yeah I mean the message we wanted to be clear about is that money will not be spent on those items until Council has an opportunity to review and ultimately approve and uh so those two items that we already approved which we approv the specific area of focus eviction prevention and emergency rental assistance um would that come in front of us once we have identified a partner or they have gone through competitive Grant process so I believe the way that the rcas were structured that it enabled the the manager to enter into contracts uh for the funding so long as they're eligible uses within the er2 program so I don't think an additional Council vote on those would be required think because once again ra2 has a very narrow set of eligible uses it's not it's not that Council decided that eviction prevention and emergency rental assistance would be categories that you're interested in it's that the ra2 program itself defines what eligible uses are for any city or county that receives that sort of funding yeah I if you could email us or at least me what are the restricted use of this ra2 for sure and what is the what is the definition of advisor under United Way role what what does that mean well I think the critical home repair is a good example where the United Way is working with the city in the county and there's one private sector funer US Bank who's decided to put some money into the critical home repair space to help kind of tie all that work together we're we are still fully responsible for for uh selecting our partners associated with critical home repair United Way is just a kind of like a behind the scenes advisor for that okay I I didn't follow that but okay just to be more just to just to give you an explicit example so one of the things we're interested in is how do we expand contractor capacity and the US Bank funding is focused on what are impediments that are preventing contractors from pursuing this sort of work whether it be hiring or training or any inal Investments they would have to make in order to be suited to perform this kind of critical home repair US Bank is providing some Catalyst funding in order to identify opportunities for either forgivable loans or grants that could bring more contractors with an emphasis on minority contractors into the space so so last question and then I'm done I promise so when we have this a competitive Grant process So currently organizations that rece receive funding from the city directly that work in this space would they have to reapply for this part of money I'll just use one one explicit example so let's use crisis for example crisis has requested their money through the financial partner process so what we have here is separate and distinct from that th this is not a take from that pot of money this would be incremental to it because as Katherine mentioned we'd be exploring new ideas right but but moving forward because once we adopt and approve this this is for uh not every year we are going to approve this right this is an ongoing partnership I'm assuming is that correct uh I I think that if you were if we were to do this in fy2 then there would have there would be an EV valuation before we decided how to carry something into FY 26 just just because we did it in fy2 wouldn't mean it was set in stone forever okay so it'll come back in front of the council for uh any additional ask in future whatever that partnership may look like yes and and we would only come back with the ideas that had proven to be efficacious okay that's all I have thank you Miss watlington thank you um so just to start I too share the concerns in regards to the process um because much of what's being discussed now are questions that were loaded up in committee that we said we were coming back to answer so I'm very very concerned to see something here while I can appreciate the timeline as it relates to the budget I still think it's extremely important that we we do the work of this Council um so that we don't get to a place where there are pieces that are not connecting for folks um because what I'm hearing and seeing today while it does answer many of the questions that did come up in committee um to me it feels like there is still an opportunity to formalized council's position um I'm I'm glad to at least see the operations piece showing up here and not separate and apart because what we've seen to date has been a little bit peac Mill um and I think that if rather than going line by line and deciding if council is um or not rather than prior to going line by line and deciding if Council wants to support it I really think that Council this Council not the council from three years ago uh when somebody was having a conversation in the office need to determine what position we want to to be in as it relates to a home for all this feels very much like that decision has already been decided and I personally am not there um when we talk about there being no Alternatives I'm not sure that's the case and I'm not necessarily advocating to start from scratch but I do think there are some very real um discussions that still need to be had about what this engagement looks like in these last two columns because I'm not aligned in any way to transferring Council authority over to United Way not that that is what this is explicitly saying but I that conversation still doesn't feel like it's been clear and that coun that the school council has not taken a position on it um when I think about