e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e we're waiting on GRE what happened I don't know mayor okay so we're ready um we're going to yes all right I want to um call to order the um August 6 um council meeting um we're going to be um changing a little bit around so that we are able to capture everyone's participation tonight um so we are going to start with our action item which is the um work around our Mobility plan and then we will go with the consent items as downstairs and then we will have our public hearing um um the public forum and then go into the remainder of the agenda so with that um I welcome everyone to our meeting and we'll now go through introductions and we'll start with Miss watlington good evening Victoria watlington at large good evening Lana Mayfield council member at large District Malcolm Graham District Two Marcus Jones city manager v m mayor whatever Dante Anderson mayor protim District onea at large okay good evening Renee Johnson and I'm honored to represent District 4 Ariel Smith lead city clerk thank you everyone um as others come in we'll go ahead but let's go ahead and proceed because we do want to um be practical in our time and our efforts so we're okay we'll get our technology they're like don't come back don't come back so tell me when so got it are we set are the mics working okay can you hear it so why don't we go ahead because I just had a couple of opening remarks that I wanted to make um and before we begin our discussion of the mobility update um I wanted to um let Council know that council member Johnson and I had an opportunity to attend the DNC this week um or last week and glad to be able to do this but I learned a lot um you'd be surprised with all of the you know Glitz and Glamour and everything there was a lot of discussion around the dis talking about infrastructure in our cities and I think tonight we're talking about the potential to fulfill our vision for opportunity you know we often talk about again a good paying job a decent place to live and how to connect people with safer transportation between those two things we have talked about transformational investment from the first election that I held and and with every Council since then we've done a lot of the studies we've actually categorized and evaluated what kinds of infrastructure we need to do and how we need to tackle it but we've never had an H an opportunity like this one that we have today if you go back in time years ago I think any council member would have said let's purchase the red line 26 years have passed and we haven't gotten that done but tonight we are in this moment feeling what I think many former colleagues and predecessors wish that they had made possible and we have the opportunity to now make it possible I want to share the thanks because this has been going on for a good while um for the last four years if anyone else I know that Mr dggs and um Mr barari will remember Harvey Gant leading a distinct group of people who were talking about the very same infrastructure that we're talking about today Harvey Gant was a leader but there were members across our entire footprint that participated in this and as a result I think council members understand or can understand the amount of time and attention and effort that many people have put into this you know we had a 2040 Mobility plan a strategic Mobility plan we've we reaffirmed all of these plans with including the ones that help us have a better City the Strategic energy plan Vision zero all these things we know about but this is our opportunity because the opportunity is built on a solid foundation for the continued progress for a growing city think about what we're doing in the next several weeks affordable housing bonds Transit oriented development potential minority business participation Equitable initiatives and now what we have to talk about is infrastructure that's necessary our sidewalks our better roads and even more I believe this Council will leave a legacy of quality of life in our city because we are ready for this moment to finally make good on years of good work by many others and I hope that at one time when the um youngsters that we know in this town maybe when Bishop is actually elected to be mayor Miss Johnson that he would be ready to say that he has a foundation strong enough that this place is a city that he chooses to live and work in so with that I want to say thank you all for the participation that we're going to have tonight tonight I'm going to start off with um asking members of the um and thanking the members of the Committees that have worked on this so fast and so much out of our Council and of course I left all of my notes but I upstairs with all of the names and it so but I want to especially appr appreciate Ed and Marjorie Victoria and Renee for the work that they've done and what they've bring to the table James Mitchell oh who would I miss Malcolm Graham and then James Mitchell the small group and who were the members that you had M Dante and who was our third there two the two people that and that was there again so I want you to know that this is absolutely amazing that we have had this kind of qualitative work done by others and also captured in this moment this day so with that I want to recognize Ed dggs um to begin our discussion followed by um Victoria watlington for comment okay and then the manager right we're going to have the committee and then the manager all right um so we're not doing a presentation oh I'm sorry I am getting this wrong we're going to have a presentation we're going to have Ed introduce and then the manager because I see all of the staff back there behind I just couldn't see past you know it's been a long time I've been out for a week or so so I'm just catching up with you guys okay Ed so is that right I think I just after okay let's go with the staff presentation Mr Jones take so thank you uh Mayors mayor members of uh Council um so I've introduced what I um believe is the uh the the the best team in the country when it comes to uh getting uh things done and before I turn it over to a mckenny would like to just focus just a little bit on the slide and I think it speaks volumes because when we start to take one issue in isolation you can pick that issue apart but this Council through numerous uh annual strategy meetings in days and days of looking at goals and objectives and priorities have really landed on what what I call a three-legged stool you know it's a a good place to live a good paying job and a way to get back and forth and so I start off with that because we have uh you have continued to do a lot of great things even before the discussion tonight a lot has happened since the Charlotte moves group your efforts on Council alongside the community leaders have come to advance all the priorities and not just this one and we believe it's done in a way that's never been done before whether it's through the corridors of opportunity program or efforts to address safety and environment through Vis Vision zero and CA these efforts work together you have been building on minority business Enterprise and transformational investments in affordable housing these programs especially when we start to think about mwsb these programs Provide Capital technical expertise critical networking as well as bringing the mbes to the next level um legal assistance programs how to navigate complex issues and so we start to think about some of the things that you've done not just the the ca or what's happening around um CBI but even the Charlotte small business growth fund which together with the private sector and the philanthropic community that supports $40 million and lending to businesses that are unable to get traditional Capital your $2 million investment helped make that happen what's going to happen tonight is a mckenny does this presentation you'll see um what's in for the city of Charlotte and that includes in year one of the one cent sales tax the 40% portion that comes to Transportation this sh allot is worth $100 million or $102 million to be exact and that and that grows so I guess what I'm saying is the community is poised to have a discussion around Transportation much like what you've done with affordable housing and what you've done with good paying jobs I do want to talk a little bit about affordable housing before I turn it over to to add in this last budget you doubled your efforts from the housing bond from 50 million to 100 million there's some great work and I won't do a spoiler alert but there's some great work that's going on in the housing and state communities committee about how to deploy those funds in a way that's never been done before so what what I would say is that as we are talking about Mobility tonight or Transportation tonight that doesn't wipe out four years of work around some other key areas that actually work together with what we're trying to do here so with that said I'd like to turn it over mayor to Ed mckenny thank you again Ed mckenny uh Special Assistant to the manager for Mobility um a couple things I'll just going to go back real quick just a reminder what we're going to do tonight is talk really about two things and two actions coming up before you transportation funding which is really centered around the draft legislation and then uh the red line so I'll walk through and Sarah Hazel and I will walk through the draft legislation uh specifically around the funding and then we'll turn it over to Brent Kagel to talk through the redline purchase quick schedule uh we've talked about this before here's where we are um on on our action review and and again the goal next next week of September 3rd is these two uh requested actions couple things just to kind of build upon what the manager just described again number of things we've been doing certainly the plans that have already been described by the mayor thing that I think we want to sort of reemphasize is really the time is now this this notion of funding uh is critical to moving forward it's certainly critical to our ability to move forward on our desired multimodal Road investment uh specific to our to our strategic U Mobility plan without any more funding we simply can't do our rail projects that are in the plan and we can't extend uh the the frequency and the extension of our bus system and so that's it's really important that to move forward on these big plans funding is absolutely critical let me talk about the funding and let me give you a sense of a little bit of context of the scale and maybe a different way to to think about this as we move forward in some of these decisions to be made this is some information prepared by the Charlotte Regional business Alliance a couple years ago that just talk about the impact of doing nothing and the impact of doing something and so on on the uh the right side you have is sort of what what you can gain out of this and and on the other side is is what you can lose and so scale on the on the red side Lots uh if we don't address congestion right there's some real impacts these numbers are almost hard to kind of comprehend and I don't want to imply uh that the investment that we could make even transformational would make that red go away right we're constantly and will always be managing congestion I think the thing to remember though and the the point to be made here is what we can do right what the investment we put in place will do and so again every dollar we spend will have an impact and and the opportunity to extend jobs to extend uh economic output earnings Etc so it's really important to think about all the opportunities we have with this investment that's not just Transportation related right it's really a economic investment uh strategy hold the idea of this $100 million number in your mind for a moment because I'm going to use that increment in almost a casual way given the scale of what we're talking about but but REM you know remember this slide and think about that hundred million of invest uh because you're going to see it in some big numbers as we go through what does this mean for Charlotte as the manager described I want to spend a little bit of time and talk about uh certainly the regional impact of this investment but also being really clear with with you and the community about what this means for Charlotte before I get into the details we've talked about the split of the funding strategy we certainly talked about the scale but let's let's pause for a moment and think about how unique this is there's certainly no community in the state that is about transportation funding from this broad multimodal perspective it'll be a really interesting model and certainly something that may be considered throughout the state in other places that are growing right this is this is a really unique way to think about our sales tax it's pretty unique nationally there's some great examples we've been learning a little bit from Phoenix that have they established a $ 31 billion investment program over a 30-year period and they did exactly the same thing they understood a city like ours that is growing so fast has needs that extend just beyond Transit so they've they've portioned some of that funding for transit for rail they've portioned some of that for bus and they certainly proportion some of that for road so it's it's a unique way to think about the scale is dramatic 19 billion we mentioned in the maner talked about what that one year looks like this is a one year of the whole program the 345 million and remember it's not just uh a Transit plan it's not just a rail plan it's not just a bus plan it's not just a road plan this is a Mobility strategy and a funding across all of those to to Really describe and and to extend the mobility Vision we have across the city it's intentional and a couple things I want to mention here is uh again the 100 million for the Charlotte and the split of the roads between us and the towns but again the notion that um we're not and there's places throughout our without throughout Charlotte that don't have access to transit to bus or Rail and probably never will so this road investment is crtical to that there's some basic needs there sidewalks or Street lighting Etc there are places that won't have access um to rail itself long term and and there's an opportunity to provide bus frequency and and extend the access and and bus frequency and and control over that uh Mobility across our city places that we can invest to and and today in a very efficient way for bus and so the notion is we've got a Broadway to think about our transportation spending that's not not just on one in any one particular mode another thing I want to describe in terms of about the scale of this program and and I want to sort of dissect this diagram a little bit for a moment and the the uniqueness of this Revenue so there's a scale to this Revenue that's dramatic uh but it's also about the impact it has on our bond capacity and our our ability to do lots of other things and and address a lot of your other priorities so on on the right side of this is the Revenue I just described and i' we we bucket it into two-year buckets to sort of be able to compare it to our bond program so at the bottom you see the first two years at the top uh you see the next two years the 209 the 226 and i' we've married that up to the next two Bond Cycles 26 and 28 so you can you can compare these two numbers so the revenue we're talking about over these 2-year periods compared to our bond capacity is more or less equal so this is a scale that's pretty unprecedent Ed in terms of the funding and we'll do lots of projects we'll have a lot of ability to accelerate uh the the Investments that we plan for in our strategic Mobility plan but that also allows us to do something pretty unique around the bond capacity so that revenue is really income and our debt our debt capacity the bond side is really around capacity so having more Revenue will open up capacity and flexibility on the bond side and so it's not just about uh the projects we can do with the 209 but it's what it will allow us to do in our future Bond Cycles the steady state has a limit on it this Revenue allows us to expand that capacity give us flexibility uh those that flexibility will give Council the ability to think about additional goals and additional investment beyond our current steady state for again uh important priorities around housing neighborhood investment Etc and so two halves of this the revenue is really important that that cash in hand will give us the ability to accelerate projects but it's important and almost equally as impactful to think about the capacity that we'll provide within our bonds and the ability to address again not just Transportation uh but your goals across across the city and across your priorities drilling it down I want to start to now describe what that uh investment looks like relative to the Strategic Mobility plan the discussions we've been having around our our uh Strategic investment areas and what that can mean for our projects moving forward here on one side you're just seeing the the recently adopted your recently adopted uh Capital Improvement program for for 2024 the unique scale the 400 million uh that was adopted in your budget and you uh a portion a portion of that for the Strategic area is the 55 million again continuing to compare the scale of that investment and this Revenue it's essentially four times again out over a two-year period that's four times the scale of our Strategic investment program as established that's again on another comparison that's 11% of our general fund budget this the scale of this is pretty significant and will allow us to advance our our strategic PL projects and our strategic area investment in a in a pretty dramatic way reminder again the Strategic area uh investment program that we've described talked about this over the last couple years we talked about it in detail at your at your annual strategy meeting this this process where we went and focused in on where our priorities are where our safety issues where is growth happening where's congestion targeted to those areas so that we could be really specific to the Investments and have real impact as a reminder again we've focused in on that and in those areas in very specific ways this is just a snapshot of District 5 uh going into an example here on the far East each area is unique and so again an example of how we can use those dollars this new Revenue in multimodal ways to address issues that are specific in each area again using the Harrisburg Road example this is a place again where Transit investment there are bus uh routes in this area but don't extend and don't provide the kind of service that you would see in other places in the city the needs here though are different right so it's not just about Transit sidewalk gaps Street lighting safe Crossings intersection improvements this this money allows us to think about uh multimodal investment across the city in unique ways tailored to the unique conditions of each part of our city that work is going on so I want to give you a little bit of a preview of this so this is uh this is our Strategic investment team at work this is just over the past summer and so they've been going out this is actually a field trip they did out in the Far East the Harrisburg Road Corridor to really begin to understand what are the kinds of projects uh and how should we scope those a couple things I want to show that are unique to this it's across all of our disciplines and all the people that touch projects from the contracts to the construction that includes our CBI team to understand the opportunities for business small business and minority uh participation in these projects how do we deliver projects in different ways that allow us to achieve those kinds of goals and so we're thinking about these projects and this this investment in a holistic way to address again not just Transportation issues issues use those dollars to address and and Advance the goals that you have as a City Community needs protecting those making sure that those projects are done in a way that's efficient time kills every project and and focus on small minority business that that team's ready to go and again with this new investment and this new funding we'll be able to advance those projects quickly real quick back to the big picture again a reminder again back to the 19.4 billion that transit in transportation investment across roads bus rail reminder about Bus and Rail it's really important that distinction and providing uh a sort of an allocation to those pieces are part of this Vision making sure that we've got bus investment that allows us to extend and think about our better bus program to add frequency on our corridors the new advancement of microtrans that this is a unique time to actually dedicate funding for that program and certainly the uh the the the the protection of rail for that for the long-term program within the context of the 19.4 billion the rail program though or the transit program is much beyond that it's the the 17.4 billion on the bottom and so that includes the ability to get Federal funding uh to advance those projects in Partnership uh and and essentially allows us to to extend those local dollars use those local dollars as a match to extend our Transit program and our investment Beyond simply the 19.4 billion what as I transition really to talk about uh what that means from a from a Transit standpoint it's certainly important that we um recognize the fact that this is a new um a new constraint right this this new funding strategy is a fiscally constrained uh program that think thinks about our investment in a new way with a a new constraint that will require us certainly to think about the transit plan in a different way that process will go on and so certainly Brent can talk about this in more detail uh but the notion is uh that we need to move forward and and provide a plan that is fiscally constrained uh that understands uh the capacity of that Financial program but do it in a public process so there'll be a c a a clear public process directed by the MTC it's not a decision that has been made it'll go through sort of an extensive public process to update the transit plan within the context of that F fiscal constraint so it's this is not a decision that has been made it's the first time that we've actually had a fiscal constraint around our vision and so that public process will certainly happen to Define that program and that new plan within that fiscal constraint last thing just a transition to the action really looking for you to do is is this notion around uh supporting uh the the resolution to to move forward the the referendum and the the ask of the state legislature to afford our voters the ability to uh to approve a sales tax and to fund Transportation projects in the region couple things we want to make sure it's it's clear to you that it's not it's not endorsing or or changing the 2030 plan it's not determining that plan and any specific specific way I just talked about the public process that we'll go through with that and it's certainly not preempting that process it's really just giving us the ability to take this conversation one step forward and continue the ability to get funding for our Mobility plan and ultimately make public transparent decisions about how we use those dollars to fund our Transit Vision quick sense of the timeline we are still very early in the process right so we're we've we've gone through the past year to develop uh the draft legislation to gain support from the towns and the county to move forward we're now in the process of of going through with the towns and the county to get a public support for that so that we can reaffirm to the state uh that this is a vision this is a strategy that the local jurisdiction support but there are steps that hack that that many steps that need to get there before we get to a referendum right so there's legislative discussion and consideration there'll certainly be the transit plan update that uh Willen have to happen within that Financial constraint there'll be public engagement across all of those things our strategic um area plans and those those Mobility uh projects that will be defined will go through a public process so it's important to know that this is just the first step it's a critical step so that we can continue the conversation around funding there'll be engagement as we move forward and lots of opportunity to shape uh the ultimate priorities and and focus of these plans with the public as we get closer to a potential for a referendum with that a lot to cover there I want to transition over to Sarah to talk a little bit more about the details of the legislation and a little bit more about uh the potential for a Transit Authority so good evening Sarah Hazel Chief sustainability and resiliency officer what I want to do is just hit on some of the high points um that Ed described and first I'm going to start a little bit with what we gain related to the details of this draft legislation so to reiterate as a city we get hundred million plus dollars in transportation revenue for complete streets that represents 11% of our general fund and that can investment can be significantly leveraged to support council's CBI efforts so I wanted to pause on that it advanced is our Strategic investment areas and it creates capacity and flexibility for other Council priorities uh and then on the transit side it really creates the ability to fund a plan that has been unfunded it more than doubles the current investment in transit from 0.5 plus an additional 04 for Rail and 0.2 for bus so that's more than doubling the investment this community would make in transit and it's a 50% increase in the bus program funding annually on the other side of things it also protects City council's interests and the City of Charlotte's interests in a couple ways this is um a one of it a kind piece of legislation not only because it addresses multiple modes so Transit Transportation um but it also allows for this countywide sales tax to back the future Transit debt instead of the city this is really important um and something that has not been done before for transit in North Carolina it also really protects cat's employees by ensuring they transition to a new Authority keep their retirement benefits as well and so that is specifically written into the legislation um the other way that it protects the public transit customers is that if you look at the governance of the new Authority you can see that Charlotte has 12 of 27 votes that's 44% if you look at the existing MTC structure Charlotte has 11% of the votes so it's a more Equitable way to better represent Riders who are 90% live in in the city of Charlotte the key piece here is really what's on the left and this mirrors the resolution language the draft legislation at its core is asking the general assembly to allow meinburg County to hold a referendum to ask voters if they would like to make a choice to put a 1% sales tax in addition to the current sales tax to be used for roadway systems and public transportation so that is really the key piece of this legislation it's important to note that there is specific referendum language in the draft legislation that you may have seen so unlike the existing uh quarter Cent sales tax that does not allow for specific language voters will have a much Clear uh opportunity to understand what they're voting for at the ballot and that is embedded in the legislation it also um clearly defines the red line as the priority it does not define any other project um to reiterate what Ed was saying but just delivers on the promise of the red line and it also allows for the city to be reimbursed for the purchase of the red line in a Time bound manner on the transportation and the revenue side again the road 40% Revenue distributed directly to the towns and City and on the transit side there's a limitation on rail at 40% um and a minimum on bus at 20% Which really protects and really hold sacred funding for bus riders who um are are core riders in our system and then I'm going to talk a little bit more about the new Authority so um one piece of this legislation is moving to an authority but why does this make sense this is not a new conversation uh that we've been having in the community ever since 2004 a UNCC had a study that they gave to the MTC and it suggested that if we are going to continue to advance transit in our region a Transit Authority makes sense the conversation has continued with the work around connect Beyond and advancing the plan and um and to note if you kind of go to the right hand column this new Authority allows for expansion so it does provide for the opportunity with additional Revenue that other jurisdictions could join with that dedicated funding source um which again supports this Regional Vision an authority also is really the the system of major Urban transit systems in the country so it's a best practice it streamlines the Dual roles right now that MTC and the city hold um and the 1998 sales tax you know has really grown our system from just a city Department to a system with expansive bus rail par Transit but bringing bringing this system into a new governance structure that streams streamlines roles and is a best practice is is the reason for moving to a new Authority and the reason that this is outlined here in the draft legislation so just for a visual one governing board all activities under the governing board to reiterate 12 City appointments three representing business interests 12 County appointments six representing the towns two state legislator appointments one Governor appointment what that really recognizes is a couple things it recognizes that the state does have a critical voice in our infrastructure because it is regional in nature um it also represents and recognizes that every jurisdiction should have a voice in this system and again it it better reflects the ridership and better represents Equity when it comes to the allocation of votes for the city of Charlotte and the county and so um if you go to the right hand column here so the 0.5 cents which exists and the 6 cents which is really the 04 and the 0. 