[Music] [Music] where was your daughter how successful we ready uh they won one out of two and then lost in the first round we were totally talking about good evening let's call our meeting for 18 something like that 17 our committee work Monday March the 4th to order um and I'd like to start off with an if you're watching us um we're going to start with introductions and we'll start with our City attorney good evening Patrick Baker City attorney good evening Victoria watlington serving at large good evening Lana Mayfield serving council at large TP card distri six Ed DRS district 7 Malcolm Graham District Two Marcus Jones city manager p l mayor Dante Anderson mayor protim district one good evening Marg Molina District 5 Ariel Smith lead city clerk all right thank you for those introductions today is um on the first Monday of each month um we have um the council committees um tackle their issues and referrals that they have that are helping us move towards policy positions in our organization and so today we had three committee meetings um and so we are going to hear from each person um it is a time for the council to get asked questions as I think most of us have watched all of the meetings during the day but the ability to ask each colleague what else do they need to know what else do they think could be added that would make um the conversation more substantial or or or reflect the en entirety of the council um so I know that we have several council members that were absent today and so we will proceed with this and I thought we might start off by instead of asking Ed to go first to go the first shall be last and the last shall be first and um and especially especially since it's right on the tip of your tongue um so I want to um ask if we can begin with our um housing and Safety Committee report out and again the highlights of your discussion or the questions that you have of the council I'm going to recognize Miss watlington thank you Madame mayor um today we had a wonderful meeting and I just want to say the the staff that supports the housing safety and Community Committee a ACM Renee ASU ACM Sean Heath director Rebecca Hefner and I should not have started naming names because now I'm like oh my God Julia Martin Warren Wooten and our wonderful data folks Andrew and Jackie Jackie hey okay they're doing a great job they really are it was exciting to see the updates that we had today because we really are moving um in a in a tangible Direction on the things that we have said are important to us um council member Mayfield um us kicked us off with the faith-based development initiative that she's leading and certainly I won't steal her Thunder if you want to add to it that would be um awesome but that's something that she's been working on I know that the mayor also um had received some information and was um reviewing it and assessing its fit for our city and it looks like we've got some opportunity to come alongside our faith-based community um to provide housing and if not housing wraparound Services it's really about how how do how do we create a space for our faith-based community and partners uh to meet meet some of the needs in the community that we couldn't just do from within the city walls I do you justice awesome so we look forward to an update from that there is going to be a small not large stakeholder group that will be working on some of those projects and bringing them forward to us so that was the first thing um we built on that momentum by revisiting our community safety framework referral and that I have to tell you I'm so excited about they have been working so very hard since January and they brought brought us back not only like the basis data if you will for what we're looking at and really understanding how our crime involving youth is is shaped in our community where it's happening um we learned what I thought that was most alarming in the discussion was that 10 the top 10% of folks are really committing almost half of the crime that results in arrest um and so that on the one hand is very alarming but on the other it does almost help to wrap our arms around what we really dealing with I think about council member barari who really started that conversation about let's really focus on the the faithful few I'll say it that way um and I think that we've got the data now to really have those conversations um we heard from meinberg County and some of our neighborhood services Dr Stewart um and others about the office of violence prevention work and how that marries up um we heard about ongoing research that is uh that we're doing in partnership with UNC Charlotte uh to understand where can we plug in into the system to interrupt um interrupt crime as it happens um and it was just overall a great opportunity to hear about the strategy there's going to be so much more coming down the pipeline as we dig deeper into it but if you weren't able to catch the meeting uh please definitely um tune in because it was very very meaty in that discussion I look forward to what comes back and then finally uh as another followup to our annual uh Retreat this year uh we reviewed our Performance Management framework and how the metrics that or the goals that we pointed out tied to metrics um I think we're well in our way with that as it relates to Great neighborhoods and safe communities one of the things that is particularly important to our committee is making sure that we tie these measures to um output metrics there are certainly some things that the city uh I appreciate the distinction between the city and the community measures and understanding our sphere of influence um and I think on with that we can also um just take another look at making sure that what we have as in process metrics our behaviors are matching the output um so for example we know that we can control where we invest and how much we invest then we it would be great if we could take it to the extra step and say did that deliver the result that we thought it was going to deliver um so very um impactful um commun committee meeting today and I look forward to the great work of our staff next time any questions or comments questions comments thank you ma'am thank you very much M watlington and your entire committee for that discussion we've got so