this grant making uh process of many other questions that council member ashme brought up I have those same questions and so I really feel like this conversation needs to be completed in committee before it comes back to this school council um um the other thing that wanted to bring up here is specific to this uh eviction prevention and again uh thank you councel asir asir for your um comments in regards to this because this one gives me pause um for many of the reasons that you mentioned about addressing the root cause or the true cause I will just I'll I'll say a little bit more plainly I'm not sure I am sure I am not aligned to taking public dollars to help folks stay in homes that they're not paying for when that landlord still has to pay for that PR property so you're asking a a landlord to eat the cost of someone not paying rent and you want to take those land that landlord's public dollars to help pay for somebody to stay in their house that they're not paying for I've got a fundamental issue with that that and then so those are the kinds of conversations that I think we need to get much more clear about at a at a more detailed level um so with that I look forward to seeing this backin committee knowing that we need to work um very efficiently to be on schedule for the budget um so I forward to those discussions thank you Miss Mayfield thank you so question for either of you so as we discuss potential target audience that we want to assist have we discussed those who have already gained access to housing who are on fixed incomes that are now currently or in the near future about to be priced out of those current units and where would that fall in this since we already created opportunity for housing but they're on a fixed income and or they're like a Elder that reached out to me the other day where their social security increased to $78 but their bills increased to 75 so you got a net of $3 but you now have this automatic built-in increase where in this breakdown does that assistance happen I mean critical home repair would be an example but the first thing that comes to mind when you make that reference is the work of the nest commission and the recommendations that that came to committee and the committee endorsed and Council approved about $6 million of funding in late calendar year 2023 and all of that work is is moving forward I mean to me that sounds like questions around displacement and what's the work we as a community are doing to help mitigate displacement that's really Nest commission and and the funding you've already approved so here's the challenge one of many one Mr manager you've heard basically from the entire committee we had a full expectation that this was coming back to committee for us to really dig deep and have some of these questions answered what we have in this presentation back on slide six is under the prevention and we send critical home repair legal advocacy that Upstream emergency rental and the stri fund but again we've identified someone they've already gone through our program we identify housing for them the housing that we put them in you're now saying we are having you all have had a conversation we're opposed to looking at our policy language stepping back to make sure that we're tracking those individuals that may be on a fixed income and or those who have not gained additional employment or a different type of employment to keep them from coming back in the system we're just saying we're going to start them over in the system for financial assistance cuz I'm trying to get an understanding of what exactly we're saying and critical home repair would necessarily go into that category if it's one of the noas or multif family unit that we put funding in and then we identify people but within 2 years or maybe three they're now priced out of that unit that we funded so that's something to come back to really think about cuz somebody some at some point someone needs to have that conversation when we're talking about helping people cuz many years ago when we first said we were going to identify 5,000 homes in 5 years that was a great idea in theory we're still looking at a 35 38,000 individual need that need has been there for a number of years so rethinking what that looks like so in committee I asked about United ways a clarification United Way is going to be funding programs through our dollars if we were to move forward but those individual nonprofits will also have the ability to come directly to council to ask for funds to fund that project so we're basically funding a potent we're potentially funding a program and or a housing or and or request with tax dollars through two different line items I don't I don't believe so I mean the dollars are fin night go ahead please so uh Council Mayfield and I think Sean touched on it a few moments ago so there are a bunch of good things that are going on whether it's um the commission and dollars associated with that your work with the houses of worship uh what's happening with the Housing Trust Fund Even in our payo there's about $3 million each year that we set aside for housing related uh activities that you know kind of go across the Spectrum and as we discussed this more in committee I think one of the things that's important is that this is let's just say an effort to do something that collaborative it may be if we do this a little differently it may be an outcome with some things that we've been missing by being so strong