2 equals 1.1 Cent that could be governed under this Transit Authority if this um were to come to fruition it is very specific in the legislation that defines the transition and creation of the new Authority so there's a series of time bound plans and reports and things that need to occur in order to responsibly transition and ensure that the city's protected as well as our Transit Riders are protected and the new Authority is set up for success and finally one other important piece of this that it does require a super majority vote for required expansion which I think really does protect the Integrity of what you see here um it would require a super majority of all of the existing members to bring somebody new in and change the voting structure or change any of the bylaws so before I hand it over to Brent just a reminder so um for action on September 3rd is a resolution and all local jurisdictions are considering this resolution at this time um and at that I think I will hand it over to Brent to talk more about the related topic of the red line great good evening everyone I'm Brent Kagel interm CEO cats thank thank you Ed and Sarah so as I get um going on the red line I want to talk a lot about the red line but I also want to sort of step back a little bit to the transit plan the red line is part of the transit plan and has been part of the transit plan for for many many years and when we start thinking about the red line and what it represents with the plan the red line presents an opportunity for us to move forward with a project that has been part of the plan for decades it also gives us the opportunity to start having meaningful conversations about funding the entire Transit plan however we know that the current Transit plan as Mr McKenna stated is not fiscally constrained and what that basically means is there's not enough money to pay for the plan and that's been true for many many years so as we move through uh the possibility of additional funding that the legislation would bring the next step in the process is to develop a Transit plan that is fiscally constrained and that will be a process that will launch early or late this year um this winter November and really run through about July of 2025 that's a process led by the MTC and cats and would engage the communities uh throughout that are affected by the transit plan to understand what their priorities are and how we can best meet their trans Transit needs in a fiscally constrained way and the red line I think Pro provides us the opportunity to start and have that conversation oops I went the wrong way so the red line city of Charlotte has been negotiating with uh or talking to Nori Southern uh since 2021 in 2023 the city and NS began negotiations for the purchase of the o line I want to take a minute to thank the team we had a very capable team we have Rob Martinez um with Moffett and nickel but also uh a 20 plus year veteran of nori Southern um in their properties uh actually overseeing their Properties Group we have uh Brad Thomas um our lead Council for cats and we have um Kelly go forth our chief development officer for cats um they have put in literally thousands of hours with Nori Southern to come to where we are today and hopefully next week on the 3D and all the others um on the team it it really was uh a huge effort the red line and the 2030 plan it's a 20-year Pursuit it's fundamental as I said to the transit plan and to our ability to move any Transit plan forward uh and it's critical to the sales tax it's also important to Shar Charlotte 112 miles of the corridor of the redline Corridor fall within Charlotte City Limits four stations um are in Charlotte and we have already applied for a Federal grant to evaluate and study Equitable to Opportunities along the corridor including in Charlotte and I'll point out that the Dera station um is part of one of our designated corridors of opportunity it connects uptown's Regional employment base and cultural destinations to the regional growth north um and it links Charlotte Gateway station which really is a critical multimodal uh station and economic Hub to the rest of the region so where are we at today today we're really looking at Corridor preservation this is the first step in moving forward and we can't go any farther without preserving this Corridor um noric Southern requires that this deal be closed on September 9th no later um so again that leads us to the time frame we're talking about but I also want to point out that Corridor preservation is an FTI FTA recognized process um that we've done before um actually several times we we did Corridor preservation with the original blue line and we did Corridor preservation with the blue line extension the reason is called out as as sort of a special activity by the FTA is because it's time consuming it's hard um and so when these corridors come up you do everything you can to preserve them for future use for Transit because if you miss the opportunity you may not get it again and and we I think we know that right we've been trying to work with norrick Southern for over 20 years as we've had conversations about this Corridor The Next Step there will be a phase where the city owns the corridor but we are not operating commuter rail and really that's just uh the ability of the city to hold the corridor until such time that there's a Transit Agency or Transit Authority at that point the Transit Agency the new agency or authority would own and operate so they'll own the corridor and they would engage in operating uh commuter rail the draft legislation again ensures the city will be reimbursed for the purchase price um it requires a timeline on establishing an agreement for the asset transfer and it it is clear that the Transit Agency or authority will be responsible for funding the design construction and operation of the red line as we move forward with commuter rail in the corridor so how did how do you know what are the things that we did to get us here um back in 2023 we received the big breakthrough Nori Southern said they're willing to consider a possible transaction um that was that was a big change for us and and we took that opportunity on August 28 28 2023 we had a closed session where we reviewed and discussed the Nori Southern letter we also had small group meetings with city council uh October 2nd 2023 leading into 2024 the city signed a non-binding purchase and sale agreement with NS uh requiring at that time a September 2024 closing that was in March 20 on March 25th of 2024 when that close session occurred uh recently we've had more small group meetings in July and August of this year the closed session on August 19th bringing us here to the action review today um and move moving forward to September 3rd uh consideration by Council um if successful then a uh closing no later than September 9th so what are the actions related to the red line that Council will be asked to consider next week the purchase and sale agreements there are two PSAs one is for the o line or Redline alignment the second is for a small um strip of land adjacent to or contiguous with the Charlotte Gateway station so let's talk about the first um agreement it is 74 million for the o line to the mecklinburg county um border it does that is not to extend into morville or ell County I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute the second purchase and sale agreement is 17 million and it's for the property adjacent to the Gateway station this is critical property for the red line because it is literally where the platform where the Terminus at Gateway station will be it's the platform ending the red line in uptown another agreement that will be uh in front of council is the comprehensive rail agreement the comprehensive rail agreement protect the city and future Transit Agency rights to operate commuter rail and defines the terms with Nori Southern for how we share use of the corridor some of the key Provisions it assigns it allows us to assign the agreement um in the future if there is a Transit Agency or authority uh and it defines the terms of the agreement it defines the commuter rail service rights it defines the freight service rights it provides compensation to either party between the two parties for use of the alignment uh it gives the city or the transit authority um the ability uh for maintenance for determining how maintenance and dispatching of the line will occur it establishes liability limits for either party um it also requires an insurance policy be entered into to and and placed um so I'll mention this a little bit we are working with the city's Risk Management Group to execute or to get uh quotes on the insurance policy we have not received that yet and we will not be able to uh close on an insurance policy by the 9th so that's where the $10 million escrow account comes into play um in absence of the insurance policy there is a requirement to place $10 million in escrow for any um liability or claims that escrow account is maintained only up until the point that the insurance is put into place so it is a temporary uh situation uh while we seek or until we have placed Insurance um for the alignment and then the uh comprehens of rail agreement also provides the ability or an option to extend the line into moresville and ell County that option is twofold we can do either one of two things neither of these things are possible without Express agreement and approval from ell County and moresville but what it would allow us to do is either purchase the rest of the alignment or some portion of the rest of the alignment either to mount mour or the the entire of the rest of the o line um or enter into an operations agreement with norix Southern and basically the best way to describe that is it's an agreement that would allow commuter rail to utilize that section of track even if we don't own it but we would pay on in effect a pert Trin basis for utilizing that segment of track uh and then it also outlines the improvements necessary for commuter rail operation along the entire alignment so where are we at what have what has already been completed uh on July 16th the Planning Commission completed the mandatory referral process and on August 16th the surface Transportation board which is a federal uh board uh approved the uh the agreement that we have the the draft uh CRA with Nori Southern now next steps uh August 19th was the Clos session today the 26th leading into September 3rd um for the purchase and sale agreements and the comprehensive rail agreements and then September 9th or earlier if possible um actual closing on the deal uh I will note because of the hard and fast deadline on the 9th the September 3rd uh uh item is a no deferral item for the red line additional agreements it may be that there are additional agreements necessary these agreements could come before the city uh city council or they may come be before a Transit Authority or agency it just depends on the timing of these but I will mention them um there is an anticipated future agreement for for construction and that would cover construction phasing for the redline project and Freight Service including um Nori Southern Mainline improvements there is also an operating and Crossing agreement with CSX which would address uh the crossing of the CSS CSX tracks by Future commuter rail and there is an in a Nori Southern operations agreement covering dispatch and mainus responsibilities after commuter rail service begins so again just to reiterate what would what should you expect to see on a request for Council action on the 3 um first the two purchase and sale agreements second the comprehensive rail agreement third um an escrow agreement and fourth authorize the manager to negotiate and execute any additional documents required for closing by September 9th 2024 again the schedule and with that I will we'll stop right there and I I suppose there will be questions I think we're ask Mr to com and start us off and'll follow um the vice chair of the committee Miss Molina and so Mr drgs you have the floor thank you madam mayor so colleagues this is a pretty daunting proposition got a lot of information here we need to process that and decide what actually in the best interest to Charlotte but as we do that I want us just not to lose side of the fact this is huge this is really exciting we are not just sitting here and waiting to see what happens which frankly is is what happens in a lot of places we need to kind of be proactive uh so let's look at everything that we've heard in that context understand this like this are enormous in terms of not just ility but economic development jobs environment Equity uh it also ties in with our Udo another major initiative so I'm frankly I'm proud of the fact that we are looking as actively as we are ahead and trying to make conscious choices instead of just reacting um I will uh very briefly comment on a lot of what we've heard in my mind as I've said before there you can simplify this conversation quite a bit uh there's no question that we need to make a large investment in Mobility infrastructure you can see it out on the roads you can hear it understand that it's going to be a few years if we move in this direction before the improvements start coming online and that it's urgent we need to be doing something now uh that also means that we need to have a revenue Source because our capacity to do the things we need to do from what we have uh is insufficient and that led to uh in 2021 the mobility task force recommending as a revenue Source the 1 cent sales tax so now here we are doing something about it right and uh what the legislation says is actually not that complicated it says you may conduct a referendum for a sales tax um and understand what that means that means nothing happens that the public doesn't agree with our challenge is going to be to take that authorization that we have and put something out there in the way of a plan that in no November or whenever that referendum comes up the public agrees is good for us and worth paying for um critical to understand that um it also uh specifies an allocation so before we were looking at 80% for transit or more and we were looking at uh a smaller amount for other uses based on feedback from the legislature which frankly I don't find was bad advice we're now going 60% Transit with a maximum of 40% for r that means there's a substantial amount of money for bus in there probably more than there would have been under the other plan um and so that's not a bad outcome um it also calls to Authority we saw a slide right Charlotte needs for the authority to be created it is in our interest not to have this de on our books and to have a more representative governance structure for planning in the future and let that take place at a countywide level so we should we should be willing to get behind that one issue that people have talked about is how come we only have 12 votes out of 27 uh you can't create a structure in which one of the municipalities has total control and we've seen that in CCO the others aren't even going to show up then nor will they accept it so that's why that's being done like that um it commits to the creation of the red line we've heard the red line was in the plan earlier and didn't get built for 26 years so the idea that there are winners and losers here and that the northern towns are winners is not completely Fair uh I do want to emphasize too what we heard once we have this plan the plan is going to get developed after uh or during and after the approval of the legislation and that plan is going to be worked out among all the members of the MTC uh it's going to be subject to approval of the MTC and it is not a Charlotte creation some of these allegations that Charlotte has done this or done that where we are right now is the plan that we had before is still in place it includes the entire Silver Line it won't change until the MTC votes to change it uh what we're going to do though in the meantime is come up with a proposed modified plan that operates within the bounds of the money that we're now expecting to get and therefore is achievable that plan is the is going to be developed in consultation with all the members of the MTC the towns the public uh we can have a summit there is nothing in the legislation that actually limits us it just says you will spend the money this way but the rest of it is a planning process it's going to be conducted here and uh I think that's critical to note as well we're not actually limited we don't even have to offer the referendum we want to take this step so that we have the possibility of a referendum it doesn't impose on us the burden of offering a referendum so we'll do that when the time comes when we feel comfortable about gaining acceptance I think uh I will acknowledge since we're on this uh I think we're all concerned about the position of Matthews and some of the things we've heard about their vote and that they have said uh and I understand that totally I I would emphasize no one says that brt is just as good as rail it isn't I get that right and and they were counting on the rail and they're disappointed uh the only thing I'll mention is though the change in the plan came about because of the legislature saying you can't have all that money for real and other than that there hasn't actually been a change in the plan the change in the plan that is implied by those constraints on the money will take place through our planning process and that planning process will allow all of the members to advance their interests and make their case and hopefully we will come out with something that best Bal bces the interests of everybody so uh as you can tell uh I'm in support of this even though I'm not normally the guy who would be here advocating for tax okay uh and I will mention I did vote against the budget because I was concerned about finances but I believe this is an essential responsibility of C city government it needs to be paid for and therefore uh I hope that uh we will reach a good outcome here that's all I want to say right now I'm very interested to hear what everybody else has to say I will point out we have what a half an hour until we're supposed to go into the meeting to go into please everybody try to leave time for each of us to say something maybe I just over stab just a little just a you're the chair you get you get a little bit of um leeway right we used to 30 minute question and answer session so we're going to now ask um the vice chair Marjorie Molina to address thank you you so much uh Madam mayor and I it it I wouldn't want to DARE attempt to try to repeat what the chair has explained I think it was very comprehensive um his explanation around what has taking place what's in front of us um what we're looking at as a possibility I think it's important to state that um this is this is huge for us potentially um if we do take this step as a body I feel like it's something that would change the trajectory of our city and who we become um I I I guess I I'll put a personal note I'll preface with a personal note I travel Independence Boulevard every day multiple times a day I am a mother with children in CMS and they both go to magnet schools so we don't have bus service uh so I have spent more hours in traffic than I'd like to acknowledge um and so I know that there's so many different possibilities and what we do to um mitigate some of those traffic you know um issues that we've experienced across our city not just in East Charlotte um and so you know today I was encouraged I I told the city manager I was driving down Independence and I seen like a bus Zoom past me in the Middle Lane um I was on my way to take my daughter to school this morning I was like Wow yay you know um but it's encouraging where we are and I will press the statement and also say that you know speaking specifically from an East Charlotte perspective I've heard from our neighbors and residents in East Charlotte who view the redline conversation as choosing a winner versus a loser it is um widely interpreted although you know from this place I I've seen information I know that's not the case because I understand what's in front of us but it's widely interpreted that we're choosing the red line over the silver line that we're putting a precedent over the red line or for the red line as opposed to the silver line and and I want to assure you that that's not what we're talking about um these are you know unfortunately based on where we are operating from we've been given a potential opportunity to have this information looked at by our state legislature and this is what they would like in order to consider a possible referendum and like my colleague said this is something that the voters would ultimately say yes or no to um I do realize that there are some open-ended questions as a result of what's being presented um I read some articles this morning I read my news I don't watch it so I read about three articles this morning um and I realized there's some open-ended questions around the silver line I read and I thought that was very engaging um there are some open-ended questions around um uh how it's determined based on what the actual Authority would decide and those are things that we have to leave open to the process so I also because this has been in you know a conversation since 1998 in full disclosure I was still in high school in 1998 um so uh I you know I but I I do know that this is something that the northern towns have been waiting for and everyone in our county has been contributing half a cent sales tax with the exper with the expectation that we would deliver on Transportation so now at this moment in 2024 we have an opportunity with Charlotte taking a big risk a big forward risk um to realize this potential opportunity so I'll say that and I'll leave the rest for um my you know colleagues here on the council but I I just want to say that for the members of East Charlotte uh this is the beginning of a conversation that has to be ongoing this isn't specifically around the Silver Line although that's also something that like my colleague said there's not been anything determined 100% that there's any emphasis being taken at this moment away from any Silver Line conversations whether that be rail or bus Rapid Transit I got to say that um and I'll leave the rest for my colleagues thank you very much Madam mayor I want to recognize council member watlington thank you madam mayor just a couple of things just because there's a lot of information I want to make sure that the public walks away super clear on a couple of things as far as the vote for an authority that is separate and apart from the vote to purchase the red line is that correct those are two separate actions but on the same day okay my question was whether or not there were um two separate votes for an authority and a purchase and what I heard is that there are two separate votes um on the same day so for me certainly we want to continue digging into the makeup and the structure of the authority um understanding that that is a separate vote from the um the purchase um I do also want to just make clear for myself and for those that are watching clearly we're leaning forward as we've mentioned on purchasing the red line to enable us for things in the future that haven't been decided can you just repeat for me what is the city's position if the referendum is voted down as it relates to the red line itself that we would have purchased by then yeah so um yes so a little bit about that um we did move through the the slides pretty quick and I apologize so the the current plan of Finance in the short term for the corridor will be a short-term 5year either uh note program or variable rate program that can then be assumed or taken out replaced by The Authority so that the city is paid back in its entirety if the uh project does not move forward we do know that this is an important Corridor right there there are only so many corridors in in an urban area and so we know that it has value I'll also ask um Rob to to speak to that a little bit um knowing what he knows about Nori Southern and and how the rail industry Works he needs to come to them come up to that the podium and just introduce um simply just that the fact that it that um there it's extraordinarily difficult as I believe all of you are aware to uh assemble a quarter of this of this uh magnitude and uh of course here the action that's going to be before the city is uh 22 M quarter through a very Urban completely Urban uh District which is uh virtually impossible to uh to assemble uh from scratch so I think it's an ideal opportunity for the city does that mean we would sell it if the referendum went down what what what would happen well I'm it certainly means that so in included in the uh CRA is we have the ability if the project is not going to move forward at some point we determine that we're no longer going to pres preserve the corridor we can accept offers we can put it up for sale and norix Southern has the ability to counter any of those offers and their um openness to do that we also wrote that into this that's also written into the CRA into the comprehensive agreement so Dr Wallington to to your point I go back to what Brent said earlier um not the first time that we've engaged in Corridor preservation that's the first step and so um let's just say that we get the authority that'd be great but we have a period of time to try to seek this Authority also so that's where the first step is Corridor preservation again the city owns we don't operate anything okay so what's important to me is just as we purchase obviously that there's a there's a aort plan um and it sounds like we would be in a position of some pretty valuable real estate if that was the case and we would be able to get our money back essentially um and then the next question I had was as it relates to community engagement as the new plan is updated I just want folks to make sure that they're very clear about their opportunity to engage in those decisions as they P yes so as we go through the process there will be extensive Community engagement and and I want to reiterate um the silver line no decisions have been made one way or another on the silver line what we know is the silver line is a very large project um it constitutes at least 50% of the current Transit plan in dollars and we know that the funding is not sufficient so we will continue with a open process to engage the community in the MTC thank you and so lastly I'll just say that um there's been a ton of work that's gone into this um and so thank you to everyone who's been involved with this to date um it's it is it is a gargantuan task um the thing that I want to lift up and make sure that it's still a part of the conversation is that for me this is only one side of the equation right we're talking about how important it is to invest in our infrastructure because we know that we have very real issues today we also know that when we invest in rail we invest in transportation that is an economic development opportunity because people are going to come and build and we know that with more buildings then more residents more users and then we see ourselves in a constraint situation again so I'd like to understand what is it that we expect in terms of net organic growth as a result of this and how does that impact the individual household that's paying taxes CU I would hate for us to invest in this and then we end up in a situation where we're still seeing issues because we've got now new new um traffic on these roads or in this in this rail line and we're also then going to have to come back to our residents in the future and ask for additional investment just to get whole so I that is a piece that for me is still missing is to understand yes we would want to invest but what is it exactly that we're expecting in terms of a benefit I see the projects but how are we thinking about smart growth and development that will not then put us in the same situation we're in today is that clear absolutely and I would say Dr watlington to some extent the uh Council has been thinking through that through some of the commissions committees that you've put together the equal develop development growth as well as the anti-displacement so um we'll try to tie that all together to give you a better picture of that thank you anything else Miss Wasington okay um let's go to Miss Johnson thank you madam mayor I just have a couple questions first of all let me say that I I was one of the champions for the infrastructure discussion so obviously this is a need and and we want to support this I think we all um understand the need for improvement we understand the benefit from the um that we're going to receive from the at least $300 million per year so that's very important but we still are able to ask questions and we don't want to rubber stamp a deal so I I do have some questions the the first thing that we talked about earlier today during our our session um did we what's the appraised value for the red line yes ma'am the city appraisal on the oine corridor is 69.2 million and the city appraisal on the Gateway station properties is 15.9 million so what's that total give me just a second 69 and 15 8 80 okay I asked for it earlier 86. 86.8 million it sounds like million so 86.8 is the appraised value and the purchase price is 9 91 million it's 91 yes ma'am we also talked about I think I think the M the man manager want to address the let's let's go to the slide okay let's let's start with Apples to Apples can we get the slide add with cost oh yeah oh yeah everybody's down everybody okay go back one like 27 okay no 32 okay so let's start off with this Kelly Brent is we're going Apples to Apples uh so the $74 million for the segment that ends in mecklinburg County the appraisal on that piece is your what 69 .2 million okay and then on the what I call The Landing Strip which is not what I'm supposed to call it the 17 million the appraisal on that is what 15.9 million okay those are the city appraised values okay still the one thing that we cannot talk about tonight is values that are related to NS but I do believe that we can say some things Rob about where we landed can't we okay so you as this all goes through they there's a Val there is a value from one side that's higher than the value from the other side and what you attempt to do is meet somewhere that's closer and the middle and that's what we have attempted to do with this okay thank you and then there was an option to buy the I think it's was it seven miles from uh in aidell County was that op also an option okay and what is that purchase price 17.75 million and what's that appraised value uh I would need to get that for you I I don't have it right here with me okay and just for the record I did ask ask for these numbers um to be very clear so that we wouldn't have this dysfunction or confusion on Council I did ask for these so we could compare apples to apples um thank you um also the we're going to be sharing the rail with Norfolk and they'll still use it for Freight is that correct yes they will have a right to operate the existing Freight um operations that they have they are minimal okay thank you um um we discovered I think during our transportation meeting that there was a $50 million contract for the company to design the silver line or to analyze the Silver Line how much of that contract how much has been spent as of a week and a half ago during the public records request I believe it was 43 million 43 million so what happens with the another 7 million it hasn't been spent and it will not be spent or what what will happen we would certainly yes before we would spend those dollars we would want to engage in a process to understand the transit plan and what it would have in store for the Silver Line okay so we're still work so that company we're still engaged with them and they're working continuing to do work for us what they have $7 million remaining on the contract they're not actively doing work today or I believe it's very minimal amount of work that they are doing because of the uncertainty around the silver line um but in the future as we have better certainty then it may be that we enter into a new contract or it may be that we continue using the existing contract okay thank you um will this route will it go all the way to the airport is the proposed plan silver line yes yes to go all the way to the airport okay um is there an option that we and I know the Silver Line we say that there's no final decisions that have been made is there an option that East Charlotte and Matthews could have a rail line I'd like to see us continuing to discuss that so in the transit plan we will first start by looking at the silver line which is the largest project in the plan so again the Silver Line in the transit plan has not been removed as rail as we go through this the first thing that we would want to do is look at are there cost-saving opportunities associated with the project as rail that could make the project financially feasible that will be very difficult because the Silver Line itself to Matthews Uptown to Matthews is approximately $6 billion the rest of the alignment is another two to three billion so together the Silver Line constitutes a very large share but the first thing we will do is look at are there cost-saving opportunities the second thing if the answer is there are cost-saving opportunities that could bring it into Financial feasibility will be really to ask the question is that a project that we would want and the Wii is the community um because we may have to cut so much of the silver line as to make it not a project that is that is really the desire of the community anymore and then we would start to look at Alternatives like bus Rapid Transit so council member drig said that in 2021 is when we started the discussion about the one cent sales tax that's that's almost 5 years ago so things so things have changed you know prices have increased is it possible that we would could approach the legislators with a different amount that that would include East Charlotte and possibly Matthews um and we don't have to have that answer today I just I I just if if there's a way I think Dr watlington brought up a great point if we are going to be increasing the value with this this um with the rail line does that create a larger disparity um with East Charlotte and Matthew so I just think that those are things we should think about if there is a way that we can truly make this a regional project then I I would be willing to support this um we we talked about public engagement and this is what happens we have to make a decision next week and I heard uh numbers like 1998 we've been talking about you know one of the projects in 2021 we've been talking about the other project so I I would have liked to have seen more public engagement instead of the week of the meeting for them to have an opportunity to give us their feedback and I understand the city staff that you all do great work but we are the ones that are accountable to those residents so and I mentioned that to you before um Mr Jones so I I think this would have been a great opportunity for um if we went into contract in March for us to be able to talk to the public and and hear from the public sooner than this um I think that's all I have um for today thank you thank you Miss Johnson Mr Mitchell thank thank you may I'm using the last one but I'm going to be very quick because I know we got some colleagues uh I think my questions one is for Dana city manager can we get a a good feel where our mcburg delegation is I mean this is very important as we move forward to kind of check their temperature because I know in Raleigh they going to kind of look at the delegation so we can kind of Judge I think it'll be helpful I I would say this I I know how District reps feel so when I looked at page 27 slide uh I saw that the the red line touches in three District district two at the Gateway make sure I get this right council member Johnson District Four at R uh Harris North Carolina 115 is that District 5 oh that's district one look look she like me ah okay oh y'all share okay and then Eastfield is in District Four correct that's and so I guess my point is and staff we always say can you show us the district that that would touch on projects like this and last but not least I I will share this and I'm a myself but in 2015 we took a trip to Denver Colorado uh about eight elected officials and about 40 Business Leaders and our whole goal was to look at their regional transit system and I was just so amazed how Denver was the big city but played a very important part in Regional Transit development I see us kind of having that same model Charlotte is playing a role in a regional transit development so I got excited in 2015 and here we are 2024 knocking on the door I want to remind everyone this when people compare Atlanta to Charlotte first thing they always say is we don't like ATL because a transportation so here we are being Charlotte trying to grow up Mr DS to your point trying to be proactive and create a Transportation uh needs for our community so thank you madam mayor Pro and mayor for thank you you did a great job um and so now go to T Council thank you um I I don't know what my position is on this yet but the good news is I have a week to figure that out so um so I'll work on that I'll just give you just a a quick kind of look into what my thinking is right now um and it's probably similar thinking to how average voters will be learning about it if they get to the ballot and look at it um they'll be thinking at that time which is also an important lens for us to put on it I think on the first part is is this the time to be raising taxes and it's on the back of the fact that our economy is uh struggling right now in many ways