[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good afternoon everyone um thank you for joining us for our action review that we have in advance of our Council um meeting um today we want to um call this action review to order um let's start with introduction starting with our Deputy clerk Ariel Smith lead city clerk Mr oh I'm so sorry I'm thinking about food man I don't have my utensils y'all know where my priorities are I'm sorry James Mitch the greedy one at large Temple at Large Dante Anderson mayor protim district one vs mayor Marcus Jones city manager Malcolm Graham District 2 edrs district 7 good evening Lana Mayfield council member at large good evening Victoria watlington at large Patrick Baker City attorney all right thank you everyone um we now have the consent agenda is there a motion to approve consent agenda items well let me first start off with is there anyone that would like to um have a an item for a separate vote Miss Parris anything no ma'am it I spoke to Miss Mayfield earlier did you get all your questions answered thank you okay all right does anyone would anyone like to speak on any of the items or make a note on them hearing none of that do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda items 27 through 29ve we have a motion and a second um any further discussion hearing none all in favor of that motion please raise your hands all right Mr Graham is your hand thank you very much Miss Mayfield I did see your hand go up and down thank you very much okay the next item on um our agenda is for the city manager to provide a review of what we're going to discuss this afternoon thank you mayor and members of council today we have uh two items for the action review one is the Bank of America stateum improvements where we will have our um consultant who's been with us for a while uh David Abrams and Tracy dson my assistant city manager and then we'll have an update from a um referral or outcome that came from the uh housing and uh committee on the youth crime reduction the Katie blessing Center this is an opportunity for the full Council to get briefed by uh Sean Heath and we may have some input from the the chair and the vice chair of that committee so mayor with that said those are the items that we have for the action briefing tonight all right let's go ahead and start with our Bank of America's improvements Project M Dodson thank you mayor thanks for having me up here again tonight um we want to do a couple of things tonight U we want to first um introduce you to David Abrams and Circle Sports um and I will do that in just a second then we want to provide some public feedback that we've received to date as well as give you some staff response to council questions um as I asked David to come up here David is um a consultant that we have worked with for many years uh going back to when temper Sports entertainment originally acquired the stadium but David also has helped us with the with the Hornets he helped us with MLS years ago I've even consulted with them on tennis um as we pursued that last year so all things and anything Sports I'm going to ask David to come up and talk a little bit about what he sees as Trends across the country um and then before he finishes we'll pause for a second let you guys ask David any questions and then I'll come back for the remaining pieces David you want to come up where's the and down down all right mayor uh city council members uh city manager it's nice to see see you all I'm David Abrams with Inner Circle Sports uh as uh uh Tracy mentioned I have been working with the city on a number of sports related projects uh for those of you that haven't met me before and I I do know a number of the staff it's nice to see everybody uh I Inner Circle Sports is a sports Centric uh Financial Services firm um that uh I have worked at for between 8 and nine years I focus on sports facilities uh which means stadiums and arenas mostly in the United States but we do some work outside of the country as well in all of the major North American sports leagues in addition to my work at Inner Circle Sports I'm a full-time faculty member at NYU and I teach Finance in the sports space so um I I don't consider myself an academic per se but um I do spend a lot of time teaching the next generation of sports professionals how to uh how to work in this in this business um my experience is across all of the major leagues and doing Arenas and stadiums and so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a very very popular time in the building of sports facilities and so across the country we find ourselves faced with improving our infrastructure and part of that infrastructure is sports facilities I personally am working on seven different NFL projects right now um two major league baseball projects and two Arena projects and um and that's a lot uh normally I would consider full employment in that space to be two or three projects at a time and we're working on quite a bit and so I'm honored to be able to work with the city of Charlotte um I've spent a lot of time in the city of Charlotte but not necessarily just on my um uh in in my work here with the city but um I've spent a lot of time with my family in this area and I would tell you that this is a success story unlike many other cities in the country um there are a number that I've been working with it like Tennessee as you see up there in the top left similar growth patterns tremendous employment lots of uh businesses um a youthful population and so something that we're doing here within the city of Charlotte related to um football and to the Spectrum center of the Hornets is is you should be proud of um wherever it ends up um that's subject to policy makers my job is to give you information help you make good decisions so with that I'm going to just move on to one uh slide that I wanted to put up here for you um I'm often asked about sports facilities is that is the transaction that we're contemplating is it measurable against other transactions that are being done around the country is it the appropriate amount of investment and are we do we are we leaving money on the table or are we making a good deal and the answer I I I almost always will will respond is there is no way of drawing a line as you can see this this line that actually talks about the Public Funding percentages all over the map um stadiums that have built in the in in in the NFL over the last decade or or more I've had um a varying amount of Public Funding and um these are for the most part new stadium builds and so when you talk about refinancing or rent Renovations of of of stadiums I actually see even a greater percentage of of public money in those they're typically governmentally supported assets either they are owned by government or the land underneath them is owned by government or the asset itself is actually um invested U government invested and so we see a greater percentage I'll take for instance the last two here on this list which is Buffalo and Tennessee actually had the opportunity to work for Metro Nashville in the last few years um and helped negotiate the um the Tennessee Titan Stadium but Buffalo is not a client of mine nor um am I working on it but you can see here that about 50% or more of the financing was done um I think if I maybe get over no it's I'm not sure it's coming up um maybe if I make it a little bit smaller no um that about 50% or more of those stadiums are uh public financing um Tennessee was a unique opportunity where the state and the C and Metro Nashville actually invested in those um in in in that stadium and the reason I bring it up is it was going to be a renovation the Titans wanted to renovate um Nissan Stadium initially and when they looked at the renovation um um and the expense it was going to bring and it was way more expensive than what we're talking about here um the state of Tennessee stepped in and said we'd like to see more visitation by putting a roof on that building and so they actually offered $500 million in addition to this the Metro Nashville's $76 million um and that's not to say to draw the conclusion that should this building be um have a roof on it because I don't think it's necessary um I think it's it's somewhat unaffordable but um it's not about whether you should have a roof or what you should be um spending to build you if to look at the economic impact of this state ium in the community it's rare to have soccer and or or you know American football and Europe and soccer played in the same buildings in an urban core and um the opportunity to do something and keep this these both these teams here for um you know a decade and a half or more two decades is is unique around the country the amount of of of of income generation the amount of jobs created um the amount of spending that happens the visitation that happens is substantial and um I think that you have an opportunity to um invest and the question then becomes is it the appropriate amount is what we're considering the appropriate amount and I would say absolutely it's the appropriate amount and should the team um be investing as much if not more and so um the city of Charlotte has been in the stadium business for a number of years and because it's been in the stadium business has actually had to fund both Capital Improvements and operating expenses um over a long period of time this investment is going to take the city out of that business and shift it towards the private sector towards um towards um the uh the the Panthers and I think that that's the Hallmark of what is a good deal is that we're going to invest in the building give the opportunity for the Panthers to do what they do best and to be an excellent football team and we can only hope that that's the that they'll continue to do that and then and then we we step back and we watch them be successful um that's not means we're going to take our hands off the wheel we're going to be have guard rails and guidelines that keep our business agreements in place such that um they will have to perform to a certain level whether it's this owner or another owner or three owners down the road it's all going to be um pardon me um it only comes up when my children call me so uh you know everything else is silent but when my children call um so and this one's an athlete so he's wanting to tell me about something that's I'm sure it's important so um so what what I was getting at is is that our opportunity here is to invest and and be not not a bystander but an invested um partner but we're going to set up guardrails such that the Panthers are also investing in that building and maintaining it over the the life period of of the the nonre location agreement which will be through 2045 let me show you another slide here um maybe this is a little bit easier to read and I thank um Holly who put this together with some of my information um you look at these these stadiums and again I want to draw your attention to it's hard to come up with an answer as to what's the best answer to our problem of what should we invest because you look at Buffalo and Nashville and so the private funding is is is substantial but so is the Public Funding um Nashville also had the same issue is that they were putting a lot of money into Capital Improvements post any renovation or post any um any um new bill and they're going to be out of that business um there's there's some Capital coming from certain revenues but generally speaking the cost overruns the operating cost and cap xes on the on the Titans Jacksonville is an interesting one and I don't know a lot about it but it's not done yet so um I would the take-home message here is let's watch a little bit further on that one Baltimore um is a renovation as well and the state of Maryland if you probably have paid attention um are investing in both um baseball and um and um um and football at the same time and they were actually going to invest in u the commanders as well if not for the fact that there was a change of ownership there and that the former owner um couldn't make a decision and was maybe uh made it difficult for the governor to to invest but there there's a fair amount of money coming in for the Ravens and also for um the Orioles and those are Renovations and the length of term is not so dissimilar from what we've got in here we're we're looking at between 2030 to 20 40 45 15 years or so 46 um 16 years or so and that's what you would expect um the question is that you should be asking is can the stadium last that long is that an appropriate time to invest in this in this building and I would say the answer is yes um with the caveat that um you need to make sure that the team is investing in the building at the same time and many of the council members have asked me you know will they be investing along with us and yes they will be putting money into the building as well as investing along the way and capital Improvement so there's three main components of investing in sports facilities there's the initial Capital there's operating expense and there's Capital Improvement capex is what we call Capital expenditures and the cap X is can sometimes be as much maybe 2third the cost of of actually investing in the building that's the Panther's responsibility um so that's what you see in renovations and so we're shifting that to the team and we're investing in the in the capital up front the guard rails that we're going to put in place to protect the city's interests are going to be no less short of any other project I've worked on around the country and I have been doing this since the early 90s and done um dozens of transactions and worked with the leagues we'll make sure that we're protecting the city's interests so I'm going to hand it back to Tracy and then if you have questions for me unless you want me to I'm happy to answer questions I guess right now by Mr yes mayor good chair okay Miss asir yes thank you madam mayor Mr Abrams thank you so much for your presentation in any of these deals have you seen local government being an equity partner because that's I have heard that question several times from our residents as to why are we not an equity partner in profit so have you you seen any deal not just this but Across the Nation where City or the county or the state government is being an equity partner uh in profit sharing we have to define equity partner I'm sorry I'm I'm a university Professor I teach at myu I'm used to walking around the room and going up to the up to the slides and so Meandering around and I would come right up to you and talk with you um so um the you have to define equity we're talking about equity in the team or equity in the stadium right and so I'm going to tell you about both so the leagues don't want government being an equity partner in their sports teams for the simple reason is they there's they have no way of controlling information going in two directions right so the leagues would like to all leagues right they would like to keep the business of running their sports leagues well as private as they can I'm not saying they're doing anything that they they shouldn't be out in the public it's just they're running a a a professional sports league and they would like to not to be government in the sunshine and so they probably don't want um government to own a portion of their teams right um that said it's really interesting that all of the leagues except the NFL which is taking this issue up just as you know right now having private Equity invest in their in their franchises small amounts not that they can have control they have to have a certain amount of time that they have to hold that Equity um so there are guard rails to protect the league from dissemination of information and also having a a bad actor being a part of their of their uh of their ownership group so it's happened at all the other leagues just hasn't happened in the NFL yet that's that's team side right so yeah I have not seen um governments own a piece of of of teams now on the building side we see it all the time right we don't call it Equity though do we I mean we we it should be called Equity because many many you own the Spectrum Cent you have basically 100% well I think it's 100% owner maybe Patrick you would tell me make sure I'm right about that you you have 100% ownership of that building with your leasing it to an operator right so it happens all the time in government uh and this is the public domain of where the outward facing part of sports it makes sense to have government take have participate in that because there are so many other events so I hope that answers your question yes I think it helps me understand why why why there hasn't been one Equity partner when it comes to teams um specifically for the NFL um but have you seen any partner where they are actually getting a percentage of profits from ticket Sals um are you're talking about a governmental partner yes so um often so yes um and and and I Council against having Revenue sharing agreements for a whole host of reasons which probably is not worthy of this this evening because we're we're going to be um time constrained um but often times it's shifted into a rental payment or it shifted into like well we'll take over certain other expenses like insurance or day of game expenses or capex and so the modernday um business agreement that I have negotiated or in the midst of negotiating all across the country is government doesn't want to be in the business of Revenue sharing for the simp reason is that it's hard for you to audit what that Revenue looks like right because it's rare that some of those revenues fall into the stadium side and some fall into the team side we call them team Co and Stadium Co right or Arena Co if you want and you would then have to have their financial statements which by the way we go back to your first question the leagues don't want those out in the public for a whole lot of reasons and it's nothing because they're afraid to have the public in there it's just they're running a business and it's like asking GM well they public a non-public company to put their financial statements out out in the public so um that for that reason um having a revenue sharing agreement would mean you'd have a right to audit and they they wouldn't do that the the simpler thing to do is to say you know we want you to either take on more operating or capex responsibilities or in some cases you'll see make a rental payment it's just a Flatout contractual payment in this case we don't have that but we do have the the former good yeah that that is very helpful and certainly this comparison line by line uh this is very good I did see this um well some of this was in CLT Ledger where they compared right um what other cities have done Across the Nation for for renovations either that's renovation or for new stadiums sure well I have additional questions I'll I'll let me I'll hold my questions till the end thank you Miss Mayfield ask if she could have an immediate followup to that before that Mr Dr so if you okay with that M thank you thank you madam mayor so council member asmir what I as a followup to her question what I was hoping to hear is a breakdown or explanation regarding the Green Bay Packers because they are the only one that is in order not to have government dollars and others they did uh profit sharing for lack of a better word so explain how that is different I'm going to plead ignorance because the Green Bay Packers like how they are organized and structured happened before I probably even understood what NFL was right and um I'm not involved in anything they do other than I you could get their C councilwoman you could get their financials on online it would be a trim down set of financials um that is a public trust owned um uh owned uh uh Team how that works from the standpoint of public disclosure is a a mystery to me I I I'm I honestly would not sure how the Packers run that business right I've never worked with them and because of the way they're set up they've never had a need to really um you know ask Our advice so I apologize just for full transparency when I've had community members as well reach out that is an example that they use why don't we look I get that in class all the time and I always say that's not an it's an outlier don't don't ask me about it right they are the only ones but there is just information if you just do a simple Google search and why some think that it is a battle model versus the idea the conversations that we have to have with community of why are we subsidizing a someone that's extremely wealthy so but you're not familiar with the ends and out I just thought at the risk of saying something that's going to get picked up in the press That's wrong I'm going to I I I I'm guessing that they're not sharing the revenues with the community it all stays within Packers