much work to do in this area and you guys are tackling it with a lot of really strong and achievement oriented goals so thank you all right so our next committee would be jobs and economic development thank you madam mayor the jobs and economic development committee uh met earlier today at 12:00 noon we have three agenda items the first one was an update from uh Danielle Frasier uh on Workforce Development update uh she provided the council an update on the 9.1 million previously approved by Council late last year she also talked about the selection of the partners to assist in the development of the Workforce Development strategy that will occur over the next 6 months it was her first presentation to the council so I think there a lot of excitement and enthusiasm around the work that she's doing um since she was first um retained by the city um some six or seven months ago now think she started in August of last year and so uh she has hit the ground running uh a lot of impant from Council Members um uh individually as well as collectively as a as a unit today I had the opportunity to meet with her last week um week before last rather for about an hour and we kind of discuss um strategies and techniques and things that she's working on and gave her the feedback that I received from a number of council members and committee members so I thought that was a really really good um report and update uh secondly and probably more importantly we received the referral from hor Hornet sports and entertainment and took action uh the council um uh unanimously referred the um staff recommendation back to the city council for review and consideration um again we talked specific specifically about the the change in the revenue sources sponsorship branding uh to new capacity and tourism um we compare the original 2022 proposal to the new 2024 proposal to specifically about mwsb e and Workforce Development initiatives um given by Danielle Frasier and Steve kroer who was there as well and we talked specifically about City useth days um there's one other notes uh one of the things I I think would be that we should mention is we talked specifically about uh the the sponsorship in the district um and we wanted to kind of get some clarification and and talk about uh the the Uptown transfer station um and where that fits in obviously there are two separate things but that deal has been kind of went dark so we talked specifically about where we were with that in relationship to the New Deal so that was on the table and um for just information for the council as well as the community but more importantly we we talked about two things that we kind of adopted the coun the staff recommendation but also one of them them and the staff to go back before we vote on uh the end of March on two um scenarios one um The Practice Facility uh as you know there's a $30 million investment that the city is putting in that facility a facility that we don't own uh and we would like to see some wi um dedicated to community engagement uh and Community usage of The Practice Facility as a part of of the um the contract and we ask the City attorney and Miss Dawson to have conversations over the next 30 days with the Hornets in reference to that and we also ask them to go back and review and revisit the city the language in the original contract that talks about City days and City utilization of the of the facility itself the arena itself uh and um U we asked stff to go back and have additional conversations about that language and so in talking with uh the ownership or the representatives of the Hornets after the meeting I think they're open to having both those discussions over the next 30 days prior to the council making a vote obviously this don't expect major Earth changing on those things other than putting it on the table that um obviously The Practice Facility specifically There's an opportunity for Community engagement um um AA usage um youth basketball usage Etc uh they seem amable to that for sure uh the second one may be a little bit tougher in reference to just kind of talking about the language and reference to the city utilization of the aren itself uh it should be noted that we're not taking advantage of the days that we have now and so I'm not sure where that conversation needs to be had whether it was a crva city manager's office Etc um but uh obviously there are a number of um Community usage for the arena that we should be taking advantage of and um and based on what I'm hearing right now that we currently aren't uh and the last agenda item uh we were not able to get to Mr manager simply because of to restrictions um but a great meeting for both the um uh Workforce Development as well as the um moving forward the Spectrum um uh contractual obligations to the council for your consideration all right questions Mr DRS um I just thought it'd be worth adding to your remarks Mr chair that uh we wanted to send a message to the team that we appreciate their presence here and their investment uh and I think everybody on the committee made the point and we did not want them to think that because we were studying the terms of the transaction that we had any reservations so I wanted to send a strong affirmative signal um my own view was that we had uh kind of two things to think about one was a more quantitative one uh all the numbers that were flying around the parking and the this and the that and uh and so when you kind of compile those numbers and we saw a a a very good slide during the thing which did that it was based on one that I did which is why it was good um but we it did pull all that together and basically the bottom line is uh that you have kind of a wash on on the money stuff so uh we're donating 30 million uh for the practice facility we're getting back some parking from that and when when you walk through all of that you have you know a small money issue and then you then you look at the qualitative stuff and the relationship with the team the large investment they're making pursuant to these modifications and the outlook for the area around there which is hard to kind of put in money terms but is a big plus for us so anyway I think we were all agreed that uh we certainly wanted to move forward we wanted the staff to proceed and we look forward to