[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] are we ready to go live all right thank you we're about to we're about to go live we'll wait for the we'll wait for the um Studio okay here we are good afternoon everyone today is May the 30th it's an important date in the um deliberations by the Charlotte City Council because at this point um we'd like to begin with introductions for this meeting and we'll start with our um CFO Teresa Smith Ryan Bergman budget director Victoria watlington at large Lana Mayfield at large malcol gram District Two Marcus Jones city manager VI mayor Dante Anderson mayor protim district one Temple ashir at large Billy tons Deputy city clerk all right tarp card just six all right this meeting is the city council's meeting today on May 30th for the purpose and intent of voting on amendments or adjustments to the city manager recommended FY 25th budget that was proposed at the May 20th budget adjustment Council meet meeting by the council after any adjustments are approved the council will then vote to direct the city manager to prepare the necessary documents and the resolution for the FY 2025 budget ordinance and then as a reminder the adjustments from the May 20th meeting that were received at least five votes and were presented to staff who prepared a book that summarized to a great degree um the changes and ideas that Council submitted um working with several of of the council members we're going to go ahead and begin to talk about the process for the meeting today but first I want to just really say that we today we know what information we have and these adjustments and votes are very important to the way that we talk about as someone said your budget really illustrates your um values and so for this process I think that what we like to do is um start off with two council members who have um react or built around the concept that the council had if you remember um our 20th um our meeting of adjustments the council members voted 8 to three I believe to try to address the man manager's budget to determine if there is any way that we could possibly um administer or delay or de I mean not include the prop property tax increase so with that I want to recognize Miss watlington and Mr barari for the work that they've done and ask them to kick this meeting off thank you I'll start and I'll uh engage my colleague in a second so a lot of work has happened since we last met and again to give the context here um the manager after feedback from all of us and work from staff proposed a budget and that budget included a and a half cent property tax increase um we were presented with an opportunity to explore after last week's um first straw vote to go about finding and seeing if there was a way for us to F cuts and reduce the impact of that property tax basis and this is something that made sense across the aisle to look at in Partnership some might say when times are tough we need to tighten belts others might say there's an opportunity here to prioritize and go all in on the sales tax for a broader transformational Transportation investment by showing with our actions to our partners across this region but also in Raleigh that we were all in indeed on a sales tax for an investment where we had 33.7 million doll in the hand with the property tax increase or the potential for $20 billion in investment in our transportation system a once in a generation opportunity so there's reasons for all sides to be interested in this and I think again it is it is a really big opportunity but not easy so what we've decided in work is two major things that we're going to present this council with um the first is I will call the tar solo proposal it is something that I've designed myself with no in put or help from others I don't know how anyone feels about it um but it is an option nonetheless to get us to9 cents or a 6 Cent reduction in that uh property tax increase the second one I will call it the Victoria collaboration option this is something that Victoria spearheaded sorry council member watlington spearheaded and got input from many if not all of you and I also support it myself self so uh the difference between these two proposals is that mine is a set of broader Cuts uh of just the proposed increases from this budget and I'll go into that in a second and Miss watlington is more specific and tactical Cuts based on feedback from all of you and a smaller amount so while mine generates 6 hers generates 322 both are victories for the ultimate outcomes I started with so in order for everyone to have a full view of all of the options we're going to go through mine really quickly and then miss watlington is going to go through hers really quickly so everyone sees all the options on the table and I think there are two final points in teeing this up um one is how we will tactically go about this for mine I've separated mine into two basic adjustments or actions for raise of hands and I'll go through those and we can do none of them all of them or one of them and each item that we do and raise a hands and at least get six is a win in the direction so it isn't all about that but then for Miss watlington we've broken that out into four and she's going to explain the four components or buckets and how much money each of them equate to and we'll go down there and see we get one two three or four or zero and then we'll see where we are after that so it's very structured in how you get to hear everything decide what is palatable to you or not and the final point is um I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is well we're starting this big agenda today with the cuts but then there is an entire agenda of ads and how does that work what I'll say is in in uh working with Ryan Bergman um there's a simple statement it's a little more complicated than this but this is directionally correct that everything to come after these Cuts except for one item potentially does not require an additional property tax increase from the cuts we've made and the reason why that point is really important is well if we cut taxes here and then we approve the things that are coming and we get back up to the level what did we actually accomplish I think the really powerful point is these Cuts except for one and that one happens to be one of mine so I will explain that when the time comes are one time in nature and you if you propose and get support to go with it you can point towards reallocation and adjustments within the pgo buckets that equal 13 million or you can prioritize via our arpa arpa interest and allocations that are still available there is a scenario where none of that's viable and you say I propose a property tax increase with it and that's okay too but there is enough allocation in those two buckets to handle every one of the agend agenda items to come if we prioritize it on these items except for that one so hopefully that makes sense to everybody at a real high level punchline two propos proposals we're going to go explain them now we're going to go down the list and then raise our hands for two of mine and then four of Victoria and the rest of your collaborations and then we're going to see what we have and move forward from there yeah only M question Madam mayor I just want to make sure when you say we're going to raise our hand and we're going to vote on it we're going to have a motion and we're going to have a second and then we'll have a vote Yes ma'am got sure I did not plan that but you are indeed correct so with that being said so the then miss lton what you and I will do is when we get to the point after the explanation we'll just make a motion and see if there's a second for each of our items that'll make it easier because if no one seconds mine actually what I'd like to do is go through the full pal that full okay that's exactly so that's what we're do so I'll make mine very quick because Miss watlington is a lot more specifics that she'll need to get into mine is simple the tar solo plan by myself with no calls or collaboration with anybody um there are two adjustments the first one which will be the first one we vote on if someone second the motion is basically um reduce all the increases we proposed over last year in this budget cycle for bonds and CIP and that means um housing bonds from 100 million to 50 million back to the record breaking $50 million number uh the CIP the new Investments everything from corridors going back to the uh established amounts um the Strategic investment areas the sidewalk program The Vision zero program the quarters of opportunity program down back down to 10 all the different areas there uh and um I think the punchline on this is some of them are belt tightening items but some of them and why I proposed this item was while we sacrifice now with a small property tax ability to do these increases if we are successful in our broader Mission with the sales tax which has a lot of steps to go but this is this is in the direction we will get those investments in those types of items back tfold so we're not cutting them forever we're putting all of our eggs in the sales tax back basket that equals 3 cents of a reduction and then the second vote is to eliminate the additional $7 million for Arts which we put uh back into the general fund and it brings it down to 4 million so from 11 or 11 n 10 11 11 million that has been proposed back to the 4 million that we did last year which again I'll remind everyone was a record break amount there that reduces it by 3125 and so that those two combined bring us to a total of6 cents or down to 0.9 and that would be still a property tax increase but we would send a message to rale with those two and all of our other stakeholders that were all in on the sales tax many of those things would get back returns in tenfold if we're successful and that 0.9 can be justified as the public safety enhancements we have made made over and above so those are the two we we'll we'll vote on first but then so you understand the Victoria collab plan she will walk through her items now thank you Mr can we discuss this one first well no no let's let's go through all of them because Victoria is an alternative that I also support and I think everyone hearing the whole layout first and then I if if you wouldn't mind mayor I think I think uh there might be a quick round of questions but then save most questions for each each motion that gets a second and then we do it real quickly so that we don't burn a lot of Cycles if that's all right with you okay Miss watlington thank you Mr barari so first of all thank you huge thank you to to Mr Jones and to City staff you guys did a phenomenal job supporting us on this uh work it's been a very long short holiday week and we thank you for hanging in there with us and providing support that we needed um because that's what it's going to take as was mentioned we we're in a we're in a time of enormous growth in our city and we've got to make some tough decisions and um we got a lot of decisions ahead of us over the next couple of years things that are happening not only within the city of Charlotte but also um with some of our intergovernmental Partners but at the end of the day each resident that lives in our community is going to be impacted by all of them and so our role as policy makers and as leaders in our community is to think about that Resident and the overall cumulative impact to them as um as we consider how and where and when we invest so with that in mind as was mentioned we discussed as a group that we'd like to take a closer look at our budget and figure out what it is that may be um options on the table to alleviate some of this um tax increase at this point as was mentioned some of these conversations are not necessarily about yes or no but uh now or then or um this or that in terms of the how so um I with that being said I would like to share with you the conglomeration of the work that many of us have done to try to make sure that our priorities reflect are reflected in our budget um so that being said I will offer these up to you in these buckets but certainly as we discuss there may be um particular uh line items within the buckets that uh are up for discussion and so we're open to that but what we attempted to do here was to just give you an idea by bucket of what the impact would be uh so that you can assess as you go through um and make your selections um so the first selections were from action a staff provided us just for context uh options a through F of potential options that we could uh leverage to reduce the sales tax and much of it was the same as what we on Council um had investigated within the budget book and so there was a lot of synergy there um and and so we responded to the particular actions that came from staff and so as you can see here the first set um really came from this notion of reducing or eliminating our CIP Bond increases as you all know we asked for um or what was recommended in the budget was an increase to Transportation housing and um um neighborhoods thank you neighborhood bonds so what we've done is made a few adjustments we know that as it relates to the capital program um we're leveraging so there's not a one toone uh reference but we know that there is an adjustment that we can be made or recoup through Debt Service each year if we reduce the bond amount so this is what you see up here and as was already mentioned by Mr barari uh much of this as it relates to transportation we believe that we can uh still fund through sales tax um while also U meeting our community's needs the other thing that you will see here in uh the selections from action a is that we did not include a reduction to the housing um trust fund or the housing Bond we know that in the Housing Trust Fund we've been talking for a long time about increasing to 100 million and so that is still within the budget that's why you don't see it here however taking feedback from this body we are going to be talking about what those categories really need to look like in this cycle um as we as we move into that committee work um you'll also see here a reduction in corridors of opportunity from 25 million to 20 million uh um there is funding in pgo four corridors of opportunity to the tune of about $5 million already so uh we do think that that will give us still significant uh investment dollars in uh corridors um so that is the first bucket and you can see that if we put those pieces together that we have about uh a one 0.14 Cent incremental change um on the property tax to the negative meaning a reduction in property tax I want to make sure that I level set for folks um the original conversation in the Arts was really about two things the first one being the process itself and whether or not through this budget we were endorsing a particular process and even particular organizations I'd like to decouple that from this conversation because as based on our conversation last week that will be a separate uh process to really uh outline how we want that to work and so this will focus on what is the amount that we will even be talking about uh that said there had been discussion around whether or not we wanted to incre maintain levels at 4 million in the general fund we understand that the previous years because of arpa dollars there was a $6 million uh allotment um but as it relates to the general fund and ongoing dollars it's it's been 4 million for some time um so the question then becomes do we increase the general fund dollars to 7 million for Arts there has been a good bit of conversation there there's as as I understand it and we'll probably hear from folks that there is a differing level of support for making adjustments to this um uh but what we would like to propose at this time is that we reallocate the 7 million out of the general fund uh and investigate uh the ability to fund that through alternative means such as the tourism fund I have spoken with um Teresa and um Ryan over here about that and it is a viable option the question becomes about capacity and what are the other impacts that we obviously would need to dig into um more specifically between now and the budget vote to to assess the veracity of that particular one when we get into that discussion I would I would defer to just to set that conversation because I want to make sure that folks are clear about what that could look like but the net change to property tax if this one was supported you can see there is 313 cents and then action C is related to our ongo or our Opera our operations and our new non-public safety position um there were a number of requests from various departments for new hires for various reasons across the the budget and this particular one is really focused on the non-public safety so not fire not police more of our discretionary funds outside of what I would call Core Services um that's what's reflected here um what you don't see here included is housing Workforce Development and CBI because that was um those were three priorities um from the working group that wanted to that that were still included in the budget despite wanting a property tax reduction just because of the level of um support within the body and also within the community that have really been pushing for um some alternatives to help folks who live in Charlotte stay in Charlotte uh so that's what you see there but again I will I will repeat that as we work through these we can talk about each particular line item that results in a 05 property tax uh change um so that is action C so uh action e oh and I should have pointed this out in the beginning excuse me everything here right now that we're talking about are one time adjustments with the exception of the conversation around uh Arts which we would want to make sure that as we decide what that governance structure looks like and what that what that looks like will then set the tone for ongoing pieces so then if we could hop back down where I left off to um section e um now this particular one uh was one that had some level of uh interest in understanding um I'll leave it to some of some of my other colleagues to talk in detail around this one but essentially you'll see here there is a um there is an option to reduce the Merit pool for salaried employees for from four to 3% um and you can see that the property tax um the property tax impact is 0422 so if we look at the total reduction the property tax rate if everything but art was included you can see here that that gets us down 233 Cent um which and you can see the corresponding revised property tax increase so that would be everything without um changing anything to the recommended budget when it comes to Art now if we were able to find alternative funding for art or if the will of the body was to make some adjustments to the total investment and art coming out of the general fund you see that up to um 0.55 uh tax 0.55 Cent uh property tax reduction would be uh the ultimate impact so with that I will pause let me let me just jump and and close this out here before we get going three quick things one um I think that a lot of this has been happening in real time so miss watlington has a documented piece on that Arts component that says something that's probably a little bit different than the proposal which is explore the opportunity to find other funds to not make arts a cut one of those to explore is the hospitality funds there are implications to that that are pretty significant so it it while it says that in the line item I think you would agree miss watlington that is one example that you would like everyone to consider in challenging staff to go find other examples as well where your version my version is a pure cut Miss watlington version is a reallocation from anywhere creatively that is not the property tax including potentially the hospitality tax but I I know that there will be issues with that so that's one clarification she nodded that that she agrees with that uh number two uh is um again just to end with the the the where I started on the scope and implication of all of this it is a strong strong message that we are sending through our actions that also dovetail into all the other things that have happened us getting cats back into a position of strength and operational excellence us navigating through this very complicated MTC situation where now we have uh light at the end of the tunnel uh agreement across a lot of the board uh for the allocation and balance of the funding and for a strategy to solve the governance issue that doesn't require us to figure out everything right now we have the Tailwinds that have come from the red line and the ability for us to fulfill promises that were made a long time ago to the northern towns uh and we have a business community that has engaged in a way that I have not seen in years that have both helped many of those things happen and started their own conversations in Raleigh where we have leadership initial uh head nods and I am interested in where you're heading with all this I believe the last piece to this puzzle and the icing on the cake is us through our actions not just our words sending a message that we are all in on the sales tax by taking action on this property tax and I believe that's important because while it's teed up for for an at bat it has to make it through caucus in the short session in Raleigh and and this simplified message of here's our actions here's where we are I think is more powerful than anything we've seen before so Madame mayor if you don't mind I would propose then finally how we structure this is we do a quick round robin of anyone who either has clarifying questions to anything that's been presented as quickly as possible and then we go into each motion where if you have a position statement for or against you quickly say that because obviously there's a lot of complexity in ground at least with Miss watlington she's had conversations with a lot of you so it's not starting from scratch is that acceptable i' to ation yes ma'am okay i' would still like to see we havei so two more two U pages one would be for tar and one for a Victorious motion I mean I've this is still warm off the printer well the uh the council member barari items they correspond to yeah page five and six of the Q&A which we printed an extra copy what you received Friday sorry mic's not on um they correspond to action a and action B on pages five through six five six A and B A B A and B yeah just A and B Just A and B okay all right do we have a motion well Madame mayor I just if I might just say I think when we go about this in the first proposal two motions second proposal four motions there may be some things in each proposal that somebody might have a clarifying really important question of something later that may change their mind when we or another so if there I I just I would propose that if there are any really quick macro questions before because once we get into prop motions we're only going to be on one of essentially six items at a time well I it's fine if you'd like to do that I'm sure we'll work around I understand what you're saying is that we open it up for questions but we're also trying to accomplish um this in a procedural way that would be on the record so great so I I'll I'll make the first motion then and I would just encourage everyone in this motion um it is for this first item and if there are questions that would make you want or not want to do this want to do this but maybe you to pose the question more broadly in that there's always a substitute opportunity to so the motion I will motion two motions uh the first one that I'm going to make these are both in the tar solo list and then we'll hand it over for Miss Watling to make four motions in the watlington collab list uh uh motion number one from me is um to take everything that is laid out in Action a from the staff report and reduce the property tax by3 cents which is essentially those items in Action a that are listed out from the housing bonds to um the CIP additional spend all right so you have a motion on the floor to address those items under let me make sure that we're action a down I can just recap it for everyone if they' like housing bonds 100 to 50 quarters of opportunity 25 to 10 eliminate 55 million Strategic investment area program reduce sidewalk program from 50 to 20 million reduce Vision Zero from 20 to 4 million reduce quarters of opportunity from 25 to 10 eliminate 5 million from the to implement for the Implement center city transportation improvements eliminate 1 million from the repair and replace Bridges program eliminate 30 million in future FY 26 to 29 capacity in the city's facility debt program and again just to clarify all of those are reductions in the increases we have proposed right from where we were investing many of those at record levels before and most of these would then be part of us going all in on the sales tax for a multiple return of investment back into them all right we have a motion is there a second I have a question I I need a second first do we have a second I'll second it Miss second with Miss watlington second M I have a question can I go ahead yes please so so I I understand that this is just a reduction of where we were in previous year uh but I want to make sure there is elimination of 1 million from the repair and replace Bridges program what would be the impact of that um you know I don't want us to be in a situation where we had seen breach collapse so can someone tell us the impact I mean we can I cannot make a decision just off of numbers I I have to understand the real impact because we have an obligation to maintain our roads and bridges I I'll start and ask Ryan to actually uh elaborate but my my my premise on this is since we are at the let's call it 10 yard line with this action of the sales tax in for transportation if we're successful this would enable us to not just replace that but potentially grow that and in addition to that I would imagine that if we are in a spot where we are behind anything uh we would be able since this is an increase that wasn't a steady state view from before we would be able to reallocate but I I'm not the expert in that so yeah Mr Bergman if you could just tell us out of all of this bullet points what would be addressed by the sales tax increase and what will not be addressed by the sales tax increase if approved I think Mr Jones might have to so there there two questions so I I'll do the second one I'm not sure about the bridge I'll buy you some time Ryan so the uh so the way that the proposed legislation will be structured will be to help us fund road and road facilities so when you think about road and road facilities you think about um not just the roads but the um the sidewalk walks and what we've call complete streets so many of the things that are related to Transportation could be funded by the sales tax so pretty pretty much everything minus uh affordable housing Bond and bridges is that correct no no Bridge Bridges could be cover probably uh corridors dependent on what the corridor work was okay so corridors housing how about about the advanced planning capacity that we were looking at for animal care and control yeah that that would be that's what we call cops City facility debt so that would have no sales tax implications so so we are looking at three bullet points that will not be addressed by the potential sales tax increase if approved correct okay thank you that's all all right I I have a um Mr Graham followed by Mr DRS I I just want to remind everyone that if it gets on the ballot if the voters vote for it there are a number of hurdles that has to be cleared before we even talk about spending dollars that may or may not appear and notwithstanding that Mr bakari said we need to send a message to the general assembly about our budget no we don't it's the city of charlott's budget and we have to fund our priorities based on the needs of our citizens notwithstanding the impact that it may or may not have been and Raleigh so I think we need to be focused on our operating budget and our priorities understanding where we know what's happening around us right the sales tax but that's on a different course that from my perspective you know we should just focus on our budget and and not because there's so many hurdles that has to be cleared that it's not even on the ballot yet it's not even been voted on yet hasn't been introduced yet I think we need again to focus make the main thing the main thing and that is our operating budget Mr drgs so uh one more more or less technical question if we were to lower the tax increase to 1.2 from 1.5 based on these Capital things the that actually reduces our allocation to Debt Service by only a fifth of that amount so then we would also have to agree to allocate from operating uh uh to debt uh because you're not or actually you'd be able to allocate a little away from debt but I'm just saying the allocation we have right now between debt and operating um would not work if we just reduce that tax rate by 3/10 because it doesn't all come out of the amount that's designated for debt um I am curious to know also uh what would be the debt issuance under this proposal that's for Mr barari well I mean my my my assumption would be and I I think Ryan would probably better answer this that you you raised a good first question and I am interested in the impact of that but on the second question uh it would be whatever whatever our because it's basically going back to run rate from from the 24 fiscal year so back to 228 which is our sustainable number right meaning we're taking out 172 which I hope is what that adds up to because you know one of my issues with the budget is uh and I've been clear about this I'll do you all a favor and not repeat it but uh I I see structural tensions in here and I'm worried about what it implies going out um but the fact is that we have 172 million in excess of run rate now so I assume that the cuts you're proposing would be basically roll all of that back uh and that raises some interesting questions um uh personally uh I have a fondness for the sidewalks and the resurfacing uh so uh and so I have a hard time uh seeing that reduced um and therefore uh and and I'm I I said what I did because I want to be clear I'm really for these structural reasons probably not close to being orted with the budget and