[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, hey hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] Hey, hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] Good morning everybody. Welcome to this June 2nd meeting of the Charlotte City Council Transportation Planning and Development Committee. We'll start off as usual with introductions beginning back there. Who are you? an engineer who just moved here and I'm just curious about what's going on. Well, this is the last place you'll find that outing staff. Jessica Bigalow, planning department, city attorney's office Peterson planning. All right, we have two agenda items today. the uh community area planning uh update. I believe that isformational and uh tree canopy policy. So I think uh we'll start off by handing over to Miss Holmes. Sure. Well, today we have an update on the community area planning and the community area plans. Uh our staff have been meeting furiously with interested stakeholders, community organizations, neighborhood groups. They've hosted a webinar uh that deep dove into each individual plan. We'll give you an update on how all of that is going. Uh but as we kind of move closer towards a proposed adoption date, I just want to remind you uh as I before I turn it over to Kathy and Katherine that this is really building on that foundation of the Charlotte future 2040 plan. We see this work as uh I'll I will uh use the metaphor of building a house where the 2040 plan is really your footings, your foundation. The area plans are really the walls and the framing and the roof before we can get to the finishes and kind of the specific details and everything. Uh all the nuts and bolts and where the light switches go, which is really the specific plans is we've got to finish that framing and got to get the the uh the walls in place, the rooms, how many bedrooms, what does it look like as we keep continuing to build more specificity. So, uh, with that, I will turn it over to, oh, before I turn it over to them, just a reminder of the timeline, and we'll re review this at the end, is that we're here today. We will actually be at action review next Monday to give uh further details on this and kind of where we are in feedback and comments and what what changes have been incorporated. And then we have a proposed adoption date of June 23rd on the calendar. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Kathy and Katherine. Good morning. So, Katherine and I will um share the presentation today as we typically do. Um and as council member Driggs stated, this is information only and we're going to focus mostly on the comments that we've received today and how we are handling those. So, as you all know, we've been before this committee a number of times and full counsel since the beginning of the year. And as Monica said, um, we plan to provide count full counsel an update at action review on June 9th. And then we are hoping to come before you for a decision later on in the month. And just as our usual reminder, these plans are really about creating complete communities. And by complete communities, we mean somewhere that you can um have the opportunity to live, work, and play in the environment in which you live in. So, this is something that um I think is is a good point for us to kind of talk about. Well, how did we how did we get here? This has really been um pretty much a 10-year body of work. So, in 2012 2012 through 2015, um Central Council of Governments ran a um regional growth framework process called Connect Our Future. it was 14 counties of which um Charlotte participated and that um growth framework really introduced where we're talking about population projections and growth projections uh for a regional perspective and then drilling those down to Charlotte. This is this was all incorporated in this work and it also introduced the place type tool to our community to the region. So place types have been around that tool has been around and considered a bed best practice nationally for I'd say maybe 15 years. Um but it introduced that to our region. So at that same time as you know we'd already been experiencing a tremendous amount of growth and Charlotte continues to attract growth. So we really started to think about modernizing our toolbox for how we manage that growth. So in 2015 we conducted a land use policy audit and as part of that thinking in our minds how could we incorporate this place type tool into um into the toolbox that we use. So part of what that audit revealed was that 75 almost 75% of our community had very dated land use and growth guidance dating back to late 80s and early 90s. and 25% of the community about 25% had um the more updated guidance that had happened through the small area planning process. So after that audit, we um evaluated all 80s something of the plans that we had, variety of different plans that we had um on the books and measured those against place types to see you. If we are able to incorporate place types into our toolbox, what level of guidance does it give? Is there a gap between these plans that we have and uh the place type tool? And we found that the place type tool really provides very robust guidance equivalent to what was more or less in those plans and then would if we incorporated that communitywide we would bring everyone up to the same level playing field. So, as you know, then the next step was developing a comprehensive plan um that was adopted in June of 2021. That plan included the place type pallet which took the regional pallet and drilled it down to more specificity for our community. I think it's important to remember that ours can roll back up to the regional um model and it also um is is provides the detail that we need in our community. So they're they're completely compatible and we're compatible from the growth projection standpoint as well. So the comprehensive plan also lays out a framework for a planning framework and we've talked about this before where the comprehensive plan is your big umbrella document under which everything else more or less hangs I guess you'd say. Um then the second level of guidance it's the comprehensive plan is the most broad. The second level are strategic and action plans. And you've seen examples of those with the strategic mobility plan um and the um uh energy action plan um sustainability and um action plan. And then the third level of guidance are these community area plans. So as Monica mentioned, these pieces are really the foundation that allows further planning to take place. And as she mentioned as well, those more specific plans, I'll talk a little bit more about it in a minute, but we are right now designing there. Small area plans are one example of a specific plan. So is a transit station area plan, but there are other tools that we can have in our toolbox that would allow us to focus on very specific issues throughout the community, be more focused on implementation, and do that work in a in a um tighter time frame. And we've talked before um but just as a reminder that uh the community area plans were created over two years for the entire community. There's 14 of them um using a five-step process and they have both unique and common content in them. So the framework of them the same table of contents the same. You can find the different pieces um in the same places in all of the plans. the content in many of those areas is unique to that particular geography. So we know that we will continue to grow. Charlotte continues to attract growth and these plans are focused on accommodating growth with an approach that that recognizes what the goals of the community have been throughout all of these processes. respecting established neighborhood, aligning growth with infrastructure capacity, and creating vibruse centers for all. So what is the value? Why why should we really care about these plans? I think it's very important to remember that foundational component whereas we don't have that um mismatch of 75% having less guidance than 25%. It really brings everyone up to that same level playing field and allows for that more specific work. It h it creates uh criteria for change in neighborhoods. So there's a there's more um certainty in terms of that expectation. It identifies needs for mobility, open space, and placemaking projects through the assessment tables that are in each of the plans. So those are very important for all members of the community from from um from your standpoint and prioritizing resources for from the neighborhood standpoint in advocating for what their neighborhood needs from a develop developer standpoint from knowing what the needs are in the community as well and incorporating those in development proposals. It also memorializes all of the strategic investment area projects and it memoriali puts those and documents them by geography. So it's kind of much easier to see how all those pieces fit. It provides clearer direction for the resoning process and a transparent u methodology for how we're aligning decisions and how decisions are being made um through the plan amendment process. and it introduces a new component what I would say is is more of emerging guidance for us in terms of environmental impact. So we've been able to work with UNC Charlotte and um the state sustainability team as well for um analyzing heat impacts, tree canopy, which you'll hear more about later, impervious surfaces, storm water, all of those components. So really again, it's just reinforcing the foundational planning work that we have. So at this point, I will turn it over to Katherine and she will focus on comments received and how we're handling those comments. Thank you. So you've seen this slide before. This is just a reminder that we've been engaging the community throughout this process using over 20 tactics both in person and online. And so, uh, to date, uh, well, but prior to the release of the plans, we had interacted with over 400,000 people in person and online. And then 6,000 of those interactions were specifically in person at either the 50 workshops that we hosted or different community meetings that we attended. Um, and ultimately collected 1,700 comments that helped shape the draft plans. Uh and I'll mention that all of that engagement also builds upon the previous engagement from the comprehensive plan which reached over 500,000 people and the engagement from the policy map which is was around 6,000 people. So we really continue to engage and interact with the community. With the release of the plans, we used a number of notification methods to let people know they were out and ready for review and comment. You can see those on the left side. And then we continue to provide in-person and online options to review and provide feedback on these draft plans. Uh we have received most of our comments through the draft plans on our project website. That's number two. Uh but we've also spoken to a lot of people in our office hours which we've offered twice a week for the last two months. Uh and then at council's request, we added an additional engagement opportunity on May 15th, which was a virtual webinar. And at this webinar, we offered uh residents the chance to speak one-on-one with staff about their particular plan and how their plan would impact their life and you know the future. And so you can see uh we uh had two sessions. The first session we talked about the west and north plans and the second session was east and south and over 100 people joined us that evening and the comments that they shared have been included in our our comment catalog. I need to interrupt for just a moment. Miss Johnson, are you on the call? I'm here. Yes. I forgot to to include you in the introductions. Who are you? I know. I'm sorry about that. Yeah. Welcome. That's okay. Thank you. Bye-bye. Uh so, at this point, we have over 660 comments on the draft plans. You can see kind of the break breakdown of the types of comments that we're receiving. There is a level of support for these plans. We do have uh about a third of the comments are some sort of suggestion for change or amendment. There's about 20% of questions and then 40% of concerns. And so if you look at the top three categories together, support support, suggestions, and questions, we feel the majority of the comments are really more collaborative in nature. And the 40% of concerns I'll address further later in the presentation, but they're really a continuum of the the comments that we've been hearing since development of the comprehensive plan about the rate of growth in Charlotte and uh just kind of general concern about how we're going to maintain services. So, I'll talk about that more later. Uh but we do have feedback on all the plan chapters and from all the geographies. So, we feel like each area is being represented well. This is a little sample of some of the supportive comments we've received. So, in the first uh bubble, the commenter is saying duplexes and quadruplexes are common housing types seen in some of our neighborhoods, and they support more of that. The bottom left bubble, they express that a vision for a pedestrianoriented medium density development within close proximity to their house is quote, "One of the most exciting things I can ever recall seeing in a planning document." Um the bubble on the upper right is in reference to that placemaking assessment table and they're saying they really like the aspirations in that table especially for the transforming nation for uh nation nations forward service area which is diverse in terms of uh race culture and age. And then the last bubble says the west middle area plan is an impressive document and a great guide for future development. So, we've received some positive feedback. In terms of suggestions, I said that a third of our comments are some sort of suggestion for change or amendment. And about 35 of the 35% of that um those comments are resulting in a level of change that you can categorize into these four buckets. Uh so, some changes are related to new content or new policies. Some changes will improve clarity, others will improve quality. And then there are comments um for how to uh help implement the plans. So in terms of new content um we know that these area plans are foundational uh but that there is future planning that's needed uh through those specific plans and there have been comments that have asked for more details about these specific plans. So, uh, we're working, uh, over the next few weeks to develop that guidance, and we think it would be smart to include the types of specific plans and the prioritization criteria for when we would do those types of plans in the program guide uh, as a way to memorialize that that work. Uh, and then in the future, we could include that in a comprehensive plan update. Uh next we kind of in line with the specific plans we have continued to hear uh comments about environmental impacts. Specifically people want um more direction uh about projects like uh tree plantings or vegetated buffers to help mitigate some of the environmental impacts. And we also received the suggestion to include an environmental justice action plan as a type of specific plan that we can do in the future. And so we thought that was a great uh suggestion and we could um carry that forward. We have also been hearing from stakeholders in the uh extr territorial jurisdiction area and they would like for future development considerations to be evaluated against utility capacity. And so we're recommending to include a new policy that states uh to ensure delivery of adequate public services, consider utility capacity, road maintenance, emergency services, and evacuation routes when evaluating entitlements either through city-led or private privately initiated resonings. Then similar there's another policy change uh uh EJ7 talks about encouraging cooling amenities at mobility hubs in areas that are impacted by heat. And there was the suggestion to also encourage um cool surfaces or smart surfaces like white uh rooftops or um more cooling uh pavement materials in areas impacted by heat. And we think we can include it in that policy. In terms of changes to improve clarity, uh the first change that we're recommending is on the in chapter 4 where there's the policy map for that geography and the map is complemented with a narrative that talks about the types of changes that are expected. We've received feedback that it would be helpful to just put a circle on the map of where those areas of change are intended to occur so people can, you know, uh determine more quickly where that's supposed to happen. and then also um kind of reorganize that we have our place type descriptions in the program guide. It would be helpful to put them next to the map so people can better interpret what the map is trying to um call for in the future. Then in the uh supporting the vision chapter, we've talked about the assessment tables that identify the needs for mobility projects, open space projects, and placemaking projects. And as we've talked with users um through these office hours and such, it's become clear that it would be really helpful to have kind of an instructional guide of how these tables could be used by developers or city staff uh or the neighborhoods. And so we're thinking about including a spread that kind of talks about, you know, from your perspective, how would you read and interpret that table in decision-m? Then we're also recommending to develop a uh it's called we're calling it a pro a funding program matrix for specific mobility projects. So there are a lot of requests for a intersection improvement here or a traffic light there. These are improvements that are already covered by existing mobility programs. And we talked about these programs in the plans and how they play a role in addressing our infrastructure needs. But we think it would be helpful to take it a step further and list for each request which programs that request could be eligible for in the future. Uh so that a reader could in in the future go to that staff team and see where where that project is in in the um evaluation and prioritization. And then we've also heard it would be helpful to include an index and a glossery to help people orient themselves to the document and familiarize themselves with some of the planning terms. uh and we are missing the urban heat methodology. So that will be added to the appendix. In terms of quality, there are a number of improvements that we can make to the maps to help increase legibility. Uh so we've heard that adding neighborhood names to one of the introductory maps would be helpful to help people know where where they are in relation to the the larger city. Also adding some layers of information like the ETJ boundary, the Kataba River, additional street names, that sort of thing. Um we've uh received suggestions to enlarge some of the disclaimers in the implementation section of the plan. So really uh making it clear that that portion of the plan is not adopted policy. Also that the illustrative concepts in it are just examples. They're not promises of what will be built. And then there's some blank space that we can use to help uh clarify the intent of some of the maps, the supporting pieces of those concepts. And then finally, there are a number of uh spelling errors or missing labels or mismatched images which we can correct. So in terms of next steps, uh we've received a wonderful suggestion that um you know during these office hours we're talking one-on-one or having small conversations about a plan for a particular area or person and helping them understand how these plans should be used. the um attendant said that it would be helpful to kind of continue that in some form so people more people can hear how their plans are supposed to be used over time. And so we're suggesting to develop an implementation road show where we basically attend a certain number of community meetings every month for the foreseeable future to go through just a few examples of here's your plan, this is what the map means, this is how you use the assessment tables, and this is how it'll all be used in decision-m. And then we touched upon this in April, but um we will also be updating our resoning staff analysis to integrate the CAP policies into those decisions. So what's the area's greatest needs? What are those consistent considerations for change in neighborhoods? That's another way that will help ensure uh decisions are being made in line with with these policies. And then finally, um the requests for specific projects, you know, those that are mobility related, but also there are requests for greenway connections or additional transit stops. Those are going to be passed on to our partners. Uh the these plans set the framework for investment, but they really manage those capital projects or programmatic funds. And so we'll make sure that those requests uh make it to our partners and are included in their databases. So, the final categories of comments, um, questions and concerns. You know, questions I don't consider as being negative. They're really just looking for more information. Uh, and the concerns, of course, there is a level of um um not agreeing with what's in the plan. So, I want to spend some time talking about uh kind of the sentiment there. So, uh the first category, well, I'm sorry, I'll say what I'll go through are four buckets. future growth, infrastructure trade-offs, and technical uh questions or concerns. So, in terms of our future growth, um there continues to be concerns about the rate of growth in Charlotte or the scale of growth. And this is not new for any of us in this room. Um but the reality is that we have been growing and we will continue to grow. And so, these plans are really aimed at managing that growth in a way that benefits as many people as possible. And without these plans, growth will occur unchecked. And so, um, you know, there's that and then also the fact that Kathy mentioned these area plans offer that 100% guidance, whereas our old area plans could only cover 27% of the city. There's also some disagreement about the growth strategy. Uh, you know, you've heard us say we are respecting neighborhoods, we're aligning growth with infrastructure capacity, and we're creating mixeduse centers across Charlotte. Some uh commenters want us to be more aggressive with uh with our policies. So think about adding more neighborhood 2 to the map or recommending new activity centers close to or within neighborhoods. On the other side, there are people who think that we're being too aggressive. You know, we shouldn't have as many centers on the policy map. Uh but what we are trying to convey through our responses is that we are respecting neighborhoods and the policy map the the colors with on that within that map can accommodate the 400,000 new residents coming and the 200,000 new jobs. So we feel like we've struck a nice balance of of respecting neighborhoods and accommodating growth. Furthermore, we know that the policy map will need to evolve over time and so we've included those criteria and the program guide that help us evaluate changes to the map consistently over time as well as included considerations for changes in neighborhood. Um in terms of infrastructure, we always every planning process you receive requests for more projects, more investments and um the role of these plans is not to really be a catalog of every wish item uh across the city. The role of these plans is to identify where growth should occur and then set the framework for the investments needed to support that growth. And so we do that by memorializing the strategic investment area approach and potential projects. We do that by prioritizing investments in mixed juice centers and then including those assessment tables that give us data about improvements that need to be made over time. We do this by uh through the neighborhood toolkit by cataloging all the existing uh resources that neighborhoods can already tap into to address their needs. And then uh we are going to pass those specific projects that I mentioned along to um the the providers like