hearing more about the the the term sheet and the particulars of it so I just wanted to add that Mr chair uh I thought it was a very good discussion today and I was actually quite pleased about the outcome right any other comments or questions Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor thank you council member Graham for the update I was hoping since I asked the question regarding the days and also can we figure out why days have gone underutilized meaning did we have any requests out there that would Deni I was hoping that information would have been shared with your committee but if I'm understanding correctly we know that some days have gone underutilized but we don't know the why we we don't know the why and that's something I think um Miss dson we talked a lot about uh even before last week's meeting um when we talked about this in early February in terms of why these things aren't being utilized whether or not it falls within uh the jurisdiction of crva uh requests Etc um but you know we um we will use this next 30 days really to kind of drill down to kind of get a lot more specifics before the final vote on on that on that question itself as well as the language the language is is from my perspective is really restrictive I mean it's kind of one-sided to the Hornets and it relies on on their good faith right and yeah I'm not a fan of that so I appreciate that we're going to get some more information because I know just own conversation and I'm quite sure my colleagues have had conversations just between council member Mitchell and myself a number of individuals that have reached out trying to get access for a space so it will be nice to know what does that look like I also am going to reiterate before we give any impression as far as yay this is all goal I want to ensure that our legal department has the time to really go through this because there is conversation we some members of council have said it on more than one occasion that this is a wash it isn't necessarily a wash so I want to make sure and that our legal team before Council gives an impression has a chance to really go through this to make sure that it's not one-sided and that we can look to the community over the next 10 and 15 years and to the best of our ability we gave them a really good deal we have had conversations where Council has approved language then when it comes time for the negotiations some of those negotiations have been where that is not what council said we had to do we're not in the room for all the legal Lees I would really like for us to take that breath to let our legal department actually go through to make sure that we are to the best of our ability getting as much for our community as possible outside of just having access to a suite during events yeah we talked a little bit about that as well uh and and reference to making sure that uh I think the way I phrase them I NOS is the Devils is in the details and that we're we're requesting at the City attorney make sure that all eyes are doted T across in reference to the deal so we did talk about that and I'm confident that uh he heard that message as well thank you so much any other Miss Molina um thank you Madame mayor and I just I want to Echo the sentiments um that you know we did we had a great discussion around the Hornets today I think it was um pretty vibrant around the specifics um in the exchange for the numbers and Etc um and council member Mayfield I just want you to know that you know we I I asked that directly to our attorney um because I I don't really know or understand the exchange but I wanted to make sure that we had Clarity we did discuss that I want to let you know that we did bring that up to make sure that you know that's going to be a part of this process as well to make sure that we you know cover that base so that was good and I actually I even liked um the input that you know the chairman he actually brought in and even the mayor protim brought into the conversation about you know what you said at our last meeting with the the usage days so I'm I think we're all hoping to get some specifics around that so that we can better understand that and share that with the public as well so yeah I thought that was great input Mr barari yeah and I can provide uh a pretty uh holistic answer of to why we historically have not used dates in all of these facilities and because even before Council I had interactions with it and I saw it so whether it's the Panthers stadium or the Hornets Arena or any of these things the um the Memorial Stadium I I think the the simplest way to understand it is we Collective us County whoever is in what deal get a certain number of days and Beyond the scheduling parameters we can negotiate and help get those on the calendar and they can wave the fee for the facility itself but these are massive uh um uh facilities and the fee waving is almost it's it's if you're in the game where you can actually program something like that the fee waving is not the relevant part it's the Staffing of it it's the ticketing it's the show it's all the things you're going to do so this isn't like a community Park where we want this many days for barbecues right it's major events so the only way to really use something like this is in our recruitment tools of events to town where that becomes another uh arrow in our quiver to say well we can wave this 35 or 40 or $45,000 fee but that still requires them to spend millions of dollars so I think we should all frame our minds around with with facilities this large what can actually be used and why historically it hasn't happened because we have to put emphasis behind those things yeah and and so we're talking high level you're absolutely correct but we're also talking lowlevel to like graduations and stuff like that and which doesn't require concessions and a whole lot of Workforce as well so I think the the the devil's in the detail how you figure all that out but you're absolutely correct and the deals that we were talking about were where one in particular was a large International Event which would cover those type of um um scenarios um but we have to have the dates first so Point while taking all right Miss Molina last thing Madame mayor uh council member barari birthday was yesterday I just want