tuesday october 19 2021 meeting of the greensboro city council i need a motion to return to um open session motion to return to open session moved by mr abusewater seconded by mrs thurm um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mr boos elevator yes mrs hightower welcome back to her mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes dr wells yes and mrs hightower i think your connection's back yes okay that passes nine to zero um beginning with the november 1st 2021 meeting the city council returned to a hybrid format with a limited capacity in the katie dorsett council chamber due to ongoing public safety concerns the city of greensboro has implemented safety precautions for all attendees residents may sign up to speak before meetings to participate via zoom by 5 pm the day prior to the meeting by using the jot form on the city's website or for in-person attendees they may sign up the night of the meeting at the q minder kiosk by six o'clock a q code will be available for use to scan onto personal cell devices should residents prefer all attendees will be required to wear a face covering and a hand sanitizing station will be located just outside the council chamber for convenience attendees will be allowed inside to address their specific agenda item and will exit immediately after the item is discussed or voted on to allow others to enter the chambers voting will be conducted tonight by roll call vote both verbally and electronically as council considers consent public hearing and business items each member of council must vote unless there is a direct conflict council members should remain muted to minimize distracting background noises councils should request to speak by physically raising their hands to prevent multiple people speaking at one time council will verbally make a motion or a second we do welcome speakers to address the city council council respects the right for the public to speak about matters of concern that can be addressed by council each speaker will be allotted three minutes comments that seem to be intended to incite unlawful behavior will be deemed out of order zoom participants are requested to mute their microphones until they are called upon in order to be considered written comments must be submitted online through the city's website wwe zoning matters do allow for a 15 minute presentation both for and against the rezoning there is also a five-minute rebuttal for each side all zoom participants must remain muted when others have been identified to speak once an item has been completed the meeting host will remove speakers for that item guests are encouraged to watch the remainder of the meeting via the greensboro television network or through the city's website we do have a consent agenda for items c1 through c26 which are a grouping of agenda items that are voted on with one single vote to expedite what are believed to be routine and non-controversial items any council member may withdraw an item from the consent agenda due to a conflict of interest or for the purpose of voting no items removed from the consent agenda for discussion will become will be placed on the november city council business agenda this night's me meeting does include closed captioning depending on the length of tonight's meeting we may take a short break around 7 45. staff has requested the removal of item c24 which is a resolution calling a public hearing for november 17 2021 on the annexation of territory into the corporate limits for property located at 6450 and 6454 u.s highway 29 south 39.2 acres loretta youngman herbert burton and jacqueline burton due to the withdrawal by the applicant can i have a motion to remove c24 so move moved by mrs johnson seconded by dr wells um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mr boos waiter yes this is hightower yes this is hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes that passed this nine to zero staff has requested council to postpone item number d5 which is a public hearing for the adoption of an amendment to the land development ordinance amending section amending sections 30.4-5 map amendments 30-4-15 plot plans and site plans 30-4-17 subdivisions and 30-9-3 street access of the land development ordinance related to transportation impact studies and cross-access regulations this has been we would like to move this to the november 1st 2021 meeting of the greensboro city council without further advertising do i have a motion moved by mrs thurm seconded by mrs hightower imes mrs johnson yes mrs abusive waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero um staff has requested that council remove item e4 which is a resolution to authorize a contract with corporation for supportive housing in the amount of 85 000 for operational plans for permanent supportive housing and item e5 a resolution approving three million thirty thousand seven hundred dollar loan to partnership home inc for acquisition of 2701 north o'henry boulevard move the item second um so this is to remove item e4 it is moved by mrs johnson seconded by dr wells i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusa waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes to zero now can i have a motion for e5 moved by mr hulston seconded by mrs thurm i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and those two items e4 and e5 will be on our next agenda just want to confirm that yes without further advertising escort housing will come back yes um does anybody have agenda i was told the next business agenda no the next next agenda since it is time sensitive okay um does council wish to remove any items from the consent agenda no not today okay um may i have a motion to move the consent agenda leave the consent agenda mrs hoffman seconded by mrs thurm i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusa waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes the consent agenda passes nine to zero we will now move on to the public hearing portion of our agenda we do have 13 speakers signed up to participate in tonight's public hearings item d1 and d2 will be heard together d1 is a public hearing for an ordinance annexing territory into the corporate limits for property located at 3904 and 3904 randleman road .887 acres millem management group llc and item d2 a public hearing for an ordinance for original zoning for 3904 and 3904 zz randleman road eugene lester iii from management group llc we do have two speakers in favor mr kirkman could you give us a brief overview yes thank you mayor vaughn the request this evening is to annex and establish original zoning for 0.887 acres from county rs40 residential single family to city cdli conditional district light industrial north and south of the quest are currently zoned rs 40 with county light industrial located further to the south east the request is zoned county ag agricultural west request is zoned county ag agricultural and county rs40 residential single family this property is currently undeveloped north and east of the request are single-family dwellings and undeveloped land south of the quest is a vacant single-family dwelling and wesley requests are as a single-family dwelling this area is designated as commercial on the feature land use map of the comprehensive plan and is urban general on the feature built form map the proposed cdli is district zoning has been determined by staff to be consistent with the comprehensive plan's growing economic competitiveness big idea to build a prosperous brazilian economy that creates equitable opportunities to succeed in the prioritizing sustainability goal to build economic resilience expand the local economies ability to withstand and adjust disruptions and changes at the regional national global scales the proposed designation as condition does allow a variety of warehouse distribution limited manufacturing and personal and professional service uses which in their normal operations have little or no adverse impact upon adjoining properties staff notes care should be taken with respect to building orientation materials height and visual buffers to ensure appropriate transitions to nearby lower density residential uses and staff is recommending approval of the request the annexation and original zoning for these items was heard by the planning and zoning commission at their september 20th meeting there were no speakers either in favor or against the item and the item both items were recommended to city council by unanimous vote i can answer any questions any questions we do have um speakers um just two who are in favor molly whitlock and damon milam um i'd like to hear from you that's okay should i go ahead yes you have a total of 15 minutes okay thank you mayor vaughn and members of council my name is molly whitlach i'm with the firm of sharpless mclaren lester duffy i'm appearing for gene lester this evening he wasn't able to appear and we represent damon milan and he is the owner of milan management group llc who owns this property just briefly um to tell you a little bit about mr balam who's our he's he's here as well um he is a local entrepreneur and businessman he has an accounting degree from a t and an mba in finance from winston-salem state he and several businesses including a company that provides business consulting tax and accounting services and that is what he is proposing to put in this location once it is rezoned and i believe we have some slides available um are we able to pull those up mr kirkland thank you very much uh and i'll try to be brief because some of this is already covered in mr kirkman's presentation but the property at issue is located south of interstate 40 several miles south of downtown is in an area that is transitional and has a number of other commercial properties surrounding it you could go to the next slide so we took a look at the properties that are about one half mile north and south of the location on randleman road and just to go through a few of these this is a daytona gas station and an auto repair shop you can go to the next one this is a seafood restaurant there's a sunoco gas station a taco truck and a convenience store a dollar general this is a carolina gardens nursery landscaping company this is another picture of the nursery as well as a commercial business that provides music lessons there's numerous commercial billboards along this area of the road and there's also uh this is another example of a hair and tan salon in the area uh this view we saw previously of the vacant wooded lots and if you can go to the next slide [Music] what mr milan proposes to put into this location is a building that would serve kind of dual purposes it would be a location for his accounting service business and it would also have a garage building component and go to the next slide this is the front elevation of the business so it would have as i mentioned interior office space as well as the ability to to pull cars in to the garage this is not proposed to be an auto repair or body shop facility rather the idea is that while mr malone will be offering full service accounting and business services there are certain times of the year where he has a lower amount of business particularly the off tax season times and he would propose to have a have a building that allowed him to um to run multiple businesses and so he would also have perhaps a detailing car shop is the idea and go on to the next one that's just a side elevation you can keep going he has obtained quotes for a building that he would like to put up um that's just the agreement of the quote that he obtained can go to the next one so um i just wanted to point out some of the requirements for a light industrial zoning and the ways that this application would exceed that first of all the the setback requirement is 25 feet and we have included as a condition that the setback would be 50 feet this would also be fenced around the property except for the portion of the property that faces the street and this is just to kind of minimize the impact on surrounding properties although we think the the impact of what he is proposing to do would be minimal the size of the lot in this case is uh 38 000 and that exceeds the minimum requirement of 20 000. you can go to the next slide okay so these are just some pictures of the lot as it stands today it's a wooded lot it's been cleared in some areas you can go to the next one the top two pictures again are photographs of the lot and then we have this bottom picture which is a street scene shows what it looks like in one direction and then the following slide would show the street scene in the other direction so as you can see it's there's not a whole lot around it and again we would propose to be set back further than the requirement lastly we've just included a few photographs of buildings that are comparable or similar to what we would propose to put in um these are just buildings that are in and around greensboro that have an office and kind of garage component so i'm happy to answer questions if there are any or i can uh yield my time to uh mr molam who is here as well to address any concerns mr milam would you like to say anything no uh first of all good afternoon to everyone um i have spoke with um several could you put your camera on i don't have a way of putting my camera on just this evening okay yeah um can you go grab me camel yeah okay okay i had someone go get me a camera no that's fine just you can move ahead thank you okay um yeah good afternoon everyone um the proposed um project that i'm i'm intending on doing on random road it is a multi-use facility uh i would love to bring accounting and consulting services to that area i have a number of clients on the random road and beyond going out towards the country so logistically you know ideally that would be a perfect location for the expansion of my business um as as my council has said we are going to build a multi-use facility um i am also in the logistics business and i have spoke with some some people independently that had concerns of you know would it would it be something that's been attracted to the area and it certainly would not be um it's actually you know i appreciate