and we wake up and hear about employers laying folks off uh the fact that we just rais taxes in the budget um and then most importantly on this one it this is a regressive tax it impacts uh and sits on the backs of those that can least afford to do it so that means one important thing it doesn't mean we can't do this it means we've got to get it right it's got to be designed well and it's got to make sure it delivers the kind of Roi particularly to those who are funding this and who are impacted by it um get those benefits so I you know as I'll struggle with this over the next week I'll be thinking about that and I'll also be thinking about the point of what does it look like to get it right I know a lot of people have put a lot of hard work for decades into all of this uh but I can't help but be concerned that it falls into kind of a similar trap that we have here in Charlotte where the vast majority of effort is spent on kind of presenting and justifying why we need the money a little bit of effort is then spent on allocating it and negotiating the buckets of money and then beyond that the only time that's been spent on anything is really design of Light Rail and particularly the silver line so what I don't want to happen is to become known as the most Cutting Edge City in the entire world for investing in 20th century technology and Innovation um but that requires us to put the kind of time we put into designing the silver line and looking at Rail and justifying our budget needs and negotiating with towns to come together and design what a plan of the future looks like and scate to where that puck is going to be and that also means a lot of honesty around the tables that do this that all of The Angst and passion you hear around Light Rail and silver line and this it's primarily driven by the fact that people understand as they look at South then the economic impacts that's a real true fact of the matter but it's always hidden as we talk about moving people in congestion and this being a transportation based solution so I think we have to call a spade as made I think we have to actually have that plan I don't believe Mr manager that that plan will be available in the next week as we make the decision so I think the point is this is a big enough and important enough decision that you can't just take a position to be anti or for just on a whim so I think the only thing that's left is the governance model and the governance model not only does that you know help us pave the way with the towns and then the general assembly it gets us back to the when the voters who are smart when they look at these items and do vote against things when they voted against the sales tax uh for the Arts they recognized the fact that was there need sure is there need here sure but the point was they smelled out the fact that there wasn't a really strategic smart plan in place to make that investment have a good Roi for everybody and so the same things that I'll be struggling over in the next week I think are relevant because they're the same things that the voters when they hit that referendum if by some miracle it makes it that far doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion I I'll end with just saying one point whether you're for it or against it colleagues I don't think there's any scenario you can decouple your decision on the red line with supporting this draft legislation and moving forward because if you were yes on the red line and no on that that's a bad indication of us holding the bag for something really important so I I no matter where you're and I'm I'll be thinking along those Lin but if you have a problem with that governance model like I do or any other topics now's the time to figure it out because once we move forward on this tight timeline with the red line we'll be holding the bag at that point and there's a lot of possible Pros in that but I have a lot of negatives and cons in my mind on how that could end up being a debacle so we have a lot to figure out in a short amount of time I appreciate the work that's been put into [Music] date thank you Madame mayor well first uh let me take a moment to celebrate an important Milestone here when it comes to Red Line this is something that our predecessors have tried delivering for decades now so this shows the progress that's been made by staff Mr Jones and the entire team uh this is transformational while I celebrate that there are certainly some concerns that I have as well uh this this will probably be the biggest project in the state's history we are looking at 16 or $25 billion uh probably the largest investment in the state's history this is transformational and uh as someone who has been a product of public transportation who our family didn't not own a car for many many years and we relied on a public transportation to get from point A to point B whether it was doctor's appointment grocery store or uh getting to college in schools I am absolutely in support of the public investments in our infrastructure but I think the question that we have to ask here yes we are creating a legacy of quality of life that mayor men mentioned but really the question here that we have to ask ourself are we creating two cities are we creating two cities where one part has has an access to more efficient and effective transportation and one part does not just by looking at this because it is financially constrained I cannot say that we are not creating two cities and that's the part I have concerns about and this is not just about Matthews this is also about the East Side uh prior which I have represented in the past and as an East Side resident I'm concerned that we are leaving part of our City without having an efficient and effective Transportation option well I do hear the argument that well this is going to be left up to the translate authority to decide but this is a math problem we we know there is not enough funding and the portion the silver line that goes from Uptown to Matthews it is expensive so we cannot say that yes this is going to be left up to the transit authority to decide when we know that we are not going to be able to deliver on the promises that we made and and I have a difficult time getting on board with a plan you know I read an edit torial this morning uh in the Charlotte Observer about the city of Charlotte has one chance to get this right and we got to make sure that the one chance that we have we get this right and we do not leave a segment of our city where they do not have the equal access to the public transportation that other parts do um I hear Mr DRS argument about winners and losers Yes red line is not a winner because this has been in the plan they we were supposed to deliver this decades ago I get it uh but I can certainly see no one is a winner but the east side and Matthews is a loser because they are not getting equal share equal access to public transportation that other parts would have um a couple of questions for staff what response has has been by other counties to buy into the fund to expend and build out our future Connections in other counties so councilman mmer I I'll try the um I think everybody's familiar with connect Beyond and advancing the plan and I I won't speak for the mayor I did attend a bunch of meetings that she attended um with a number of jurisdictions trying to figure out how to build I guess a Authority whether you called it I guess it was a jellyfish model and a muffin model um you know how can you bring jurisdictions together to have a a regional system one of the struggles has been and I'll stop with this is that mecklinburg County um the city of Charlotte and the six towns already have the 1 half cent sales tax and a lot of jurisdictions around us do do not have that so how do you begin to build some type of a mechanism where there's some jurisdictions with funding and some without I think that the um state of North Carolina allows any County to have somewhere between a quarter Cent and a half cent sales tax for Transit not the quar assent that's just for anything um that you you but you can't say what it is on the ballot and I think six of the 100 Counties have taken advantage of that so I I guess the the point being is that as you start to think about bringing other jurisdictions along um how do you do it in such a way that there are resources associated with those jurisdictions if that helps thank you so I wanted to follow up on councilwoman Johnson's question where she asked a question whether the Silver Line will go to the airport I just want to make sure that we are there we have an accurate answer the way I understand this the Silver Line uh it's not going directly to the airport it is within a mile or two am I correct the Silver Line will have an airport station and that airport station will be on Airport property at the corner right now it's planned for Josh Birmingham Parkway or Little Rock uh Wilkinson Boulevard and in effect where Little Rock Road becomes Josh Birmingham Parkway it does not go directly to the terminal but it is on Airport property and will be connected as Miss Gentry has talked about our the aviation director via another separate train that would bring the passengers on into the airport this is the um this is sort of the way that airports because of how the runways are arranged this is how other airports have solved for that problem in other in other cities and there are some other benefits to um that Arrangement or that alignment as well so I was in Chicago and that was exactly what happened the you go so far and then you take yes you take the shuttle and I mean they moved I think something thousands and thousands of people that way but I'm also seeing airports where where trains directly go to the terminal so you can see both examples but I just wanted to make sure that there was an thank you you got the answer that you most of the airports that that is true the runways are aligned differently allowing for the infrastructure of Light Rail to go directly to a terminal Minal um but some of that is the previous infrastructure alignment so I was not trying to hide the answer or anything else in my view as the former Aviation director and now as the interim cat CEO the silver line and the airport will be connected in a very high creating a very high level of service for all of the passengers who choose to use it and I hope there are many many who will thank thank you Mr Kel so um I read this in one of the Articles where ncdot said North Carolina Department of Transportation said that um the true brt the true bus Rapid Transit may not be visible at this time because there is no room for stops on Independence uh is that correct so I I am not saying that that person was incorrect what I am saying is before I start my answer let me let me preface with whoever the gentem woman was who said that I was was absolutely correct I I think there are different views on that what I would say is as someone noted we were really excited today the bus lanes reopened on Independence um and it was great the bus lanes are there they are planned to be uh possible managed Lanes in the future but again that project was predicated on the idea that they would never be used for bus rapid transit or light rail so what I would say is before I think it's fair to say absolutely not cats would need to have further conversations with in CDOT as we go through the transit plan update to see what is possible and I will say uh I think there were other quotes from other ncdot folks who reflect that to say they are willing and ready to have conversations with us about what that would look like in the future yeah and and and thank you Mr Kagel because that races further concerns because even when we are looking at going from light raail to bus Rapid Transit we not really considering a true brt because of the constraints that's that's there uh based on NC d uh in terms of dedicated Lanes where they will have to navigate through the traffic to get to a stop are there is there space for stops to be created so it can be a evaluate a true brt will have a dedicated right of way and that is what we will evaluate a dedicated right away not um an enhanced bus service type of thing and as we evaluate that that that that would be the option whether it be in the middle of Independence or the exact same uh alignment that the current silver line has identified both of those things are possible and and none of those are are ruled out because we need to do the work to evaluate all of those options Council Isme yes um so BR I think really important if if you would just emphasize what a dedicated RightWay is and what would be considered gold standard brt because if we haven't seen it we don't know what it looks like and all we can do is imagine a bus in competition with a bunch of other vehicles yeah a dedicated right of way so a true a full brt implementation the Hallmarks of those number one there aren't any in the United States um the best we have is probably a bronze medal so to speak using the Olympics as as a guide right um if you start to think about in the world though a dedicated or a full brt is going to have specialized vehicles that are high loading and come into a dedicated station similar to a light rail station or a platform and they will have a full dedicated guideway the difference in that is there's no track but there is a guideway that is dedicated for both directions of travel not not a not the bus lane the bus lane is great and and we love it but it is not just the bus lane certainly there is a lot to learn about what true brt is um I'm certainly learning I watch the videos from Miami and uh there were a few other resource articles but at the end of the day Mr Driggs is right uh we can say that brt is the same as the light dril uh that's the bottom line uh but I guess at the end of the day what we have to strive to do is get closer to delivering a true brt and the concerns that I had because when I read North Carolina Department of Transportation Deputy division engineer Sean uh erson told Transit time that it's too late for brt to be part of the expansion which could begin in four years in quot in quotation there will not be space along the express lanes for any stations or accommodations to get pedestrians to the center of the roadway for stops of any kind so so Mr erson I respect everything that he said but he is making one key assumption that may not be accurate and is very very important if we look at a true brt again the Silver Line couldn't be accommodated the way that he's talking about because it has a dedicated guideway that is not on the independence freeway if we are doing brt we will also evaluate that exact same alignment now there are options but again he his statement is sort of predicated on the idea that we would be utilizing the bus lanes on Independence and that has never been the plan for the silver line and would not need to be the plan for a brt alignment as well Fair thank you Mr Kel just let me go um if I may I I have a lot of I mean I had 20 questions but Mo most of my questions were addressed well I that means I did my homework um yeah yeah I mean I most of my questions were addressed in the afternoon session that I was in as with councilwoman Johnson um okay I guess uh that's all I have I might have something later on which I will ask uh Mr Kel thank you thank you council member Brown really I speak 6 45 well we're we're we are going to stay here no we are going to everyone will have an opportunity to speak we're not so no feel free okay I don't think we need to rush because no we're not yeah we're not Russian take your time yes y'all are piece of work okay lots and lots and lots of information on a on a more serious know I had been in meeting with uh Council M Mayfield and just listening to her cuz she is seasoned and was really leading the conversation um on 819 when we were here when it was only two people present just kidding enough to have a quorum though but I want to go back to um Mr Mitchell said that they've been working on uh council member mention said we've been working since 2015 I know it's be probably before that to get a resolution so we know that we're in 2024 now so that Transportation has certainly changed I have been living in Charlotte my entire life I seen everything that there is to see as growth um transportation and being someone that was you know born in a less privileged neighborhood I come from poverty it's no secret um Southside homes is still exist um on the corner of remont Road in South Tron that's my humble beginers in my foundation and so everybody in that Community used the bus um and when we use the bus I'm 53 so when we use the bus I guess age probably in the early 70s um my mom would get me on on the on the public transportation bus and so just think about when I rode the bus and we thought that it was the best thing ever getting around going to eastley mall going to the ska ring and everything that was over there I'm going somewhere with this stay with me clearly we need a different mode of transportation to be able to move forward in this city and to grow this city now I'm doing my homework lots of it and I want to give um a thank you to the economic team which is uh Mr Driggs Molina Graham and Johnson um for all of your work and what you do over in that department um it clearly takes a team to be strategic to work together and bring back the things that we need so we can move it forward for our community to be able to clearly understand so I did ask May potim um about the Strat Ric investment team cuz I wanted to know and then she explained to me that there were 19 strategic Investments I would like to see what those are um I really do yes uhhuh I want to know what those are and then I would like to also see how we're going to do CBI and Contracting what the data what the percentage is for minorities uh to be able to get involved in that because that's very very important and dear to me I also want to point out that I heard extensive Community engagement as if I don't wear Community across my chest CU I know I do so I want to know um if someone can explain to me from your standpoint what community extensive Community engagement would be since we have 7even days for me to make a solid um informed decision to be able to communicate to my constituents and all of these emails that I got concerning this project um so I just want to know what is ensive Community engagement would look like to um the community and constituents and because I remember the last time we had extensive Community engagement it was on the Panthers um vote and when we went to go vote and we used the data then I got conflicting information that that data that we put out on the website for them to vote that we couldn't necessarily use that because we didn't know if it was accurate and coming from the city of Charlotte or surrounding areas for people that will be actually influenced or affected by the stadium so I I'll wait on extensive Community engagement yeah so we didn't let me clarify extensive Community engagement comes as we start to develop the updated or revised Transit plan starting in late this year November running through we anticipate July but that is to update the transit plan ahead of a possible referendum for the voters not ahead of next week so this would happen before November 5th that's the election I'm just I want to get mentally prepared correct as as we start to pull together the update the the plan for updating the transit plan the first phase will be to work with the MTC in November December of this year and then engage the community and stakeholders starting approximately in January of 2025 through we anticipate July of 2025 ending with an updated Transit plan for consideration and approval by the MTC ahead of a possible uh referendum uh in November of 20125 okay November 2025 so it's November next year okay and so two separate votes I heard Dr Dr Waterson say that we're going to have two separate votes and those two separate votes are going to take place on September 3 is that correct that is correct supposedly on that Tuesday when we come back cuz September the 2nd is Labor Day we're off but we'll meet on that Tuesday right September the third is that our proposed date to vote okay so I want to go back to an article that I read in detail which really caught my attention and I would not have known if council member Mayfield didn't bring it to my attention when we're in the meeting and so I'll just summarize it but if you Google it it comes up it's um the US accuses North Southern of delaying Amtrak um trains and the schedules and they are they in big trouble for that they're doing it right now this article just came out it's a new article that came out in July 2023 and I just want to be sure that when we move forward with something that's going to be so strategic and should be effective for our community that one that gets resolved like we cannot have transportation that's going to move people about this city effectively and efficiently and then deal with what they're dealing with so I know anytime the US versus someone that's a big deal of course I know why we don't need to go into those details but whenever the US versus someone they've done their investigation extensively so that's a concern for me that there are fines out there their questions out there and they say it's been a continuation that they continue to do this so that's something that caught my eye um I wanted to read it the economic impact how we move people affluently around this community yes there are too many cars on the road I live in Still Creek and all I get is on 160 what are we going to do out there when is it going to happen we know that that's a North Carolina Department of Transportation road but I need to tell my constituents what are we're trying to do to serve that the bus doesn't go out there it goes to the outlet and that's about it you know there's not cats doesn't effectively move around Steel Creek so it looks good and I'm not saying one way or another where I support it or not but I just want to have all my facts and make sure that we're digging into what are we're getting into because there's no turning back I think tar said it we got right now we're on the Catch 22 the scales are unbalanced and so I want to be effective and and there's no in team of course everybody bring their expert te to the table to the diets and they say effectively I know Mr Driggs is forward he supported it and I'm not saying I'm against it I'm that's not what I'm saying at all but from this conversation we know when everybody say what they say then the media put they spin on it cuz that I understand exactly what I'm voting for and it's not my vote my vote is for the people that put me in this seat and I say that every time I come here and so I'm going to be consistent I'm going to be consistent when it comes comes to relaying my information back to my constituents so I have some questions unanswered I told uh Mr drigs I will speak with him he's an expert and he sound like he summarized it pretty good it's comprehensive it's abstract it's detailed all of that I get it but for someone that just rides the bus and come to me and say council member Brown can you please explain to me what you guys are doing with the transportation and Mobility plan how do I effectively communicate to that person that I understand what their what what their concerns are and how can I make them understand what we're doing that's going to benefit them cuz that's what these 11 positions are the seven districts and the PO at large okay I'm listening I I I will say and I think that unfortunately we probably not necessarily tonight should spend more time talking about all aspects of the current proposed legislation local bus is the backbone of every transit system in the United States probably everywhere um and and I know rightly so we've talked a lot of spent a lot of time talking about Rail and and some of the big projects but local bus at 20% of the funding that's about $69 million a year that represents about a 50% increase in available annual funding this is per year for improvements to our bus system and every system is just that it needs rail it needs it needs a lot of modes multi modes but local bus things like microtransit this the increase in revenues will also make a measurable a measurable difference in our ability to provide better frequencies to enhance local bus service to add modes that enhanced local bus service like microtransit across the region and so I I I hear what you're saying and and you're right um for for a lot of folks they they may not be right on that rail line but what is in it for them and I and I would urge us not to forget the improvements to bus that come along with it as well yeah I totally understand we want to be able to move effectively we have a lot of business people that come through the city that go to the airport that's our big money we know that millions of dollars the airport is the biggest Money Maker in the city of Charlotte and so we want to make sure that we can move those business folks that are coming into our city from the airport to wherever they need to go in our city effectively and efficiently I get that but I also don't want to forget kind of similar to what council member ashir said how are we going to support the people that may not even touch that yes ma'am that Transportation mod really is through local bus okay yeah okay and so that's fine I got to I know all my questions may not be able to get answered and then one last thing I wanted to really bring um to attention the tight timeline every time we get ready to get on a critical vote and I know we got to be moving we got a thousand things that we got to do but every time there's a critical vote it seems like our back are against the wall we don't have enough time to research to get the answers that we're looking for and then to me I feel like I'm making a decision that's not really informed and I I really want to be intentional um I move forward and I'm learning what I do for my constituents I really want to make sure that you know we don't feel like it's crunch time like now looked at I know 6:45 I know we're not rushed that was for the racket but we have an agenda when we come in and the time frame is there you look at it you're like there's no way this is going to happen in that amount of time so I you know my hats off to the staff the staff do an amazing job I'm straightforward um when I ask my questions and just try to figure out what we're going to do yes something needs to be done but we need to be effective in whatever we do and that is all of the points hit crossing our eyes crossing our tees and dotting our eyes and making sure that when we communicate each of us to our constituents because they're going to have questions and we can't we're not going to be able to satisfy everybody let's be crystal clear on that but the path that we choose needs to be most effective it looks like it makes the most sense for everybody even if they're in because we all know that we can agree to disagree but we want to make sure that the decision that we're making makes the most sense for the entire city of Charlotte and those that are going to use it and those that are not and so that's all that I have okay thank you Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor thank you staff for the presentation as answering a lot of our questions and thank you colleagues for asking questions that get us to the point for real conversation Mr manager I've shared with you I also have concerns so I will share that I share the concerns of my colleagues of the timeline of this information coming before us but I do have a couple of questions Mr manager you just for clarification you were mentioning that the C A we have a timeline in which the project must start no I I'm sorry so what I was saying is I think the question came up about not getting the sales tax passed and what if it were not to yeah correct and we would love to be successful the first time out but within this fiveyear period um there could be more than one bite at the Apple but again we would love to be successful the first if given the opportunity the first time that we went to the ballot so I appreciate that because colleagues we also have to remember even though there's only probably one person that's sitting around the diets that was here during that time where right when there was a time that we had a conversation about what is now our Arena Uptown and it was not supported by the community council move he a said over there he um the council wanted to move forward they put on referendum the community voted against the c a different Council came in number of council members lost their seats behind it different Council came in they moved forward with it we've seen the impact of a economic boom that is not to give an example to think that you have my yes on this that was just it can happen where we have where we have to figure out what's the best decision I do have a question for staff and as you're making and it's probably going to be for you Mr Kagel but as we're making our way forward the mayor mentioned Chicago so I was also in Chicago I think in June for a conference when I grabbed my bag out my check back I actually walked a little distance and climbed onto a train that train then took me all the way that I needed to go because that train ride was $5 versus the $50 that would it would have cost czin in case y'all forgot we work a fulltime part-time pay job so the POS of paying $50 for a Uber or a car that train took me all the way where ultimately I had another I'll say 8 minute walk to the actual Hotel so there is a way as we are growing the airport as we're talking about the additional parallel as we're talking about possibly a tunnel at some point where it seems like we've been having this conversation long enough and as was mentioned by my colleagues the transition of just the last five years the amount of growth that we've had at the airport as far as the number of passengers locally that are leaving out of Charlotte not just being a leg airport where where that transfer airport that might be something where the question is Mr kago have we gotten too far down the line of this conversation specifically regarding the line that will be going to the airport to say that that is not a consideration versus stopping it for me to then get off the train with my luggage let's just say I have the full Gambit I'm checking two bags plus my carry-ons to then have to transfer to some other form of transportation the the current plan for the airport station and I'm going to stick I'm going to stick with where I was before there is an airport station the current plan puts the airport station approximately 1 mile from the terminal as we have looked at that with the airport the closest possible it could be is possibly 3/4 of a mile to a half a mile and so as we start to think about the traffic congestion improvements that can also be made at the airport by putting the airport Terminal Station at wil and the other improvements I I would say that yes this is this is something that we we and the airport have put a great deal of time into and there is a lot of thinking on the benefit side to it and I will urge folks there are many airports that utilize a connecting system like what we're talking about and it is a very high level of service Phoenix is one of them if you've been to Phoenix um and there are others as well there are clearly airports that have terminal stations uh national airport and DC is one of those but they have different layouts for their runways and roadways than we do they they don't have a call to sacking terminal is is really the biggest issue okay council member yes sir Mayfield piggy backing on what um fren just said I think it's extremely important and I may fumble this a little bit and council member Bari will correct me so I think it's two facets one is um there are opportunities whether it's the MTC a new agency Authority would have you to look at all of these different um corridors to see what can occur with it but I think what's also important is the 20% that's related to bus let's just not think about it as bus but it's microtransit is all those things that we have been talking about to move people around and let's not forget about technological advances and how can we harness Innovation to move people in a different way thank you Mr manager I appreciate that but going back to the sharing of of her childhood that council member Brown mentioned being able to catch the bus from West Charlotte and be able to get to Eastland even though I'm not a native charlot I've been here since 1988 there's a very different conversation I'm I'm like I feel like I am a native at this point so what we Rec have to recognize is a lot of those community and neighborhood routes with different leadership in the role that Mr Kagel is now in he's inherited a lot of those neighborhood routes that have been reassigned and or ended so it makes it a little difficult to try to say how this benefits those who are more likely to use the public transportation because it's not just a convenience it is a necessity in order to get from point A to point B when we look at opportunities that we missed along the blue line and what we were creating and the individuals who have a vehicle versus the individuals who once lived there who would have benefited the most off of the transportation when we look at under that umbrella it's difficult for me to say hey this is a great thing knowing that there was a time because I lived off of Sharon Road West and I was able to take public transportation to get over to Eastland when we had the Eastland we had the ice gate and rink and we had all the things even if you wanted to today you can't so when we're talking about bus Rapid Transit of which I've spoken to you directly about it unless we have those designated Lanes it is very difficult for that to be truly accessible and even with those designated Lanes you got to have a way to get off if I wanted to take the public