football but you know I I it all stays well that's the model the modotto is this is what funds all the upgrades all the Investments you know you're going to pay a little bit more at concessions but you know that that money is staying in the community and it's not it goes into Packers football right and runs their business but I again I'm not familiar with their financials thank you m yeah all right Mr dggs thank you mayor um I think we should emphasize that the opportunity to partner with TSC in this Venture uh is potentially a huge benefit to the city and uh the investment that teer has made here has been beneficial to us with the acquisition of the soccer team so I just want us to look at all of this in that context uh there is value there um I'm very mindful as I consider this transaction of the strong support from uh the hospitality industry and the business Community uh who are the most immediately affected by this commitment of hospitality dollars so that's uh pretty critical to me at the same time as I look at the deal structure I think there's a responsibility for us to kind of look after the interests of the city and uh of our community recognizing that these are not um general fund dollars this is not your property tax this is not sales tax these are revenues that are collected by the hospitality industry for the purpose of investment in Ventures like this nonetheless uh we want to be sure the terms of the deal protect our interests and uh in that sense uh for one uh Mr raen I agree with you uh my own view is I don't think there is an upside for us in trying to be some sort of an economic partner in this Venture uh I think what we need to do is decide what the value is to us of having this investment take place having that team here I don't trust economic uh impact studies and stuff like that but we know there's a great deal of development that could be driven by it there's a huge opportunity for the hospitality industry I think it raises the profile of Charlotte um and those are the things that drive uh our willingness to invest and the knowledge that uh a team like this could get offers from other cities so that we have to be competitive and make it uh economically viable for them to stay here the biggest issue that I have with it is uh as it's described to us so far the team commits to uh the operation and maintenance and we were told the number of 431 million we've talked about this briefly uh I need to know exactly what that looks like I need more detail I need a bigger commitment I need an actionable commitment by the team that gives us remedies if they don't stay on a schedule and I've mentioned before if you look at our ownership of the arena and the deal we have there the team can come to us and say Hey you know you got to you got to get us up to here and we just paid $170 million because of that so I would like an arrangement that lets us monitor the investment in the stadium and gives us the right to intervene mean if certain things that we're expecting don't occur uh and that's I think my biggest issue I appreciated your comments about guard rails yeah I guess I'll just say that uh I'm interested to know what they are and I certainly can't count $430 million as has been described to us uh estimated investment for these things um without uh having a framework that tells me if these things don't happen then I have these remedies and so I'll be watching with interest as the deal unfolds I am basically though supportive of a partnership with the team and uh of an investment by us uh in a magnitude like the one we've discussed I'm just looking for a little more from from the team before I can be prepared to support it and and and and I appreciate that there a is a great request and the um what what I had indicated to you and what I've done in other other jurisdictions is we put together Capital asset management plan and that plan ensures that the responsible part is investing in a way that is fitting the building uh based on its comparable comparable other facilities yeah I look forward to learning more about that thank you very much for your work yeah thank you um we're going to go to Mr Graham who committee will be looking at this deal thank youing a recommendation thank you madam mayor and I think council member drg's is spot on in reference to his request um some something that I talked to David about earlier today and I think the mayor protim um has similar uh opinions and reference to ensuring that we have this trust but verifi scenario for the the private uh funding um and the the 688 plus the balance is really important to us for sure um just as a commentary uh it's not going directly uh to uh Cher Sports entertainment it's going to contractors that they hire uh which employ people in the community and so it's reimbursable and so that there's trust but verified there that they have to do the work uh and produce invoice and receipts before payment uh is made so it would be literally going to contractors that's doing the work that employ people um that we have putting these um goals in place for minority and small women's participation council member MIT and other community benefits that um we're trying to get these dollars in the community um um by way of terer sports and entertainment David I want to thank you though that's my only question Mr Dr really kind of summed it out for me as well uh I had the opportunity to work with Dave for the last year I guess year and a half uh going back to Spectrum he's always been accessible and available very knowledgeable uh really has taken Charlotte uh in our interest um uh at mine and really advising uh the staff and the committee along the way and so just want to thank him for his support um obviously I encourage all council members to really really quiz him he he's certainly an expert in the field and provide a wide variety of um opinions and resources over the next two weeks so I would really encourage uh those council members who did not have the opportunity to meet with them today to to reach out with them viaa email or any questions that you may have uh via Tracy um because this is again as I told council member ashme earlier uh the deal is the framework uh and we're really looking for input from the council members as well as the public uh via our website in terms of anything that we may be missing related to community benefits uh related to as Mr Dres and the mayor protm has uh indicated along with me trust to verify scenarios relating the the public and the timing of the private investment after our investments have been made uh etc etc and so uh here's an opportunity for us to really kind of help us create the model uh uh and adding to the framework um that hopefully we'll have an opportunity to vote for on the 24th of this month thank you madam mayor right thank you mayor proam thank you Madame May mayor the the chair just made some really great comments uh Mr Abrams I just want to thank you for the time that you spent with us uh earlier today you know I do Echo the sentiments of Mr Driggs as the level of import of having an NFL team to the city and what that means and I would also just underscore um the information you had on Slide Five of all the various deals um over over a particular temporal setting you know we have that unique uh combination of having NFL plus MLS to play Under the same uh in the same building which is phenomenal and unique as well but of course we want to be good stewards to this uh to this particular deal and as I mentioned earlier I think the the capital Asset Management plan is is critical for the oute past 29 um and if there is a way for us to get deeper Insight or you know further crystallize um the actual spend and even particularly potentially set a percentage of spin um by a particular date so there's a sunset or a gradual Sunset um for that for the camp for the capital Asset Management plan I think that would be particularly helpful for the community to understand that yes we are we want a partner and we understand the invest investment in the in the stadium but there is some I've heard that loud and clear and I think it's important to do that and I I would also you know when the when any entity comes forth and says well this is what we expect to spend it's based on their expectation of obsolescence right and and and so we don't know what that obsolescence is going to be certainly technology is obsolete more quickly than we anticipated but concrete um HVAC you know uh mechanical electrical Plumbing MEP that may last longer than we think you depending on what we're doing and with with construction methodology these days you know you might find that you might not have to spend as much money in the early years um and you will have succeeded in in in in in doing some tremendous improvements and other things may wear more quickly and and of course it all depends on how many people you put through the building too sometimes just even being successful causes you to have to spend more money right and so with more a nicer building with more events and more visitation you would see more wear and tear on the building so we'll Endeavor to go through that with uh terer sports and entertainment make sure that they're being thoughtful about what that number is and then we'll put together an asset management plan that is appropriate and puts the guard rails on to make sure that they're investing in the asset that we share that's excellent I I suspect the technology aspect of it would be heavy in the camp right um for the for the items that are exposed to the weather but then even an on Prem Cloud perspective of where they're housing their information and D data and then how how how they have an analytical overlay on those data Lakes I I think that will be a key areas of investment so I look forward to your expertise in helping us shape the uh Capital asset man glad glad to participate in that way all right miss a thank you Madame mayor so I I have uh about 10 questions so I'll take my time I was trying to get hold of uh yeah I was trying to get a hold of Tracy I wasn't able to get some of my questions addressed so uh I will take my time I think this is very important conversation that I think we need to take our time and get our questions addressed um I Mr DXs alluded to this earlier having some sort of schedule I don't if it was couple of weeks ago or uh I think having a payment and timeline schedule would be helpful so not just for the city but also for uh for the Tapper Sports Enterprise so we know uh how much is how much is getting distributed from the city and um what is the timeline around TSC contribution so council member mayor I apologize for not being in touch I was out of town a little bit last week um and we do want to make sure that we answer all your questions I do have some more slides that talk to specifically to that question if you want me to answer it then so we can get through the rest of the slides or you also there are more slides yeah there are more slides so I can wait then I I can wait but so so should I just whatever questions I have for Mr Abrams that I will ask now so as you are looking at others other uh teams across the nation have you seen any performance-based measures in place that if they perform uh right I mean when we are at work obviously our our p is based on performance have you seen that performance I have um if you can just elaborate give you an example and how that looks like yeah early in my career um um a project that I was working on was an arena project had a uh Revenue sharing a performance base so over a certain amount of of of net income there was a sharing between the community and that sponsored the building and the and the and the arena or this and the team that played in it and um what was interesting is is that they only hit that performance metric where there was Revenue sharing in the first year and it was a very small amount um and the reason being is is that as the team or the building did better right they were investing more in the building and it created some hard feelings because they were actually improving financially but they were investing remember it's a net income um metric not a gross revenue perspective so from a net income perspective if they were investing more you know they never hit that threshold again and so the elected body was um you know years later um and many of them weren't there in the initial initial negotiations felt that they felt they felt deceived a bit that that that project should have generated more income for the for the community direct benefit because it was a revenue sharing Arrangement when in fact um it made no sense to invest in their building and in their in their in their team as as well so it wasn't a clear it wasn't a clear directive as to how that was going to work and so that's you know over the last 20 or 30 years I have shied away from those those Revenue sharing agreements um if there's a contractual rental payment a contractual ticket tax um a contract you know that I I don't see an issue with but um when you have a metric that says well if you have you know x amount of fans you know you need to pay us more more money and um it's rare that you see that in the modern era of stadiums so that example that you gave us on performance-based what team was that um they're in the Stanley Cup right now and they're they're us-based yeah okay um I think if we can just get more information on that and what would that potentially look like right um I would be interested in that I would guide you against that for the reason why it didn't work well back then is that the the the team will do what the team in the building I'm not saying they're trying to do something nefarious but they're trying to maximize profit potential and so whether to to share Revenue where it goes outside of their business rather than invest in their business where they feel there's more profit potential it puts you at odds with them making a profit you want your partner to be as successful as possible for the simple reason is you want maximized visitation you want them to be successful on the field on the ice on the turf whatever you want to call it as well as be financi successful because they're going to be investing in the asset which you both have invested in that's that's the reason so you're you you want to incentivize your partners to invest every dollar they can back in the business and if so if there's a revenue sharing Arrangement it disincentivizes them and that's why I've stayed away from that so so I I have a followup to that because um I agree with you on incentivizing model but you know I'm not necessarily looking at performance-based as investing outside um just putting the profit back into into the overall hospitality industry we all know how important the hospitality industry is to our city um and and creates a lot of jobs so what what I generally do is we we have robust Community benefits agreements where we're Distributing tickets to Youth Sports right you're you're bringing in um underprivileged families into the building making you're having sections that allow for lower um lower cost tickets um lower cost food and beverage and you're you're creating a the you're taking the Next Generation and introducing it to what might otherwise be unaffordable or less affordable that's one thing the other would be to investing in their asset and putting money back into the community for outreach in terms of um people coming from outside and doing packages with your with your tourism boards you know creating the ability to put this city not that it needs it quite frankly in the spotlight on a national stage and so that's what you want them to do if you say well let's let's take 20% of your net revenues and and just we'll we'll put it into the general fund they have no way of of of access and I know that's not what you're asking but so directing money from in community benefits by hiring small um and and minority and women owned businesses to work you know whether it's operations and maintenance whether it's it's Food Services whatever whatever you want to call it on an ongoing basis is the way to put money back in the community and so when we talk about Community benefits and and and hiring um it's not just the capital investment or or or the renovation it's the ongoing 20 or 30 years of operations that you want to do that those are the ways to do it and I think those guard rails actually help the community better it's it's good for everybody right you're investing in the community in a way that you'll everybody sees return so we tend to see more of it done in that in that way yes I think some of the community benefits Mr that you're talking about are being discussed oh yes um so and it's not done yet obviously it's still there more based on the feedback from the council uh just curious if there was roof part of the overall deal how much does it cost I'm just curious how much does it cost to have roof like that well if you were to put a roof on Bank of America Stadium I would have to come back to you after I went to architectural school so um so I couldn't Hazard a guess but the common wisdom of if you were to add a roof to a new building half a billion to uh 600 million maybe might be the answer and I hope my friends at populace and H and all the other architectural firms don't yell at me I mean I I I think that's that's probably the number could you put a roof on this building I don't know the answer to it typically to have it wouldn't be able to close in the building from a HVAC standpoint um but you might you could put a shade feature above it sort of like what the Dolphins have done in Miami where the fields open but there's a shade feature I I'm I couldn't haard to guess as to what that would cost or whether you could retrofit this building to do that I just don't know yes I think that's um I I did receive um an email that provided that example uh uh that do team dolphin where they had shade for every seat yeah so I would be curious to see how much that would cost uh if it was added to the renovation I think you should ask the that you know your counterpart of terer sports and ask them if they've done that analysis and find out I mean I can I can ask around but it you'd have to know whether it would fit on this building and what you would have to do to create the footings to be actually to hold something like that structurally okay yeah yes I I'll definitely um I think that's something Tracy could uh provide as a followup yeah and um so so I think we we got to talk about the elephant in the room here which is which is really the partner that we are talking about um because of the history of not following through on other deals in the past the question can I make it easier for you I'm sorry can I make a question easier for you sure goad every where I'm going so iess every transaction I work on and probably anybody who I know works on it we make sure that the counterparty agreements protect both sides right you want to make sure forget about the history of of of what has happened elsewhere everything we're going to put together in the city of Charlotte would be no different than what we do in every other community is to make sure that you're protected that everybody's obligations are lived up to they're they're they're legally defensible and there's there's re recourse if they're broken right that's what you want you want to be protected just like any other business agreement that's what we'll strive to do you've got a great legal team both internally in the city and and your external attorneys they those protections are already being discussed and put in place right I think ultimately the question is how do we ensure that we are not left with something Half Baked or half done and that our whatever was our share or whatever we spent um other party has delivered on their so we we'll um so if you can tell us what would that look like what right what protections would look like to if you're talking about the construction of the facility not the operational and capex side there it's two different two different issues one is that you you have a construction first of all you get gmps rolling gmps to guarantee maximum prices for each of the projects so you know what they're going to cost we only put in money into pay for those as those projects come up right we're not sticking money in an account and here you go and do it and then you know we'll come back and see it later no they'll be we'll be looking at this all along the way so you'll have a what you call is either construction monitor or an owner's rep that's watching that and making sure that what is being built is what we agreed to and it's being and what is being spent is what we think the amount is supposed to be now there's always going to be some minor differences right things cost a little bit more you know some