the pictures but what we're going to do we're going to do a modern contemporary design it's going to have a stone front and it's going to be the black steel building with the flat top i've shared some pictures with several people and i'll be happy to share them with whoever requests but i definitely think it's going to enhance the area and also give us an opportunity to create jobs on that side of town um so i am i've been in greensboro since 1992 so a lot of my clients come from the area and i just want to give back so um at the end said i purchased this this property from one of my clients that he and i just said in the office and we came up with an idea of hey why don't you expand and that would be an awesome area to do it so i'm excited about the opportunity to build something and bring it to that side of greensboro so thank you are there any questions for the applicants so i have this is hightower hey um good afternoon um mr damon so it's not going to be a auto repair shop though it's going to be more of a a detail and it's i have two odd businesses but it doesn't it sounds unique but but i don't transport detail is that what you're gonna do too well i have a i currently have a logistics company by the name of carried away an interesting background i'll just share a little bit personal about me i'm a product of an auto mechanic and a uh um uh pentecostal minister so my mom was a minister my dad was auto mechanic and also the county doll catcher so i have a love for animals a love of cards and a love for business um so i i think that in just maturing in life i've always said that i never wanted to be an entrepreneur and here i am you know i i've probably established more than 2000 businesses in the greensboro area for my clients and i have about five independent businesses myself it's an odd combination but we transport vehicles we have several area dealers that we transport vehicles on dealer transports we transport them out of town so we have enclosed trailers we have rollbacks we have several commercial vehicles um that's just a love of mine and it's also a way of me giving back and employing employing people and then accounting i just love business i understand business and and i think that that i've been successful at it for more than 30 years so it is a unique combination but um it just is what i do um and we've mirrored the same thing i have a similar type of business both in warrenton north carolina and also in greensboro north carolina so this is just an expansion of what i've already been doing for a while thank you thank you very much uh yes okay mr holstein yes mr milan a couple of questions for you when you're running the business as the as the auto detailing or or the like do you plan to have any storage outside any queueing of cars nice weekends i don't i don't fathom that at this time and if i do the card is that we currently have a transportation car contract with foreign cars italia so those cars would what people would love for me to leave my side their ferraris and porsches and things of that nature but i don't fathom that a lot of times when we're doing transportation unless i have a driver leaving really early in the morning or late at night you know we just don't bring those vehicles back with us as a normal course of the business operation going to be for that business repeat your question sir what are your hours of operation going to be for your uh auto business for for logistics business can be can be anytime as requested currently um you know i dispatched the trucks out of out of either my warranty location on my greensboro location which is off the wendover um it it's as requested you know sometimes it's early in the morning because we're going to do a daily transfer sometime it can it could be mid afternoon it's rarely at night or overnight unless we're going out of state so that's extremely rare and the the accounting office i know you didn't ask for that but the accounting office we typically we take our first appointment at 10 a.m um and our last appointment at 7am just based on covid right now and a lot of my appointments are remote um you know we we just try to have a contactless environment but i'm during peak season you know we could work as late as 8pm at night thank you one more question for you back to the auto services side do you plan to store any products or uh supplies outside no no okay no outside of the outside of a vehicle no you know but now and when i say a vehicle that would be my personal belongings thanks so much thank you so much thank you any other questions so mr milam to piggyback on um and what you just said about i guess your personal vehicles this is a company vehicle that you would have outside yeah yeah these these are company vehicles our company our accounting firm i love station wagons i have a local station wagon so we have a solution wagon that's blue and white it looks like the greensboro police car when i'm behind people they say oh my god please um and then i have a little gold station they're all company wrapped vehicles i try to keep them colorful and and keep them exciting you know when people come to my office sometimes you're depressed sometimes you're scared so i try to add a breath of breath or fresh air there but all of our company cars are our wrap vehicles and and their calls will be pretty so and when you say you're gonna maybe make some jobs possible what are you thinking four five three four i would fathom the greater part of five jobs right now i'm extremely understaffed um our offices we have three different accounting offices i said i have one in warrenton north carolina i have one in concord north carolina i have one in greensboro we facilitate we operate as one company so it's it's all of my monthly write-up and accounting work is centralized in greensboro special projects is done from um warranty in north carolina and then payroll and other special projects and and some tax work all offices do tax work it's centralized in concord north carolina i would imagine that if we if we open up we could probably create maybe five to seven additional jobs um and that's my hope and um one thing that that i will tell anyone my staff we probably paid 20 to 30 percent higher than than the industry average and that's across the board because i try to attract and retain good people because i i want good results okay very good thank you so much thank you very much thank you um if there are no further comments from the applicant we can have a motion to close the public hearing so move moved by mrs hightower seconded by mrs thurm i am a yes mrs johnson yes miss abuse the waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um i do need a motion for um item number uh d1 which is the annexation move the item moved by mrs hightower seconded by second mrs johnson um i am a yes mrs johnson yes this is abusa waiter yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yeah and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um i need a motion for d2 which requires the statement of consistency mr holston mrs hightower would you read the consistency statement yes the greensboro city council believes that its action to approve the zoning request for the properties described as 3904 3904 zzz random road from county rs 40 residential single family to city cdli like industrial to be consistent with the adopted gso 2040 comprehensive plan and considers the action taken to be reasonable and in the public interest for the following reasons the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan future built format and future land use map the proposed cdli zoning district has conditioned permits uses which is the context of surrounding areas which fit the context of surrounding areas the request is reasonable due to the size physical conditions and other attributes of the area it will benefit the property owner and surrounding community and approval is in the public that has been properly moved and seconded um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes this is hightower yes this is hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurman tammy okay um no problem in dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero thank you okay we will now i think this will be an enhancement to random roads things we're trying to get down down here so yes i think it will be thank you thank you for item number d3 is a public hearing for an ordinance designating historical landmark for the laura brockman brockman house at 716 walker avenue we do have one speaker in favor of this um mr kirkman could we have a brief overview on this item or whomever hey i'm just saying i'm getting bringing the video um and we have i'll speak here and speak more to this but basically what is being requested is to close three existing street right-of-ways on highway drive mccallum street and keller i'm sorry mr mr kirkman we're on d3 um oh i'm sorry this is the historic one yep yeah mike yes sorry wrong mike this is mike cowhick and i'll be be glad to introduce this item thank you mike you're welcome madam mayor this is uh an application for designation of a guilford county historic landmark for 716 walker avenue in the college hill historic district and as you know county landmarks are really the special historic structures in our community and this one is special not only is it significant because of the victorian architecture but it has a very interesting history and associations with the early years of the of uncg there you go and um in fact the mrs brockman was invited by as i understand it the first president of at that time it was the state normal and industrial school and it was charles duncan mckeever who invited ms brockman to teach music there and so that was the beginnings of the music program at uncg which is really one of their uh trademark programs and so the house has unique features that uh represent her musical background through stained glass windows with musical features and a number of other features like that so we we do think this is one of the special historic structures and this is really landmark designation is one of our only tools to to truly preserve historic resources in greensboro so be glad to answer any questions i know the the the owners are here as well yes thank you mr cowick we do have um dan smith on the line if he would like to speak to it but it certainly sounds like mr cowan did a wonderful job explaining how beautiful this house is and significant he did do a fine job and we are simply here in case there are any questions for us are there any questions for um the applicant well if i could have a motion movie item moved by mrs johnson seconded by mrs sperm i am a yes mrs johnson absolutely mrs abuse the waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman [Music] um i know she's a yes um uh mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero thank you um item number d4 is the public hearing for the resolution to permanently close highway drive kellum street and mccallum street for um isis properties llc we do have one speaker um but mr kirkman would you like to give us an overview yes i would be happy to do so apologize for the mix up a minute ago no my fault again the request is to basically close three existing street right-of-ways on highwood drive and callum street and kellum street in order to allow for future development of the property these requests were evaluated by our technical review committee to make sure that it met the two tests for street closing that the closing is not contrary to the public interest and that no property owner in the vicinity is deprived of reasonable means of ingress or ingress as a result of the street closing as part of that conversation there was one tenant located on highway drive that we have confirmed is not there and that structure is vacant so that those properties can all be combined after the street closing is done so there's no issue with access on there um basically this is just part of the uh one of the steps to allow for potential development of this particular corner of guilford college road and interstate 40 and i know that mr gladden is online to speak more to the actual development request any questions yes um mr gladden hi good evening council members um my name is ryan gladden i'm an attorney here with the law offices of adams and winfrey and i represent pisces properties llc in its petition to close these three interior roads um surrounded by or enclosed within the 52 parcels owned by pisces properties in that vicinity of guilford college road bridgeford parkway and i-40 west a map was shown just a moment ago showing where those are located if you want it might be helpful to pull that up again if that's okay that's on page 181 of the agenda and it does show here that we're looking to close high wood drive from for approximately 1050 feet from guilford college all the way to its terminus with kellum street and then closing both kellum and mccallum street from their juncture with highwood drive to its uh eastern terminus there with right or western terminus with uh no eastern terminus before biddeford parkway um there are no other property owners within this subdivision these are all owned by pisces properties there is one residential structure left internally which is this property at 607 highwood drive shown on the map and we did have a tenant there um we worked with that tenant closely and found them a new accommodation and have confirmed with the greensboro city fire department that it is now vacant and so now there are no parties living again internally and no other owners of properties that are serviced by these streets and so we do believe that now it is is appropriate to seek the closure of these roads in preparation for the sale and development of these properties as a unified commercial track and i'm available to answer any questions that the council may have any questions for the applicant if not um can i have a motion move the item moved by mrs thurm seconded by okay mrs abuzawader i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero [Music] um we now move on to let's see we have um we will now move on to item number d6 which is a public hearing concerning