in one lane as opposed to taking bits and pieces of things that work and seeing if we could get better outcomes I appreciate that thought process Mr manager what I would like for us to consider is just like it's not on page 8 that meinberg county is evaluating its fysical year 25 here's the opportunity where we can really honestly take the lead of Mr tropman and some of the things that they're doing because on the county side they have some very specific measures that are in place before dollars are released there are metrics that have to be met they are also very intentional with the Community Partnerships that they are expanding when we talk about who is on the ground actually having an impact as council member Graham mentioned earlier he and I were able to attend the ribon cutting for Block love Mr tropon was very instrumental in that and multiple other conversations with how the county is not only funding but they're tracking where their funding is going because because we do have some Partners out there that may not have been able to hit some of the targets that were presented in their proposal that was one of the other conversations that I believe was going to continue had this come back to committee regarding clarification because the way this looks just to even have some dollars whether or not these are the actual dollars associated with specific line items is concerning without clear clarification of committee understanding and then committee submitting to full Council a proposal of why we support or why we have challenges we have in here the event the eviction prevention which was noted but also the emergency rental assistance what's our current allocation how much do we currently have in our emergency rental assistance today I'm not sure the exact the exact dollar amount exactly so we have and that's okay this again unfortunately we haven't have this discussion now we have on here that we're presenting to the community around $2 million it will be helpful to know exactly what we have in that pot of funds today and how much it has actually been spent in comparison to how many requests we have received because manager you and I have talked about recent fund allocations and the impact of our recent property tax evaluation and how are we really addressing again as council member ashme mentioned the core and if the core challenge is this financial gap before we get to the point of needing an attorney potential eviction what are we doing to help you age and place stay in place according to the language that we committed to for the community so knowing what that current allocation is basically what do we have in bank right now how much of it has been spent in comparison to who has actually been able to take advantage of it we have some clear opportunities in here and to have a conversation or give the impression to the community that we're are all on board with $7 million for an emergency shelter to even have a dollar amount in there without again committee having some very clear questions answered it's challenging and it makes in the eye me feel that yet again for multiple years of conversations a decision has already been made and commitments have been made and it is an expectation that there is a rubber stamp versus being able to clearly explain to individuals because we have a lot of people in this community who have been in this community for a very long time that have not been able to take advantage to the majority of the programs that we have or any of these programs that might be on here and we've had a lot of people that have been able to take advantage that have recently moved to the community we have a conversation that I've already started with some multif family developers regarding how do you do your weight list this first come first serve versus what was recently done we having a lottery system in order to create fairness a conversation with a different provider regarding you have a list that's 5 10 years old go back to the beginning of your list instead of creating a new list and just picking up the phone and see if these people still need the idea that it will be taken out of council's hands who whether it is through United Way as a partner which we thank you all for stepping to the table as a partner but not to have total control or for it to just go through the manager's office and Council not be aware of what's Happening especially for our district Representatives who on the ground see a very different impact when we are allocating support and know some organizations that are doing some amazing work versus funds that we have may that we may have invested in National programs that have not necessarily created the outcomes that we needed for our community whereas our local groups can so it would be helpful Mr Heath to get some of those to get all of our questions answered back to committee ahead of time before we're put in a position of well you need to just vote on this and we'll figure it out later thank you okay I believe that everyone has had an opportunity to speak with Mr barari would you like to I have quite a few very detailed questions but uh since we only allocated 15 minutes to this dialogue I'll hold them and ask them offline well thank you or attend a committee meeting good so I I I believe that we have some really um specific details but we also have to kind of think about how are we doing this in terms of whether or not we're going to participate with the community plan