therefore I'm making observations without offering my vote if you if you understand okay um but I think it would take a more differentiated approach to those cuts and probably a less radical uh adjustment in the tax rate and also taking into account the allocation between operating and uh Debt Service uh before we have a manageable adjustment I am of course all on board with any reduction in the tax tax increase um and I appreciate efforts in that direction but uh it needs to come from the right places so uh as it stands I would not be able to support this thank you okay so Mr B Bergen yeah just uh uh answer Mr DG's question originally so what we proposed in the budget was a 27.5 4 C budget and that's made up of 21.03 cents for the general fund 5.51 cents for The Debt Service fund that he's talking about and then 1 cent for Pago Council does have the discretion to adjust any one of those you don't have to proportionally adjust them so council could could say to council member B's Point rather than 5.51 for Debt Service there's 5.21 for Debt Service um and so that's why it's kind of presented like this as for the question you're correct Mr barari it's uh under this scenario the the future debt taken out would go back down to 228 million um from the $400 million Bond uh it is notable that that debt is all taken out at different times depending on when needed by Finance it's not all going to be taken out day one of course and in response to your question to me or the question posed I I would just say this Mr Driggs uh I I this is not easy like this is to me especially sidewalks in the same items you brought up that was a really really hard choice for me to propose but my thought process was it and this goes back to Mr Graham's Point yeah there's a lot of steps but we've made it so far farther than we ever thought we would right now and we are literally in the red zone right now looking at an opportunity to punch through something that has completely stalled for a long time and that takes going Allin sometimes and if we are Su if we aren't successful you're right there's a lot of chance that's the risk we're taking but if we are to Mr Driggs Point um I I I personally believe the sacrifices in the sidewalks the resurfacing the things that I absolutely know are critical these are a drop in the bucket right here versus a transformational 20 billion doll amount where a portion of that can can by tenfold change our ability to do those things so again I'm not trying to diminish your point it's a very good point and one I struggle with mightily but you know households and businesses are expected and to achieve certain outcomes to have to tighten belts sometime and make tough decisions so that I tried to make my own tough decisions in that as well and then one more just so I can answer council member Air's question um the bridge program is something we typically put about $6 million in we put $7 million in in this uh partially because of of all our programs that has a lot of volatility anytime you're dealing with Bridges um but it wasn't uh necessarily specifically earmarked that we're going to do this many more or anything like that so on this list that's of course the smallest dollar amount change just that one million so it may I so it's not allocate allocated to a specific Bridge uh is just additional funding if we run out of that 6 million well any any amount put towards the bridge program will be used program I wanted to can I miss ashme can I follow up because we have a BRI Bridge inspection program and I understand that that's where you have the flexibility you have to go to every bridge at a certain time you also I've learned through all of this with um our bus system is that you have to actually wait for people that are hired to come and look at the bridge with you which sometimes you'll send out a crew and the other crew doesn't show up and you're still doing that so it's it's a it's not as simple as you know we're building a bridge or inspecting a bridge I agree what concerns me is that you know we potentially eliminating a million dollar could have catastrophic effect on our infrastructure I think we all know that our infrastructure has not kept up with the growth we have seen so yeah I I am very appreciative that we are tightening our bels and we are trying to find ways I think this should have been part of our budget Workshop exercise where we should have looked at the impact and we did not do that and that concerns me a great great deal because when we look at a property tax increase anytime that is we are not only looking at homeowners we are also looking at the renters because ultimately some of the property tax increase do get passed on so uh I you know it's kind of difficult to make a decision today based on just this number without looking at the impact that it will have and I advocated for vision zero because we have seen traffic fatalities number go up significantly and there is an opportunity cost I get it that we will have a sales tax funding available but by the time we are we are losing lives and there is an opportunity cost that we need to consider um so I I so Vision zero definitely I cannot support eliminating or reducing neither the bridge repair um and and the future Advanced planning because we have advocates for animal care and control uh that have been advocating for the facility for the capacity increase for so many years we haven't increased our capacity and there are uh we you know staff is putting a very difficult situation so for all of these reasons I I have a hard time supporting action a okay so we have any other speakers on the motion hearing Miss Mayfield has it what thank you madam mayor just for clarification we're going to have two separate conversations this is just the conversation that we're having regarding Council member's proposal and then we're going to have a separate conversation regarding Dr W proposal that's all I needed all right so we have a motion on the floor um any further speakers no further speakers all in favor of the motion please raise your hand one all opposed all right thank you the motion fails now make the next motion quick then I see where it's headed but it's fine Miss watlington has the collaboration plan so I hold hope there uh adjustment B is to take the Arts funding from $1 million that we have proposed increase down to $4 million which was the record-breaking number we had set in our last budget cycle and that is because I believe there's another year needed of actual work to adjust and create the process by which then we dump money into two so is there a second and it's fine you won't hurt my feelings if there's not I'm got a second all right so we can have conversation we have we have a motion and a second on on page five again eliminate all support for arts and culture above the fy2 24 general fund level of $4 million and we don't have to belabor this because it probably doesn't have the votes so I want to recognize Mr DRS and we shouldn't belabor this I just hope everybody noticed that I sent two emails around describing what this plan is for the Arts and why I believe it's actually a game Cher uh and I think that this investment um is something we can do that is affirmative we we we spend a huge amount of money addressing difficulties and challenges in our city this is something we can do that's a cause for celebration it benefits everybody so uh I will not support a deletion any further discussion hearing none we have a motion on the floor and a second all in favor of the motion please raise your hand all we have one all oppose all right so that motion fails Miss Wasington you are up thank you sir um okay so just for again just for some context I know some folks came in after the discussion had begun um we went through we being a a group of us I've tried to touch as many council members as I've actually been in contact with um went back from these options that are on this list and talked about well what could it look like I think you just saw that there's very little support for eliminating completely um um a lot of these items so we talked about what is it that we could do that meets meets our varying uh needs so we'll start at the top um and we'll just take the first chunk selections from action a CIP reductions so I've already explained this a little bit but I will just add in light of the discussion that we just had that um what remains in this particular one does page one oh I'm sorry I'm on page five so if you look at the proposal here it's reflecting what we what you see on page five where we have elected to keep the affordable housing Bond at 100 million we have elected to rather than eliminate the 55 million Strategic investment areas program to bring it down to 30 million for this budget cycle um we have elected to keep the to keep the reduction of the sidewalk program from 50 to 20 million we have elected to rather than taking Vision zero funding from 20 million to 4 to take it from 20 million to 10 because to azir's earlier point we do think there is still significant work there that we would like to get done within this year from 20 to what to 10 rather than the uh four that was that was on page five U we think that'll give us good capacity to still be able to get some critical projects done between now and the proposed um sales tax um we also elected to keep the 1 million for the repair and replace Bridges program and as well as um um the I'm sorry okay who's in charge of this oh yeah if you go back to you can maybe extend your screen maybe that'll help okay so did we get to the eliminate Futures oh so that's where we were and that's a that's a point of discussion because in the in the discussions that we were having because we did not see a specific number in this particular year it didn't have a number reflect we see here that the outer years um are programmed for 30 million and I know that there was some discussion about what potential projects could be used for that 30 million so as far as a motion I'm happy to uh to amend that to strike that last line about eliminating that explaining capacity so strike that you're going to make the motion and you'll tell us which ones and yeah do we do we need I think that would be pleasure the presiding officer I agree would you like a on line you would like to do it line by line then we'll go ahead but um we're going to have to have a motion and a second for each individual line do you have an exception one that you would like to have an exception from the motion Council M council member asir would you be ad meable to uh exercising a substitute motion that way we don't have to go line by line and you can just call out the ones that you um would like to adjust yes so the one VAR it's eliminate 5 Cent Transportation improvements I do see that being funded out of sales tax uh but the rest I I have a hard time reducing so if you can have us I can make a substitute motion or if you want to amend that either way yeah I'm not sure I follow you I think one of the questions I have is you know we we're talking about the sales tax that we're going to Rally that we might get and if we get it it's another year before that and then if we do that it'll be I I just don't know that I want to make sure we're talking on the same all right so just to keep it clean and it could not happen to keep okay so everybody I'm going to let's let's stay on the Miss yeah well let's stay on track so to keep it clean I'll just I will go ahead and move to accept the selections from action a um as listed and we'll just start there as a as a base not as listed here and you didn't I'm when you say the here I'm not sure what we switch to the other I'm looking at a book that says selections from action a reduce Strategic investment areas from 55 million to 30 million is that is that your motion miss miss miss ashir is over here sorry Miss watlington over here all right so my motion is to accept the items that you see here for um action a from action a uh with the uh except exeption of the last one that says eliminate future city facility capacity so that is the motion I'm putting forward is to take this package in SE in selection a with the exception of eliminate future city capacity all right so this is a motion that would reduce strategic Investments reduce Vision V 0o to 10 reduce the corridors of opportunity to 20 reduce the sidewalk program to 20 eliminate 5 million center city transportation improvements correct um we have a second for that motion is there a second second we have a second is there any discussion or questions hearing no discussion or questions I I want to make sure so what was taken out of the the last item under the eliminate it's eliminate future city facility capacity 30 million and from FY 26 to 29 capacity worth 5 cents of a tax rate I'm sorry five cent sorry so it's the last item under a CIP reductions before the Total Bond reduction line all right so no any questions hearing no questions all in favor of the motion please raise your hand one two three 4 any all right any all opposed one two three four um I'm sorry we need you have to vote I need motion I'm reading so just give me a second so we we have a motion you have four people in opposition or in support opposition please raise your hands are you looking for opposition or support okay this is about whether or not we hear okay sorry so this is where Miss watlington is suggesting that we eliminate all of those items except the last one which is eliminate the future capacity so these would be items so sidewalks would go from 50 million to 20 million okay I got it all right I'm in support we have four votes in favor all opposed I'm five in favor of ruc you're in favor of the reduction action a yes ma'am descri I'm in favor all right who all in oppose how many people are in opposed one two three four five how many did we have have for the other one four it's a Madam clerk you have five so is it a tie yeah I vote that we do not reduce the selections from the CIP and that we move to the next item on the agenda so my vote would be to break the tie to say that we do not reduce Strategic investment areas we do not reduce sidewalks we do not reduce the corridors of opportunity that we're building so thank you okay the next item up miss watlington all right the next one is uh selection B so this is the reduction reallocation of 7 million to increase to the tourism fund reduce property tax revenue in the 2025 budget yeah but as council member barari mentioned earlier um this hot off the presses um this one spoke specifically to the tourism fund as an example but it it the intent is to investigate reallocation of that 7even million so whether that comes from tourism or from another place um if that is something that um is feasible what we'd like to do is investigate that I'm going let you state the motion so that you make it's reflective of what you want to accomplish sure all right y so I move that we investigate the reallocation of the source of the $7 million art increase uh from the general fund um and if if it's seconded I would like to um defer to Teresa a little bit just to give a understanding of what it is that U we're looking at specific to the tourism fun not necessarily the other all right so you have a motion is there a second second we have a second all right Mr Driggs so uh based on the description my request was that if it was seconded that Teresa could kind of tee us up a little bit I'm sorry I could not understand what you said at the end what I was asking was that once it was seconded I wanted to defer to Teresa to tee it up a little bit as a basis for discussion okay all right we're going to have a discussion Miss sure so I think this requires starting with the reminder about the hospitality funds and that the uses of those Hospitality funds are all based on the source of Revenue in those funds so you you will probably recall that we have three different Hospitality funds with different Revenue sources and each of those funds has different uses based on that tax source so what we're talking about here specifically is the tourism fund this fund uh has an occupancy tax a rental car tax and a you drive it tax the occupancy tax is the most restrictive part of this and allows us to do things like construction financing maintaining and operating convention centers Civic centers coliseums auditoriums museums so this is where we fund things like the recent uh deal we did with Spectrum Center so where we're funding the improve improvements to Spectrum Center we're using the occupancy tax portion of the tourism fund the rental car tax uh is not as restrictive and then the you drive it tax is not as restrictive so when we talk about something like Arts which would be an ongoing operations funding that is the funding that we would be looking at using to fund something like this currently we're using that funding to to support the cultural facilities so the the LaVine Arts uh with Beckler and Harvey Gant the night theater The Mint Museum we're supporting the existing Debt Service on those as well as the maintenance related to those facilities uh we're also supporting maintenance related to things like oven Auditorium and Bojangles so there are already some commitments on the use of these funds uh in addition I I had mentioned to Dr watlington this morning you know coming out of Co those revenues are the things that were very heavily impacted so we are starting to build back some of those funds but we are currently starting at a place where we don't have uh a lot of additional or extra funds that are available uh I we did do a preliminary look and it is very much a back of the envelope um so I would need a little more time to just confirm the numbers but currently what we see is that there would be about 1.5 million to allow for an ongoing expense like this all right thank you um Mr Dres uh I just want to mention I'm really reluctant for us to take an action that based on an assumption about Hospitality funds without talking to HDA crva the legislature and all of the other parties who are involved um I think that that creates controversy in and to Mr bari's point we don't need to be doing anything that the legislature could find questionable because of the definitions of the uh I mean if we had had more time and and I did want to mention I I genuinely appreciate the work that you've done this is a more thorough budget conversation than I can remember uh it would have been better if we could have had this conversation in a workshop frankly we're at a stage in our budget process right now where what we're supposed to be doing is looking at line adjustments that were offered during during the ad to leaks and resolving them it's difficult I think to process and to analyze the kind of changes you proposing in this time frame so uh uh I can say for myself when when I heard the manager's budget I wasn't prepared for a penny and a half I didn't know about the 400 million and uh I really felt that to that extent those uh features were not based on prior conversation that had happened Among Us uh so it's too bad we couldn't do this earlier there's a lot of value in the work you did and uh certainly I would love to see us cut back uh in a number of ways that are suggested here but I just don't know that we can digest uh the changes that are being talked about and in particular I really don't want to be making assumptions about Hospitality funds without prior consultation thanks thank just for Clarity on the motion it's in the motion is to investigate so that's exactly what it we call I just want to make sure folks are clear investigate right uh understood but investigate instead of actual funding we can investigate we can do the funding that's proposed and investigate and if we see an opportunity based on that idea there's that's a high-grade problem to have that we would free up uh but to to go in with the lower level of Arts funding and compromise the whole plan that's been worked out uh on an assumption about our ability to find that money somewhere else um would be uh I just think the wrong way around thanks Miss mayor proam thank you Madame mayor Mr Driggs actually took one of my first points which is you we have these recurring conversations about hospitality and tourism funds and you know the HTA and our partners in Raleigh have really been great strategic partners for us and have helped us um do wonderful things to enhance our city and this is a an excellent uh double click in looking at a budget and thinking about ways that which we can extract dollars here and there to um of course reduce a tax burden on residents but I would be very weary about having a decision being made today on Hospital potentially on hospitality and tourism dollars and uh Teresa if I'm understanding you properly and I may have not gotten that right but based on what you're saying saying there's just about $1.5 million in the actual account where this could be potentially so it's is nowhere near the amount of the funds um anyway but I I just want us to be very weary about that bringing decisions around um Hospitality dollars without including our partners with the HTA and in rale because they are truly partners for us um so the other piece I want to say is that the art and and Mr DRS the the plan that's been done around the Arts the the restructuring around um everything that we've done over the last year and a half I think is important to our Arts ecosystem and I am I I personally would like to lean into the Arts and continue the investment that we have esec in potentially coming out of covid we have so many um so many people within our Arts ecosystem that have fully rescued themselves and and and re substantiated I I really believe we need to be investing in the Arts as well so I though this is one a wonderful exercise and I wish we did have this a week ago or two weeks ago because then we could have actually double clicked and had some really great debate around it but I don't think I can support it today but I appreciate the effort from both both Miss watlington and Mr Bari okay Miss azir followed by by Miss Mayfield thank you madam mayor so I wasn't going to brought this up but I I think I have to say this there is a common theme here which is I think most of us are trying to find ways to reduce a property tax increase I think Mr Jones you hear that loud and clear uh because when residents are reaching out to us they are trying to tell us that how are you tightening your belt like we are all doing every day so I wish we have had exercise on how do we reduce our budget because I was also caught off guard by 1.5 Cent a penny and a half property tax increase uh in the past back in 2018 I do remember us having a conversation about impact act and this year we we missed it we we didn't do the due diligence of understanding the economic and behavioral impact of having a tax increase um and Mr DXs is right you know we are at this point in the budget it's kind of difficult to now take out one line item here one line item there without truly assessing and understanding the impact comprehensively so I hope I think this is a message for you and the as we move forward with the budget in future that we Whenever there is going to be a tax increase we look at the impact overall um but in terms of investigating uh how we reallocate um or find a another source for Arts funding I I would like to investigate and I see if there is a Source that's available I think we got to we got to explore that option so I'll be supporting it uh let me just say that while also ensuring that we get input from our Hospitality community and that would be part of the investigation uh so I'm all for that uh because arts does bring in a lot of Tourism uh there are Arts festivals uh there is Festival like Charlotte shout that I'm a big fan of uh so it's it's important I think this sends a message to our community that we take a property tax increase very seriously and we are trying to find ways to reduce that burden on our resident that that's all I have thank you so how much was the reduction for the Mad how much was the reduction in the motion no I was asking I'm trying to I'm making notes and I wanted to make sure how much is the reduction s it's not a it's not a reduction an investigation correct okay all right thank you all right Miss Mayfield thank you madam mayor Mr manager I actually have and actually Mr B want somebody has the answer to this so even though we're having two separate conversations when we talk about the possibility of the sales tax that is something just for clarification for those who are watching online or who in the room while we're having this conversation even if we go to the general assembly if the general assembly says yes you now have the ability to go to the community for the community to vote on it we would then have to tell the community this is what we're looking at just as previously when we went to the community we had to tell them this was for hospitality and tourism if we are looking at programming or something else we would be then telling the community we are asking you to support this and this is what we are here's the bucket that we are looking at using this additional funds for a absolutely correct uh council member Mayfield and on a rocket docket the money for the sales tax would come in FY 27 so other words July 1 26 so the other I just wanted to make sure we got that out there because there's I have a concern that people that are listening are hearing part of the conversation and they're now ready to jump in oh no we might get together to sue cuz that's not what we approved no we're having conversation it was still long process have to go to the general assembly then we have to come back go to the people and even at that we are talking about fiscal year 25 that's not something that we kick in until fiscal year 27 so I kind of feel like in a way I kind of feel like we hurt ourselves a little by bringing that piece into this conversation for this budget cycle even though I do understand the challenge regarding today do we have a tax increase what does that tax increase look like I support the idea of investigating the source of the 7 million yet at the same time with understanding that we have a action plan ABC d n f and here's a question not a statement we are seeing which one of these individual action plans do we have support on so for the last discussion that we devoted that we just voted on for Action a we made some adjustments in that that was not supported so now we're saying possibly do we support action b or action C or action D or action e if any of them just for clarity MH that is what I wanted to make sure but also I wanted to make sure that those who are listening that don't necessarily have this in front of them understand this conversation that we all are having and making sure we're all on the same page I'm just going to say for me to make sure I'm understanding where we are in this process of understanding cuz although I support the idea of this line item what I personally support is what I raised my hand for which was looking at we're not reducing you we're just not increasing you we're going to keep you where you're at right now while we figure this out thank you madam mayor okay any other Miss Johnson I think I was in the queue Madame mayor I was in the queue I'm sorry you you had a I'm sorry you're right I I have Victoria written down right here Victoria Miss watlington yep I just wanted to just add a little Clarity and I think we might have gotten we would get from Finance would then inform us what that final uh budget would look like as it came to the vote so I just want to make sure that that was clear about what the motion actually is um the other thing I would say is I I agree with council member asir in regards to our our responsibility to have better I'll say as as good of stewardship as we possibly can and I'm I'm hearing the conversations around I wish that we had been able to do this earlier and that kind of thing and um I would just offer that as the council as the governing body of this uh organization we we set the timeline and so if that means that we need additional time to do our due diligence before we vote on the budget that is well within our prerogative so I just would remind us of that um that certainly there are some things we can do from a process standpoint to improve our budget process in the years going on but what I don't want us to do is rush to a decision if the theme that we're hearing is that folks want to really uh roll our sleeves up and get some answers to these questions ahead of time I think that that would be um I think that would be uh a disservice to our community and and frankly I think it would be irresponsible of us to do something like that given that we have the ability to set the timeline in terms of when that vote actually happens thank you thank you I think we'll be able to have a sense of it when we finish this um list of items that we're approving and how we many people vote and support and how many we um change so all right so now let's see Miss Johnson wanted to speak to this thank you mayor I I was trying not to speak because I don't want to be divisive on this issue um but I would just say when I brought up U looking at the hospitality tax just to to investigate uh we were sent letters from that industry that basically said stay in our place and I believe our place is governing U for our citizens and doing whatever we can to protect them uh we're looking at a property tax increase in the wake of a county tax increase the revaluation um and other increases so I think that we should do everything that we can to reduce the burden on our taxpayers they should not be forced to carry um the the increase if there are other Alternatives we did not ask permission from the HTA when we approved 275 or $273 million for Spectrum Stadium we're not increase I think about the property tax increase on the hotels and the motel when those taxes go up who do you think is going to have to pay the higher cost our most vulnerable citizens who live in them so while we talk about it's only $53 a year for the average home buyer um of house for $358,000 when we know that's not the average price in many areas so I think we just need to be I I think we need to be 10 toes down to protect our citizens and do what we can to reduce this uh property tax increase and if it's