the recommendations of the redistricting committee we do have a number of speakers um all the members of the redistricting committee and um mac mccarley and ledidra matthews from parker poe which were our consultants um however you'd like to start mr mccarley thank you mayor mayor and member of members of council i'm matt mccarley i'm a partner with parker poe adams and bernstein and with me on this project has been my colleague ladies matthews if i could have the person in charge of the slides put up the first slide for me please and the next one there we go by resolution on august 31st the council created the citizens redistricting committee to advise you on proposals to rebalance the city council districts following the 2020 census i'm not aware of any other north carolina community using a citizens committee this cycle so the city is to be commended for its commitment to citizen involvement fairness and transparency the members of the committee i think i want to go back one slide to get the names of the members of the committee i must not have made it okay well the members of your committee there are seven members they are ryan blacklich representing the greensboro chamber of commerce laura blackstock representing the greensboro neighborhood congress steve bowden r steve bowden representing the simpkins pack reverend bradley hunt representing the naacp taracita maxi representing the international advisory committee marlene sanford representing trebek and ellen weiner representing the league of women voters of the piedmont triad i also need to thank your staff the planning department led by sue schwartz and the city attorney's office led by took watts have been extremely helpful in this process and i especially want to thank planner dana clooky she has done a magnificent job of loading managing and manipulating the census data and helping us draw the maps and produce the maps that you'll be looking at tonight so my thanks to all of them the next issue is um let me have the meeting list please there we go the first meeting was on september 15th and at that meeting we did an introduction to redistricting for the committee members and they debated and determined criteria that would be used in drawing the maps later we discussed the law we discussed the demographics map drawing the committee determined that because one of the districts is over the 5 limit for population then we do need to redistrict the committee selected its criteria to guide the development and draft of the maps and i'd like to share that criteria with you first all districts should be relatively equal in population they can deviate at a rate no more than five percent above or below the ideal district size and the ideal district size is determined by dividing the city's total population by the number of districts in this case five so each district ought to be roughly one-fifth of the city's population next all precincts in the district must be contiguous to another precinct in the same district next districts should be reasonably compact next precincts would be the basic building blocks of districts and wouldn't be split unless necessary to achieve a lawful plan next communities of interest such as neighborhoods or regions where the residents have common interests will be preserved to the greatest extent possible the plans may take into account anticipated population growth within proposed districts as determined by both census data and by land development trends proposed by your planning department and by trevic in accordance with law race may be taken into account in drawing the districts but it may not be the predominant criteria and finally the committee agreed that they would consider whether the public would perceive the proposed new districts as fair and reasonable that was sort of a final filter for their plan notably your resolution as a council creating the process and criteria to be used in this redistricting prohibited the consideration of three criteria that would otherwise be lawful those are party registration voting patterns and the residential addresses of incumbents i will confirm for you that none of the prohibited information was presented to the committee or ever mentioned in committee deliberations the second meeting was on september 23rd based on the criteria adopted by the committee at the first meeting ladidra and i with technical assistance from your planning department drafted maps for the committee to consider those were presented and discussed and then revisions made at that september 23rd meeting the third meeting was september 30th and it was designated as a listening session the committee had directed staff to to post all of the maps and supporting statistical data on the city's website for public review and comment and the september 30th meeting was a virtual listening session for public comment following the statements and questions of several speakers the committee made additional changes to the maps for consideration their fourth and last meeting was last tuesday which was to formulate recommendations at that meeting they made additional changes to the draft maps and created one new additional map the moderate change map that you'll see in just a moment could i have the next slide please we're missing one slide but that's okay the committee recommended to you three different maps for your consideration and for public comment tonight the first one is the one you see on your screen now that's the pie shaped version 2 draft map the committee's goal with this map was to have all districts share a portion of the downtown area with the thought that all district members all district council members would then have a stake in downtown the map is based off of the district map that was in use between 2001 and 2008. this map as you'll notice from the statistic box in the top right corner moves 26 precincts from their current district as you look at the map you will note that some of the precincts are shown with cross hatching on them that means that they are one of the precincts that was moved they are shown in the color of the district that they are moved into but the cross hatching is to alert you that that was moved from a previous district into the proposed district and that's true of the other two maps also in this map all the districts meet the criteria of being within 5 of the ideal population the greatest deviation is only a minus 2.7 they have full contiguity and districts are reasonably compact no precincts are split and there's an allowance for growth in districts one and two which are expected to grow some but not so much on the western edge of the city what would now be in this map districts four and five which that area is also expected to grow some the two majority minority districts that is districts one and two remain majority minority in this plan the two issues for council to consider with this map are first the potential for voter confusion this moves 26 different precincts and it moves them in an election which will be on a very shortened and compressed time frame through winter months the second issue to consider is whether you agree that having all the districts converge into downtown is a criteria you want to use if i could have the next slide please which should be the moderate change map version 2. this map moves only four precincts it meets all the criteria for districts being within the five percent variance of population all the precincts are contiguous and the districts are reasonably compact there's an allowance for growth in district 2 but not much in the others district 4 which is the landlocked district in the middle of the plan comes in a little bit larger than the others since it's unlikely that it's going to grow at the same rate that the districts with developable land on their outer boundaries so that's part of the consideration for growth the ones that do have developable land might be a little bit smaller in the beginning the ones that don't have that much developable land which is district 4 would be a little bit larger in this plan no precincts are split the two majority minority districts remain solidly majority minority notably this map also has four of the five districts converging on downtown only district five has no downtown connection as for compactness it is no less compact than the present map if i could have the next map which is the least change map please as an informational exercise i drew a least change map the only criteria used in drawing this map was to get all districts within the 5 variation from ideal district size no other criteria were used my draft moved two precincts however the committee revised it to only move one and a half you'll notice that precinct 26 near the top of the map shown in cross hatch is split uh having one portion of it in district two and um and one portion of it in district three that split is along north church street the map meets all the legally required criteria much like the moderate change map and it allows for growth in districts one and five with four again being a little bit above the ideal size as it's not expected to grow much one and two remain solidly majority minority districts this map does however split a precinct precinct 26 as i mentioned is divided between districts 2 and 3. i would be glad to answer any questions that council members have about the details of the maps before mr blackledge will as a spokesman for the committee give you the committee's recommendations are there any questions mr sturm yes matt can you share with us do we have any do we currently have any split precincts and if so how many no ma'am you do not okay we do have um a number of speakers they are the members from the redistricting committee and i certainly want to thank them for their hard work um the people that we have signed up and i don't know if everybody intends to speak is ryan blackledge laura blackstock steve bowden reverend hunt teresa maxie marlene sanford and ellen weiner um ryan would you like to so mayor should we just hold our questions then until they finish i would i would suggest we we hold our questions and we will not be voting on a map tonight this is just to take public input it'll be on our next agenda okay um well we will have opportunity to have more public input well this is the public hearing you know there as as mack um outlined in his presentation there was um kind of a public hearing item during the redistricting process and then tonight is the night that was called for the public hearing before city council the next action at our next meeting is to vote on a map so there's no opportunity to make any moderations or changes to a map um well certainly you know there's discussion tonight and at our next meeting but why don't we why don't we get our committee members to speak if they wish mr blackledge thank you mayor members of council my name is ryan blackledge i'm the director of government affairs for cohn health and i am representing the chamber of commerce on on the redistricting journey um just want to say on behalf of members of the citizens redistricting committee thank you for the opportunity to be able to serve the people of greensboro this way as mack mentioned you know he he's not aware of anyone else who is doing this like this with a a citizens committee so thank you for that that commitment to uh to public input um i've been asked by the committee to provide a summary of the three maps why we chose them why we wanted to present that particular map to you all and then i'll also share our ranked preference for those maps after i speak members of the committee who would like to add anything will certainly take the opportunity to do so and additionally i'll note that many of you either watched our discussions live or went back and watched the video recordings so i do not plan to review every map or every idea that we discussed but the committee and i are happy to answer any detailed questions from council and we can get into those if uh if you'd like so from city staff if i could ask you all to go back to the image of the pie shaped map i'm going to start with that one please all right and then two slides back right thank you so as as mac mentioned this map is trying to get to this idea of all districts converging in the downtown area as best we can um right now we've got um district 5 that that wraps around four um and several of us had heard from members of the community that you know they didn't understand why we did that instead of having what a lot of places do which is have um have districts reaching to the center of the city one of the benefits of that that the committee discussed is it gives all members of council a a good mix of the downtown central urban the established general urban and then newer growth areas within the city so that all members of council when those issues come before council have some exposure and know know what it's like to have different different parts of the city growing in different ways another thing that folks really liked about that about this this pie shaped map is that it eliminates the current land lock status that we have with district four this map was the preferred map of six of the seven members of the committee and second choice of that uh that seventh member it is however the map with the most changes and we do want to acknowledge 26 changes potentially a lot there is a potential for voter confusion particularly during this election cycle which is going to be pretty short so the questions as to whether or not voters will have an opportunity to know which district they're in um uh whether candidates will have an opportunity to effectively communicate that again given the shortened election cycle that we're going to be facing as well as other things such as you know trying to campaign during the holiday season and then also our ongoing pandemic and ability to uh to have gatherings that um that we used to you know would have had during during election cycle but don't have as much so we discussed that as a committee one of the counters to that is you know recognition that this is a disruption but it would be a disruption in one election cycle out of a 10 year period i do want