that was created which is fine um but I think it's going to be as Miss in Miss Mayfield's words challenging if no matter what decision we make we have been doing this for a very long time we've been doing it to build housing for people but I think that we all need to recognize that that's not sufficient anymore um for what we're doing and so The Who and the how and the what it's going to be very difficult but I hope that we will have something by the time that um others come to the table to help to do this whether it's nonprofits um I'm excited about the opportunity for the review and the metric for our um our partners that we have in the budget um it's really important to kind of figure out where we're going to fit with the county and with the nonprofits with the profit the um business Community as well as our social services community so these are all things that are going to be tough um we need to begin to think it through and it's not I think you know when you talk about the commit having a meeting and then there is the remainder of the council for everyone to be engaged in this so thank you very much I think we are done with this item on our agenda thank you um so the next item oh my gosh that we have to have is number eight eight you have a public hearing we can't these people have been waiting for coming down to speak on the church for a long time thank you than you very much we know that you're here we know that you're coming and it's item eight we got eight uh 10 8 nine and 10 we have three public hearings and we have speakers for this the first one is item number eight a public hearing and decision on the Parkwood Avenue associate reform Presbyterian church and our speakers are Tommy warlock um please come down and join us as well as oh no the alleyway is the next one Madam cler do we have any other speakers signed up no okay thank you Mr Warick thank you very much good evening thank you very much for your time I do appreciate you hearing us out my name is Tommy Warick I'm with the meberg county historic landmarks department and I'm simply here tonight to answer any questions that you might have with regard to this pending design a all right are there any question close he we have a motion to um close the public hearing and thank you very much for your time and attendance um we have this motion any discussion all in favor of closing the public hearing please raise your hand all right the next item is to adopt an ordinance with an effective date of April 22nd 2024 designated the property known as Parkwood Avenue associate reform Presbyterian Church do I have a motion so move move second have a second um any discussion all right hearing none all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed all right the next item is item number nine it's a public hearing for the Kelly Woods area voluntary annexation um do we have any speakers Madam clerk we there are no speakers adop we have a motion to approve to close the public hearing and adopt an annexation ordinance with an effective date of April 22nd um is there any discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion please raise your hand anyone opposed all right the next item is item 10 public hearing on a resolution to co a portion of an Alleyway between Scott Avenue and Fountain View Street um we wanted to continue and conclude the public hearing to do this so we have a speaker Miss Kai thank you you are here again tonight um and you would like to speak before we close the public hearing yes ma'am mayor um lyes and mayor protim Anderson and all the city council members I just want to say thank you on behalf of my family I'm Gina Kias and we have the Twin Oaks it's part of the the alleyway between Fountain View and and Scott Avenue and I just want to say how grateful we are that mayor proem Anderson came out and stayed with us and looked at things and we brought 18 wheeler out there and looked at everything so we're very grateful we have now had a chance to talk to suncap to talk to Casey Mashburn and we have language that's been proposed I think um Casey will speak to it to say um he's I think he's good with it sun Cap's good with it we're good with it we're waiting for the City attorney to to put a final stamp thank you all right and you are Mr fennel yeah yes ma'am yes you would would like to speak to this topic yes ma'am okay may LA and mayor protm Anderson members of the council what I need to say is simply for record preservation purposes the two objections that we had to the initial abandonment petition were one the fact that the abandonment was a partial abandonment and two issues with respect to Ingress and erress the con the uh the resolution form that we have agreed to I believe will resolve all the issues and if it sues Council that I think that all of it is becomes Moot and beyond that I just want to Echo what Gina said um it's been a difficult process with a lot of people with a lot of opinions and a lot of strong Wills but everybody worked real hard that never happens to us and then the last thing I'm going to say is to Echo what I said a month ago this is amazing you know I want to thank you all for What You Do U it was really interesting to see the level of attention that you give to everything from Arthur the asht tree to homeless issues it's it's does an old cynical trial or is hard and good to watch so thank you for having me thank you very much I don't believe we have any other speakers so do we have a motion CL close