on the microphone say happy birthday to our colleague uh the maturity that we're saying he graduated from maturity just quiet annoyance happy birth birthday to you happy birthday to you okay thank you that's it all right see the most loved council members birthday celebration sounds so awesome mine every thank you sure whether or not to give you the Stevie Wonder version or not I know okay all right let's see now I think that ends that that report and so we'll now go to Transportation Mr dggs thank you mayor so uh we had a couple of topics today the first one was the um uh update on cats and I should mention by the way our members are myself as chair Miss Molina Vice chair Mr Graham Miss Johnson and Miss watlington um we got introduced today to the new senior executive from National Express responsible for overseeing the operations of our cat's bus service and uh you'll recall we transitioned from the old management company to this one um and are looking forward to some significant improvements from the issues that we were dealing with uh in the last couple of years uh so his name was Shahi and I I'm afraid I didn't get the last name it was kind of a hard Nigerian Nigerian I think I just I can't remember in any case um so he talked a little bit about the credentials of national Express as an international company the experience that he brings from postings in other countries as well as other cities and then gave us uh some quick Impressions from his first month on the job was impressed with the Personnel that he met the professionalism of the staff uh he also said that the uh the plan that we have for equipment acquisition is kind of On Target he said the Battery Technology is not fully proven and therefore we need to be judicious about about moving ahead with those and the hybrid buses in our last order were the right thing to do at that time so it's good to hear his Buy in on that um we also heard in relation to cats that uh the bridge inspections that were part of the remediation process uh following the difficulties uh a year or two ago are almost complete there are I think five or six Bridges left to be looked at and those are basically uh waiting pending approvals and coordination with uh the railroad road to gain access to them uh no issues were discovered at the other bridges that couldn't be remedied uh essentially immediately so no no nothing has come from the bridge inspections um and also mentioned that the maintenance of the trains which was also part of our remediation process uh is ongoing about five of 20 trains that were delayed uh on their maintenance that had not had the 600,000 mile maintenance they required have now been done uh and the remainder will take a year or two they're they're in a process of being shipped out and brought back uh but the trains that are in operation are all the newest generation trains that are not passed to and therefore uh we are able to maintain a current schedule a full service schedule with those newer trains and uh the trains that haven't been serviced yet among the older ones are not currently in service so uh I like to emphasize on occasions like this the trains are safe so we hear some of these issues about maintenance and catching up with the maintenance the trains that are operating are not behind on their maintenance and they're running on schedule so I think those were the high points on cats we then had an update from planning on two issues one of them was uh the community area plan process and we got what I thought was a very useful description or briefing on that process that I think the full Council also needs to hear talking about what activities there are the Outreach that goes on and then what the community area plans themselves will actually look like and the description that we got was this is going to be a document of up to 50 pages that summarizes a lot of research that was done in each of the 14 districts that are defined for the city and thereby creates a profile for those and that guides uh prioritization for planning um in conjunction with that the policy map is going to be updated and a uh there will be a first dra draft of policy map updates put in circulation in the next few days in fact for review and the plan is to then have a couple of other updates to the policy map reviewed at roughly three-month intervals I think before the the policy map is effectively updated I.E becomes binding with the adoption of the area plans and this is the alignment process that we were told to expect the area plans will not modify the Udo and the recommendations they have for infrastructure does not do not commit money so these are really just a reference for each of the districts uh and then an update through the policy maps to some of the planning priorities in them uh I think that's a reasonably good Mr manager unless I left something out there uh and the other thing we talked about was uh the staff pointed out to us that the um conservation development areas had become a a feat feature in the Udo that was being used in 90% of our byrite Redevelopment in order to achieve greater density uh now this was also uh it was called uh uh there was another name for it but basically this is a provision that says if you have a certain amount of open space that you can have smaller lot sizes and what people have done what some of the uh developers have done is found a way to kind of technically meet that open space requirement and put more units on the site but not actually satisfy the goal that we had to have actual uh valuable open space so the quality of some of the developments is not good the staff is trying to move quickly in order to rectify that and to close that loophole so they told us that they are actually going to file a text Amendment sometime in the next few days and it will do things like uh uh be more specific about what open space requirements are and prescribe where your Frontage can be not have these little alley roads and there were a few other features that they mentioned um I think this is an important adjustment that we should make because uh it is in fact a loophole and some of the stuff that's being done as a result is really not friendly for people who live nearby nor does it lead to the kind of development we had in mind so we're going to see that