to note also if you get to comparing this map to others with districts 4 and 5 and looking at the population because this map has those so different from the other maps it makes it very hard to uh hard to compare those um so four on one on the other two map is different from district four on on on this map all right can we go to the the next map please the moderate change um so this one which i will note is labeled moderate change but if you're you sort of have a scale of 0 to 26 changing four is is is pretty close to um to to not many changes um as mack mentioned this map tries to adhere to that same idea of bringing the districts down to the close of the downtown area but it recognizes that you know remaking and redrawing so many districts um could be very very disruptive so to achieve that it means that district g44 which is currently part of district three into district four um that is um a lot of downtown area south of friendly would be moving into into four with this map there are then three other changes that are made two of those changes address the larger sizes of districts one and two and then there's a change made moving out of district four into district three to uh to bounce out the population shift of moving that g44 out of three into four this was the preferred map of one of the members of the committee and a strong second choice of i believe everybody else on the committee um you know downsides to this district 4 does remain landlocked so there's not that same ability to uh to participate participate in the experience of outward growth however in looking at some of the redevelopment in the downtown area it gives that that experience to uh to whoever is is representing district four um if we can move to the next map please all right this this third map which um mac referred to as you know asks to draw and draw sort of on an exercises is the answer to a question if we wanted to change as little as possible absolutely as little as possible what what could we do matt did present us one that changed two but one of those districts we had a discussion about how taking it from district three to this excuse me from district two to district three um uh probably would not be be a welcome change from some folks in that area and so we worked on a few things and came up with this map which changes as max said one and a half districts this was the minimum number of changes we could make to comply with the law it does however uh split a district that was one of our guidelines excuse me split a precinct um we did not want to split any of the precincts but when we looked at things dividing along church street seemed to be one that administratively uh could be done um could be managed by the board of elections uh as well as could be managed by candidates talking about oh you're in 26 you live east or west of church street but again this is a map that um we felt like we should present it to the committee uh to be clear it is not the preferred map of any member of the committee nor is it the second preferred map of any member of the committee however again we felt like we should commit uh should uh present to you all if you if you wanted to make the the least number of changes the least disruption for districts and citizens knowing which district they're in that uh that you should have an opportunity to see this map um with that that is a brief brief overview of um of what we went through at this point i i would ask madam mayor if um if any other members of the citizens committee have anything to uh to add to please do so this is uh steve bowden may i speak mayor yes all right this has uh been a and i really appreciate the opportunity to serve i i think that the committee was conscientious in his efforts in addressing um the the idea of putting together a citizen prepared district lines but and i'm has been noted strongly in favor of the pi-shaped map which gives everybody a uh a stake in the downtown which is critical if we're going to have a vibrant city now as we talk about these changes and i keep hearing there's gonna be all this disruption and change let's look back historically unfortunately that map that started this process was a politically drawn map in 2010. he actually went back this was based on a map around 2000 and that map when it was redrawn which has put us in this position where we in order to get back to a more cohesive community it's going to require some changes because that's how we got here that map in 2010 with the council and i won't go back and debate who was on council at that time but it was drawn to protect the council person and the germanic districts to achieve it so now when we come with what i believe is a very reasonable way to address these issues you might have to make some changes but that's basically putting you back to where you were before uh the cohesiveness of these districts were disrupted the last thing i'll say about that before we had districts when everybody was elected at large the great debate was we can't have districts because people won't work together people will be too parochial and on and on and on i appreciate that but i do appreciate the idea that as i heard in an action greensboro meeting if you're going to have a vibrant city you must have a vibrant core and you can't have it by isolating people not on the perimeter therefore that's why i push so hard that all council members who are less elected by districts clearly and large people have this uh obligation but they have a constituency in the downtown of greensboro and they therefore have skin in the game to make sure we maintain a vibrant downtown greensboro and i can't emphasize enough now i'm not trying to color this i sit in those meetings i made every meeting a second every second the consent the consensus of the committee was for the pie shaped map now later they came up some debate and the second choice came in as a second choice the pie-shaped map was an overwhelming supported map in the committee and if i'm speaking out of turn or out of school i can stand to be correct but i want to make sure that was clear thank you mr bowden anybody else on the committee wish to speak yes madam mayor council this is bradley hunt with the naacp and i also want to share uh with mack and attorney bowden that we do commend the city for allowing community input and involvement in this process i would just like to live that um in addition to my support for the pie shaped map i do want to give consideration to one precinct and that is precinct g57 i've heard from some residents of that precinct that uh they would like to remain in district one uh the the current proposal uh suggested that precinct be moved to district five and so i would just like to live that as you all consider the maps uh certainly the past eight map in particular that you uh allow um that you consider uh precinct g57 remaining in district one as opposed to being moved to district five but overall thank you all for the opportunity and i think the pie sheet map will give the city of greensboro a fair and balanced district system thank you thank you um i believe ellen weiner yes again i want to add our appreciation for being allowed to participate in this and the league of women voters of the piedmont triad we appreciate you listening to the proposal we sent and asking you about um our principles of fair and fairness and transparency and thank you for listening to this and for the criterion you gave us um i want to reinforce what steve is saying and what bradley's saying the pie shaped map was by far the whole way through almost from its inception up until like really the last meeting the vision that uh we all that we all just pursued uh because we feel that first of all as you all know better than us greensboro is a diverse city and it is growing in diversity the census numbers show that the guilford county school district numbers show that it's diverse and we just feel that the more that each district can reflect the diversity of the city like each each district uh ideally like a little microcosm of the city of greensboro that shows the downtown and the suburbs and you know the development and all on the perimeter that we just feel if each district ideally could could be a little microcosm of greensboro and each of you council people representing that um we feel it would be our our citizenry would be better representative but also as you all are conducting your business and making decisions um that y'all will be more you'll just have more collaborative problem solving if everybody has the stake in the downtown and in the development and all that all of you will have that and we just feel like um maybe meetings will be easier for y'all that a little more easier to be collaborative and having more shared issues across the districts and um i do want to say on the second point you know hearing this about making the changes and you know any voter confusion and and about the efforts the candidates will make um i do want to to say um the criteria that you gave us um special concern about challenging voters and candidates given a shortened election cycle that was not mentioned in any criterion we were given from y'all or was that mentioned or discussed between ourselves that did not even come up until our last meeting last week we weren't thinking about that at all i mean we acknowledge that this is going to be quite an election cycle you know our county commissioner districts are going to change our state legislative districts are going to change you know there's just going to be a lot of change and we voters because we're voting we're not asking anybody to do anything that we don't have to do we voters are going to be hearing the message got to pay attention got to find out it's going to be you know harder for our governments and you know the neighborhood congress the league of women voters with vote 411 all of us are going to be pitching in to explain all the differences that are coming up so really if you're going to make a change now's the time to do it because we as voters we're getting change anyway so that's you know we're gonna have to do it as individual committee members as voters just as as everybody will say to us that just did not even come up until last week and right it will be some special effort but again it was by far the consensus of the majority that you're talking one election cycle versus the versus 10 years when you have a chance to really really have our districts reflecting our city so thank you for listening appreciate it uh madam mayor this is marlene sanford um i represented trevic on the committee i'm the president of trebek for six more days the i don't disagree with anything that's been said i agree with everything that's been said i think it was a great committee and we all appreciate the opportunity to go through this process it was interesting and staff was was very helpful in supporting us as well i want to thank them for that the i would just clear up one thing that um uh ms weiner is absolutely right we did not start talking about the better con confusion potential until the last meeting and that is because after we saw what our pie shaped map vision was going to do in terms of moving precincts into new districts i heard from several folks uh how that would be a challenge in this particular campaign year um any other if this were a normal redistricting in a normal election cycle that hadn't been delayed and we didn't have covet and all those other things um then the pie shaped map i think would have been unanimous for support as the thing to do um so that that's really the big difference there um and i think we were all shocked that you could move as few as four precincts and still accomplish almost all the goals that the committee was um trying to accomplish for the city and its future um i don't have anything else i and i imagine the rest of the committee members are happy to answer any questions thank you would any of the other committee members like to speak i'm sure we do have a few questions um and for for now um questions let's maybe um address them to ryan or mac um to avoid a bunch of talking over um i tammy and then um sharon did you have a question jamie go ahead yeah um i'm just wondering if if mac or ryan one of you all can share with us um the actual head count changes that come with each map um i know we're talking we up till now i've been talking about precincts um and if you could quantify that for us and tell us how many people are affected in each of these maps that might be um helpful i don't have that at my fingertips but there is a chance that dana clooky does dana do you have that information i do have that back yes um there are with pie shaped version two there would be 77 877 residents moved at 77 877. with the moderate change 2 there would be 14 325 people moved and with the lease change proposal that would be 8035. thank you very much for that information and dana i'd like to thank you for your hard work on this and getting all these numbers together thank you for the staff support thank you madam mayor tammy did that was that your question for now um sharon i'm not we're not hearing you i'm not okay can you hear me yes okay this thing is weird um a couple of things um i heard a comment made um and i also had heard it myself that one precinct um would rather stay in district 1 because moving it means it puts it not inside communities of interest and i just wonder how many other precincts are moved without taking that into consideration as well because that is a criteria but i've heard really no conversation and i watched all three redistricting meetings live i said and watched all three so i'm wondering if we need to go back and revisit that and then consider if we remove that one precinct does that mean we need to move any up um which would then constitute another map which is question number one for me and then question number two is as i'm hearing dana give the numbers and miss samford said well the other map she considered accomplished the same goal so how does how does 14 000 accomplish the same goal as 77 because i am very concerned that people will be disenfranchised uninformed won't get the information