cats and park and wreck that actually build some of the projects. Then in terms of infrastructure, we also are hearing comments about um the the city's ability to maintain levels of service. Again, that's not a new concern. Uh what I want to point out here is that with development of a comprehensive plan, we started all using the same growth projections. And so that was a huge step forward for city staff. Then with the development of the com of the policy map, we continued our coordination and made sure we all understood where that growth was going. You guys remember the story about uh cos and south end, right? So we're making sure everyone knows where the growth is supposed to be going. And then through this work, we're taking at the next step by uh policy PFS1 calls for a formalized and unified system for developing and sharing these growth projections at a regular frequency so that all providers are able to update their facility planning consistently over time and make sure that we're maintaining those levels of service. In terms of trade-off, there are comments that feel like we cannot um both accommodate growth and protect protect our tree canopy. Uh to that we we have to remind readers that the plans cannot stop development and we are trying to balance multiple goals uh with these recommendations. So, uh we um mentioned that the uh goal eight from the comprehensive plan to create a healthy environment is linked with our development regulations and new development must uh preserve a certain percentage of tree save on sites and and they're required to uh plant new trees after the uh work is completed. And then we're going to continue to monitor those regulations in coordination or in conjunction with our goal over time, which Tim will speak to. And so if we're not hitting the right mark, we'll continue to monitor and tweak that. In terms of environmental justice impacts, again, you know, this concern of manufacturing next to neighborhoods. And we talked a lot about this with the community during the the refinement of the policy map. And while we couldn't solve it with map changes, that is how the environmental justice policies ended up in the plans. These policies state that we should not recreate the condition of manufacturing next to neighborhoods and there are suggestions for how to improve it over time. Then finally, there are comments about the levels of detail in these plans. And as Kathy has mentioned, the older plans, they had more detail, but they also took longer to develop and they had more detail out of necessity. So we didn't have the clear vision of the comprehensive plan. We didn't have the place type tool, nor did we have the strategic mobility plan and our updated regulations. So, because of the transformative work that's happened to date, these area plans don't need to have more detail and they really have the right level of guidance uh based on where we're at. So, last slide here. Um there are some comments about the comments and concerns um related to policies within the plans. And so, this is really just what does this mean? can you say it for me differently? And so in these instances, staff responds to the question. We'll cross reference to other parts of the plan if needed. And then those improvements that I mentioned uh earlier about adding some new content and reorganizing some content we believe will help improve clarity moving forward. There are questions and concerns about data and methodology that are used in the plans. For this, we point people to the appendix which cites everything that has been used and ex exactly how we did the method methodologies uh and then try to answer questions. And then finally, there are there are comments and concerns about uh implementation and accountability which again we think the implementation road show and the reasonzoning staff analysis update will really help ensure that we're putting these plans into action. So that was a lot of information. I'll just quickly summarize. We've received some support. We've been very responsive to a lot of the suggestions. Uh we've been thoughtful in responding to questions and then the concerns are really a continuum of what we've seen uh over time. And we think these plans provide that next level of guidance that will eventually address concerns and then set up for more specific plans in the future. So I'll turn it over to Kathy again. So, we started with this slide with our six kind of top values for um this process and these plans. Um and then Katherine really dug into a lot of details around each of these six different items. So, um I don't know that I need to go through all of them again other than to say the foundational elements of this work that as Katherine just mentioned allows for us to do the more specific work and really the clearer direction and transparency around decision making and resonings and capital investments etc. Um and really cataloging the needs of each specific geography. All of those um are top values that this work brings. And so, as I mentioned as well, we plan to update um council at full counsel during action review um in a week or so. And then we are hoping at the end of the month to come back to you um for a decision. Planning committee will make a referral at their June meeting which is on the 17th. And then if um if if these are adopted, the pieces that Katherine talked about, we are poised and ready to go on implementing each of these. So the implementation road show kind of bringing that not only internally to our other departments and partners, but communitywide, um we're ready for that. Uh we're working with Dave's team in entitlement services and Holly Kramer and incorporating all of this um work into the resoning staff analysis. We've begun pre-planning for those specific plans. So we will be ready to roll that out hopefully in the fall. And um it's important to mention too that we're coming up on five years of adopting the comprehensive plan. And so it is time for our five-year assessment where we take a look at how have we been doing, what are unintended consequences of some of the policies, etc. All of that um is work that we are beginning to prepare for that assessment now as well. So that is all we have um and happy to answer any questions. Colleagues, don't all talk at once. Okay. Um I have a couple of comments. Um so in this whole process there are basically uh like three groups. There's the staff, there's the council and there's the public. Um you guys are operating at uh an amazing level of detail. Uh our challenge is to keep up and for most of the members of the public there's no way. If you took the 2040 plan, the UDO and so on, it's a stack and and people in general don't have time. So, uh, what we're trying to do here, I think, is just, uh, be intermediaries, I guess, between our constituents and the work that you're doing. Uh I think it's worth emphasizing to my colleagues staff is making every effort to make sure that the other two constituencies us and the public can participate and are aware. So, uh, we need to recognize that. In the past, there were some allegations that staff didn't do that. And, uh, so I I really appreciate this. And this is an important time right now because this is our opportunity before we're asked to vote on this to participate and to involve ourselves. And the reason this is important is because on the public side what happens is uh something lands nearby and suddenly members of the public are students and experts and then they come back to us and they say you idiots. How could you do that? And we are now as as far as possible we are kind of laying this foundation uh and being very careful to uh uh particularly the staff to explain what we're doing and to make sure that uh what the product that comes out of all of this can be defended because that's what it comes down to later on is defending it. Uh we also have as a constituent group the developer community and the people who submit petitions for reasonzoning and they have to navigate and so you'll hear back from them about whether that's easy or hard and sometimes they say it's hard and you have to ask yourself uh does it need to be that hard? Are they right or are the things that we're requiring of them there for a good reason? Um I think it's worth noting on a very high level you have the plan and the policy. You have the plan on the one hand and the various adjunks to the plan which is sort of I would interpret it as a statement of principles and and goals that we have for the city. Then you have the UDO and the policy map and that's the rule book. And in our resoning process, what we're doing often is we are trying to apply the rules with reference to the plan and trying to see whether this interpretation of the rules align with the plan. Um, that's something that people have trouble understanding. I mean, I talk to developers and they say, well, you know, it's an N2, you know, so I get to do this, right? Not necessarily. Okay. Um, and that's how it should be because you can't write rigid rules that address every situation. So, you have to have a basis for deciding which way to apply the rules or how to interpret uh the UDO uh and the policy map in the context of a particular proposal. So, uh, I' I've told you before that, um, it is confusing and, uh, I'm sure for many people, I know from conversations in the context of resonings with developers and the public that there is, uh, uh, confusion about this. When you look at it closely enough, it does make sense and uh, you've got an abundance of outreach to the public. there were many opportunities for members of the public but someone will come along and say hey no one told me about that and that's because they don't pay attention most of the time they don't have to so uh I just want to for one acknowledge uh your effort uh as manifested again today this processing of all of the feedback you got from the public this is something that we'll be able to point to and say hey you know we asked we asked 50 times where were you uh don't show up now and complain that no one can thought about you or whatever. Uh and any plan like this is going to involve uh some discomfort for some people. Growth is going to involve discomfort for some people. And I've often said in previous meetings uh growth is a high-grade problem, but it's still a problem. uh so you you want to be growing for vitality for economic development and so on but it comes at a certain cost of congestion and disruption and what we are doing and I think you articulated this pretty well it's we're trying to accommodate the growth uh in a useful way and minimize the disruption and the congestion um but it's it's complicated and there will be people who just say I don't get it what is all So, uh, I think we're in a good place and, uh, we will, uh, we will have in the future as we go into our resonings and so on, we will be able to point back to how thoroughly this was done and all of the things that were taken into account. And then we we'll we'll get into the challenge of applying it. And uh, it is a challenge. I'm going to have to explain to developers this is what it is and this is why it's like that and then never mind my constituents you go to some of these meetings and I think we've all had the experience and they just don't get it. It's like yeah sure that's fine but I don't want that there. Uh why does that have to be there? What's wrong with you people? So anyway, uh long way of saying really appreciate the work uh and the the quality of the work, the the effort that's gone into it. Um so we are now uh looking to By the way, didn't we adopt the plan in 2022? Wasn't the vote in 2022 just before our delayed election? I remember that a couple of council members wanted to get this uh thing done before um they left office, but so the comprehensive plan was adopted in June of 2021 and the policy map was adopted in March of 2022. Oh, the second part. Okay. Right. Miss Johnson has questions. Yes, Miss Johnson. Thank you. This is Renee Johnson, committee member. So, thank you uh uh Mr. Mr. Chair, so thank you for the presentation. Uh, thank you Monica and your team. I appreciated the webinar. I thought that it was uh very engaging. Um, I called Council Member Graham right after and I don't know if you were able to join the 6:00 session because I called you at the last minute, but I think it was something that all council members should attend. I don't know if there's another opportunity uh for us to do that. I would ask for another opportunity uh because I was a because users and residents were able to get an in-depth uh presentation on the area that you know going to directly impact them. But I would say the last meeting we had um Mr. Driggs, I don't know if you and Council member uh Graham was there. I think it was the ladies night on the diets. We talked about delaying the adoption of the plans to take a more scaffold approach and not approving all of them at the same time. Um Monica, does does the June date that take that into account? At this time, we are really looking to adopt all of them at the same time so that we have that 100% coverage of the city uh and we don't leave people behind or with outdated policy. The specific plans uh which is that fourth layer of detail we believe provides uh the comments that we've heard and people who want a deeper dive. For example, uh we met with Northend Partners, our staff did last week and they wanted more details around um environmental justice specifically. So the scalpel approach that you speak of, we see those as being specific plans that address those very detailed issues, but that it's really important to lay the foundation and kind of get the right walls in place for all of the city at one time. Otherwise, we run the risk of having a policy map and a framework that's outdated in some areas and updated in other areas. And we feel like from an equitable lens, having that unified look is um and that unified adoption across the city is really important. If there are very specific uh parcels, you know, our staff is still meeting with people one- on-one. So, if there are specific concerns and areas, I know we um there's a meeting hosted tomorrow night that our staff will be attended on one of the plans. I mean, we're still ongoing having those discussions. We're really getting um very deep into very specific issues and really using those to help frame that prioritization. But we think it's imperative. I understand. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um, so but I would say when folks are asking for things, so I talked to the manager about a plain language group for the city because it's it's it's just very obvious that the subject and you all do a phenomenal job. The subject matter experts are presenting this. There's a lot of folks in the community who are on the planning uh different committees or experts who are hearing this and really understanding it. But when you have basic request or requests for basic information such as a table of contents or glossery or neighborhood names and then you have stakeholders like north end partners asking for more detailed information. I think that the onus is on us as a council to ensure that people are truly understanding this. Um uh so I and staff is doing a great job of getting the information out, but I think those those deep dive those webinars, we need more of those. I like the idea of the road show. I know that at Councilwoman Brown's town hall there was a presentation I heard that was very wellreceived. So I just think that we again I I I I support that we hold off on implementing these uh with a blanket approach. I think it's up to us as council to make sure that we are understanding as much as possible all of the plans. I mean, I've been concentrating on district 4 and I would imagine other district representatives have done the same thing, but if we're voting for the whole entire city, I just think we should consider adopting these plans um with a more intentional approach. Um let's see. It's such important work. Um, and I just really think we want to take the time to to ensure that the public has the the questions answered as as much as possible. So again, I would ask for an uh another webinar session. Those those presentations were only an hour. I know several of them went over. So, if there's an opportunity for each district to have um another webinar, uh because a lot of the users didn't even know what they you have to type in your address to know which plan you're in. So, I just think that we really need to take a step back and look at this from a resident perspective and just continue to be more intentional um with the presentations and the implementation. Thanks, Miss Molina. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Um, so first, uh, I want to say thank you to the staff for the presentation. I think, um, as the chairman said, this is a tremendous undertaking. I think, um, it was some notes that he said that I and that I absolutely agree with as far as the different levels of understanding that you deal with, right? and and I he gave some great analogies with regards to education um and the differences in in learning and capacity and not to call anyone stupid this is difficult even if you're highly educated right so the most educated among us if you don't have a particular skill set for this information it will just go right over your head so I think that's a challenge that we're continuing to try to meet um I made a specific note of the implementation road show. I think that that's a great idea. I love that you're starting it over the summer because parents like me and other parents, you can have some freedom and you're not chasing a car rider line or after school programs and you can be available, moms and dads. Um, so I I think that's a a great opportunity. Um I I and this is this is this is just a little blurb that I'd like to add because I I went to the National League of Cities uh for two days last week and I fellowship with elected women. It's for the women in municipal government um summer um leadership conference. Um and I was talking to some of the various colleagues from different states and and things of that nature. And I think from a perspective lens, one thing that I think we have to understand about the city of Charlotte is just how gigantic the city is. Um there are over 19,000 cities, towns, and villages in this country. We are number 14. I cannot stress that enough. I was I was sharing that one district in the city of Charlotte has more than 125,000 people. One district, right? And and that's always just one of those things where people are like, "Wow." Because they can share and tell me that the humans that they actually interact with are on the scale of 5 to 10,000 people. Some districts are larger, 20, 30,000 people. But when you say that one person right with no staff has 125,000 plus people that can contact them at any time to ask any level of question across 14 different departments and then the the intermediary is an understatement but I think it's the best of what we try to do in the roles especially as district representatives in this seat right you you take such a vast orientation of of scale of interest from varying different understandings and degrees. Like when I I'll speak for East Charlotte in particular. When people talk about East Charlotte, all they talk about is Central Avenue and Independence Boulevard. That's that's it. That's the faction of what people name when they talk about District 5. When Harrisburg Road, 485, we touch Matthews and Mint Hill. Uh, I mean, Harrisburg, Stallings, I mean, you're talking about a district that is adjacent to cities with their own administrations besides just one, there are multiples. Um, and and that's the truth for all of us, right? And and so trying to just say that in some way language or even even one idea can hit the mark. This is in my opinion going to be something like every project baseline. You got key milestone areas where you're monitoring and controlling this project. These are concurrent projects. This is a program at best. There are multiple um organizations within our company within our organization that are involved. So this is an an extensive program. So most of the time when we're trying to explain, we're we're actually integrating different departmental deliverables in at once. And and if you're a project manager, you understand that, right? If you understand program management, you understand that. But then trying to really take that and and make it granular like he said to even a council member who's not a project manager or understanding programs and especially to our residents. It's it's just I think the scope of what we're trying to do in itself has some inevitable confusion built in just because of the scale. This is a large extremely largecale program that we're trying to implement here. Um and and I assume based on that even with my extensive training, business analysis, project management, data analysis, that I own myself, even with a master of science in business, I still have to look at the notes, ask a ton of questions to try to synthesize this because I'm not working on the day-to-day of the program, right, and its implementation. I have to take a parenthesis here and then pivot to another department and give them full emphasis. And so um I I think when when it comes to some of what we've said, even our language, we have to be very intentional about um I I have people who are in the Far East who are often ignored in these conversations. And when we say that, it's still a very broad idea. And we say 10-minute neighborhood. We need to save some time for trees. Okay, I'm sorry. Uh, but even when we say 10-minute neighborhood to someone who don't have a sidewalk, they're like, "What what does that mean for me?" So, like I said, I said all that with some level of example to say that even in the languaging, even when we're talking to people and they're looking at their 10 mile radius, where they go to school, where they work, where their neighbors are, and when they can't see what we're talking about, then they have additional questions, even with the best of our outreach. And that is not your fault. It is just the sheer geography of 350 square miles and nearly a million people, right? And so I think the the the best the best opportunity that we have with this in my opinion is to keep these opportunities to engage with people at every opportunity that we can. We're going to pick up people along the way who may have just become acclimated with where we are, what we're doing, and and the frustration lies in, well, we've been doing this for this long, and where have you been? Well, again, it it hadn't really affected their 10 mile radius, their 15 milei radius, where they take their kids to school, where they go to church, where they work, the humans that they interact with, etc., etc. So, um, high five on the work. We still I think this is going to be something that we're permanently working on. Um and I think we're permanently implementing you know incremental adjustments. I won't call them changes. They'll be adjustments but um that's all I got to say. Thank you. Thank you. I have Miss Anderson Mayor Prom. Thank you Mr. Chair and uh thank you for the presentation and the information staff. I I you know I think uh as you know for for district one we I have a lot of really good land use um individuals within some of my neighborhood associations and they have leaned into this as you know and and that those meetings and conversations that you all have helped uh with have been fantastic. And I think for the the majority of the other areas that perhaps might not be as organized or structured, certainly a a road show approach would be very helpful and create other touch points. So great idea on that. I would just also say as much information that that we can provide on the Charlotte Gov channel, we should. So, uh, if you can record these road shows and make sure that they're again, uh, played on on the gov channel for additional eyeballs to see. I think that would be very helpful. Uh the the the last question I had is as you are planning on going out to specific neighborhoods for road shows and other things to the extent that you can let the district reps know, I think it would be very helpful for us to attend as many as we possibly can within our districts um so we can begin to translate in other areas that might not have great land use representation. So, please let me know of anything you're doing in district one in advance so I can u if possible attend and and help translate that to residents. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Um before we move on, Miss Johnson, I just wanted to note the staff cannot follow up on a suggestion like the one you made. I've noted that you said let's do these at different times. Um, at the end of the day, the staff can only make a decision like that based on instruction from the majority of council. So, you need to address those remarks to us, to your colleagues, and you need to get the majority of us to unite in or a majority of us at least to get together behind because otherwise everybody on council could be issuing various instructions to staff. It would be very hard for them. So, I think I understand Mr. Mr. Dregs, you weren't at the meeting. Um, we had a meeting and I believe we gave it to the assistant city manager. I I can't recall. I'll have to go back and watch the meeting, but it was something that it seemed as though many of us agreed on. Uh, council member Mayfield brought that up at a meeting where again um it it it was a couple weeks ago. I'll have to go back and follow up on that or follow up with the assistant city manager. Thank you. That's fine. But I I still say at the end of the day the staff will need to hear from six of us uh before uh they can act because uh I mean obviously on an ongoing basis we make suggestions and recommendations or we submit requests but uh if they intend to do something uh in a certain way and somebody feels that that's the wrong way then uh we can't have everybody just chiming in. We got to have a little bit of uh structure around the council process. And in this case, I believe what that calls for is a simple question. When it comes up for a vote, you can make a motion and say, "I understand the council process. Can we move on, please?" Thank you. Yes. With you've done this a number of times and I'm just asking you please to stay within the discipline of a majority vote. Thank you. Now, we're going to go on to our next topic which is the trees. And for that, I guess I'll call on Miss Holmes first. Uh, yes. And I'll go ahead and start while Tim is coming up. So, our next action item, um, excuse me, for information is the tree canopy policy, uh, update, which will include an overview of the tree canopy action plan 2.0, as we call it. So, uh, this really ties nicely to what we were just discussing. This is one of those strategic plans that's in that bucket, too. Uh we're just embarking on this with all the updated uh data and learnings uh using 2025 information. Tim will talk a little bit more about what that uh you know we love our acronyms what TCAP 2.0 or tree canopy action plan 2.0 will include and what the timeline is for it. So with that I will turn it over to Tim Porter who's our chief urban forester. Thank you, Monica. And uh we greatly appreciate the opportunity to provide this brief update on path forward on tree canopy and TCAP 2. Um Tara Moore, my colleague, was unable to make the meeting today unfortunately, but she'll be a key part in leading these efforts going forward. So, um some key information. Uh this isformational only. Um and we'll be providing a little bit of guidance on next steps, partnership model, and scope of the project. um some information on recent council communication and action. Um we hope to be back um winter 26 with a report out on some canopy analysis results, possibly engagement results. I could envision additional uh connections between winter and 26 and late 26, which we hope to have a a plan for you to vote on and possibly adopt. So what is TCAP 2? Um why now is the right time to move forward on tree campy policy? Uh what's going to be in that project and um that plan and what are the opportunities to partner with some key stakeholders uh on all of this and that's the run of show for today and a little bit of a look back and a a kind of comprehensive look of what TCAP is. Uh the first tree canopy action plan really was a companion effort to the Charlotte Future 24 overall uh policy work. It included some analysis engagement. Uh it was a policy initiative and it was a plan. That plan ultimately was not adopted by council but it had recommendations that informed 2040 in the UDO. And so its recommendations not all but many of them were implemented and adopted uh by council action. And overall, it'll be a playbook that guides the city's tree canopy efforts, both public and private uh efforts. So, it really is a great time now to to look at move forward intentionally with our true campy policy because we have a two a couple years of UDO lessons learned. uh we think analysis work can really um see some key takeaways beyond what we've learned procedurally process and kind of engagement with customers on what may be working, what's not working, what should we look at UDO wise related to trees of course. Um it's a great time to look at obtaining some more current data as far as tree canopy cover. We want to build on the great work uh that was recently adopted by council of sustainability in the SEAP um and also consolidate the various uh council plans and policies that we have for tree canopy dating all the way back to 2011. There's a separate canopy goal that's informed the master plan. It informed TCAP in 2040, but these are all separate plans and efforts. So, we're looking at consolidating that uh in what will ultimately be a council adopted action plan for tree canopy. So, looking back on data um and why it's important right now to take action on canopy policies, we felt it's important to um obtain new data. Our most recent available data uh was reported out in 23. uh our canopy analysis said we're still uh at 47% things may be declining but they may be slower than so in thinking about looking at canopy policy in a high level in a deep dive it it's starting to make more sense to us to obtain more current data so we're looking at doing that over the summer and the fall with some with a key partner and I'll mention that in just a moment um and I do want to take a quick moment to note that uh some efforts are having great impact. So we know there's been increased planting and preservation in the UDO that's helping move the needle or at least hold steady. Um, a lot of our programs and services and partners have efforts that are ongoing and data and methodology to assess data is so advanced now that we can actually zoom in and look at trees the city planted or developer planted, tree Charlotte, Meckllinburgg County planted a few years ago and and see it its growth and its its impacts over time. So efforts the city and its partners are taking on are having impact. Um so there are efforts they're helping overall with our canopy work. Moving back to the project um this is a proposed timeline. This is subject to change a little bit fluid but we're looking at a late 26 adoption. And the blue dots indicate points in time we expect and want to come back before you and council to report out uh to engage and ultimately um ask you to consider to vote to adopt the tree canopy action plan. So TCAP 2 really is part project part plan. It's going to involve analysis, both really broad and deep dive data analysis, countywide land cover. Uh we're going to drill into ecosystem benefits. You can see on the right there. These are things that are measurable and quantifiable on what Charlotte's Canopy is doing for us right now. We also want to look at many um development and kind of growth related items like place types. Uh we want to study our regulations to see what they're really doing for us. Um, and something that's probably most important is to look at what is what are we going to do on 50 by 50. That's still the high level canopy goal. Um, and is that something to keep? It's aspirational. It's a call to action. It's also part data driven metric. And so we need to decide if that's something to keep. I think we also want to look at we need more scalable intentional intentional goals on multiple different scales. Um so something that's really exciting looking forward to TCAP 2 is working with existing partners but also an opportunity to um partner with new and Meckler County is someone we're talking to right now and we're excited about uh partnering on a new data effort. Aaron Stanforth sustainability director for the county is here. So, we're working to hopefully partner on data collection, maybe create a a standard baseline. Um, we talk about apples to apples comparison every time we do this and data and technology advances so quickly. Urban forestry is a a younger discipline. So, there's no standardized way to do a canopy analysis. But I think the idea of partnering with Meckleberg County on data and maybe methodology to decide this is the baseline across the county and you know we take that data and we study the things we want to study for Charlotte. It's a really interesting and exciting opportunity to find a shared path forward on that. So that's something that's ongoing right now. Discussions between the city and the county. Monica if you want to add anything related to that. No, just appreciate Erin being here to kind of show the partnership and that we're working on together to move that forward. All right. Uh comments, questions, good report. Thank you. Um we're all waiting anxiously to hear some takeaways. Right. So, we've had updates about what the work is, but uh the 50 by 50 goal, uh you know, what is that going to look like? and uh what will the impact be on our zoning and planning processes? Cuz this is a little bit of a black box as far as I can tell right now. Uh we have an existing tree policy. It's worth noting. So there are rules around trees, but I think we're expecting that that will be updated and will change and uh so just looking forward to uh the outcome of this process. Thank you. Yeah. So our plan is by the end of this year, early next year, being able to give you some of that data feedback and kind of where we stand as a point in time, right? And then that will include us the ability to analyze is the 15% tree safe, is the 10%, you know, what is is it working? What is that getting us? What is the quality? So lots of exciting news to come on that. Yeah, it' be multiaceted looking at regulatory of course, but also programs, services, partner efforts. Um, as many ways we can attack the canopy goals that we're developing and recommending. U we'll be looking at all of those things. I'm appreciate that we're being very thoughtful about this. Trees are important. One of the reasons I moved to Charlotte, actually, I flew in and everything was green and then drove around. I thought that this is beautiful, you know. So, thank you for that. And uh unless there's anything else, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. All right, everybody stand up and leave. Thank you. [Applause] Happy. [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Do it. [Music] [Music] Yeah. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] You got to find [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Fire. Hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] Hey hey hey. We All right. Hey, [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Do you feel [Music] [Music] [Music] Hello. Hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hello. My [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] second 2025 meeting of the jobs and economic development committee. Let's establish who's in the room first. So, if we can start to my far left and just kind of introduce yourself so we can know who's here in the back row and then we'll start with the the table moving forward. Hello everyone. My name is Arian Jones. I'm a local business owner here in Charlotte, North Carolina. Interested to see what's going on in our community. Um, and that's why I'm in attendance today. Todd Del Long, economic development. Jordan Hot, uh, engineer who recently moved here. Interested to learn what's going on in these meetings. How you going, guys? Kenny Johnson, uh, with Grace Marne Neo Foundation, small business consultant. Casey Mashurn, general services. Madison Jugar with the quarter zero opportunity core team. Nicole Bergs from Michigan here with Charlotte. Bontella Mccayer Shamco. Matt Duour, economic development. Aaron Gillespie with corridors of opportunity. Anna Schllo, city attorney's office. Holly Escridge Economic Development, Kelsey Preston with Corridors for Opportunity, Charlotte Town, the local um office of OML Wellness Solutions. Mark Talbot with Freedom Communities and the Freedom Business Collective. Start to my far my far right. Eric, hello. Uh, Eric Spanberg with the Charlotte Business Journal, Joe Bruno with Channel 9, Alexis Cox with Neo Foundation, and Grace. I'm a small business consultant. Sean Flynn with the CRVA. Gina Sheridan, CRVA, Nan Peterson, planning. Angela Basso, CRVA and NASCAR Hall of Fame. Artsman, economic development. Alexis Gordon, economic development. Matt Aldridge, NASCAR Hall of Fame and CRVA as well. Kevin Sleer, CRVA, NASCAR Hall of Fame. Amber Wells with NASCAR. Dan Klitski with NASCAR. I think CRVA may be on the agenda today. Yes, sir. Matt Hassid, city treasurer, city finance. Steve Bagwell, CEO of the CRVA. Headman. Okay. Winston Kelly, CRVA and NASCAR Hall of Fame. And the voice. He's the voice. The voice. Oh, the voice. Kathleen Seek, general services. Allison Craig is the city manager. Again, Malcolm Graham, committee chairman. Marjorie Molina, committee members of Charlotte, Business Inclusion. To Brown, economic development. And anyone that may be visiting with us um virtually, could you please introduce yourself? Any virtual guests? Okay. Well, we have two agenda items um on our agenda. Mayor Pro Tim just raise her hand. Uh welcome Mayor Prom Anderson. Uh you want to introduce yourself? Okay. But we we acknowledge her presence and um uh Mr. Dregs is with us. Mr. Dregs, Ed Driggs, committee member. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. So, everyone for being with us today and those who are watching from home, we have a full house and so we will get right to the committee agenda. We have two items, the NASCAR Hall of Fame improvement as well as the corridors of opportunity. I will turn it over to um Miss Craig for any introductory remarks and then um let's get right into the agenda. Great. Thank you. Um yes, so two items. The first the NASCAR Hall of Fame improvements. This is for information only but will be a request soon uh forthcoming talking about um improvements to the NASCAR hall of fame terms of additional event space and classrooms. Um talk about funding sources for that. you know, again, it's from a hospitality fund that it's very narrow in what that fund can be used for. So, we will go over over all of that um uh today. And then the second item, um excited to bring the corridors back and talk about some exciting work that they're doing there related to opportunity hubs and other things. So, um with that, I will turn it over to Kathleen. Thank you, Allison. So, good afternoon committee chair, council members. Kathleen Cashek, general services. Um, I'm pleased to kick off today's Oh, sorry. Next slide, please. Um, today's presentation on the NASCAR Hall of Fame improvements. This initiative directly supports council's priorities around workforce and business development, building on the hall success over the past decade while positioning the facility to meet current and future demands. This has been a collaborative effort between my team and general services and hall of fame staff. Together we worked um to develop a conceptual design that helped us evaluate the early scope in addition to inform some preliminary pricing. Today's presentation is forformational purposes only. Our intent is to introduce proposed improvements, gather your feedback, and continue to progress the overall design. um towards a future council consideration. So that being said, there is no action requested at this time. As you'll see, um this is a strategic investment that responds to the growth in educational programming, event demand, and the overall visitor experience. with hospitality funds available. Um we'll have the opportunity to modernize the space um in a way that supports the hall's continued operational success. And with that said, I will now turn things over to Steve Bagwell. Thank you, Kathleen. And uh thank you, Chairman Graham, members of the jobs and economic development committee for allowing us to be here today. Uh I also want to thank all members of city council, city manager, and members of city staff uh for their support and partnership for the CRVA and the initives that we work on in support of Charlotte's hospitality community. Uh we are excited to be here today with you to update uh the committee on the impact of the Hall of Fame together. We've been incredibly fortunate uh to have Winston in this role based on his deep roots with NASCAR uh his year and his years of experience in Charlotte's business community. So with that, I'll hand it over you to Winston. Well, thank you very much, Steve. And I want to add my thanks for giving us the opportunity to provide you this update. Uh, as Steve mentioned, we want to give you an overview of the EV evolution, which is very germanine to why we're here today and our future plans. Just as a quick refresher, the Hall of Fame Partnership was established in 2006. It was a collaborative effort that included the city, the hospitality industry, and especially the hotel community, the state through a land contribution, uh the business community to partner with NASCAR on the NASCAR hall of fame. The found financial foundation of the hall complex including the hall of fame, the crown ballroom and parking garage uh is dedicated for construction, capital expenditures, maintenance and repairs uh well into the future. uh that was approved by presented to and approved by the hotel community's input, city council, county commission, and the state legislature through a dedicated 2% uh hospitality tax based on the anticipated sec significant economic impact the complex would drive, which I'll touch on some of those results. The state's contribution included land that was donated along Brooklyn Village Avenue that resulted in five parcels being sold that in addition to assisting with the interchange redesign assisting with the debt retirement on the complex land from the Whole Foods to the Presley apartment complex which is was a catalyst to several billions of dollars in investment along that carter following a highly collaborative design and construction construction process that was led by the city's general services staff. The NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in 2010. Our initial years, we focused on building our operational expertise, providing that anticipated, unique, one-of-a-kind asset that draws national and international exposure, bolstering Charlotte's position as a premier motorsports hub and gaining relevance and being embraced throughout the NASCAR industry. There was another collaborative approach with the city, NASCAR, CRVA, and our financial partners to amend the business model to provide the foundation for the success that we've experienced. In addition to leaning in to what we call our 1CVA strategy that integrated all aspects of our business and eliminated silos and led to the success that we've experienced. The next five years included further developing our blended financial business model through expanding our group engagement such as school groups, team builds with groups, and larger conventions, bringing our gift shop inhouse, and developing our NASCAR Hall of Fame Foundation. Highlights of the group engagement included evolving our education program from what was teacher-led field trips in the early years to the development of curriculum-based facilitated workshops by educational professionals adding summer camps and significant growth in our event business both from local organizations and the growing convention business that we see at the convention center and surrounding hotels. The development of our NASCAR Hall of Fame Foundation's philanthropic efforts was focused on our community's upward mobility challenges that we remember from a little over a decade ago with an intentional alignment with the opportunity task force findings assisting schools and students in underserved environments. Experiencing this growth led to our initial space analysis in 2017 that resulted in some operational change changes to help address that growth. Phase two of that analysis went throughout 2018 and 19 working with Gallagher Museum Services and internationally renowned museum design firm who also specializes in space utilization facilities planning and operational efficiencies. That review focused on structural improvements with several options presented to our CRVA team in January of 2020 just prior to the pandemic. The post-pandemic recovery began upon reopening in September of 2020 and recovery varied by customer groups. Our consumer and GA groups are groups with school uh and corporate groups and events. Business was returning to near preandemic levels by mid to late 2022. And that business growth and the space challenges led us to renew the efforts of how we can accommodate those needs. While we had strong performance in FY23 and 24, during this part of the process is when we engaged city staff with Kathleen, Cameron Kelly, and Mary Harrington who have been invaluable to the process. They were instrumental in working with us to develop the RFP to select the architectural partner that took the concepts to more specific designs and come up with what we feel like are the best options. and they also led the analysis of cost estimation and reconciliation with the architectural partner and the city's cost estimator. Some of the performance highlights that I would share with you coming primarily from fiscal year 2024 is nearly 22,000 visitors in that fiscal year. 60 to 65% stay overnight supporting the hotel community's commitment to the Hall of Fame complex. They stay an average of three nights with an average of 2.6 people per group. You can see the performance that we had uh in that time frame uh with revenues coming over half of it from our consumer and GA guests of with our which our school groups are a part of and over a quarter coming from uh from events. You can see from this heat map where guests are coming from all over the country. Over 64% come to the Hall of Fame from more than 200 miles and over 38% from over 500 miles. They spend an average of nearly $950 per group with the most of course being in our hotels followed by restaurants and attractions in the community which translates to an economic impact of just shy of $75 million with 43 million in direct spending uh in the community. Turning to our education program, last year we served all 50 states either in person, virtually or on road field on the road field trips that we took to them, serving over 21,000 students, of which 8,000 were provided scholarships from our foundation. That's exponential growth over the last three fiscal years from 1500 in fiscal year 22 to 4,000 in fiscal 23 and 8,000 last year and we're on that same track for fiscal 25. You can see how that growth uh has gone in terms of fundraising and disseminating funds. And from the h from the foundation's perspective, our scholarships uh go to schools that are either title one or more than 50% students on free and reduced lunch. That growth supports one part of our mission, that of giving back to the community as was originally designed and is one of the key reasons for the space modifications we'll share with you. couple of the faces of the foundation that bring hit that allow it to hit close to home. Cody