looking at a fund that we are potentially going to be spending hundreds of millions of dollar to to improve stadiums I think that we can we we it's our responsibility to take a look at um using those funds in other ways as well um and I'll just say this when I mentioned it back in April and and I didn't even give a a a solution or an area where we could spend it but that was the same week where there were homeless folks in the airports and that's directly related to tourism so yes Arts is related to tourism as well as infr structure and transportation and other areas so I think we as elected officials need to be able to face our voters and let them know that we did all we could to reduce the potential for a a property tax increase in the wake of two other uh property tax and revaluation increases that's all thank you okay I think everyone has had an opportunity that most to speak and we have some people that I said I think and I do know that Mr Driggs and then Mr Graham asked to speak as well so then we'll go first with um Mr barari Mr DRS Mr Graham and and Mr Mitchell thank you you get to close us out I hope okay and my mine's very quick but I just want to make a point I I as my initial motion stated what I think should happen here is a reduction from 11 to 4 million without going and finding anything especially with this very sign significant property tax increase the Arts funding proposal portion of this is nearly a quarter of that so when the the the the citizens out there that are taxpayers that are feeling this brunt understanding that a quarter of that raise is now in there because of the the additions we put in arts it's significant and important however that didn't pass I am going to support Miss watlington proposal um because it is something to explore but I just want to be real clear there's no scenario I'm going to support the hospital tax being a solution for this but that doesn't mean I don't want to push forward um given the point we're at where when these conversations have been able to finally evolve uh it's important enough to try because a quarter of our property tax increase right now is driven by this Hospitality funds won't work for me but I definitely want to have a shot at at making a reduction I think that's a fair statement Mr DRS so uh the whole economy of the property tax is complicated many members of the public don't understand it I think in our conversations here we need to be very disciplined uh and and not uh hold out a prospect that really if we're if we think about it carefully we know is uh problematic so the fact is that we have the authority to Levy this tax based on a law that was passed laws that were passed uh the use of the tax is coordinated with the industry because their customers bear the burden it affects the economy of their business and therefore um we need to work with them now what I understand from Dr watlington is that she is saying let's explore this what troubles me is the red s million on the slide right so at this point we should not be reducing the uh like doing our calculations based on any assumption about this and if people want to reach out to the responsible parties and explore with them whether they accept and are willing to join us in making a case to the legislature because they would have to the legislature is going to be influenced by what they hear from the industry on this subject so uh if we were able to get that conversation started and they said yeah we get it you're right that's valuable uh we'll join you let's go and talk to them and if we could get that done in time for the final adoption of the budget to reflect the willingness of all the parties to go in that direction great but I I don't want the public to think that we are passing up an opportunity to give them some relief in the general fund uh based on a very controversial idea about use of hospitality funds we've been through it once with the stir that was caused the last time and uh I need to be more careful myself because I said politely sure we can talk about that and that got me identified as somebody who saw potential there I frankly am very skeptical but what I really do think we need to require is that we approach this subject with all due care and respect for the other people who are affected thank you Mr Graham I I think council member Dres took the words right out of my mouth so I don't want to be redundant I think he spot on uh and indeed but for the hospitality industry we wouldn't have to tax today they went to Raleigh recently to get it renewed for us and working on getting the other one renewed as well uh they were very involved in spectrum they were very involved in Nascar Hall of Fame they were very involved in a wide variety of of projects that utilize the tax matter of fact we kind of go to them first to say what do you think and so it's it's not correct to say that there was no involvement from them nor should uh I I just think that's just correct I just want to correct the record Mr Mitchell just a clarification I think councilman mayf brought a good point we got to be careful how the average citizen who looking at this don't understand so when you when we go back to Dr Watton suggest investigate source of $7 million increase from from the general fund the total in my mind the total we trying to get to is still 11 million we're just looking to reallocate 7 million so somehow I don't want the viewers to think that we only funding Arts at $7 million so somehow we need to I don't know put in parenthesis that the total would be 11 million I we'll hopefully get that done in the today thank you very much okay so we have a motion on the floor that says to I'm sorry yes I'm so sorry Miss Brown and we're so sorry for your loss app thank you so much Madame mayor I wanted to say um you know with all due respect we um have to try to work for the best entrance of our constituents and and to make sure they know to make sure that they know that we care about them and that we're just not trying to increase the tax and trying to go through the line items and see how we can reallocate to help save them I do want to go on record you know letting them know that I do care about an increase it may be something that we have to do but we are working through trying to see if there's other ways or parameters that we can get around that so for the ret I do I do want to show support of you know trying to uh support Dr Watson's motion because we need to try to do something not to increase it although there are times and opportunities where we may not be able to do that we're trying to do that today and so I want to go on record let folks know because I've you know been bombarded with the increase nobody wants an increase in anything right the whole fear of increase in tax you know they're saying there's no affordable housing and a whole list of other things that they've sent to me and now we're looking to take their taxes up so I definitely want to make sure that for the record I want to constituents know that we're working diligently to try to come up with alternatives for that and so that's all that I have today thanks thank you all right we have a motion on the table all in favor of the motion to investigate source of is it a specific number Miss watlington is it a specific amount or number or is investigate the source yeah the reason the 7 million was there was because we wanted to be able to give folks a an impact idea so but this the motion will be to investigate a source for Arts increase away from the general fund correct that's the motion on the floor all in favor please raise your hand all right anyone opposed one two three four opposed did I get that correct Madam clerk I'm sorry I'm sorry Miss Miss Molina was raise her hand okay all right um I understand that now miss I guess one of the I've been listening and I guess one of the questions is we've got a number of other selections for we have the set position request list I'm sorry more two more to go so the next item for consideration Miss watlington yep so action c um and just as a pause because I'm hearing some rubins about uh action a and I I know that council member Mir had mentioned that uh had some interest in particular line items I just want to make sure that folks are clear that I I'll speak for myself am amable to adjustments to these so um please feel free to speak on those particular ones she hasn't there's she has the floor right now okay okay um so for c um as you can see here essentially the the action is to um eliminate new new hire positions for this year and you can see um these are um some of the items that have been listed in the budget book there have been um some redactions or reductions if you will based on interest from various members of council uh to preserve uh housing um uh CB CBI and Workforce Development opportunity for hire this year so that's why you don't see those three uh particular ones on here but these were ones that had um had significant support um to consider so I would move that we accept this um selection from action C okay so may I ask if we went back which were the ones that were asked or that was were on the list but did not come up under the oh I found it it was I was I was CBI and oh I'm sorry I misunderstood your question CBI Workforce Development and housing yes okay and those were chosen with what rationale um priorities we know that we're going to get the report out from Workforce Development soon um and we know that there's already significant dollars allotted to that work so uh we wanted to make sure that we we put ourselves in a position to make a hire there if we needed to to support that work and there's been a longtime discussion about uh CBI and CBI University in particular and what we need to do especially as we look to do significant spend over the coming years to support our um mws EAS and then um housing because of the work as we see Council Mayfield has on her faith and housing Summit shirt that was executed today and there were over 400 attendees and strong strong interest in that program and so we anticipate we're going to need um support for housing staff in that space so that was the rationale behind those three and the rationale for not doing these is um so that would vary by council member so certainly would be open to a discussion in regards to that um yeah but I will say that these are the ones that folks generally said I could see that all right so and I will add to that I want to make sure that this is clear because this came up in some of the discussion earlier is that we absolutely understand and recognize that it is the city manager's role to uh be specific about operations and how you're going to do the work our role is to set the tax rate um so these are the line items that were in the budget book that doesn't necessarily mean that this is how how it's going to be implemented within the organization that is for the manager to uh determine but we because these were the ones we were reacting to um or I'm sorry but because these were the line items that were in the budget book our goal was to look at what could the potential property increase or property tax increase change B overall so uh this is the specific list because it was in the book but as far as council members making specific decisions around don't hire in this department versus this department that wasn't the intent of this does I just want to make sure that's clear yeah I I think so I guess the question I'm I want to simplify as much as we can we can either ask the manager to cut 1,129 or we could actually go down a list and everybody could talk about what who's on that list no I like your first I like the first one better well I do too but I want to make sure that we're just asking him to manage his correct work his his cost of personnel to reduce it to 1 million to correct all right do I have that's the motion looking for a second that's a motion miss m second all right we have a motion a second is there any discussion or questions so okay I I have a question I just want to make sure so we are not going off of this list manager would figure out ways it may not be specific to this line items that's that's what I think Miss watlington said yes okay so while we saying that also just want to emphasize you can't ask for somebody to be on the list because you're talking about taking them off now don't no no new people now okay no no new folks So This 1.2 million could go from other budget so doesn't necessarily mean just this list I no this would be where he would reduce the city's operating budget by 1 point2 1.1 I think Miss watlington I want she's asked a question I want to make sure it's about reducing operating budget by 1.1 million correct okay all right any other questions Miss Mayfield did you have another question well no we were just discussing here that it's these are general fund dollars so yeah they are that it doesn't need additional specificity because the point is that we want to reduce by that particular amount well I'm sure he wants right that's what we're trying to do okay but it is Personnel expense it is Personnel expense right yeah yes all right I'll any all [Music] right okay okay go ahead no yeah I have to ask if I don't understand so for the 1.1 million is specifically for the Personnel operating budget that's it it's list go ahead so if I understand what the uh you know question is and I've done this long enough to yield um so what you're asking me is on the person Personnel budget instead of going in and saying You must eliminate this I can do it from a series of options maybe I'm going to um have a higher higher turnover or maybe I'm going to hold positions vacant a little bit longer and so if if that's the the general guidance um that's I'm fine okay did Miss Brown are you did did you okay yes okay all right M Molina thank you madam mayor I'm um so I'm I'm trying to gain some clarity around this I know that we have staff that was doing some research is this congruent with any staff recommendation or is this something that well we we asked the staff to tell us options and they gave this was included in the options so this was the options it was the well no no some of if I may I could give a little background on it so the the way it began um is we were having the conversation like last week right that uh eight of us wanted to look at potential ways to reduce the tax burden and so from there um council member barari and I asked specifically about particular departments Council barari asked about a broad uh budget overview for staff to come back and tell us options so they did that just meanwhile he was looking at particular options as was I and it just so happens that not just so happens it's there's only so many options in the budget we all pretty much came back with some version of similar options so what you see here on page five is what staff brought back to us which also happened to be the same places that we were looking uh so the differences that you'll see are to to what degree um uh do we want to impact those particular things yeah because I I wasn't a part of those conversations I have no idea what those conversations were we've been running like crazy this is this came in our packet um so everybody should have gotten the yeah that part but this part yeah okay so this part has been at the the it's been a working hot off the press okay Mr Jones would like to address I I can manage this okay he can he's going to take care of it so I would like for everyone to raise their hand for once and have a unanimous vote unless you really feel different about it the manager said he can manage this okay that's all right all in favor of the motion Miss Mayfield wanted to all right all in favor of the moot motion please raise your hands in favor of the motion in favor of the motion who anyone opposed all right we got one one opposition Mr Graham okay all right now we we we great job guys um and then finally from my list I don't know if folks are going to circle back to action a or not but from from from the list that I gathered from the various conversations um uh is this particular one around salary increase reduction so I'm going I'm going to pitch it but I I definitely don't want to misspeak or misrepresent the position so certainly would defer uh to some of my colleagues on this one but I'll go ahead as part of this process is is make the motion for for Action e yes for Action e um to reduce Merit pool for salaried employees from 4% to 3% do you have a motion have a motion you have a second do we and we have a second all right so um you see what's up there I I mentioned this to miss watlington and when she talked about this with me I don't know who the salaried employees are but I am very concerned when Miss may feel seconded and I am very concerned when we look at our salary and Personnel folks especially with issues around Child Care for Women workers these these things really often from my research is really impacts women more than it does than and so I I would hope that we are very carefully looking at this because I don't know that four you know we talk about the public the three to four could make a difference for a number of reasons that are going on right now so with that before we this one can we ask staff to leave now I I like those women over there you know so with that um Miss Mayfield had a and I do and Miss ashir thank you madam mayor so I would also like to share for clarification and Clarity when having this discussion for me personally we are specifically supporting the idea of salary we have employees that are at our hourly employees we're having a number of conversations regard in how to get them to a Equitable Place based on the city of Charlotte M just not even going through the whole list which I made some of my colleagues sit through but from 190,000 up to 305,000 are some of our salaries so a reduction of that one for for me no disrespect I love the work that our staff do they going to be all right to to a certain extent we have some of our hour a good a large number of our hourly employees that for me we have an opportunity to do something very different just based on the climate of what we have in our city I am not saying we are not doing a increase I just support the idea of us have we scrolled past it like where we on this thank you cuz even with glasses I'm like why do we lose it so even with looking at that pool from 4% to 3% thank you for us visually challenge people with glasses that I support the idea of us supporting our staff that 1% can contribute to our reduction but also can help us look at other ways that we can support our potentially our hourly staff and address the desire we have of not increasing taxes to uh level that is unsustainable knowing everything else that's going around from us so I appreciate you giving me the opportunity but again all of those salaries are out there it is a much longer list than that but I just say from $190 to $35,000 a year that 1% can make a greater difference for some of our lower paid employees that are at that 38 52 $47,000 range I just wanted us to take that into consideration thank you all right M ashir oh so so uh Mr manager um I know that you suggested that you should you would be able to come up with 1.1 million in total reduction from our operating would you be able to do the same for 945 945 th000 without without affecting our salaried employees maybe look at Travel I'm not sure uh catering whatever it is um I you but I I would like us to suggest that instead of um I I do want us to recruit and retain the best talent that we have like Ryan Bergman right um and all our strategy and budget staff and other amazing staff that we have so if we can find other ways Mr Jones I think the issue is it's a it's a I know I wondered if it's could you you yeah I I I'm trying not to push back on it at some point it it reminds me of a recent negotiation I just did um at some point if it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger it's real tough for for me to not cause pain in the organization and and that's a little bit of my concern so so you don't think this would be possible I'm not saying that I'm just saying that on let me just hear we were doing like a million one and I felt comfortable because worst case scenario I I don't do what's on the board but you still left it up to me to manage it if you asked me to cut five million out of this budget I would tell you I it's it's going to be some pain right so a million we can get keep ourselves together for 10 days but if you know when we start to go significantly above that and I'm just being candid with you um I I just don't want to have something that you really think is important that we don't do or we delay for 9 months or things like that but but again if this is 945 and this in where we are I don't want to push back so hard I just don't have you're not sure 100% so I think since Mr Joan is not certain 100% I I would like us to uh I would like Mr Jones to come back and tell us whether that would be some sort of what would be that amount like I if I can say something the uh I I think what the manager talking about with that million dollars and flexibility is that it's a small enough number that throughout the year we may be able to find opportunities that naturally happen the smaller it is I I I hope we don't create something where we have to come back in five days with a million or $2 million right yeah all right I know I have I have Miss I have the mayor protim Miss Johnson Mr Mitchell and Miss Brown all right May Pro yep thank you madam mayor and um again I just want to say that the exercise of going through and trying to extract waste or redundancy in the budget is extremely useful exercise especially given a tax increase and I've done this many many times throughout my career but what I I do want us to be careful of especially because we are we are talking about Personnel dollars and I know the manager was very amable to say hey I can try and figure out how to flex with a million dollars but eventually what what occurs is the work isn't going to be reduced we still have our priorities we still have all of the things that we're asking staff to do and eventually what's going to happen is instead of going out and and hiring someone that's talented and capable to do the work it's going to be outsourced to a consultant or uh we're going to bring somebody in at a third party which overall becomes much more expensive especially if it becomes a practice because I'm pretty sure that we're not going to say okay well we'll just push that deadline back 3 4 months on this major initiative because you really don't have uh enough space on your desk to do this work so I I just want us to I it's my personal belief that with this Personnel issue this is an operations um muscle and it should be left to operations we we as a as a uh board of directors should be providing instruction and intent but letting the operations directors and operations manager in this case the city manager make the decisions around how they're going to flex but the organization is already relatively lean we we've gone through various budget cycles and we're actually trying to increase pay for our all of our employees rather than identifying you know where there is there is fat or or waste so it's my inclination to allow the manager to continue running a very well run relatively lean operations because that is that is within his willhouse to do and for us as a board of directors to just provide some guidance around um potential decreases and percentages but I I don't I think we're getting into some dangerous territory where it's we're we're going to be a penny wise pound foolish at the end of the fiscal year so that's just my perspective thank you thank you thank you madam mayor Mr Mitchell U most of my colleagues know when we get on this top topic how I feel about uh government employees versus uh the public sector um I think our town employees are very underpaid and if they would leave and go to the private sector they would be compensated at a different rate um so I'm going stay true I I think the city manager has hired some outstanding people I think we are continue to reward them based on the value they bring not only to us but to our city and so uh my uh my colleagues know I've never been a fan of not rewarding uh hard work so I would not be supporting this uh all right uh this motion Miss John Miss Sorry Miss Johnson thank you Madame mayor just for the record we are not proposing any salary cut we're not proposing any salary cut even 3% or 4% we're simply saying congratulations you'll be getting a 3% raise this year thank you and that's for the salary employee salaried employees and this is a win-win situation we are trying to reduce property taxes and we're simply saying you're getting a 3% raise this year your salary is not being cut there's no layoffs none of that it's that's it so thank you a lot going on right Madam mayor can't keep up with everything it's a lot going on in the room today but it's very important um I would just like to say that I love the staff and what they do and their skill set I saw the salaries is public information they're paid their worth but I can't tell people you know what they value and their worth is but I also listen to the city sanitation workers that keep the city clean when they're downtown and they're picking up all the trash and they're making sure that our streets are clean and um the utility workers you know they need an increase as well so you know wherever we can try to make it work I'm going to always speak up for the blue collar worker you know we need to get them to a pay that's satisfactory where they can take care of their family some of them are homeless and they work for for us the city of Charlotte and make this city look good and so salary is a sensitive subject and if it's 4% and we can go to 3% and if that money is going to be used to our sanitation workers and the the guys that work or women that work on utility and water how can we guarantee that though we don't know that that's a guarantee and so you know Talent is talent and our workers work hard and the sun rain hell and snow so we know want to if that's a way that we can do that then I'm definitely going to be supporting that I I I don't think that we would not be able to do that but I'm going off of what you said uh councilman may you want to clarify please Madame may may I clarify so for what I was saying the salary workers a number of of the workers that you're mentioning is the exact reason why I say I'm supporting 4% to 3% as representative Johnson said yay you're getting a 3% raise because our higher in that are that 190,000 a year up to 305,000 are not our sanitation workers they are not the ones that's out there every day so they're not making that almost in over $200,000 a year that you need to work make in the city that's why I say I support and I'm wa it's disheartening that the conversation is becoming something other than what it is nothing is being taken away we're just saying let's forego that increase instead of four let's go to three just for salary employees and I gave the example of of which is out you can easily pull it up on the Char on data. charlot nc.gov which I've already shared on social media to look at what the salary are but our sanitation workers wait a minute yeah we we have got three conversations going on at the same time and I just want to make sure I think Miss Brown if you're asking if we didn't spend this that's I was clarifying what I was clarifying what I was asked okay yes ma' so that's why and I I am in total agreement with you that our workers that are out there a number of them are not in we have some opportunity to help grow their salary this when I look at our salaried employees and looking at 3% a 3% increase on 20000 plus th000 a year 300,000 a year versus a 3% increase on $446,000 a year two different conversations how can we help some of our lowest paid workers that's why I was saying I support instead of 4% 3% you're getting a 3% raise a lot of companies you get a 25 cent raise so I'm thinking 3% is great we just don't have to go to four but I appreciate that clar being able to clarify that cuz you and I on the exact same page we're thinking about some of our workers for the city that are most vulnerable and how can we help them while also helping them not have to pay more in taxes when you're not making enough on the front end thank you council member May for your clarification okay so I I for me with the clarification I will be supporting motion I will be supporting the motion okay Mr Jones would like to speak to this um because yeah let me just and and I've struggled with this a little bit uh terminology so salaried employees hourly employees administrative employees operational employees and I know Sheil is here I I miss Simpson I believe when we start talking about salaried employees as we Define it in the system you have individuals that are doing administrative functions and and maybe making $60,000 a year so I don't want you to have me I don't want you to implement something thinking one thing but it's really doing something else so we're talking about a couple thousand employees that some of them make $60,000 a year that would go from four to three all right so miss m responding to Mr manager thank you so much for that but we're not taking anything away from anyone that I don't support taking anything I said that when I first started speaking salary is very tender to me people you can't put a a a value on a person's worth and what they bring and their talents and their skill set I think I'm invaluable there's no price T that you can put on me so that means I can't be brought sold or told so I understand what we talk about when we talk about value I think I'm invaluable Irreplaceable as I think each and one of my colleagues feels the same way about themsel you know but I'm not trying to take anything away from anybody but if we can add to those that are most vulnerable that's what I was just speaking to council member Mayfield gave a complete thorough explanation as to what I was asking for my question I want to be crystal clear on that I'm not trying to take anything away from anybody when it comes to salary I would love to see everybody make their worth which you can't that's not going to Happ happen in the perfect world it would but I am very very