in time and while they say it's only one voting time that vote can be four years uh that those voters have to live with that and uh for another 10 years so um i i'm just kind of that's kind of shocking to me that we go from seven seven to fourteen yet it almost accomplishes the same thing i believe that's the right matter am i correct marlene uh yes you are the one goal of the committee um that we do accomplish in the pie shape map that we don't accomplish in the moderate change map is um giving each of the districts some room to grow out in greenfield development district 4 stays landlocked so that that's the big change it turns out it's sort of rocket science to um it partly because of uh contiguity of some of the precincts around the northern part of the airport it turns out to be rocket science to open up both district 4 and district 5 to greenfield growth without changing an inordinate number of districts in this case 26 so by giving up that goal for district 4 but giving district 4 a substantial opportunity for infield growth in south downtown uh that that's the compromise that had to be made in order to keep the uh in order to minimize the number of precincts that were removed okay thank you and then i'll go back to well in my first question well and i think i think ryan might have wanted to make a comment on that as well uh yeah just one thing mac mac mentioned this during his presentation the the moderate change map does a good job of getting four of the five districts to downtown um which is better than three um but it does not get that uh that fifth district thank you and i think mac my map doesn't give five districts downtown either there's no way to do that without splitting up several of the precincts down there we were we didn't go that far i think we would prefer you to tell us to go that far if you wanted to um and i think mac wanted to weigh in yes ma'am on the first question which was uh reverend hunt's comment about precinct g57 and miss hightower's question about moving that uh if the person who's controlling the maps could put up uh the any of them frankly why don't we try the pie shape version i want to show you something about the difficulty of moving um precincts you'll notice that first of all precincts one and two were both too large we need to move population out of one and two so if you look at one and two particularly with one there aren't that many precincts that you can move so if you move g57 you accomplish the goal of getting enough voters reassigned so that that district is now under within the five percent uh tolerance if you don't move that precinct then you've got to move the one right above it g56 or the one above that g51 because you can't move one of the ones on the northern end of the district because that would move it into district two which is also too big so there aren't very many choices for what to move i will be glad to take a look at maps that move either someone g56 or g51 and see if that's any different and take a look at the neighborhoods that are in those but those are basically the only four choices to get population out of that district out of district 1 so that it meets the population goals so does that um is that in the pi map that's in any of the maps so that's in all of the maps yes ma'am there just aren't that many choices so apparently there has been um some history with that um the precinct being moved um not maybe in this time but in previous times and the experience has been that they're moved away from community you know communities of interest and so to me that's just that's voter disenfranchisement if you move someone into an area where they don't feel there's anybody that they can vote for or support that supports their beliefs and initiatives so um i just would like to see us further explore that um because that that came up as a concern from someone that i feel has a lot of knowledge and experience around that too which i wish we could have more public hearing um as well and so then finally i'm i'm wondering the pie chart pie shake map or any of the maps um how many of the committee members got moved in their precincts i don't know i we didn't ask so i i think one issue is mac don't we have to have these maps submitted by the 17th do we have to make a choice by the 17th and it needs to go to someone yes ma'am but you actually need to make a choice by the 12th so that we can tell the board of elections that they will have the maps by the 17th okay we're running short of time mayor we have basically two and a half three weeks well and that was my question um you know that's why we're having the public hearing now and then we'll vote on it at our at our first meeting and i do think that the redistricting committee did a great job of having those meetings back to back to get us to the point where we are today we pushed them hard and fast yes um ellen i see you have your virtual hand raised did you want to say something yes um i would like to address the question about our consideration of communities of interest um it was one of the good people that well everybody was good on the committee we really enjoyed talking with each other but uh laura blackstock was on the committee as a member of the greensboro neighborhood congress and like at our second meeting um there was a precinct that she pointed out just from her knowledge of the area um that was kind of in the it was a suggestion that could be changed and she with her knowledge right there said you know i just don't think that's gonna work and you know gave her reasons and see we listened to that and um in our third meeting before these last maps came out one of the the things we ask i mean i asked myself um i said in an ideal world uh could we have an overlay of the greensboro neighborhood maps um because hickory north carolina has they they're they're able and someone said well they are a smaller city hickory has um a neighborhood map um of their whole city and i thought you know in an ideal world if we could have our precincts you know and overlaid with the neighborhood greensboro map to see you know how our districts are aligned and how our precincts are aligned and they said we don't have that but but we did ask and i mean i specifically i said i wasn't the only one but i might have you know talked the most about it was asking before these last maps we've got at our last meeting could they be run through the filter of what the greensboro congressional you know neighborhood maps whatever maps they had could it be run through that filter now um you're right at our last meeting i did not say okay well will you show me how you did the overlay i i guess i trusted the process um but that was definitely one of our criteria and it was one that you gave us it was one we discussed the first night and it was one i mean i only speaking for myself that i specifically asked with these this last maps and so they didn't come back last week saying that there was a problem so um you know bradley's saying this you know what he's heard from a precinct that's that's good to hear you know we because these precincts there are a lot of them and they are small so i i agree if there's something going on because there was a precinct again like before below i-40 um that we were you know wanting to that to be in with other you know moving that to get that in so that yes i want to assure you that came up as much as we knew so as as we we definitely care about that thank you thank you i appreciate that thank you yeah i heard some of your comments because i i watched you so yes ma'am thank you goldie does anyone have any historical um background of how people vote in municipal elections are you talking about performance yeah the turnout for municipal elections it's terrible we know it's terrible but i don't know the percentages have ranged over the years um in the teams it'll be different it'll be different in march when we're on the ballot with everyone else um it'll be interesting to see what that turnout is mac um did did the committee take into consideration um voter performance no ma'am that was one of the criteria that you prohibited the committee from looking at so we did not gather that information we didn't provide any to the committee and it was never discussed thank you any other questions or comments from council tammy i have concerns and i'm curious in terms of the committee i have grave concerns that because everybody would have a little bit of downtown and downtown would be such a small part of everybody's precinct or everybody's district that nobody would really be passionate and and um fully represent downtown um and i'm curious in the part in the meetings that i watched and the parts of the meetings that i watched um what was the committee's thoughts about that was that discussed as a factor yeah let me say i i share some of miss therm's concern that you know whether or not it's the map that moves you know four districts into downtown i don't know that it makes downtown four times stronger i'm afraid that it dilutes it by by 75 percent because nobody really has skin in the game at that point i could answer that um the the committee's um thought process was that if all five districts or as many as possible have some of the city center then they have a vested interest in the paying attention to the city center the truth is the actual few blocks that we all think of as the downtown um are really only in two precincts the majority of that is only in two precincts and that was all in district three and now it's split between district three and either four or five depending on the map you're looking at but the other two other districts do come in and take what um most cities would consider a part of the city center um so it is definitely the older parts um that's mostly commercial um that goes a little bit further out from that um uh davey street to um uh probably eugene street kind of boundary um so the change from the districts you have now if i understand it correctly and dana uh by all means jump in and correct me if i'm wrong the real the ch it really preserves what you have now except it splits up those two obviously downtown where we have our high-rises into two different districts instead of just one and it's not possible to get everybody into you know the corner of market and elm or whatever your goal is without splitting those two precincts up between all five districts um so if you if you want that to be done you know it could be done but it's not a bridge that we crossed sorry mary kay and then that's okay um i would be curious to know in the precincts that were moved in order to have districts have a part of downtown are you following me so far it gets a little complicated how many registered voters are in those areas that are moved downtown did i make sense yeah i know where you're going because yeah yeah yeah and the only precinct that moved for that was uh g44 dana do you have the population for g44 i don't off the top of my head but i can i can get it in just a minute that would be fine later i was i was just a curiosity question and and the way the question was asked we did not gather voter registration data so what data right right population but not registered voters okay so we would know the population and i could that would be fine too um and i just looked at the map online using the the interactive map that daniel worked on looks like 3008 live in that g44 thank you sharon yeah i also was just curious um if they even took economics into consideration um in all of this because um sometimes certain districts need economic um you know within their boundaries uh you know you push everything into downtown and and then what happens there when um you start talking about economic and economic opportunities um and i think that certain districts work well together um because they share those communities of interest um and i really don't want to see us lose that focus uh in that regard so um i hope that we can reconsider some of this uh down the line but but i was just kind of curious about that some don't think economics is important i've had that conversation and they shot me down but um i've also heard that in other arenas that others do feel it's important so what did you all consider are you talking to the um to the redistricting committee yes ma'am for the downtown for divvying up the downtown again the only precinct that moved for that priority was g44 and so it moved out of district 3 and into district 4 in the moderate change map out of district 3 and into district 5 for the pie change map i'm sorry the pie shaped map okay so madam mayor if i may to um to answer about um economics we we did not look at yeah we didn't add up gdp by district or or something like that we looked at uh at populations discuss communities interest that type of thing did not look at at the particular economics one one district or another okay other questions for the committee or staff hugh did you have a question there i had a question earlier responding ask about the pie ship the intent you i think you're you're breaking up a little bit hear me now yes could you try that again please yeah the uh map with it sounded like one of the map was to give everyone a piece of downtown districts 11 and 44 make up the majority of downtown district the peers and so was there any concern about uh providing all the peace of downtown understanding what that means but uh did the uh committee at least consider that and it sounds as if for marlene's comments that the committee did not consider that correct um no we did not consider breaking up downtown and and clarify when when you know when we say downtown it's probably more appropriate more clear for us to talk about center city middle of the city that type of thing as opposed to trying to get a literal piece of downtown to everyone that's trying to get everyone close close to that central core thanks i do have one more question regarding the uh the least change map that uh looks like it takes the one district out of one and places it into four i'm looking at the target deviation i believe the target deviation following that move it looks like uh district uh four is up two points and i believe