Fam and Benjamin Sarraco. Cody is in the far left with a former driver uh Kyle Petty. Uh and in the middle is Benjamin. They were part of our summer scamp camp scholarship recipients. One of the interesting things about Cody is through his networking following meeting members of Hall of Famer Jerry Cook's family, he has secured an internship within the NASCAR industry when he turns 16 next year. Another one of the faces of the foundation is a Piedmont IB Middle School group that where their class parts of their class participated in the Washington DC field trip. through the relationships we had with them, we found out that all of them were not able to attend because of financial reasons. We were able to host them while their classmates were in DC at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. So, all of that has led up to our objectives. NASCAR vacated the studio space that they had used in front of the Hall of Fame when they built outside of the center city, a dedicated studios uh in in another area which added to the opportunities that we had to enable us to develop additional dedicated classroom space, increase the capacity for scholarships along with adding larger event space and make major acoustical improvements for an improved guest experience across all types of guests. So, I know this is a little bit small. This is our current design. And what I draw your attention to is in the upper right hand corner. The gray area is where the media space has been vacated. The darker blue area is where our current gift shop is. The burgundy area is where our meeting room that we call the legends room. And the yellowish green space is where our cafe is. The light blue on the left side is below the cafe area and it opens into that area which is not which is where many of our education groups spend time now which is not the most acou acoustically beneficial to them. So what we're proposing doing is moving the gift shop from in the interior of the building to the darker blue area in the upper right hand corner and extend it out a bit. The education space would then the dedicated education space would be in the light blue area. We would relocate the cafe to that greenish yellow space where the meeting room is. We would add a flooring over the uh the education space that's in the lower level adjacent to our cafe in that burgundy space. So to give you some renderings uh of that is that so this is the entry level that you would go into. There's some slight modifications there that we would move our security desk down toward the end. And I don't know if this is going to the security would be right here and add some other screening modifications that are now available to us here. This would be what the education space would look like in the current gear shop and we would propose adding air walls for accommodating different size groups. The event space where the cafe is add the flooring here and there would be a glass uh entry area here that we can also separate for private events while we're open to the public. This is adjacent to what we call our great hall exhibit space and you've probably been to many receptions in that area. So, it can be for private events here or a part of this rental space. Uh this is what the cafe uh could look like in where the current legends room is. and then a look at how we could extend out slightly without taking away from the architectural grandeur of our gear shop being uh here in the front of the building and also provide uh some more exposure retail exposure to that. So again in summary uh the main two things that we're looking at is the dedicated education space and additional event space which is triggered by moving the gear shop out move relocating the uh cafe and the enhanced security features uh at the entrance. Uh we have also kept our board of directors updated. Uh they provided a resolution in support of this on April the 9th. We have copies if you would be interested uh in reading that. And finally uh the estimated project budget would be 25 million which is an estimate based on uh conceptual design. It includes 30% contingency due to early design stage construction cost estimated in the 12 to 15 million which would be defi refined as a design advances with the remaining funds being soft costs for design permitting furniture etc. So with that I will turn it over to Matt to share the additional on the the financial side. So the the next few slides are slides that I think we we've brought to you guys before when we've talked about some of these projects. But just as a reminder, the hospitality has three funds. The convention center, the tourism, which has two parts, the tourism one, tourism 2, and the NASCAR hall of fame fund. And going to focus obviously on the NASCAR hall of fame fund for today, but it does have a very narrow use of allowable um utilization. allows for construction and maintenance of the hall of fame itself, the some parking facilities and the crown ballroom which is a shared facility between the convention center and the hall of fame itself. When we look at these um projects, we have the um hospitality revenue investment capital policy that city council adopted several years ago. for just as a reminder of some of those parameters. Um we are required that we have at least 100% of the next year's debt service in our fund balance just because these revenues can vol be volatile with recessions and those types of things. So we always make sure we have at least next year's fully covered. We also maintain a 25% recession reserve fund on top of that fund balance. So again, it's additional cover in case any type of market volatility occurs. We maintain um operational maintenance um for the convent center and the hall of fame on an annual basis. We work closely with the CRVA, general services and the hall of fame to determine what that needs to be and we ensure that we don't have the length of any type of financing extend past the use for life or any other type of u considerations. So as we look at this project um the available fund would be the hall of fame fund itself. um this that would be issued as certificates of participation which is sort of that asset back that we've used a lot for these types of projects and we for this one in particular so when we talk about the length of a financing um we would not extend past the original maturities of the existing hall of fame itself which is 2039 because this is sort of a renovation to sort of keep the sort of utilization of the hall of fame itself we're not proposing extending any debt past the original hall of fame at this time. And with that, I'll pass it back to Allison. Great. I'll wrap it up here. Um, so again, as Kathleen mentioned, um, this is for information only. We want to get, um, your feedback, answer your questions, um, and ultimately bring this back before you late summer, early fall, um, for official consideration. Um and just wanted to mention too that we are working on some um some other projects um with with these folks related to um for example parking at BLEX some improvements convention center and so those are things that we are doing um staff is working directly with them and when we're ready we'll be bringing those forward to you as well um for discussion and information. So with that I'll turn it back over to you Mr. Chair and happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much um for everyone for the the presentation um from CRVA. Thank uh Matt for uh pinning the finance uh in perspective for the committee uh and the council. I just want to re reiterate once again there's affordability uh in the com um yes there's uh affordability with the hospitality fund making oh adhering to all of the principles that I outlined before. There is affordability for the for the $25 million project as proposed and these are from the NASCAR funds. Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh, and has there been any other major renovations in the last five, 10 years? Not what I not what I would call major renovations. It uh we have done exhibit updates uh on a frequent basis. We have changed. There's some we change out every year, there's some twice a year, some every three years. So, we've done uh updates from an exhibit standpoint. Uh when we went from five to three inductees, we changed the hall of honor, gave us some additional event space in there and made some adjustments there, but nothing on this level of magnitude. And from my understanding, it's just to make sure that the building functions more effectively and efficiently based on current usage. Correct. Very much based on current usage. as an example, uh, as our education groups have grown, you've got the acoustical issue that I mentioned from what the area that's in front of the theater where we have students, but there's times we'll have students in our exhibit gallery and what we call the great hall where you may have been to receptions. So, that doesn't provide the best experience for either our guest or for school students and putting them in that separate area provides that opportunity. And the same thing with events. We have a growing demand for events during operating hour larger than what that legends room accommodates. And then last question, I'll open up to the committee. This does not m exceed the expiration of of the fund itself which is in 2039. That is that is correct. Yes. Similar to again tying it to the original length that the financing adheres to all the sunset and the it does not extend past that revenue source. Look, could you remind the committee the tax that we got extended last year? Yes, we extended with the help of CRVA and the partners of the hospitality and tourism alliance. We extended the prepared food and beverage tax to go through 2060 which allowed us to to engage with the temper sports and entertainment to extend to do the renovations at Bank of America Stadium and the NASCAR tax u expires when 2039 and so we got to kind of do some forward thinking in reference to whether or not that needs to be extended at some point in time. Yes, I think that that's something that I think can be discussed. But as far as this project, this does not need any additional funding or extension of the sunset to stay within our policies because it meets all the guidelines well within the budget. We can afford it. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Um I will open it up for committee questions. Um Council Member Drex. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um uh first of all uh I will personally be very interested to know the hta and industry position uh given that they bear the burden of the tax uh I would want to be confident and I guess they're not represented here today right so uh that that's something you know going forward that they aren't board is any financial data available for the NASCAR hall of fame like if I wanted to could I see you know an income statement I say you've got about $10 million in operating income and you get 20 million from the tax. Uh but I don't know expenses or what your debt service capacity is and recognizing that that some people still remember how we got started. Uh I want to be sure to cover the bases in terms of so so what can you provide like that? So I I think there could be two different parts there within the NASCAR hall of fame operate like the 2% tax we receive that all comes to the city and is all reflected in our in our the city's budget and the city's financial statement. So we can provide all of that information. As far as expenses, I do do know that the CRVA does have annual audits in addition to what the city has. So I'm not sure of if of if Steve or Winston would be able to speak to sort of the expenses or revenues that are coming specifically just to because the debt service itself would be borne by the 2% obviously tax that the city receives. That's revenue debt. It would be um the way it would be cop's debt supported by the 2% occupancy tax. So it's not pledged revenue um but it would be revenue that is identified to make the repayment itself. And that's how we did the original hall of fame as well. So, we do have the capacity in in conjunction with any covenants or other requirements of existing debt to incur this new debt. That is correct. The last time we issued any new debt on the Hall of Fame was back when we originally built it in 2009. Um, we did do a refinancing of some of that debt, a little bit of that in 2019. Um, but we have had not had any new debt issuance for capital improvements since 2009. and and because it is such a narrowly defined um use, we've essentially been building up a a pretty significant affordability and that's why we're able to adapt to look at this project at this time. But I I gather that actual numbers in terms of what these quantities are are not available. Oh, we can provide that as a follow-up. It's so the the revenue and and sort of debt services within the basic income statement and balance sheet just to get an idea of what the context is. Uh um and otherwise, as I say, I'm I'm sure that the HTA will be supportive because I assume you've talked to them and therefore uh I look forward to supporting it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. DS. And I think I had a a conversation with them in passing. I think they're very supportive of the request for sure. Um they're a major driver of the um the revenue itself. And there's several hotel years on our board of directors. uh Boris uh Munich, Tom Dolan, Benet Patel. I think those are the three hotel years that are very supportive of it. Yes, sir. Thank you, Vice Chairman Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, first of all, I'm going to thank Winston because he hosted me and about 60 men uh about last summer, we got so rowdy in the pit crew challenge that uh they was about to escort us out of the building. So, I encourage you all do the pig crew challenge if you want to get your blood going and think about NASCAR. Um, you know, this is great. I'm I'm I'm one of the old dinosaurs. So, I remember when we first started uh we did this and people question why was Charlotte be chasing NASCAR Hall of Fame and uh I think we was competing against Florida at the time. So, between us and Daytona, right? Did I get that right? Atlanta, Kansas City and Richmond. Exactly. Um, so this has been good for our tourism. It's been good for our brand. And so Winston, I uh keep doing what you're doing. I think we got to continue to evolve it so it continue to be an asset for us. Staff, I do have one question though. Uh, you mentioned future committee presentations. And I just want to make sure we look at all all these upcoming and totality. And so if you can bring as many of them back or let us know what's on the radar, uh I think it'll be helpful for us cuz I know at the retreat we had conversations there about eight or nine in a hopper. So it's more than that. So So just so the committee would kind of know what's in front of us. But I I agree with Council Member Driggs. I'm a big supporter. I try to bring either we have the National League of City, NCLM. I always try to take them to the NASCAR hall of fame. So continue to be the voice but continue to lead. Uh Winston, we appreciate you. Thank you. Um Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Mill, thank you uh Mr. Chairman and uh I I'll echo the sentiments. It's kind of hard to come behind these men and and say something that that would, you know, be very differing. Thank you for the presentation today. Um, I I echo the sentiments that we definitely realize the um the meaning of this asset in our area. Uh, especially with having NASCAR right here as well and so many of the legends that actually live in our communities. Um, and so we're we're absolutely thankful for that. I actually I have and this is a basic question. I'm looking at slide number 23 and 24. Um and the estimated project budget is 25 million but I'm showing that it so we explain this to me help me understand where we are as far as budgeting is concerned um and and what the proposed project is and and what we're saying we have. So is this like something else that I'm missing? I'm seeing 25 and 21 as far as the numbers are concerned. So, I think Kathleen maybe you could speak to the the project on on I I'll start with the the the 21 million is the annual revenue coming into the Hall of Fame for Jess and FY25. Okay. Um and I apologize. I should have rated that a little bit more clear. Those those are the budgeted revenues for each of those funds. Got it. Okay. I I was a little concerned. I was thinking like, okay, I know that you guys didn't miss this. I may have been misunderstanding it. Um but I'm I'm glad for that clarification. And so, um, no, with that said, that's really the only question that I had and really the comment to say that, um, uh, and one other clarification because we're in budget season, right? The asset of the NASCAR Hall of Fame that is a city asset. Yes, it's a city asset maintained by the CRVA. Maintained by the CRVA. I think that clarification is good for the public to know as well. Um, maintained specifically by this tax that's generated by HTA. So, um, thank you for that. That's all I have. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um, any other questions? Let me wrap up. So, this is for information only. Um, I think it's due to come back to us probably in August. We're not meeting in July. Um, but just like Council Member Mitchell, I I was in the state senate working with Dan Clawfelt to get this thing done from a state perspective. And um when I got here in ' 81, uh before Panthers and Hornets, uh there was racing and wrestling, right? And so NASCAR kind of started it off and uh you fast forward a number of years, sports and entertainment is a major driver for our economy. Uh the military games are coming. Uh ACC is here, Panthers on it. PGA Championship just left. uh Coca-Cola 600 uh just left um right uh and certainly the NASCAR Hall of Fame as a city uh asset uh fits right within that sports and entertainment environment for us. Uh it's a facility that has not been uh had any major upgrades uh since its inception other than minor modifications to um to be um more effective and efficient. And so now may be the time to kind of take a look at it and and kick the tires and see what we can do to make sure that we maintain the facility uh as well as that uh it operates in a manner in which uh people are utilizing the building in 2025 20 26 27 uh moving forward. So I I I remain um optimistic about the proposal. Look forward to you guys coming back in in August. I think in August, members, I think we're gonna take some type of action. Okay. Um to move it forward positively or negatively uh towards the city council for some type of action uh in the fall. And um so we look forward to getting some of the um general questions. I think council member Dregs asks terms about operational questions. Uh hopefully you guys will be open to us in the summer for additional um information if needed. Um but certainly I think um madam assistant city manager we'll be ready to probably uh move it forward with additional conversation uh in August and then some type of action for the city council to consider. Okay, just to note the chairman said optimistic and not cautiously optimistic. So that's a good sign. Like he he says cautiously optimistic so much that he said optimistic. That's a good thing. I was I was optimistic about the CIA too, but that that that didn't work out. All right. All right. Uh good job with that as well. Thank you, sir. For sure. Thank you. Okay. Uh Miss Craig swap this out. Pro Miss Anderson, I'm sorry we didn't see you there, Miss Anderson. Are we still having difficulties hearing her? I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Um, Mayor Proin, we um we can't hear you and the room has um flipped and we're on to the next item. So, I I apologize. So, the next topic is the quarters of opportunity. And I'm really really excited uh to get this update because I think it's probably one of the the most significant things that I've done since I got back uh in 2019. And I'm just excited to to hear what they got going on. Ready? All right. Sure. Um Erin Gillespie uh your executive manager for the corridors of opportunity program and uh thank you for uh giving us the opportunity to provide you all this update today. Um I thought that the room was crowded with the NASCAR folks but I think it's actually our corridors uh partners and we love corridors. Yeah, corridors we always show up uh the deep bench. So um oh use this device. So, uh just an update for you all today. No action information only. Um want to give you all some updates on some corridors initiatives that are advancing work in the workforce and small business realm. and then also um give you all a little bit of information on where we're headed next with some of these programs, what we're looking to do with them um as they advance and mature. Uh and so this is kind of a sixmonish um update from when we were last in front of you all. Uh that was an update at the beginning of the year and a little bit more comprehensive. We talked about a number of different uh corridors initiatives um at that meeting, but today we're going to focus a little bit more just on our um opportunity hubs and a couple of our other um business development programs and um much of this is also related to some of the uh council action um around the ARPA funding for corridors investment. So I just want to tie that in. So, um I'll go over a quick update on our opportunity hubs and then we'll go out a little bit um higher 10,000 level picture um at to give some updates around our uh two initiatives that are really looking at creating the um business district environment for businesses to thrive in the corridors. uh and then how we're building out this network on the ground and then we're going to wrap up with a really exciting example of how all of this is working um in real time. So, as you all recall, our six opportunity hubs were awarded uh that one-time ARPA funding and um other corridors, city corridors funding last year. Um and that was to six experienced operators who are carrying out their signature programming in uh small business support, workforce training, uh entrepreneurship support um in each of the corridors. So all six um hub operators that we call them um are um underway with their programming, hosting events. Um they are also working intentionally very collaboratively coming together on a quarterly basis um as a hub huddle with our um implementation partner uh Shermco and so we are meeting with them they are meeting with each other um and we are also using those huddles to bring in other um business or resource partners. So um part of that work are um kind of by by annually um uh reporting some data on how things are going. So that first uh report that we had um we they were able to capture um 150 trainings, workshops or events. Um those trainings include one-on-one meetings with small business owners or career seekers um as well as workshops or cohort meetings. All six of the hub operators are really approaching this um differently or individually based off of how their programs are designed and are best to set up to deliver those services. So, some of them are operating in more of a cohort mo uh cohort where they're pulling together their small businesses uh and training them together and then others are providing that more direct uh one-on-one support um or uh other types of trainings. um 107 participants across those events, 63 small businesses served and these are programs that are supporting either small business entrepreneurship or workforce training. Um and then within each of our reports, we're also getting some really great stories about, you know, what does it really mean? How's it really working? So, um one of our hub operators in Sugar Creek, she built this city. Um they are right there in the heart of the Sugar Creek corridor. They have hosted um a fall cohort for women who are seeking job training in the construction trades industry. And so many of their students are adult learners coming