come along pretty quickly uh I think we'll get a briefing for full counsel in the next month or so and the staff would love to see us act on that and make those changes effective in the near term and uh I think that's all I had we also talked about the Performance Management framework and uh looked at uh for the goals that had been assigned to our committee what particular things the staff was thinking about measuring in order to get get a step closer they didn't say exactly what the measurements are and so on but these were the things where they intended to establish observable metrics that we could track in terms of measuring our progress um and I took the opportunity to emphasize the fact that uh after our last meeting that the word sort of went out that we were backing away from our vision zero uh commitment and we absolutely are not okay the only conversation that we had at that meeting was that we ought to have a sort of measurable near-term goal so that we can determine whether we are doing well or not uh just saying that our goal is to have be zero is as aspirational but it doesn't give us operationally as we move forward a basis so that's all that was about and somehow got translated into we are uh backing away from that commitment and I just want to emphasize the fact nothing could be further from the truth in fact doing this makes us more accountable for demonstrating that we actually are achieving results when it comes to Vision zero and that's all I have I don't know if a Committee Member would like to add anything anything to add or any questions Mr Graham no no I was just are you now that's those are the kinds of cookies I have at home so um Malcolm yes sorry I respond to that too not a committee agenda but um you the federal report on cats and let let me back up there's a lot of good work being done in cats I probably can make a list of 26 items that cast is working on from transit to buses to um the interim CEO to the the um the bajery group I mean a lot of work is being done uh I think the most important thing for me is just making sure that we we don't get complacent on reporting out especially the work that the the Federal report that we said that we would do and we report out that we we need to make sure that that is getting out to the public it may satisfy a number of issues um if especially if it's I think it's going to be a good report right and so I I I I hope that that next where are we with it maybe that's the question sure uh thank you council member Graham so two reports um from the FTA the one on the maintenance has been wrapped up the one that's more operational there on the final stages of that um what I will say is that um I believe the first one will be something that's positive don't want to get out in front of the FTA uh and I believe what uh Mr Kagel said this morning is that the next 30 or so days he expects to get the the other report but absolutely once that report comes those reports are finalized we'll we'll get them out because you may recall that was one of the things we try to do to make sure that in terms of accountability that the highest level um is reviewing cats and also it's important to note that that also was outsourced so there's an independent review that's happening of cats on both the operations and the maintenance I think that's really important to articulate to the public consistent um so that those who are listening and watching what we're doing in our transportation space know that that is still a high priority for the council uh and the community uh and that um we're we're doing what we said we were do uh and and that may speak to a wide variety of audience that we're speaking to both locally and and regionally uh and then in terms of the U reporting back to council um I mean Mr Drake does a wonderful job so I'm not trying to tell them how to run this committee but at least even a 10-second update um while we're all there uh as members of the transportion committee in terms of where we are on those things would be very helpful um not only to the committee but also to I think the community so we know that um the MTC meeting is always held a week before this one and they had the same discussion and I think Mr Kagel said the same thing is that the report is almost complete it is resource or Outsource from the FTA to a private sector for the both efforts both the operations as well as the maintenance and so I believe that everyone is waiting for that and as soon as it can be released I think that we should have um full open access for everyone in the community especially those and even more importantly those that ride in our buses or or and TR so I think that's going to be really a good point Mr Graham okay anybody else Mr DRS I'm sorry did you I want to say Mr Graham for one your questions were noted so we'll make sure at the next committee meeting that we a lot a little more time I also want to mention the joint MTC city council working group has not disbanded so uh we intend to reconvene there there wasn't a lot for us to talk about the the things that we had put in place were ongoing but we will meet again to talk about the FTA report and we also intend to follow up on uh risk management and a whole program of recommendations that Mr barari made on risk management so that we not only solve the problems of the past but we avert problems in the future thanks I I think C's doing a great job under the interim director like I said there's so many moving parts so many projects but certainly didn't want that to kind of get left in the pile thank you okay did anyone else have a comment or question um Miss Molina thank you Madame mayor I just want to uh highlight also that the bus lane on Independence we're starting to work on the bus lane on Independence Boulevard um and I and as well as a number of community members who've expressed it to me are very excited about that so um I just want to highlight that and you know let my colleagues on Council know if you hadn't already heard that we're going to have that opening back up so pretty cool okay all right thank you everyone I think that um gives us every committee report from this evening so with that do we have a motion to adjourn we have a motion to adjourn all in favor I thank you everyone have a great [Music] evening