concerned about blueco collar workers cuz I'm one and that was my my point and I'm going to leave that with an explanation point okay okay um I Mr D Madam mayor can I just ask a point of clarification because we we're having a a really great conversation but is this 9 945 648 number are we is the motion to reduce that percentage from four to 3% to be allocated to hourly workers no it's just simply to reduce to reduce this okay because there was a conversation around increasing hourly workers pay I'm just just okay goad mad just for background of what could happen but this is strictly just instead of four let's say three understand if we say three this is how much it can save all right right so now I'm going to address Mr DRS followed by Mr my understanding of this conversation is we're looking for ways to reduce the tax increase which means if we do this we're not finding other uses for that money uh it it's going to affect the tax increase that's that's what I understand what troubles me here is normally this conversation takes place in a data environment uh we have comparable compensation in other cities we have inflation we have private sector um and so we have an objective basis uh for for making a decision about this um I think it's unfortunate the 4% came out in the manager's budget and we're now talking about cutting it as if we were taking back something that maybe the employees thought they had that's a bad look in my mind even though I'm 100% on board with h a tax reduction whatever that represents .05 cents um so uh 04 and it would be great if we did have um again uh a justification one way or the other to say look this is what's going on in the industry this is what the private sector is experiencing here's what you get when you adjust for all the benefits and various other things that go with the job the job security and and so that we could have a an objective compensation excuse me um but as it is I I uh for the sake of 0.05 cents given the discount com Fort I have with a lot of other features in the budget uh you know trying to squeeze that out this way is something I have a hard time with okay Miss Molina followed by Mr Graham uh thank you Madame mayor so um I'd like to start by saying um I I do realize I was late um and I know that I actually was watching I'm a single mother and I have a responsibility to pick two kids up who are having exams this week so um I uh I just even even without that though I i' never even heard of this like I've not talk to a person I don't know what this is um and and even with the explanation it's really hard for me to get comfortable with making such an important what determination on the fly right um the the the position that we hold from my place of reference is that we are a board of directors we are not um we we don't Institute the the what we really instruct the how and right now we're getting into the what without any type of specification without any type of information to give us um like lending to what Mr dgg said something specific right what are we doing specifically how does this match up with the actual numbers in this 4 something billion dollar budget and and I think making these decisions on the fly like this is something that we're not doing responsibly I don't I don't feel comfortable with this and not to say that we don't need to make a reduction in full transparency I think when we say out loud to the average constituent who don't have the ability to see what we see that we're with the intention of cutting this for people who make more and then we say out loud that there is an intention to give it to people who make less when that's not an expressed uh decision that we're making then we're we're actually creating some level of false hope we're we're making somebody believe that if they make a certain amount that this amount is being cut so that we can save it here and give it to them and that is not what we're doing from what I'm understanding so I and and again that's from what's being said around the day that is not me saying that I've had any type of internal conversation prior to sitting down to to make this on the Fly adjustment um but I I definitely won't be supporting it for that reason because there's no way to really make a a a real determination as far as quantitative information is concerned to say we're cutting this to do what you know and just to say that we're doing it to cut and look I make what I make here this is my full-time position right so I make less than $25 an hour I am one of these people for real for real right so this ain't like a you know and I have a master's degree and a whole lot of Education I speak a few languages but that's totally different that's I still don't see the need to cut something without us having some specific details surrounding exactly what we're doing because right now we're digging into the how of the organization without having specific information and so I I I just I can't get com comfortable with it it doesn't make any sense right now Mr Graham I I think you took all my comments um you and Mr drgs um no certainly no one's advocating for a tax increase but as an organization for the last three years we've been very disciplined in terms of our budgeting and our forecasting and it was forecast uh to this Council almost a year and a half ago that that we had to at some point pay the price for a a growing city of the first conom a was basically all all infrastructure and we talked about infrastructure for the last year as a council I mean saying that we needed to do more and and now we're we were suggesting cutting it right so I I don't I I don't see the rationale other than to reducing the the tax rate um I'm sensitive to what's happening around me but this is being done in a vacuum with with with no forethought as a group or as a board of directors it's just trying to um lower the number and when you have a $4.4 billion budget proposed 05 is it's kind of minuscule all right we have a motion from Miss watlington second by um Miss Mayfield on the floor all in favor of the motion please raise your hands one two are you not voting for your own thing a facor of this process okay this is I'm sorry why are you we have a motion on the reduction of the salary for from 3 to four all in favor raise your hands one two all three four all opposed 1 2 3 4 5 six seven okay motion fails thank you all right um we I think we have one or two more items from the list that M watlington has created and I guess what it's we we just did the Merit pool now we're on to just e yeah yeah that um that Miss uh Madame mayor that concludes the four I just wanted to I know there was some conversation about circling back to a because of um a substitute motion so if we if from a process standpoint I need to asked to reconsider the motion or somebody there a motion Miss um from the to reconsider the motion okay thank you so what I don't know was the was there a motion may I miss watlington has asked the clerk if there was a motion that would allow for section A to do a line item change as a result of um the amount of money for for vision Zer was from 20 million to 10 million to reduce Vision Zer from 10 to 20 million I think that that did not pass the motion did not pass so I'm not sure what the request is procedurally um I know that council member eir was saying that she wanted to offer substitute motion but we were going we didn't have opportunity to do so so from a procedure standpoint what I'm asking is somebody on the winning side if they could reconsider consider the motion that way she would have an opportunity to offer up her substitute motion on option A because she wanted to get one in but we we never took a substitute motion for that so somebody on The Winning Side would it be to increase that no the first thing we have to do is to vote to reconsider that motion it needs to come from somebody on the winning side of that motion because it was voted down somebody who voted against it would need a matter of fact council member asir could do it herself because she voted against the motion you could move to reconsider that particular motion we would have to vote to reconsider it and if that passes then she could enter her substitute Motion in so Dr watlington I think the fact that we voted as we did on all of these items does not preclude another motion that's true one of them that's true too so we're not contradicting the action that we took we're now offering something new we can do it that way as well I think it would be easier if Miss s has a motion for this what your motion yes so so my motion so when we had option A there was a tie I was I did not support option A so what I'm proposing if you could just bring option A on the screen and just maximize the screen please yeah so all the items we can see option A I mean action a sorry action a so I support okay so I support reduction as is accept Vision Zero vision zero to keep it at $20 million because that is specifically to address traffic fatalities um so I do not want us to reduce that from $20 million the rest I can support the motion failed the motion fa so I don't if the motion is not is if the motion is failed the reconsideration you you guys this is like um so you have to make a motion I Mr I think we need to go ahead and figure out this out let's take a 10-minute break everybody take a break and then we'll confer with the attorney because I'm not quite sure um what very right there he's an attorney right okay and so so you're saying the let's take a break and [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] can we call our meeting back to order from the recess please I think that we were passing out um a Communications for the council members let's go ahead and get started we have now I want to recognize Miss asira do we have one two three four we have enough missme you recognized yes ma'am thank you Madame mayor so I just want us to go back to option A so I'm making a separate motion so if you can yeah perfect thank you so everything on this list minus reduction in Vision zero and future city facility capacity so those two items should be removed and the rest I support she said I would just want to make sure when you are saying um the CIP reductions it's the Strategic investment areas you would like not to be let me let me just restate my motion okay so we have option A here if you can just pull that item here so everyone can see on the screen please the other PDF okay great so you all remember we had uh we had a big increase in this year's budget for our CIP dollars and part of that funding came from a property tax increase which is a penny and a half and we all know that we are trying to find ways to tighten our belts and trying to find ways to reduce the tax burdens on some of our most vulnerable members of our community such as renters those who who live in neighborhoods that are highly gentrifying so we have an obligation to figure out tax reduction that will alleviate some of this pain so what I propose out of this option action a that we take out line item for vision zero we take out line item for future city facility capacity um because that directly addresses the fatalities and time is of the essence I do not want us to reduce Vision zero bucket and the future city facility capacity um we are looking at options alternative options for animal care and control that council member Brown had advocated for so so with those two line items um if we remove that that will take out $10 million so we are looking at $65 million in Total Bond reduction in 2025 so you are 2024 you reducing the bond referendum that was recommended yes to change from the um I can't see which side is the from 75 million to 65 million but you you changing the vision Zero Sum from 20 million to 10 million no I'm not saying that things don't change oh yeah so you're reducing you're pulling out the Strategic investment areas you're reducing Mr JS can you can you please okay and this is not ADV expain going that list except not cutting two items that M Miss hashir wants to be excluded so you're looking at everything other than those two lines that you see on that list and that's so not the $10 million do not include that can we keep that up please yeah that would be easier if we can just keep that I I just want to make sure when we started out with this um I I thought the motion was approved or was not approved with that with one change in it the elimination and then you're just but then this would I just want to make sure that we're not impacting the bond referendum um as a reduction that's what I'm so we are so to Total Bond reduction $65 million yeah but that 100 million for housing still in there okay I got it okay that's a motion Mr Mitchell mayor let let me be very uh very clear on the Total Bond so we talking about the original affordable housing Bond of 100 100 million you're now suggest reduce that to 65 million no no I'm suggesting I'm not changing anything on housing B refer let's separate all I'm suggesting yes the 75 million Bond reduction that was proposed by council member watlington that was supported by five council members that was a tie so what I'm saying is that instead of 75 million reduction I'm proposing that we have 65 million in reduction all I'm is all I'm doing is not reducing Vision zero CU that time is of the essence because that directly impact addresses fatalities on the road elate City yeah but that doesn't have a line item because that's just the capacity in 26 to 29 what about the children on the Walking the sidewalks you were concerned about Madam clerk can you read the motion from the action a CIP reductions she was concerned about the children of the sidewalk Miss azir's motion yes no no not the one that was app acted on by the council can you read what the one that Miss Wallington the original motion okay hold on one moment I can't the one that got to pull it didn't there wasn't one that got approved can we just let her read it first she they approv okay so that motion uh moved by Miss watlington seconded by Miss Johnson was to accept the items from action a with the exception of the last one so it was the last one that was written up there and the V you want the vote as well yes and what was the vote the vote was a tie so for the yays we had Mayfield barari watlington Brown and Brown and Johnson and the Nays were Driggs Graham Anderson azir and Mitchell okay so what I'm want to make sure that we're doing and what I I think we're saying is that the these items were not to be reduced as a part of the budget and ex with the exception of um taking eliminate future city facilities and now we're adding Vision zero um no the items are going look okay I will I'll restate it all she's asking for is to accept these selections these changes to these changes to the bond if it's not on this list it stays as is so for example for housing at 100 million it's not on this list to be changed so it is not impacted the two that council member asir is saying to take off of this list is the second item Vision zero and the last item which is that facility capacity so she I understand I want is there any other adjustment to this item um the last this so this would be um what's left would be um our investment areas the corridors of opportunity and the sidewalks so on this item Miss Molina thank you Madame mayor so I I realized that I wasn't here for this vote so obviously I'm going to highly affect this vote and I need to know a few things so we say we're going to you know hypothetically reduce $5 million from the corridor which Corridor whose Corridor that does matter it matters because we're saying we're going to take $5 million away from it for something else um and my you know uh my initial question would be what what are what are we not doing now right what are we not doing as a result of this we're going to take 25 million away from the Strategic investment areas that have been previously proposed which Strategic investment areas who now and I represent East Charlotte and the people that I'm represent right now are pretty pissed and so if you try to start taking more stuff away from us we probably going to set up outside um it's just this this I it the rationale not that I don't get the idea of being lean but who is going to suffer who is the person who is the group of people in this city now who can't get their piece of this pie I can't support that on the Fly who who look there's no such things as winners and winners right now we're choosing inevitably winners and losers and so if we're reducing $25 million in Strategic investment areas that people have had a whole year to come up with and where they wanted to invest it so they got to now go back to the table with $25 million less and they got to decide who is going to lose lose right and that's that's a problem on the Fly today never even having seen this before to say that I'm going to support that one I don't even know where it's going to come from makes absolutely no sense um and then the corridors of opportunity these are already underinvested areas in the damn city right can we cut that out I mean I'm serious I'm these are undeveloped these are areas that already have not had investment and we going to cut $5 million just because we say that that's going to put money to put somewhere else and we just seen it today who going to lose who losing right I I don't want it to be East Charlotte cuz I'm going be in everybody office if it's e Charlotte right so no I won't support it this makes no sense I'm done so I want to um is there any response to M Molina's on how we would make decisions around this is there any has been has there been any thought as we talk about the reductions about how we would make them Mr Graham any thought but I just want to Echo her comments as being correct I mean a lot of these are items that the manager heard through the last year relating to infrastructure and things that we wanted to do uh children walking to school with no sidewalks we need we we need sidewalks right and now we're going to cut sidewalks we got these playbooks for the quarters of opportunity that we're getting ready to implement other than District in District two and three and four and five and now we're going to reduce that uh we talked about infrastructure for Strategic investment areas we got this nice book we we got right that I'd say was more um fantasy than than reality and so it's it's fantasy now because we're taking another 20 and even $55 million was not enough right to fulfill the obligations of the infrastructure but it's a start and so we're going to take 25 minutes um million from it because um because right and so I get the reduction to I don't want to raise taxes I'm not here advocating for that I'm advocating for building a a city that hadn't had an increase in terms of we can't expect no M to invest in Charlotte if we're not willing to invest in ourselves and we hadn't done that in six years and what we're doing now is just looking for p panes nickels and dimes and I guess we'll reduce the tax rate that's fine but we'll be back here again mark my word doing the same thing uh trying to talk about the increase of the tax rate so my and as I told council member Wallington when we spoke last night uh I supported the manager's recommendation as it was submitted I'm willing to make minor modifications along the way these are not minor modifications these are impacting operations imp impacting our ability to fund infrastructure projects impacting um our quality of life for those who live here and it's a balance I get it the count is raising taxes the sales tax has nothing to do with these the these conversations at all from my perspective I don't care what folks and Raleigh think right I really don't um in reference to our business here locally and this is not the way you do it but hey at 5 o' when the minis injour I get to go home thank you okay um I have the mayor protim followed by Mr DS thank you mad me m mayor I'm sorry oh I'm sorry can I do this T was first and then mayor protim then Ed yeah I I just here's a I I I feel as much tension as we have in this room we've had other tensions that are different I think this is super positive what we're doing right now I think this is one of the most special different conversations than I've ever been a part of in a budget process and I think it is important and I think what will happen here is we all realized oh this is how we do it this is how we do it and and my hunch is we will never have just the same old budget process again after this we may not accomplish everything here but this is an important step and essentially what this is is a hybrid zerob based budgeting approach something that is super hard to do and I think we found a shortcut we in a week and a half we got there um and then I I think that the second piece is to this at any year but especially a year where we have one of the more significant tax increases proposed this is what a lot of taxpayers expect out of us they expect the several members of this body for a week and a half an over Memorial Day weekend that spent countless hours working and trying to figure out Solutions where we didn't have to do that and they expect uh us to spend two and a half hours of a meeting one time a year when we're about to Levy a tax on them did we actually try did we expend all options so we may not walk out with everything I started with this and then miss watlington started carrying the torch and working with several of you to get but I think there's a huge huge Silver Lining to this and I would just say um Miss watlington kudos to you because your hard work over the weekend and your time and preparation just effectively reduced taxes for the first time in Charlotte's modern history and that is not to be understated and then finally I just wanted to answer Miss Molina's question which I think is a great one and and I think the actual answer is that's got to be figured out and who wins and who loses but someone's going to lose in all these scenarios but I think that the the other cell relying to all of this stuff is we have very good odds that the sales tax with all the work the private sector the MTC the towns all those folks have done is brought up in the short session but I believe and I believe this in my heart this is not some kind of hey do this because of this my true belief is this there's 10% odds of it making it through caucus and successfully passing in the short session if we do nothing other than what we've done and I think we jump up to 70% odds sending a message so to Mr Graham's Point yes there's a lot of steps and yes there's a hundred different ways this could fall apart but we have never gotten this far and it's it's about going all in there and to your point Miss Molina there are going to be winners and losers in the short term but this is part of a broader strategy instead of slicing and dicing up 33.7 million new dollars which is a drop in the bucket and nothing actually gets done we have a shot at chopping up20 billion dollar for our roads for our rail for our transportation system for our sidewalks so I I would just say well if you're feeling frustrated about this I felt frustrated in a lot of our meetings and even with losing most of all of my votes and proposals I think this is something we should all be really proud of because we're going to change the way we do business in this city from this point of clarification I want to make sure that I'm clear I had no again no one is called my phone to talk about this so I don't know who did what this the first time I ever laid eyes on it so it it's great to know that this was your implementation not I didn't call anybody okay yeah cuz I got I got three cell phones and then none of them ring with this information I knew nothing about it over the last week and a half and I think that point I'm sorry to interrupt I think that point is this is the lesson we've learned which is this is how budget workshops two months ago and three months ago need to happen next year and the year after and it's about us showing the the manager and staff that there's a way and we are willing to do it and interested and we have time so this is not about this year's win it's about next year's win so I think the question is if it's not about Miss Molina's point was if it's not about this year then we why not keep it as is because there's going to be some idea of winners and losers and something that we've outlined I I'm I'm hope I'm saying that consistently with what she is saying so you know we're taking out Vision zero and and I'm how do you take out or change or decision- making around the others I think that's the point so it's kind of all right let me go May mayor mayor protim thank you Madame mayor and you know I do agree with Mr barari that there there's an expectation from our constituents that we have the this level of granular conversation around budget um however I don't believe that this is the time to do so especially given that we've gone through our budget work workshops we had allocate at that time to have these types of conversations um and this is I am not against any any type of discussion like this but in the final hour of where where we're supposed to be with our budget with no no need no no um no requests to modify the various budget workshops that we had in the past Etc you know we are talking about um reducing sidewalk investment and we probably spend 15% of our time on Council talking about the lack of sidewalks how to get investment for sidewalks the importance of sidewalks kids walking to school on roads being exposed to uh increase vehicular um incidents we we've spent the 15% uh probably throughout the year talking about that and the manager has clearly been listening and so there's an increase in sidewalk and yet we're going to reduce it and pull it right back down to where where it is the same thing with corridors the same thing with with vision zero these are all areas that we all as a council for the the vast majority of us care about in some way shape or form and advocate for an increase uh because we're hearing that from our constituents and yet um we're we're going to take an action on something where some board members haven't even seen this information at all or any of these recommendations I I just believe this is not the right space to do this in I do believe this is the right conversation I wish this would have occurred in the various budget workshops that we had and I I invite the conversation I'm not against it but I this should have ha occurred in those spaces and now it just feels as if we are we're deciding whether we're going to uh provide a 4% increase to some of our salaried employees who work in operations you our our constituent relations department are salary they make nowhere near $190,000 a year right and so we're impacting um people's livelihoods with these recommendations that are are good and thoughtful but at the fin at the 11th hour so I I really and truly feel like we are in a situation where the county has increased taxes year after year after year uh on on a on a fiveyear window the county has increased taxes we have done an incredible job to not do so even coming out of uh a pandemic uh but Charlotte residents are mlber County residents so they're feeling those increases and they're not they're not quite sure if it comes from the city or comes from the county and if last year when we had this discussion many of us said we're going to have to do an increase we're going to have to swallow that pill it's going to be bitter we should have done it last year but okay we're going to do it this year and there's a there's a thoughtful process to go about this um and again I don't we're all Charlotte residents we I don't want my taxes to go up either but as a growing city this is one of those decisions I truly feel like so many cities throughout the US have made bad decisions around how to manage and handle growth and it has impacted their growth trajectory in a negative way we can go down a list and and name at least three four or five of those cities and this is a space where we have to make a tough decision about our growth that's UND deniable and and ensure that we are bringing the services that residents want that we hear about that we discuss on a monthly level we're going to have to make those decisions and if we if we if we make the the wrong decision or the suboptimal decision based on a concept of being Pennywise and pound foolish while taxes are going up for in mecklinburg County we're going to f the we're going to feel the brunt of that so I just want us to have that full view of the Arena the the playing field that we're on we're going to feel the brunt of this if we don't make the right decisions around this so that's that's my perspective Madame mayor thank you all right Mr DRS so followed by Miss Molina I I agree with Mr bikari that uh it's really valuable that we did some soul searching that that we challenged this budget that we looked at it hard uh that we satisfied ourselves uh and uh but I I think my position has been pretty clear which is um we are if you look down the road we're setting the stage for more tax increases so uh what I wanted to see was a fundamental alignment of a future of of Taxation with the spending um and I'm afraid we're going to be right back here next year if we squeeze anything out of this tax increase you know having to find that money again because if we aren't ready to uh adjust our trajectory all the needs from the Udo all of the other stuff that's going on um so uh in that sense when I look at this particular item I'm in favor of cutting but at the same time I will not support taking $30 million out of sidewalks in order to defend spend an increase to $100 million of Housing and I've said a number of times I think the housing program is a very valuable program but if we're going to do that we need to be upfront with the city about what it costs in terms of other things that we aren't doing in terms of the money we have to raise in order to service that debt we can't try to create the impression that we're delivering all these benefits and they don't need to worry about the pain that goes with that and uh so that's that's my kind of basic position uh uh uh on the sidewalks in in particular I mean 50 million is actually in relation to the need that we've identified a pretty poultry amount right you go down