transportation to get to Bojangles so that way we don't have to have deal with the parking if I want to get to ovens I can't take Transportation this new bus that's running even though it's running down uh it's own private Lane with concrete on the sides you playing Frogger to try to get across it's Independence which people do every day unfortunately trying to get from one side of Independence to the other so when we're having this conversation I want to make sure to the best of our ability that we're having as much transparency as we possibly can Mr Kel if we go back to slide 16 well you know what don't move it I'm sorry go go back to right where we were right there page page 16 slide 32 so we're saying right here the 74 million is to get that line here's the question that I have so hunsville Cornelius and Davidson are also going to have to put um money put a referendum on their ballot for the county or we're s the County taxes cuz Davidson Cornelius hunsville are all part of Berg County so if we move forward with this we're talking about the city so once you get out of Charlotte proper City Limits and you get into the county what do we know what amount they're contributing to this so the um state of uh North Carolina cannot tell you where the point of sale is for sales tax what they can tell you is what's collected in the county so so we'll know how much the countywide sales tax generates okay so just for clarification because the county passed their budget they had an increase in their budget I don't remember the actual breakdown but did meberg County have a designated amount that was just for transportation so the um when the MTC was uh formed back in the the late 199 0 because of what I just said that you really can't tell which jurisdiction within the county um where the sales tax is generated there was a formula that doesn't really indicate much of anything so I guess if you ask me again I'm going to say the same thing we we don't know the exact amount that's collected in each way this works Charlotte bu for its own account piece of land what is in the legislation is that piece of land will pass to to the authority and we will get repaid so we're making a bridge loan we're just lending money in order to get that land to a safe place so we can move ahead and then the legislation says that the earliest opportunity when there is sales tax revenue in the authority then the land transfers to the authority and we get our money back so it's a loan and then thank you very much ultimately then the cost is born from the sales tax by all the members of the uh Authority or the MTC thank you for that clarification now that we've had all that what's the timeline that we're looking at this CU if we're telling Charlotte taxpayers that we want you to support this so that we can provide this bridge loan for us to move forward and go into our towns to be reimbursed what are we looking at are we looking at the potential of being reimbursed and 5 years are we looking at being re reimbursed in 10 years or are we looking at a 25 year timeline before that reimbursement comes back for where we then have the ability to put more infrastructure into Charlotte proper sure uh I'm going to uh try to uh regurgitate what you told me yesterday Brent okay so here's here's the point um right now again this is unique legislation in the the state of North Carolina with this Transit and transportation our biggest problem has been that the city's debt we backed all of these purchases that the MTC or cats made even though they were made with the half cent sales tax but the full faith in credit of the city of Charlotte and toac it now to your question we do this with with cops okay so we have a AAA Bond rating and cops a little bit different but my point is when this new agency is stood up they will be able to issue revenue bonds and revenue bonds are a better deal than our cops so therefore it would be their fiduciary responsibility to basically repay this as quickly as they can because to spread this out when they have a better vehicle of financing than what we have would not be a good plan yeah comment um let's be clear there is a risk involved in in this transaction yeah there is a danger we end up owning this thing okay and I don't think we should foot around on that uh we will have uh several opportunities to offer AR rendum as referendum as has happened other places before there was finally success uh the really bad outcome is we just don't get there and now congratulations Charlotte you own this piece of land um the way I look at that is uh let's say you think there's a 30% chance that that might happen right and let's say that then disposing of the land you take a bit of a bath you lose 30% of the money you put in so that would be a $20 million loss in a 30% contingency that translates to an equivalent cost a certain cost today of $8 million I.E a 30% chance that you lose 30% of your money so this is a calculated risk but in the context of all the magnitudes we're talking about for us to to make that bet in order for us to be able to move because if we don't we don't there is no movement uh in my mind as I thought about this uh was a reasonable cost to incur but I I just want to be clear there is a risk okay let's not pretend there isn't uh I all I will tell you is if we don't manage to get a referendum passed in the next 5 years for Mobility we have much bigger problems I would agree with that on the uh on that that we need to look at something whether or not it's this I don't know so we're thinking about what he just said this is a risk that we are taking and that we're talking about putting this on the ballot for our constituents we just Matthews had their meeting now a month ago where they voted no yet here's the reality they benefit regardless so they get it they have the flexibility to say no raise your hand but you would still benefit if this would to go forward are we in any way riant on Davidson Cornelius Huntersville any of that area them putting anything out in support and I just want to make sure that we just have the answer out there because this is one of the questions I've been asked so like for Matthews there was conversation of them their Council coming together and voting not to support it what if any impact does does that have on us moving forward with this and is there any potential impact with any of these other partnering towns if they were to vote no are you asking cuz I'm trying to follow you I want to make sure I follow you are you saying are they putting Financial like are they putting in financially is that what you're saying no I'm asking if well their vote Matthew's vote was to vote no not to put anything on to their referendum what I'm asking is does that how if anyway does that impact our decision and if any of the others I don't know why we changed the screen since I was still looking at that slide but if any of the others were to be identified and if they in their town council meeting were to vote no does that have any impact on the decision that we're making I I think that all of us could probably but I think that Ed wants to describe the fact that it's a countywide tax and so if it passes everyone inside of meinberg County that spends money in the stores pays that tax so there's not a there's no way to back out of paying the tax so when Matthews voted no that had absolutely no impact on it did well no it did no it did have it did have an impact because they were basically saying that they were going to tell their voters not to pass it Ma Ma Matthews is 31,000 people right so so they were saying those manager but they may a choice my question may feel could I say can the manager respond to my question before you jump in to tell you something if you give me one second what do you the fact that Matthews is not on board is something that is of concern to legislators that I spoke to but they told me it is not a reason for us not to proceed if we had a situation contrary to expectations and contrary to all of the negotiations that have taken place where others among the members of the MTC did not support the resolution we would have a problem with the legislators I doubt that we could present this thing to them and that is what I just asked the manager for them him to answer because any of these other partners that are part of MTC that we have be having a very similar conversation to the conversation that we having if they choose to go the route that Matthews has the Whata ifs where does that put us if we say yes they say no we move forward still if let's just say that we still get enough support even though they say no on their end because we got just have the public push back what does the wh if look like I think uh the I'll say it a different way council member Mayfield we are only in the position that we're in right now because of two things one was getting the three Northern towns on board because of the red line okay and as far as we know they're on board and the other thing was and this is what makes this a very difficult conversation is that it was so rail heavy that the general simile wouldn't even consider it so to the point that you asked I I think that there is General consensus from the majority of the jurisdictions in mecklinburg County to entertain this and that was the other piece that I needed you to say based off our conversation is the fact that because although we were trying to put more rail on the ground our North Carolina General Assembly leadership is more supportive of more roads on the ground so we're saying this is our balance this is how we're trying to address the needs that we have and appease them I have concerns still of which I've shareed with you that we're if even if we're having a conversation of getting rail that we're not going through the east side because we made major Investments over at what is now the formerly Eastland site it would have been great because a long Alamar road we have enough the is wide enough where we probably could have gotten that designated Lane for rail to go up but I think we it needed to be said and it had not been said at this point directly that what we are looking at is a constraint because our North Carolina General Assembly not just our delegation the general assembly was like we're not going to help support if you focus more rail than roads because we want more roads the the um only other thing that that I would add is that and um we have to figure out a way to make sure we get this information to to all of you so even when we think about East and West there's the goal line phase three and we're going all the way from Eastland to Rosa Ros yeah so there are a bunch of opportunities in this infrastructure that can move people around that little booklet will we make it plain enough so that we can get it out to the community because again this short timeline we could have had this conversation in May and June prior to us being out for 6 weeks so that we could have really had time to delve into it even though small group had has been having conversation as a full Council just as Council memb Johnson mentioned at the end of the day staff can bring some bring a really good presentation to us but we're the ones who have to go out to the community and not only try to explain it we're the ones who are going to see the impact if this is not presented in a way that really shows how we are attempting to connect the city knowing that we have bus that have been realigned and that honestly areas of our community that need bus transportation the most those routes have been eliminated and that's causing a challenge so unless we're going to have that real conversation as well it's difficult to say yes we're saying we're going to pay about five million more than what our appraisal came back because what you were asking for was probably where we're doing 74 million you was probably asking for a 100 million and we were able to negotiate down so when you say we had to figure out a happy medium medium opposed to that total being 85.1 million it was probably 100 million but we managed to get there those are things that are helpful for us to be able to understand ourselves so that when we're talking to constituents when we're talking to bus riders when we're receiving emails from my bus riding constituency we can better explain to them I need to understand it so that I can then try to explain it and we have not even a full seven days to really wrap our head around approving something that we're now going to tell the community we want you to support this but I'm not necessarily sure I can explain to you why I supported it thank you okay I think Miss ashir had something that she'd like to say yes thank you Madame mayor wrap up yeah I just wanted to um add something to councilwoman Mayfield's Point as Mr Drake said there is risk here um and also there is an opportunity cost and I I had asked that question to Mr Jones and the staff we are taking $91 million from our general fund um I mean our capacity to purchase this so there is going to be I think in Mr Jones in 26 and 28 Bond um we'll have less is that correct so there is an opportunity cost to that in addition to in addition to the risk that you and castan watlington raised about well what happens if the plan doesn't get doesn't go according to the plan and no one probably who will buy this piece of land uh so there is risk in addition to the opportunity cost so I just wanted to make sure Mr Jones if you can also elaborate on the opportunity cost that we had discussed about the 26 and 28 Bond so thank you council member ashme a lot of the discussion with the uh 2025 budget centered around this whole concept of pulling capacity forward so we pulled some capacity forward board and um the 26 and the 28 Bond 23.5 million each one but the concept of both of those were for future Transportation projects so we're going to use some of that capacity for this as well as the way that our CFO and our treasure have been able to um Finance this in such a way so what will happen is your steady state which is $220 million 220 yeah you just go back to the state State basically in the 26 Bond the 28 Bond and 30 Bond however if indeed you're able to secure the sales tax as early as July 1 2026 lined up with that 2026 Bond you will start to collect Revenue this estimated to be 102 million in the first year okay so um we have our last speaker um we do have have a very long agenda downstairs so um I'm going to ask the mayor protim who has been patient for a long time to to be recognized thank you madam mayor and don't worry I only have 35 questions for the team she's breaking murder uh but seriously I am a Charlotte native born and raised and and have taken part of cats and participated and cats not only for recreational reasons but for necessity reasons and um I can't think of a more impactful opportunity for us to have a generational shift not only for our city but on for our region the sheer notion that we are setting the financial stack in motion and getting the consensus to purch just the red line um ahead of some other key um Milestones is a testament to Charlotte's commitment to a regional transportational plan and in fact if we're going to do something as transformational as we've been calling our plan for many years when you when you Endeavor on anything that's transformational there's always risk involved there's always uh opportunity costs it's about making the calculated risk mitigation the right way and I I want to thank all of the towns that including Matthews but all of the towns that have been working on this for a month through their Town managers through their elected officials and representatives to really identify this as an opportunity to make an impact that we haven't been able to move the needle on in decades not only in in Charlotte but within the regions um so we have we also have as we hear lots of conversations about some of the towns but I actually went back and watched the Cornelius meeting and I think Cornelius actually have it right in that they will be unlocking millions and millions of dollars to dedicate to their Road strategy however they see fit and that will allow them to collaborate with other Northern towns in addition to receiving the benefit of having this Transit uh benefit along the red line and so it this really is just the beginning but I think many of our our counterparts within meinberg County are beginning to see just as we have seen we've haven't had a revenue source for all these wonderful plans that Mr mckenny and team have put together but having this Revenue Source unlocks the opportunity for us to begin to address it increases our opportunity for capacity and then doubly allows us to tap into the federal dollars that we have to manifest that we have a revenue Source in order to tap into so it really is a multi-prong approach that will allow us to be Las laser focus and strategic about how we invest not only in transit not only in our overall um bus system but the complete transformational um transportation plan that we've been working on for years and I'm really excited to be a part of that lastly I just want to say this is less to me in my eyes less about a Mobility decision and more about an economic development decision there's so many charlatans who don't have cars um or who do have cars and the expense of the car is a significant burden over their overall monthly economic pie that they would love and jump at an an opportunity to to be able to um access and leverage a safe reliable um secure transportation system and the purchase of this oine is really just the beginning beginning of that that will allow them to make the choice of whether they would like to purchase a car utilize that car or take a a more economical choice as Miss Mayfield mentioned when she was in in Chicago do I pay $5 and get to where I need to be my proper destination or do I pay $50 um and still get there but it hits my pocket deeper so this weekend uh council member Molina and I had an opportunity to actually do a Ride Along on the cats bus from East Charlotte with a a small group of of citizens who leveraged our transportation system quite a bit we got from East Charlotte to Uptown Charlotte in 11 minutes um it was it was safe it was Secure there was a lot of exchange that went on and people were very surprised by how that whole Endeavor went so there's an educational process that I think is a part of this as well um but this is an opportunity to double down on our Economic Development impact for the city and the region for existing charlatans for future charlatans who who may decide whether or not they want to move to Charlotte based on their public transportation options and I think as we move forward I just want to be very clear because we've had lots of conversations about the silver line and and other aspects but those decisions have not been made yet and once we have a Transit Authority um which is really a goal standard around the entire country is how you manage these things so not at a city level or a county level but really from a Transit Authority level then we will have that opportunity to have the Deep relational conversations input sessions with the community so they can decide this is really us doing all the work to allow charlatans and the residents of mcklin BG County to decide whether we want to invest in a transportational system that will put us on the path of being a worldclass city and a gold standard city in the US thank you madam mayor thank you everyone has had opportunity to speak um we are going to have a rather long public forum as well as some recognitions that we have to that we should make tonight um please come down as quickly as you can so that we can begin as quickly as we can um I can't recall who's doing the invocation um [Music] [Music] [Music] for e e e e e e thank you for your patience um and thank you for being here um I we we have been working hard the entire Council trying to make sure that the decisions that we're having to undertake are the best in the best interest of our community but I also um I'm going to change around the agenda I know that people have agendas so just give give us a moment we'll start getting to that point in a little bit what you have the Quorum because um she has a somewhat I'm sorry who's you have a quorum what you have a quorum have Quorum we're good we we're okay we're okay I mean I know that um before we go into the business of um our thank you continuing work I'd like to take a moment to recognize one of our employees earlier this month as tropical storm Debbie inundated the city surrounding areas with severe weather staff at Solid Waste Services were working tirelessly providing services to our residents during the storm Jamie Gray a solid waste sanitation engineer added a title to his NE his name and that title is hero now I'd like to share a video [Applause] y any moment all right we're going to see where our video is any day now and it's a good video we're going to watch this video though we have a moment what are you doing I was used to see trees that was the first time actually helping [Music] somebody up here oh I was driving picking up cans and I heard somebody yelling I couldn't understand what they're saying so I thought like maybe somebody just got out I was about to keep on going and I heard the little girl scream better help help that's when I got out and walked over [Music] there they were at their front door trying to get out but they couldn't cuz they're the top of the or the roof just fell down in front of the [Music] door I walked right in there and ducked and there was like a little big enough SP for me to stand up I the kids up and put them in the car [Music] for they had all their family there getting out the kids were fine they weren't crying no more but other than that the father think me he shook my hand that was mostly it and I went picking up trash and [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you Jamie for going above and beyond I can tell why you have a lot of energy that little one there with you um the way that you stepped up to help our community in a time of Crisis and for the daily work that you do helping us make the city a beautiful place to live you know we often talk about the dedication of Team Charlotte bringing what they bring to our roles and you have shown us all what it truly means to be a public servant you remind us that the heart of our work isn't just the task that we're doing or completing or achieving it's with the people that you and all of us serve and when lives touch I'm proud to live in a community where Neighbors show up for each other in so many expire inspiring ways so Jamie I want you to come down now I want you to know this isn't something we do ordinarily but I would love that if you would come down with your family and let us shake your hand exactly [Applause] yeah all right be careful forgot to tell you about the slippery part she's coming to you she's rushing many opportunities to do something first I don't know about that one but okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't let your [Laughter] brother City attorney congratulations oh look at the baby shake too a thank who's very important you yes sir thank you so much thank you for sharing your husband me five you got to get thank you brother brother-in-law you so there you go thank you thank you thank you just sanitizer on my hand okay thank you baby thank you thank you Dad is better than Spider-Man he's a superhero that's right how about that thank you so much brother we fight for you every day thank you thank you thank you so much really appreciate that [Applause] Dad thank you very much um that's a great way to not it it's heartwarming truly heartwarming all right now we are going to be busy for few minutes we're now going to go to the cons um speakers list before we do the um consent agenda so um I have our speakers um I will call your names please be careful the steps are Steep and sometimes SLI slippery um our first speaker is Megan Lucas I'm sorry someone is someone talking to me oh can't do that before we begin the business meeting take your time all right um so we'll have our our public forum and we're going to ask Megan Lucas and Heather Mulla to come down and speak first and then following um Miss Mulla will be Cindy Campbell and Natalie Peterman May today we're going to do that after when we start the business meeting we will do that mayor can I just add one thing is they're coming down please yes I just wanted and thank you mayor want to make sure that everyone knows please come as mayor mentioned it's a little slippery thanks to our amazing team within Charlotte meinberg during the time that we were on break if you have a wheelchair or you need accessibility there is now spaces on both side where you are able to have your chair and if you all will notice there's now a lower Podium that makes it a littleit bit more convenient for those versus having to step up so just wanted to make sure that you all notice that there have been a few minor changes to make this building your building a little bit more accessible thank you ma'am I thank you we will have speakers that if they need a access we will be having the podium or the microphone so that if you need access and cannot come down these stairs there will be I see you can see one Antoine raise your hand so that we can make sure that anyone that has um a need can use those facil that that opportunity all right so are you are I'm Heather um Heather yes Megan is not here I'm not sure thank you for being here you have um two minutes okay thank you good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight my name is Heather McCulla I moved here in 2017 and I am a resident of District 1 since I've been old enough I've volunteered in 2022 I saw a post that CAC needed help I applied and 3 months later I was approved yes it took 3 months to get through the application process to volunteer walking dogs given CAC as part of cmpd this is not uncommon upon completing my training I became a regular I enjoy meeting the dogs and giving them a much needed break from their kennels shortly after I started I received an at capacity email I drove to the shelter to pick up my first Foster Maryanne a six-month-old who had been found in an abandoned car with her littermate I had never fostered and had not planned on doing so but how could I not help save a life little did I know the frequency with which I would receive these emails monthly weekly lately multiple times a week my experience is not unique time and again I see new volunteers grabbing a foster dog when an at capacity email comes out many like me had never fostered before best case the dog gets adopted quickly but often it takes longer and during that time they are less available to walk dogs at the shelter Fosters often find the dog they brought home has kennel cough they bring them to the shelter vet and can face hours of wait time due to understaffing since June it has been common to receive notification from the vet that they are short staffed and fosters should only be brought in if it is an emergency in the June city council meeting I heard it repeatedly mentioned that Charlotte is the 14th largest city and yet we still have the same shelter from over 30 years ago when we were the 30 third largest having attended these meetings for a year I appreciate all the important topics that come before you I believe one of them is making CAC an independent city Department with more autonomy over their budget and ability to implement life-saving programming and I respectfully ask you to solidify a commitment to the adoption center project as an initial step towards right sizing the shelter thank you for your time thank you very much thank you so much our next our next speakers are now Peterman and S Sade Canon Shard Shard thank you Canon C Cindy I'm sorry did you say Cindy Campbell yes Cindy you're here too yes thank you so our next speaker will be Cindy Campbell and Natalie Peterman so shade is not here shade is not here thank you very much Miss Brown okay please two minutes okay hi my name is Cindy thank you for the opportunity to speak I'm a volunteer with friends of feral felines since January this year donor dollars have provided subsidies to spay 645 female cats and neuter 560 male cats for a total of 1,25 cats spay or neutered one male cat who forcefully impregnates a female cat can result in three liters per year this means the number of females just mentioned would have gifted Charlotte a city already exploding with cats and kittens approximately 4,000 additional kittens why should this matter to you city council and Charlotte residents because citizen volunteers are being exploited a small number of caring citizens are doing their best to address the issues because fellow citizens do not spay or neuter their cats almost 3,000 people have contacted friends of feral felines begging for help this year and there is never just one cat as human women we have access to birth control morning after pills and even abortion female cats have no choice or ability to avoid assault and are forced to give birth we cannot tell humans not to have sex you also cannot tell them not to bring a kitten home the issue arises when citizens allow fertile and testosterone hyped up felines to reproduce at random or abandon them altogether this is not a cat problem it is a citizen problem how can you help please please review the 2025 budget for animal care and control page 17 references an other adjustment item of $30 million for a planning program 10 new positions were added in this department this year page 42 States the budget represents a 29% increase for these positions over $600,000 if 300 dogs cats and other animals are coming in Daily and 200 to 300 are in foster homes doesn't it make sense to address this by offering Spade neuter services to Citizens Cindy thank you very much Miss Campbell Miss Peterman yes good evening my name is Natalie Peterman and I appreciate you giving me some time this evening I'm here to give you a little bit of insight as to what it's like to be a volunteer for animal care and control I spend my time in animal cont care and control walking dogs this gives them a break from the kennel enriches their time at the shelter and gives them some much needed human contact as volunteers we frequently receive emails from our volunteer coordinator letting us know that the kennels are at capacity on repeat we hear all dogs at risk must be out by the end of the day euthanasia decisions will have to be made the days that we get these emails are the last treat that they get to eat the last ball that they get to Chase or the last lap that they get to sit in one night after getting yet another capacity email I took out a dog by the name of Melody she had been there for over a month and so I knew that that put her on the atrisk list when it was time to put her back in the kennel I just wasn't ready I signed her out and put her in my vehicle I didn't have a plan I just knew I wanted something more for her if this was going to be her last time out of the shelter in the end she got to enjoy some french fries and took a nap in the seat of my truck was it enough not really but not enough seems like the theme of animal control not enough space not enough money not enough programs not enough staff not enough homes I'm tired of the dogs making up for the scarcity with their lives to help make this lack of enough better I ask the city council to consider two things please consider building a larger shelter and removing animal care and control out from underneath the police department thank you thank you our next speakers are Tamara artist and Nicole Campo I think NE one absent I don't see him um so all right all then miss Aris and Miss Campbell are not available so we will go to um Victoria panel and Sigman will Williams Victoria and thank you very much and Sigman Williams is there another is Sigman Williams available um if not then we'll go to April Lewis feel feel free to come down all right so miss panel yes hi thank you um good evening members of the city council and Community my name is Victoria panel and I'm the executive program director of reimagine re-entry reimagine re-entry is an organization dedicated to transforming the lives of individuals re-entering our community from incarceration our mission is rooted and a holistic approach focusing on leveraging the qualities and potential of returning citizens to Foster positive change both for themselves and their communities reimagine re-entry is driven by the belief that everyone from young people to adults has inherent strengths that when recognized supported and nurtured can lead to transformative outcomes we recognize that every year at least two-thirds of justice and system impacted individuals released from prison are likely to be rearrested and sent back within 3 years in order to combat that our programming was designed with three core objectives in mind providing opportunities reducing barriers support and empowerment we offer a range of services including job training educational workshops and mentoring programs for both juveniles and adults navigating the re-entry process also often includes overcoming significant hurdles such as access to housing legal assistance and mental health support our programs address these barriers by offering targeted resources and advocacy ensuring that returning citizens have the support they need to overcome challenges to achieve stability to further our mission we are seeking the city council's support in the form of resources and information for funding access to community spaces job training programs and educational facil ities will enhance our ability to deliver these crucial Services as well as insights into local needs and gaps will help us tailor our programs effectively investing in re-entry support is an investment in our community's future by partnering with us you will help us reduce recidivism build stronger communities and Foster a more Equitable Society thank you for your time and consideration we look forward to working