the public hearing we have a motion and a second and com yes please thank you thank you I just wanted to comment on all the work that has been done and and Casey Mr mashman is over there if he wanted to comment as well well but as the callases have mentioned um we went out on site um we did a a stress test and the developer has made a number of um additions that they will make and it will be documented um in the actual resolution and I know that I know that you all wanted to have a particular agreement and we are not in a position to do that but it will be documented in the resolution and M Mr Brown Colin Brown is here with us and he can attest to that um and I just want to also mention that the surrounding neighbors including the Dorth neighborhood association was there there during that time and they are also in agreement with us closing the public hearing um based on the agreement so thank you for the collaboration community members everyone this this was a a bit of a entanglement here that we were able to get through and come up with the best solution for everyone involved thank you Madame mayor mayor thank you I believe that the resolution Mr um Baker Mr Baker yes a resolution was included with our document but this is not the resolution to close the alleyway and you will be preparing a new resolution that will have to come back to council to be voted on we are preparing a new resolution yes I don't believe it has May 13th we'll be voting on it on on May 13th okay got it all right Miss asir yes I I just wanted to thank uh DCA and the K family and sunap tremendous progress in a month I remember last month there was a lot of opposition about this uh and what a quick turnaround in terms of the resolution so certainly appreciate all the parties involved including our staff thank you all right so I we have a motion and to close the public I'd like to hear Colin's thoughts on the rest of the meeting today that got to see you bring him up I don't know Miss Carter might like to do it as well we got some history making and then all of our housing people are here you know Fred is here everyone has a chance to come down that last only minutes oh my gosh so let's see if we can get these own we have a motion to everyone everybody has a motion to close public heing raise their hand in favor anyone opposed all right thank you very much so the next item is um item 12 which is our sustainable facilities policy revisions the action is to approve the revised sustainable policy facilities policy and authorize the manager to approve updates to the policy to maintain alignment with the city's 2030 capap goals I believe do we have any speakers on this item redoo Miss Carter thank you thank you so very much for hearing me tonight thank you for coming down and sitting with us tonight absolutely and also thank you for your efforts with a sustainable energy action plan um Bloomberg has recognized Charlotte with two grants as one of 20 sustainable US cities City Council Members set policy for the city so you have the joy the right and the responsibility to meet capap goals that you have set with citizen input tonight we celebrate the sustainable facilities policy revisions directing that all city New City facilities be all electric this move to clean energy is enormous accomplishment and a big step forward to the CF goals for 2030 and 2050 could we also consider retrofits sometime we truly appreciate Sarah Hazel her team and all the city council employees and the council itself for your sustaining the sustainability of our city and working to show citizens how to acquire The Taste for sustainability this is what the Citizens need to see they need to see you in action doing things like this so we ask you please to support this revision Dean and Christy kusner who are also members of the um Charlotte mecklinburg climate leaders seap accountability committee were here with me and we all thank you very much for the work that you're doing thank you are there any other speakers Madam clerk so every M Mr barari followed by Miss Ash uh Mr manager do you have the uh the budget impacts to expense over the next 10 years this will uh this will forecast so uh Sarah Hazel's coming up and we'll give you what we have uh Good Earth night uh Sarah Hazel Chief sustainability and resiliency officer um so to your question about budget impacts we did look at the budget impacts of the strengthened policy and so um we are estimating that for every new building there is a cost between 175 and 250,000 for these changes That's The Upfront Capital cost but we do anticipate seeing savings over time from Energy savings and and then a big piece of this and a big piece of why this is a great time to update this policy is that the federal government has direct pay and so we get 30% back on all our clean energy Investments um and so the more we do now the more we can reap those benefits back and that will help help the budget impact uh be lower and then these projects go farther faster putting aside the federal dollars which is you know it's it's still tax dollars right that we're taking from different places what what is the payback period on the 250k per building upfront uh it it depends on on which measures are being looked at but so for example just dollars like the dollars in in savings that would not come out of the general fund or some other fund to to support the building I I'll have to get back to you on that particular uh question okay thank you all right