labor is you might need more labor you might have to speed up so there's that that shouldn't be an issue in this particular instance and Tracy will show you in some of the other slides the the the uh agreement is that the team is going to be paying for all the cost overrun so um if it costs more than we anticipate that's not our responsibility what you're asking is is it going to be built so we'll put all those controls in upfront making sure that there's checks and balances along the way to make sure that that happens if things don't happen the way we anticipated you know we turned the dial back on the funding and we stopped now then the question is well wait we have a half-built building and we have obligations that everybody agreed to and it's not going it's not being finished and that's a really good question um one that a litigator or somebody in real estate law should really answer for you but we will put in these sort of if you default what happens right more often than than not um if there is a default um you'll have lenders and the league step in to to to cure any issues but um this is not like put the money in an account step away and come back 3 years later it'll be regularly monitored along the way and then from an operational standpoint and from a capex standpoint same kinds of things right you'll have you'll have external third parties that that that look at that no I I certainly appreciate that there will be Protections in place so I think to Mr dri's earlier point when we look at the schedule overall payment and timeline so some of our distribution I'm assuming would be tied to certain amount of work being completed I would think so but I mean you you you don't have all of the expenditure timelines at the moment right um we have an estimate but once that's all done is that finance and and and the city will sit together and look at when to spend money how to how it goes into what we call construction funds deposit agreement or fund construction funds trust fund and how that money gets spent for contractors so um we're going to be paying the contractors directly yeah so so we'll make sure they do the work okay so that's coming next I guess in your deck okay I've counted six you have four [Music] minut so um that qu this question is for our Economist do we have our Economist somewhere not see so this could be a followup Q&A as part of our Q&A package for our Hospitality tax do we know how much of the tax comes from local residents versus tourist that would be your econom I know if you can somehow uh get that number because I often get that question asked yeah and it we can actually look into that I think we have looked into some of that in the past so sure we can take that um so in our $650 million that's being proposed do does uh Tapper Sports get to depreciate that depreciate that amount as part of the Capital Improvements paid by the city so again I'm not their tax person right but um what they typically even if government owns a building and if there's improvements done by the private sector they typically can depreciate their portion they're not depreciating what we what what we yeah that that probably wouldn't fly with the Internal Revenue Service but um I'm I'm guessing that they'll depreciate their leasehold improvements that they've done in the building okay all right and I will I have some for Tracy I'll let probably her presentation will address some of my questions I'll hold that's all I have for now thank you council member Brown did you have some questions please I'm sorry is going to give us additional slides so she's going to go through the program and then I think Mr Graham did you want to do anything before Tracy started I'll I'll just wait to summarize when we're done I'll just wait to summarize when we're done all right so we will get you Miss Brown as soon as the presentation okay I will try to go through these um quickly uh you know last week as a part of our timeline we watch we launched a website Charlotte nc.gov Stadium um as a part of that website we had the deal summary um we put the frequently asked questions in there key documents public feedback form um also did promotions on media post and median stories and ongoing social media um promotion to send people to the website so as as of today we've had 455 comments almost 2,000 views 5200 visitors some of the themes that we've seen um the money should be used for other items with that's expected um as we've discussed we're in the middle of a budget right now the County's in the middle of a budget um but as we've said many times before this comes from our hospitality and tourism dollars and our convention C fund so I just want to make sure everybody hears that repeatedly because it's very limited on what we can spend those dollars for um as we've heard from you all the opportunity to create opportunities for local businesses has come up um we ensure the city has adequate protections same thing that we've heard from you all and you heard from David and you'll continue to hear from us that that's something that we are working on and then opinions on the design and proposed features and many of the questions that we heard on that was about a dome I will tell you that I went down this um conversation with terer sports and entertainment several years ago um and and David was right it is several hundred million dollars to put a roof um on a facility I can go back and talk to them if they've done any recent ones and David we can look at other stadiums um but it is a incredibly costly venture to to put a roof on a facility such as this so Council questions um what we've heard from you all so far I'm not going to cover everything but I will tell you I have have four plus pages of questions that you all have sent us and asked um over the past couple of weeks and I encourage you to continue to do that we want to make sure that we answer everybody's questions I'm happy to do that oneon-one or that we are tracking and answering these um that we can send back to you all in a memo just to make sure that all your questions are answered some of the key themes that we've heard today are some more specifics around deal points the economic impact study mwsb participation in the community benefits plan so I'm going to go over a couple of things but also remind you that we have a committee meeting on Wednesday a special called committee meeting that will cover a little bit more detail onto some of these things as well so specifics to the deal point so far remember that our money is capped and that this is a non- relocation for two teams over 20 years um that is really important because also our money is a one-time investment and that is securing um also we've heard as we've talked about here is securing the investment post construction years again as David said and we've talked about I'm not going to go over it again but that is something that we are working on to put into the term sheet that you will ultimately see a reference to in the council action when you um choose to vote after the 15 years of the non-re there is an option for tsse to exercise is to um exit out of the deal the remaining balance of anything associated with the debt of this investment would have to be repaid for that and then remember the funds come from the convention center fund which is a pillar within the hospitality and tourism fund many people asked about the traffic management plan in specifics to parking strategies one of the great things about the commitment of looking at this every three years is that we can look at this look and see what development has occurred what parking is taken offline what parking is coming on online um we can also work closely with any new developments on making sure that Ingress and egress is is secured so that if there is available parking it works within the overall plan um tsse doesn't own and operate a lot of parking it's incumbent on kind of working and thinking through this this larger plan the construction and funding so there's a couple things here that I want to make sure we address as come come up and I'm going to go to B first before I come back to a um because this got to councilman asa's question the city investment is tied to tiers so last week I showed you tier one tier two tier three tier one is where the city investment will largely be focused to council member Wilton's question that work is mwsb CBI our participation Target goals all of that work is eligible for that um our work could possibly go to tier two um if there were cost savings from tier one or remaining remaining dollars this we will work through with the funding schedule as well as when the work occurs so uh Caroline Wright was here last week I had a conversation with her today about our funding what we think our draw schedule is with the funding that they're looking at this is really a complex thing to nail down if you think about them and the commitment they've made to keep this um Stadium operational over these construction years you can't replace both scoreboards at the same time potentially you have to do one and then the other because you're operating two teams out of there another thing is you can't you can't do construction on all the restrooms at the same time if you're keeping an operational facility so there's work that will roll over the 4-year timeline and then there's work that can be done more specifically in a year or a specific trunch but we've looked at it with Finance in kind of fouryear or four trenches and we've looked at their work in kind of four packages um and how that'll line up so that will be something that we continue to do also remember what I said before which was we put money in they put money in so we're equally putting money in together not this equal in terms of percentages not necessarily in terms of dollar amounts but we're all putting money in together um and as David reminded everybody it is about they take cost overruns um going back to item a on here this work largely addresses greater accessibility as well as sustainability and council member marme you had asked about sustainability principles we've gone over the seat plan with them and things like that and that is top of mind for them another thing on accessibility that I wanted to hit that we've heard from a couple of people is this connectivity or the tunnel that goes between the stadium and The Practice Facility it's really important that for everybody to know that as a part of our discussions we've never discussed changing that access that access Still Remains in the way that it's operated for almost 30 years now um and keeping that open to to the public we also have heard from people about connectivity whether it be Greenway connections or the cycle track connections and over several months we have talked about kind of the district Vision we've talked with adjacent property owners and that is something that we will continue to dig into the timing of that I've worked closely um with Mr mckenny on um some of that funding to further the cycle track and where we stand with that um but part of it is looking as we work through what work occurs and when and how as when we move forward on on that piece of it but it is a part of the discussions so a couple questions that we've heard on the economic impact study what part of if you remember what I presented last week was we said that there's more than 54 million in annual taxes that are generated I think I got a question that said what what do makes up that 54 million and you can see that here the economic impact of City use days so what we looked at we went back and looked at if you take the past three years the Duke Mayo Bowl the Duke Mayo classic and the ACC football championship we've averaged over 50,000 in attendance and over 21,000 million excuse me in economic impact so you can see what our city used to days are going to and that that too is having a significant impact into our Comm community in addition um the economic impact study annually this is the impacts of the operation of the facility and you can see it goes into Services trades construction you can see that this impact spreads throughout our community on an annual basis the mwsb participation plan we mentioned last week we had a targeted goal of 27% we also we're transparent and some of this work is specialized work so we will continue this discussion Wednesday in committee but what we have done is engage CBI early and are committed to engaging um in early stage decisionmaking throughout the years of construction we've also engaged General services and CBI into the procurement process bringing everybody together now so that we can develop a strong strategy to carry through out the other piece in here that I think is really important and council member watlington and I were talking about this today is the accountability and tracking through monthly b2g reporting and then subcontractor payment ver verification this will be a great opportunity for us to track on a quarterly basis to make sure that we are tracking where our dollars are going and that the subs are getting paid efficiently that gets to one of the things that I know council member Mitchell had raised as well um and again that is quarterly so we can have almost real time or as real time as you get with projects like these what what is happening also to remind you our dollars are not going to teer sports and entertainment our dollars are reimbursing contractors who are doing the work reimbursing for materials that are going into the facility it is not money that is given to terer sports and entertainment it is money that is going to businesses that are in our community and I can't emphasize that that enough um last item is the commitment to apprenticeships I just want to thank you anybody who has sent us different groups to talk to we're working through that and connecting um a lot of these different groups on apprenticeships to terer sports and entertainment to that side of it as well as with the various contractors we're talking to to figure out what works what works best community benefits plan allowing the community to feel more connected to Bank of America Stadium is something that has come up and we're um prioritizing access to community spaces and park like amenities I think when you heard Caroline talk last week thank you council member Molina um they really emphasized what's happening on the outside of of the building in this broader connection to the community and that commitment is there you'll hear more about that on Wednesday also the city youth dayss we increase from 5: to 7: several people have asked how that works and I pulled language right out of the 2013 agreement this is how it currently works works the city may act directly or through crva and scheduling or conducting a City Event so there's and there's more language to follow that but I just want to show you how that is it's really at our discretion we also partner with crva we have other influencers like the sports Foundation that bring event opportunities to us and that's important that we keep those Partnerships going last bullet um the community in Civic support and programming and we want to build on the existing programming but also increase the Community Access and team connectivity to the community I'm not going to still uh the TSC leadership Thunder I'm going to let them come on Wednesday and talk more about what they want to commit to in in that space but just know we've heard you and there's more there's more coming to that so let's now talk about the timeline we were all here for June 3r when we rolled out the deal launched and launched the community feedback we've heard you we will continue to listen and respond respond we're here tonight you've heard from David um and we've heard a little bit on the public feedback as well as response to some of the questions um that you have asked next Wednesday we will do the special committee meeting a couple of things that we will do in that we'll talk about the an economic impact as well as industry input we'll also have more Reflections around the mwsb strategy and how we can make that the strongest possible and then as I said just a second ago discussion with the teer sports and entertainment leadership and then um hopefully coming out of the 12th a recommendation to the full Council for a potential vote and consideration on the 24th and I will end reminding everybody what the website is for the public feedback all right council member Brown no questions no questions all right Mr Graham thank thank you Madam mayor uh and thank you Tracy for the presentation I I just want to to let Council know that you know for the last year and a half um there's been a lot of communication conversation between temper Sports uh and the City of charot regarding a wide variety of issues uh we clearly understand what has happened around us um but we clearly are protecting the interest of the city every step of the way in every document and every every conversation I also Al remind the council that there's a while the ownership Remains the Same there's a new leadership team yes uh in place that has not been there through some of the past episodes I've had the opportunity for the last year I guess to meet monthly with Christie Coleman uh their um their president uh just recently as last Friday uh talking with them specifically about the project uh and their commitment to Charlotte and commitment to seeing it through uh they were in the building today for about an hour and a half talking about another issue that the council will take up next Monday uh Carolyn Wright has been Con in constant communication about things that we need to get right so I'm not I'll let them talk about uh their commitment on Wednesday I just share with you that um uh the trust but verify models in place is that been in place for a while now uh I think there's a commitment on the part of the team to be good citizens uh and to start what they finish uh and um to be good partners with the city of Charlotte so I I I just say that from from that perspective uh secondly I just encourage everyone uh who are interested uh in meeting with some of the leadership that they will be at our meeting on on on Wednesday uh to talk specifically um about their commitment I let them choose their own words themselves but I think it's timely that they kind of come before the council and the City and share their Vision their goals their objectives and answer any questions that any member of the committee and or Council who happens to be their uh uh they way respond to um and so I look forward to their their public participation on Wednesday with us I strongly encourage again council members um because again we've you know I mean some of us has been Deep In The Weeds of this for for quite a while now and so I I just encourage council members to really um ask the right uh ask questions um uh and get them into Tracy um so that we can be responsive to uh your concerns um and um no questions off limits right I I think we we wanted to be as transp um um transparent with the public and I think the team also wants to demonstrate um their commitment and to us as well and so while the deal is not done we're nowhere near done um but I think the framework is there for for more critique more more imput uh and certainly um uh looking forward to the um the meeting on Wednesday uh just want to remind the committee members that there will be a special meeting on this coming uh Wednesday we still looking for more Community benefit ideas uh more ways to be creative around Supplier Diversity mwbe and small business utilization uh there will be some more information on another matter um that's coming out for a council vote on Monday relating to a resoning uh and so there's a lot of things coming in front of us that want everyone to be mindful of and and ask the questions to it's in District Two so I'll be sending out uh an email on Thursday as well with your package and reference to where we stand with that as well so a lot of panther stuff coming your way uh and any questions comments concerns I think everyone would really appreciate it to get it get them sooner than later uh to Tracy um and writing a phone call Birdie I mean just anything you can do so we can be responsive to your needs thank you andn what time and where on Wednesday Tracy o00 3:00 trying to be in this room yes we are in this room thank you 3:00 267 in this room and I think it's making sure that the public knows that that meeting will be televised as well so that's so you don't have to come down to the meeting you can watch it on our city Channel okay um are there other question yes Miss azira yes thank thank you Madame mayor could you go back to the timeline again so Economic Development Committee will discuss this on this Wednesday when is the public public hearing well we have used as we did with the Hornets and as