to 20 and you've basically told everybody that's out there waiting for a sidewalk to just you know move to somewhere else uh and I've been through this because of a couple of sidewalks I tried to get and I was told that the waiting list was such that the kiken doll and other places were on a never never I was able I'm grateful I was able to get a few million dollars kind of Cobble together on an irregular basis but structurally our road resurfacing program our sidewalks and the nuts and bolts of the city uh are being sacrificed in order to do the housing and not raise taxes so somewhere we have to get back into alignment where the cost of what we're doing is is more uh apparent to the people and we all know that when we raise taxes the pain falls back on a lot of the same people we're trying to help so we're robbing Peter to pay Peter uh and therefore on this particular issue because of the sidewalks and the housing and so on uh I am not going to support cutting these items even though I would love to see us achieve a more balanced reduction in the tax increase and I did want to clarify to Mr BK's comments we have not achieved a reduction in taxes what we're talking about here is reducing the increase in taxes is that effective did I not I don't know what you mean by that effective the effective increase or decrease look look man just continue I I'm just saying I don't I don't want the word to go out there that we're cutting taxes uh we we are we are talking about reducing the increase in taxes uh and which is not to say it's not commendable and I appreciate the effort but the TR appreciate your clarification that the tax rate is going to go up uh it's an important point because people hear something like we achieved for the first time in history a redu effective tax reduction what part of that definition does it make sense actually I'm sorry I'm an economist and I will tell you it doesn't make sense to much of anybody okay uh uh effective tax reduction people think it's going down and the truth is that we are not achieving something that we never have in history because the tax rate is going to go up I just want us to be clear about that um okay so that's where I am I'm not going to support these cuts for those reasons thank you okay Miss Molina um thank you Madame mayor I just uh I also wanted to make sure that I'm clear and saying um you know we do this especially with this vote being our adjustments right we have a different audience right our audience is Broad there are humans that have not been a part of this entire process who are watching our conversations right now they're getting the tail end of some of us saying yes to something that they may not understand some of us saying no to something that they don't have a full scope description on um right now they're hearing us choose on the Fly winners and losers I I don't on the surface disagree with this being a robust conversation in the future right I do not disagree with us trying to make our city a fair place for as many people as possible right I I will never disagree with that um but but on the contrary I feel like to make these decisions right now when first there's only been a few that are privy um and that's you know I I I come from the old school thought of caucusing right all of us don't have direct relationships with each other but some of us have relationships with others so I know if I can pick up the phone and talk to a few of my colleagues I'm going to call them and the ones that I can't just like with eastand and um you know Dr watlington I I knew that there were certain people that I wouldn't be able to talk to for that particular vote and I knew that she would be the person who could do that so she done that and she done it effectively and she done done it well but that's what I feel like it would take in order to make these types of adjustments and everyone understand what's going on instead of finding out about it on the Fly and so if it's if I have the ability to I'd actually like to make a substitute motion since again I wasn't here right um I I do not want to support this um I I don't want to support this adjustment so I make a motion a substitute motion to not support these reductions in the CIP okay um I think all of us have had an opp opportunity but Madam mayor we we have a substitute motion on the table I know we have a substitute motion and I don't think we can have a substitute until a substitute and so but we can have another Mo substitute I'm I'm sorry I missed the sub so I thought you were a new one I I didn't even understand what was going on when you I thought y' had already voted it down and so was there a substitute for the is that a substitute is it I thought we we didn't do a substitute that we gave miss ashmir the ability to make a motion I thought she made a motion correct made a motion correct and so she made a brand motion so m is a subtitute motion she you can do a substitute motion absolutely point of order Madam chair yes U Can we ask the City attorney the isn't her substitute the same as what we voted on and what what you broke the tie on it's the same issue no you you gave her permission when after the break M um ashir said I'd like to have a new motion specifically for the um Vision zero and the I think what was the other one miss asir it's a substitute your motion is subtitute so it is a subst is it is it a substitute or is it a motion it's a substitute motion cuz hers was a new motion yes if you want to make a substitute yes and M so can we get clarification from the attorney because if she's making a motion to deny attorney you said Miss Johnson let's just go ahead and do that so my understanding is that Miss as's motion is a new motion and not a substitute motion uh a substitute would be an order however I would recommend that a substitute to not do the motion that's on the floor it may be best to Simply vote that motion down okay let's so I'll I'll kindly retract mine and we can go ahead and vote what what's on the floor okay so the mo to move um the re the vision Zero from 20 to which amount Mrs mayor 10 can you bring that screen up well what what Marie has is everything from the screen that survive these are the only changes of the motion yeah these are the things that are adopted for the vote for the bond referend No the the motion is exactly is to reduce Strategic investment areas from 55 to 30 reduce corridors from 25 to 20 reduce sidewalk from 50 to 20 eliminate the 5 million so the first numbers of all those was the proposed budget the second number is what happens if you approve her motion okay so the question to miss ashme is to include Vision zero no it's just to accept what's on that board that's all cuz you know every time y'all do that I hear two people three people and I cannot understand who who's talking I know the shaking of the head but I'm just trying to say yeah don't say anything about Vision zero it remains untouched so if it's not on the board then it remains as per the recommended budget all she's asking for is to make these adjustments so if it's not on the board it stays the same okay so we have a motion that say States I want to make sure that on the board if can you go to the top box before so we can see so this was the [Music] original original was okay I think the most important part of it is that we're taking out the um strategic no we're taking out the vision reducing Vision Z to 20 to 10 10 million is that correct no ma'am taking it out we'll see now I'm confused then yes you are yes okay this is what's happening okay can we all get this one so let me see if I can I can help out okay so this action a the CIP reductions which was voted down now it's back on the table with two changes from the original one is Vision zero will not be included in this Motion in this vote and neither will eliminate future city facility capacity which is in the out years but that was already voted and eliminated before on the last vote so we're only doing one which is to take Vision zero off the ballot is that correct yeah we're not reducing if I can just step in you guys are saying the correct things it's just one of those things that it's right from both directions if you're looking at it always good to know if you're looking at it from the list of action a is everything on this list except Vision zero where there's no changes and except the future capacity where there would be no changes but if you're looking at it as what gets reduced from the proposed budget it's only the things on the screen are the 255 30 and five in in that cell but this is what happened when you work on the Fly 65 the the bonds would be 335 million rather than 400 million that's right okay now now that means a choice of whether or not you want to take reduced Vision zero no to no zero stays the same the same the the vote is around reducing Strategic investment areas from 55 million to 30 million reducing corridors of opportunity from 25 million to 20 million reducing the sidewalk Pro program from 50 million to 20 million and eliminating 5 million for center city transportation improvements that's what we're voting to do remove that's right those things to have those on the ballot for voting this fall everybody good on that okay now why is that different than the first motion that we just that we just first one the first one had let's just do do we we have Clarity on that yes we do right all in we're all aware so it I don't know that we need a motion or do we just because of this okay yeah all right all in favor wait no she withdrew it because she because we can just vote this one down okay all right so all in favor of the change in the motion please raise your hand okay we have 1 2 3 4 five six okay see passes all opposed one two three four five I think I understand what you got okay is why I knew so okay Ryan what does that 10 m million dollar change result in from the 0.14 reduction it's now what so you mean the $65 million change yeah now just yeah what's the number it's uh 0787 is is the total change from this one action so we at total change do we have that that amount give me one sec so 0.128 from the two things that have been approved really so so as it stands right now before anything else the revised rate would be 1372 down from 1.5 yep that's 13 cents 12 I me not 1313 yeah 0113 cents so I guess the question well no no okay I just I lo I beg you pardon I'm sorry May I'm just I got revised except my apologies what this is revised this isev okay we don't always get what we want in this world I beg your pardon M we don't always get what we want in this world 78 God all right so I can go back to criminalization now we're going back to the items that we have there's the remainder I don't think we have any other items on the from M this money too now we're going to add all this money too mad May so there are no other items to be chosen for this m mayor from this page is that right Miss Miss watlington correct thank you okay so now Madame mayor there's one other one that was number two on the original list on this page is not from Miss watlington or Miss Dr watlington or bari's um thing but this one right here Ray calendar it was from barari from the original from May 20th oh yeah this is a this would be an enhancement not a reduction I think you were saying there's no more reductions right say that again this would be an ad not a reduction oh yes yes so there is still a property tax increase it's just lesser not necessarily now right right so I believe what's still remaining are the adjustment items that we had from last week that we need to cover does everybody have a copy of those that is page is that mayor is that page starting page eight that we're talking about page that's starting page eight Madame mayor [Music] okay all right budget requested budget adjustment so I want to start off with the items that we have so I wondered if have we sent this out or giving this to anyone can you post this up um yes so as we were working through the number of items that we had for nonprofit organizations for Workforce Development operations and for additional equipment and supplies for cmpd we looked at this um and working with several members of the council um we grouped them by the purpose and intent the first one was pretty easy um Miss um Workforce Development miss ashmir last at the last meeting said let's pull all the Workforce Development items out then we looked at all the other items that were nonprofit items that were addressed or invested and then we had also Mr barari suggested some ideas for the police department it was a suggestion from Mr Mitchell and Miss Mayfield on the film black Film Festival um as well as I think I'm missing one which was the part in the teacher Village I believe that was one as well so we have some that are singular but I wanted to um suggest a way that we could address this perhaps with less pain and Agony okay so good luck all of us know that there's arpa funds that are remaining in the city all of us know that these are opportunities that various what members of the council said these are things that I believe in and there's the staff has not had the time to actually do any more than just help organize this information so in order to address this without a lot of [Music] um of go back and forth we looked at those groupings and decided that it might be appropriate to actually fund these organizations from ARA funding so that would be the first decision that we would fund them from the ARA funding that we would fund them up to an amount that would allow the staff to begin to look at what they are doing doing and then have a midyear report on them and an understanding so it's not to say that if you ask for a lot of money we would actually say to you um we're going to give you an amount and then we'll have time to actually develop criteria and information and all of those things that we have not had the time to do so for the suggestion was that that everyone in the Workforce Development Group reive $100,000 of arper money and the next group the additional nonprofit organizations again another $100,000 excepted those groups asked for less than this less money than that so you can see where um stiletto was 77,000 and save our children was 34,000 and then the next item was the cmpd information that was about the shoot active shooter kits the out carrier vest the B IC Shields which are total of now I think $250,000 is that correct Marie do sound right1 241 thank you 241 for 450 and then the final one I'm sorry no that's not correct okay Sor I have a $500,000 request in outer carrier vests that I will well actually I I I need to address each one of those one at a time okay but the original proposal is still what stands I don't know how got Zer it out okay doesn't matter I'm going to address it so the other one was we read the document on the litter cleanup and it's basically a job training program for people that are coming out of incarceration and they do this work and so this would add a crew if we added the 250,000 and that would add a crew to that and that was under um Miss Johnson's request on the black Film Festival we suggested that we also again give them $100,000 boom 100 ,000 to be consistent all of this is the idea that Miss Air's committee has the um responsibility for a really deep intense look at how do we address um external candidates that come to us and say we can help you be better help us do the work and so miss asir has taken that with her committee and we would actually try to ask them to do that work in the next um six months so that we would be prepared or actually lot shorter time than that if they could get it during the fall so that we would be prepared to talk about what our criter criteria are as well as everything else so unless I'd like to say are there questions about this and um we'll try to work through it Miss Mayfield thank you madam mayor and thank you for the work that you and others did with this since this we don't have this in front of us this is new I just want to get some clarification what staff presented to us on page 13 when I so when council member Mitchell and myself identified Charlotte black film festival and I asked a specific question of what that fall under hospitality and tourism staff came back that it actually is a legally eligible use of Tourism funding and gave us a idea of how to move forward with it how we move forward basically saying one consideration would be for the organization to provide expected impacts local and tourism related and the description of how the city's funding will be utilized I'm think you that's moving forward I'm trying to understand how the dollar amount that we identified the 287 was for these particular hospitality and tourism pieces how those how that got reduced to 100,000 well basically we looked at it as this was a two-year request as I Mr Mitchell help me if I get it wrong it was the that the film commission or black Film Festival was for two years and so we were doing this to address the one year that we would have for all of these organizations and so that's how it became that but we also know that if if it is something that we can do with additional funds from the tourism that they could go there and we would say to them please go and see how that works but so that would not that could be an addition to our 100,000 and then moving the conversation through what's the name of the film there's a we fund or crva has a film so they would go and ask them we would do that film commission right cuz have a film commission so I'm just trying to make sure that I have Clarity in what we're talking about today I'm not a fan of the idea which we kind of set ourselves up with the one-time funding unless we're extremely clear CU we have some partners that reive onetime funding but are now back so I just want to make sure moving forward when I made the recommendation for to be from hospitality and tourism what you have recommended that we have on the screen is that that $100,000 actually comes from our interest um from the arpa dollars and we're going to have a conversation regarding hospitality and tourism since it is a legally eligible use for tourism well that was in the prior discussion I just want to have clarification that we that that's what I'm listening that's what I'm hearing today so thank you madam mayor okay all right yes online item over there number 36 it does say it's from tourism and Hospitality fund those so I'm sorry 27 and 28 will be out of Tourism fund based on what's on there is that correct Mr Burgman so when we were answering this we segregated them to be these are the ones that we we think they're eligible you could use Hospitality tourism but I think what the mayor is saying is that this is arpa interest for for it at this point one time but one time got it so if it's eligible for a tourism fund and I do see that in our notes I'm not sure why we are using our arpa fund which has its discretionary funding that we could use potentially for other sort I I think the manager would like to address that Miss ashir uh and and so and I'm may have uh Tracy Dots and a tag in the concept is just because it's eligible let's just don't force it today is there an opportunity for them to go through a process right and but if I have this correct mayor the concept would be use some of the arpa interest to at least make the commitment and to miss Mayfield's point if there's an opportunity for funds over and above that at least the council has made a commitment initially through the arpa funds and still having the opportunity for these entities to go through the tourism process okay um generally we thought that this might be um the best and most Fair Way that and now there's I should say Equitable way for this the only other thing that um we have is that we've um the mayor protim and I had a great deal of conversation with the workforce Housing partnership with the teacher Village and the CMS had asked us for a million dollars and those fees would be covering the things that they're doing to prepare for the village they are not going to be shovel ready until March but they have Architects and things like that that are would they s say that they need to have the income to do that so so this million dollars that we have here um we talked with them about what does this mean for our own employees and I talked with the school board chair and I she was here she probably got so entertained that she had to leave um so when I talked with her the discussion was if you're doing this palot program which would be for the first $1 million from the from the city that as they build additional V villages on school property which is Their donation the County's also doing that those Pro those rental units or for sale units would be open to our employees as well so that would be the commitment that we would make um by giving them the first $1 million we would have a mill we would have they they are going to come back they're going to come to the housing Bond if we get it approved by the council they're probably going to come back for $3 to4 million and I see people shaking heads or nodding or whatever but they will be coming back to this for our first round if we continue to do the um work of the Housing Trust Fund as is just expect that to be the case but that was the the negotiation that I had with the school board chair so they would get be given that $1 million all right yes thank you Madame mayor so first let me just thank Ryan Bergman maray and the entire team for creating this really comprehensive Q&A in a week I strongly appreciate it I had an opportunity to take this on my vacation and study this U but you know on here on page where it says that let me just point to yeah me just see on the okay okay Mr Bergman if you can help me find that on specifically Workforce Development um I mean it's on page eight yes thank you so on page eight under onetime cash expense I see that they have not finalized a proposal or made a formal ask from the city and that I had a conversation like yourself with chairwoman Stephanie sne earlier today and I understand the work that they are doing to recruit and retain teachers um certainly I think it's a great idea to support the workforce um but I I would like us to review a proposal and have them submit a formal ask uh so that uh and I know that the housing and Safety Committee is looking at how do we spend our 100 million Housing Trust Fund so if you're looking at a comprehensive um if you're looking at comprehensively all the proposals uh we will be able to really um look at all the proposals that we are getting because we also got to be mindful that we need Workforce housing for our own employees like Solid Waste solid water I mean it breaks my heart every time we have the budget public forum we have someone from Solid Waste tells us that he can't afford to live in our city and he's paying he's living or staying in a motel having to pay $400 $500 per week uh I we got to make sure that we invest in our own housing and collaborate with our partners so I I just I support their ask however I would like us to go through the process uh where committee reviews it and so I had that conversation with the chair and we agreed on that so that was not questioned by her because they will have to apply to the trust fund and that would go through the same process so that was not concern the million dollars however was an immediate cash flow need for design and various um construction things that they thought that we would support but it's certainly up to the council to decide if they want to do the million dollars or not so it's available but it's I just gave you the information that she gave me so to follow so this million dollar would not be from Housing Trust Fund it would be from the general fund is that correct it would be from ARA fund arpa fund so have we considered have we actually looked at have we ever provided design funding to any of our other partners like for an example Faith partners that actually provide land donations have we ever done this for them where we would not ask them to go through the process and we would provide uh funding just for design have we done that in the past I I I think Sean we be best to answer that question about the past but what they have said is that the they would like for us to support that kind of effort at as a part of the school board and the issue that we brought up was well what about our employees this is for the pallet project and then what would happen as a result of this is that they would go through the process for the REM if they want additional funding from us which they will so Mr could you address my question have we ever done that in the past um where someone donated the land and we provided design funding um by all means let me just say I support the teachers because my daughter will be starting at CMS soon and I do want the best teachers for her and her peers uh but I just want to make sure we are following the process and what what kind of precedent we would be setting if you're not following this process that we have I see you Sean's about to reply I'm not aware that we've done anything exactly like this I don't mean to be dismissive about it I'm just not aware and if director Hefner is in the adjacent room and is aware of anything that we've done that resembles this I'd certainly invite her to weigh in I I I think maybe we should check Little Rock yeah I think that might be one but I'm not sure I just recall that so just look at it and see and we can get that additional information before we can decide to take a vote on this now Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor I support the line of questioning of council member asir one I want to make sure we're not setting a precedent for something that could hurt Us in the end too we have a process that process I do believe that we need to stick with with having an actual application I'm not comfortable with us identifying this money through arpa we just spent the last 3 hours going over some potential reductions that for needs that we have so I am more in line with the idea of any excess op going to addressing the needs that our city of Charlotte residents have I also had a conversation with chairwoman sne I like the idea I shared with her I wish this Quest conversation was not started right now I wish it had not been introduced into this space she didn't know that it was going to be introduced in this space at this particular time which caused some challenges yet I think it could be a good idea down the road but we got to have and there she back she went and got the back we got to we got to have a process in place that is a clear process because what I'm concerned about is other development partners that we have out there then looking to us and saying well we also are going to need this and you did it here what that can potentially do we are going to have a lot of conversations over the next few years in faith and housing we're going to have quite a few of those partners coming to the table and potentially saying well X didn't have to go through a process why are you telling me I need to go through through a RFQ or RFP process just to keep it consistent so that idea of questioning I support I also want us to and I'm going to always go back to this everything needs to go through our attorney's office if we're saying we are we may very well make a commitment based on a future Commitment if it's not en writing it's not real so unless we have some very clear language that identifies that here is the window and then this window this next development that is happening on land that we have no control over that there it is in writing that our team who we're responsible for are going to have first wrer refusal first access however the language is that clarifies it vers unfortunately we're all on two maybe fouryear Cycles things can change in a 4-year period which we've already seen and if it's not contractually identified somewhere it may get lost in translation because the development can take anywhere from 3 to 7 years to come out the ground so that would be the addition that I will ask if we're going to seriously consider this that our attorneys are having a conversation with their attorneys to have very clear language um expectations of if say yes we do this investment this is the expectation so that there's no miscommunication or misunderstanding when that next time comes around okay mayor proam thank you Madame mayor and um I appreciate the um conversation I certainly think that this is a unique opportunity for us to address an issue that we all know exists which is Workforce housing within Charlotte North Carolina and all of our all of our civil servants our teachers included uh bear the brunt of not being able to live close to where they work and some of them are forced to live outside of the city and to your point some of them are are have unstable housing and um it it breaks my heart too that that when we have public forums we hear from not only city workers but just workers in general who don't have access um to proper housing that's clean and safe which is why I believe that this is an initiative that we absolutely should support it's a it it's not a regular process of just bringing on affordable housing it's a it's a new model of looking at how can CMS and the county and the City of Charlotte work inter governmentally to address in a targeted manner subsets of our civil servants with the teachers being in the first wave um but a commitment in Miss Mayfield if you know I completely agree if there's a way to codify the commitment that in second wave that it's um that it's city workers uh we're of course we're worried about our city workers but uh accounting workers that's been that's been stated as the intention but if there's a way to codify that absolutely for that but this is an opportunity for us to tap into land that's unused and to to stand up a model to pressure test a model um that could be scalable uh when we get this right and you know for a million dollars to help assist over 200 families who happen to to work in our CMS schools that's an incredible Roi for us to to take that first step right now if we could do it for our our workers I would be I would absolutely be raising my hand for that too a million dollars to help our city workers over 200 families of our city workers have safe secure housing absolutely be