M asme yes yes uh thank you Madame mayor well this is a great way to celebrate our Earth Day by adopting this revision to our facilities policy uh this is in alignment with our cab goals that Council unanimously approved back in 2018 um where we had made bold um we had uh committed boldly to our uh to to going carbon free by 2030 and that included our Fleet our facilities our energy generation as well as our Workforce Development initiative so um this helps us meet our 2030 goals this is where rubber meets the road we adopted the vision and now it's policy that's going to help us meet those goals uh I just want to thank Sarah and her entire team uh along with climate leaders who has been advocating for this uh Nancy Jun blotnik was also here from clean air Carolina uh along with Dean and Christie I appreciate the work that you all have done um they continue to meet on a periodic basis to address concerns around budget what is the short-term impact as well as what is the long-term benefit that we are getting out of this and I think uh in terms of budget question I think we should also consider what is the cost for not doing this uh there are dis there are communities of color specifically black and brown communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate pollution specifically carbon pollution so I think the cost to not do that is lot higher than than the cost to do it now um so considering all of that I would certainly recommend all of my colleagues to support this uh to really invest in our next Generation to address carbon pollution thank you right thank you all right any further questions we have a motion that we get oh yes Miss Johnson Miss Johnson had just a comment recognized thank thank you Madame mayor I also want to thank Sarah and her team for her the amazing work that that they do and I look forward to supporting it I had the honor council member Mitchell and I on Wednesday uh to to attend virtually there was a cabin meeting I think a national a National Climate uh organization and they were talking about the work that Charlotte's doing so I hope that sh um Sarah you can send that to council members so we can brag about the work that we're doing we're doing some great work and also this wonderful magnet on what we can do you know uh to reduce carbon emissions in your everyday life I remember making the suggestion a couple years ago so I'm excited about the work that that we're doing and thank you thank you so we have a motion we need a motion to adopt the sustainable re revision date of today for the sustainable facilities policy so mov we have a motion we have a second she said I'm sorry authorize the manager to authorize the manager to appropriate updates as needed to maintain the alignment with the goals so with that all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed thank you all right that is approved all right then item 13 the staff has pulled the next item is 14 water sewer revenue bonds and revenue Bond anticipation notes adopting initial findings an initial findings resolution that makes certain statements of fact concerning the water sewer revenue bonds and bond anticipation notes the provide for the issuance in an amount not to exceed over $610 million provide for the issuance of water sewer Bond anticipation not to exceed 500 million authorize the man the city officials to take necessary actions do I have a motion move to approve a through D all right we have a motion and a second is there any discussion hearing no discussion all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed all right that passes unanimously the next Mr Bard was Mr Bard I I just left my hand up too long right all right the next item is item 15 for our affordable housing development support requests approve up to 5,362 5,362 million in Housing Trust Fund allocations for the following projects malard at Sugar Creek um grounds for Change and Legacy Vista approve up to $360 million Transit oriented development affordable housing development bonus program Le influ Revenue allocation to give impact LLC and then authorize the manager to execute and amend necessar to complete the transactions Little's Landing second I'm sorry Little's Landing which is 260,000 $66,000 it was such a small amount all right so we have a motion so second any discussion Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor Miss Hefner um I have a question for you regarding our mwsb goals when it comes to our partners and opportunities that we have through CBI but I think we've done something really good that I want to have an opportunity for you to share from your department thank you yes good evening everyone Rebecca hufner housing and Neighborhood Services uh um excited to share that our CBI goals on our Housing Trust Fund projects have recently increased so as part of the Housing Trust Fund tuneup last year one of the things that staff took a look at uh were our CBI goals now often when projects uh advance to the um city for funding requests a prime contractor has already been identified um but there are still lots and lots of opportunities for uh mwsp participation uh in those subcontracts and so the um CBI goals for the projects that you are approving tonight they were shared uh last week at action review and they're in your HTF booklet um the CBI goal is 133% and that's up from 10% previously so we continue to work with CBI to identify the appropriate goal for each project it's done on an individual basis um but