district one is down if i remember that properly and if that's the case what was the thought process behind that yes ryan and then and then mack the technical answer is that we were trying to uh have growth as a factor and uh one two and five were the districts that apparently had the greatest potential for growth so we were trying to get one two and five below the ideal number so that as they grow they grow into that number rather than start above it and grow way past it okay thank you any other questions we can't hear you it looks like you're talking but we can't hear you well you know i can't keep him i keep going on mutant forgetting me um but uh i'm still concerned mayor um macking them about these communities of interest because i don't think the focus on them was to miss witness point really uh that in depth you know and so now we've come at the nth hour and saying we've got to have maps we've got to have maps because we're in a deadline yet those things that really should have been taken in consideration were not to a degree um and so i i think we need to try to match if we can figure out a way to re-look at that and revisit that um in the short time craft maybe we can sit down i don't want to try to create my own map but i think we can make some tweaks um here with them to kind of look at that possibility miss hightower in the different maps [Music] there are three different uh precincts out of your district that move depending on which map you're looking at sometime this week or next may i have a conversation with you about which one of those precincts you think is least like your district and would be most appropriate to move and we'll see if the numbers match up but it's a different precinct in each map some one moves in the moderate map g51 moves in the least change map and g57 moves in the pi shape map but at some point we have to pick a precinct that's got enough population in it to rebalance to meet the constitutional requirement but i'd be glad to have a conversation with you about which one you think is most appropriate yeah because i i think we we need to have and i'm certainly hoping if i need to do it tomorrow um you know to making sure uh that we revisit this and we talk about this concern and make sure we address this um i understand we need to move we got to grow we got to look at all of that um but you know the overall concern for me is we talk about voter disenfranchisement and when you know black people are fighting uh and winning the voter id issues that we have um and just getting through some of those issues and now they have to come back and say well we move 26 precincts and people start running where do i go what do i do who's i i think we do them a disservice um and if we had enough time maybe to talk about uh these issues and hear more from the public um i personally would feel better about that um but i think if we can do something that does make a change but impacts people the least um i think is what my i would like to see the focus and especially address those communities of interest so yes sir i'm more than willing to sit with you and talk to you about you let me just say you know i've looked at the maps i've reviewed some of the meetings i think that the redistricting committee did a really good job in january of this year i brought before council that i wanted us to do some independent redistricting which kept us arms length out and i think we've gotten a good product um i think there are three maps i i lean towards the um the moderate change uh number two which um you know would move 14 327 i think dana said i believe that the larger high shape map um is is a little bit too much of a significant move at this point especially with elections right around the corner and then the other one splitting a precinct we we said we didn't want to do that i think that the the redistricting committee really adhered to what our ideals were and they gave us um three options to vote on i i certainly i don't want to go back and start playing with their maps when when we you know from what mack said we are the only city in the state that is doing this on an independent basis and i think we need to keep that independence i'm not saying we can't keep independence and i'm not saying the committee didn't do a good job but when other issues come up you can't have last minute issues come up and then disregard it like it doesn't matter because it is impactful um to the process and i think that ought to be taken into consideration if you don't want to talk to me fine all well and good i'm still a citizen though that could be impacted one way or the other maybe not um i get that but there are other citizens that and i heard a force that's loud and clear that had that concern and so not just making the numbers work but making sure that communities of interest kind of stayed again um you know people do talk and i heard laura when she went on and on about uh a precinct in district two um that people wouldn't be happy being in district three and they heard that but that was as far as the conversation got so you know i i understand what you're saying i'm not discounting this committee i was in support of being independent um but we also have other voices out there we need to make sure that are being heard and that those things are being considered so i i think we still can do some of that and still accomplish the same goal that we are trying to get to um i i don't know if there are other new comments at this point it it will be on the next agenda um certainly people have had opportunity to um weigh in during the process and you know the public hearing tonight we always hear from people by email and by telephone call so i would encourage the public to continue to reach out are there any other council comments at this point again i want to thank the committee for doing oh mary kay sorry i just want to thank the redistricting committee i really think they did an amazing job um and this was our goal to have it independently done so i appreciate all of the hard work of everyone um you know no matter which map we choose i think that the redistricting committee took everything that the criteria that were placed before them to heart and they worked very hard on it i know i watched some of it i know several other council members did as well and i was very impressed with the way everyone was sticking to the task at hand and they were wanting to see it through so thank all of you i really appreciate it again i i do want to thank the redistricting committee they did a fabulous job in a shortened period of time and at this point we can close the public hearing i think i need an official vote uh to close the public hearing move to close the public hearing second moved by uh mrs thurm seconded by ms abuzawader um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuse the waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yeah um you you went out again but i'm assuming that's a yes um mr allen yes mrs therm yes and dr wells yes and that we close the public hearing on a unanimous vote we are now moving into the general business portion of our agenda we do have um item number e1 which is an ordinance in mini chapter 29 with regard to late fees and um i believe those late fees have to do with um water and sewer accounts um mr borchardt would you like to give a brief overview on that yes i would madam mayor and thank you uh mayor and council yes this uh what this uh resolution would allow us to do is is to waive late fees associated with accounts that are eligible for community assistance programs in this case it's primarily helping with the greensboro guilford cares program and we have identified uh 43 accounts that are eligible for assistance through that program uh cares does not cover late fees so what we would like is uh permission or we'd like uh council to vest with the director and or his or her designate with that authority be able to to waive those fees and that way we can stretch the community assistance dollars as much as possible i think that sounds great moved by mrs hightower seconded by ms abu's waiter um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusa waiter yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes that passes nine to zero item number e2 is a resolution improving bid in the amount of three million nine hundred and sixty nine thousand four hundred and ninety three dollars and authorizing execution of contract 2018-045 a with jimmy r lynch and sons for the air park water booster pump station project move the item second moved by miss abuse awaiter seconded by mrs therm if there are no other comments um i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abusa waiter yes mrs hightower yes and the mswb is satisfactory so wonderful okay um mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero item number um e3 is a resolution authorizing contract 2021-2 in the amount of 996 thousand five hundred dollars to d h griffin income and company for the demolition of 201 north eugene street um moved by dr wells seconded by miss abuse the waiter um i am yeah yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um now we move on to item number e6 a resolution to authorize an interlocal agreement mou with guilford county for up to 10 million in emergency rental assistance program funds well then moved by sharon by mrs hightower seconded by mrs thurm i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman um sorry yes okay um mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes thank you and i do want to thank the um the partnership that we have with our our city staff guildford county but especially um uh greensboro housing coalition salvation army and the housing consultants group they've done a great job administering the e-wrap funds and i know that it has been a relief to many of our renters and utility clients madam mayor you kind of said what i was going to raise my hand to say um but i did have one quick question that's why i wanted to move it but will they get all the 10 million at one time because they are really going through that money because there's so many people that need help um and i know they've been waiting and waiting and um i've gotten down to the wire um i don't believe that it'll all be at one time council person hightower i believe as they receive the funds from the state they will provide us with funds and i think the first let is 2 million okay because that 2 million probably won't last long no matter um it will not yeah so the concern i have is that we'll we'll get another letter from our provider saying we're running out of you i mean it would have been nice if we could have got it all at one time it's not like it doesn't have a purpose and it won't be spent and used yeah that's mostly because of the way the state is distributing the funds but the county has committed to getting it to us as soon as possible and one other thing i'll mention uh since you provided the opportunity is that we do have a relationship with some legal experts and other housing experts set up in the courthouse with some 80 potential evictions that are facing the court right now so we're trying to assist people as quickly as possible okay yeah because i understand you know some people are saying when they get to court they're having to wait on the money and sometimes the judge won't allow that to happen but if you could provide them a check immediately um that would also help but if they have the money to provide the check so just trying to help some of the evictions um not happen um so that's thank you madam man for that time but i am appreciative of all of the providers they step up and do a great job so thank you they really really do i see um miss kennedy on the line did was there anything you wanted to add just to follow up on what you said madam mayor we've expended 13.4 million dollars back into the community for people with housing emergencies and we had no way to anticipate how great the need would be so we're looking forward to getting this money back in keeping our tenants in their housing and helping landlords be sure that they can continue to move forward with their processes thank you um so i believe we did take the vote on that um item e7 is an ordinance establishing um the emergency rental assistance guilford county in the amount of um 10 million uh that is um that's the budget adjustment um do i have a motion moved yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes mrs hightower yes mrs hoffman uh mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um item number e8 is a resolution in support of an nc commerce industrial development fund utility account application move the item second moved by mrs hightower seconded by miss abusa waiter i am a yes mrs johnson yes mrs abuzawader yes this is hightower yes mrs hoffman yes mr holston yes mr outling yes mrs thurm yes and dr wells yes and that passes nine to zero um that is the end of our official agenda are there any boards and commission appointments um mrs hightower um mrs hightower we can't hear you sharon did she hear us okay let's move on to dr wells that i don't know she can't get on but she's having her town hall on the 28th which is next um thursday night and uh i know she wants everybody well so right now we're just doing boards and commissions i don't have any boards of commission no no no no okay um mr outling yes thank you i'd like to appoint howard goldberg and brian jackson to the participatory budgeting committee they'll be going into two vacant positions okay um and so they're not replacing anyone no the positions are faking um is there a second second um all in favor by affirmation can i do that mr city attorney or do we have to do a vote yes i think you're fine okay thank you thank you mr allen were there any others no that's all thank you um mrs hoffman i have none mayor mrs therm i don't have any on my spots before mrs johnson none tonight mr holston not tonight miss abuse waiter none this evening mrs hightower oh no no boards and commissions is that what you're asking my favorite supporting commissions yeah not tonight not any tonight okay now we'll go on to council comments mrs hightower um thank you