together to make a meaningful impact all right I'm I want to make sure I know April so y they're standing with me I'm the speaker they're just here in support of me what we're speaking I just wanted them to say their name so that we would know that they're with you no worries I you want to all you got to do is say your name you so which one are we dle I am on she's my friend yeah we have the same name on April Lewis subject um April leis okay so tman not here no he's not here no he was okay thanks and thank you good evening my name is Alicia Harvey nice to see you thank you guys for standing here with her all right you have two minutes all right honorable mayor council members and fellow charlatans I'm here today to open a conversation about a a collaborative solution to our housing challenges transforming The Lamplighter end into a neighborhood stabilization Center I am pleased to share that both the residents and the owner of The Lamplighter in are in agreement with this proposal demonstrating strong Community Support Recent research from Harvard University's opportunity insights highlights a critical issue in Charlotte children from lower income families have only 4% chance of reaching the top income quintile compared to 19% for those who have a higher income families this Center aims to address this opportunity Gap and we invite your input on how to Maxim maximize its impact the study identifies three key factors influencing economic Mobility educational attainment social network and neighborhood effects our propos Center targets all three and we're eager to discuss how we can refine this approach one we envision offering job training and educational resources how can we best align these with our City's needs our transitional Cooperative housing model aims to Foster diverse social networks and we'd love for your thoughts on ensuring this integration is successful third we're planning a 10-minute neighborhood concept and what services do you believe are most crucial for our community now this isn't just about housing it's about creating a hub of support that strengthens our entire Community fabric we want to partner with local schools and employers and we're open to your suggestions on potential collaborations the research shows that children's outcomes are shaped primarily by their social environments and Community level factors we believe this Center can improve these outcomes and we're keen to hear your ideas on achieving this goal this project aligns with exper expert recommendations to focus on youth Target communities and invest in Social Capital it embodies Charlotte's commitment to Innovative Urban Development and we want to ensure it reflects our City's values and aspirations we see this as the beginning of a dialogue we urge the council and community members to engage with us in shaping this vital resource together we can build a Charlotte where everyone regardless of background has a fair shot thank you very much um April wait wait wait um I would like to introduce you to Sean Heath who manages a lot of our programs and you know who he is so I think whatever you guys do you're doing the work so as you're doing the work let him help you do and fill in all the gaps and we'll see you [Music] soon all right our next speaker Shannon buram and I know that this isn't going to be the best way for me to pronounce but you ukamaka anante ukamaka an thank you you're up there thank you thank you so much all right so um that's amazing Miss burkham no don't oh you can go to the top yeah yeah you can go to sorry I'm short please you have two minutes good evening distinguished members of city council my name is Shannon buram and I've lived in Charlotte for 4 and A2 years and worked in uptown for 2 and 1/2 years I The Sole Provider for a family of three I also have a son with special needs and everything we do is on a strict budget I'm addressing you today to ask for a change in the current and future City parking regulations of Uptown Charlotte also let it be known that I'm advocating for every disgruntled person employee resident and visitor upset with these regulations when I first started working in Uptown Saturday street parking was free now I pay on Saturdays and come September 3rd there is more changes and increases if your goal is to incite turnover then it may work to some degree but I know we can find a better solution with that being said the burning question is why why are you making these changes now now I need you to help me make it make sense where is all the extra revenue from increased street parking fees and ticketing going these new regulations won't work because people will simply stop coming out to Uptown Charlotte and there are 120 people 120,000 people who work in uptown and 33,000 residents but as there is 18 million visitors annually the visitors are your bread and butter the workers and residents are your glue I also think it's interesting to note the median annual income for individual workers in uptown is about $68,000 but the MIT living wage calculator says for a single adult to be comfortable living in Charlotte they must make an estimated $101,000 so it stands a reason the Uptown Charlotte employees do not make enough as it is to be comfortable living here how are they supposed to afford 150 to 300 a month in parking fees because they can't move their car every two hours there has to be a better solution there will be beneficial for everyone I'm asking for immediate consideration to drop the two-hour zoning regulation and focus on ticketing those who have not paid at all for their street parking I also propose for immediate action to remove the extended parking hours about to take effects on September 3rd what I propose for midterm action is creating a program called Uptown employee parking plan where employees can work with private lots to have a designated area for their employees to park at a monthly discounted rate because let's face it the workers are here to stay and we are essential to making the city run another solution I'd like to propose is to have the private parking lots offer an hourly rate for those who don't need 10 hours of parking thank you thank you so much [Music] thank you for the opportunity um if you would give those to the city clerk right over that way he will help you with that officer will help and thank you for bringing this to our attention really appreciate that okay you did a great job all all right so um here you are up here thank you so very much can you hear us okay yes I want to make sure we can hear you though yeah can you hear me all right we can um my name is ukamaka NE I'm actually up here because I just recently got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and a symptom of multiple sclerosis is optic nutis so as a result on May 25th I actually went blind in my left eye so because of how things work in Charlotte ideally I shouldn't have went to work in a different city I wouldn't have went to work while disabled but the city of Charlotte does not offer any resources to disabled people so I had to keep working while I was in the middle of an MS flare up in that process I was misdiagnosed five Times by five different Specialists one of them being an MS specialist and told me that basically even though I was presenting textbook symptoms of MS that I did not qualify for a diagnosis which I later found out was wrong also during this process um I've had to take the public bus cuz again I can't drive because I have optis and I had to I also didn't qualify for a pairat Transit because I didn't have a diagnosis because I was misdiagnosed by atrim inovant five times I saw 22 doctors and did not get an answer until I had to go to Duram and I say all of this because I'm kind of frustrated as a disabled person recently disabled that I have to keep working I have to contact Senator Ted Bud to ask him what resources are there for me as I wait for disability to come in and what do I do until I get paid because as we know disability takes 14 months to get paid out for the city of Charlotte the only resource there is to pay for at least rent and utilities is Crisis but crisis has been denying people's applications for months PA transit for example the bus that I just rode on today it doesn't even have AC with multiple sclerosis you can't even be in an environment with too much heat or you have another risk for a flare up so I just realize in Charlotte I understand that Charlotte is a blue City and a red state so a lot of precautions or things that are usually helped to like you know use to help lower income or disadvantaged people isn't really a thing but I've reached to my Peak point of frustration um the bus system doesn't work the way supposed to we so I know what what You' said have moved all of us um I'd like to ask Miss bapson to um work with you and so that we can have more of your story and also to have opportunities to see where we fit in that can support you in the city all right okay this so um is Liz she's up she's going to come upstairs up I call it they set up top but she's going to come up there and um she'll work with you again continue to help us understand how we can help you okay thank you very much thank [Music] you our next speaker is Kimberly Potts and Gina gupton next speakers Kimberly pots and Gina gton [Applause] good evening thank you so much for being here here and I guess I want to make sure that we have the right names with everyone so pH tell me your name again Kimberly pots all right thank you Miss pots you have two minutes all right um my name is Kimberly pots I'm here to speak on affordable housing which in my opinion is almost a thing of the past here in Charlotte from finding a one barar of apartment housing um you're looking at a close to like $1,500 a month and that's 1,500 times two for someone to find housing here I luxury housing it's fine all these apartments and housing that's going up is fine with all the pretty amenities or whatever if you want to impress somebody go go down the Southside redo Southside for some of these people who does who don't have housing or has a problem finding housing redo Brook Hill who that we've been trying to redo Brook Hill for months I would love to work with some people about finding housing because it's almost irrelevant here in Charlotte and to try to pay rent and if you're put out where do you go go to tent Community they dun those down kids don't eat the only time kids eat is at school they don't have anything you think that there's only adults in those tents there're kids in those tents as well this has been passion of my heart for a long time from looking at downtown with people laying in the bus shelters or whatever it used to break my heart and it breaks my heart that we can't afford rent here in Charlotte North Carolina and if anyone would like to work for me or there any resources that could work with me I'm willing to work to make Charlotte a better place for those who cannot afford rent here in Charlotte North Carolina thank thank you for your thank you for your thoughtfulness and your leadership on this issue we we recognize it and and we know how it is in in Charlotte as well as many other places in this country so thank you very much for what you're doing all right um Miss Miss gton hi good evening and I would like to thank you in advance for uh taking the time to listen to me my name is Gina gupton I'm the president of the BME green HOA in Northwest Charlotte and um we are near the whitewater rafting Center uh so that is a very popular area for 18-wheeler trucks that have coming through from the business park and we're having problems with them infiltrating our neighborhood knocking down our street signs our directional signs and it's costing the city quite a bit of money because it's happening more often than not in addition to that there's a lot of grit on the roads in terms of uh stones and things that hit windshields so we would really need the city support with coming out near the roundabouts please and thank you to uh Street clean those areas so that those Pebbles are not hitting our windshields and the metal off of those trucks are not piercing our trucks um the other thing that I'd like to bring to the city council's uh attention and I see that Mrs wallington's there and she was our previous um yes you were wonderful miss you um and I just wanted to mention that uh when AT&T and Google Fiber are you know installing the fiber optics they're breaking the gas lines the water lines I know that they come out and they Mark those um areas but we're having a water main break issue right now on bellme drive and Google fibers actually has their um wies sticking out of the ground for the past 5 months and there's a concave of a a sidewalk um that needs to be addressed now that is a state road bellme drive and I'd love to be able to explain why um it's necessary for me to bring that to your attention is because when the state comes to do any repairs on that road they actually damage all of our established bushes all of our Juniper they'll never they won't pull a permit but they will take those uh heavy uh equipment and they will just go and they will just ruin our whole area so we need your support and I thank you in advance thank you we'll have to miss gton we'll have to have someone to come out to the area and and see what we can do okay thank you all right our um I believe our next speaker is Stephanie last last and this is our 15 speaker a no wait a minute who did I miss I have several that we missed one I think we have two more speakers I'm sorry how many that we have so far I'm trying to check the ones that I checked off the 10th speaker here 10th [Applause] speaker good thank you so much for being here and um please let me have your name again uh my name is Stephanie the last name is pronounced loss it's French so don't feel bad for mispronouncing it well thank you so much I think we have a few French speakers in this in this around this Das so um you have two minutes yes ma'am good evening city council my name is Stephanie laws and I represent sbur acres in neighboring communities I would like to acknowledge council member Brown for continued support of District 3 our neighborhood is being NE negatively impacted by the actions of the airport our property values and quality of life are being diminished right before our very eyes it saddens me to imagine a historic homes some built 1953 where our children now play where we host barbecues celebrate anniversaries suffer the same fate of the man's house to make room for yet another industrial park we demand an investigation into exactly how the mounts house was allowed to be demolished the airport says they did nothing wrong however the hlc say they followed the proper procedures to present the mounts for historical protection but somehow it failed to make the agenda of this chamber in Corporate America somebody would be fired for that yep yep thank you um I don't think one more piece of our Rich historic property dating back to the 1760s needs to be touched or D designated until we have some better answers so my question is who is being held accountable for these actions over the last few months we have engaged with over a 100 neighbors and concerned citizens and we are demanding transparency so my message here tonight I want to be clear I want to stop I want to hold up wait a minute and let's put some residents in this because we deserve to have our voices heard we deserve to be a part of this process thank you thank you very much thank you thank you for your time M our next speaker is Eric wood Mr wood Eric wood Eric is not here this evening he had to travel for business um we do have another speaker that would like to come down Diana James if you'd allow her to take his his place I'm going to go to the next speaker and catch up if we need to Diana Jan Jay's James followed by Jimmy vasel thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to the council today and I acknowledge council member Brown my name is Diana James and I am an 11-year resident of steelberry Acres the neighborhood immediately across Steel Creek Road from the Steel Creek Presbyterian man's house that was recently demolished it was heartbreaking to see a how a century of History was brought down by a bulldozzer this incredible piece of history that was once home to pastors and their families of Steel Creek Presbyterian which was founded in 1760 and has ties to Billy Graham himself I see the destruction of what should have been considered a Historic Landmark a travesty now our own historic neighborhood is in the sights of the airport's plans there is so little of Charlotte's history that remains should we not protect what is left since the mans was intended to be presented to city council for a vote the residents in our community are very concerned the historic Douglas house and even our homes could meet a similar fate you were set to vote to D designate property once owned by Steel Creek Presbyterian Church that just happens to be the only barrier between my home and what will become busy Logistics centers and Manufacturing facilities right in my front door how can property that that until now has been protected by historical designation be so easily disregarded is the property any less significant now I think not what is to be the fate of still Berry Acres where we live in a Charming neighborhood that has been around for seven decades with big trees and yards big enough for our kids to run and play are we all destined to live in neighborhoods where the homes look exactly alike with yards the size of a postage stamp the American historian David mullet said history is who we are and why we are Steel Creek Presbyterian Church is and its adjoining properties in including what was the man's house and our own Douglas house are among some of the most historic properties in Charlotte thank you very [Music] [Applause] much all right Mr vasel hello my name is Jimmy vasilio and I'm a member of the housing Justice Coalition I'm here tonight to support residents near Charlotte Douglas International Airport including those with steelberry Acres who are asking for transparency and accountability when it comes to airport development over the past few years residents in the area have seen an incredible amount of change that has led to more manufacturing and Logistics development than at any other time since they've lived there a lot of that development seemingly being rushed as headlines are constantly and I'd say suspiciously generated about traffic at the airport this has been exemplified by the destruction of the Steel Creek Presbyterian mans which despite a recommendation for preservation by the Charlotte historic landmarks Commission in 2023 was demolished quickly on August 2nd after after questions were asked about its future in Late July as someone who was part of the Charlotte 2040 policy map process in 2020 I sat in meetings where vacant Lots near the airport that were designated residential were seemingly being turned into manufacturing and Logistics rezonings without broad consent or participation from surrounding neighborhoods like steelberry Acres my concerns about these vagant these vacant residential lots being turned into manufacturing rezonings was the fact that they Abed occup neighborhoods that were zon residential this concern was met with responses about best use despite concerns regarding increased pollution traffic and noise for those neighborhoods they Abed I've lived in Charlotte long enough to know that when the city is determined to grow in coordination with private interests it plans to do it at the expense of workingclass citizens in quick fashion we see it with the corridors of opportunity we see it in how it gives Housing Trust Fund dollars to olivan to carry out displacement rather than provide public housing and we see it in the destruction of the mans and Airport development in general instead of transparency about preservation efforts and its destruction the city released an incorrect statement saying that they were never contacted by the Larks commission about the mans thank you very much WoW our next speakers are Garland green and Don Nicole m h before I get on the clock I brought you a handout and I'd appreciate you uh getting a copy and looking at it uh what I want to talk to you about today is light rail uh Charlotte has been pushing uh for expansion of Light Rail to no avail for years the state uh North Carolina legislature is big on roads first to quote Ed digs we need to change our strategy uh what we're talking about now is doing that the goal is running a 1% sales tax proposal including a big spin on light rail up the flag pole to the North Carolina legislators and hope it that they'll bite on it and oh by the way we're talking about a $19 billion tax payout on this that is a heck of a lot of money and we talk about 1% but we never quantify it to what it really is $19 billion the source of my conversation is articles out of the Charlotte Observer articles out of the uh Charlotte Ledger and information out of your 2015 budget two things that are really hadn't been talked about that is very concerning there's been a significant decline in light rail ridership since is an exception secondly a very small percentage of mecklinburg County syst rrive to light rail only 1.5% we're talking about spending $1 billion on light rail for 1.5% that might become 3% of our population people need to know about that and even more concerning is with the $10 million doll tax spin there has been no opportunity for public input I was listening to your meeting earlier today and that was brought out we have a t to not have public input in certain situations or have input at the very last minute like with the stadium for the Panthers and we need public input before you fly something up the pole to the state legislature uh I'd like to talk about each one of the lines separately but I put that in my packet and if you look at that I'd be most appreciative thank you sir contact with is Don Nicole mang here miss mang okay okay I think that we've um that is the completion of our speakers for this um meeting and so we will now go to our agenda and we're going to start with introductions by the city before we can I say something can I add something we were going to do introduction okay I wanted to add something about the public hearing sure okay we heard um about Google Fiber M and I just wanted to to um let you know that I have an email to to our City attorney I have an email right now from a resident same issue there's sewage in her house the water uh pipe was broken the city's saying it's not their responsibility there was raw sewage in her house her insurance won't pay because it's a third party so the City attorney they sent the email 10 days ago she's waiting they mice in the house now and it's a problem so I've asked the City attorney for a report of how often this is happening because we we need to know if this is indeed happening if Google fiber or or any vendor is um causing our residents problem so I hope to get an answer um to as soon as possible with that report and your feedback from the risk Department if you could copy all the council members that would be great certainly if I could just add council member Johnson and we have had a number of conversations about this this does cross a number of uh departments particularly goes from seot to Charlotte waterer and we have all the folks that are now talking to each other to make sure that we can get that information to you thank this this is a problem in the city it is a problem and I mean this is Google's second time coming after the idea of fiber and the first time was not much of a joy either so we have had in the past um we've had to actually call the Google um exact and say Here's what we're finding and so I think we need to go ahead and pulled that back up from the first time that they came in when they were in the center city it it it is a problem so I don't know how much we can do but I think it's definitely an idea to begin to talk to their SE their Chief person in the that's doing this work or responsible for this work okay in way all right um now we'll go and have introductions of the council members starting with Mr KY we'll start with our city clerk Stephanie Kelly city clerk dlea at large T brown is honor to serve District three good evening Marg Molina District 5 Renee Johnson and I'm honored to serve District Four good evening James Mitchell city council at large Marcus Jones city manager good evening V mayor good evening Dante Anderson mayor protm district one Ed inrig District s Char Bard is six good evening Lana Mayfield council member at large good evening I'm Victoria watlington your Charlotte city council member representing at large Patrick Baker City attorney all right thank you um now if you would if you choose to be with us we will have an invocation we recognize that not everyone follows the same tenants that we have so feel free to um um express yourself as we can tonight our invocation is by um Miss Johnson thank you madam mayor and which will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance okay thank you madam mayor first I want to lift up those children and the students who started school today um we ask that they U they are kept safe and just have a prosperous year grant us oh Lord a vision of your city as your love would have it a city where the weak are protected and none are hungry or poor a city where the riches of creation are shared and everyone can enjoy them a city where different races and cultures live in harmony and mutual respect a city where peace is built with Justice and Justice is Guided by love give us the inspiration and the courage to build it through your love amen amen amen that was beautiful all right if you choose to um join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic who stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all right the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda items and I would like to have um is there any item that someone would like to have a separate vote Miss Johnson thank you I'd like to pull number 27 M 28 29 31 33 41 4 45 52 and 54 all right is this for discussion or or um comment you want a separate Vote or SE v a separate vote for each one impossible um discussion yeah okay a separate vote for those Miss Mayfield CLA I have items to pull but I didn't hear all the numbers from my colleague so after 39 what did you say I I I said 33 41 41 45 52 and 54 all right are there any others that Miss Mayfield yes a separate Vote or a comment for a separate vote okay 35 39 52 and 57 all right all right anyone else all right so um I'm I'm going to we have a list here for separate votes so um do I have a motion for the items 1 through 70 with the exception of those that were asked for by council member Johnson and Mayfield So move we have a motion we have a a second need a second second second all right all in favor of the mo any discussion for the motion all in favor of the motion please raise your hands all right that's unanimous now we will go back and I guess we will just be best to try it in alphabetical order I mean in numerical order so the first one I believe is item 27 um the item is to approve the purchase of firearm Ammunition by the soul Source exemption approve a contract track with Dana Safety Supply for the return for the purchase of firearm ammunition for a term of 3 years Miss Johnson yes can we asked Mr Coker to come up or from the CBI program sure Mr Coker please join [Music] us okay Miss Johnson he's he's almost there okay thank you Mr Coker so I reached out to him and Marie uh earlier today so thank you and I asked a question uh the total amount of expenditures uh um this week did were you able to get that total no that uh took a uh quite a bit of time but I've made uh note of it and uh as soon as I'm able to pull that together I'll make sure I forward it to you oh I'm sorry I would have done it myself I thought it would be done okay um um what I wanted to compare was the total amount of expenditures versus the awards for minority women and small businesses so I wanted to kind of compare that number 27 if you look at the Charlotte business inclusion the sentence says this is a so Source contract and is exempt under the CBI program can you tell us why this will be exempt under the CBI program well there's uh several reasons why something might be exempt but as it relates to sole source there really typically is no mwsb uh vendors who do that type of work um you I know we've talked about it uh in the realm of another item but you know we also see situations where there's on call services where there's uh no subcontracting opportunities as well as uh single Scopes but in the uh uh for this particular item fire and ammunition we we really have no one who that does that kind of work and therefore it's uh you're usually going to find these type of uh contracts uh uh exempt from the goal setting okay thank you all right motion to approve we have a motion and a second and all in favor please raise your hands all right thank you that item passes the next item is item 28 which is approve contracts with the following companies for nuisance debat Services I will um the list goes from Carolina lawn the c um MW property DJ's lawn Esa preservation GMB Enterprises Heroes Lawn Care Rosie landscaping and Trina Quality Lawn Service um Miss Johnson thank you I wanted to acknowledge this one because it looks like 100% of the contracts are going to um minority businesses is that correct no what percentage is CBI on this one thought it was 100% to go second page three say uh it's 100% uh of the vendors listed at the bottom of the the note starting with Carolina Lawn Service uh as well as DJ's lawn es and GMB first page I think it's on the next page two of two that list out the inclusion ones so it says the following certified primes have elected to self-perform 100% of the work on the next page M so what percent is has been granted to a a minority or mwsb business Madame Johnson if I may it that that is not determined yet so for nuisance abatement Services we get a pool of vendors and and we make sure okay they're um got their licenses they're certified they're not all certified sorry but they're all insured so we have this pull on the ready so when a nuisance situation comes up Rebecca heavner and her team send out a notice and they all put in bids so it's not no way to tell in advance how many but these four out of the and I forget how many I can't see but those four each time they would be 100% cuz they're all self-performing there's no way in advance to know Pass based thank you okay all right the next item is item 20 we we need to we need to take a motion and approve this one so we have a motion to approve 2 additional questions oh oh you have a question okay thank you Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor Maria I actually I also reached out so you shared a little bit regarding we've identified these particular vendors we know that they are have already gone through our process and been beted what is the tracking process that we have in place to make sure that we have equitable distribution mainly because Mr Coker and I were at an event earlier this year where we learned of a vendor who was approved through uh Council previous process but that vendor actually never received any work through the city so so do we have a process to actually track equitable distribution yes ma'am we track the distribution not not necessarily with this one is it guaranteed to be Equitable because you have to put in a bid so you might be one of these vendors you might get out bid every time okay for other contracts but we we have rotation and things like that in place but we definitely can pull that information because we track it so Mr poer for you you our CBI program has done quite a bit of investment through amp up and through others is there a way and you may not have the answer tonight cuz I didn't send this to you earlier I only send it to Miss Harris a way to track again to ensure that we utilize as many of these vendors as possible and if there is a disconnect where a vendor keeps getting out bid we step in since our ultimate goal is to grow businesses and it's not really beneficial if businesses go through the process but yet they're not actually being selected knowing we have to go with the lowest responsive bidder but at the same time we turn around and have to approve a number of amendments so you really weren't the lowest responsib B when we go back and look at the totality of the actual project you bid on so do we have anything in place or having conversations about well you've just planted the SE you're right we don't have a uh a response to that but uh it's duly noted council member Mayfield and uh uh we will get on top of it and if there's a best practice that we can Implement uh we'll explore that and of course we'll work with the uh departments to understand their side okay I would encourage you the fact that the city of charot is the best practice on a lot of things so opposed to looking to see what someone else might be doing we might be able to create it Mr manager you were about to jump yeah so thank you uh council member Mayfield um we had a conversation today about that and so the it's exactly what you said if we have these list and these firms are not getting any of the work then how do we utilize CBI to get them better prepared to be more competitive so I totally agree with you we need to capture the data not just who gets what but how competitive are some of these firms with with the processes that we have in place so total agreement thank you okay so we have a motion do I have a motion on 29 and move to approve do I have second second any discussion all in favor raise your hand anyone okay so the next item is item 31 I think that was 20 was that 20 that was 29 28 that was 28 we were on oh 29 now as for okay approve contracts with the following country we just did nuisance abatement on 2129 we're on 29 so now we're on the purchase of plant mix asphalt from a state contract uh yes this this