those are the goals that were set for the projects that you are um voting on this evening thank you director Hefner and manager Jones I want to thank you because as the leadership our executive leadership supports and buy in on the opportunities with our CBI and expanding the opportunities and goals we get to see more wins like this that are direct wins for the community so I appreciate you giving that update just so that we can share that we are looking at it in multiple areas of City development okay all right just a small com Miss Johnson yes thank you madam mayor so we have mentioned CBI like a hundred times tonight right so I had a uh one of an intern he came to the meeting and he didn't know what CBI was so I just think we want to be careful with that um and it's the Charlotte business inclusion um and it's our it's our initiative to bring on more minority contractors small business small business small business okay yes so thank you so we talked about it a lot I just wanted to make sure that in case there is someone watching that didn't know what it was thank you all right thank you all right so with that um we now have to vote on our we had a motion a second all in favor anyone opposed Mr barari thank you all right the next item that we have on our agenda is item number 25 a Transit survey research and Performance Management Miss Mayfield asked for this to be discussed Mayfield wait what did we just do item number 25 oh thank you cuz we just jumped okay oh we're back on the consent agend we're back okay I didn't realize we were back to consent so my Marie thank you for coming back the question I had for 25 the transit survey research and Performance Management is Jackson creative LLC doing business at Jackson Insight I was asking if they were a local company actually they're in the region which is really great but I was trying to figure out if the partner Customer Service Solutions if they were not able to meet the entire scope as we're looking to create more opportunities trying to figure out that relationship for this particular and this was the second time this was bid and first time it was targeted to um mwsb and there wasn't in bid so then they went back out and then actually they these two vendors were calling themselves a part a joint partnership but legally they weren't so that's why they had to have one as a sub and one as a prime but but they really are through our Charlotte business inclusion it's really more like a joint partnership right not legally but yes right thank you for that clarification move to approve and authorized second I have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion please raise your hand anyone oppos the next item is item 26 airport civil engineering consultant services do I have a motion to approve move to approve second we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hand P 26 I did I have you were 27 28 30 and 33 I'm sorry did I miss one um no she was asking who 26 it was me well I had it also go ahead 26 six all right Miss Watton um yeah mine was really just I wanted to um highlight the thing I mentioned earlier about looking at our CBI policy and including the open-ended contracts so that mine's been discussed okay do I have a motion yeah you have a motion in a second and a second already any further discussion all may Miss Mayfield thank you so my question for read regarding this is do we have a written tracking mechanism to ensure that the prime keeps the subcontracting commitments because unfortunately we have had an opportunity or so where a sub is presented or information is submitted but then when it's time for work to actually take place they are not contacted and they do not get access to that work yes ma'am so for this specific one is based on task task orders and that information is written in to the task order and also they partner with CBI and the CBI uses that b2g now to track it as well thank you Marie all right any further questions comments all in favor please say raise your hand anyone oppose thank you that passes the next item is airport Consolidated rental car facility Management Service this is I think Miss Mayfield no is miss watlington you pull that one as well I did um as part of the previous group but this one I just wanted to highlight uh the airport and uh their 33% of commitment to nwsb looks as as they continue to be a benchmark in this area so I just wanted to give them Kudos on this one all right and you a motion M second second any discussion hearing that Miss Miss Johnson I'm sorry this I'm try find I wanted to share um and I can share with Marie offline there's a lady named Don Nicole mcelin it keeps track of small businesses there's some type of database that she was working on so I think this might be an opportunity to increase our CBI participation um she has a network of of small businesses so I'd love to make that connection thank you thank you got to take time to go back all right the next item is I'm in favor oh I'm sorry all in favor please raise your hand anyone oppose but it's been a moment Miss watlington yep um this one I had a question and it can be answered offline but the differences between the dbe and the CBI process um because it seems as though the dbe um does generate a good bit of participation so I just wanted to make sure that we were matching and mapping and looking at opportunities to reply that's all move to authorize and accept we have a motion and second second any further disc discussion