we have done with tennis and these types of Investments we have used the um website as the opportunity to hear from the public because we've has garnered with over 400 comments it's garnered a little bit more there's also um a public comment period on the 24th a public forum um opportunity on the 24th as well so while it's great that there is a website I I personally feel that we need to have a public hearing just like we do on every other agenda item um I I don't see this why why we shouldn't have inperson public hearing I think this is a very important uh economic impact that we are talking about uh we need to have a public hearing on this separately uh not on the same day as the decision um so and uh one more so can you go back to slide where you have um slide number 12 specifics to deal points Okay so number two securing investment in post construction years I can you elaborate on that so Council MERS mayor that's exactly what we've been talking about several times tonight is that this was brought up um last week several times and we want to make sure that you all understand that we hear you and we're working that into the term street it's also um the capital investment plan that we just talked about um that David spoke to that we will work into kind of how investment is made post construction year so from 2029 all the way out to 2045 okay I I think I'll get a better understanding when I have the schedule that we've been referring to uh in front of us uh having that timeline and payments and how that's going to get distributed would be helpful um so 6B you talked about TS e will also be investing while city is investing right so would they also be investing in tier one or they start their investment in tier two and tier three so when we go to the LGC and Raleigh we will have to commit to a certain group of work that has to be done of that work we will put our money into first not in terms of first over tsse but like we know that's where our money is going to that's a commitment that we'll make at the state level tsse is responsible for all Co cost overruns associated with that work or additional work in that list that might not get done because of cost overruns because with our money if there's cost savings that we of City funds then we would look at the tier 2 work and we know what that work list is to give some assurances that we know where our money is going um and that we have a plan on where our money is going going and then tsse can choose from their in their investment they can also choose from tier 2 um as well as a third tier which would not include any City money okay so what I'm trying to get to is is our funds going out at the same time as tsse so is it like parallel or is it waterfall approach parallel and part of it is to the work that's being done over over time okay so yeah that that's that's what I wanted to get to is so the work is Tapper Sports is investing at the same time into the stadium as we are yeah um and it's also important to note I'm sorry it's also very important to note that when we pull funds and we pull the debt let's say we pull 25% of the debt they would then contribute 25% of their funds into into a separate account okay so it's in escrow essentially okay that's great that I actually did get that question asked by a constituent about whether their tsc's portion would be ncal yeah there as we pull money because we're not going to pull the whole 650 at one time in terms of debt but let's say if we pulled 25% then they put in 25% okay um on slide number 17 okay uh 17 this one or the next one 17 there is no there is no it says on here we have this is 16 financing piece we might have pulled that one out of that we I guess it was taken out okay so in financing piece you know which slide I'm talking about the the one that has financing the one that has the tranches in it yes yes okay so that is our portion can we get that similar financing schedule for tsse so it again it lines up I'm trying to find it from the last week's presentation that I have up here so again I think it lines up once we determine what work occurs in what years and some of this will be spread out um but we want to I want to go back that is the way that Finance the the four tranches is an example of how the four years of work could line up with the packages at a hole what we have not entirely nailed down yet is what work is in what tranches and what packages and that's why we went to the model where we had the Tier 1 tier 2 and tier three was so that we knew what work was committed to but if I go back to an example of tier one work restroom Renovations was a part of that that would occur over all four years of construction um other work like some of the mechanical I use mechanical um like scoreboards could be spread out or video could be spread out so it's hard to say I think our money will go in over a series of years to the work that we have committed to and then they will also have work that they will commit to that will happen over those years as well yeah I I guess I'm not following that how schedule how that will work I'll have to actually see it and how that payment is distributed in order for for both us and for the tsse to to understand it I would offer up to that that I'm happy to sit down with you as well as um Caroline Wright and show you their scheduling of what they're looking so you can see it in full transparency yes that would be very helpful uh appreciate your work on this Tracy and your team uh just lastly I would wrap this up um if you go back to the timeline slide that you have is there a rush that we have to make a decision on June 24th so if we don't make a decision on this on June 24th you go out on summer break which costs weeks I think the next business meeting is at the end of August 19th of August um so that's going to delay us now one thing I do want to point out Council May Meo the way that the these have worked historically is Council votes and then we have to document everything then you have to get everybody's sign off and when I say everybody's sign off you have to get the League's sign off the sign off then we have to take a package which takes several months to the state this will actually come back to you for a vote for the financing um before we do that we'll take it to the state before any funds could be made available and losing months is adding months to the construction schedule so part of we're not trying to rush this on you by any means um but I just do want to be transparent in with this this takes a lot of this there's a lot of future steps that have to occur in that that will uh take a lot of time at right now I estimate funding really doesn't become available until first quarter end of first quarter next year so Tracy thank you for walking us through this process certainly it's a long process but we are talking about $650 million so I know you said you don't want us to feel rushed but I feel like we are being rushed at least I do feel like that um so I I just don't understand the urgency behind having to make a decision on June 24th uh and having a public hearing on the same day but that's just me that's all I have thank you all right johnon thank you Madame mayor and thank you for the presentation Tracy and also to the Panthers representative I second the need for a public hearing prior to decision on a separate date and then I wanted to clarify because I feel like I heard two different things who's paying the contractors our investment is to pay for the work which is directly to the contractors and the people performing the work that's where our investment goes of the work that we specify our money goes to I'm sorry say the last part so it in our work if we identify the work that the 650 million will go to which we have called out largely in tier one we will pay directly to the people doing the work so we have control over Equitable consideration such as M mwsb um considering iions and considering who the contracts go to we will work with teer sports and entertainment on who the contracts are awarded to we're Partners in this because as we said with Council mmea we've got two different teams doing work in there at the same time and that has to be managed so we don't have a a city-led team doing work at the same time you have a temper Sports Le team it's that we'll come to an agreement on that but our dollars aren't going directly to temper sports and entertainment our dollars are paying for the work that we have agreed to would be done okay so 650 million from the city to pay for the work okay but we don't have the total or the autonomy of choosing who gets no we will work with we will work with them well as I've said with the um mwsb page we are trying to work through a comprehensive strategy to make sure that that work is Equitable and we're working towards our goal of the 27% okay thank you now we've already approved the resoning for the practice Stadium that's next week okay we've heard okay so can you tell me just can you tell me and the public house that's related to this deal the practice stadium so the quite honestly they have a schedule again let me remind everybody that they are staying operational through this work and so they were transparent that they you know when they took the bubble down they asked for the grading permit they have work that has to get done this year before training camp starts which is remind everybody that's coming back or coming to Charlotte um not back uh so they have schedules they have to work within their operations of the facility so in order to meet a schedule around the Fieldhouse with the football operations they needed to go ahead and move on that practice facility rezoning and so they we didn't have a deal yet um to bring forward so they had to move on it based to keep up with schedule because if zoning is approved then they have to go into permitting and again all of those things play into a schedule of when they need to deliver the facility by okay and so who's paying for the practice facility right now the practice facility is on the list is tier one but this deal is not approved yet so right now it it's potentially their money but if this deal is approved it could be added in it's added into the tier one um work okay thank you and I want to go back to the need or the request for a public hearing prior to the vote I guess that question is from Mr manager Mr manager if you had six council members that wanted to have a public hearing prior to the vote what what would that look like for us well council member Johnson I'm not so sure that we finished the process yet so in other words in a couple of days there'll be a special uh committee meeting and if certain answers aren't even given at that committee meeting I'm sure that the council would be concerned about moving forward so right now what we have is I guess this plan that was laid out um a couple of weeks ago and the plan laid out a couple of weeks ago had if I have that right I don't know if it's two weeks ago had the business meeting in the vote on the 24th and if we weren't clear that the public here hearing or the public input would be on that date outside of what's happening with the website then you know my apologies but at this point this is I guess where we've been from the beginning that the we'd have some feedback we would have the schedule but again if the council doesn't have all their questions answered I'm not sure the council would move forward okay thank you speaking of the website and the feedback so if we go to I guess slide number nine or or yeah number nine as of noon today there were 455 comments and you mentioned that you mentioned I'll wait thank you you kind of me mentioned the vared responses do you have any quantitative information on how many comments were um regarding the the different uses or can we get a graph of of the percentage of comments and what the public is saying we can we can work towards getting you some data points around that okay um and council member ashme I appreciate your your your courage Your courageous questions but for me the elephant in the room is um as we're reviewing the budget today and the the the hospitality funds that are exclusive to the um Sports Arenas and the the hospitality in Industry so I would ask our City attorney if you could um and you don't have to do it now um but if you do but if you can research that information prior to the budget meeting I'd like to know what uh I guess it's gs1 16a 215 or whatever applicable statute speaks to these funds and our ability as a city to govern them thank you that's all I have mayfeld thank you madam mayor thank you both for the presentation y'all answer quite a few of the questions I want to get some clarification still looking at this timeline so if we do not move forward on June 24th that's going to be about 10 weeks between that meeting and the next meeting the challenge I have a couple when you go to the website that we have Pro have promoted it is literally a box that says share your feedback on the Bank of America Stadium upgrades proposal your input is appreciated we don't get that we haven't received received all of the comments that Community has shared in this we've seen a lot quite a few of the comments through direct emails that have come to council I personally even though manager I appreciate that there was a thought that we were all on the same page that everything was happening on the 24th that was not the impression I had I know I personally have shared with numerous residents that have emailed and call to ensure that they I've encouraged them to sign up to the clerk's office to speak I am not comfortable with us saying we're going to make this decision the same evening that we should be really focusing on getting Community feedback this is a major Financial commitment whether it's coming for Hospitality or not it is still we have a lot of instay not all of the traffic that comes to the stadium comes from outside of the city limits I don't think we would be doing service to our residents with all the other conversations we're having as I mentioned I did double check with our City attorney even though we have not done it before there is nothing precluding us after this Wednesday's meeting to or this week to promote that we're going to have a special public forum on the 17th since that's our zoning meeting to have time for community so that we can start capturing to ensure that we have enough time to hear Community voice when we're looking at making this type of commitment because again we although we're not talking about property tax we're still talking about the tax that is generated that makes up the hospitality and tourism funds which is still our taxes whenever we go out to eat if you live the MSD if I go to the hotel if I go to the restaurant if I go to any of the events I think we would miss a real opportunity of hearing the community I think we are missing an opportunity with us not receiving access to the actual comments versus a summary of the comments and I think we put ourselves in a position where we are going to have a lot more scrutiny through media that are here regarding transparency and accessibility so I agree with my colleague I was going to ask the same question but I just wanted to clarify that I verified we can call a additional or a special it is not to override the 24th public form that needs to happen but if there's a idea of a timeline crunch because that 10 weeks could cause some particular challenges I think we we if it's appropriate if we need to have six votes I think we really need to have a conversation about having a special public discussion specifically on this item only on this item to give our community a chance to share their thoughts we very well may be surprised and a lot of people come down and say yeah do it matter of fact give more we not going to do that part yet we want to give the opportunity for the community so they don't feel like this is a conversation where we really don't want your input and and can I just say something really quickly C Mayfield um because we wanted to just summarize tonight where we were we're happy to send you all the comments in full transparency we we'll send it to everybody so that everybody can see what comments are what comments are coming in and we can do that I'm looking at Jason tomorrow yeah okay and and the reason just for full transparency the reason I'm asking for us to make this consideration is because that is a very small snapshot of those who are impacted because of course the Panthers are a regional draw and it's a regional asset I wish the region would cough up some money but that's a different conversation but for our people that snapshot isn't one of our districts that participated so I need I want to make sure again when I go and pull it up it is literally just a box to say share your feedback so it breaks down can can the city afford to pay we tell you all of that but real intentionality with making sure the community is engaged and if we're looking at a timeline like we are with that 10 weeks could be a challenge our next opportunity is our zoning meeting that's going to be on the 17th and there is no language that precludes us from adding an additional public form specifically for this item thank you Madame mayor I just wanted to double um double back on this partnership idea and I know that you and I talked about this Tracy but I just want to put it in the atmosphere that when it comes to partnership I think it's extremely important that we Define what that actually means uh it's one thing to just be a a contributor or along for the ride uh when it comes to procurement but what's particularly important to me is what are our enforcement arms so when we talk about this is what our targets are particularly for public dollars there has to be something that enables us to hold um hold our partners accountable for the spending goals and if that is not something that is included then I would be very curious as to how we could Define a partnership if both parties don't have some level of decision-making space whether that be through actual procurement selections or through some kind of enforcement arm to ensure our targets are met all right I think that is has every everyone's had the opportunity to express their thoughts and ideas anyone else um we'll now go to our second topic for I'm Sorry Miss Brown I am sorry I I'm get okay it's okay I just thank you Madame mayor for allowing after I saw the presentation and here my colleagues I think it is completely fair to for us to be able to make it available for the public even with the comments coming to us are you hearing me mayor Madam mayor yes I'm sorry I was just saying that I think it'll be completely fair for a public hearing for our constituents and people in the community to be able to come out express their concerns over what we're going to do with the 650 million and have their input heard I think it's a fair assessment I think that would be something that we need to make happen Wednesday is my birthday so I will not be here I'm supposed to be on vacation but I'm here because this is very important tonight but I really do need um to I share my concern with my with the colleagues on this one I think it it's a lot of money and I think the public definitely need to come down and be able to say what they and some people don't do the internet you know they don't go on the website it may not be visible to them so if we could just put that out in the atmosphere and let folks know that on the 17th if it's possible or however we need to vote it to make it come to council to be something that we can do and I know that um our our colleague Mr Graham he said that uh they spent a lot of time on it and it's been in the making for a while that's fine and I know that that research and that back end of the research is very important but for us here today I think that we need to make sure that the public can be a part of hearing us hearing them and even with the comments coming in even with every last comment coming into to us I think that we we got to try to make that happen thank you that's all I have thank you all right I wanted to just follow up we've got another another item that was supposed it was a policy referral for youth crime and Sean was going to address that so I'm going to ask him to um get us through that yeah then we'll do that at the meeting we have the rest of the annex for the other items on the agenda well U do it as the manager's report well it's so mayor members of council we don't have a public forum tonight so there's not and there's no one who's signed up to speak so if you would like to just continue now we can continue now okay don't have to we do not we will have to go later oh later right after this presentation okay yes the policy referral is youth Prime for discussion Sean go for it yeah yeah you're in charge all