one indicates this contract is being purchased off existing state contracts and is exempt from the CBI program I wanted you to explain that process please what item number yeah when you have a a a contract a that's exempt uh when it's off a state contract based on this type of commodity type that's the uh basis of having an exemption okay so I'm just bringing these up for the different reasons I think there's been three different reasons so far that we haven't had that we haven't met our CBI goal and I just want to make sure we are being intentional we talk about up mobility and A Tale of Two Cities and these are opportunities to be very very intentional one thing about this Council we're unique we're like this is a historic Council in the nation we are the only council with the black woman mayor and so many women of color um we're not the only no don't I well that's what Alexis or someone from the city did the research and we're it well um I think um Karen bass in La is kind of like the a black woman mayor no but are there no they have the majority of black women understand American conservatives too right oh MyWay that that's what our city staffs so anyway okay regardless we I'm just saying we need to be um deliberate and and ensuring upward Mobility for for residents when we have the opportunities and we talk about CBI and so when there's exemptions for different reasons I just want to highlight those reasons and that's women and minority businesses so um this one's ex exempt because and if this is something we can look at changing this policy or or talking about just really reviewing that I want the public to hear when we talk about CBI how organizations are are being overlooked and if there's some intentionality you and I Mr Koker were at a meeting um for women business owners and and that in Dawn I'm sorry she wasn't able to come or stay Don mcgillan she has a program so maybe that's something we can take a look at there might be women business owners that can meet these needs so I just want to make sure that we're that we're doing the Outreach and and and enriching as many folks as possible equitably okay I agree with that uh council member uh and as I said we we're all about uh constant and NeverEnding Improvement and with our uh program we're always making changes we learn new things and we look to implement those things that we can legally uh pull off and as well as you know things that are based on the availability of ferns but uh your uh points are well taken thank you stand so all right Brown thank you Madame mayor I just want to say that um in reference to what councilwoman Johnson just said that we make things look attractive but we're not following through with it and the data is not there to support it that's what I heard out of my ears and so we got to just do a better job with making sure that we we put the data out there and the numbers and we produce and say we're going to do these things that we can just back it up and support it and from the sounds of it we're not doing that so that is something we definitely need to look into I mean it really is I mean we just it it's just it's public we city council we serve for the community for the public not for not for us not for our agenda but for the people that put us here so we just got to be more intentional and so when I heard that that's what I heard and you know I know you I know yall work hard maybe we're missing the mark and somehow we're missing the mark but you know just like without um when they come in and they speak about different things that we're doing to them in the community and then the council don't know about it it drives me crazy because collectively we're all responsible and we're all accountable we are and we're a team and that's where the team come in at the team gets the blame for the the Historic Landmark being knocked down in Ste Creek I'm I'm just saying can't say I didn't know about it my constituents don't want to hear that they want to know that I'm representing them unapologetically in our truth all of us and making sure that we can give them a detailed explanation of things and a lot of times I can't I just can't so that's where I'm at uh again uh we're hearing you uh and we will work uh as we continue to do uh when we have things that are per policy that are exempt that's the policy and we follow that to the te now sometimes it has to be changed of course we'll have to work with the city managers or office to uh uh make those changes if we can do it legally uh but I'm hearing what you're saying and uh it's duly noted well thank you so much and thank you for your hard work but when you say sometimes things had to be changed or there has to be an an adjustment do we get that information or is that something that you do with the city manager and we don't know about it no uh you will know about it but when we made the most recent change to our procedures manual we can uh with the office of the city managers make those change when it's a policy change that comes to you yeah I know right I get that but when you talk about people that have filled out the application and they pass the credentials and they're able to move forward and then they don't hear anything do we reach out to them is there a process is there check and balances so we even just keep in constant communication with them to say you passed it we still know that you are here and this is what you can expect next like the next steps that's all good question uh good question me I'm not asking for too much and I'm not trying to be hard I just want to ask the tough questions that people will want to know and I want to know as a representative of as a member of this Council all right I think the manager wanted to yeah so uh mayor Ms of council a little bit different than than 28 which we we just went over um where there are some opportunities I I think that when we start to think about purchasing off estate contracts there's these negotiations which get you to a a low price that is available for all municipalities to purchase off of those contracts whether they're vehicles or things of that nature we'll continue to um look at the philosophy the policies of the city I just wanted to pull this one a little differently because a lot of those negotiations in terms of um the price are um we some people call it piggybacking being able to just use the state contract that's been negotiated but but your questions are duly noted thank you for all your hard work Mr manager you're in that position for a reason and I know you take the tough questions with a grain of salt you always smile you're always poised and you represent your position very well so thank you for taking those tough questions from us sometimes I look out and I see people they making all these faces but you don't do that you really really take the tough questions and we got to do a better job with our facial expressions because as a council when we're asking questions I think your staff can benefit from just looking at your face we don't know what you're thinking by looking at your face topography very demure so thank you for that I just want you to say that okay that's that to me that's a professional compliment to you on how you handle your position so thank you that is very fair thank you thank you all right so we have a motion do we have a motion for 29 so moved yeah second and we have a second um all in favor please raise your hands all right now the next item that we have after 29 is 31 so on agenda item 31 flashing beacons for pedestrian Crossings are there any comments yes um Johnson thank you so we've had um they were exempt because they were Soul Source um exemption because of a state contract this is another reason for an exemption um the contract goals were not established on this contract because there were no viable sub subcontracting opportunities can you explain what that that means please uh again uh in instances like this and more times than not it's based on a single scope of work and so when you look at that contract there's nothing else uh but the the actual scope of work in this case The Flash and beacons to be performed now what we do is based on the commodity codes we will send that out to the certified mwsp and all of them will have a shot add bidding on it uh but in this instance there's no viable subcontracting opportunities okay I just wanted my colleagues to recognize there are at least four reasons for exemptions for minority contracting um move to close second I mean yeah move to approve any additional comments you would like to speak Mr no I was just saying I was seconding okay I have a motion and second for number 31 all in favor raise hands any oppose that is unanimous we will move on to agenda item 35 3 33 33 33 33 couldn't read my own handwriting um item number 33 air filtration systems and maintenance um are there any comments on agenda item number 33 yes Miss Johnson this is a fourth reason uh contract goals were not established on on this contract because there were no mwsb available to perform the work for the contract I mean I know it's self-explanatory I just want my colleagues to recognize this is the fourth reason um make sure that we are utilizing as many resources as possible perhaps reach out to that QC women in business Don mckill one that database she has or if there's any other ways that we can um do some Outreach if we truly want to meet these goals I think there's just lots of room for improve mement that's all I have is there a motion to approve A and B so move second all in favor raise hands any oppose that is unanimous as before we proceed Mr Coker it might be you know we have a recurring statements here and you're having to explain again and again perhaps as you are uh creating the agenda that you might put a note in detail each item as to why this particular item item did not fit our criteria for mwsb participation I think that would add to transparency in the process as well and I have uh a couple folks reviewing this live taking the notes and so we will put together a report and really give you a sense of the work we're doing especially in these instances uh that are problematic uh ones where we see that there are gaps in availability but we will address it in a detailed uh fashion thank you Mr DRS would like to be recognized um I'm just concerned that maybe these questions raise a qu a question about our commitment to our CBI program and Mr Coker do you know what the total dollar volume is of contracts the cities enters into fulfilling our CBI goals I've seen a number before that's a good uh question great question actually you're going to see something uh at the end of the week week in your weekend reading uh our annual report we did $197 Million last year with the three designations and that uh as far as I know is a record uh but I'll uh provide that to you I'll give you some detail on uh everything that you'll see in there and and along with that uh and this is probably a a tribute to you councilman uh you're going to see our uh our economic impact study we talked about that we completed it and you're going to understand for every dollar that we invest what the yield is in the way of Roi I think those are fair questions I just want to point out that we do have a very large uh and Mr Mitchell over there is the uh The Lone Ranger the champion uh uh we do make a large investment in our CBI program MH thank you Mr Driggs we'll move on to agenda item number 35 construct Sardis Road North sidewalk are there any comments which one Mayfield one thank you Maria sent a question trying to understand why the bid from Carolina Prime developer LLC did not meet the general statutes and also what was in the dot proposal that justifies that $463,000 increase yes ma'am and thank you for that so part of the reason well the main reason they did not submit completed signed Bond documents so and we did consult with the attorney's office that bid was not deemed responsive and then your second part of your question was on the difference in the cost and if you take Prime was kind of anomaly they were way lower but if you average the next it this was in line and it was under the um Engineers estimate that helps me to better understand unless my colleagues have an additional question I move for a to reject the low bid submitted by Carolina Prime developers LLC and B to approve a contract in the amount of a million 444 3972 the lowest responsible bidder DOT construction that is unan you that's what the agenda says motion is to approve A and B A being to reject a a is to reject okay as stated I'm I'm just getting clarification col a was to reject okay B was to approve yes and that unanimous okay yeah my vote is yes excellent we'll move on to agenda item number 39 Engineering Services for water and sanitary sewer relocation and improvements were were there any comments for this item Miss Mayfield thank you m Marie yes ma'am so I so for the sake of continuity that when we identifi that the same Subs were chosen by each prime so I'm just and we do this all the time but the question I'm trying to get to is we've identified 10% for minority participation are this contracts stating that is 10% per selected prime or 10% in totality so thank you for that it's 10% per Prime so each prime has and the sub bullets in your agenda or who they are planning to do business with to meet that 10% we don't know necessarily what ratio will land in the sub bullets till the actual work is um till they know actually what the actual work will be but they've all committed to 10% and they've identified those vendors to meet that 10% each one thank you for that cuz I don't think I've ever asked that question before but for whatever reason it jumped out because these vendors that we identified you will see that they are utilizing the same Subs so it just triggered the question of okay so under each sub that is separate work so for those that because they still have to do their own be each crie has to do their own 10% yes so in theory it's really more than 10% the way it breaks down when it comes time to actually utilizing the primes because if kimy horn uses let's say RDL private utility locating for kimle horn that's 10% but ca's engineering and design has RDL down for engineering support if RDL is chosen for both since those are two different ponds that 10% go is for each of those PS or we're just saying the total could total 10% could be like 2% so it's 10% sorry to interrupt you but it's 10% of the Prime but not s 10% for each subcontractor identified so of which unfortunately the manager is not around the table now and okay let's Grant it I've been been doing this a decade now but it for whatever reason that is the question that came up cuz when we're approving these goals and we say 10% 5% 7% whatever it is but then we list eight different companies understanding that those companies still have to bid and Lois responsive sorry not necessarily for this contract okay this one and I'm sorry I can't speak to all the details so some like nuisance abatement yes other ones it depends on their specialty they might have several others it might be because we know we're going to be using multiple at one time so there's a variety of reasons right cuz for carers they split that up split this in a way where you've identified four different companies for this engineering support versus two companies that will get the bulk of the work but I just wanted to get a better understand in to make sure keeping in line with the comments that my colleague mentioned and questions I've asked previously that if we're going to identify multiple businesses that we have a Equitable metric in place to ensure as many businesses get the opportunity so that we're not putting ourselves in a position where the three favorites are the ones that's utilized all the time so thank you for that explanation yes thank you we definitely taking yours and others feedback about what we can do to help grow ones that may not get business thank you thank you Miss Mayfield is there a motion to approve a and authorize B for item number 39 move to approve a authoriz me okay Motion in a second all in favor raise hands any oppos that is unanimous we'll move on to agenda item number 41 the I had 39 so we got 33 35 and 39 we just we just finished 39 39 was was what we just apologies yes oh that was my apologies I lost track so we are moving on to agenda item number 41 the instrumentation of water testing is there are there any comments yes I have a comment Miss Johnson thank you mayor protim so mayor protim you you said that there were recurring reasons and that um that Mr Coker might consider putting a sentence in the uh in the agenda item the hard copy there are reasons there are sentences so we have explanation and thus far this is we've had different reasons they weren't recurring reasons so we've we've heard four different ones and this is the fifth different reason for an exemption and this one is because there these are Cooperative purchasing contracts and are exempt from the CBI program can you explain what that mean please yes uh a Cooperative is a uh situation where there's a uh a number of contracts or or items that are purchase as a a a a group and that allows us to get a lower price and and with these type of uh cooperatives you get the lower price and they're exempt from uh the policy setting thank you so I mean again if we're serious about our meeting our CBI goals we as a council might look at our policy thus far we've heard Soul Source uh contracts are exempt State contracts or state what is it when we piggyback or state contracts are exempt no viable subcontracting is exempt um no mwsb contractors available and then Cooperative purchases are exempt as well so this is for my colleagues just to to recognize that we should pay closer attention and possibly look at our policies for CBI um that's all I have there's no questions move to approve second thank you I have a motion to move and approve Miss Molina um just really quickly I mean so this this begs the question Mr CER um so obviously this is a policy standard right like these these particular decisions are being made based on a current policy right yeah it's actually our procedure manual but uh you know something that corresponds with a decision that a council previous has made as to how these decisions are determined like is it so what I'm trying to make sure that I collect from this um exercise of of isolating these particular items is um is there something that the council can do to stand ardized this decision making or has that already been done as an exercise prior to now because I mean so what what I'm what I'm finding right because I I see my colleague here meticulously making you know notes as to try to find some something that corresponds with the standard right something that this policy body can take a look at and see if we can formulate from a policy perspective right so and I'm this may be putting you on the spot and I'm open to you may be coming back to the council with something that says this is the policy standard that's been previously adopted by Council that corresponds basically with how we make this decision or I I don't know Mr manager is there something like um even a recommendation of of how we can move forward if is there again this is a a question for standardization you know so that there's not an implication that we're nitpicking or that the city is making these decisions on a on a case-by Case basis there should in my opinion even listening to this exercise be some standard to which how you know to which we're making these decisions does that make sense it does so U thank you mayor members of council what I would what we will do is uh come back to you with those things that are policy driven those things are administrative driven and let's take a a fresh look at it um to see you know how some of these are aligned with where the council would like to go where some of these are aligned with what has been low cost lack for better word and what balance is there I I do want to continue to uh reiterate though that part of what we're trying to achieve with CBI is to bring more uh opportunities and scale up those different um you know folks that doing business with the city so why don't I would like to do that I'd like to just let's say it's a great exercise okay yeah I think so um a little painful but great okay so I'd like to be able to because to see how much is policy driven how much is administratively driven let you see that and then we can make some decisions based on that fair enough thank you for that Mr manager I think um you know and thank you to both of our colleagues for right bringing this to our attention as a body you know to and and I'm glad Mr manager you're willing to do that because I you know based on some of what has happened since I've been a member of the council you know now we have um a study as to you know for some guidance and and how we've you know done historically right and how we've administered those opportunities um or not right and now the the scope of of who we intend to include in those opportunities we have that information you know qualitative and quantitative information to collect from so I look forward to that and I'm you know again I'm looking through this with you guys as you're making this decisions but I think it's a good assessment to say it's time now to you know take a look at what you're bringing to our attention thank you thank you thank you way to move that for thank you Miss Molina any additional comments that's it may I had a motion and a second to approve agenda item number 41 as stated in our agenda all in favor raise hands any oppose that is unanimous we'll move on to agenda item number 45 plumbing services are there any comments related to agenda item 45 yes Miss Johnson so this one is a repeat reason that the contract goals were not established on these contracts because there were no viable subcontracting opportunities and and this one just jumped out to me because my grandfather was the best plumber in the city right but I don't know that he would have had the credentials to get a city contract so I want to make sure that we are there is a pathway that we are able to to help these small businesses you know that to be able to compete at this level and have the uh credentials to be able to do that so I I just wanted to make sure we talked about tracking we talked about tools you just mentioned that Mr Jones how we can help these businesses to scale up so I you know when you see plumbing services and there's no you know no opportunities it's these are these are jobs that you know individuals have that may not have a college degree so I think these are great opportunities that's all I have for that yeah thank you Miss Johnson is there a motion to approve agenda item number 45 as stated in our agenda so move second there's a motion and second all in favor raise hands any opposed that's unanimous we will move on to agenda item number 52 professional Engineering Services for minor storm drainage Improvement projects are there any statements or comments on this item um same thing just oh okay go ahead Miss Mayfield sorry thank you Marie and this is really consistent with the conversation that we've been having tonight and Mr culer the question that I sent to Marie Marie is what is the process to ensure all eight companies are utilized and to ensure equity in the dispersement but I believe you answered earlier that as we go along even though we've identified a number of different companies there's still a process where they have to bid so for this particular one thank you for bringing this up it's a different model storm water is collocating with these vendors and planning to uh keep giving them projects so when they finish projects keep using so in this one ideally everybody would be used multiple times and I appreciate you sharing that cuz a number of our projects earlier and correct me if I'm wrong because they were construction related it was a different conversation but because of one the department and that department being the Enterprise that this is an opportunity with those that ident identified will be utilized we just we have in here contract goals were established on this contract as there were no viable subcontracting opportunities Mr manager Mr Coker for since I've been back this time around we've had multiple conversations that we have mwsb that are prime I'm ready and that our goals should not just be for subs and we should be identifying if we are doing what we should be doing because I do not like the fact of Gilford county having higher numbers in mwsb and DB participation in what we have for the city of Charlotte so when we have an opportunity it would be nice to have it noted if any of these businesses are MBE sbes mwsb because we should not regulate minority participation only to be a sub when we have number of opportunities as primes that should be considered for these positions so when we say that no goals were established our overall goal should be to receive the best vendor and to create as many opportunities for the best vendor yet adding in that if we have opportunity to support a SB or MBE and they actually submit a viable bid they should not be regulated to oh we're going to utilize you as a sub agement okay thank you thank you Miss Mayfield any additional comments is there a motion to approve a and authorize B of item 52 in our agendas so moved I have a motion second there's a motion and a second all in favor raise hands any oppose that is unanimous we'll move on to agenda item number 54 cat's operation bus onsite Inspection Services contract are there any questions or comments uh yes Miss Johnson U I'm not sure what on-site inspection services are can do you know yes ma'am so this is vendors that would come on when we say onsite they come to the cat's facilities and perform the inspections oh okay okay okay and this is another one where there were no mwbes available to perform the work for this contract um it and I think you've talked about this before council member Mayfield if there were a needs list or or something if we could have an A needs list um where there's opportunities for minority businesses if we could identify Services where there are not any minority businesses and again use that database through Queen City women and business or or something and just making sure we're doing doing the Outreach that's all I have thank you Miss Johnson approve second there's a motion and a second to approve item 54 stated in our agendas all in favor raise hands any oppose that is unanimous and I believe that takes us to the end of the the list of items that were p7 57 praise the Lord missed that one oh we have you know what great to be back I'm going to move to approve A and B for 57 airport fourth parallel Runway North and around tax away Marie was able to answer the question second I have there is a motion and a second to approve 57 all in favor raise hands any opposed that is unanimous and that completes our thank you our our items pulled from the consent agenda and I will pass it back over to the mayor let's see where we are on this process right now 60 we're at the beginning we'll go ahead and start at the beginning who wants to start huh we're at the end of the beginning now we at the end of the beginning so let's start with our action wait a minute our public hearings now we have hearings and a number of them so I got action item on public forum public hearings um on item number seven yes um public hearing and decision on Amendment of the Steel Creek Presbyterian church and Cemetery Historic Landmark designation and we have one speaker colins aren't you on item seven come on down and one speaker for that you want to speak would you like to we have more than one though I only have one not for that on the list Madam it's on the second page I know someone took my um we have four yeah we got more than one okay we have more than one six speakers let's let me get the speakers list we have steuart this is item number seven so steuart gray John Howard um do you wish to who's is steuart you want to speak Stuart gray John Howard and Tommy warlick are here to answer questions if staff has questions about these items all right so um if we have questions we'll go ahead and at our next and this is also where Colin wanted to speak or you are answering questions too I'm here to answer questions I okay all right so do we have anyone that wants speak to this I'm going John Stephanie yeah she's here she's here where are you come on down we want to hear you your comments def got three minutes on this one did you print anything for us did you print it uh yes I did did give it to the officer thank you hone I got enough 15 right I think yeah so sorry may I ask if you also have Diana James um on the agenda to speak this evening I'm sorry do you also have Diana James on the agenda to speak this evening on this item yes Diana James after Eric wood is Eric wood here no unfortunately right he's traveling for business MH all right so just full transparency the presentation you're being handed right now is really Diana's presentation so I have my own message to deliver and she's going to deliver that message okay all right are we are we ready to start okay yes please all right uh good evening C Council again my name is Stephanie loss I represent the stury Acres neighborhood and surrounding communities again I would like to acknowledge council member Brown for continued support of District 3 an airport official recently made a statement that they are in the business to fly planes planes is not what we are talking about tonight we are concerned about the push for de development to build manufacturing and Logistics centers that would surround around us we know where we live and we've accepted the noise from the airplanes many of us in fact have taken aage of advantage of the noise mitigation program we get it so why does it feel as that the airport has transitioned into a business of land acquisition for manufacturing and Logistics they say we want an airport fit for a queen but what about the residents as I drive around I see many many empty buildings why don't we fill th those first before we destroy more historic properties I can't help but wonder is this need or greed major barrier to the airport's 2040 plan was the man's house how did this historically designated home get demolished seamlessly in the dark of night without City council's vote without City council's voice our community is outraged along with the hlc Still Creek Presbyterian Church is the second oldest church in Charlotte the rever the Reverend Billy Graham himself likely crossed the threshold of that home countless times the church once served as a Cornerstone of our community and boasted a Congregation of over a thousand members many of us went to church there our kids went to daycare there my son graduated from prek we Hunter Easter eggs on the front lawn I voted in that gym the airport should not be allowed to do whatever they want they are the second most profitable airport in the US congrats to them but I hope you will pause to consider the impacts their long-term plans will have on our families on hundreds of families at that members of our community deserve a voice in this process tonight city council is faced with a difficult decision to vote to D designate the historic Still Creek Presbyterian church and historic cemetery and the surrounding property for Industrial Development that will soon swallow up my precious neighborhood still beury acres and many of our neighboring neighborhoods there has been a major lack of transparency in this process by the airport and this will have a major impact on hundreds of citizens I don't like to speak in opposition without offering a solution so my message is simple again I'm asking us to push the pause button this needs to be looked at as a more comprehensive plan then one resoning another resoning another resoning us coming to all these meetings how it impacts us where is our voice at the end of the day I'm looking at development to the right in front and behind me and my 90 my 90 home Community my precious Community that's been around since the 50s that both historic homes has significant histo historic value is going to be demolished in this process we are being picked apart at rates that are not fair they are not comparable the prices that the airport is paying us for our homes are not fair we cannot replace these properties in Charlotte the closest thing I came was a $350,000 difference to living gonia thank you thank you for your time and consideration please defer tonight's decision okay our next speaker is Diana James thank you Council for the opportunity to speak yet again please take a note of the presentation that you were handed the very first picture is the historic man's house that was demolished back in August back on August 2nd we thought that that there was an opportunity to save that property but somehow it never made it to this chamber so it was very disappointed I want you to take a look at the second page so everything airport owns everything in dark blue and of course our little Community is circled in red take a look at that how we are completely surrounded by what is to be manufacturing Logistics centers now on the second page the future of Steel Creek and commun the Steel Creek community and Beyond third page oh third page sorry the third page everything that is highlighted in R there is what they are calling an area of influence that includes areas of West Charlotte and meinberg County and that are the vicinity of the airport so these are going to be planned further developments for whatever purposes that they they see fit now on the very next page I want to take an opportunity to look at the plan for our communities which is the CLT South so there are several purposes listed which make maybe sounds good for tax dollars and it probably makes sense for our city but how will this impact our families our property values our quality of life in still Berry acres and the surrounding communities and then