raising my hand and we'll we'll do so uh in the future when when we get this model right hopefully so I hope you know it in the backdrop I hope we all support the fact that CMS is so important to the ecosystem the EO economic ecosystem for the city of Charlotte CMS has this model which I believe you have in front of of you and I think chair sne has communicated with just about everyone here and walked them through the direct ask it was a direct direct ask and believe she had an opportunity to sit down with city manager as well so there has been a direct ask but this is an opportunity for us to to come together intergovernmental and do something that be that can be creative and Innovative on a national level and I hope that we can support this with with the understanding of any additional ask that comes from Housing Trust Fund dollars and right now we have Zar and0 cents in our Housing Trust Fund right so we can't tap into any of that right for this but in the future if we're able to do the things that we want to do for the Housing Trust Fund of course I I'm I'm true Advocate that CMS go through the the process that Sean and Miss Hefner um user and have have overseen but I I hope that we can make this as a a good faith nod to CMS that we support the teachers to have safe secure housing and and equally as important an Innovative model that in a second wave could be 200 plus city workers that can live and Thrive um in in this environment the other piece about this which is in the paperwork but we don't really talk about is not only providing the housing um but also assisting these work these workers in um home ownership opportunities and Readiness right so that's in next phases but if we can make this step here I think it would be a fantastic nod to CMS in the county that we are serious about our civil servants and Workforce housing thank you madam mayor all right Mr barari thanks I'll be brief uh I I've been hypercritical in the last few years about our approach to affordable housing with that said I think this is pretty much as much of a no-brainer as we can get um it's uh it's a unique approach because it's teachers and we know that need and that Niche is very specific it's a unique opportunity because it's a collaboration across the school the county and the city to get it done it doesn't have to raise taxes with one-time funds uh uh and uh an approach to the arpa approach and then finally just the numbers uh mathematically from an affordable housing perspective our 1 million is a leverage of another 29 million that will be along with it our average cost per unit is $35,000 this would be $110,000 per unit to get a hundred units uh from our our portion of the investment and it wouldn't be an affordability period of 15 or 20 or 30 years it would be forever because that will be owned by the group uh and uh ultimately for all those reasons I think it's uh it's something for everyone to support thank you Miss Molina thank you Madame mayor um actually I I love what uh council member Bard just said I think um what we're looking at here is is something that um is a is a no-brainer in my opinion to support and you know I'm I'm also a CMS mom I have been for the last 14 years um and my children have gone through CMS since prek so um I've volunteered in more classrooms than I can count uh teacher struggle they pull money out of their own Pockets to uh help children across our city um even when they don't have it themselves um and and I think it's worth noting that they're also our city of Charlotte residents they live here they work here they raise their families and they participate in our economy in the same way that we all do so um I think this is a unique approach to say that we actually unlike many of our developments that we make decisions on we currently don't even know who those beneficiaries are right now we don't have quantitative information to say at the end of making a decision who those human beings are the only thing we really make a decision towards with the hopes of impacting is their percentage of impact in the are area many and income but that doesn't say that we have a particular sector of humans that we're designing a product for and I think this is unique because like mayor protim said it's scalable if we can make this work and especially from an intergovernmental perspective bringing all of our entities to bear and our resources to bear I think we then have an expectancy a model that we can scale and say that we'd like to help more of are community members that do have a need specifically and so I raise both hands uh and and hope that we can you know make this uh something that we support and as far as our our pado and to be clear right now we don't have any funds to make a decision from our Housing Trust Fund for right so that if we can't you know this is of an existing project and you know the chair has I know for sure spoken to many of us um and so I'm I'm ecstatic about this opportunity to say that we would support our teachers oh my god with some of the issues that we have across our city with youth a teacher being able to say I know where I'm going to stay a teacher being able to say that I live close enough to my school that I don't have to spend gas this that all of the other things that all of us have to worry about so um I'm just excited about this project I I think it is amazing and I absolutely will support it thank you Miss Johnson so I'm a CMS Grandma Bishop Johnson okay that's all I just wanted to mention his name no I'm just no um I had the honor of speaking with chairwoman Sneed and also uh Rocky back back here uh behind me so and I look forward to supporting this model model it is transformative as a uh as an affordable housing Advocate I mean this is something that we can scale this is one of those Pilots um I think it's a a great example of collaboration and intergovernmental approach so I think you're right when you talk about the model and I look forward to uh supporting this one of the things that I like about it is it's Unique and you know I always talk about we're Charlotte and this is an opportunity to to lead um in an area and we also know that it's it's easier to build strong youth than to repair broken men and so this is an opportunity to invest in our teachers thus investing in our youth when we talk about upward Mobility we need teachers and one of the things that chairwoman sne said that we had lost 10,000 teachers so I think that's important and this is our opportunity to act upon on that so I look forward to supporting it thank you okay Miss watlington thank you madam mayor so I'm trying to catch up and read this proposal um I think what I'm well I got some questions essentially which is why I support the idea of moving this over to a committee to have a discussion regarding because I'm I'm not toally clear about the ask I heard money for design which would be sunk cost but I see negotiate tax Grant agreements from the city and county for 100% of property taxes as well so yeah and so I feel like there needs I would really appreciate an opportunity to review this as a whole find out what is the full Financial commitment just like we would do with any other Housing Trust Fund I also would just like to lift lift it up that as we're having these discussions just to hearken back to this whole conversation we just had for three hours this money is not free and it's going to impact the very people that we are trying to help in a lot of ways so I just want us as we're having these kinds of conversations and we're talking about the work that we want to do just be mindful that it comes at a cost from somewhere um and so I do think it's appropriate to have the full Financial picture of what this will look like um and maybe that is somewhere Within These uh documents but right now I'm not super clear about what that is what I will say is I love the idea of Supportive Housing we see that uh teachers beginning teacher salary is below even our Solid Waste workers so that is absolutely um something that we should care about in our community um to council member Molina's Point earlier however in regards to our Housing Trust Fund dollars we don't know who's going to be in there but we know who's not excluded and so for me thinking about the conversations that we just had earlier and the tough decisions that we had to make I really am not clear as to why um we when we make this investment intergovernmental we're not seeing any kind of symbiotic relationship such that we would get at least a unit or two for our city workers I understand this concept of future projects but what I'm if I'm understanding correctly this investment and then anything that comes in this next immediate round of Housing Trust Fund once we're funded if the bond passes would also not be something that city workers would be uh privy to which means it could be a couple of years out before something even shows up and we've made an investment so for me I'd like to dig into that a little bit more uh that said I understand that uh time is of the essence so my question um to staff is when we look at this project from a Housing Trust Fund standpoint if it's coming back to us for Housing Trust Fund is there a way to front these these dollars and that come out of the net request from Housing Trust Fund or how might that work let me let me take a stab at that because I had this conversation with the chair this morning about um what the use of the funds would be why would could we pay it later um or not do it and basically um I I'm sure she can speak for herself but the question was presented that they are in the process of developing a pilet and this pilet really they did not have the cash maybe Miss If I Stay this wrong Miss Ste please let me know the cash to do the development work that's been being requested by um I think they're with Dion Dion is their Master developer and so they do have a cash flow issue and this would apply to that now I wanted I said is it you know tell me what that means and I think that she was going to be able to give us some information about that is it possible to just give the information from her I don't I don't think that's I think that what we can do is probably send a letter or have another conversation I think your point about having and codifying well it how long will the next project be before if if we're building a pallet now what is the next project when would it it hit the ground where is it going to be and how could we include our workers in it as a result of um doing this but I think right now basically they're saying they need um cash flow for the planning right now and that they would be and they I thought it was very good for them to come back and say and we will be coming to you for for trust fund dollars so I'm hearing so we have that choice I'm hearing upfront design dollars I'm hearing trust fund dollars I'm hearing tax Grant agreements in ter and rebate of property taxes so yeah it would just be nice to see the full picture of what that investment looks like um and assessed in a similar means of what we sure Mr McGregor will be glad to sit down with you for that yeah I'd love to see it come through committee because I think it is significant of enough of an ask to do that um and then finally just so I'm clear cuz I'm not I'm not sure I'm completely following what um what we're doing here with the arpa dollars is last week there was a request um that come out of commit well not even out of committee out of this budget conversation about the $1 million additional potentially for juvenile crime is that baked in here somewhere I'm sorry the question no so if we have uh $7 million or $6.9 million in arpa interest the concept would be there's a number I'm sorry mayor okay I'm sorry um the concept would be some of these um requests will be funded from that and if let's say you funded 3 million if that's the right number then you still have 4 million left and there have been some of you who have said I'm holding off yeah until um some other request for that arpa interest so by depleting it now it leaves fewer opportunities for the arpa interest past this budget and this particular upfront design engineering request is out of arpa dollars is that okay interest arpa interest right gotcha and then my last question just for completion sake I did lean over here to the expert and ask a little bit about Advanced planning knowing that we have a advanced planning fund but it sounds like that's not a particular vehicle we could use here because we would never get it paid back via Capital project okay thank you okay I just have a question for Mr Jones so um Mr Jones in our housing and Safety Committee we were looking at addressing youth violence and um there was a request and I know we were potentially looking at arpa interest bucket to fund some of those programs and opportunities so what would be the funding that would be led uh to do that in arpa interest so if all of these items came out of arpa interest you would still have $4 million left okay so 4 million for us to address youth violence and I know that's a that that's something we are all no not not 4 million to address youth violence 4 million to address anything that the council would come up council member is M I think it's I want to make sure how how much do we have allocated for youth addressing youth violence 3.5 million totally outside of this process was uh in the proposed budget and nobody has suggested touching that well that's actually coming out of Housing and Safety Committee last week we committed 2.5 to um barari what's the name of this Katie blessing sitter with the understanding that we would try to get the 1 million from the ju from the oper interest so it's it's it's out there okay so out of the four you'd like to take one yeah one is okay so okay 4% of the remaining balance yeah okay um any other questions regarding this so what I'd like to do is give Mr Mitchell the opportunity to make a motion on the requested um adjustments for this document for the Workforce Development which I I do want to say this so it's really important to understand that we're really working towards how do we address these in a way that we can verify and actually get real count for what we see is going on so I think the way that um Miss watlington talked about is exactly what we want for everybody to be able to do this so with that um Mr Mitchell would you make a motion to adopt the um various um Workforce Development and nonprofits and we need to go to cmpd that includes the housing for schools that includes the it includes the housing as well no we have to I mean Mr Mr barari wants to address cmpd separate right I'm sorry yes madame mayor cuz I thought we was doing this separately we're now talking about just doing this in one pull motion well I guess that's what I was asking Mr Mitchell if he would do a motion that would include wealth Workforce Development and the nonprofit organizations if you're if you're not comfortable with that we can go I'm I'm personally not because again what the question that I asked I didn't know if I need to put it in form of a motion and that is before we a commitment of this going through our city attorney's office to make sure that the language codifies exactly what we're talking about doing before we just say yes it is when we are now if we move forward with everything we what was mentioned is a total amount that's left that we have multiple ask out there on so for that one piece I need to know were you did you need a motion for us to do that because that's the only way I'm going to be com I don't think that we need a motion I think that there is a contract I'm going to Ryan would you explain how you notify what is the process and if it's been reviewed by the legal by the attorney's office office I think there's a we ain't approving it and then say Oh that's no I hear you so we could do it two different ways for the financial partners that we consider to be an allocation that went through the process typically when we approve the budget you give the manager authority to work out a contract and do that but with other things um we may just say all we're approving is the allocation and there's going to be an RCA with a legal agreement with all of that steps that would come before council at a later dat and both are fine so we've done it both ways you could either put it in the budget ordinance or you can have a contract on a contract on an agenda with a contract and you've had the City attorney review the agenda item so I think that's your preference but we need some guidance today to start that process thank you so would you like to go through these one at a time Miss Mayfield or do maybe this is a better way is there an exception that you would like to recognize I just needed that clarification mayor thank you so so mayor M Mr Mitchell let me try take take a s we can get all of us on the same page so uh the first motion ID like to make is the workforce Housing Partnership CM CMS teacher Village be referred to the housing U Safety Committee on the June 3D agenda and that would allow us to still I have a conversation prior to uh June 10th uh voting so that's the first motion all right do we have a second we have a second any discussion with Mr with the Mr Mitchell with the intention of if it passes through there that it goes into the budget yes yes sorry yes sir Mr M Mr Graham well I'm supportive of the million dollars period but I mean without going to the committee but wait a minute will they have the answers to all the questions so I don't think so it's it's pretty simple and Rocky it's for I think they're accountable to giv what the committee needs uh Council mcgraham uh to move us through the process I mean it's what they asking for is money for Architects and those type of things right so it's pretty simple right but they're asking for us a deeper dive into the relationship never done this and I'm not sure they're going to have those answers but I I would make a substitute motion that we allocate a million dollars to CMS for the um partnership second we have a motion and a second M mayor protim I mean Miss Miss watlington we really need to understand what's going on here and I and I'm sorry but I if we're negotiating or having this convers ation we need to figure out what we're talking about and Mr Mitchell suggested this be referred to a council committee that would then come to the council prior to the budget budget the second option that Mr Graham addressed is going ahead and moving forward with the um funding now with you explaining what the funding will be so um I don't I don't know I you can mayor pretty easily with a with a combination of both motions we intend to send this to the budget at this point in time but we're also doing a referral to committee exactly and just like anyone can vote for a portion of the budget on the 10th if they find something out they don't want to they can change course but it won't change the course of what we do now okay so you hear the motion Mr Mitchell made that Mr is Mr Graham and that acceptable for you this Rong all right we have to amend that's a different motion this as a point of so so the council Grant I'll accept the friendly Amendment so can we put it in one motion yes okay so the motion would be to refer this item to the house and Safety Committee on June 3D so it to come back in Council for the vote on June 10 with the ear Mark already $1 million from the arpa funding okay okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing n all it's okay all in favor please raise your hand hands anyone opposed okay thank you all right that takes us for the first one Mr Mitchell okay oh boy I'm on a road so let me try this again I do not I think I have so on the Workforce Development up to $2 million we need to I would like to request that that goes to the budget BG committee to look at a RFQ process um to fund these organizations who have made a request second are we going to give them the one are we giving them the $100,000 until that can be completed or is it the same no no income no no income no no income okay part of the process we discussed go ahead discussing oh we already discussing this no we haven't disc trying to put commit you're trying to are you saying send everything to committee before we give any funding to that's what you're want to accomplish yes yes mayor okay that's what was confusing because we were talking about I think it's as simple as we are accepting this is the list anymore I'm just trying to help get us through this accept that list as the scope that we're going to send forward with an earmarked allocation of those dollars into the process and the process then will determine what dollars are awarded you know my concern is I don't know what process we have do we have a process we have the committee has not so I'm I you've got a statement I've read the statements of the things that you wish to achieve but H when would we I'm just timing when will we actually have a council adopted process to do these things in what summer so we provided our feedback to Murray and her team MH we will be presented with the framework at our next meeting so there will be a presentation on that so what Mr Mitchell is saying that we look at the feedback that we had provided um in order to be the financial partner with the city and see how this organization fits those goals um based on committies feedback I think though that we were trying to get a policy that would be adopted by Council for th that feedback and those criter the criteria is that something you think we can do at a time in a timely manner you can do it well it's already we already have schedule we are already scheduled to get recommendations on Monday so we would take that to council we could take it to the first council meeting yes ma'am okay all right great thank you all right so with that the motion is Miss Mayfield I'm sorry you have your hand up I do thank you madam mayor cuz I need clarification what we have in front of us and what is on the screen is not what you proposed what you proposed was up to $100,000 if I'm and I just need clarification council member Mitchell are you moving forward this over 2 million that is being requested or are you recommending approval for what the mayor shared with us which is up to$ 100,000 out of our arpa dollars which will reduce how much we're spending out of our arpa dollars to give us the ability to continue addressing the needs that we have I would say take it out of our ARA dolls but are we saying the up to a 100,000 that the mayor presented cuz this right here that's showing on the screen is not we're not looking at the sheet right now that the mayor passed out right before she started this conversation so so I'm suggesting to to the $100,000 so that' be a total of $700,000 okay up to 100 thank you very much for clarification you welcome okay do we have a we have a motion we have a Mr Mitchell made a motion we need a second we have a second okay any further discussion on the motion Miss Brown yes madame mayor I just want a a further discussion so the numbers that we see in front of us I can't really see on the board but I have the paper in front of here so I'm just going to give an example out so if we go down to block love for 230,000 we're saying up to 100,000 until we do what no that's for Workforce Development only no she's no this no it's not M miror she's saying block love right here yeah we still have made a motion for work force I know but she's asking the question about block love and what we would do is treat everyone the same with up to 100 ,000 depending on whether or not that's it would be up to that amount while we would get these other criteria and everything set up so that doesn't mean that they're not going to get the amount that they're asking we're just setting up criterias to follow through okay I just want to be clear on there okay thank you some but I I I want to be clear because AR if we're using arpa funds there is not enough arpa funds that would be able to fund two pill two 2,900 and do also the things that we have for violence provis mention that are in the operating budget so I I don't want to be like say oh well but what we're saying is give these people an opportunity to have their work begin and then we will maybe have the then we'll have our cons criteria and then people would be based upon how they get funded based upon the criteria that they met okay but up to $100,000 based both groups so for the nonprofits as well as Workforce Development okay so two different things but we're doing the same thing for everybody on this list all right thank you Madame mayor all right Miss Johnson I think you just clarify my question because we were on the in the Workforce Development uh section M and council member Brown referred to the the nonprofit organizations right so but what you're saying is we're going to manage the same way they're all going to get $100,000 until up to up to yeah cuz one of is only 7 only asking for 77,000 okay so all of these organizations will get up to $100,000 until we have our criteria done and we begin to have the Staff address what we want in the criteria which is in committee with Miss azmir who says that she can get this out as a policy statement at the next budget at the next council meeting June so let me let me just ask for let me just make this a little more complicated right so $100,000 three or four these organizations that's 100% of what they're asking for whereas other organizations it's it's three times what they're asking for and another organization it looks like it's I don't know whatever that percent 70% or something I don't know would it be more Equitable to recommend a percentage I no Mr don't think I take a sta councilman Johnson to your point I think that's part of the conversation policy conversation we need to have if it's fair to do up to $100,000 or to your point percentage but I think committee can have that discussion around policy and I meeting this June 3 so so we're waiting until after Monday to make a decision even now we're I think that what that that's a good question whether or not you feel like we should do a percent but not exceed 100,000 which is easy enough to do so the council says where where we are now is that one 100,000 is the maximum but we could do percentages if that's what the um Council chose to do I think it's more Equitable to do a percentage because $100,000 is is a 100 100% of what some of these organizations are asking for so some would get everything they ask for whereas other other ones wouldn't however to give them 100 do you want to give them 50% give help me what well I think that if it's going to on Monday anyway we we could defer this decision until Monday well I really think that the budget people need to be able to have something in the budget but we can leave that column blank and then have it filled in so but I want to I want us to adopt the groups that's what's most important in here right now that we're going to fund these groups that came to us until we get the policy in place so we could say we're going to fund them but we don't have the because we want to do what's fair right and we don't want to make so the council the committee will get a percentage of whatever we want to do to give them their money for the year on the policy so let's say they don't meet the policy and feedback that was given um so I you know what I mean so can we wait till after mandor Mak the decision are you okay with that the details I I think that um I think that's what we are doing okay I think we all always have the ability to adjust before we vote that makes s yeah I I don't know that we need to do okay okay that's true okay okay yeah that's right yeah so the check's not going out tomorrow it goes out with the budget okay next next let hey everybody try to stay with us a motion you have another question thank you madam mayor just for clarification because I Council Johnson I think I understand what what you're saying but at the on that same scale if we do a percentage that organization that's asking for 34,000 a percentage of theirs versus a percentage of 700,000 makes no sense if we use that if we say a percentage that's still going to create some inequality versus now even if we say 75,000 versus a 100 because I do understand your concerned where some are fully funded some not yet I'm concerned that if we do the percentage that's going to create a even greater gap of need cuz again for that say 45% 45% of 34,000 is a lot different than 45% of 725,000 all right Mr Mitchell so oh I'm sorry I thought you you took a breath I was trying to get if you say up to 100,000 give the budget people what they need and time in order for it to be adjusted next week and had I had the chance while I was still talking to finish as I was talking to council member Johnson and we were thinking about this out loud that's what I was getting to is by having the up to that's actually a better a more Equitable playing field than if we were to break it down by percentage cuz that may create a even wider Chasm of need M Mr Mitchell you have a floor for a motion I'd like to call the question the May and Council came to go ahead and vote on the motion all right so we are ready for the motion all excuse me sorry I was waiting to be recognized and we didn't vote on can I get the motion on we've already got the motion Miss watlington yeah I just want to say when if we're talking about Equity I'm looking at two buckets of groups right these folks in this Workforce Development that if I'm understanding correctly they have to submit to an RFP and if they meet conditions then they'll get funding subject to these particular things these people have already submitted app applications and now we're asking them to go back again and submit another set of applications or is it different I'm sorry it wasn't it was the idea for us to create midye an a tool based upon the committee's instructions on how we could do this next this is this was in state it's like a hold in place so that we can get our policy written and done so is this old comments here Workforce Development RFP in this column no the workforce velopment RFP was actually an idea that we could have in the fall a Workforce Development RFP it wasn't about these specific people but I'm assuming that these people would apply if we had one but it's not it these people would not they