right Mr Heath let's get started okay thank you good evening Sean Heath from the city manager's office we can jump right in this is the first of what we expect to be two discussions with city council related to the February 1st policy referral from mayor ly related to juvenile crime or what we refer to as youth crime in the presentation tonight's focus is on one recommendation that receives strong support from committee at a special meeting on May 23rd related to a $2.5 million proposed investment in the ktie blessing Center so that's really the emphasis of tonight's discussion but I'll also provide a little bit of context around the referral itself just so we're grounded in where this work has been over the last few months Let's Just Jump Right In okay so if you think back to January at the annual strategy Retreat Chief Jennings was there and there was a discussion around crime crimer related Trends and pulling back that onion a bit there was a specific conversation around some concerning Trends related to juvenile crime in particular that's really what gave birth to this particular policy referral you can see at the top here the key policy question that was put forward in the referral is what strategies could be Advanced to support meaningful reductions in juvenile crime rates over a 3 to 5e period uh as staff has communicated directly to the committee we understand there's an expectation to move as quickly as possible on this work to be very intentional but to move quickly with the sense of urgency but with that in mind there was also a recognition that really moving the needle in a meaningful way on something like juvenile crime may take a few years to really uh get the get the needle moving uh moving from left to right here in terms of some specific items that we validated with the committee in terms of the focus of the referral when we refer to juveniles or youth that's really an emphasis on age 17 and Below which is consistent with how cmpd and the North Carolina division of Juvenile Justice refer to the youth space we have a very broad lens as it relates to this work you know obviously there have been a lot of headlines over the last couple years related to auto theft associated with youth uh but we're looking at property crime and violent crime and kind of through a very broad lens when you think about different intervention points that are applicable in this space there can be prevention related measures focused on out risk youth diversion related programming for firsttime offenders and then with repeater chronic offenders some more intensive programming is necessary in those cases as far as the recommendation set the early conversations that we had with committee basically what we put on the table was all options were available for consideration whether it be programming related Investments and projects policy considerations at the state or local level also acknowledgement that we could consider not just actions directly within the Ci's control but also things that could be advocated for for other entities at the state or local level and then just to finish this slide one key assumption which we really reinforced with the committee is you know we believe from a staff perspective you can make a credible argument that City council's existing strategic priorities in areas like Workforce Development and affordable housing and corridors of opportunity that those in fact are of direct relevance to long-term efforts to reduce crime rates and this really ties into conversations we've had before around the social determinants of health and what are the things that are necessary in order to have a healthy household a healthy community and how one beneficial byproduct of achieving those outcomes is in fact reductions in juvenile crime in terms of the timeline that we're on I'm just going to cherry-pick a few things here this is obviously a mey body of work and moving from left to right on here just to highlight a few things once the referral was released on February 1st we got to work immediately since that time we've had three in-depth committee conversations in February I'm sorry in March April and May uh kudos to housing and Neighborhood Services director Hefner and deputy director Stewart who have really LED an impressive body of work engaging cmpd engaging Community Partners like mecklinburg County and UNCC Charlotte working with on a lot of the data analysis and doing very robust youth engagement which I'll touch on here in a few slides jumping all the way over to the May and June time frame you can see the red star we are here so at the May 23rd special committee meeting we basically presented a menu of recommendations we were seeking some feedback from committee on which things look to be the most intriguing and we got some great feedback and in that conversation there was one particular recommendation that was in the ready now category it was time sensitive and there was a lot of energy around it in the room related to The ktie Blessing Center so that one was voted out unanimously from committee for full Council conversation so that's why we're here tonight and as I mentioned when I started this will be at two bites at the Apple kind of a scenario with committee and with Council because we will come back to Committee in September to discuss the balance of the recommendations unrelated to the Katie blessings Center um and that'll of course hinge on decisions you make tonight around your budget and what additional funding capacity may be available in fy2 related specifically to juvenile crime so this was we shared a lot of data with the committee earlier this year and this was one slide in particular that we wanted to bring into the room this evening starting on the right with the bullet points this is not new information but just underscoring these are examples of the types of concerning trends that were on your mind in January at your annual strategy Retreat you can see these speak for themselves in terms of juvenile suspects in gun incidents up at 33% juvenile property crime suspects 86% increase and juvenile Auto thefts thefts up 192% on the left this was really interesting in the committee conversation when you look at youth offenders during the 2021 to 2023 time period and working our way from the outside in on this graphic during that three-year period there were 3,773 Unique Individuals these are all juveniles that were arrested and those 3,773 juveniles accounted for 7,214 arrests so obviously more than on average more than one arrest per juvenile but when you peel that back what's really interesting is if you take all of those juveniles in that population and you sort them based on the number of arrests per juvenile if you look at the top 385 juveniles in that population those alone accounted for over 3,000 arrests so that's roughly an average of eight arrests per juvenile if you then go one level deeper and you look at the 38 juveniles that were the top 1% quote unquote those 38 juveniles accounted for 859 arrests so roughly 22 arrests per juvenile over a 3-year period so you know clearly there's a small population of juveniles that are driving a disproportionate level of the arrests and that's been informative to the work that we've done um I wouldn't in any way be dismissive about the importance of prevention related strategies and and I expect that we will certainly have some prevention related areas of focus but but this also demonstrates that we need to be equally focused on some of those more intense cases for juveniles that are chronic and repeat offenders we have certainly made a good faith effort to engage a diverse set of stakeholders over the last few months just to give you a sense for the types of organizations that we've been in contact with a number of entities under the meinberg county umbrella including the office of violence prevention the Sheriff's Office Criminal Justice Services the court system CMS we've been working side by side with cmpd from the start of this referral we've engaged the state of North Carolina the division of Juvenile Justice both their Raley leadership team as well as some field office Personnel based here in Charlotte nonprofit organizations including action andc I saw Robert here earlier tonight and then the youth youth themselves have been a piece of our of our stakeholder engagement just to give you a sense for the type of feedback that we've received I'll go through these quickly uh you know we're not starting from scratch as a community in this area there is work being done there are nonprofit organ organizations we have Partners in the community public sector as well that are doing important work in this area so our desire is to look for those opportunities where we can do things that are complimentary do things that are incremental and with the example of the Katie blessings Center this evening something where there's a void in the community where we can be a catalyst to help help fill that void number two in terms of raise the age which was put in place in late calendar year 2019 without exception feedback we were hearing was that raise the age with smart policy but also a recognition of the need for more resources to fully realize the policy Vision there number three uh emphasis on community level evidence-based violence prevention strategies this is an example where Robert Dawkins from actionn C has put a couple interesting things on our radar associated with youth L social Norm campaigns uh the sort of thing that the CDC has been actively involved in in communities like Louisville and elsewhere across the country number four and five here go together to a degree um on four with more and better disposition options you can think when a juvenile encounters the Juvenile Justice System there are multiple points along the pathway where it's beneficial to have options for them other than detention right one can be on the very upfront intake process and then on the back end for those that end up going through the full-blown adjudicatory hearing and disposition hearing what are the options for them Beyond Juvenile Detention so Charlotte meinberg not unlike communities across the country we need more options and Katie blessing Center which we'll talk about here in a moment is a perfect example there closure of the meinberg County Juvenile Detention Center in 2022 created a void that was a consistent recurring theme we don't have a specific recommendation related to that item at this time we've talked about it extensively with committee I'll I'll leave it at that for now and then example insights from from youth engagement uh direct director Hefner and deputy director Stewart really LED this work and it was very important the committee was really clear with us they wanted to make sure the voice of Youth was incorporated into into this work so in collaboration with over a dozen local youth organizations we were able to conduct a survey that had participation of over 250 youth which was great and then there were also some listening sessions conducted in corridors of opportunity and you can see the sorts of things that we were hearing from the youth including the last item here on here which is mental health support is needed for Youth and adults that care for them just a couple more slides this is a summary of the recommendations that were presented and discussed with committee on May 23rd I'll just hit the highlights on the upper section that's included inside of the dashed box because these are the items that are really still under evaluation by committee they did not vote explicitly on these particular items but just wanted to make you aware that that among the items on the menu there a category of things that fall under existing exity enhancing existing City programs so taking things that we have in place today and scaling them or making them better that could include expanding the inclusion of at risk and Justice involved youth in Workforce and employment programs building on something that you're aware of for example if you look at the mayet program this summer we will have three times more participants in my app that are from corridors of opportunity than we did last summer so how can we build on that sort of work to make sure that that we're doing our best to align as many of your priorities as possible second expanding and scaling youth programs in cmpd cmpd has a lot of great programs in place today Chief Jennings when he was with you in January talked about fifth element which is their mentoring program that they launched not that long ago they also have their Jade program which is juvenile accountability and diversion empowerment those would just be two examples of the sorts of things that we'll be exploring with Committee in September as potential opportunities for additional investment and scaling the second General category would be new programs and strategies uh including expanding Community Based Investments and things that work I mentioned youth L social norms campaign mentoring and skills building could be an example capacity building for Grassroots organizations we know there are a lot of organizations doing great work what are the things that we could do to help support them uh do even better and then jumping down into the blue font at the bottom this was the item that was voted out of committee with unanimous support on the 23rd the $2.5 million investment in the ktie blessing youth behavioral health facility so the center itself you can see the project summary I'll slow down a minute now we've got to the main section so the vision here with the ktie blessings Center is to establish North Carolina's largest pediatric Behavioral Health Care Facility targeting youth AED 5 to 18 so as I'd mentioned with to the committee this would be a firstof aind facility in in the state of North Carolina you know I'm generally very measured with my comments but this has the potential to be a game changer I truly believe that ad do um just to give you a little more commentary around the facility itself it would be a 70,000 square ft building with 72 beds it would be owned and operated by the ktie blessing Foundation which is a 501c3 entity it's the charitable arm of starm Mount and it would be located in the central Alam Maro Court of opportunity the next item here is really one of the defining attributes for the facility is the idea of having a full continuity of services on one campus an integrated facility with four key component pieces that are summarized here first Behavioral Health Urgent Care so youth that are literally in crisis would have an opportunity to have an urgent care facility that could provide them services for up to 23 hours as needed second an acute inpatient Hospital which would obviously entail overnight stays the estimate here is this would be for individuals that are 3 to 14 days on average in an impatient paent scenario the next item is a residential treatment facility where there we're moving more into long-term stay needs which would likely be greater than 30 excuse me greater than 30 days and then excuse me and then finally out patient care so you think about the size of this facility and the integration of these component pieces on one campus are truly defining features to get specific into the investment that that was considered we were asked to consider a $2.5 million investment that's what was supported at the committee level to put that into context the total estimated project cost is $62.5 million for the project they have firm fundraising commitments of 41.5 million to date uh that makes no assumptions regarding what council will ultimately decide to do and it's worth looking inside of that 41.5 million so of that amount 20 million is from the ktie blessing foundation so they would be the single largest investor in the facility they would have significant skin in the game 17.5 million from the state of North Carolina this was an action taken by the general assembly in their budget last year noteworthy to see the state stepping in with bipartisan support focused on behavioral health for youth in the state and then third great news to report when we discussed this topic at the May 23rd special meeting there was some conversation around the momentum that would be necessary at the local level to demonstrate support in order to help get the overall fundraising goal in place and I'm happy to share with you tonight that since May 23rd there have been two very positive developments one meinberg County and their FY 25 budget has built in $2 million in support of the KY blessing Center and two Alliance Health has has reached the decision and has indicated we free to share that they are also investing $2 million in the center so both of those outcomes are included in the 41.5 million so there is progress that's being made real momentum is happening that moment almost at the end here just to underscore the why and and really how this connects back to the initial intent of the referral I would just keep it as simply stated as possible and I I believe there's a direct connection between youth mental health and juvenile crime um the National Data that we have the state data that we have the youth engagement anecdotal feedback all of those things are pointing in the same direction and that is that enhancing access to highquality youth Behavioral Health Services can have a beneficial impact on community health and safety you can see some of the statistics here in the first bullet point this was pulled from the US Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC nearly one in five children in the US have a mental health emotional or behavioral disorder in any given year and of those only 20% are receiving care from a specialized mental health care provider second this is pulled from the North Carolina Department of Public safety's most recent in report juveniles committed to North Carolina's Juvenile justice system in 2022 presented with multiple and complex Behavioral Health needs and then finally a division of juvenal Justice survey that was done in late 2022 of a representative sample of Youth in detention centers showed that 99% of those youth carried at least one mental health diagnosis 48% had co-occurring mental health and substance use diagnosises etc etc so the need is real and then the last slide here is just the summary of some key points that were on on our mind as we were asking the most fundamental of questions which is do we believe that the ktie blessing Center has the cap would have the capabilities and the willingness to serve local youth in need of these types of services and the answer we came to in each one of these was yes so serving youth aged from 5 to 18 which overlaps quite nicely with the policy referral Focus accepting both private insurance and Medicaid access is of critical importance to a facility like this and that that would be present here treating a wide range of Behavioral Health disorders collaboration with the North Carolina division of Juvenile Justice I participated in a me in a meeting with the ktie blessing Center Foundation team and the division of Juvenile Justice Just to ensure that there was alignment around the potential for the facility and the opportunity to really meet meet the needs of the local community as it related specifically to juveniles en countering the Juvenile Justice System um in my sense coming out of that meeting that there was a great degree of alignment and then last and importantly this of course would be considered a state facility but just given the location and the proximity and the demand for these types of services in Charlotte mecklinburg clearly a majority if not a vast majority of the patients would be from the local community in terms of next steps so tonight's discuss and feedback with full councel I'm certain committee members will share perspective of their own and then pending tonight's discussion this could be set for a vote at the end of this month and then as I'd mentioned before there will be an opportunity for the committee to have one more in-depth conversation at a minimum in September on this topic and then ultimately bring back a second wave of potential funding recommendations to council at a later date thank you all right um this is an exceptional um opportunity for us um I think if we all know that there's Steve Smith opened a center like this for adults but it did not go up I think it went up to the age of 16 and that program operates and then we have hopeway which is primarily a private center that does a lot of this work and it's necessary for us to take a look at this and um think about it in the context of one thank goodness for Medicare and Medicaid being passed in the city in the state because I don't think this is possible without the kind of support that's necessary for people to get well and and the only other thing that I would say is that in this