hearing none all in favor raise your hand anyone oppose unanimous next item is 29 airport passenger of you pulled airport passenger yep it was me moved to um accept and approve second we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed no we position the next one is the airport terminal building renovation Design Services Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor actually Marie was able to clarify the question I had on this so approve action a and authorized action B second I have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor raise disc I'm sorry y uh question for um followup I just want to understand a little bit more under this heading of C uh Charlotte business inclusion City negotiates the contract participation after the proposal selection process etc etc I just even matter of fact I'll ask it this way I'd like to see all of the bid processes that we have we know we talk a lot about hard bid and we talk a lot about semar um I just want to see who's using what depart thanks all right the next item is item 31 a land acquisition for treat need all in favor right all in favor raise your hand anyone opposed all right next time it is land acquisition for tree canopy preservation program any do I have a motion second you have a second any discussion happy Earth Day yes M I was just going to say happy Earth Day this is very timely it's Earth Day we are preserving land so thank you all right Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor I want to get a understanding so the tcpp has Acquired and preserved around 330 Acres of land to date and have protected approximately twice as much land than the developers would have been required to under the site on-site treea option that we have so do we know and I think Maria you were able to get an answer to this when we approve land such as tonight for this save this is now dedicated so when we have these developments and these projects come before for us where we have a fan l or we have clear cutting we know that we are contributing to actual true save planting in our city that is the purpose of this pers preserving it Andor planting it yes so there might be some incidental recreational uses but there won't be any buildings like no development that can happen thank you very much okay do we have a motion someone and we have a second all in favor please raise your hand anyone oppos all right the next item is the set of public hearing on Oak Lake tow houses to area voluntary annexation do we have a motion so move second we have a second any discussion all in favor of the motion please raise your hands anyone oppose Miss Mayfield and Miss watlington are no she was in support I'm in support oh I'm sorry the hands went up at the same time it did I'm sorry okay sorry so Miss Mayfield yeah what yeah yeah to what yeah I was in opposition okay thank you know all right the item and Miss Mayfield I think you pulled the property transactions correct 33 33 would like to just get clarification because what we have noted in here is that both unfortunately I believe the mother and daughter are deceased so exactly who be paying for this land I'm not sure it' be their estate but that was their wishes they were wanting it was a couple I believe and then when they passed so their estate was to sell the land to the city or donate the land to the city no sell it okay and be part of this program so there's this is a voluntary program so nobody has to participate and like you mentioned earlier there's a another Resident nearby it does not affect them it's volunteer here but if they volunteer and they sell it through this Federal program then due to Federal Regulations you can't turn it back to be residential so that's the other part to the question this area has the city basically through the airport has bought everything in this area there is one home left that is actually oner occupied what has our language done if that individual that still is on res itial that's surrounded by all this manufacturing if they decide gener generationally if they want to add a Adu or the family member wants to build a home on that land what if any with it without this approval and this language cause them any challenges to develop their land as the residential use they purchase no ma'am I I specifically asked that based on your question earlier that's all I needed to know thank you very much all right so um we have also item 34 35 and 36 in property transactions and one more and um we didn't vote on 33 I know we have not voted on those vot on them all one time yes we can if someone makes want would like make a motion Miss mayi have any one of these all right so do we have a motion we have we have not voted on the um CL has comments no I just had a question on what are you you voting on right this minute we're going to vote on item 33 property Aviation property transaction right now all right all in favor of the motion please raise your hands anyone opposed now item 34 35 and 36 are the remaining property transaction approve all a motion to approve all any comments to discussion all in favor please raise your hand anyone oppose to all right no s are you serious Mr Baker will you read a motion for us please yes I'd like to motion to go into close session to preserve the attorney client privilege in the matters of toaca uh versus and XR mosuk versus city of Charlotte and kenos versus city of Charlotte pursuing the GS 143 318 1183 second all right we'll go back [Music] night e for