back after years or decades um and working with their instructors to get this um really important and critical training. They are also doing surveys. They love data, so we love their data. Um, and so one of their, um, surveys, they had a 95% recommendation rate, um, on if those students would recommend the program to their family or friends. Um, you know, really citing that they're getting that extra, you know, expert knowledge, but with, um, care and encouragement and support um, from the hub operators. So that's a level of service I think that really you know is only around but for this corridors framework and model um we have a number of other hub operators who are um navigating um the larger small business or workforce ecosystem on behalf of their small business um members or partners. Uh, Freedom Business Collective also shared a story of one of their members receiving a Beyond Open grant and um, you know, helping them kind of navigate how to put that to work most efficiently and leverage it for additional resources. So, um, really great connections and dots being connected here. Um what we're looking for uh forward to with our opportunity hubs is continuing that really close um contact and um information sharing. Uh integrating the hubs into those larger workforce or small business ecosystems. Um a lot of the hubs are already uh you know participating in the small business um roundts that are facilitated uh by economic development and the business innovation team. Um they're also you know we're working handinhand with the uh workforce development office. So as that strategy rolls out um these hub operators will be you know primed and ready to step in on implementation. And then, you know, because this was that one-time funding, we're starting to develop that future funding strategy and what that looks like and really trying to understand the, you know, what are the needs and program opportunities moving forward. How can we best utilize what we've built on the ground um and tie in, you know, additional partners um and resources. And so um before I dive into some more concrete examples, I want to give a quick um you know higher level view of you know we're supporting creating these hubs which are on the ground within each corridor but we're also through some of the work in economic development um building out that environment for a thriving and active business community within each of the corridors. So, a couple of these just to quickly highlight. In addition um to some of the hub work, we have uh three corridors participating in uh what's called the breaking barriers to business cohort. Uh it's a three-year initiative funded by Truist Foundation. Um providing strategic leadership and um assistance from Main Street America and Living Cities. This one's a little bit different, but I keep um you know highlighting that the city is actually participating alongside these three corridor organizations. So, this isn't a city program. It's something we're actually participating in, learning um and doing together, which um is really great for us to be able to do along the way. So, these are the three uh corridors that are participating. um they've been able to use this opportunity to get additional funding to support kind of building out their organization for some of that capacity building. Um and then also to bring in, you know, organize um businesses. Each has a business uh owner council that helps direct this work. And then we'll be kicking off, we just completed a a joint work plan across the three corridors in the city. um on projects and initiatives that will focus on a couple key areas of interest that they want to dive into. The the ones that are truly, you know, the barriers for their business owners on the ground. Um and you'll see a lot of those are um common themes that we work on kind of broadly in corridors, but this is a great way for us to really laser in and focus when it comes to business development. And then another um similar project but this one it is ours and our dollars um supporting this work is our start scale sustain program. So again this one's focused more on the district organization um level building out the place where businesses can um find success and opportunity. Um we are working with five organizations who are um dedicated to building out the commercial districts um you know those smaller main street areas um within the corridors. Um so these organizations are also uh working together. Our support is really building out their capacity building, organizational development, getting that foundational stuff taken care of so that they can really thrive um and start leveraging this one-time support for um the needs of their specific communities that they're building. This work is um really community-led. So, these business communities within each corridor um are working with staff to define their own their business district area. Um what their business uh community looks like, what their needs are, and what are their priorities for um funding and um uh future programming. So, um, we've worked on all of these individually and we have an incredible team, um, across multiple departments, agencies, uh, who are really the day-to-day implementers of all of this work. But when you put it all on a map, you can see that we really are building out this network of corridors based organizations that are connecting residents directly to these resources. uh in opportunities. So, we've mapped um the three programs I just walked through. We added in our creative space initiative locations because those are providing um work space for creative workers to produce um or sell or um create their art um or creative endeavors. And so, that's also kind of a part of this workforce um or resource network that we're building out. Um so this is I think really starting to show how we can start leveraging not just these individual uh initiatives but the overall network um especially as we look to you know what other city services or programs or opportunities um can we really push into the corridors to make sure that they um have that same level of access that uh these programs are giving to the residents and business owners. Um, a couple things that were, you know, driving those conversations is that workforce um, development strategy. You know, some of those top recommendations of, you know, career navigators, how might we embed them into these hubs or some of our networks um, where they're now established on the ground. Um, and then other, you know, place building initiatives that the city is undertaking in mobility, housing, infrastructure. um we can build off of this network um to get that information or those resources into the community. And then none of this work happens without all of these partners um and partners that are willing to collaborate um with each other and uh so want to share a really great example of how that's happening. Um, and Charlotte, would you mind joining us at the table and putting you on the hot seat? Um, so this is Charlotte Townsen, local business owner of OML Wellness Solutions. And let me give you an example of how she's interacted with these corridors initiatives so far, and then I'll let her uh give any more details that she'd like. So, um, small business owner. She is a member at our opportunity hub on Freedom Drive, the Freedom Business Collective. She's been working with Mark and team um, while there, and they were able to refer her to the Neo Foundation, which is our hub on West Boulevard. Um, the Neo Foundation program is a very um hands-on one-on-one training, technical assistance for business owners. Um, I feel like you guys really go a lot deeper um on that. And so with working through working with the NEO Foundation, Charlotte was able to become a certified small business um vendor with the city of Charlotte in the CBI directory and then recently secured um a contract with the city as a certified vendor. So, um, you know, I I we love that we can find these stories and so quickly for how quickly, you know, this program has come together. Um, so Charlotte, I know I kind of bro breezed through that, but is there anything else you'd like to share about your experience? Yes, my experience was amazing. So, I um actually initiated um one of my friends sent me a flyer about um FBC. Um I went and had a conversation with Mr. Mark and throughout the process, I do have a a office in that um FPC location. And he kept asking me, "What is it that you need from me? How can I help you?" You know, and I kept saying like, "I need uh SB, I need MWSB." These are the things. And he was like, you know, kind of what is that? Tell me what it is. So, I happened to see him a couple weeks later. He like, "Tell me again what you need." And we sat down and we was talking. He like, "I'm getting ready to call someone." So, he called Mr. Kenneth on the phone. No. No. Who do you who you call? Kenny Smith. Kenny Smith on the phone. And um he was like, "I have, you know, one of my members here that needs some help. She needs SBE, MWSB, and things of that nature. How can we collab together?" And in the midst of three weeks, I start receiving emails from Kenneth and Miss um Alexa, and they were able to sit down, help me do a SWAT analysis, help me become a vendor with SBE, um helped me to get involved because I had no knowledge of it. I just had a business and I wanted to be um a part of the city and get those contracts. Um and I was able to get a contract. Um so I do um all the afterhour testing for the city of Charlotte employees, my company. So anyone from 6:00 p.m. at night to 6:00 a.m. in the morning, my business does all random post accident for any city of Charlotte employee. So I was able to capture that business and I've been doing that for almost what seven months. Um and I wouldn't they wouldn't have located my business or anything without the help of um the Neil and Mr. Mark. So the transition of them two working together and just saying hey I don't have this resource but I know someone who does. Yeah. So uh you know we couldn't pass up an opportunity to kind of give you all that direct firsthand experience with how all of these pieces are coming together. you know, obviously a very powerful testament to when this network is um you know, working and working as it as it should with the corridors and the city values in mind. Um you know, we're giving the tools, the insights, and the encouragement to you know, business owners and residents on the ground. So, uh you know, no specific asks right now. We're going to continue building out um all of this work in this network. And yeah, happy to take any questions that you all might have. Well, I wish there was an axe cuz I would say yes. I know. You missed a go. I know, girl. I I just think that and we started this thing what in 2020 um on Betty's Fort Rose. Shameless plug. um in reference to how do we coordinate a wide variety of city services to really focus on quarters. Now the city's always has right focused on quarters but not in in a way where it's a whole government approach where we're really looking at a wide variety of factors code enforcement business development workforce development um you know all these things together in a way in a coordinated fashion where we identify six um key corridors identify nonprofit organizations to work on these corridor orders to help deliver the service for us and that we serve as honest brokers, right? Um I I'm a trutht teller and on Dies Road I tell people what they need to know versus what they want to hear and sometimes it's telling people no like we can't help, right? But for those that we can lean in and provide a measure of assisting and and some service um I think it's really really great. Um I'm very envious of my colleague to my right because I I believe notwithstanding Betty's foot road and Graham Street and North Triion which is in my district. Uh again creating a a district issue and making it a city priority. Right. Started in district two but now it's all over the city. Oh yeah. I think Albamar Road and um Central Avenue has so much potential right in terms of being this international district. She's been working really, really hard on it for sure. But it just has that type of small business there. We're doing the Eastland Mall development project. Um, I love the the the the wide variety of nationalities and support. So, it's it's one of those things that we can do, but but we always can do better. And so, I took some notes. I I was paying attention. All right. So, um, when we talk about quarters, we never talk about public safety. And, and I wish that as a way going forward that we really can find a way in a meaningful way uh, to measure public safety on each of these quarters. If it ain't safe, if it's not clean, people won't come. Right? And so I think that has to be a a basure a a a basic measurement that we all kind of keep track of because I think it's just really really important. Um Mr. Dre, I meant to mention this at your transportation meeting because a constituent on the corridor called me after she read about what we were going to do at the transit station in terms of eliminating some of the pleasure some of the businesses there because of lotterying those type of things. The question was, can we do that at bus shelters throughout the quarters because there people, you know, who go to the to the bus stops, the bus shelters, they're not waiting for a bus, they're just using it as refuge. And can we extend that type of um management enforcement to shelters? I'm not sure. I I bring it up to you as a consideration to kind of ask the question with transportation. I'm not Ed. You want to comment on that? Yeah, if I could. Um, as we know, there's difficulty here in that those are public spaces. For sure. Right. And uh and I will say there are a lot of places. So, it's a transit station. Uh, what's that? For sure. But but as this transit station is a public place, too. Yes. But I'm but I'm saying they all are. Therefore, our ability to filter out the people we don't want and then make it available to the people who are legitimately there uh is just tricky, right? And I think you know that if we started to try to apply a filter, there might be allegations of targeting and and so on profiling uh this is a problem that exists everywhere. U I can say that back a long time ago before many of you were born, I was mugged at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York. Uh, so it's not easy. We're trying to do the right thing. If you take those stores away, for example, you deprive the legitimate users of amenities and a lot of people appreciate those stores. Yeah. So, we've heard a little bit back from there. Uh, so Mr. Chair, I appreciate your acknowledgement of the issue. I'm just pointing out that it's tricky to try and, you know, filter out. So, so as the corridor though is how can we get control of the the bus stops and the shelters for those who are waiting to get the bus right but don't want to utilize it because someone is sleeping there someone is drinking there someone is lauing there just a thought I'm not sure how we work that but again throughout the quarters of opportunities right uh the third one would the affordable lease spacesh a lot of business owners the quarters have come a long way. We're making progress along the way. Developers are coming. Many of those are small and minority owned developers. They can develop redevelop a property but they can't redevelop the property and outfit the property for a potential tenant. So they may need some help in terms of uh a potential tenant coming to um Marjory's district quarters of opportunity want to open up business there. They need affordable lease space. So if we can begin to think broad and wide about what does that look like right if we can I'm not sure but I think we ought to I mean Diane Ward is probably experiencing some of the same type of issues on Betty's road. It's just sitting there. Um, she's pricing it at the right market, but based on that price, you might be able to go on another side of town and get more, right? So, if we can figure that out, uh, work with me. I I would appreciate it. Uh, fourth, um, if we can work with the county on health and wellness on the quarters as well. I mean is mental health. Oh, that's good. Substance abuse in a coordinated type of way, right? Where because again some of these issues are the issues of, you know, how do we begin to revitalize the quarter, clean up the quarter, help people on the quarter. We don't want to run people away, right? But we want to rent them to services, we don't provide these services. They're provided by the county. And so is there a way for us to kind of create a relationship with the county around those things? And I think me and James know a figure or two over there, right? So again, and you can comment at the end. I got a list of thing, right? Um uh and lastly is I still want to make the visits to all six of the nonprofits. Fantastic. And if we can do it in July when the council's not in session, right? I just want to go by and say, "Hey, how you doing? Thank you for what you're doing." I want to go too and kind of see the kind of see the city investment working. Just set up a tour. Yeah. I mean, that if everyone is willing to do that, I mean, you know, who's going to be in town in July, right? I just want to go by and say, "Hey, how you doing?" and kind of see them see the dollars that we invested in these quarters with these nonprofits that that we're getting a return on the investment. I know we all want to share, right? we're gonna return on the investment. But I think sometimes seeing and feeling and touching it is really really important. Touring some of the businesses that on the quarter just popping in and saying, "Hey, I would love to do a ED committee meeting on the quarter." Exactly. I would just to kind of get out of the building, right? I mean, just to kind of communicate better and be transparent. That's good. Right. So people can see what we're doing, right? I think that would be fun. I'll just throw that out there. Uh and then lastly, and I'll turn it over to my colleagues, love the way that we are incorporating um business innovation, small business development and and workforce development, creating jobs on these corridors and again a whole government approach. So team, I really appreciate all the work you're doing. I think it's really really good work. nonprofit guys. We're getting funding from city. We're getting funding from the private se sector as well as the federal government. So, we're not paying for it all ourselves. And so, I think it's a really really good initiative. I really think we're missing the point though through if we don't circle public safety and and and health and wellness because those are the issues that we continue to struggle with and I'll use space forward as an example. We continue to struggle. We take three steps forward based on all the good work that you guys do and two step back with because of a public safety incident or someone is out there that needs some type of uh health and wellness support that we we can't provide directly through what we're doing. But other than that uh it's a it's a not a a is a e for me. Excellent. Right. So Mr. Mitchell uh Mr. Chair kudos. Uh, can we go back to slide I think it's slide three. And while we doing this, Miss Townson, congratulations. Thank you so much. Because it's one thing to go through this process, but what's important to some of us is at the very end, you got a city contract. Yes, sir. And so, I appreciate this one. U go to I'm sorry, maybe it's keep going. It has There you go. Okay. So, Erin, I'mma echo some of Council Member Graham, the chair comment. Thank you so much. You're very accessible. Every time I call you, you always pick up the phone. You always have the excitement like how can we help? What can we do differently? So, I want to I want to just bring up two things that I I would like for us to continue to go. We have a new partner just came in town called the institute. And Councilman Graham and I know Kevin Price very well. And part of the institute mission is to provide capital and helping development. And so I would like for us to kind of partner with the institute and maybe we talk about the hubs allow the institute leverage some of their funding to be able to provide capital because one thing we do here for some of our small business corridors is access to capital you know how can we continue to get operating funds you know as well as uh payroll and if you go down to the next slide I think you got it's called breaking barriers to business card so in those these three particular especially two if we can also try to set up some funds for commercial development when you're thinking I'm I'm going to give Councilman Graham kudos because he has two of them and and both of Row and Rosie Ferry have two commercial development they're focusing on right West Boulevard has for sisters only did I say that right three sisters three sisters thank you sir three sisters and so I do think the if the city we can play a role I'm looking at Mr. Eastland over there out of my right my left eye. I ain't gonna call his name out Todd, but I'm looking at I'm looking at him. Uh, so Historic West End Partners have mal what you call the co the co-op weaver grocery store. So they just demolish churches and so there's opportunity for them developed there. Then you go around to my favorite hot spot that me and Councilman Gra hang out. It's called the historic excelsia club. Oh yeah. And so we got we got two take on commercial development. If somehow the city we can play a role to advocate that and I mentioned on West Boulevard I got to give district three a shout out. I mean that three sister market and they have been trying so long to create and so we can partner with them and how we can help ignite that commercial development. I just it just makes the corridor stronger and just echo uh the councilman we have it right there. corridor safety, but it's very important. I mean, if they don't feel safe that the money won't turn over in our community as often as it as it should be. And so, I echo the chairman that I'm glad we got the first bullet point. And I'm glad we got commercial development is probably a new thing we need to do in FY 2026 to help them really develop and then definitely the institute for them to uh access the capital. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. Just want I want to add what James said about capital. I mean there is a fund over at the alliance right for there was the through the mayor's racial equity program. I just don't know how that thing works. I'm not sure there's a whole lot of people that knows how that things work, right? And so if you can bring back to us a way to us to kind of really educate the committee, right, and then the community about how folks can gain access to I've seen some the advertisings and what they're doing, but it it seems really really complicated to me, but I'm just missing and then Mr. D. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, uh, Mr. chairman. I um got to use yours. Um so, first of all, thank you guys. Um congratulations. Um I think that is fantastic. Um I it it's it's multifaceted. It's a lot going on. they've said so much that I don't want to, you know, repeat what they've said, but I I um I I think that So, first of all, we have I'd like to see some numbers around the demographics of what types of businesses that we've been able to nurture in the city because what I find is gaps in I wouldn't say potential, but maybe knowledge. I think you brought up in your in in what you said and it was so important. You're doing business. You just didn't know how to do business with the city of Charlotte yet, right? And so a lot of the times even that knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. Where where how do we and that's not saying that the city's not doing a good job, but maybe it's something that we're missing, right? like being intentional with these hubs to say who are we reaching, where are we reaching them, is it in alignment with the demographics of the particular businesses. We do have a lot of emphasis on the west side and that's because it's been under reppresented for so long in multiple different areas, right? Um and and I've not met you in particular, but I represent the east side, right? So, you know, east side, west side is kind of, you know, according to who you ask, who's the best side, you know. Sorry. And I knew he was going to say that. I knew he was going to say that, right? Um, but I, you know, there there are definitely areas of opportunity on each one. And I love the way that we're talking about it as a network, right? And I love the way that we're looking at it as a network because what one doesn't have, another one will have. And we can tap into those resources with intentionality to make sure that we're meeting our residents where they are, right? um particularly and I'll speak on uh the east side as you already know. Um we have a general emphasis on the Spanish speaking and you know Hispanic and Latino populations um in a majority African-American district by the way because District 5 is actually a majority African-American district um with about 27 to 28% Latino, but the majority of the business owners are actually Latinos. They're actually Spanish- speaking, you know, Latino residents. And so, um, I I wonder if there's kind of the same thing happening. Are there African-American businesses there that don't really know how or don't know where to tap into those resources with there being such a large demographic, over 40% of the residents, and they really not have that entryway to say, how do I do business with the city of Charlotte? How can I tap into these resources? Where are they? Um I know that um the vice chairman and I he has a a business owner that's really adjacent to the corridor. Um there's a there's a daycare facility there. Right. And he's not tapped in. It's literally walking distance from the hub. That's right. Right. Um, and so I I'd love to have a conversation with him to see how those resources, child care is something substantial to men and women in in their endeavor to seek work or become, you know, um, independent with business ownership. So, I think that's kind of a a parenthesis where we can, you know, um, hold on to that because I, you know, again, I in East Charlotte there's so much to say. I think there are groups, humans, that would love to see us expand the corridors and I know we're still working in real time and we've had a lot of these different conversations about um about where we are and where we're going, but I I'd like to see us kind of be intentional about that. And I'll echo the sentiments of uh our chairman as well to kind of get out and touch them, let them know we're here, let us see it. And you guys are already doing a fantastic job. I think it it it's not understated to say that you definitely reach where we can't. We we get the pulse of the community members that we reach out to and that reach out to us, but then you're there and you're touching it and you're there and you're, you know, in those touch points on a regular basis. So, thank you guys for the work on the corridors team. Thank you guys for being here today and all that you're doing. But I I think that's where I would add to what we're talking about. Okay, we'll give the last word to council member Driggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I really appreciate this work. I think it helps to identify Charlotte as a model of a kind of kind and caring city. Uh we have a large minority population. So, you know, we need to recognize issues that exist around the country. Frankly, it's very constructive that we're doing that. Um, and I want to emphasize even as the Republican, uh, I have a personal history of engagement, uh, on the board of communities and schools for six years, tutored kids. I think there are eight kids out there who will agree that they graduated from high school because I got them through pre-calculus. Uh, so, so it's an individual investment. Where where were you when I needed I know me, too. I told them that as soon as I got elected, I told him the same thing. I needed him, man. and I needed him in grad school so bad. Sorry man, you didn't call. Um, and uh the Goodwill too, which I think is a great program addressing a lot of these issues, including people who are in the system. So, uh, I'm very happy also if we have outreach and so on to join that and demonstrate that the council is on board with these initiatives. Now, one thing I do need to mention though is uh one of the effects of corridors is that people in my district feel like that's just a way of excluding them. And we do have minority, we have small businesses. And so, uh I would recommend for one that we maybe emphasize the kind of services that are available throughout Charlotte and and not act as if the corridors are some exclusive club uh you know, to the detriment of people who don't happen to live there. We have some low-income neighborhoods. We have affordable housing. Uh obviously the proportions are different and we we don't have the legacy that uh the corridors have, but it shouldn't be a perception of complete exclusion of any part of the city. And the other thing I would mention is uh being a numbers guy, if you're going to give us a report like this, I would be grateful to see what financial commitments we have made. The number 100 million is bandied about. I know that 40 million of that went to Johnson C. Smith and 10 million is digital divide. But I think um we should demonstrate that we're responsible and that we have uh accountability standards around how we're using the money. Uh some there are infrastructure investments, there are these programs, but if you say in this report for example, look, we had 107 people do this and 43 businesses do that in relation to 100 million, it doesn't sound like a lot. So, so making clearer that we're using the money uh in a targeted way productively uh at a time like this when we're getting an update would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Mr. Dregs, um have we been able to uh reach uh the mayor prom? Is she still on the line? Um Dante, we've been having trouble hearing you. Are you uh can you communicate with us? Maybe not. No, she's calling in. This is somebody that wants to buy my house. Calls. Uh, so Dante, we apologize for the um uh the technology and the difficulties um hearing you today, but we acknowledge your presence. I know you had a question on the last item. Uh wanted to give you an opportunity to chime in on this one. Um but um your presence is noted. Okay, Mr. Chairman. Yes, ma'am. Really quickly, I I I'd be remiss if I didn't hold that comment that uh Council Member Driggs made. I think u just really quickly, I'm so sorry, but I I think to acknowledge that we have so many perceptions that don't really agree with, you know, what our realities are across our very large city. And I feel like that we don't want to sound like that we're excluding anyone in our city. I think it's important to note that um you know if someone lives let's say for an example in district six or five or six or seven that they feel like that these resources are available and I like I said I love the way that you said that it's a network and I think that note can be added to how we're demonstrating that these are where you know statistically we could say that we have quantitative information that informs that these areas have been you know underrepresented but our resources are available ailable to the entirety of our city. Yeah. Um and and if we miss that ball, I think we need to make sure we pick that one up. Yeah. I feel like I um should also reiterate that, you know, our our team and our leadership really views corridors not just as a pl a program that's just in six places, but really a framework for how we're delivering service and carrying out programs um you know across the agency and organization. So, I think um anything we're pushing into the corridors, these resources, you know, we're we're building it off of what, you know, economic development, our other partners, you know, are providing day-to-day as well. Yeah. Thank you for that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okie dokie. Um, everybody's good? Yep. Yeah. Let's get out of here. All right. Make a mot. All right. Um, thank you everybody for watching. See you in August. Thank you. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Down. [Music] Hey [Music] everybody. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey. Heat. Heat. Look at me. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] That's [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Everything. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] down. [Music] [Music] down. [Music] Down. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. Yummy. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey, you feel. Hey [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Why? Wow. [Music] We're live, Mr. Vice Chair. Oh, okay. Okay. No question. Good uh good afternoon everyone. Thank you for the as we affectionately call it the BGIR committee uh committee meeting here budget governance intergovernment relations committee. I'm vice chair James Mitchell. But before we get started I would like for those who are in the room to introduce themselves I'm going to start over to my far left uh against the wall. If you can state your name and what staff or what organization you're a part of the community. Matt Hasset, finance, Robert Dawkins, action incred. Okay. Oh, what university? Davidson College. Davidson, welcome. Oh, we got to build on our best behavior. Got an intern here. Dan Peterson. Okay. And here in the square. Go ahead. Strategy and budget. Cherry Smith. Strategy and budget. Brie Harris, strategy and budget. Moanafield, committee member. Oh, you want me to go first? This is Tijana Brown, Charlotte City Council, District 3 committee member. So, thanks everyone and our fearless leader will be here in a in a couple of minutes. But while we have a quorum, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Budget herself to talk about our only item on the agenda. Only item on the agenda. Only item. Thank you. And good afternoon. And we'll get started. Cherry Smith, who's the lead over the financial partners process for the city, is just going to give you a quick overview. But just as a reminder, we're today's topic is from your May 19th budget adjustments meeting where council decided um to refer it to you to look to the proposed financial partners and if you would like to do anything other than what was proposed. And then hopefully by the end of the meeting today, you can come to some consensus on what you're planning to refer I mean to recommend to full counsel this evening. Okay. Thank you, Marie. No pressure, right? Yes, Miss Smith. Good afternoon, council, and thanks again for having me. Um, an exciting topic that we've been with for a little while now. Uh, so today we're going to talk about the financial partner timeline, our policy that you guys uh created for us back in the fall. um our FY26 proposed funding options and then any recommendations from the committee uh that we can go forward with on straw vote. So just an overview of our time together. So just to remind you guys for FY26, our application process began in October of 2024. Um at that time we sent out an invite to apply to our existing partners as well as to some of our partner organizations to share the word out more broadly with the community so that we could encourage greater participation in the program. Uh so we also included it with our community engagement division, our planning department, our communications department as far and wide as possible. Um we closed our applications on December the 6th. Uh that was in an effort to make sure that we had enough time to review all of the applications that were submitted and we also had the application scored um by a cross departmental team made up of 19 different staff members within the city of Charlotte. We also um had an information session. So that was something new for this year. Uh we hosted that after the applications were open in November. So, we wanted to give folks an opportunity to get to our website, look through, see the required documents, and then we invited them to an online uh listening session to learn more about the program and had a live Q&A for folks to ask questions where they may have them. And then finally, uh we started to score the applications in January. So between that December and January time frame, uh that allowed for staff to make sure that we had applica like all the documents that were required, made sure that folks actually submitted their applications when they thought they had submitted, like make sure they clicked the button and all of those wonderful things. Um and as a final reminder, the performance period for financial partners begins as of July 1st and that extends through the entire fiscal year which ends on June the 30th. to revisit uh the policy uh that the committee worked on um and was ultimately approved and adopted by council. Um it provided a framework for us for the financial partner process. We hadn't had a policy before uh and we wanted to kind of codify some things as it related to eligibility um contract terms how we process payment policy included things uh around 30% for operating or program budget. uh we wanted to make sure that folks were aware that they could have a 501c status of of applications for this year. Uh we had to develop some type of approach uh for recommending organizations for you guys to consider for the coming fiscal year. Uh so when we gathered that scoring team uh the first thing that we wanted folks to do was to make sure that the applications were fully complete. Um i.e. you completely submitted a budget, all of your line items were uh detailed, that you did provide performance measures, equity measures. But then we took it a step further. Uh we asked our scorers to uh ensure or to their understanding uh know that the activities that the organization was proposing for the year indeed advanced council's strategic priorities, at least one area of council strategic priorities. Um, we also wanted to make sure that the equity and performance measures uh that were provided as a part of the application process were measurable, attainable, and impactful within our community. Um, and then last but not least, I wanted to look at the level of detail provided within the budget. Um and that would then give the scores the opportunity to say okay this budget is realistic to accomplish these performance measures as you detailed them in in your application. Um so that was the scoring process. Um from that we kind of went through and said how can we so much how can we uh start to ensure that we are funding organizations or proposing organizations that would advance indeed the strategic priorities. So, and make sure that we were trying to help as many organizations as possible. Um, for organizations that were funded in FY25 and were recommended for funding in FY26, we held their funding flat. Flat. Exactly. Uh, for organizations that were new to the financial pro partner program, uh, we capped at $100,000 of funding. So, if they asked for more than that, we scaled it back. uh if they ask for less than that then they are recommended to receive exactly what they asked for. Um and then uh we were able to look at partners that we have historically funded and look at available ex like long-term funding buckets that we have within the city. So there were a couple of partners that it made sense for them to move into a different funding source on a longer term basis which is something that we did talk about when we were developing the policy right like if you are doing something that is critical to a department or critical to the city's mission uh then it makes more sense for you to be better aligned with that department and have a contract of some sort with that department. Uh specifically to give an example, uh Tree Charlotte. Tree Charlotte has been a financial partner for a while. They do work in the community that I don't think there are any other organizations doing and they already work handinhand with the city's uh general services department. So it already makes sense for them to kind of be aligned in that direction. So on the screen now for two things. I'm sorry. I I think there's two things too I I would like for us to highlight. One, I think there was some discussion too that make sure that the financial partners in kind of our priority areas, right? Housing, workforce development, small business, and public safety. So, I I do think and and I don't know if you can get to it later on, but the more we can show how they fit in those categories, maybe that's for six o'clock. I think it helps council saying that we're trying to do what we say we want to do is prioritize our financial partners along uh with our priorities. Yes. Um so not necessarily detailed that way within this presentation but you did uh remind me to step back uh for one thing. Okay. When organizations applied this year we asked them to selfidentify one priority area. Uh so whenever you see or when we were in our budget adjustments meeting and it was broken down according to safe communities, great neighborhoods, those were the strategic priorities that the organization itself felt that it primarily advanced. Uh so we wanted to be able to narrow it down like keep our focus strictly on the pri strategic priorities of council. And then I also want to reiterate an organization's score is not indicative of the work the organization does within the community. That is not like we are not speaking to the level of work and effort that they put into the communities that they serve. But rather it's a focus on is it a complete application? Was your budget detailed? uh the performance measures that you provided, do they advance strategic priorities and are they measurable and attainable? Uh there are some organizations that had high goals, but it wasn't realistic to accomplish within a fiscal year, right? You could accomplish that over multiple years, but we're looking at fiscal year funding. So, I wanted to reiterate that to you guys and also to the general public that is not indicative of the organization's work. And and we have a uh Madame Chair here now. Madam Chair, we on slide it say slide six. Six. Uh and and one thing just for clarification is the 30%. Right. And so I think it'll be good if we can put in our document so our financial partners will know as well or did they know and it's just not in ours. Okay. So is it they request cannot be 30% of their total budget? more. So, um the request was not to exceed 30% of the organization's either operating budget or program budget. Um as we discussed the policy, not to exceed. Gotcha. So, as we discussed the policy, organizations were able to ask for funding for their overall agency or to advance a very specific program within their agency. And we looked at those two budgets separately when we looked at that 30%. Ah, so you looked at program operations separately. Yes. So if you were asking for program funding, we looked at your program budget. If you were looking asking for agency, we looked at that budget. Okay. Thank you. All right. So um, as you will see on your screen, I wanted to give you guys some of those different funding scenarios that you probably have seen a couple of times, but presented maybe a little different this time. uh for the manager's FY26 proposed budget. Uh these are the organizations that have been recommended for funding. Uh there's a chunk of folks at the top that are considered general fund. Uh so they would be your traditional non I mean financial partner uh partners and then we have one-time funding sources. So, uh, we were able to identify some different buckets of funds that would be available for FY26 and those folks, uh, aligned with those funding options. And I will say when we say onetime funding sources versus general fund, uh, it's important to note financial partners is an annual process anyways, right? So, in theory, everybody is one time. Everybody's one time, right? Uh so uh with the manager's proposed budget, uh you're looking at a general fund impact a little over $800,000 and then uh right around that $1.4 million in onetime funding for partners. No. Do I give out this? Nope. So So let me So let me ask one the safe alliance right FY 2026 they requested 439267 uh we are proposing 397 uh just for the viewers can you give the reason why why we proposing less than their request so uh for a safe alliance in FY26 they requested the little over 400,000 however in FY25 we funded them at $397,038. So, um, back to that other point, partners that are funded in FY25 currently, we held their funding flat. Uh, so that impacted Safe Alliance. Um, My Brother's Keeper is also a current partner. They just happen to ask for the same amount going forward. Got it. Okay. No, thank you. All right. So, um, we had a proposal, um, with from council member Mayfield, uh, that was included. So, did want to highlight that on the screen for you. Um, the only change is that we're adding in some one-time funding sources. And we did, uh, with that proposal remove uh, Safe Alliance based upon, um, organizations that asked for more than 30% of their operating budget. Um, and I will have more conversations around Council Member Mayfield's proposal, so I won't go too deep into to that one, but wanted to list out those organizations for you that are proposed to be added. In addition, uh, if we funded these additional organizations, it will require uh, $480,325 in one-time funding for FY26. And then last, uh, during the budget adjustments, there were more organizations, uh, that were proposed to be funded. Um, the highlighted organizations are organizations that are also included in Council Member Mayfield's proposal. So, just wanted to highlight that during those discussions. Um, there were organizations where there was kind of like a plan laid out for how they could potentially be funded if all of council agreed. Um, if we did all of the things on the screen, that would come at a little over $1.2 million. Keeping in mind that we maintain the same methodology for these organizations that were proposed during budget adjustments. If it's a new organization, capped at $100,000. If they were an existing organization, we kept the funding level going into FY26. And then we also had a proposal that was submitted. It's called the people's budget. Um, and within the people's budget, there were organizations that did apply uh for the financial partner program. So, we did want to lay out those organizations that were included in the people's budget. The additional funding that would be needed is uh a little over that $2 million mark. Um, crisis assistance, which is highlighted, is also included in the manager's proposed budget um as a one-time funding option. uh you will see that there are some asterisks beside some organizations and those are organizations that did not formally apply for the financial partner program and wanted to highlight that for you guys. So that's all I have for you. I tried to keep it sweet and short. Um but for consideration uh what if any changes in financial partner funding should be made to the proposed FY26 budget? Sorry, sorry. I just want to live a a little bit of framework too just going forward. We've been really blessed to have one-time sources and ARPA money. So, we've been able to fund a lot more partners. Um going forward though, and we do have some one-time funds this time, but just when we build a balanced budget, it's a two-year budget, and that general fund 812 812,000 is what's currently programmed moving forward into 2027. So, I just want to put that in the room because if we, you know, put extra and extra, it it is going to end up being funded down to that 812. I mean, you have money that potentially that one time source could be used for 2027 as well, but just want to make sure and put that in the room when you're making considerations. Madam