discussion I would hope that um I went to a a program on health care I think it was with um one of our um representatives and the hot the two facilities that are already open they have a um seminar or meetings together so hopeway and Steve Smith were meeting together and their psychiatrist and a lot of their medical folks I think it might be a great way to say how do we do this really well and how do we connect all of these facilities together in a way that we see everyone having the ability to have care because I expect some places times people go and they're not quite sure where and it takes longer so I think some conversation Sean with hopeway and the Steve Smith Center would be good for us to uh make sure that we're working together in a way that gets most of this and and I I have great regret over the closing of the um of the yeah the um Youth Center that we had because I felt like we had more people going in there to help and assist then we close it down and I understand why I you know it's the tough choices and so I think that we if as much as we can do to talk to the state about this doing well could we do something to illustrate that we really want those kids to be closer to home instead of being shipped away into various places where they have no support systems so thanks for doing this thank you to the committee Mr dggs recogniz oh I'm sorry yes Miss watlington thank you uh I'm sure my vice chair has something she'd like to say as well uh thank you so much Sean for the work that you all did with this um as you mention this was something that we accelerated through the committee and thank you to each and every Committee Member that made themselves available to come to the meeting and learn about the blessing Center um and we we are very excited about this for all the reasons that were mentioned because we know that we want to get serious about juvenile crime prevention and we see and Sean you did a great job laying out all of the connections as to why that's important um as Miss Brown just said would love to see the county come to the table in an even bigger way uh to help support because we understand that this is going to take all of us um so look forward to uh moving on this and look forward to continuing the conversation around the other recommendations uh that we've got here in this presentation so great work to the committee to Rebecca and Dr Stewart we appreciate you and I'm excited about this one does the vice chair want to say something my Madam chairman chairwoman thank you Mr dggs just a quick question is there any thought of affiliating with one of the major Hospital Systems I don't know if I'd say go as far as a a direct affiliation but obviously they're in conversation with the local hospitals and where there are opport unities to partner but I don't have anything definitive that I could share in terms of what that would look like that's I think that's a great question I think that Novant does the um the one on Sharon I think novante's associated with that one but I think Atrium is associated with the other ones so I I guess they kind of understand that we need to stretch both of those but I think it would be good to know that and have some more information so that we can be credible about Madam mayor I would mention also mental health is a tough subject it's a really hard subject uh I was involved with a a psychiatric hospital system adult and and pediatric uh in patient days went down over the span of years from three weeks and four weeks to a couple of days people were stabilized and and given prescriptions and sent back out again they kept coming back it's not something that you can solve quickly so I'm just interested to see what the care model looks like thank you that's great one all right Miss Miss Johnson was next I believe and then miss asir thank you Madame mayor so I could talk about this all night you know this is this is what I do I have a peer support organization I'm an advocate for mental health um and brain injury so this is so important um this is one of the things that I'll be honored will be a part of our Legacy as a account as a council this is such important work as you mentioned currently the only um mental health for for children is well I can't say the only but Atrium is one of the places and that's so inappropriate for youth so to have a place specifically for them this is this is lifechanging as Frederick Douglas said it's easier to what is it repair uh let's see to build strong children than to repair broken men so I'm I'm really excited about this one of the reasons I'm excited is when we got this referral the discussion was to open up the detention center and we heard from a UNCC professor and we saw the statistic that 99% of the youth had some history of mental health and so to ignore that and and proceed forward to criminal justice would have been so um just out of touch and and I think um Injustice so I'm excited to support support this and I look forward to the next steps we also I'm also looking forward to September when we talk about the rest of the suggestions uh specifically that the employment right now we do have the what did you call it the mayup May yes may my app but I'm looking forward to expanding that um for all Youth and and combining it to one program and not have a program for some children and then children who have the criminal just excuse me Criminal Justice involvement because we don't want to start out with those children having a label so I'm just looking forward to this work and I appreciate the work that you all did to the city staff I don't know if there's anyone here from the Katie blessing Center not the evening I don't believe okay okay but I hope they come to the council meeting but thank you for your work and and we're looking forward to this thank you missir thank you Madame mayor uh I also Echo some of the comments that were made by my colleagues in $62.5 million that's the estimated project cost uh has has anything been ear earmarked by the county in yes the county recently announced the $2 million investment in their fy2 budget yeah this is a great collaboration Between the States city and the county so thanks to you and and then t team for the hard work thank you all right Miss Molina followed by Miss Brown and then I think we'll get ready to go downstairs for our meeting I'll be brief um thank you very much Madame mayor uh Sean thank you for your work on this I don't know if everyone remembers but uh we made a unanimous decision to support the sale of this building back in 2023 and I joined uh Mr EST Monte at the uh at the um ribbon cutting and they were so excited about the potential and it and to see how far they've come with this you know um just different support very diverse support um it's encouraging I was briefed on what you know this particular facility will mean not only to the Charlotte area but to our state because there's nothing like it that compares in our state so I'm really excited about this um and for full disclosure for anyone who's watching this is actually right across the street from the Eastland yards property the facility um but if you see the renderings it it doesn't you know a lot of people there was we had some conversation around the connotation of a mental health facility and when people hear and see that they tend to get afraid or you know of what might actually be happening there but the renderings are beautiful the facility potentially is going to be a very beautiful very aesthetically pleasing facility um and I think it's you know uh rightfully placed in a central location where you know people across our city and and even some from our state uh have access so uh to the committee I I sat in on their most recent meeting and um I was encouraged by the conversation it was very positive um everyone was 100% in support so I gave kind of this you know honorary piece of support that I was allowed to say in the meeting so thank you guys for uh your support of this and I'm looking forward to supporting it as well that's all I have Madame mayor all right Miss Brown yes thank you madam mayor happy and and chair and vice chair happy to be a part of this this this committee to bring this through of course it's near and dear to my heart as well I remember to sell the building I didn't know what y was going to do with the building I often wonder what you do when you make sales on the building I got one problem I want this on the Corner remont Road and West bull board it's a joke but maybe we can do it in the future but it is it's um it's it's amazing I would love to see this replicated replicated and I think it can be a model that can be followed throughout um the areas other areas cuz it's so needed all over the world it's not something that's just needed in mberg County we need it all over the world so I'm excited to be a part of the committee and Sean thank you guys for your hard work work cuz we pushed and we fought and we battled thank you guys for all of the work that you did and it's just amazing to see when the staff go together listen to the committee go back and bring things and it works in full circle so it's excit I'm I'm very excited to see this again West buev and REM my rad all right have a good day thank you man Mr Jones anything else let's go downstairs we've got a bunch of um annexation requests that we ought to be able to make and then have some opportunity for further a discussion [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] I feel like like um that most of you probably work here or have some special interest in what we're doing or I'm not quite sure why anybody else would be sitting in this room tonight considering that we have been in meetings um discussing policy initiatives for the last hour and a half two hours perhaps so we're going to call this meeting of the Charlotte it's a Charlotte City Council business meeting to order and we're going to begin with introductions starting with our city clerk Billy T Deputy city clerk temp good evening Marjorie Molina District 5 good evening Renee Johnson District 4 good evening everyone James Mitchell at large Marcus Jones city manager F LS mayor happy PR month Dante Anderson mayor Pro 10 district one malcol Gam distri District Two Ed dgs district 7 D6 Lana Mayfield council member at large good evening Victoria watlington at large Patrick Baker City attorney so thank you all um we begin our meeting with an expression of inspiration to help us be better prepared to respond to how we can make this city even better um tonight I'm going to recognize council member barari to give our words of I knew about this one mayor I'm I'm so glad you did I would ask for everyone to Bow your heads and if you'd like hold the person next to your hand oh doesn't want to do that all right dear Lord please watch over this council tonight as we embark on one of the most important discussions of the entire year please understand that over the last six weeks we have been in a whirlwind doing our best to manage through the budget Panthers Hornets Transportation closing out Eastland youth mental health and the greatest tragedy in the history of Charlotte April 29th any of those seven items would be a challenge in itself but all at the same time has been a lot for everyone to Bear Lord thank you for blessing my colleagues with resolve and strength these last six weeks I have seen some amazing things accomplished by so many of them during this time uh please uh uh uh please help us have a passionate debate tonight and come to the best conclusion for our great Queen City please look over the so many staffers that have been absolute rock stars navigating this storm please bless the officers that protect us each day and some days they come to you rather than to their homes giving the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus name I pray amen amen all right a sorry proud of you if we will now stand for our if you choose to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you all um we're now going to have a proclamation and um sure all right I'm going to ask mayor protim to um read a proclamation we do this to celebrate opportunities as well as um actions that are taken in our city and so with that let's start with this one all right thank you Madame mayor whereas pollinators such as thousands of species of bees are essential Partners in producing much of our food supply and whereas they provide of life and creating recreational and economic development opportunities and whereas the city of Charlotte manages green spaces public landscaping and other public lands that may include Greenways parks and wildlife habitats and provide recommendations to developers and residents regarding Landscaping to promote wise conservation stewardship including the protection of pollinators and maintenance of their habitats and whereas the city of Charlotte as an affiliate of B City USA is a signatory of National Wildlife federation's mayor's Monarch pledge now therefore she by Alexander ly mayor of Charlotte does hereby proclaim the week of June 17th through 23rd 2024 as pollinator week in the city of Charlotte and urge all residents to recognize this observance and to participate in the community activities that support and celebrate pollinator conservation thank you very much this was um submitted To Us by the um many people that work in both the city and the county organizations to make sure that we have the kind of um growth in what we're doing in terms of trees and all of opportunities for nature and so thank you very much I don't think there's anyone here I think they oh there you are thank you I didn't see that come down and I'm going to walk around and I [Applause] sorry right the next part of our agenda we have a number of public hearings that we are going to have and I'm going to start with item number seven um a public hearing on the and decision on Riverpoint area voluntary annexation do we have any speakers no ma'am all right we have no speakers so to close the public hearing thank you um and we have a vote on closing the public hearing all in favor of closing please raise your hand all right now do I have a motion to adopt an annexation ordinance with the effective date of June 10th 2024 to extend the corporate limits to include this property and assign it to adjacent city council District 3 V to adopt second we have a motion and a second any discussion all in favor please raise your hands thank you very much that is good for the heart uhhuh the next item is item eight a public hearing on this resolution to close a portion of Alleyway parallel to Ashley Road do we have any speakers no ma'am hearing do we have any speakers for any of these all right then we'll I'll drop that request from new Billy thank you um so we're now going to open well do I have a motion to close the public hearing and to adopt the resolution to close and close a portion of an Alleyway parallel to Ashley Road so mo mo second any discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hands that's unanimous anyone oppose I think I didn't see any other hands the next item is item nine May uh-huh just for clarification we just we just closed the hearing we need to vote we need to actually vote on it or did we vote before we close the hearing I said close the public hearing and adopt the resolution because you did one one thank you madam yeah thank you all right the next one is item nine it's public hearing on a resolution to close a portion of open right of way off Coker Avenue no speakers here so do I have a motion to close a portion of O CRA Avenue as well as close the public hearing and adopt the resolution to close that portion I'll move second we have a motion and a second all in favor please raise your hand all right thank you item 10 is a public hearing to on a resolution to close a portion of ride away off Jo Jo hoy Drive um hearing that we have no speakers do I have a motion to close the public hearing and adopt a resolution to close a portion of the ride of way or je Hoy Drive usually move we have a move a motion and a second any discussion here question yes Miss Mayfield thank you quick cuz so the previous ones were pretty small areas I'm just trying to get an understanding we have staff here that can help me this seems like quite a bit of uh area that's being requested for abandonment all right and I want down yeah making way down I want to get clarity on if these areas immediately around it adjacent to it were to be developed what would this aband what does that mean for this abandonment cuz this area is a a little more substantial so yeah sure hi good evening good evening mayor council Debbie Smith with Charlotte Department of Transportation and sure within this this is currently um unopened RightWay and it was petitioned by um the adjoining property owner so there are no current plans but when they come in with plans we would be able to ask for and require any infrastructure with that thank you that's all I needed Madam mayor yep great all right so we have the questions any other questions hearing no other questions um U could I have a a motion to close the public hearing and close a portion of Joy Hoy drive all right all in favor raise your hands anyone oppos oh thank you the next item is the city manager's report do we have one may I do not have a report tonight I have your onewe memo oh all right you have a memo from the manager all right thank you very much so the next item just left all of my agenda items I know we're on item 12 the next item is item 12 it's the fiscal year 2025 operating budget and fiscal year is 2025 d229 capital investment plan and I'd like to recognize council member Mitchell thank you mayor and councel and let me thank uh Madame chair Miss ashmir for allowing me to make the motion for the budget so Council I'd like to make a motion in three parts uh one uh let's restore the 65 million reductions to the bond programs made it to straw votes and instead reduce ouro Street resurfacing supplement by 1.2 and the general fwn street resurfacing supplement by 400 86,000 this action will preserve the 1.3 C property tax increase from a straw votes and moves 0 Cent In property tax from the Pago fund to the Municipal debt service fund and two cents to the property tax revenue from the general fund authorize the city manager to make all related adjustments to the budget ordinance based on this motion second we have a motion and a second for the budget and um Mr Mitchell's budget included any questions or any other comments all right we'll come back to M you Mr Mitchell I I just want the public to know and I think council member bardi said in his opening prayer there's been a lot of hard work among this Council over the weekend uh Mr Dawkins I see you thank you for the people's budget some of the things this Council removed today supports your people budget but may i' like to do a circle of Victory Life if I can and recognize some of the hard work that each council member accomplish in this budget Miss won for the 1.3 sales tax property tax increase Miss Mayfield for the 2.5 Faith Housing Initiative Mr barari 143,50 for the purpose active shooter kits for our police Mr drgs don't mess with my sidewalk 50 million council member Graham for 25 million corridor's opportunity mayor protim $100,000 for Charlotte Museum of History my favorite 287,000 for Charlotte black Film Festival council member Johnson 250,000 for new Workforce Development for those who have been formly carcerated uh Council mayor Marina $100,000 for Carolina youth Coalition our newest member council member Brown for 34,000 for Save by Cher movement and council member ashmir for her $20 million Vision zero I think we all deserve a hand for the work you did for our community so collectively $1 million for our Arts $55 million for our Strategic investment 5 million investment for the center city transportation 1 million for our teacher Village 4 5 million reducing juvenile crime and thank God for our city manager who now the minimum pay for all our city employees are $23 per hour thank you madam mayor and thank you counsel everybody for our great hard work for our city all right um any other comments miss watlington and miss ashir follow I'll get to the budget chair okay well great job Committee Member Mitchell and the great job to the entire Council I just I would be remissed if I did not recognize the hard work by the staff if you all can stand budget staff I mean this has been hard many of them have H their vacations us of course I know Ryan is looking forward to his vacations among other staff thank you all so much for all your hard work Miss watlington followed by Miss Brown thank you um so a couple of things on this one first of all thank you um Mr Mitchell for highlighting all of the good things that have come through with this budget I know it has been a lot of conversation um a lot of uh back and forth but