would get their money sooner than later so let me just so I'm clear this comic here has nothing to do with this column here that's right we're we're super clear you mean the arpa interest for Workforce Development RFP has nothing to do until after the council committee establishes a policy okay but these this 7 up to $700,000 that we're talking about issuing was the up to for immedi yeah but it comes before or after the policy is established well now it was going to be before because we were trying to make sure that we walked out of here with a exp to with these folks being funded but what the committee has said is that they are going to have a meeting next week and then we will know what the recommendation really is cuz my struggle with that is that if these folks have already filled out an application whatever policy we come with if that then means that we either change the rules or created more work for these folks and at the same time we're going to get the same money to people who didn't even fill out the financial partner application the first time that doesn't feel Equitable no it doesn't feel right but the council has a committee that wants to figure out what the policy would be so we'll wait longer a little bit longer but by it's supposed to be done by the council um by the budget session before the budget is adopted so then I would I would this council member would hope that whatever we do up here applies down here too because I don't think it's fair that these people may have two hoops and these people don't have any oh I agree with you I'm I'm trying to get a standard yeah and we don't have one I'm just looking for a standard yeah okay which is a temporary fixed for a standard a policy is a standard okay the motion was made by motion second by council member bukari so all in favor of the process that we just discussed before the budget we will have a policy statement on these nonprofits and other organizations yeah I like what Dr watlington was saying so since we're going to be reviewing this on Monday and developing a policy is it prudent that we actually commit to giving the money before we have a policy that's what she's saying well no I'm not saying commit we're not giving them any money we're earmarking money so that we have money for those that meet the criteria perfect but but we're not committing to these specific organizations okay that's what it sounded like didn't it sound like that yeah all right all in favor of the motion please raise your hands anyone opposed okay we have one opposition okay the next [Music] item in favor all in favor sorry I thought you had your hand up for opposition so now a couple of other things are recommended I just want to make sure that we've put it together together um and I'm going to ask Mr barari to address the issues of equipment supplies and PE for cmpd I'm going to go through this very quickly I'm not going to repeat all the things that I said last week I'm going to give a one sentence or very brief overview I'm going to mention the financial implications and then make a motion and then hopefully it'll get us through these four items very quickly uh the first one is around the timeline change from January to November for cmpd's um Merit uh salary increase period this brings the them in line with every other employee in the city and every other department um and you can see the dollar amount there has been uh refined at 427,000 this will have a positive impact on morale uh and it's something that's very important as it relates to the financials we have two options at our disposal um the number that we need right now is actually only $196,100 because there's 231,000 of Revenue of available uh it's from an updated law enforcement Services contract from the county so we got that 231 Grand knocked that down we're only at 19610 and there are two options that I propose we allow the manager to explore both uh because either one I think is Meaningful one 196k from arpa interest or probably more meaningful um if the manager in our earlier action doesn't cut the four Central Services vacant positions he can extend that out by five months and account for that entire dollar amount with no implications to any budget so if you do end up in your first Action cutting those positions then I think it really relies to the 196 Grand in arpa but if you don't it's just delaying their hiring for five months accomplish it so I would make a motion that we um approve the an add to the budget uh the the cmpd pay increase calendar um uh date from January to November bringing them align with the rest of the city and instructing the manager to attempt to cut them with the Central Services vacant positions being delayed and if that ends up getting cut using 196 Grand uh from the arpa interest to pay for it without a tax increase second okay we have a second um I guess what I want to make sure is that we do you're asking us to add the funding for that we have for the delayed yeah it's a one-time expense because just for one time moving that up and then the next budget cycle it's an annual View and doesn't recur so it's four 4,000 4,20 I'm sorry 427,000 but what was the second amount so 427 110 is split into two buckets they have identified 231 Grand of Revenue available from an law enforcement Services contract that was updated from the county so that takes care of that they've identified it they're comfortable with it everyone's on that same page and that just leaves 196,00 to solve of which that's part of my motion Mr Jones yeah I would just say that um through um various Personnel actions that let I wouldn't be specific I'm just going to say let's move that to the manager to handle in whatever way he sees fit so we have that um as an item and a motion so is second Miss Johnson thank you Madame mayor I just um needed a point of clarification is this the same discussion we had last last week as far as moving the calendar yes and did did that get five votes last time yes okay okay all right thank you okay we have a motion on the floor all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed all right that goes forward number two and uh the next three in order are we can go through very quickly um the uh they are the equipment purchases so first of all I'll go through the first two that uh Wei budget and cmpd are in complete alignment 100% um the first one is my original proposal of $150,000 for active shooter kits uh uh medkits um this was the idea of Officer Jack blowers who was wounded on April 29th and going to his army um special ops training uh not only did cmpd Embrace this they found a way to reduce it to $143,900 um by reutilizing and repurposing the Inner Elements of the ifac kit and turning this into something that every officer will have in a single place in their vehicle uh and the cmpd will be able to um figure out details from here so the uh motion is to approve $143,900 from arpa interest or anywhere else the manager decides to identify that money onetime money for active shooter uh medkits all right we have a mo motion and a second any discussion hearing n all in favor say I I anyone opposed okay thank you thank you madam May okay and then that brings us I'm sorry there is a question from mayor I just have a point of clarification Mr barari so you mentioned that for this particular line item that cmpd is a line is this a request from them or the the the revised number came from them correct Ryan so for the just so that I'm clear on the other two underneath here yeah I'm going to get to those but the next one they are also aligned on It's the final one that I I will I will mention the Nuance there gotcha thank you yeah so the next one again cmpd aligned we had a lot of meetings um this is the uh portable ballistic Shields I think there's some things once we approve this that they might need the flexibility to identify exactly what it is but the premise is um this would be enough money $997,500 to equip um are at least every division uh that we have uh with these shields so that in active shooter situations like we saw on April uh 29th um these are available uh division wide um at every shift so everyone's in full agreement uh and my motion is to approve $97,500 for portable ballistic shields uh and instruct the manager to either use arpa uh availability or whatever else he finds can we have a motion on a second um any discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppose no one's oppose so that's unanimous okay thank you and then this is the last one and I'm just going to give folks a little context and then throw out a solution here so for the last two and a half years I've been asking every patrol officer I run into how they feel about outer carrier vests this has been hundreds and hundreds of them and I always have the same answer every single time it's what they want for various reasons and a very passionate way um they cite the back pain of carrying weight on their um on their uh belts that would be redistributed they site the hot nature which would be cooler on the outside versus the undershirt versions um they they've cited attachments and being able to attach the active shooter medkits that we just talked about to them and have their hands free as well as as we learned uh on April 29th the grab harnesses that can be grabbed with one hand to be able to drag somebody out while having another hand to defend yourself um I have come to the conclusion that this is the single biggest impact to morale that we could make over the last 10 years and over the next 10 years and simply for the fact that every single person I've talked to wants it for various reasons and it impacts everyone everybody wears a vest out there inside their shirt that is on uh Patrol concerns have been raised to me by cmpd leadership on the safety of outer vests I took these concerns very seriously and I've had several conversations with global Global experts in R&D and protective equipment which has provided sufficient answers to all those questions there is no material increase in risk after addressing all those concerns and understanding the significant positive impact this will have on officer Comfort safety and most important to me morale uh unfortunately we are still in an impass to getting this done and at this point it is for a single reason the chief of police does not like how they look even though bike cops currently wear them SWAT members currently wear them 250 officers with doctor's notes for Ada reasons wear them in fact the only group in cmpd that doesn't have them is both the largest and the most at risk over 1,000 Patrol officers the rank and file that protects this city on our streets every day the ones who ran towards Danger on April 29th and the ones I've asked how important this is to them over two years now Gathering data points to come to my conclusion and I have not heard a single no during that time I want to be really clear I don't believe the role of council is to tell the chief how to run his Department even though we have precedent for doing that in the past when decisions were made to not purchase certain equipment or attempts were made to defund ammunition purchases that he requested but there comes a time after two and a half years when respect has been given and attempts have been made that other actions must be taken I made an attempt to find Middle Ground yesterday with the chief one last attempt in what has been one of the most difficult decisions of my life arriving at this point point to just make the currently used Ada vest more widely available to patrol officers and that was flatly rejected as well without even discussing it so due to the sensitivity of this topic I am not going to put my colleagues in an uncomfortable position to have to vote on this today and I'm formally retracting my motion for outer carrier vests being added to our budget however I am doubling down on my commitment to find the half a million dollar one-time investment from other sources in the city budget and will'll be applying maximum pressure to enable our Rank and file officers to wear them when they are out protecting us I completely committed to achieving this outcome as an individual citizen I'll close by saying this I have always counted Chief Jennings as a friend and I still believe he is one of the best Chiefs I have seen in my over two decades living here he navigated us through the riots and through the April 29th tragedy in a way I don't think anyone else could have he has championed many initiatives for mental health and pay this is not a critique on him personally this this is a factual clarification for why we are at this impass on a topic this important to off officer safety and morale and my only purpose for saying all this publicly is that I need the residents and private sector of Charlotte to understand where and why we are stuck on this point so I can move forward on my singular mission of getting it unstuck if we can't get this done now after everything that has happened it will never get done I withdraw my budget adjustment proposal okay all right um so that's very helpful we are now down to this last part of the list which I think we've covered um completely the sheet that is up here you have the last three we have the last three I thought we talked about the film black Film Festival being eligible for the funds as well as the opportunity to apply to the film commission we talked we talked about it so do we need a motion on that so item if you can see on the Block on the on the screen it's item 27 could we have a motion that the Charlotte black Film Festival as well as boom Charlotte 27 and 28 and 28 boom Charlotte would have the opportunity to participate in the outcome of what the committee is going to do at the crva um clarification I'm going to Mo motion so we can get a second to talk about it cuz I'm not understanding what you just said I don't think that's what we said earlier what did you think we said so I so let me ask you mayor for clarification we are now voting on setting aside up to 100 100,000 for both Charlotte black film festival and boom Charlotte although Monday we're going to talk about it just as we are saying we're set aside this other money for them to turn around and apply for it or initially are we putting it Hospital remember this is a 2-year ask so we're trying to help them go someplace to ask for the second year but are we when we started this conversation part of the conversation was the one time 100,000 to both out of the oper interest are we still saying that and helping them to go to hospital and tourism cuz my original yes ask was that we look at hospitality and tourism of which staff came back and said yes this is legally eligible um this is what I'm going to suggest is that because these are two things that are separate from the two groupings that we had why don't we not put it in committee and agree that they will have up to $100,000 um but an amount of money that we would have as a maximum for a gift or as for this year and so then they would um that would come out of arpa for both of them and then working through the next opportunities a second year they would work through that with hospitality tourism funds or the film commission funds I'm not tell me what you would like what would you like it to be Miss Mayfield I'm just trying to follow along with you madam mayor and manager to me separate conversations okay we identified that these two items actually do qualify legally for hospitality and tourism when I supported council member Mitchell's dollar amount recommendation and I made the record and I supported council member as's recommendation for that specific dollar amount it was with the ask of hey shouldn't this fall on the hospitality and tourism staff came back legally yes so I don't understand why while we're having the conversation of having ARA one time funds over there versus saying through our hospitality and tourism because it is hospitality and tourism because of hotels and everything else that these events bring to the city okay so I just got a little confused and manager maybe you can help me understand why are we talking about we got limited funds according to what you told us right so um this is what I believe is that crva has a process where they look at heads and beds and things that nature when it comes to funding different festivals and different events so instead of just coming out tonight and saying there's $287,000 over at crva for the Charlotte black Film Festival I don't think that is the proper way to do it however this Council believes that this is these are worthy causes so could there be some money now as they go through a formal process with crva which could be ongoing forever that yeah that's I think that we were trying to fulfill their first year making uring that they're um have been a part of this process but at some point that they would actually go and seek out Authority or seek out opportunity ities with the film commission that's keeping them so just for a little background set that aside just for clarification because we as we're going through this we raised our hands for the idea of a conversation for a million for something yet we're saying that the request the initial request of 287 a wish for Boom the is great but the initial which goes back to council member Johnson's earlier point where we're saying up to 100 some items will be fully funded some would not I'm just trying to figure out how when we're looking at separate things if this qualifies and if unfortunately under previous leadership with crva because it's not a new conversation and they have received applic and there are applications on following through them that may not have gotten supported and not necessarily not supported because it wasn't a strong enough proposal it was may be for other reasons but if we asked for 287 and we're saying okay to appease we're going to do a 100 now to ARA and manager you know what I'll take this part offline help me help walk me through how do we create a more Equitable process through our hospitality and tourism funding moving forward thank you mayor okay so miss I'll ation do have do you do you want me to make a motion no I'm I'm wondering if Mr Mitchell I thought was making the motions for these two items so are you making the motion so I'm it if we wow well I know you know so let's um city manager uh we have how much in the oper interest how how much funds do we have almost 7 million $7 million um it is has been a challenge for uh a great tourism event to get support in our community the council member Mayfield uh early comment even through the channels we have recommended today it has not yield the results uh for the Charlotte black Film Festival if there's a strong support um I would say the first year with roughly 7 million that we take the first year out the Opera fund and then his second year help him build a better relationship to go through the regular process okay that would be my motion second okay we have a motion in a second any further discussion yes Miss Molina Miss Molina um thank you Madame mayor so um with that I first I want to go back to one point I I know that we're talking about the hospitality and tourism dollars which are separate and apart from our Opera dollars right they're not the same bucket so I definitely wouldn't make um one decision connect with another because it sends the wrong message um but you know to see um to see um other um organizations because in my opinion all of the organizations that we have on this list are important all of the people that we have mentioned um you know including the Charlotte Museum of History right they only got put up for a 100,000 and their original ax was 600,000 so we're talking them even if we stop and cap it at 100,000 they're only going to get 15% of their ask right um and and I don't want to go into that too much but I just wanted to say that on the record to say that again we've we've made hard decisions as you know council member ashme said earlier and that's what we're all here to do but um I I just I'm uncomfortable and and although I I probably will lend my support to this organization because I am familiar but I would like to see as a board of directors us develop a standard we throw the word policy around a lot and the development of policy is a standard it removes us from having to do Case by casee decision making because that's not what we were appointed to do right we have a 9,000 member staff an organization a city manager that is by Design supposed to be executing on the policies the standard that we Implement and that's not the exercise that I feel like we've taken part in largely today and I know a lot of this is for the modification process but I feel like absent that I don't feel like and and although I've appreciated some of the robust discussion I'm here for a good debate because I'm that's just I like that that's a good thing I I think I would like to see this earlier in the next process where we have a robust debate where we all come to the table with the positions that we're passionate about I know we all have different reasons to be passionate about different things and I honor that for everybody at this deas um but I would like to especially in the committee level see us create more standards more policy discussions that can be implemented across the board where it's something that if staff looks at they have a clear Direction on what would be the will of the council and I'd like for that to be the mentality that we take from this going forward especially with the amount of you know of of understanding or or I guess misunderstanding from some of us as opposed to others because I I know that we're all sitting here because we want to make a difference and we have different things that we're passionate about I can see that I know that um but I I just offer especially with this one going to you know your particular um uh committee chairwoman I I'd love to see a standard when we say policy I mean standard like something I look at and I know based on what this says we can do it or we can't right uh so that's what I offer and I do realize that the Charlotte black Film Festival is completely underinvested I do know that I I do know the person who works with that organization and like so many others on this list they've just not gotten the emphasis that they need so um even if I do lend my support to move forward I just would like to see us take that position that's all I have Madam mayor I I think that we've all settled on that and I can feel the shoulders being lifted so that you can get this done um but I think you know it's not we all agree that we've had to do Grant applications and do things like that there's models out there so we just need to figure out which models work best for us so we we're going to move it over into their hands to get this done I guess what I thought this was going to be was you know how we often assist our small businesses sorry mayor um before we go into Clos session oh no I have I have two items I was about saying before we do the um so I think we still need to do the litter one did we vote on this this we have to vote on litter and we have to vote on the black Film Festival okay and and boom and the two other ones you're right we did we did the police ones and we have to vote on um I have a few more well I know I I hear I know we do this but there are some other ones the question we have to do give give the manager Authority on the medical insurance which is um that has to be done the um discussion on animal shelter upkeep as well as I think Miss air did not address just said no to the bite funding is that correct oh no I can bring it up right now oh bring it up okay so we have a couple of more things to do if we could just probably drive through those that ladder it's a ladder of things and then we have CL session and then we have a closed session thank and I just want to make sure this juvenile crime piece arpa $1 million that was brought up last week the only reason it wasn't put on the board is because we were told it was going to be a separate process for arpa dollars but if we're assigning arpa dollars I'd like us to address that today I thought that um now this is terrible because I had hoped that when we did our first motion that I said this would these changes would come from the arpa money but Billy would you check that because I do think it would be appropriate for us to vote on how to use the arpa money after we get through this list because all of this is arpa money that's up here so far so that's that's good if it's not already been done so M all right sorry can I ask a question about the black Film Festival my hands been up for a while thank you um so when you talk about standard council member Molina I think you're right and I you know I keep talking about equity and if we look at boom Charlotte they're getting 100% of their funding there's only two organizations in this category the black Film Festival asked for $287,000 for two years what I think would be fair in this situation is to divide the 287,000 to and and it's 1435 I think per year it's only $40,000 so if we Grant the 1435 the Charlotte black Film Festival then both organizations will that seems Equitable and fair to me and then both organizations are funded for that one year that allows us time to introduce um Mr Nicholls to the HTA or whatever that next the film F the film fund whatever that next step would be but I think for $4,000 I think that's intentional and it's uh Equitable and I think that I think we should do that all I really sorry I I wanted to make a statement when she was done okay I'm so sorry Miss Johnson mayor proam thank you you were you were done Miss Johnson yeah I'm just proposing that we increase the Charlotte black Film Festival to 143 five okay okay my comment was separate than the Charlotte black Film Festival um I I just have a Mr Bergman maybe this is a question for you but you know we're we're going we're going through our budget process now and it there's a set standard process for going through this right that's different than the other processes that we go through throughout the calendar year and effectively where we have landed is that we're sending roughly 90 to 95% of these line items back to committee for deliberation um which if that's the will of the Council that's fine and it sounds like it is but I would when we do that then we don't have a broader full Council discussion on budget items and and Mr manager yet maybe perhaps correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that was the intention of this entire process that has been laid out over months that the entire Council can take part in shaping and putting a right impression on the the budget for this upcoming year so that's just the if we're going to do that if that's going to be a new aspect of the process I think we need to discuss that on to go for forward basis but now we're having conversations in committees that we may or may not have full Council there because they're they're just being brought to the attention that this is going to occur um on on June 3rd so that's I have a desire for us to have a broader Council discussion around budget because we've gone through that process where we've done things in committee we've had our workshops and it seems like we're working against our established process I I'll try to be helpful mayor protim um okay so an World which the world isn't perfect um we would have had this budget discussion had the budget um agreed upon straw votes uh get it approved on uh June 10th and then we would have had a discussion about arpa interests and were there any things that didn't get approved in the budget that may be um primed for arpa interest and many of you have said things to me uh over time some requests that have come in about being funded and it seemed like having the council have a discussion about those items uh would be the proper you know way to handle it some kind of way we we Blended this a little bit with the arpa interest as a part of this budget and then there are some outstanding issues like um juvenile violence and things of that nature so I I I guess what I start off by saying is that because these are one one time in nature and arpa interest is one time in nature could you separate the two knowing that what you're going to do is commit to some level of funding for various items or sections or segments here knowing that there's going to be additional ask also so just Bo thought and then um to further complicate things or help things and I had a quick conversation with Danielle Frasier we've always had $3 million and Danielle's in the room $3 million that is unallocated related to Workforce Development and arpa so I don't know if there's some things on this list that we could utilize some of that $3 million um on top of the nine right that could alleviate some of the needs to use the arpa interest so I'm just saying that trying to be helpful um maybe these two can be separated and there could be more conversation and there could be a later vote on this I but I don't know I'm just trying to make sure because I understand the your fundamental question is what happens after committee discussions you know on Monday right and is it four people or five people making a decision as opposed to the full body being able to be engaged I hope that was helpful I I I also wanted to ask manager can I can I ask part of this is that we have this list of when we were together last time people said well I'd like to have this on the list or I'd like to have this and some of those and and maybe um Miss Harris you could tell me were all of these folks um on had did all of these people or organizations um send in their applications um from the work Force development and the um nonprofit organizations but when Council Madame mayor all the ones at the top for the Workforce Development section yes they did apply as Financial Partners and they weren't recommended right now and then the second chunk where it says additional funding of nonprofit organizations did not apply this year's Financial Partners but yet we had a public hearing they came down they talked about what they would like to do we also had people come in on the Workforce Development part to say we want to do more I I think that and the council put these in play and so I think that's what we're trying the staff is trying to be responsive to