madam mayor um first i wanted to give um congratulations um to a opening today that you and i were at this morning early uh nine o'clock yay uh was 33 an m coffee shop uh at 9 24 gate city it's a coffee shop that has been opened by industries of the blind uh and staffed by the employees um they are you know a site impaired sometimes so they don't leave for lunch it gives them an opportunity to come in in the morning have coffee and lattes they have all of that and they have snacks and drinks and are very nice i hope you all will go by um there um and uh that's an economic development um piece as well and they're looking to hire someone uh else and when they hire that person they'll be open on saturdays right now it's 6 30 to 3 30 or in the afternoon maybe six and then on saturday from eight to four so um while it wasn't starbucks for me it was better than starbucks and the price was pretty good um so um congratulations to them also this past weekend i went to the fall fest at windsor center and it was very informative uh for the community they gave away books and they talked about uh health care and uh they had lots of opportunity for connections in the uh community salvation army was there um several other entities our library was there there was a presence there and it's certainly a good way to get out into the community and take these things that we do to uh the citizens and not expect them always to come into us so um that was a nice event um i also uh have some a couple questions um recently i had a conversation about racial equity and diversity training and my understanding is that the police department has not had theirs and i supported that grant because that was going to uh provide money for that training and it's been well over a year and i will say that all of our other departments have done it a matter of fact they're getting ready to go into phase two so i would like to know when they are going to do theirs as well because um that conversation is ongoing it's very important that we have that dialogue and that training um so i would really like to know when that's going to take place so can you find that out mr wilson or is mr davis on the line i can but i see chief james here so chief james would you like to give an update yeah miss hightower the uh uh justice assistance grant it was recently approved we are not expected to receive that money until december of this year and uh the training uh as we estimate it through uh racial equity institute is approximately 34 000 which was not budgeted let me assure you that we actually do uh racial equity training in the academy we've been doing that for a number of years we also implemented implicit bias training about five years ago that is also taught in the academy so we have ongoing training also uh when they were doing the in-person sessions uh with the racial equity institute we have consistently sent people to the in-person sessions we've also taken advantage of some of the groundwater sessions that have been done through the hayes taylor ymca since they've been doing it since last year so we still have that plan but equity training is an ongoing thing for us so it will be implemented right and i appreciate that and i understood that from before about the implicit bias and the other training through the ble and all that but this was i think well over a year ago when we approved that other justice grant and i remember it being told to me specifically that part of those dollars then were for that training because i asked that question and i know high point gets peace and account against the peace we didn't want them to get our piece but you were going to use some of that for that so i know we and then we approved the second grant i think this year so no only only one grant was approved the grant that was presented uh early in 2020 was not approved by council so we did not receive any money last year that money was divided between high point and guilford county we did not receive any money the grant for this year was recently approved by council i can't remember the exact meeting when it was approved but we have not yet received that money and we've been told that that money will probably hit our books in december and so then you'll begin with our equity and inclusion office because i know that's who've been uh kind of doing some of that training as well in addition to i know you wanted to go to the rei institute which is quite costly but very well worth it i've had the groundwater training myself uh but you know our own office of equity and inclusion is doing some of that too and they they've done it for everybody else so maybe they can make it possible to do it for you all um so if you can just update me when that time happens i'd appreciate that well we still want to move forward with the racial equity institute uh i think to try to do the racial equity institute training as well as the city training it does it does create a burden if you will from a time management standpoint we feel like both trainers are very comprehensive but i would like to do the racial equity training as soon as we have the funds available and we have had conversations with them about how to manage that with the department being that we have over 700 employees including all of our civilian employees but we will get it done and we should have the money available in december and we'll start to schedule that all right thank you very much i think there may be a little bit of confusion i know that there was a split vote against the jag grant that was voted no since that no vote we've had two other votes that uh the jag grant passed but i think the most recent one was just in the last month or two and that might be where the where the confusion is well that and mayor you're right because that's what i remember too because i voted no the first time around but when it came back and because it was explained to me that part of that money if we we don't want to lose that money to give her night but obviously because we you know trust them but um and that that's part of what they would use that money for i made that yes vote and then just about a month ago i made another yes vote so it's been like a year between no what so i can't remember the exact meeting last year but uh in fall of last year uh council voted to allow us to apply for the ground yes and then once the grant was approved you had another vote to allow us to accept the money okay thank you for that clarification okay and then finally thank you chief james um finally mayor um you know we we voted um two years back to give um for you fifteen dollars an hour and we've done a good job of that even our part-time employees and i understand sometimes you know even some that are roster um but most recently i was looking on the job website of various jobs people call and ask me about them but i noticed that jobs in the coliseum are not 15 an hour security guards uh housekeeping um and um i think there were some over at the aquatic center these are not roster jobs um and so uh a security job for 12 nobody's coming to get that job now as we all see since covet job prices have shot up tremendously now and people can go anywhere you know for us to get good people uh as well i just don't understand why we're not there um at 15. and i really would like to see let's get to 15 and mr city manager if you can provide me something it helps me understand that this is not the rest of people they talk to me about where the shows um have to make so much money or they control that these these are our house staff thank you for your question i'd be happy to provide you with some information we'll we'll gather the data and come back to you and talk about options okay i would really appreciate it we just we're doing it we're doing good things to help people be employed gainfully employed and quality of life is important so um you know even our incentive programs now say jobs must be 15 minimum 15. so i think we just have to keep setting that standard in that example so i would like to see us increase that thank you thank you dr wells i had a chance to uh be a part and mayor and add to uh the it was a food summit it was and they they had folk from across the country to talk about food insecurity and things that we could do in our communities to make it better i was really really enlightened and learned a lot uh and they're encouraging us to start our own gardens and our churches and wherever so that we can help with our own um our own food uh insecurities i am looking forward to um to go into ms hightower's uh uh district uh town hall and i was just when we listened to the people about the maps that i am i'm just a little disappointed that citizens don't seem to be that concerned about it it's been you know i would be seeing where where am i moving and is this gonna cause me to move and you know so that indicates to me that we're gonna have the same problems they are interested in the maps we might have the same problem when it comes to our our election and i'm just really uh not too pleased with all of these changes that that just seemed to be a little too much for me but uh we'll see how how it all turns out that's all i have to say tonight i hope everybody's still doing the social distancing and everything we're supposed to do because kovic has not gone away and everybody hasn't had their shots and their boosters i encourage you to please do so thank you doctor wells mr allen for reminding me of my uh town hall goldie thank you thank you a lot of terrific events happening in our community over the course of the next many weeks but i want to hold up one this forthcoming saturday will be the run for the greenway it's a race that a lot of community members attend and also a one mile fun run that begins at 4 30. there will be food trucks music and there will also be an opportunity for people to talk with their city council persons i know many uh will be attending and participating in that so a lot of great things we want to hold up uh run for the greenway this saturday uh near low-fi park thank you thank you um mrs hoffman um yes thanks mayor i'm just just uh an observation i i was my um broadway tickets are for the first thursday night of the of the broadway series and so um so i i was there and uh just talking with people around me and it was a group of eight people four couples uh six from burlington and another couple from roanoke virginia um they had um season subscription to the broadway series and they had come and they had made dinner reservations downtown so they had dinner and then walked over to the tanger center for the performance they loved the um center and it just um you know it just struck me so strongly again that that much of our thinking in terms of our planning since 2012 for the tanger center was that it was very important for an economic uh development point of view that that performing arts center be downtown and this was the perfect example of you know and i just did a quick uh calculation you know over the uh two and a half nearly three week run of these broadway productions you know let let's say you've really got 20 or 21 performances and and those are sold out so you've got 3 000 people there for the matinees and for each of the night performances so you're talking about 60 000 people pouring into downtown greensboro um for all of those um for all of those shows and and all of the other things that come in between because we've had but you know the tiger center has nearly been sold out for every every performance there at this point uh it really just shows the economic development uh impact of what that center uh is having and will continue to have city of greensboro uh and and our thinking and rationale for what we did was really right on uh and though i was talking with zach matheny in the lobby that evening and i s i said to him i said zach we need more restaurants downtown we do uh and so i hope that this is going to spur uh additional growth in restaurants and other businesses as a result of of this happening so thank you very much thank you mrs stern um yeah just following up on ms kaufman's comments um i was downtown this past saturday night for the faith action gala at lebauer park and that was taking place at the same time people were arriving for wicked at the tanger performing arts center we ate dinner downtown and there was weights at every restaurant um and it's very exciting it was very exciting to see all the people downtown and all the activity i've spoken with three different restaurant um slash kiosk owners and they're just so pleased and so excited about the difference that tender is making in our downtown and how alive it is i just think it's great um so congratulations to faith action on their event it was um outdoors and fairly chilly out there but it was a great event and was well attended i also want to do a shout out to the participatory budgeting team and our staff for a great event at keeley park on saturday the weather cooperated of at least while i was there the weather cooperated nicely it was a little cloudy but there was a great crowd um people were very interested in um the rain you know the rain barrels water preservation um there were some great vendors there some great music it was just a real fun time and that was done at the request of the public and the residents of district 2 that came out and you know proposed that project through pb and voted it and supported it and they really enjoyed it it was great project so congratulations to everyone involved with that it was a great event um also a reminder that our application process for the arp funds is still open until november 5th i believe is that right chris yes november 5th so if you're thinking about getting you know applying for some of those funds please be sure and get your applications in by that time so they can be considered and that's all i've got for tonight thank you thank you mayor pro tem yes um first i want to thank miss saunders the great golf course golf cart driver for taking nancy justin hugh and myself around the greenway we enjoyed it it was wonderful and um for those people who might i think that the greenway was just a waste of money