I'm so proud of us at the end of the day we came together with a budget that sets the course for where we're trying to go and also respects our taxpayers um this I hope is the beginning of the next generation of how we choose to uh fund our community we know that we've already reached into our future and this is step one I look forward to the continued work about how we restructure our revenues for this city and to that end I look forward to a referral to the budget Committee in order to begin that process um as well as work uh going to the Ed committee as it relates to how best to fund our arts and thank you for all of the Community Partners I see several that are sitting in the audience today that will um that have and will continue to help us make these decisions and so we appreciate you we know that we don't do this in a bubble and so we thank you for the advocacy that you provide here locally and also at the state level we're committed to getting it right guys we're committed to working together we've got a lot of competing priorities but we all are one community and I believe that as we approach our budget conversations differently going forward we will enable ourselves and we've learned a lot here to be able to have meaningful conversation on the front end so that we are not having to make hard decisions at the the end but we're building a budget that we can all uh live with so once again congratulations to the great work of staff and to my council members and we look forward to continuing to grow this city thank you so much Miss Brown thank you Madame mayor every time I get at this D my throat get clawed what does that mean shut up right thank you Madame mayor thank you to our city manager Mr Mitchell great job um you know being on the budget committee and the staff the budget staff for sure being on the budget budget committee I've learned so much it is very challenging a 4.5 billion budget working with all of you on city council you know and and then being an advocate for the people's budget Robert thank you so much Robert will email you and call you to death Robert will make sure the people voice get heard and that I hear it loud and clear but I I just want to make sure that um I highlight that you know being an advocate for the people's budget and supporting um those in the community has been been hard fulfilling for me and just to watch the response from the community advocating for the animal shelter and all of us working together collectively like I said we have our lanes that we are very near and that we love that's dear to us and so me being in the budget committee and learning different things I mean there is a lot to learn in this budget like I had no idea idea when you gave me 500 pages I'm like who going to read through 500 pages so we have to have what a great gift to have what a great gift to have team members 11 of them that's around this diet that brings their expertise and can dissect each part and come back and then we been and we work together to come with a valuable solution for our city because being the 14th largest city $4.5 million budget there's going to be some no there going to be some yays but I'm just happy that we could work together come together and move the city forward for the people that need us the most and that's our community and our constituents so I'm very excited to be on the budget committee it's been a challenge but again 500 pages don't send me no 500 pages me but that's all I have Madame mayor thank you thank you I I remember when I called you and I said you're going to learn a lot if you join this committee you'll know more about what we do than any other place and I truly believe that that has been the result of your participation so thank you homework homework homework all right Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor I also want to thank our staff we had a lot of questions we early mornings late nights weekends with going through this I also want to take the opportunity honestly to thank Dr watlington she is that one that went through line by line for them 500 pages so she stepped into that road gladly and helped to break a lot of it down there was a lot of conversations a lot of communication I would say I am thankful we're at this point there and I also want to make sure the community knows that this is as was mentioned the first step a number of these items still need to come back to committee this is just not okay we've approved the budget and there's a blanket check there's still questions that have to be answered regarding accountability clawbacks expectations and are these hitting our priority goals we have goals around Workforce Development Economic Development and helping our city and our employees specifically to grow our Housing Trust Fund for us to get to the place where we are supporting moving that conversation to community to vote on the bonds that we are going to be bringing before the community these are going to be transformational for our city when we're seeing rapid growth and we're seeing rapid development to help try to create opportunities for the masses not just for the F I'm definitely thankful for my colleagues supporting the additional 1 million to add for the faith and housing dollars I'm more excited about the 100 million and what we have the opportunity I'm thankful that the mayor has create sent a recommendation back to our committee for us to have Brad a conversation around our goals Workforce Development how do we work with our partners Partners how do we support our partners what changes we need to make so and manager thank you for listening to the concerns that came from 11 different very distinct personalities thank you for finding a way to absorb for us not to have that initial increase that we thought in taxes we brought it down a little but not at the detriment of service that is needed in this community so your leadership through this budget the leadership of your team we have a topnotch team in throughout the city but our budget team y'all stepped into uh Behemoth where we went from 3.25 to 4.2 4.5 billion budget I just wanted to acknowledge all of you acknowledge all of my colleagues a number of us had conversations back and forth we argued we debated but we are here today to do something that I think is going to be transformational for our city so thank you Madame mayor all right Mr Driggs thank you Madame mayor uh I am very impressed with the aspiration and the energy that's going into this budget uh the phone lines have been buzzing for days we've had to work some things out um and I I I regret that I will not be able to support it I think I've explained my reasons I won't go on about it but I just think the debt incurrence puts us uh in a deficit like maxing out on a credit card uh I also feel that $100 million for the trust fund will create an expectation that we will continue to do that and I'm not sure that we will be able to um so uh the tax increase is something I couldn't ordinarily support but frankly if we are going to pursue these goals we need Revenue I mean so you have to accept the fact that that goes with uh a lot of what we're trying to accomplish uh I've said before I don't think we should kind of offer a whole bunch of benefits and then not be upfront about the fact it costs money to do that so that's not my biggest problem but um I think the capital accounts are the things that make it uh uh unfortunately uh impossible for me to support this budget thank you all right Mr Graham thank you Madame mayor um I I too would love to uh give acknowledgement to the staff um the manager and Ryan and Teresa and finance for not only the work that they've done over the last six months with this budget but what they do each and every day over the last years working to maintain a city with a AAA Bond rating uh and a city that hadn't had a tax increase in six years a part of that tripa a bond rating is how not only the finance that we bring in but how we manage the resources that we have and certainly Marcus and Ryan and Teresa has done a great job over the last several years in doing that and I also want to thank the department heads because we kind of forecast a year ago that we would need additional resources to to keep up with the cities growth and development and every department head over the last year and a half since the city manager really kind of put us on notice that additional Revenue was needed really did a deep dive into their the budgets looking for cost savings and efficiencies to impact savings and so this was just not an overnight occurring occurrence um staff and the collaboration with the budget office through our Workshop starting with our annual strategy retreat in January where Council announced its prior ities and work in Cole Winston Salem in that Cole room we stayed in uh we were doing the work of the people um and just didn't start over a weekend prior to the straw vote the work started several months ago in terms of articulating priorities uh talking to the manager the manager listening to the council in terms of what's important for us like infrastructure and Roads and Workforce Development and housing and corridors and sidewalks listening to us and presenting us a budget that was reflective of our priorities and reflective of the voices he heard in the room I'm excited to uh talk about $100 million for affordable housing but more excited about the opportunity we have to program those dollars for how we can be Innovative and and uh and doing things out of the box like the faith-based housing like tiny homes like container homes I think we really need to strap what we've done already from the Housing Trust Fund and really think a new about what we can do differently to achieve different results so I'm really happy about that and hopefully the council as we prepare for the 2024 Bond referendum will be in a position where we can share with the community why they should vote Yes for increasing the bonds and more importantly how we expect to utilize those dollars the dollars in the budget for the new strategic areas right this is a new project that we talked about because the manager heard about our needs relating to infrastructure and try to create a document um um that we all Embrace months ago uh in reference to how do we begin to prioritize and identify areas that are secc importance for us to move forward with as well as the quarters of opportunities where again thank you com member Mitchell where we have already established playbooks in all of our quarters I 85 in Sugar Creek um FES for Road norion in Graham Street uh Etc WC in and freedom um centru and alar right I'm all working to create a diagram a blueprint for investment so I'm really happy to support those initiatives as well as Financial Partners right they you know a lot of time they get overlooked in terms of the work they do to support our community um blog love Charlotte um who had an event yesterday um council member Brown that we both attended in terms of the work they do on the ground in the community Community to support our our homeless population for the struggle and Alicia Brown what she's doing throughout the city specifically on Betty Fort Road um list Charlotte and the work that they do and more importantly the $1 million that will that's send this budget to support the Arts right uh and through the general fund U let me underscore that um um to support artists and historic organizations as well as to be innovative in that space as well I just really want to thank the public because you you you contribut as well you save cuts that were being proposed um to the sidewalk program to the Strategic investment program for the quarter of opportunities to eliminate funding for center city transportation program reduce um pay increases for some of our employees but for your advocacy your emails your phone calls uh you gave us some members courage uh to put it back in the budget so that we can fully fund these areas throughout the city of Charlotte uh we can't increase taxes uh and then give you nothing back in return and I don't care where you live how rich or poor everyone needs a sidewalk everyone wants infrastructure Improvement we can't have a quarters of opportunity program that's not fully funded uh certainly we talked specifically about areas that we need to to improve in CER City Partners we got to fund that and certainly um precious resources whether you're a hourly worker our salary workers the human capital that we have with the city of Charlotte so thank you for all those emails and phone calls encouraging the council to do the right thing and so I think this budget is is in a form now where I can approve it um um obviously there's still some questions that I have for my colleagues about um process um and procedures um and again the work has been done for several months uh leading up to our straw vote it just didn't start there uh and I just think we should respect the work that we all have put into it especially the staff who did the Deep dive and identify those areas where we believe funding is necessary and supporting the core priorities to the city so I thank you very much everybody oh you miss Molina Miss Brown follow and you thank you Madame mayor um I I actually Echo many of the sentiments of council member Graham I think um I'm I'm very happy that um we have a budget that's more aligned with the original one that was um proposed by the manager and the team there was quite a bit missing when we had this conversation but this is the beauty of having so many different Minds at the table so many different things um so many different ideas and and represented areas um and all things that we're passionate about for different reasons and and what we bring to the table is a census um and and then we have to try to meet in the middle and so this is one of those great examples of where we are meeting in the middle and I think it's good um and I Echo I lift up the sentiments we've gotten the emails from so many many different community members and and I appreciate you taking the time to reach out but for your emails we would not know how you feel it's impossible for us to touch everyone that we represent so um that additional advocacy I really think that it helped to bring us uh to a Finish Line that is in the best interest of more of our constituents uh than may be originally purposed and I'm I'm very thankful for that um and I know that counc member uh Mitchell spoke to some of the uh proposals but those are definitely individual proposals I think in what is CIP and you hear us throw that word around it's an acronym it's capital investment plan and so that's mainly funded by your tax dollars uh that we assess uh like write down the proposal for the uh small percentage to be able to add an additional benefit to the taxpayer um and what that means uh for for you know our community members is uh many things I think uh in the original CIP uh there were three projects totaling about $15 million for East Charlotte um in addition to the small um you know kind of straw booat uh proposal but there's many things across uh our city different um districts different council districts throughout our city uh that are completely impacted and I don't want to minimize them to the straw boo um exercise because it goes far beyond that in the benefits that are received uh by way of those dollars uh to the public so um I'm commending my commun my my colleagues I it feels great to know that we've come to an agreement for what is best for our city and the various different districts across our city Mr manager thank you um to you and all of your team to the budget team uh for all of your really really hard work and I look forward to supporting uh the current proposal of the budget as it's been stated thank you Madame mayor thank you Miss Brown yes thank you Madame mayor I wanted to come back with um The People's budget I was one of the council members that work closely with the people's budget and I just wanted to just give an outline of what it was for people that are watching that may not even know what the people budget is supporting organizations were like onme roof AB UE local um 150 Charlotte North Carolina Public Service Workers Union Block love Charlotte which I've heard mentioned up here before crisis assisted Ministry the homeless Services Network Hill Charlotte QC family tree save our children movement which we did advocate for them Charlotte Justice Conference wza Consultants little listeners voice for the people wienners Plus Inc lock out action NC so the people's budget is a coalition of local aacy groups so service providers Faith leaders Community organizations and concerned citizens working toward a People First Community up vision for Charlotte meinberg and meinberg County we believe in care dignity and Justice and seek a budget that provides for everyone while centering those who often left out or behind we believe that advocating as a collective voice will help set the agenda for local government to better meet the needs of the community and deliver better outcomes for everyone and the concerns were a community for everyone resources not criminalization which I'm which is very near and dear to my heart for the obvious reasons and we can do the hard things and then the 2025 City Charlotte budget request great neighborhoods and they sent in what the request was safe neighborhoods safe communities well-managed governments and the people budgets did support a 100 million Housing Trust Fund so I just wanted to you can't read everything that they submitted but they stood in truth and power with the community and bringing forth collectively the voices of those in the community so that they could be heard and I was one of the council members that worked directly with them on a regular and contined basis and although they we get everything that we requested there were a lot of things in the budget that I was very pleased with that we did be submissive to for that budget so thank you so much for that all right um and Miss Johnson thank you Madame mayor I'm also honored to have participated in the budget process I do recommend for the public and um for transparency sake that you all ask for a copy of the budget that we're deciding on because I don't think that um I don't know that anyone has received a copy of it I know council member Mitchell read it but I would suggest for the media to ask for a copy of what we are voting on thank you Joe's like y I think we know Joe's like I'm asking I didn't get it all right um and now we'll go to miss mayor proen thank you madam mayor um I am really excited that uh we have what's in front of us today that is truly and really what the manager um described his budget as opportunities for advancement for All in This budget and um I I counted Mr Graham the number of touch points that we had out of around this budget and from the beginning of the year we've had 14 different touch points as a council either as Miss azir's committee meetings or as a larger Council and interfacing with the with the public on this so we've had many many touch points for all of us to uh double click ask questions investigate Etc and so I hope my hope is that when we come back next year and the process for the budget comes out of the budget committee again miss azir that that we have a a plan to address the budget next year that is explicit and laid out in the manner that it was and that and that we adhere to it as a council um because I think that's the the most productive way of going through it I too read the the majority of the binder it's about 3 in thick it's a lot of information it is not simple um however you know I I hope everyone else did as well I know several of my colleagues did actually invest weekends and hours into reading the budget and having conversations around it we are the second fastest growing city in the United States and it's a privilege as I've said to be under that amount of growth and have the opportunity to manage that growth in a sustained strategic way and I am very happy that my colleagues and really the community sees that as well as an in we need to invest in ourselves we need to invest in sidewalks we need to invest in infrastructure we we have Mr McKenna who has joined us and he has done a great effort in laying out our Strategic investment areas that will promote in uh bring various neighborhoods throughout the entire city through all seven districts up to the principles of our 2040 plan and I'm very happy that we decided to give him some dollars so that he can begin to activate on some of those amazing Strategic investment areas so that so that the community community can benefit from it so I'm very happy about that I also want to say that investing in the Arts is also an economic development driver and we as a city need to invest in our arts and i' I've had a chance to meet with several