the people that you said at the last budget session that you thought were appropriately of eligible for funding correct Miss Johnson I just want to clarify what the motion on the floor is we don't have a motion on the floor right now Mr Mr Mitchell has a motion on the floor what is the motion on the floor the Motions on the floor was to take the $287,000 use it for ARA funding this year and then help black Film Festival uh build better relationship through tourism so in the second year that will be an opportunity for them to get funding so then back up oral okay so okay so 200 thank you that hadn't changed and so I was still looking at the $100,000 so um disregard my comment thank you okay so we have a motion on Miss Brown yeah but mayor so Madam mayor sorry with uh what you just said were you going to give another point or you going we just moving forward with the motion I think we're just moving forward because I think that everybody knows that council members put this list together and we're just trying to figure out if there is support from the council to do it we want to get it done and we want we're now we're going to do a little bit more equity and we're going to do some standards and so I think that how we do that and maybe it's separate from the budget completely since we have the issue of how many of the council members need to be able to reflect what they think should be included and this was the list all right Madam mayor thanks okay all right motion we have a motion from Mr Mitchell for funding the black Film Festival okay all in favor of the motion please raise your hand one 2 three four I think that's unanimous okay um that leaves us with boom Charlotte that's our last one well I have two more uh yeah it's it's here um but first let me just go ahead and make the motion to to approve $100,000 in ARA interest to go to Boom Charlotte second all right we have a motion and second any discussion hearing none all in favor please say I I or raise your hand anyone opposed okay boom has up to $100,000 may you you still have to do the litter cleanup one I know we still have the I'm sorry I'm pulling up the litter one was a situation where we would be able to have another crew um formed for litter um work or whatever we call it if you look at it it's with the Employment Opportunity Center to provide transitional work for people that are coming out of incarceration and they get paid and there's a process for them to do the work through that process through their Employment Agency yes question on this well I guess it needs a motion person I'm sorry what I want to ask a question on this one but there's no motion yet so okay we have a motion in a second so on this one given what you just discussed in terms of Workforce Development and maybe I'm misunderstanding what the manager said right now we're going to approve the funding whether or not it comes out of arpa or Workforce Development dollars because it's Workforce Development program it remains to be seen I noticed that we just approved boom specifically out of arpa so okay so this one is just approve the number not necessarily the Source well with the um approval of council what I would try to do or the team would try to do is guide those approvals that you have that are Workforce Development related to the Workforce Development bucket so that the arpa interest bucket with more flexibility would be available cool cool okay so all in favor of the additional crew for the um litter pickup please raise your hands all right any any in opposition okay I think that closes yellow I'm sorry we still have a few more to do so let's go through these so this item on the screen all all right the item on the screen the medical insurance for spouse of dependence of the city employees that die in the line of duty the right up in the book was very specific and was this is recommended so um do I have a motion Miss azir yes I make the motion to all right second any discussion all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppose all right um I think and then I just have one more item that was also in our budget book so this was something that council member Brown had proposed animal care and control and we did get an answer for that thanks Marie and the entire team uh I read word by word thank you so so there is $30 million in cops capacity currently reserved and I would like us to reserve this funds for future animal care and control constructionist and there is an alternative what page are you talking oh so that's on page three page three exactly um this was and on miss azir this is a new suggestion from Miss asir from that this this was voted on at the budget adjustment yeah it was I know but it was it it was at the budget adjustment but it's in the book on page three isn't it it's on page three did it pass yes it did pass M where's it at it's it's on page 14 no on this list it it's it's on the list it's under the bonds and c I did add it so the reason there's not a dollar amount in 25 is because the way that project works with Advanced planning there's no construction dollars you would need in 25 what I believe council member azir is saying is taking the future 30 million capacity in our cops program and assigning that to animal care and control until there's a design is that what you're saying yes so Mr bargman that that's correct so you know on page 15 uh you had provided more details where it says uh currently the first option is construction of a satellite shelter and that's on existing City owned property and there is an address on there so that is currently being assessed and conceptual design is anticipated to be complete in the third quarter of 2024 so I just want to make sure that um if this satellite option is feasible um then we use this capacity of $30 million for construction does that make sense yeah so so how this would actually work is if that's approved when you look at our 5year CIP you'll see a reserve for animal care and control line that has future dollars in it yes I I guess what I'm thinking is that this may be something that we really continuously need or in a year are there other opportunities what's going to be changing and different about it and I might be a little bit better concerned to be able to do this as it comes up after we do the renovation of the Tumi Road not to Discount the point of the of the validity of the the topic but this seems more like a new business item on a business agenda than a budget item no we're doing for this like it is part of the budget discussion because we did discuss this council member Brown had brought this up at the adjustment meeting and you know we have been putting this off animal care and control for a while so unless and until we are committing some sort of funding we're not going to have we're just going to keep kicking the can down the road and we're going to continue to see speakers come down and we not going to have anything to show progress I appreciate that manager added additional positions but that doesn't address the capacity issue that lot of a lot of people are coming and advocating for so I I would like to make I make that motion if people don't want to support it that's fine but I I do feel that we do need to allocate this funding for that so I make the motion to um to uh Reserve cop's capacity of 30 million for future animal care and control construction and there is already opt there is already an option that's that's being assessed second Mr all right we have a second Mr Jones and followed by Mr Dr so I I totally apologize I st that for a minute see what so so I I I definitely missed something uh so Ryan you have to help me I thought the 30 million got eliminated when no it didn't I thought it got eliminated when we eliminated the future city facility capacity no we didn't eliminate that I did not eliminate that stayed in yeah it stayed I did not elim all right okay I feel B because I knew this was coming yeah okay you yes may Mr dggs was next and then M was M mayor after Dr won and Miss Miss Brown so after miss watlington so uh I I support this the only concern I have is that when staff looked at this the only opper the only suggestion they came up with was seven times the size of the existing facility for $200 million and therefore we don't have a Target what I consider to be a useful Target so now we're saying let's commit money yeah we should but I I want to know more about what it is we're committing the money to and so I think we need a commitment not $200 million and and and we need to have a more tangible uh and and workable suggestion uh and timeline for implementation on a more reasonable suggestion about this I mean we're not going again I think it was six or seven times size of the existing one and $200 million price tag that's not helpful so uh I I would support the motion in the spirit that we are making a concrete commitment to getting something established and and a schedule put in place to implement it Miss watlington uh to that end I'm wondering if we would be better served to reserve dollars for advanced planning for the animal shelter so that we could get a sense of what the actual construction cost would be and then we would know whether or not we can afford it uh so this project actually is already an advanced planning so that like like Mr drg said um oh that's where the I like it when you tell us it's a hospital Ryan and so we're building a hospital got and it's that so we're suggest kind so we're suggesting that we set aside this 30 million but then what happens to the other hundred million no there there is there is no other 170 million because there's nothing backing it um it's it's there's 30 million of capacity in cops it's in advanced planning they are basically working on options to create a second location a satellite shelter which they would operate both facilities basically and they're doing Advanced planning and they would bring it back to council once it makes it through advanced planning sometime in fy2 and really all this is committing is that you are not going to spend any of that 30 million in capacity until you figure out what you want to do with that project I see but if another project comes up that well city council we'd have the ability to come and say hey this is a I I just worry that um we get the Tumi project right too I think that that used to be the Humane Society site and it's got a bunch of kennels and a lot of other things I think we ought to get the Tumi site done well and renovated and and revisit this I think okay but you have a motion on the floor you had a question Brown thank you madam mayor so you're saying a Tumi site though but is that under that's the site that you talked about telling the story that you used to go down and pet the animals I remember that story because I used to go down there and pet the animals too yeah but what are we doing with that site though I don't know what's going on with that site going yeah so really what they're looking at is they're looking at using the land they're probably not going to be able to repurpose the existing facility but they're still a lot of savings if they're able to use the land and then build a satellite shelter on top of it so that's currently what they're evaluating okay yes so I've been advocating for them from day one when I went down but you know I went through the whole process and looked at it so this is I'm happy to see the 30 million and that we're trying to move something in the right direction for these wonderful folks they come down all the time they've been coming down way before came around mhm so it's time for us to take a step in the right direction to support it don't everybody here love animals mhm okay you know I didn't grow up with him but I support it though all right so we have a motion by Miss ashir on the floor to set aside $30 million in cops for the animal shelter re the new facility for the animal shelter all in favor raise your hands one two three one two three four five six okay may may and the mayor protim seven got it okay thank you everyone let's take we have we have several things to do it's not I'm just backing up but we have got one more some the bike funding ones the last well the juvenile want to do the bike funding one okay all right let's go all right Miss air also this also had the support our last budget adjustment meeting um this was to increase the bike funding uh we know that people some people use bike infrastructure to get to work uh it's not for recreational purpose so that's why I'm proposing this increase to build out our bike Network so I make the motion to proceed with additional $2 million uh through arpa go ahead okay well that's what I was going to ask so yeah through ARA funds um so instead of putting it on the ballot we would um put it on Opa funds yes I think the people ought to have an opportunity to to vote for these things have an opportunity to speak would be good but I think okay all right do you have a motion Mr just made a motion to take to do an additional $2 million in arpa funds for the bike Lanes I know any any com we have a second comments yes M so Rather B hit me in them cars Street I see in CIP over two years uh can you yeah so when this was requested it was a CIP request um we had suggested a if you want to fund this you take it from some of the other one of the other Bond projects we mentioned strategic uh investment areas that has already been reduced now to 30 um so I believe council member asira is suggesting arpa instead which is your prerogative so we so just to be clear we this is part of it would have been part of or could have been part of what we had initially funded but since we've done a $20 million reduction that's no longer TP May possible it can still be do on you just have to cut something is what I'm saying I got um so but now the proposal is that it come from arpa instead that that's so let me that's what I was answering it can come from either CIP or it can come from RP we do know that we we you just say it can't come from CIP it can come from CIP you would just have to reduce something left in CIP okay so for CIP you have to take something of the two million I think what what's confus maybe it's not confusing confusing me is that we had it on the list for additional Bond funding for people could vote okay but now now we're saying take it out of arpa which is now the funding that we want to do police violence for Youth and and it's just it's $2 million so I think that's a question no and I and I agree actually so I want to be clear because um a lot of the second there there was a petition it was circulated to many of us um and the second largest amount of those petitioners lived in East Charlotte in District 5 and at bikes and uh Miss Kathy Hill from morira I've gotten an extensive amount of people reaching out to me with an interest in doing this and so uh my assumption based on what you're explaining to me Ryan is that we now essentially just cut a large amount of our potential budget from the CIP right um and to now say that we would put it in oura dollars instead um now I'm a little where I would have cuz I actually spoke to council member asir prior to this and she told me she would make the emotion and of course because there's so many constituents in East Charlotte I you know would agree but now I don't even know how we would do it so it's it's harder for me to support it and that's something that I don't even know how I will explain to the people that I represent because to say now that we're going to put $2 million in arpa funding towards it when I've I'm listening to even the chair of Housing and Neighborhood Services I set in on their meeting about the cas blessing center right and that is another fundamental Regional opportunity that is asking for some essential dollars uh that I feel like we need to be a part of I'm absolutely on board for that right do we even have $2 million in arpa funding now with all of the arpa discussions that we're having and the potential ones that are currently in uh committee right that haven't even come to the full Council yet it's only been voted out of committee right so now the council's going to review that opportunity and hopefully get us to an agreement but then where are we in budget funding to say that we now have an additional $2 million in arpa and I'm just I this is going to I'm I'm sorry I still got the floor um so I'm confused because um this is going to be very hard to explain again there are people in real time watching us right now and what they're hearing is the tail end of a discussion where they will not have the full scope of what's going on and I think that's unfair because if someone votes against this they're going to appear that they're not with it but in fact we've had an an extreme decrease in the amount of funding and our possibility based on the recent decisions in this in this actual meeting today so uh I I I want to be clear on record for anybody who's listening to me in East Charlotte John Holmes I know you're watching this is not Kathy Hill I know you're watching this is not because we did not intend to put money in the CIP we now have a potential decreased funding amount to implement and put towards that and so now we would have to decide whether we're going to take a very limited arpa funding pot and allocate these $2 million and that that is a discussion that on the spot is unfair because you know again we have people who we have a responsibility to who have voted for us who've trusted us and what they're seeing they may not have the full scope it's just going to make it a harder conversation to have afterwards I I think Miss missir since you I know but we have other speakers that have not spoken yet I just wanted to provide clarification so so in the proposed budget let me may be very clear there was absolutely no increase in bike funding and hence I had I had made that request so uh if you look at the proposed budget it stayed the flat um so whether I'm okay with getting it from CIP we can still fund it from CIP that's not an issue the only reason I proposed ARA is because we have a capacity left but I'm open to amending it to CIP because there is still funding we can still do it out of CIP um all right um R by5 million I want to make sure can this be funded out of the CIP or do do we have to find the funding for it to move to the CIP oh yeah no no it's it's it can be funded out of the CIP you'd have to do one of two things you'd have to either reduce something else in our bond by $2 million or you'd have to very incrementally TI back up that property tax adjustment I guess okay okay so mayor so all right Miss okay mayor Pro I'll let this city manager um I guess trying to be helpful so what we had recommended initially was a new program the Strategic investment area so that Strategic investment area is now at uh 30 million if you wanted to take two million more out of that to move it over to bikes you could do that but issue is take away I mean if I I was just saying it's it's a little bit what Miss Molina said you have strategic areas and somebody would have to lose something somewhere to take it out of those areas so and just as a point of information didn't we vote down the increase of the Strategic investment areas as a council we voted we voted that down yeah yeah okay yeah so that 30 million we said no as a a council but um so Madame mayor I just wanted to say that I fully support you know uh bike infrastructure I'm an avid cyclist I think we need even more than $2 million investing in in bike infrastructure I do think with our strategic Mobility plan that we have that we will get more um but I just want to make sure we're we're we're bifurcating processes we had we had a process for the other Tab and and it feels like we just switched tabs and now we're having a completely different process so again to my earlier point of we have sent roughly about 90 to9 95% of the items um and the adjustments back to committees why wouldn't we send this one back to Mr Drake's committee for example U to do the same thing we're doing with the rest of the line items um if because we've agreed as a council that that was the process for the majority of these line items so if that's what it is why why not send it back to the transportation committee have them discuss this and talk about potential invest options and then bring it back like all other items yeah I'm with withdraw my motion I'm good with the committee so mayor do you want me to make now change my motion to send it to the committee well we you don't have to do that I'm glad to send it to a committee um so that's fine yes mayor yes um so there's if if when you send arpa things to a committee that's completely that's not very problematic for us because we're preparing a budget document and our arpa investments actually live outside of the main budget document um so if you're sending this for to a committee for potential arpa investment that makes sense if you're sending it for potential changing the bond then that can create some problems for us I I think that we're giving leeway this is the way I would say it goes to the committee you've got the funding that's suggested but you also have the history of what's being done and what's being allocated in the B budget already so I think it's a discussion of what do we do more of and have the committee make a recommendation I mean it's basically you know more additional funding but where the bike funding would go how those decisions would be made is really the most important thing we don't want people to lose and at some point it's joining the other bike plans that we have so it's just a matter of I think doing more okay um I want to make sure that we do a couple of things that are housekeeping that we are required excuse me Madam mayor couple things I don't know if we voted on that one and also the juvenile crime she dropped oh you said you dropped then I make a motion to just refer it to the committee I think she said that she didn't do that we I'm saying I know we did that for the other items so I'm if you are referring it that's good but I'm just if you need me to make the motion I'm happy no you don't need to make the motion okay Madam mayor the other item was the juvenile crime that was the 1 million for the ARA we said that because we were talking arpa in this process it would be appropriate to have it here it was brought up last week but not included because we were waiting on the arpa process um so wanted to make sure that we covered that one before we left the arpa items so all right so I understand that we I thought that the manager was going to bring back the arpa fund and the C at the next council meeting is that for the sure um tell me where Dr wallington's Point she brought up something related to arpa interest is there are a number of council members around this uh I guess it's not a diet uh that have other concerns that have come up over time and so maybe it's the time to bring those all up well I thought that's what we did on this other sheet because we were voting to pay for things out of ARA funds no that was going to committee and we were um that was my understanding would go to committee and then there'd be a discussion about the funding and how much so the Charlotte Film Festival was funded out of ARA today it's going to committee that's what I thought right so I think we still need to vote on the juvenile one because that actually has already gone to committee and come out with support so what are we voting on for the juvenile the amount $1 million out of the arpa interest to supplement the 3.5 that is what um we voted out a committee when we supported the ktie BL blessings Center so we have 3.5 right now ktie blessing Center is asking for 2.5 and so part of how we approved our or supported the Katie blesson Cent was with the un uh understanding that it would come with an additional 1 million um for juvenile crime out of arpa which is what I mentioned last week so I think we all we need to do is just put it on the board and then vote it up or down okay um but I think that but that's coming through a committee process right it's already been it hadn't come to the full coun come to council I think but did the Charlotte black Film Festival go through committee and come to full Council it was a part of the um it did not it did not but it was a part of the council that put it up on the room as a full Council but remember last week when I brought it up I was told that there was going to be a separate process for arpa otherwise it would have been on the board okay so did just as a I think that's fair so just as a point of information this is this line item wouldn't it be a part of the arpa discussion and not impact the this is a budget disc that's what I'm not clear about because trying to get understanding we're voting to take things specifically out of arpa today that's what I've heard a number of times yes I think that's fair mayor protim because we did it for the housing and we're doing it here and so I think that it's not it is a question that the committee recommended and that we I think it's fair because because it was said how do we get to this it was arpa funding and now we are actually cutting into arpa funds so yeah because to council memb Molina's Point earlier based on what we said today there's some reduction to that 7 million is already gone so I just want to make sure that we're deciding on this as part of that process I I like I said I think that's fair so could I get a motion to that was the motion second make a we have a motion and we have a second um any further discussion all in favor of the motion please raise your hands what is this Katie blessing all right well vo on that now for the ju anyway anyone opposed all right it's okay that passes um so that we have one thing that we have to do before we take a bathroom break and then come back into May quick question before we go on bathroom break because also when we were talking about that we were going to have a separate conversation for oper funds before all the funds have been allocated we have I it should already be on there the funding through Opa for the faith and housing and that was a request do I need to put that on the board Mr manager 1.5 million you keep reducing my amount sir we started out with 2.5 so think so let let me just get clarification because what we just had a conversation basically for pre-development funds for one development with our partners in CMS was a million dollars that we're talking about allocating for them for pretty much a predevelopment funds the only way that faith in housing is going to be successful and has been up to this point is because of the financial align item commitment that the city identified that's helping to identify other support that conversation started at 2.5 then somewhere some paperwork it changed so what are we looking cuz that was intended out of arit Interest yeah I think you're still at 2.5 so here's the in the uh budget um there were the home funds that we had a partnership with the county we pulled those back um still funded for this year and I think it was5 right and so we thought we could get the entire 25 we didn't so that's why I say one to go the request today colleagues if it is amenable M to you all my request is for a million dollars from the arpa to be in that will be added to specifically to address the faith and housing which so hopefully everyone knows if you don't that is I get I gave everybody so that's the other thing everybody should have their umbrellas today from the event thank you all but to address our needs and to help us move the conversation forward within our religious institutions as well as our development Community oh part the yes so that is my motion yeah it it is I I really am excited about this the idea that we have that we're going to support institutions of faith that have property and have the willingness to um I actually think it's a win-win for everybody so thank you Miss Mayfield for what you're doing all right I Miss Johnson yes um I just wanted to know how much is going to be spent from the arpa funds I'm going to support we'll have to do this based upon what we're doing let us let us get this we first of all we have to have direction for the manager to do these tasks that we put up there and then we would be able to have a list for the arer money that's remaining okay thank you and I also agree I think this is a transformative exciting opportunity I know there were a couple pastors that I referred to the summit so congratulations councilwoman thank you okay I have we have to do a motion and I'm going to read the motion vote first I I did a motion and it got a second you got a second it's why you this is like joy we don't have to vote no I'm just jok all right everybody raise your hand it's in support okay okay anyone opposed all right thank you very much not the million for the offer all right now we we have one final action to take I need [Music] them and so in particular she's cting her wedding anniversary us I like to say congratulations happy anniversary happy anniversary Bernard I'm on my way oh oh I'm coming home Bishop Bishop that mean you need to leave the house no they got a babysitter for tonight okay PG13 in here Big Daddy happy 30 plus Ann John thank you m all right so um we need a motion to direct the city manager to prepare the necessary documents and resolutions for the FY 2025 budget Ordinance do I have a motion second um any further discussion on it all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppos to we're instructing to prepare we to prepare the budget of for the Jun June I mean juneth June 10th juneth is after that week okay all right so we have um I think we've got it all we've covered every step along the way um how if we have a break how long do you think you need 10 minutes break and then are you read the we're going to read the we're going to read the motion and come back all Mr Baker ready for yes we're ready I will need a motion to go into Clos session to discuss matters related to the location or expansion of Industries or other businesses in Charlotte including agreement on a tenative list of Economic Development incentives that may be offered by the public body pursuant to ncgs 143 3181 A4 so move second I have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor raise your hand are you getting out back okay 15 17 10 minutes [Music] e