on the next page still Berry Acres historic significance we have 90 homes remain that were built in the from the 50s to the 70s historic dougas house that was built in 1911 remains an important role in our story and some of our amilies have lived there for decades de D designation of historic properties means erasing our history diminishing our way of life and ensures decreasing property values is this the airport's plan all along yes where families once lived and I gave you a couple of pictures of examples of beautiful properties that once had homes standing there these families absolutely volunteered to sell their property to the airport but where in Charlotte can you find a yard that looks like that we aren't just a piece of property for the airport to acquire we are a neighborhood that meets Family to us and then of course on the very last page save our history the Ste Creek Presbyterian Church that was established in 1760 the beautiful Sanctuary that was built in 1889 the acreage around the church is designated as historically significant today why does that change because the airport wants more Logistics and Manufacturing that Douglas House was built in 1911 it symbolizes the heart and soul of steelberry Acres vote no to Des designate these special historic properties and protect steelberry Acres from overdevelopment [Music] okay all right is there any other person that would like to speak to this topic okay Brown okay thank you Madame mayor council members Colin Brown on behalf of Foundry who really has nothing to do with a lot that we've heard about so there's a lot of confusion going on you may remember uh about a month ago we came with a resonating petition for an area right around the Steel Creek Church um part of what Foundry is committed to do in working with with the airport with historic landmarks is to preserve the Steel Creek Presbyterian Church to preserve the cemetery and to potentially to move the Douglas house to that site and preserve it so what's going on is and I think the site is 37 acres in total that is designated the plan that has been worked out to save those properties is to sell a portion of that to my client who will develop it the remaining 14 acres where the church is the cemetery and the Douglas house will be will remain um she built this city would move into the church structure operate their nonprofit there founder also has a partnership with car Meek Foundation to come on site work on job training so uh imagine my surprise also a couple weeks ago when I read about the man's house being torn down I was afraid that was the house that we said we'd protect it is not so yes something has gone on between historic landmarks in the airport I get it that doesn't have anything to do with us it is confusing so when I'm talking to council m brown I said I number one want to distinguish I don't know what's going on there uh we are committed to saving to preserving these areas to do that we do need the D designation so the D designation that is being brought actually by Historic Landmark staff uh we are not a part of that we're here supporting it um that is being worked out with historic landmarks with our client we do not own the property the properties zoned are owned by the city of Charlotte um and the Steel Creek Presbyterian church so that's just the background I know there's a lot of drama going on also is there where so I want to distinguish this from that and let you know that the plan for these properties even though there is a d designation the point of that essentially is to create the financial ability to maintain the 14 acres that is the historic church the cemetery and the Douglas house so I'll defer to the experts on historic to to kind of talk through that don't take my word for it that's our that's our involvement thank you happy to answer questions okay Mr gray I think it would be very helpful if we had on the point of view for the landmark Historic Landmark say anything to Colin first I'm sorry you wanted to ask Colin a question I wanted to make a comment to Colin and I think Dr won has her hand up first before me know we're so I was hoping that we would get to hear from all the the people that are engaged and then we can have comments and questions so we'll I'll remember Miss Brown first and then miss watlington okay would you please please walk us through this discussion on good evening I'm steart Graham the director of the meberg county historic landmarks department and with me is Tommy Warick our preservation specialist and I'm going to ask Tommy to walk you through what is been recommended by the Charlotte mackenberg historic lammars commission for the Steel Creek Presbyterian Church property thank you good evening um the Steel Creek Presbyterian Church property has been designated as a local Historic Landmark since 1991 it constitutes 31 Acres of those 31 Acres 10 acres are associated with the cemetery a half acre parcel is associated with the historic Sanctuary the remainder are non designated buildings or un undeveloped property the concept in order to preserve those historic structures the historic cemetery and the historic Sanctuary is to take those properties that are not historic or have not been designated to take them off of the designation and to allow those to be developed per foundaries plans as as was told to you earlier um that will be able that will enable the financing of those preservation and the preservation of those particular properties okay so I think we've heard from the three parties that um the neighborhood um The Foundry which is the um developer as well as the mecklinburg county preservation so let's open it up um Miss Brown if you can help us with this oh yeah absolutely 110% so Stephanie and steel uh steelberry I've been in constant communication with them I was at the meeting is Foundry here a representative from Foundry oh he's here Foundry they came in they explained they gave details Mr Brown Colin Brown was there at the church we met inside of the historic beautiful Church um ala 160 there was some negotiation a steelberry they left they were we're not satisfied but one of the community leaders Stephanie who's here she wrote a phenomenal letter which I thought was amazing at that time as a representative for them and their representative sitting at theas she's been in constant communication with me over the last few days and it's disheartening to them and their Community I don't know all of the details so I can't can't speak on all the details of why the man's home was torn down um from what they're telling me it should not have happened the media got a hold to it it was ugly and so again I don't know all the details I won't speak on that but I can surely speak to the fact of I understand their reservations why they feel the way that they feel because of the way that it happened if there was a way that we could prevent that so that that did not happen cuz she was very fair in going in the community knocking on doors getting other residents involved making sure their voices were elevated and so it was a very strenuous process Foundry spoke very well they agreed to bring in she built this city which I think is a phenomenal opportunity but when there goes that lack of transparency when residents feel like or constituents feel like their Community is going to be sucked up and evaporated and I can't speak to what's going to to happen I understand their position so as their representative I want to hold and support their position and so I also want to read something um if someone want to speak to what I just said while I'm finding what I need to read I wasn't prepared to read it I'm going to read it Stephanie what you sent to me um Foundry can you come down for me please is Foundry careful careful with them St take your time yeah you'll have to come to the microphone here if Miss Brown is going to ask him hi I'm Bill Somerville with Foundry commercial thank you so much and I remember seeing you at Steel Creek Church correct on the day you presented would you tell what you proposed before she built this city and when Stephanie wrote the letter that I read uh for Council some time ago can't remember the exact dates on why we came to an agreement and I said I would like to move forward with all communities coming to an end result like this will you share some of the things that you were going to do for she built this city on the on the property as you stated that you would uh reserve the church would you go over what you were doing for she built this city sure so there would so that people listening and watching and maybe the counsil that don't understand what you offered I would like for you to say that I'm also going to still read what I said um as I stand in solidarity with the community yes ma'am um thank you for letting me be here um the Genesis of all this was we had a community meeting tied to the resoning of the cemetery and the land that the John Douglas house sits on that was passed a couple of months ago at the end of that um sorry the community meeting uh we hosted over at the Steel Creek Sanctuary Miss Brown came to Mr Brown came to uh Stephanie and Diane and others um where we shared our plan discussed she built this city taking over the historic Sanctuary so as it currently sits it's vacant and uh needs to be occupied and brought back to life excuse me she built the city as a minority-owned um predominantly uh female um nonprofit whose focus is training um teaching the construction trades to women and introducing them into the construction industry that's historically obviously dominated by men um they are out of space and our agreement was to gift the sanctuary to she built the city let them occupy it operate out of it and in teaching their trades restore the sanctuary and make that their new headquarters we would gift that to them uh as well as execute a uh Perpetual preservation easement with the landmarks Commission to uh continue the Des the preservation of the cemetery but also the four or five acres or so that OCC that front Steel Creek Road um all the big trees and the green grass leading up to the view of the sanctuary up on the hill and then a little bit of excess land where we would contribute $50,000 to the landmarks commission to assist in their efforts to move the Douglas house across the property to a new home behind the sanctuary where we would tie in utilities and create a building pad for that to reside uh and also be preserved under the same preservation easement um Brown did I'll leave anything out and if I get out I think I talked to Miss loss um last week as well to explain it and I think a lot of the frustration is that for The Foundry resoning petition there was a community meeting there was discussion the community could see what was going on uh a developer committed to save a house to provide some Community benefits uh to work with historic landmarks uh that was not what occurred with another property called the man's house and I think that is the great frustration that was a good bit of my call with the neighborhood was well why did this happen this way and the other happened the other way I I can't answer why things happened on the man's house that's not involving us uh I would say and I know there's frustration and I may agree with some of that um but we shouldn't penalize uh the group that has really operated in good faith that's provided the types of community benefits that the community has told us they wanted so that that that's what's so interesting is hey we want the same treatment for the other properties there why is that happening I don't know why that's happening but we've got a very good actor that has worked in good faith I think if you ask the community has found her done a good job they'd say so I think there's frustration W to use this leverage but U so anyway that that's that I hope that kind of explains some of the consternation okay so um again thank you so much for um taking the time to explain that you use the word penalized which I really don't like I don't think it's Penal Iz in anyone we're not saying we're not doing anything I just wanted the community to be heard and I've been very fair showing up in my position and trying to be a balance for both sides I'm a fair person uh I just wanted the community to be heard and I got a lot of emails a ton of emails and I didn't know what was going on so I can't speak to something that I don't know about and I don't I for me I would rather get the information have my colleagues tell me what's going on that's been here my predecessors the the veterans on the the council that's been here that could tell me what they thought and when I reached out and asked they were just as shocked as I was so that is where the confusion came in nothing against the proposition that you have put before us but I wanted to share where the concern came from and it is a legitimate concern so I don't want to downplay that it's not it's in the same area I also want to um Express their concerns on how they're saying just very little of the church is going to be saved that's their concern about how much is it just a little piece of the church that's going to be saved or are we going to be saving the entire preservation of that church I'll defer to the historic folks on that I'm listening the plan as was presented to the Charlotte mackenberg historic landmarks commission was that the historic sanctuary and I believe it dates from the 1880s and it's a substantial bill building that the historic Sanctuary would be preserved so the entire church the entire Sanctuary right that's what I mean the church the sanctuary but the church I mean the church is also currently includes several other buildings that probably date from the mid part of the 20th century uh and those buildings would not be preserved just the same and they're not historic right and the designation the the lammar designation only includes the sanctuary so that' be the 1880 Sanctuary so uh the buildings that are uh being proposed not to be preserved uh are not designated okay so I have an email here from Miss um Stephanie l so I'm going to go ahead and just read one part of it and I'll I'll forward it over to my colleagues so that they can see the email cuz I do want my colleagues to understand where she's coming from what she say I know we have a few other questions on the floor but it's good evening addressing city council mayor all of us our neighborhood is being negatively impacted by the actions of the airport our property values and quality of life are being diminished right before our very eyes an airport official made a recent statement that they are in the business to fly planes planes are not what we're talking about tonight so she said that already so why does it feel like the airport has transitioned into the the business of land position and Manufacturing and logistics for me someone that represent the district and airport is one it's the largest economic um dver thank you the word that I'm looking for the largest economic driver for the city of Charlotte we really have to be more transparent the neighbors have every right to be upset that neighborhood is beautiful I drive past it every day I drive pastor church every day because I live right there in that area so the concerns to me are legitimate concerns I yield to uh the community and the residents and I think we need to um hear their voices and we need to to listen to their voices so that's my position tonight as the representative for District 3 council member Brown I know that we've heard from the um commission and from Foundry um and I think that what I've heard is the mans and it's issue in the airport so why don't we have Miss centry come up and talk about I didn't even know she was here miss Gentry was she here the whole time tonight yes okay I didn't see her okay sorry well that's okay I see can't see all of this stuff all the time so why don't we get good evening Madame mayor Mr manager and councel there's been a lot discussed this evening so I'm going to start with the item that is on your agenda um first of all Steel Creek Presbyterian Church has been a main stay in the airport Community for uh centuries now we did purchase the main campus in April of 2019 it was uh a matter of preservation for that congregation as to why they actually sold it to us during that time we committed to preserving the sanctuary we permitted we committed to preserving um that in the interest of our entire Community not just the airport neighborhood I can tell you that to date between this transaction and the previous transaction we've invested nearly $10 million in that property in the name of preservation we then went through an extensive process of um analysis for proposals we initially did an interest solicitation and then we actually went out for an RFQ at which time there were numerous uh submissions that were received we immediately cast to the sides the ones that did not have a plan for the the sanctuary since that time we have probably been through seven8 nine iterations of what could happen with the sanctuary and we are so pleased that Foundry has worked with us to find a future user and put that back into active use in terms of some of the things you've heard tonight let me clarify for you why we have purchased this property and some of the neighboring purchases this is one of the highest noise zones in our community it is part of our part 150 program these neighborhoods are approved for sound insulation and or home buyout so steelberry Acres that you've heard from the residents tonight we've been purchasing homes voluntarily in that area since 1983 it is a difficult place in terms of being in the middle of an area that is changing that's why the church left and we had made it known to the congregation at any point if you want to sell to the airport you come to us and we'll be ready to do that the development that is occurring is a federal requirement let me clarify that when we buy something related to noise we have a federal obligation to not return that to noise to a residential area due to the fact we bought it for noise purposes we must put it back into active use and so that is what is happening in and around that area we've been very prudent about this over the years all of these homes right now from the residents you've heard from there are standing offers for voluntary purchase I understand that's not what some of those residents want but there is not an immediate plann for that neighborhood nor will we be knocking on their door to ask them if they want to sell to us that is completely voluntary is their neighborhood changing yes it is we are very committed to preserving the sanctuary that has been our Focus the entire time I'd be happy to discuss the mints if you want but I don't feel that that's gerine to the action that you're taking taking tonight all right thank you yeah so all right um I think I had Miss watlington next so yeah you had Miss wallon next but not Haley came up I hadn't addressed her but that's fine I'll yield to miss Dr wallon I can wait no we can we're fine let's um you want to talk with Haley I thought you were asking I wouldn't ask I who I I want I have a question for her go ahead oh well yeah are you finished no go ahead Dr W yes she was next two questions um well not even really a question a statement and a question because this feels to me like a lot of what we're trying to prevent when we talk about anti-displacement I understand there are um needs if you will or there are reasons behind making these purchases IE noise etc etc but it if I'm understanding correctly once you buy it then you're compelled to do something else with it right so my question becomes why why are we not being thoughtful about buying it I mean all of them or I think it's is it you mean why wouldn't we buy everything or no what I'm saying is why would if we know that once it's purchased that triggers particular events that have to happen and we also know that we're spending a good bit of money in this city to prevent displacement it just feels like a little bit of cognitive dissonance when we're are now acting in such a way that accelerates displacement in a particular area so before we talk about making purchases of particular properties and transactions I feel like we owe it to steelberry to think about how does this impact their their neighborhood just like we do for the corridors of opportunity and I think that that plan needs to be um more sound and whether that comes through the community area planning process or or a a special work session it just feels like there there needs there's work to be done there um in that way um the other thing that I was going to ask is I am particularly interested in this man's piece so if you could just help us understand what happened why is that different than what's what's occurring here or why they would not be at risk for what happened before well they're very different situations um in 2018 Council actually approved a historic structure preservation plan with the airport it was put together as a result of the runway that was forthcoming and we did that in conjunction with the environmental assessment that occurred during that period we worked together with shipo which is the state agency and we came up with a preservation plan and a strategy for how those doc how those uh entities those properties rather would be documented for various entities to use um the information surrounding them this was unanimously approved by Council in 2018 it did involve tearing the mans down and so this is it was put on hold during covid because we were spending not not spending anything but essential funds and this is the soonest that it was able to be um demolished now in between all of that time there was discussion with the hlc about its historic status and so it did go through their process and then it was actually removed um from their process at the recommendation of their staff and it was removed from your process at the recommendation of our staff the county then issued the permit for Demolition and much like we do with all of our properties we demolished it as quickly as we could we realized there are neighbors living there and over the years we have let structures stand and tried to consolidate them into one demolition that's not a good strategy for the Neighbors who were there so we become much more attentive about the immediately taking down a facility as soon as we have that issue to prevent um undesirable activities in a area that's not lived in so it sounds like then that the Crux of it is whether or not something can be removed out of the process without Council action I'm not can you clarify that sure sure I think I heard you say that that that the property entered into the hlc process and at the staff level it was recommended to be removed so if staff recommended it who made the decision our staff met which which hlc staff hlc staff agreed not to push it Forward anymore that it was not going to be pursued in that way and our staff when it came through actually said oh this is different the property owner was not aware that this was occurring let me back up the property owner was not in agreement this was occurring which was the airport the city and in addition to that the property owner actually had on behalf of city council has already taken a different action that this would be contrary to so the two parties got together we sat down we tried to figure out what was going on planning worked with hlc and the action was removed because the city was the property owner yes gotcha okay thank you okay all right Miss s miror and then we'll come back to Miss Brown yes s miror yes uh thank you madam mayor it this has been a very difficult conversation to follow uh especially after multiple back and forth two different properties um I've seen media reports on this I've seen councilwoman Brown's emails about this and just the statement that was first uh sent to the media then it was retracted because it was corrected um so my question is really about the men's building because I think that's where this some of the this issues around transparency stemed from and unfortunately that is um contributing to some of the confusion here on this agenda item so I know you said that um in 2018 city council approved this unanimously So when you say approved unanimously was the demolition that was approved unanimously in 2018 the demolishing was part of a large action that was an agreement for numerous historical properties in the area of airport development let's go back and pull up so you represent Historic Landmark commission correct yes ma'am I'm the county uh Department director and the landmarks commission is one of our primary responsibilities thank you for your service and in preserving our historic structures so Historic Landmark commission made a decision to not demolish the site and to preserve it correct I've got a statement of the actions of the landmarks commission and the hlc staff if I could read that so that I can follow the timeline because there there may be some uh conflict yeah with with some of the other narratives well if you could i' be happy to read this and if you have a copy so we can follow it I mean I can email this to to okay that would be thank you are we getting a little off topic I I was going to say what what was the question that you're being asked off top talking about another transaction another transaction this no this is this is very relevant help me no Miss S I understand I just want you to repeat what you've the question that you've asked asked him what I asked him is to help us understand the actions that were taken by Historic Landmark commission and the action that they take they took was to preserve the site so I asked him what was the timeline about that how is that different from what Miss Gentry told us and I want us to make sure we hear all the sides because it's important in order for us to make a decision that it's important to hear all sides there are two different transactions however the issue here is transparency uh um so I think what um that's why I want to hear Historic Landmark commission's timeline and the process and the statement that you have written so we can better understand is there anything that we need to do differently from transparency perspective to address community's concerns but I think think the problem is I don't disagree that we need to have that conversation I just I think it has absolutely no bearing on the details of this case I miss Gentry said that the council adopted a group agreement with in 201 20188 to declare or decide to demolish several what I would call Historic properties for the rationale was that they were out and not being maintained and that there were issues so if that's not the story that we if that's the story we've been told I think everybody has had a chance to contribute but if that's not the story then what do we mayor so I'm this is my district respectfully and I am digging deep into this because when it came out in the media it was a mess yes I know so in all fairness I have to answer to these constituents I get these tough emails the med call me the interview I yield not the interview because I can't speak on ignorance if I don't know so we have a representative of the airport here we have steelberry we have all parties here so I think what my colleague Ashia ask is relevant I agree that's what I'm saying I just summarized it to say tell what's different if there's something different well I'll restate it okay okay cuz I think I kind of you know I'm kind of simple because I have all this knowledge um so let's go oh I don't believe that I'm just saying city council knowledge I got a lot of knowledge what is going to be the difference for what we're dealing with right now Foundry came up with a very attractive deal and package to move forward and I signed off on it and sold it steelberry okay when the media got a hold to the men's Mansion historic the hlc commission said one thing in the media we were saying something else but city council when I reached out to the knowledgeable colleagues of mine none of them knew anything about it right so I wanted to bring it tonight in all fairness not trying to keep you I know school is started I know people got to move forward but we have a duty and we took a oath to serve this community and I'm going to sit here and I'm going serve this community when we feel like we can't do that then we need to give our pos position up to somebody else it's plain and simple we have a duty to serve when it's election time we stand out there in line all day and night we should be able to sit in these seats all day and night I don't care who it is we should be able to sit here and do our job for our constituents I'm going to say that cuz that is the truth everybody got these attractive signs when it's when it's election time but we need to make sure that we're attractive when we're on an agenda that's just it and that's all can we let him so very relevant to what you're saying to me I'm going to make a motion if you don't want to hear I'm going to make a motion people might not like my motion I want to hear him go ahead all right I would be glad to to give you this brief statement okay okay after months of meetings and discussion with CLT staff on developing a preservation plan for the historic Steel Creek Church mans on December 11th 2023 in response to the plan demolition of the mans the Charlotte mackenberg historic landmarks commission VI voted unanimously to recommend to you the Charlotte City Council that the historic Steel Creek mans be designated as a local Historic Landmark all of the proper processes were followed by the hlc and the staff of the meinberg county historic landmarks department on January 19 2024 staff emailed a resolution and Associated package documents to charlot's planning design and development pardon me department for consideration at City council's February 12th 2024 meeting the resolution would have scheduled a March 25th 2024 public hearing to consider Landmark designation for the m confirmation from Charlotte's planning design and Development Department was received on January 24th indicating that the item had been added to the February 12th 2024 city council agenda that is all we know so what year was this 20224 the year that I was elected so I I have the floor uh may I yeah you so thank you it's disappointing very to say the list from the city's perspective hlc followed the process and that's all I got to say but okay that's all I have thank you have we finally got back okay I I don't know what's going on we having a meeting up here the minds of Miss Gentry you want to comment on this I would just ask that um if there's anyone from planning here I don't know if Monica's here or anyone um the airport was not in some of those subsequent followup meetings I get I just B and so it's time okay and so as far as what's on the agenda and what's not I just just process-wise so each department puts in placeholders finished items everything and then we as strategy and budget collect all those into a first draft then we review those internally and say is this going to be viable and finished or is this going to have to wait or this might be settled not ever come forward so that's part of what I do and when we had a first draft this was a learning curve for me because these used to be own zoning and this was the first I had this situation where somebody said wait the city owns this and the city's planning to demolish this and so when I'm talking to the airport they're like oh yeah no and I did not know that the commission had that authority to be able to put something without the owner knowing so that's a process Improvement when you're talking about transparency we can start now too adding a clause is the owner concurring something similar to that because I had no idea that something could be historically designated without the owner you know agreeing to it being so so I'm part of it too because I I didn't know that anything that commission put forward automatically came forward and when Aviation saying don't know we've already worked with the state we've got this plan in place we've already submitted demol demolition paperwork and all these other agreements that I said okay well let me know what youall work out so that's so I'm just saying that behind the scenes process but it wasn't really planning that did anything when she said planning to come up it's more a process for the agenda what gets on the agenda mean okay all right mayor thank you thank Council for bearing um I didn't expect for discuss to go as long as it did but I know um council member Johnson wanted to ask a question and council member mayi and then I'll close what I have to say okay all right Miss Johnson thank you I just have a quick question can you define Sanctuary because I feel like there's some semantics here can you define things surely okay and we probably don't have any visual but at one point uh in the late 19th century the sanctuary building which was where they held the services if you think about your typical image of a Christian church with the steeple and the the box like building an auditorium building that's the sanctuary okay and so again and it is the historic building associated with Still Creek Presbyterian Church okay thank you you all were saying Sanctuary not sanctuary building so I would just wanted to make okay thank you that's all I want I I I know you're coming to the podium I'm not quite sure why I think Miss um Miss Brown has said that Miss Mayfield would be next in this discussion is that correct okay actually I'm working directly with the city clerk's office to get some information to help separate and I share with the district rep to let her know what I was doing okay that's fine no problem so with me Mr Brown did you want to say something else I I just want to make sure we're distinguishing the item the HL this is the hlc's motion tonight very very clear on what I needed to hear as a representative representing steel steel steel berries in District 3 a huge District so there's a lot of moving