Chair, and staff, great job. and and and but before we uh start a conversation discussion, I would say there's been one that Sean that came a email we received from they they asked for 750,000 do greater do greater and which is a conversation that's been happening for a couple of years and really shouldn't be a financial partners. So so we should have funded that a minute ago. Thank you. See council member Mayfield is where I was going. Sean, so can you give us a little backstory because it came to us at the last minute and I think do great is a great organization but I don't know how especially at that amount $750,000 that this council can can really make it a financial partner. So council Mayfield just helped me. She said that discussion really been going on for two years. So it shouldn't be a financial partner for consideration. So, can you give us kind of the backstory just so we uh or so you know me to start or may Mr. Council member Mayfield please? Thank you SH. I just wanted to further clarify why I don't see this as a financial partner. This one, the city has repeatedly highlighted and used in our materials the work that has been done with do greater with their original location which is at Shiloh Institutional Baptist Church. when they started the conversations, I believe back in 2023 with Choice and with Banks, with their new location in Uptown, there were conversations, to my understanding, with the manager's office and with some staff where there was the impression, the very strong impression that there would be support as they continue to grow. So, we've received quite a few emails, but I think the emails from the community are in support of the organization, but not really understanding that this is a business partnership that had discussions going on for a number of years and this really isn't a financial partners conversation. So, it would be helpful as council member Mitchell mentioned to give us a framework of where we are today. But I just wanted to make sure that for my colleagues who've seen the emails recently to know that this is a business relationship conversation that has been happening for quite some time. Thank you. I can add a little bit of context. So I've been aware of the do greater opportunity for over a year at this point certainly and the last time I recall that it was discussed in a council setting was late October of 2024 when I gave the last update related to the ARPA funds just to provide some clarity to how we were advancing towards that December 31st deadline to have ARPA funds committed and in that conversation there was some reference to roughly $5.3 million that would be handled through revenue replacement and would therefore then create some capacity to do something else related to either city operations or external facing related opportunities with nonprofits. And there was one slide where I made direct reference these these this was just an illustrative list of potential funding opportunities and there were a few explicit references on there. Dog greater was one. It didn't list a dollar amount but it just acknowledged that it was a previously identified funding opportunity. There really wasn't any in-depth discussion about that with council that night at the meeting in late October. Um, and there hasn't been any action on that since that time. So, Mr. Mitchell, uh, so this request do greater came in after the budget adjustment meeting and I think, um, we all know with our budget process that all the adjustments that were supposed to be introduced, that deadline has passed. That's true. And I want to um be mindful of that um because we were specifically asked to work on the budget adjustments from our May 19th meeting. Um and I know there were several organizations that's on slide number nine that did not apply to be a partner. Uh I think it would be unfair. I was talking to council member Brown. and it would be unfair to those who applied. And I know we did uh formally adopt at our council meeting that we were not going to introduce new members who did not apply uh just out of fairness to others who went through this whole process and I know Sherry and her team did the orientation. Many organizations attended that. So I think it would be unfair to skip um the process and introduce this new organizations. Uh but I think going back to what we are charged to do, council member Mitchell is the 519 budget adjustment meeting which is on slide number eight. Uh Cherry and her team did a great job. I'm comfortable with what's being proposed here by staff and I'm okay with us adopting this wanting to see if if we have if you have any questions concerns about this uh but I'm ready to move forward. I do understand uh some of the work that was done by council member Mayfield especially around 30% uh but that's not what the full council wanted. Uh at the budget adjustment meeting so many of these new partners were introduced that applied for the funding. Um so I'm okay with with this proposal that's in front of us. I didn't understand the last part. Would you say that? So the budget adjustment meeting on May 19th, there were various organizations that applied to be a financial partner. So council members had introduced some of these organizations at the adjustment meeting and we were asked to go ahead and provide recommendations on those that were introduced. Those are the only ones that are on this slide. Uh so I see what staff has done. they're putting together sort of here is what was the request here is the last column is what was uh discussed at the May 19th adjustment meeting. So I'm okay with adopting this last column as recommendation um as because that pretty much addresses all the organizations except the one on slide number nine which I did have a conversation with council member Brown about. There were several organizations on slide number nine that did not apply. Right? So you see um four or no actually five that did not apply but the ones that applied are on slide number eight. Right? So I I feel like slide number eight is comprehensive. It addresses all the requests that that were introduced by our colleagues on May 19th. Council member Mayfield. Thank you. So question for staff for clarification and thank you for all the work and Marie thank you for taking out the time for us to go through it together. So going back to the beginning of the conversation we had two criteria. First criteria was scoring. Second criteria was not to be 30%. Or greater but 30%. You can come in at 27 you can come in 28 and a2 couldn't hit 30. So when we went back, the recommendation that I shared with council, Maria and I went back and actually redid the scoring because to my understanding, and please clarify if it's incorrect, the initial scoring that staff used was 50%. You had to hit you had to score at least 50% or higher. Maria and I went back, broke down each of the categories, looking at just the total applications, just did the basic average, divided that each score by that total number of applications. We actually brought the scoring average down. Now, the recommendation for the page page eight that we just left, that will get us at a total of 1,237. I am not going to support that one because based on the two basic criteria some that are noted in here and I'm not even taking in consideration the ones that didn't apply that are on slide nine just looking here they did not score and you have a couple of cases where there may have been another organization or even two organizations that still scored higher than the organization that was that's being recommended. So, the recommendation that I submitted for full counsel to review was a difference of an additional 483,000 because we missed one of them by mistake. That was they scored well even with change in the scoring and they did not exceed the 30%. And in the recommendations that's on the next slide, there are some in there that did not score as high and we're at the 30%. So I just wanted to be clear that the idea of going to a million 237 and how do we justify are we ready? How do we justify saying we're going to pick one organization if there was another organization that might have scored higher than them, but we're going to jump down and or they hit the 30% when we had another organization that not only scored higher but also kept the budget below. That is, I think, a difficult conversation to try to have with community. And I think it's also a piece of what we're telling community honestly is yes, we created a process. We did a interview process for you to understand. But what we're saying is thank you for applying but we're still going to choose X. That is a hard conversation I think and I don't think we should put ourselves in that position because we've been trying to figure out how to create a streamline process around this for years so that there isn't a perceived image of favoritism or selecting one group over the other trying to keep it as unbiased as possible. I think we should stick to that. But at the end of the day, I recognize that there are some organizations that my colleagues would like to have supported, but I personally cannot support the request that gets us to a million237 when there are organizations in there that did not score as high and or were at the 30%. followed by council member May Brown. Uh, one thing I would like, well, let me say this, Madam Chair. I'm not going to address council Mayfield. I think she was articulate. So, if anybody wanted to address that, they can. I was going to move on and make my own comments. I'll just make my own comments. I mean, she's entitled to her comments. So, let me let me go to slide nine. uh because I I do think it's worth us having a conversation about the people's budget because I'm not getting on Dr. Dawkins's bad side over there. So, uh but I I I think for the community, this is very important. This agency that the people's budget wanted us to support and as staff mentioned, the top four are included on page eight. That's right. And as you can see, staff did a good job of putting the asterisk. Those are the ones who did not apply. And I think we trying to show some consistency that it's hard for us to support organization did not apply as a financial partner. So Rev, are you okay? Okay. I just want to make sure cuz I know people budget they did a lot of hard work. They had a lot of community support. So uh I just want to say that for the record. If we can go back to slide number eight. Uh staff I we going to continue to fine-tune this process. I think it's gotten better from last year when we were just all over the place. We drove y'all crazy. Uh Sheree, you don't have that many gray hairs. So, I do think you did a better job. You know, I will say something. Council member Mayfield is right. You know, we do have to report back to the community why we make these choices at the end of the day. Uh Sheree, you said something very powerful. We got to continue to work on this. You said the organization scoring is not a reflection of the impact they have in the community. And that's what's tough for us, right? because council Mayfield know my three are up here and I think my three have an impact on the community but I don't think they score as well. So I would suggest maybe going forward there's a workshop and and really sit down with all our partners or potential partners and say this is a mandatory I'm in the general contracting world. I have to go to mandatory meetings if I want to bid on a project and if you don't show up you don't sign in you can't be considered. So I do think you were nicer this year. I want you to be a little mean next year, right? And say this is mandatory that you that you attend. Uh so with that uh I would like to make the motion, madame chair, uh we adopt slide number eight, what will require one time 1.237 funding for the organization listed on the screen. I second that motion. Uh Sherry, you did a great job. I think we've come a long way, but certainly there is a lot more work that needs to be done. So let's be Yeah. Yeah. I thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you. I heard all my colleagues and very listen very attentive to what you guys have said. um when it comes to the community and us explaining to the community, we do we we we are accountable to the community and we do hold the explanation to the community, but we also are policy makers and if we decide to um make a decision that's based off of the committee and move it into council for the betterment of the community, I don't I don't have any opposition uh against that as well, especially when we're digging into communities that are normally marginalized. and don't really have the support that they would regularly have. So, I wouldn't say favoritism. Uh that word we shouldn't be using. I don't want anybody to to run away with that. We have favorites for all of these folks up here, especially the folks that come through the people's budget. So, um at this time, I'm kind of torn to be honest. Um we So, block glove did not apply for the racket. Is that what I'm hearing? That's right. That's correct. Okay. So, block glove didn't apply on the racket. So, all of these I'm just going to call out for the record cuz folks are looking. Soul Nation didn't apply. Mhm. Here. Charlotte did not apply. Correct. Um, crisis assistant there on another page. Roof above is covered. Block of Charlotte did not apply. Freedom fighting missionaries did not apply at all this year. Correct. But there are um I got um an email that I shared that they're asking for money through through housing initiative. Okay. Um, and so Hearts for the Invincible, they did. So, Archdale Senior Organization did not apply. Correct. Correct. Okay. All right. I just wanted to get that on for the record. So, all in favor, please raise your hand. Did he get a second? I did. I seconded the motion. And all in opposition. Okay, you got that? Well, great. Thank you for your hard work. It's always difficult when you're talking about um trying to make ends meet for a community organization that does phenomenal work. I appreciate your efforts into your scoring system, going back, listening to us, coming back again, and still staying positive and um just keeping a great attitude about the work as we move forward. But you guys are doing an amazing job. And so, as we said right here with council that there's some other things um that can happen moving forward and can be on a more solid foundation and more common ground for people that are trying to, you know, we just have a little bit of money. So, although we're fighting for organizations, we also need organizations to fight with us. And that would mean, you know, come to the table, do your application, put it in so that we could, you know, continue to fight for you as we would love to do. the people's budget is my favorite and I'm always going to be trying to fight for them in what aspect that I can. So, that being said, I guess Thank you, Council Member Brown. Well, great job committee. Uh, well, record time. Let's keep this up. And do I have a motion to adjurnn? So, so move, madam chair. All right. All in fa favor? I I All right. All right. [Music] Hey. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I come down. [Music] [Music] [Music] Let's do [Music] [Music] [Music] D. Hey. Hey. [Music] down. Down. [Music] [Music] [Music] Everybody in the ground. [Music] Hey buddy. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Black. Nat. I don't feel it. [Music] [Music] do. Hey [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] me. Me. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] me. Yeah. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Hey, [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey everybody. [Music] Heat. Heat. Hey, hey hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey love. [Music] Hey, [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Are [Music] you happy? [Music] Hey, [Music] Hey aha. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Are you feeling Are you happy? [Music] Are you feeling Wonderful. Hello. Hey hey hey. We are queen. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey everybody. baby. Hey [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] [Music] Hello. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Fire up. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I can't buy it. [Music] Down. Hey, hey, hey. [Music] being. [Music] Hey hey hey. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] down. Hey [Music] [Music] Diamond. Na. [Music] So, everybody check your hair and check your teeth. Here we go. All right. All right. especially your teeth and your and smile. Good afternoon. Welcome to the latest edition of the housing safety and community committee. I am your host Victoria Watlington. Um joined here with my full council in person. So that's exciting. And in a room full of staff and supporters and um advisors from the community. So we will get going here and we'll start with uh introductions. We'll start at the end with uh our vice chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Lennena Mayfield, committee member, vice chair. Good afternoon. I'm Renee Johnson. I'm a committee member and I represent district 4. Good afternoon, Dimple Ashra at large and committee member. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming today and for your time. My name is Tijana Brown. I'm a committee member and I'm also representing district 3 elected for the people by the people. Thank you ladies. Um we'll begin with our staff introductions with assistant city manager Charlotte Sean Heath and we'll just work around the room. Sean Heath, city manager's office. Charlie Jones, Charlotte Department of Transportation. Christian Wagner, Captain Central Division, CMPD. Jessica Battle, City Attorney's Office. Gail Whitam, Housing and Neighborhood Services. Harold Thompson, Housing and Neighborhood Services. and Janine Simmons, Housing and Neighborhood Services. Awesome. Awesome. We'll get started today. We've got a meaty topic here, one of um interest to a lot of folks as we saw at our last public um forum and as we've seen via communications in our email. So, looking forward to hearing what um what we'll cover today. Um obviously, this will be a multi session kind of thing. Um so, uh stay tuned, be patient with us. Uh but we hope to get a good robust conversation started today. And with that, I'll turn it over to the assistant city manager. Thank you, Chair Watlington. So, I'm going to turn it over to Charlie in just a moment. Real quick orientation. Charlie's going to do a quick recap of the May 5th committee meeting. There were a couple committee members that were not able to attend that day. We'll also do a little a quick recap of the existing ordinances in the city because it takes a couple times on that conversation with Tryan and the congested business district and areas outside of the congested business district. On May 5th, we committed to continue with the public input and we held a public input session on May 22nd here in the government center. So, we'll provide you a summary of that of that discussion and then we'll end with some policy questions for conversation. So, uh this has been a team effort. You can see a number of departments represented here today. Julia Martin has also been really instrumental in this work. So, Charlie's going to really carry the presentation and the rest of us are going to jump in on Q&A. Thanks. Oh, you're starting. All right. Madam Chair, members of the committee, go ahead and get started with the presentation. Advance to the next slide. So, just a recap of the May 5th meeting. Um, we went over the policy referral from the mayor uh regarding street vendors um in the city. Uh we covered the existing street vending ordinances uh which there's currently really two uh that apply. I'll go over those here in a second. Uh we provided a committee with some anecdotal community feedback. Um talked a little bit about benchmarking results, how we looked at the fine structure uh for the city of Charlotte as compared to our peer cities in North Carolina and around the country. And then we had uh committee discussion and feedback on the policy at that uh May 5th committee meeting just to kind of level set if you will and go over the existing ordinances. As Sean mentioned, um, you kind of have to look through them multiple times before it really starts to to gel and and make sense. In Charlotte, street vending governed by chapter six of the code of Ordinances. Um, article 8. Um, we've got actually got a typo. It's um, not article 13, but article 8 is what's referred to as the peddlers ordinance. And then article 10 is the Tron Street Mall vendors ordinance. Um, Tron Street Mall Vendors was most recently updated in the 80s and it governs geographic related requirements and allows hours operation and licensing. Uh, violations of either of these ordinances can result in varying levels of fines ranging from $10 to $50. So, just a summary of the geography, street vending is legal without a permit in all areas outside the CBD, the congested business district. So in city of Charlotte, street vending is legal without a permit in all areas outside the congested business district. Congested business district, street vending is illegal um except for the TR street mall vendors. So the TR street mall, street vending is legal, but it does require a permit. And that program is administered by the Charlotte Center City Partners. Um the footprint we've got written there is Brooklyn Village to 8th Street and the 100 blocks of East and West Trey Street. Uh we've included a map on the next slide just to um orient folks. So everywhere there in red is considered the congested business district and in that area street vending is illegal um except for the try street mall vendor program. Um the CBD is established in ordinance uh article 8. We expanded that in 2016 and the ordinance grants the city manager authority to amend the congested business district or reduce it if need be. Uh he can expand or reduce it. Uh the ordinance does not establish criteria to inform how that expansion or reduction is done. Um it just establishes that the city manager can do it. Uh the Tri Street Mall vendor program is governed by a separate ordinance article 10 that allows permitted vendors to operate on the Tri Street Mall in assigned locations. So that's kind of a a framework of our ordinances and the geographies associated with it. Um jump now just to remind committee um this is the work Julia Martin did. great job of kind of synthesizing where Charlotte is in our peer cities in the state and nationally as far as fines for um illegal vending. Um our fine is up to $50. Um we are um there are 19 cities that have a higher fine structure than the city of Charlotte for uh illegal vending. Um most cities are around the up to $500 range as you can see in the graph. Um and that includes cities in North Carolina as well. So now um May 22nd we held a public input session here at the government center. Had 35 participants. Uh very good turnout um from my opinion u especially considering somewhat short notice. Uh we had residents and vendors from uh both areas uh uptown and NOA in attendance at that meeting. It's a two-hour session. We had tables set up um with uh scribes from city departments there to record feedback. We had a list of questions that we wanted uh each of the participants to kind of go over and ask and get their input on vending issues in their respective areas. Um the purposes of this, we'll kind of break these two groups into um two sections as far as observations go. Um starting with the Tri Street vendor program. One thing to remember, the vendors in the Tron Street vendor program pay an annual fee and are permitted by Charlotte Center City Partners. So, the illegal vendors in the Tri Street area have not paid that fee and are not permitted by Charlotte Center City Partners to be there. Um, so those vendors that were in attendance expressed concerns with the illegal vending, um, including lack of strong consistent enforcement of the illegal vendors in the