of the Arts institutions throughout the city and and they have their economic impacts studies and reviews for how they're driving tourism to the city and the dollars that they bring in and so just as we are uh investing in other economic development areas we need to invest in the Arts and I'm so happy that we have a $1 million in this budget that will do absolutely that and lastly with the increase of the Housing Trust Fund dollars that you know will be a part of a referendum I I hope that as a council we can use this as an opportunity to reimagine the allocation of the Housing Trust Fund dollars and think about a Workforce overlay a Workforce element that can be aligned with some of these dollars as so many other cities who are our peers and larger than us have as well as a way to invest in in our in our constituents and residents but also help them invest in theirselves so uh we're raising all everyone a raising uh raising all of the ships at once and so I'm looking forward to those conversations when we get back from Recess and I just want to thank the community for the engagement as many of my colleagues have said the calls the voicemails you know the activity online and social media um it you guys really do understand where we are as a city and understand that we have to invest in ourselves and I'm very happy that my colleagues have come to a point where they can support the budget that invest in the Queen City thank you question um Miss Johnson has another question I I really apologize I I have to be honest I'm just seeing this these changes were made I guess at 4:30 so I have some more questions um is there any money that's coming from the um Hospitality tourism is this all from the general fund in pgo Hospitality so uh Council M Johnson U nothing is coming from hospitality in this proposal okay so my concern is that the tax increase would that we would burden the taxpayers without without even researching or attempting to take any of the money from the hospitality and tourism fund we just had a discussion less than an hour or two hours ago about $650 million from the hospitality fund a couple months ago it was 275 million from the hospitality fund that's 975 million for sports stadium and for items like housing and safety and infrastructure it's on the backs of the taxpayers so I I thought we were going to at least discuss the $7 million for the Arts to go to the um to the committee um it's not a b matter of what supporting the Arts it was a matter of how so I I have a concern um with this budget and I really apologize to my colleagues but there was just not enough transparency for me and I'll speak for myself but I know I'm not the only one who didn't see these changes until just now thank you Johnson I I miss watlington yes I just point taken absolutely I and I want to make sure that the public understands what the discussion is around the Arts fund in this budget versus the work that we're going to start um so I would like to ask the manager to clarify this referral that is being prepared to go to committee to talk about what we can do from um from an art standpoint and what the proper funding source is as part of our broader budget piece so I just want to make sure that that that is not lost uh to you Miss Johnson and to the public who's watching this who cares about how we invest in our general fund uh that didn't go away um that that work is going to be launched in committee and we're going to fully investigate that and we're also going to investigate our broader budget how we how our budget is structured for a growing city so those work pieces didn't go away um but they will they will be launched post uh post our break Mr manager and I just want to be you know well I was on the phone over the weekend so it's not like I was you know out of touch or not trying to to work on this it's just concern I want to say my understanding is that the 11 million was not taken out of the Arts for the original budget that was here so it wasn't reduced what the council talked about was the idea of exploring investigating whether or not and how these funds from the TR I'm sorry the tourism industry and that was what was approved in the straw vote and there is a reference we I I have completed a referral to the committee to do that so I want to make sure I think Miss watlington and I on the same page that it was something that we said that we would investigate and we would look at and it has been referred to the council committee Mr Jones and then yeah back Mr DRS and hopefully providing some additional Clarity so in the packet that I guess went out on Friday the CFO provided you with her analysis of the the fund and what could be used so it wasn't that nothing was done I don't think I did double negative and as the mayor said she is putting together referral and I have volunteered to staff this particular referral much like I did with safe Sherl because it's so important to make sure we get it right so putting those two together one the initial assessment by the CFO and the commitment to um staff this in committee I I think it begins to address the concerns and strong I think I have a copy of that memo if you didn't have a chance to see it Miss that's not the same okay okay I asked I don't Brown yes thank you madam mayor so the suggested motion that came around was this from Mr Mitchell okay so I think um to council member Johnson's point I'm just seeing this as well he read it but it wasn't sent out to us who supposed to got that that's the only thing I'm just asking for clarification on that did we not have this on Friday when the package went out it was not in the package on Friday I think it came should it have been in the package though I don't think it was in the package because it was some discussion around how to address the straw votes as well as the manager okay all right so we will be restoring the 65 million though that's the most important part that's the most that's what this effort is the bond made to St okay instead of the pay okay all right I was just the only question that I had since I I still had the floor I'm sorry no disrespect intended but I didn't I don't understand why this was still some discussion going on it over the weekend I believe that the council members talk all the time I mean I'm not always and I know that um we often have to figure out how to make things work together and I think that there were some conversations about that um and so you know these calls happen negotiations all the time so it's and they have to happen because we have to agree and you know this is MH although for the racket it says parttime we work full-time over exceedingly and abundantly you know we work we work we work out in the community other things that we do amongst us so we do have to talk and we do have to play tug of war and try to come to because we got to have six votes to move forward and be able to agree on certain things so that's not out of the norm so I just wanted clarification since we were discussing it the paper came around I didn't see it but I heard it read and I just wanted some clarification on it that's all thank you madam mayor all right Mr DS so uh I've mentioned this before but the hospitality economy is a complicated construct the legislature authorizes us to Levy certain taxes for certain uses and they have an understanding about what those uses will be um the the industry itself supports them because it allows them to make investment ments that promote their own business the tourism economy provides employment to an enormous number of people a huge segment of our entire economy and particularly people with lower incomes who might not find employment otherwise but the thing to be sensitive to here and I just want to be very clear about it is if we want to explore new possibilities we have to do it with our partners and we can't unilaterally kind of examine some text and see whether we can just make a change uh it's critical in terms of the permission we have from the legislature our partnership with the industry that we explore any possibilities like this and you know if there's a consensus for example uh that the hospitality industry sees a benefit in allocating some of these funds let's work it out and then we can decide but I I just want to caution all of us for us to sit here in a meeting and talk about the things we want to do or the possibilities involving this tax uh runs the risk of inviting a perception in Raleigh and with our partners um that we don't get it and I just hope that we will we can do it uh but I just hope that we will do it in consultation with the with our partners and not with reference to some interpretation of the letter of the law and then announcing publicly in a meeting like this that we're going to Target the hospitality funds for New Uses we need to we need to establish that with our partners before before we talk about it here so thank you all right I think everyone except Mr barari has had a moment to speak and I wanted to recognize him thank you madam mayor uh I won't be voting for this budget tonight it's not the time to raise taxes and we have to start doing better choosing our priorities for the future of this great City budget just doesn't do it for me I will say though I have seen so many of you in a new light on this count Council the mayor staff these last few months many of you put in the work and thought outside the box and some really amazing things have come from that work so thank you oh and one more thing I'm going to take off my councilman hat and speak to the community as a citizen for a second I cannot articulate my level of disappointment that we weren't able to get outer carrier vests for our Rank and file Patrol officers in this budget cycle I'm not giving up though and tomorrow morning I will be activating as a a private campaign to get them $500,000 for outer carrier vests and us the leverage to make it happen being on this council is a great honor for me but average everyday citizens have the ability to do big things for our community too so I'll be taking the battle to that front tomorrow aggressively go check out shieldthe blue.org we scrambled to build it from scratch this afternoon and it will serve as our campaign Command Center we will continue to enhance and add to the tools and resources you will find there over the next few weeks the officers are our Shield against evil and this website will be our arrows to support them in their time of need shieldthe blue.org join me the activation starts tomorrow thank you all right um now we have a motion on the floor um and now it's time for us to vote all in favor of the motion made by Mr Mitchell um second by Miss azir please raise your hands all of those opposed so we have three opposed the motion passes um I want to recognize um Mr Graham for a remark and then we'll go on to the next item with Mr Graham thank you m Madam mayor I I I just wanted to take this opportunity to recognize Muhammad jtine the the president of the the hospitality and tourist Alliance um here in Charlotte and to um thank him for his support uh for travel and tourism uh in our community um and to Echo the caution that council member DRS articulated uh in reference to the utilization of those funds as many of you know uh the 1% tax was just recently approved um with their help and their support uh and their encouragement um in fact they took the lead on getting it done and I just remind the council that we have another taxt that's due to expire in 2038 uh that we're going to need their support uh uh to get passed through the general assembly and so uh I have not seen the referral yet but I I heard it's coming to the Ed committee and just as I do on every issue I will process the work that's the request that the council has made uh it will certainly get a fair hearing um but I think everyone knows you know my position on on that particular issue um I thought it was a bad idea in April and it's equally in June thank you all right thank you very much um let me take a moment perhaps I hope that you'll hear um this but um I too want to say thanks to the budget team the finance team I remember those days um only I want you guys to know you had computers and I had like um you know one of those push button machines that had to pull the Le lever on that's how long ago it's been since I've actually done a bud I told Ryan and his staff don't ever ask me to do anything in budgeting anymore but I also want to say something else I want to say thank you to all of the people that work in our city all of you that get up every day you know you drive in maybe you don't but I when I come home and I see my trash collection has been picked up when I see how safe our streets are when I see people that care deeply about this work to be able to come and stay hours at a time to actually deal with us is an amazing feat I just want you to know that I really want you to know that we get it we get that you are making a difference and I just I don't think that there's enough said now I know that there's a lot that we need to do but we are a fast growing city as the mayor potim said and we are going to get this right right because I think that's the only way that we have to go now I want to turn to one other thing I want to thank our citizens the people that live in our neighborhoods because what we've just done is ask you to build the infrastructure that we need in this city we can't do it without a bond referendum and so it's all of you that helped us get to this place where we could say yes to having I'm going to read what the numbers are um 178 M 300,000 of Street bonds 56 m700 th000 of neighborhood Improvement bonds $100 million in housing bonds these are the things that we will now need you to turn your attention to now we've laid this out we think that we've done the things in infrastructure that are most important to livability in our city affordability in our city and now we need you to support this effort so that we can begin to continue or not just we can continue the work that we're doing for housing of people for making sure that our streets are safe for driving to make sure that there's opportunities in this community for us to see where we can come together as a committed community so I want you to know that we have more work to do please help us do this work for every child every family every household and yes taxes are going up and we know that and we will work as hard as we can to deliver on that commitment of those taxes so that you can see the quality of life difference that we want you to have so with that I'm going to read something else that the manager needs to talk about these amounts that we've increased and so let's go Council will need to approve amended amounts for the referendum rather than the amounts that we had originally sent to us on Friday assuming the amounts they will return to four it will assuming the amounts will get to where we need to do for the updated referendum am I doing okay on this Teresa help me out if I am not doing the right thing 23 8, 300,000 in the street bonds 61 m700 th000 of neighborhood Improvement bonds and I did talk about no change to the 100 million housing Bonds in addition the council will need to or the city clerk will need to update the attachments for the introduction of the bond orders and the resolution setting public hearings to reflect the approved amounts so we need to do that do we need a resolution or anything more than that so that is made to the public to make sure that we've adjusted for what we took on as our task for us thank you guys for being a part of this community and thank you for what you're going to do to make it better every day so if you're interested in staying for the rest of our agenda I would be delighted to move us forward to the next thing so that we can do this we did the general obligation Bond referendum we have to do one more of those so let's go to our business agenda m Johnson I did have a question I'm sorry I had asked the City attorney um during the earlier meeting if you could give us an an update or or clarification on the ability to use the hospitality tourism funds were you able to research that so I have sent you all an email um during the meeting during the meeting okay can you just give us an update then yeah well so it's a it's a local act it's not State Statute it's a local act that was passed I think in 2013 2014 uh to specifically allow you to use those funds for a stadium uh either creation or renovation uh so long as the stadium had 60,000 or more seats MH and so does it allow other do the tourism dollars allow other uses it's just for uh to do to do stadiums for that for we have three funds so it and I'll just read it to pay for the cost of acquiring constructing financing renovating maintaining and controlling traffic for Prof a professional sports facility located in the city of Charlotte and that's the um the 160a 215 no this is a local act that amends the general statute for the city of Charlotte only okay thank you y all right so let's go to item 13 that just has to be introduced into the record so I'm going to introduce each of three Bond orders with the numbers that I just reported to you we have the corrections of them and so we need to approve a resolution setting a public hearing on each of the bond orders for June 24th 2024 you need a motion we I need a motion move for approval second we need a second and we have a second any discussion here no discussion all in favor say I I okay that's the next it no oh and the opposing to Mr barari and Mr Dr opposed all right so the next item is General obligation refunding bonds to introduce a bond order order recognizing the issuance of General obligation refunding bonds not to exceed $70 million B adopt a bond order to provide for the issuance of General obligation refunding bonds not to exceed $70 million and then adopt a resolution to authorize issuance of General obligation refunding bonds for refunding of General obligation bonds Series 2011 4 a um and so with that we need a motion to approve approve a and see all right we have a motion and a second I need a second second um any discussion hearing none all in favor please raise your hands anyone oppose okay refunding is different that's right all right storm water revenue bonds refunding these as well adopt initial findings of res initial findings re resolution that makes certain statements of fact concerning the refunding of Revenue Bond anticipation notes and revenue bonds provide for the issuance of storm water services refunding Revenue in an amount not to exceed 205 million to refund the 2022 Bond anticipation note 2012 storm water revenue bonds and 2014 storm waterer revenue bonds and authorize the city officials to make necessary actions to complete the financing including making the application to the local government commission do I have a motion approve of a b and c second have a second all in favor please raise your hand anyone oppos all right now we come to the portion of the nominations from the city clerk the business advisory committee no recommendations that'll come back for Charlotte International cabinet um namish bot received eight nominations incumbent Tessa Mo received 10 nominations for the airport staff member category incumbent Britney poris receiv received 10 nominations the cultural ethic category incumbent Jeffrey Baldin received 10 nominations and Dena and shiso received seven nominations for the education nonprofit category lennen Carol received 10 nominations for the international business category Lester Selby received 10 nomination and Satoshi wat watan received n nominations for the Charlotte Regional visitor Authority incumbent Benet Patel received eight nominations and the other um candidates no one receiv received six so that one will come back for Charlotte water advisory commission incumbent Grayson Round Tree received 10 nominations for the small town represent resentative incumbent Gordon Miller received 10 nominations for the citizens Transit Advisory Group incumbent Robert Hilman received 10 nominations BR for the historic district commission no applications for the Historic Landmark commission incumbent Jonathan kincho received non nominations and Melanie redrick received n nominations for the passenger vehicle for hire no applications for the Planning Commission Carolyn Millan received nine nominations congratulations and for storm water advisory committee and the trans Transit service advisory committee no [Applause] applications she's going to have lots of late nights all right um that wraps up I our agenda for this evening um we do not have a close session to oh move to approve and so now do we have every you have that Billy all right thank you and so now do we have a motion to adjourn so Mo thank you have a good night everybody have a good evening everyone thank you so much for your [Music]