it is not it it is definitely generating economic development in the millions so i want people to know that secondly um um tomorrow at two o'clock one step further is opening its third food pantry on merit drive at definition church and you're invited um miss hoffman is the uh district representative and we'll be giving some words and i think miss sturm is coming as well i know the mayor and uh skip officer you both can't come you have previous engagements but um for those of you who would like to come this is our third opening and we are serving thousands of people every week um i wanted to ask um the chief um a question uh chief james are you still with us oh yes ms johnson thank you thank you so much chief james do you all have cameras in high crime areas do you have a number of cameras in high prime areas no man we we don't currently have any cameras in high crime areas do you think that would help i think it possibly would but i think as a as a city we'd have to figure out how to manage those cameras and we've talked about this but if the police department actually essentially owned or managed the cameras it would fall under the same restrictions as the body camera does as far as being able to release it publicly and things like that but we could certainly use them in criminal investigations what i what i'm concerned about as you well know because i've talked to you about it is the high crime rate the homicides and and um the violence and um if if we could look at if council uh is at a briefing soon could look at areas where there are the highest number of homicides and crimes and talk about whether or not we want to invest in cameras some some cities do that and and the chief can probably pull up information on those cities who do it and what the outcome is but i'm very concerned people ask you what are you going to do about crime well that's a hard question to ask and answer but one of the things that might help the police department is to at least be able to see if there is an automobile what kind of car it is perhaps even the license perhaps even a face so that's something i'm interested in and i would like to mayor had this discussed at one of our uh briefings sure and i chief when will the license plate readers are have they been installed or yes so that's what i was about to tell you so we just got 10 license plate readers installed so yeah so they're up and running however we do have to get everybody trained and certainly anytime we implement a new piece of technology we have to roll out policy within the department on how it's used and things like that but we should have that program up and running that's good i'm glad to hear that thank you yes ma'am and goldie and nancy i was at a meeting in the last week on on um food deserts um st james presbyterian church and um was that the same one you all went yes yes okay i was there i had to leave because my sister went to the hospital but at any rate it was very interesting and i'm gonna follow up on it with the um passive st james uh lolita and um the past of saint james um thank you i think it was really good yeah um mary kay thank you madam mayor um just one thing for me to speak about this evening as you all know i represent the city of greensboro at the piedmont triad regional council which used to be called a cog a council of governments and i represent greensboro um it covers the 12th county region well every year they give an amazing award the people on the executive committee nominate someone from their city so i nominated chris wilson and um just heard last week that he won the award and we had to present it to him uh so it could be done virtually as well and the mayor and i were in uh the legislative conference room and called chris and said we had to speak to him right now so port chris raced over from barber park uh we were trying to you know make sure he you know didn't have a wreck or anything but uh and we were able to present him with the award and i want to tell you all the award on the criteria our years of service in government uh support for regionalism and in chris's case you know workforce development uh coveted response just so many things parks and rec of course that he supports not only greensboro but regionally and i'm just very proud that he won that award and uh congratulations chris wilson well deserved closely served thank you mr holstein yes i have two things uh the first is uh as yvonne mentioned earlier uh dabney saunders took us on that whirlwind tour on the greenway and uh i think that everybody really should take that tour i honestly had not taken it previously and i learned a lot i saw a lot and i think again it is a it's a gym here in greensboro and then secondly i also want to give a a shout out to crime stoppers uh as as many of you all spoke of at the last meeting uh on november 4th of 2020 we lost mark freeman and it was a senseless murder but there are a lot of senseless murders and crimes throughout the city uh mark friedman uh was a friend of mine we played golfing we had lunch together we had a lot of things in common but we also didn't always think the same way but he was my friend and i think that supporting crime stoppers and also supporting all the other citizens of greensboro as we look to mitigate or eliminate crime is going to be very important thank you madam mayor thank you um i've got a couple of things um i wanted to say am i getting feedback yeah okay um can you hear me now yeah um if i i really enjoyed the um the meeting that we had from st james regarding um food insecurity and mr outling and i were at a um a new program that out of the garden and triad goodwill are doing together and once a month over by triad goodwill they are going to be combining their services they can feed about 5000 people um 65 pounds of food for the very first meeting they uh for the very first day they had quite a line already but out of the garden is a great partnership kind of like what goldie was saying earlier that they are in our neighborhoods they are doing the fresh mobile markets and i think they do a fabulous job and we need to um support them and try at goodwill in any way that in any way that we can um today uh first uh national bank um opened down at um at the ballpark and it was a really good um ribbon cutting they actually had opened a few months ago in the slugger building but they did it today officially last week we did the steelhands brewery there were some of us there from council steel hands is a brewery that started in casey south carolina we are going to be their distribution center in north carolina it is in the old maddie greens brew house and the old fairway outdoor advertising building so they are going to really redevelop um that area it is family friendly i look forward to them opening up and that should be early january they said that it would bring about 40 to 50 jobs for that brewery and that is a good thing they already have a distributor agreement with rh behringer the covid numbers are really trending in a good good direction i believe that cohn for the first time in a very long time has less than 100 patients our daily positivity rate this morning um announced by the guilford county health department was five percent the rolling 14-day positivity rate is at 6.1 um when guilford county did the mass mandate they one of the matrixes that they were going to follow was the 14 uh day positivity rate and once it gets to be 5 for 3 weeks i believe that they are going to stop the mask mandate so we are headed in the right direction um the coliseum is again open with the health department and cohn you've got a call for appointments i think it's every other saturday for booster shots and vaccines i also wanted to mention um last week mary kay and i went to the firefighters memorial service and that was something that was started in 1923 but it had been stopped for about 50 years and the um firefighters historical committee got together and they they put together this memorial again and it was really quite uh quite moving david parish's father is the chaplain and he um he gave remarks there were marks from from the firefighters union firefighters families were there it was in green hill cemetery and we hope that after all this time it is something that's done on a yearly basis just like the police memorial um which brings me to uh what i what i really wanted to talk about i sent everybody on council and staff an email last week regarding the take-home cars and i've been speaking to the city manager i would like council to reconsider their vote on take-home cars we've heard stories that we have very recently lost to police officers to high point um high point does have take-home cars there were other areas where we have heard police officers leaving you know my understanding is that this is a big benefit to the police department and it equates to somewhere between three and five thousand dollars a year we are talking about how difficult it is to attract and retain police officers and i think this will make us more competitive with our immediate neighbors we have we have police officers who are leaving greensboro and don't even have to move to go to another department so i have asked to the city manager to to bring forward for our consideration a phased-in approach and i know that that will also have to take a look at the garage capacity so um i hope that uh council will support me in asking the city manager to at least bring it back up for more information um that we can consider this once again i'm asking for a little feedback um i'm i'm i agree i agree i think thank you we should do that mayor thank you too man you know my thoughts so you know my thoughts about that and i'm not i'm not there yet until somebody shows me where those cars are gonna go home and if all those cars are going to the north side of town i can't support that and so i've asked you to show me uh tell me when you're talking about um you know patrol officers taking cars home where what where are they going um i think that's critically important i understand the concerns around crime i'm as concerned as anybody having most of the homicides again on my side of town but putting that money there when the community keeps saying to us what are you doing for us how how are you investing in community making changes uh in the community and and doing some investment there um again we talk about we can't police our way out of some problems and i but we say that but we're not following through with it we're continuing to put money and i i support them getting raises and being paid well i believe in them getting paid well um you know but this is an expense that i think we really need to consider and that's for me logistically if you can help me with that i i would certainly appreciate it okay mrs thurm yeah i would support looking at this again i think for me it was the last vote was during a time where we didn't know what the budget was going to look like or what arp funds were going to look like or that we would get them there were just too many question marks at that time um so i can support you in wanting to look at that again thank you i was supported i would support it to mayor i i appreciate i appreciate this i've talked to some police and they talk about the time they have to move from one car to the other trying to get some place so you know i can understand the concern about but but if we look at it again we might see it you know through fresh eyes okay so uh mr city manager if you could bring us forward something for our consideration on a phased-in approach um i i don't know if you can do it for the next meeting um could you give me maybe to the second meeting in november i'd like to spend some time with chief james and those folks who would be taking care of the vehicles to give you a complete okay i'm fine with that thank you um so those are my comments for this evening mr city manager i did have one thing uh and i'll try to be brief you are absolutely correct in that our numbers for covet are trending in the right direction uh and i hope we continue to but i also recognize that the holidays are coming up which could potentially mean gatherings and a change in those numbers and our vaccination rate countywide is is still at about the same place it was the last time we chatted about it so with that being said i have the responsibility of making sure our public and our employees are safe at all times much like my peers across the state we are going to implement a testing policy on november 1. the testing policy means that our staff will get tested weekly for covid the way that they can avoid that testing is to get vaccinated um we'll be sharing that with our team we've already shared it with our leadership team but that'll take place november 1. and of course this is a policy not forever just like the mass mandate we hope that as the trends continue in the right direction we can peel that back but we believe that this is the most appropriate thing to do as we go into the holiday season as our capacities are already challenged with anyone being out at this point so i just wanted to make the public aware of that and certainly you all aware of that i've provided a little bit of detail uh to date and certainly if you have any questions moving forward we'll be happy to answer those thank you thank you um mr city attorney yes madam mayor um as you know we received a ruling from the federal magistrate in the marcus smith case on yesterday which at a high level has the effect of refocusing the case on the question actually before the court i would just like to assure you all that we intend to continue to do that until the matter is resolved through judicial ruling or through agreement by the parties thank you any other any other comments than if i could have a motion to adjourn i did forget my town hall on the 28th so next thursday six o'clock to eight o'clock so there is goldie had your back i think you did yeah um can i have a motion to adjourn who moved second second um it has been moved by mrs therms seconded by miss abuse awaiter and um mr city attorney without objection all right without objection we are adjourned thank you thank you [Music] you