Parts but I want to be crystal clear on this one okay when the article came out um I was totally lost and what I just heard tonight is truly disturbing and for St St you guys work extremely hard thank you for your hard work but if you can't understand the position that I have as a district rep from what we've heard tonight I know some of you might be confusing and scratching your head as well we got to do a better job with being transparent what we just heard is conflicting information and it's no wonder we're confused there no wonder our residents are confused it's no wonder they have reservations because I am a person that is fair when I sat in that church with Stephanie she wrote a letter when we moveed forward with uh community and we have intentionality and being the best representation of the city that we can it doesn't show in this demolishment that we just took place that's just my opinion as the rep Foundry did a great job a representation and they stood in the church with Stephanie we can have a conversation with with us the residents Stephanie you said yield you want the residents to be involved I hear you as your representative I he steelberry as the representative also Foundry has not done anything to us for me to pull the plug on something that they're trying to move forward with I want to be perfectly honest with that however I have your best interest as hard as your rep I will work with you and I will make sure everything that you asked me the certificate of appropriation making sure that the sanctuary will not fall into the same category that what we said we would do when we had that meeting in the church is what we would do I got sick that day I wasn't even supposed to be there but I came and I stood the entire time so I heard everybody out in the church so Colin I don't know if you have any other questions for me but for me to move forward in my representation with steber I want to be Crystal Clear they have some unanswered questions and I think we you myself Foundry and steelberry will get together that's great immediately thank you very much for this because I think you have captured one of the things that's very important is and I think both as the district rep as well as um Miss watlington is to say okay what are we this is an item on our agenda it was signed up for a speakers list and I'm not quite sure what the question is I've heard that perhaps I I don't think we can bu build the mats again so that's probably they got tied but I've heard you say that you agree with the foundaries um a Association and commitment with the um the historic I agree with what they told steelberry they were going to do we need to make sure that we stand behind that we need to make sure that is what is going to happen but I also as the rep understand totally steelberry reservation why they don't believe us and why we look like we're not being truthful in their eyes with what just happened with the demolation of the mans it's in the same vicinity they have every right to pour out their passion and represent their Community the way that they have tonight and as their District rep I don't see anything wrong with the way they presented themselves and I stand with with them I work with Colin and I know that he and I have a Prof professional relationship where we can work together and move forward so I expect transparency and for it to be laid out and I'm going to include the residents on everything that we do I think that is a fair thing for me to do you got anything else you need for me Colin so I I think that um you've heard the question can this be done in transparent I think that we have an agreement with Foundry that's transparent would you agree with that m brown the jury still out on that but I'm going to stand on what okay all right so I I guess what I'm I'm understanding is that there needs to be more work with the neighborhood and that might be something that would be possible for us to actually do you know when we were talking this a was this afternoon about the um um Ed McKenna's idea of how what would they call the bubbles in the Strategic investment the Strategic investment areas perhaps this is a time for the or neighborhood to be a part and have discussions around the Strategic areas that they want to see done and accomplished if we do that because that's like a planning bubble if that's correct so planning staff will be working and with the expertise from the neighbor neighborhood as well as from the district rep I think that that might be a strategy that would work for um how do we make sure that the neighborhood is being heard and ex and valued I think that's what we're trying to do so I I want to say that we don't have an action item on the agenda but the action is around the idea of keeping that neighborhood organized and vibrant and that may be best under the Strategic um Investments that we're working on that bubble list yeah I seen that I just also want to bring something else like Haley said that there's no immediate there's no immediate plans to go through the neighborhood and that is voluntary so those are some key words that stood out for steelberry you know that we want to reserve history in our city you know you go I'm just I'll close but I was in Philadelphia just last weekend there's a lot of history in that City honestly I've been living here for 53 we don't have that history it's just slowly evap youa and going away I just have to make a clear conscious and solid statement everything that I saw as a little girl chicken coup is gone I can go down the list Mr K's ice cream you know right those are places that I flowing mayor and you know Miss to make sure mayor we do have a number of ways neighbors can participate with the airport Mrs has participated in that in the past and I would encourage her to continue that through our airport neighborhood committee um airport Round Table excuse me noise round table there are various avenues for Neighbors to get plugged in and um we hear your concerns about communication well I thank you so much for saying that you hear our concerns so I'll yield and give the meeting back to Mayor and closing I would like to say that Mrs L Stephanie she's very very intentional she sent a heartfelt letter to myself call it in Foundry and was submissive in this process but then when that happened it just took her back to where she was at so that was to me like a retrum isation for her if I will say that that that reminded her of something that she didn't want to see and that's how we got to this place so I I'm hearing everyone having an opportunity to speak and um Miss Brown's willingness to lead um can we now now Clos is there a vote on the public hearing and a decision on the amendment of the Steel Creek Presbyterian church and Cemetery Historic Landmark designation is the action that we have is there a motion move to close the hearing second okay we have a motion to close the public hearing um all any other discussion all in favor of closing the public hearing please raise your hands now what is the next step after closing the public hearing public hearing and decision B action is action B to um maintain to have the let's see if I have this here we have action B adopt an amendment with an effective date of August 26 2024 designating all land inst structures associated with the property known as Steel Creek Presbyterian church and Cemetery with the exception of the tax Parcels that are listed in our agenda do we have a motion someone we have a motion do we have a second we have a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion please raise your hands okay can we clarify that Madame mayor I just a point of clarification because I want to make sure that I'm clear and make sure that everyone else is clear um so the amendment is for what can someone can you Amendment it's on P it's in our agenda book yeah on page 2024 I believe and so what um I I'm not clear on the amendment or it would say adopt an amendment with an effective date of August 26 2024 designating so Stewart can you help me what that means exactly and Define it for all of us happy to Tommy may have to back me up on this but basically we're requesting that the Charlotte City Council amend the existing designation ordinance and that Amendment would D designate some of the property but would uh leave remaining the 10 acre cemetery and the approximately F 4 and a half acres around the sanctuary those would stay designated historic but the the uh what would the other amount be what 23 Acres but the other 23 Acres that surround the church would no longer be designated as a landmark and those 23 Acres I I'll just venture to say are a substantial part of The Foundry development so with that Madame mayor with that clarification i' I um the the the district rep has brought a lot of concerns forward I'm I'm looking for a recommendation to I would I would like to actually ask um the the airport what is the impact of that compared to the materials that you gave us about the idea that once you have to do this you have to treat the um community and voluntary and is this is this an acceptable statement or is this going to cause us more of this concern I think if you push this deal then Foundry will take their money and they will go invest it somewhere else in our community and I'm we have been turning over every stone to try and find someone to use this sanctuary and I can tell you it is not been an Adaptive an easy adaptive reuse we've been through a brewery we've been through Billy Graham Center we've been through all kinds of Workforce Development entities trying to find a proper fit I'm sorry we will continue for the building to be there for it to be empty and for it to be um to be unused and our goal is to put it back into active use and preserve it and that is absolutely a commitment the airport has made and will continue to to support that's why we're doing all of this is to maintain the historic s uary Madame mayor if I may say just one thing is the Charlotte meberg historic landmarks commission is in complete agreement that is the reason that they have voted to recommend that the portion of this property be D designated because they believe that The Foundry project project I'm sorry that The Foundry project is of an appropriate project for the Adaptive reuse of the sanctuary and you know it is it is not done lightly to recommend D designation of any his that to the council did you send some type of Correspondence to the council communicating your decision I don't have nothing we don't have anything the landmarks commission has brought this motion forward y'all for your consideration have this before today I just want MIT has not been re has not had a chance to speak so let's recognize I think the question is to have Mr Mitchell address his concern or question he so this is scary now I'm woke right I've been sleep for wow so I I have to apologize um I I think you heard tonight a lot of fustration um from neighborhood and from the city council rep is if this is not time sensitive my motion would be to delay this until we have some conversation with the district rep the neighborhoods and Historic Landmark commission uh this is not a good way for us to have this conversation at 10:15 and so if if Helen is Mayor Max of course I I think um I can see two questions Miss dentry and Mr Brown go ahead Miss okay so if if it's not time sensitive I'll make a motion we we defer this action to tonight until September 20 what's our last Monday meeting is hold on one moment before we make that decision we got we want to hear from Mayfield she had her hand up I I had well no I think Mr Mitchell was I heard trying to ask the question but he he didn't get his motion on the floor yet did did got a second and then I think what I've second you I just want to hear what you were saying okay do you have a are you addressing is this I made a motion I got a second what date though you have a motion in a second to delay until September we already had a motion in a second we do substitute so this is a substitute subtitute motion okay so uh I like to defer this action to the last Monday in September this is a separate action don't have a meeting so should we go to first Monday in October yes to the first Monday in October for this to come back to council to allow council member Brown and all the parties to have a conversation about how do we move forward thank you I can move second Monday second Monday in October okay any further Miss as you is this to the motion yes for the substitute motion for the deferral I know this is the motion that we have on our agenda it it came as a recommendation of Historic Landmark commission uh so Folks at fundry with this delay in any way how would that have an impact if any to your project development timeline because I know you well I mean everything is time sensitive right I know um you know foundaries come a long way they've worked with hlc they' worked with the Community they add Community benefit we want to get this done uh the sooner the better I mean would it be possible to defer this to the September put it on the September zoning meeting which would that soon October I was getting that that's tough I think what you're hearing is that the developer is saying that October is too far away Mr Mitchell but Mr Mitchell has the floor and the motion we appreciate Mr Mitchell's effort all right I I I I will hope the developer would agree with us and being good corporate partner while we work through this collectively is September 16th work October but what is this is August's let's I can tell you we are under contract with Foundry and that has that does have an expiration date so I think the developer was I don't want to put words in your mouth but we were striving to close by the end of the year so we do have contractual documents that hold us to a certain time frame just for your awareness if I if I may may so Miss J when is the expiration date on the contract February February 2025 yes but the developer was trying to close before the end of the year but we're trying to meet the second Monday in October I understand that I'm just wanting to share with you so you're aware that we do have contractual obligations thank you I I I'm confident that we can still meet your deadline any year but I think we need this this this Collective voice to work together to try to find a a good solution for everyone to feel comfortable I I think that Mr Mitchell makes a great point there if earlier if we can get something organized earlier that'll be great but I think that we need to have more factual and more understanding from the neighborhood as well as the impact on the airport so um with the we have a motion on the floor um to delay until October what's the date again what's the date it's October the 14th October the 14th um feel free that council member I 14th you could do anything between now and the 14th and come back whenever you're ready and I wanted to just give thank you council member Mitchell for making that Amendment for me or that motion I also want us to walk away and learn something valuable here we got to vote I want have to vote on we have to vote on the motion vote but I still want to speak I I hear you um so all we have a motion on the floor all in favor of the motion please raise your hands all right that's unanimous okay thank you um I Miss Mayfield had her hand up and then we'll come back to you Miss Brown thank you madam mayor actually my comment is for the manager we've had conversations before about not having thank you a decision the same night as a hearing part of the challenge tonight is that this hearing potentially could have been held before we went out on our summer break so that there was time for that conversation and not have a vote immediately cuz unfortunately because we had two separate conversations happening the reason I feel that we had two separate conversations is because some of us were under impression that for one part of the conversation that was supposed to come back to council and it did not make its way back to council so when council member Brown recognized me earlier it's because I asked for our city clerk to pull up to send to us sometime this week the 2018 original motion because I was here and I do not remember us having a conversation regarding this piece so somewhere in and the initial what was presented to us to vote on I just want clarification of what was there cuz now we're in 2024 but earlier this year I know from this diet I asked questions regarding the potential of what's going to happen with the space I was under the impression it was going to come back and that we were going to have a chance to talk about it before instead of reading in the paper did the challenge is was valid there's seems to be a period where within some departments it is a need to know basis and staff is determining what council needs to know at the end of the day we're the ones who the community is going to ask the question of we're the ones that is going to be in a particular position for tonight by this was the first time that anyone's had someone from the airport to have a discussion but at the same time the hearing should have been a separate conversation all together and then at a later date we should have had the conversation on voting on what's next because then a lot of the questions that was asked tonight in reference to the hearing there would have been time for the district rep as well as her Council colleagues to review it and have a better understanding so I would like to encourage a we which we've mentioned several Council colleagues have mentioned this on more than one occasion it will be help helpful not to have the hearing on the same night that there is a decision because if we decide that we need more information we don't get the chance so then you have staff telling us that well we have a contractual obligation no disrespect that's not my problem my responsibility to the best of my ability is to understand what's in front of us and for us to hear from Community as well as the the developers and petitioners for that hearing it does not help when we're put in a position where we need to do both on the same evening without having enough information ourselves thank you m Mayfield all right so we we have a motion to close the public hearing I was at the Mayfield and then we're going to close we already voted on the motion to close the public hearing um yes but M um Brown would like to be yeah be very brief I just want to say this is a very valuable lesson for us to take away and and be good stewards over our community and the assets and what they put in front of us you know when we go and we get the budget and we look at things and we vote on them and we we try to support our manager to the best of our ability these are things that we really got to be careful about Foundry is definitely not fair to Foundry and they were very transparent on what they were going to do with she built this city and so that's why I was reserved then I'm glad that my colleague stepped up to make a motion that would not put them out of the picture but it is for all of us to look through a clear lens on how we represent moving forward I cannot ignore a community of people that had 100 signatures plus still counting that's going to affect the condition of that community in that District so I'm happy with the decision for the respect of Foundry cuz they did nothing in this position there in the line of fire because we didn't do what we were supposed to do and I say we collectively cuz now I sit on the council nobody wants to hear you didn't know so that's why I reached out to my colleagues so I'm happy with the decision that we made I'm sure I'm sure that we can move forward in good faith and make this work for everybody that's what we did the first time right okay let's go to item agenda item number eight let a public Hearing in decision on the Alexander Howell House Historic Landmark designation um this is a public hearing to consider the Historic Landmark designation for the property known as Alexander Howell House are there any speakers any speakers move to close to hearing all right we're going to close the public hearing do we I think I need a second second second yeah we need a second all in favor of closing has a question you doing A and B yes yes we're doing a and b okay and on item eight I I wonder though I'm going to say not knowing not having the reports and things like what I think happened today was with the lack of clarity I wonder if we ought to just wait and see cuz none of us I think how many of us will maybe other I mean this has been something that you know council member Brown has been going through for this other one let's not get into another one we need to have I think some better process for looking at these designations than just the agenda I agree so um I'm going to suggest that that we have this as a part of the discussion it's like if you can if Miss Brown and the neighborhood and all of that can work and we'll have some staff folks that could do this then let's bring all of these back at one time thank you since I've been here all this time no no ma' no ma'am no ma'am no ma'am can you have to sign up to speak I have to sign up yes okay but we just closed okay no we didn't hearing and you're she can sign with Alexander Howell House please I don't know if they can we can yeah right there be careful you can use the microphone there and that way stepanie says you did not vote there was a motion on the floor right and you did not vote on that motion so yeah hearing still she she changed the the motion was to close the hearing there was so there was no vote to close it no vote so she can speak but we need her okay well I'm looking at the attorney as the should withraw your Mo so that she can speak as part of the hearing and then you go do I need to withdraw my motion if the intention is for the speaker to speak like I said not the City attorney we pay him I think that because we did not close we we did not close the motion for8 we will hear from you um and then M for parliamentarian sake and for yes I am withdrawing my motion okay is that correct Kelly Miss Kelly okay if you would give us your name and at some point with I know you're up there talking but will need your address or we can contact you with the clerk's office with a phone number and something like that okay thank you for letting me speak um my name is Ashley Lin my husband had to leave but um we are the current proud owners of 250 Cherokee a full report was provided um and created for us to explain the architectural significance of the pro property that we hope to protect much like all these conversations I've heard tonight is exactly why we went through this lengthy process and it's not um an expensive process either but we seek to protect our this residential property with great significance historically in a historically significant autoc Centric neighborhood in Charlotte that is threatened all the time by retail development medical development multifam high rises and we have a significant um piece of property that's just under two acres so we are particularly at risk um I'm just about a block off of Providence Road um on Cherokee District um I think the report if you have read it I think it was in the agenda was beautifully written explaining the origin of the home the families that built it the history of the neighborhood the importance of the architect and um furthermore um proposed that the house be not just called syum Alexander home but the Alexander how home because vard how who resided there um was a a significant leader in our community we have gone through the Historic Landmark commission process it was taken to the state and now we are here stay hoping for your approval because like all these other conversations that have been going on we are anxious to keep this house from being torn down and demolished we are offered ridiculous sums of money for developers to come in and tear it down and our hope is to stop that as the current owner and not allow that to happen to ourselves or our neighbors or our community so I just plead with you that you will consider our request we've taken a long hard look at it we're not doing it for tax reasons we really uh have been warned that we can significantly impact the resale of the property by doing this but Our intention is very clear and purposeful with our mission to protect a historic structure in the city of Charlotte where things are getting completely demolished all the time and I thank you thank you very thank you for speak in all night move to approve uh A and B second all right we have a motion to approve a andb and a second and is there anyone that let would like to speak to that Miss Johnson I think that we actually have her her information it's in their application at the in the document that we have so we do have your um I can give it to you very easily I'll just we we have it it's in our it's in our agenda thank you okay so it's Peter you can see it I want broadcast it all over I know there are six attachments take time my question my question is you wanted to Def we talked about deferring it earlier are we going to defer I'm Wonder defer and then my second question is if I'm I'm supporting the historic designation but can we hold off on on the on the name just the name and and not commit until it's gone through because there's been some processes of renaming things in the city lately after research so I don't I don't know that would this would fall into that but I just I think actually Tom and Stuart might speak to that much better than I can the researcher the architectural historian when doing her research here in Charlotte felt strongly that the House involvement and prominence in the community should be noted and attached with the house along with sdam Alexander okay um I think she gives a justification much better than I can go into detail with okay thank you U if we're Def and but we're going to be deferring it right to do all of that research I I think the motion was to go ahead motion was to approve because in this case there is no confusion there is no Community opposition the longer we wait we might lose this yes I mean there is a sense of urgency here the current owner wants it there's no opposition we want to preserve this two acres in District Six I there is a six I mean there are six attachments it shows why Historic Landmark commission supports it there's a long history behind it so I don't see a reason why we need to defer this I mean I understood the first one because of the community opposition uh this is actually a normal course of business thing we're talking about creating and not delisting exactly uh and I I I don't see the controversy around this exactly there's no analogy doesn't involve any other governmental rules or regulations it's just basically that's what I process so I think if um I I think it's appropriate that we could have a motion to approve the Alexander how house Historic Landmark designation if the council so chooses point of order well I can wait till after we vote but I had I do have a point of order she said she can wait until after we vote okay all right is there any further discussion on it all in favor of the designation please raise your hands one two three four five six seven the motion was to approve a close the hearing and B correct yes yes yes okay all right so that you haven't asked any Miss Mayfield how did you vote you haven't ask for oppos for consistency sake I said we need to stop having a hearing on on the same night as a decision so I am a no so a no vote okay so that passes all right the next item is the public point of order yes yes ma'am I realize that it is um 10:38 at this point I know that on our zoning meeting nights we have a hard stop at 10 p.m. so given that we still have a substantial agenda I just want to uh lift up the fact that we are passed that 10:00 and I think we need to make a decision as to whether or not we're staying here to finish this meeting or to move this to um a future agenda well I got the memo Markus say he was paying us overtime oh well then that case oh that's just ch of you that's a motion we us I think it's I think it's part of coming back from a rather long opportunity to get some time with our family and friends and other but that won't do any good if we just give it all back that's and that's I I I agree I understand that but I guess the question is um if the council would like to proceed for another 10 minutes or adjourn and have a oh this not going to be 10 minutes it's not going to be 10 minutes you're being very kind about that well maybe about 10:00 that's part of the 11 our first meeting we were given a half an hour to ask questions and they actually took an hour and a half so those are the kind of things that need to be planned out um say move it I love that idea of a planned out meeting IDE deal but whatever you want to do okay all is on the agenda that's going to take a long time and it's just scrolling through it's resolution of Alleyways and things like that you got nominations that can be submitted Regional Transportation plan make a motion so we have a lot make a motion does it need to take okay it we can take this time and spend it talking about time or we can go ahead and continue we got two that got little on I would suggest guys we can make a motion let's go it's 11 almost 11 me I mean all 11 good Madam mayor if I may I'm sorry but if we could at least do the next public hearing because otherwise and this is tell y but we'd have to restart the notice requirement if we move that all right let's go ahead we're going to take item number nine public hearing and decision on John Phillips little Junior House Historic Landmark designation for a and b um conduct the public hearing and we have do we have any speakers none adopt an ordinance with an effective date of August 26th for the little John house which is John P little Jr house 1136 Queens Road and there's a picture of the house um and the history of it right there so do we have a motion so move so move [Music] all right any discussion any further discussion all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppose I mean raise your hand so that the C get to it all right is anyone opposed okay with that that leads us to um a public hearing to close an Alleyway off of Kensington Drive is there anybody that's speaking towards that not hearing anybody approve for A and B mayor all right do we have a we have a motion for the closure of the alleyway off of kenningston drive all in favor please raise your hands anyone opposed all right that moves on as well there's no man manager's report okay oh come on come on there are SE the nominations can be submitted to the clerk if you have your nominations that would carry us through 19 to 26 we do have acceptance of some grants that we need to have and they we can go through those pretty quickly if we can have six people stay with us all right so um on the first one is May the others accept the carbon a motion to accept the carbon Reduction Program discretionary Grant A and B move for approval all right any further discussion all in favor I need more hands one two three four six okay so that takes us through the next item for a municipal agreement with NC do for approval mayor A and B we have a motion and is there any second all right all in favor please raise your hand one two three four dimple dimple she's here everybody's here yes okay thank you all right so that M that motion is approved and that's adopted the lease at the Migel roseart move for approve A and B mayor second all right any further discussion anybody raise your hands please anyone opposed all right the next one is the lease of office bases for the police department in the north a and all right second any other discussion all in favor please raise your hands and we I need enough Miss Molina please thank you that's helpful all right so um the next one is the soul meinberg Soil and Water Conservation District Urban cost share program move for approval AC a all right second we have a motion and a second any further discussion anybody raise your hand if you're in favor in favor all right that passes anyone opposed that's that's here the next one is 17 Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning organization memorandum of understanding give the mayor authorization to to execute the memorandum of understanding all right second all right all in favor raise your hands all right the next item is interlocal agreement for youth diversion program grant for the fiscal year of 2025 move for approval second have a second um all in favor raise your hands thank you the next ones are our nominations and please send those in and do we have a motion to close I'm sorry I already have the votes if I there are okay several that um receive more than six if there is a motion and you feel so inclined to appoint those persons we will only bring one board back to you next at the next meeting okay for the bicycle advisory Constance Wagner received seven nominations for the citizens review board Teresa uh Mario maraso I'm sorry received nine nominations as did Susie Taylor for the domestic violence Advisory Board an Angelia Buford Hayes received nine nominations and Christine Hart received six nominations and for the historic district commission um Sarah kerm received 10 nominations as did uh Cameron Holtz all right so you heard the clerk's announcement for the bike um committee city city citizen review board domestic violence Council and the historic designation um and all of those receiving the appropriate amount of votes to be founded to be assigned to to these committees all in favor do we have a motion and all in we have a motion approve move and we have a motion and in please raise your hand if you in support of the motion anyone oppose thank you very much all right the other one you have to bring back the public access always always have to bring them back always okay thank you everyone for helping us get through tonight tough tough times you got a you have a motion the clothes everybody go home [Music] go e e