area. Um, they also mentioned adverse business impacts and loss of a family friendly environment. Uh, one of the vendors at the table I sat at mentioned he used to see the same family, you know, come regularly to his food truck and they don't come anymore. Um and so you know they're starting to see a loss of that family environment. Um and then they also raised public health and safety issues especially around prepared food. Um all the vendors that were in attendance you know mentioned all the health department inspections and all those steps they have to go through to sell food. Um and the unlicensed or illegal vendors are showing up you know cooking on habachi grills on the sidewalk and serving that food. And there's a concern if somebody gets sick at one of those, how does it look on the rest of the vendors in the area? Um, another issue in the congestion business district is around Spectrum Center. Uh, with persistent illegal vending around the Spectrum Center property during events, um, NBA events and concerts and other things of that nature. not um brick and mortar and small businesses expressed a range of concerns um including personal safety uh business impacts and they also mentioned the loss of that family-friendly atmosphere uh with families in the NOA neighborhood not coming to the restaurants and frequent frequenting the establishments. Um also lack of oversight with health health and sanitation concerns with prepared food and drink on the street. Um, and then one thing I I definitely wanted to mention in this is the street vendors we had in attendance from the NOI area did express concerns to wanting to work collaboratively to come up with a solution. Um, they also expressed concerns with some of what um, people referred to as turf wars in NOA between the vendors. Um, so a vendor shows up at a place where somebody else thinks is theirs and there's a, you know, frequent outburst, fighting there. And so it was referred to as turf war several times, uh, with that and that creates that personal safety um, issue that they mentioned. So that's a summary of our May 22nd public input session. I know I kind of went through that quickly. Um but with that we'll jump into kind of the policy considerations and uh some of the questions um you know to discuss. So congested business district and Tryon Street Mall vendor program. Should higher fines be in introduced to address illegal street vending occurring on Trion Street or in the CBD? And that's key because if you remember those vendors that are in the CBD are permitted and pay to be there. um vendors that don't do that are, you know, essentially not playing by the rules under the CBD or an establishment of a small pilot program for a city-run street vending program in areas like NODA and then, you know, what idea does the community have to provide support for the street vending community on private property? you know, are there opportunities to provide with council and then leading into a vote, assuming there are policy recommendations and being mindful of the summer schedule and what that may entail in terms of timing. So, just a quick reminder on the calendar and then if we can go back to the previous slide, Chair Watlington, we'll just pause here for any committee reflections questions observations. Thank you, Sean. What I'd like to do before we even do that is we've got quite a few people around the room and I would love to know who you are. um because there may be an opportunity to even ask for your feedback here um because certainly while we got the overview here and thank you for that um I think that it's worth having an opportunity to maybe hearing directly from folks if that is um something that any of the committee members would like to do. So what we'll do is we'll start very quickly just give me your name and what what brings you here today um and we'll just work our way quickly around the room. Uh for us um I am Kathy Tuman. I own Smelly Cat Coffee House in Nota. It's actually the longest running coffee house in Charlotte. One of my favorites. So, I am in um support of um the business. I'm around the corner from the north. We're good. We're just going to do a quick who you are, what you represent. We'll come back around for the day. I'm Dana Borlles and I own retail space on Davidson Street and my tenant who could not be here today owns the juice shop and they set up in front of his space and sell juice. Okay. I'm Audrey Brown. I am a 28-year resident of Nota and I'm two blocks up from the busiest corner um of the vendors. Awesome. Thank you. My name is Rob Krenshaw. My wife and I own Let me guess. Cobble Fish Taco. My wife, my wife and I in Cabo Fish Taco. We're on the corner of 35th Street in Davidson on in Nota. Thank you. Uh my name is Walter Sanders. I'm one of the founding members of the uh Charlotte Studio artist. We rent space from the Johnston YMCA and we have 25 artists there who run their own businesses within the old child development center. Yeah, that's cool. Philip Patoboro. I'm with city partners and uh we manage the TR mall uh vendors. Thank you. N Pet Anderson with the planning department. Rebecca Hefner, Housing and Neighborhood Services. Dedric Russell with WBTV. Blake Bulls, just a concerned citizen. Brook Stevenson, WFAE. G Alexander. I'm a homeowners uh in Charlotte, two or three homeowners, but I'm concerned about what's going on in the neighborhood. So, I come here to get some answers and talk to somebody about what need to be done to help out. Awesome. Thank you. I'm honest the attorney's office. My husband and I follow through. We've been in ODOS since 97. We started the neighborhood theater and we still own property on North Davidson and 33rd Street and are really involved in the neighborhood still. Thank you. My name is Jamie Brown and my husband and I own uh Habdish, Everandelo, Growler's Barehouse, and Raining Donuts. I'm Leslie Dingham with Charlotte Department of Transportation. Hi everyone, Debbie Smith, Charlotte Department of Transportation. Um, hi, my name is Teresa Hernandez and I own Puravida Worldly Art right on 35th and North Davidson and I've had two shootings right in front of my door in front of my door in the last two years because of the turf force with the vendors. Brandon Brazil, Charlotte Department of Transportation. Jody McNeely, also a founder founding member of Charlotte Studio Artist and renter and bringing art back to Nota. Jerry Green, housing and neighborhood services. Thank you so much. All right. Um, I'll go ahead and open it up to the committee then. Um, if you've got Yep. Vice Chair. Thank you, Madame Chair. Thank you all for in the community for being here and staff for the update. What is the current vendor fee in the CBD area? So, it's $160 per year to participate in the Trian Street small vendor program. Okay. So with thinking about that, I would say that I definitely support the conversation of increasing our fines, especially since we know that we have communities around North Carolina that have fines as far as 500. And I think that fine should be greater than what the annual fee is for you not for you going outside of the process. I also would like for us as we're having this conversation to include Southoun as well and I do think that we need to look at some very specific policy actions because we have seen street vendors work with communities successfully throughout the years. They work with the businesses they set up. We've seen that forever on weekends and parking lots. But what we're seeing right now, I think is a very different level. And I do share the concerns regarding having our food inspectors out creating challenges on our limited sidewalk space, creating a unsafe environment because we are hopefully still a family-friendly community. So I do think and I hope we can have some have a robust conversation around what it could look like to expand what is considered the area looking at the entire city and I believe it will be the same in university area where you may have vendors that are setting up directly in front of a business or causing challenges and or the emails that we have all received in regard to street vendors showing up and plugging into the electricity of this brick and mortar business along with causing additional challenges. So, I'm definitely interested in hearing or really Mr. He is the question a recommendation from council on potential policy actions or do y'all have some recommendations outside of noting is it warranted? I think we are at the place of yes it is warranted. Are you looking for recommendations from us or do y'all have some recommendations of some specific actions that other communities have taken? I'd be happy to start. And to Charlie's point earlier, we're really thinking of this as two separate but related issues. First is Trian Street in the congested business district. And the collection of departments that are represented here today would recommend that higher fines are warranted. Uh and we like the idea as other communities have done to have an up to amount. So we would suggest something either up to 250 or up to 500. I think there was a consensus in our most recent discussion that a fine of up to $500 would be appropriate in these circumstances. There was a little bit of a conversation in the committee meeting last month about the possibility of restoring the criminal penalty option for these particular ordinances last month. There didn't seem to be much enthusiasm around that. But from a staff perspective, we just want to make sure as you're kind of coming around these topics that you're aware that that is an option depending on how far out you want to go on the enforcement continuum. There are other examples of jurisdictions in North Carolina and other states that do have a criminal penalty option. It's never the option of first resort, but when you have instances of very chronic repeat individuals that are causing problems in the same community over and over again, it can be helpful to have that tool in the tool box. I would like to get a little bit more information on that because I'm not a fan of the blanket criminalization yet. If they are repeat offenders or if they are someone that's tied to an example where there has been an assault and or shooting that has resulted in pain and or loss of life, then that definitely escalates it for me. So, I appreciate you bringing that back to the table and also thinking about what are the policy actions that are warranted, but again, not just looking at Uptown and NOA, looking at Southoun, which we've also received emails about, and looking at the city as a whole where we have gathering spaces. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council Johnson. You got anything? Sure. So, it's interesting that street v street vending is legal without a permit anywhere in the city. So, I would recommend that the permit be required everywhere just from a health and safety perspective. You know, you can't have individuals cooking on the on the sidewalk and there's no standard. So maybe back when we were a small city that was cute, right? But we are a big city and we should operate as such. So I think that a permit should be required everywhere. I think that's a standard that any entrepreneur uh would expect. It also holds them accountable and it raises the bar. Um I would also support a higher fine. I think $500 is if it's the average or not average, but if up to 19 cities are implementing that fee fine, I think that that's appropriate. I would not submit or support criminalization. I think a $500 fine is a deterrent, enough of a deterrent. Um, if someone is shooting or assaulting someone, those are crimes and and they will be charged with such. But I don't think that street vending alone should be a a crime. Especially many individuals who have problems finding jobs already may have barriers and not be able to find a traditional job. So I don't think that we should continue to compound barriers uh for individuals who are just, you know, trying to find an income in a city that's so unaffordable. Um I think CMPD, you all do a great job. I think you're busy. I think that if we're going to expect them to enforce the um licensing, it has to be easier. I think licenses should be posted, the required posting, maybe a bright color like green will be a great color, but a bright green license um on the table, then anyone who doesn't have it, it's easy to be to be recognized that they're not licensed. Um, and we've talked, Sean, I think, you know, individuals are displaced in this city. I think we need to be very intentional in helping them. I think the permitting process should be easier. And I also would love to find city space or space where there could be a swap meet or or or something for these small businesses who are permitted and and licensed. I think we need to look at that. I we just talked about last week Um, one organization has a a dollar lease for 36,000 square feet, right? So, if we can help that type of organization, I think we should be intentional about helping smaller uh entrep or smaller businesses as well. So, just as a recap, um I would not support criminalization. Um I would like to see licenses that required to be posted. um almost like the health department has the grades. I'd like to see something like that. And um I think the $500 fine and I think all I think all street vendors should should be required to have permits. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Can I ask you a follow-up question? You mentioned this permits. You you will be in support of permits required everywhere. What activ the first thing I think is at the gas station where somebody may come up to you and say, "You want to buy my CD?" And they're selling maybe out of their car, not necessarily on the sidewalk. Can and you may not have thought about this yet, but I'm thinking about where would we delineate between which activities would require a permit versus some that may not have a specific location. It's just you you don't have to have an answer. It's just a thought. So, I was at Walmart the other day and there were some young kids selling candy or something and the manager came out and said, "You have to have a permit." Mhm. So, I think maybe there could be a range for the cost of a permit based on what they're selling, but I think you teach people, you know, how how to how to have a business or have a small business. I think a standard is is okay. You could have it online and be able to print it at home. I'm fine with that. You know, but if it's food, I mean, someone needs to find out, you know, what they're selling and what are the processes. I totally agree with you. I'm just curious as to how as we think about implementing it, would it are you thinking about it specific to if you're at a particular location or if it's because you know how people will walk around and sell something? Would those kinds of activities also be covered? And again, that's in the weeds. It's just something that I thought. I mean, I don't know. Do some cities require a permit for lemonade stands for kids? I mean, I think they do, right? So, we we could get into that, but yeah, I think it's something to look at. I think I think as a business owner, you know, there's certain processes that you have to comply with and getting a permit. I mean, you have to have a license to go fishing, right? So, I think a permit for a business owner is is acceptable. Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. I think it'll be the conversation around, well, how does that work? Because if you got people that are like, oh, I'm selling donuts out of my trunk. I walked up to you. I don't need a permit. Kind of thing. But we'll figure that out as we go. And maybe all food sales should require something. I mean, yeah, but they food and drink. Yeah, we'll figure that piece out. But that's something to think about, a consideration. U I just had a follow-up question on the data itself. I'm curious as to who the peer cities specifically that we looked at are. And then just as a data point so I can compare relatively what the cost of living is in those cities versus their fines. I know you probably don't have that data right now, but I'd be interested in how that shakes out because $500 in Charlotte might be different than $500 in Ashboro or something. Right. Thought I was in good shape. So you got into the specific on cost of living. I can provide a little bit of context. If we could go back to slide five just momentarily. So there were over 10 states that were included in this universe of 21 cities and city of Charlotte is one of the 21. um Ohio, Texas, um Missouri, Tennessee, Minnesota Nebraska Oregon California Oklahoma, and there were five from North Carolina, including the city of Charlotte. So, Asheville, Greensboro, Durham, Raleigh, and Winston Salem. Thank you. Um and then just a couple of things. Well, I asked the question around the activities. I think we'll need to massage what that looks like. Um, oh, so similar to that vein, as we think about permitting, I love the idea of having a visible permit so that you can immediately see. And just building off of that, I'm thinking about like parking permits where it's metered and things like that. Are there instances that we've seen in our benchmarking where people have to sign up, if you will, so that you know who's registered and who's supposed to be there at particular times and who who's not or who's not. That I'm not sure about. I'm not sure if any of us would have that level of detail here today. I did want to mention quickly that with the Tryon Street program, they are required to have their permit posted and visible at all times. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be if we could add a couple of things to where it's not just, oh, I have a permit and I'm just out here. You don't know who I am, etc., etc. If it were something where it's somebody knows that I'm the one that's responsible for what's going on here during this time, that may be an additional deterrent for people and how they're behaving on the street. You can't just pack up your table and run off, right? Something happens. Um, yeah. So, those were my questions. And on the permit, one thing, the good thing about today is we're in the anything's possible mode. Certainly, I will say that as we were thinking about possible recommendations. A lot of our framing has been around what's possible to accommodate with existing resources, which is one of the reasons that we haven't had any explicit recommendations that we stand up a city-run permitting program to go from what now is a little tiny piece of the city of Charlotte, 15 allocated vendor locations on Tryan to having a permitting program that would cover the entire city of Charlotte would be like a transformational change that we'd have to think about administratively and practically. What would it take to pull that off? Not saying it can't be done. I just kind of wanted to mention kind of that the pract practical considerations on that. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. Uh, Council Rashmir, did you have anything? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you, Charlie, and the team. Uh, it's great to see the collaboration. We've been receiving emails for this for several months now and is certainly we know that the current situation is not sustainable and needs a drastic change. Um, you know, I I read some of the emails explaining distressing incidents of assault. Uh, that's truly concerning and I can actually relate to some of the street uh sidewalk obstructions because we have been going to NA for a while, but after we had kids, we actually stopped going because sidewalks are usually blocked. uh when you have stroller with two kids in it, it's very difficult to maneuver through that. So, I can relate to some of the sidewalk uh and how that uh that's imping traffic on sidewalks. Um I have a couple of questions. So the current uh Tryon Street vendor program um is the program cost covered by the fee that's being paid by the vendors. I know that's run by the center city partners, but I was just we do not collect the fee. Um the city the city does. So is is the fee enough to cover the program that's being run or are we subsidizing it? I would venture that I don't have the exact numbers, but given that it is only 15 vendors, um it it's not a significant it's not a heavy lift. Got it. So, I agree with what Councilwoman Johnson uh shared that all businesses should have a permit. I think uh when we look at public safety issues, health concerns, it's important to have a permit for regardless of where you do business in the city, whether it's NOA Southand University or anywhere. So, I would support that. Uh but when we look at this number, it's it's arbitrary, right? I I'm not sure whether the fee would be enough to cover the cost to run the program. So for me, it's important for us to look at uh can we make sure we don't have to subsidize it from the general fund. Uh as the chair of the budget committee, I'm sure you expect that from me. Um so I saw somewhere I read that there is a pilot program. I would like to see how if we were to run the pilot program, how that would work uh before implementing something citywide. Uh because this would be transformational if we were to do something citywide. We got to test it somewhere. Uh maybe not in South or uptown. Um other questions I have. So I know the question of criminalizing came up. So maybe this question is for CMPD where so if someone is charged with an assault wouldn't that wouldn't that be automatically a criminal offense and a felony if it happens in front of an officer get his mic turn this on. So yeah we're bound to offenses that take place in front of an officer. Now certain levels you know that rise to the level of a felony are different. A lot of what we're gonna probably see are misdemeanor offenses and a lot of times what'll happen that'll happen and by the time we get out there we we don't witness it. So we can take a report and then this the people that are involved the victim can go to the magistrate's office to obtain a warrant on the subject. So that's in the case where there is turf war, right? But I'm talking about in the case where uh we had a business owner uh talk about there was a shooting. So if there are witnesses how can you an example that I have from the central division was there was a kind of turf battle between uh some people that were just selling hot dogs on the street. Other folks came up and said this is our area. you can't be here. And it turned into what we call a common law robbery. And through the investigation and and the police were able to get out there, they were able to make an arrest for that robbery. But the thing that stands out to me is that that whole situation was brought on by, you know, unlimited street vending that we're seeing in that area. So, if we were to curtail unlimited street vending, wouldn't that address the issue? I think so. And I think there's other issues, too, just because I I have the the mic now. So, the thing that you also see uptown are folks congregating way after hours, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. Folks, that's when we see violent crime taking place and fights because of people's impairment level. So that's another aspect of this that that needs to without any kind of boundaries. It's it's a free-for-all right now. Yeah. So I guess I what I struggle with is um the criminal portion of it like criminal penalty. um if someone doesn't have a permit and if they're operating let's say lemonade stand um without a permit maybe that's a step too far to charge someone with a criminal penalty even after one two or three four attempts um but if they're assaulting someone or if there is a shooting then I think that automatically falls under our uh CMP PD will automatically charge someone uh depending on what the um I guess uh what do you call the assault is right and I I think the one thing and and I'm correct me if I'm wrong. One of the things that I think you'll see again depending on what that fine is is you find that vendor, they're set up and you give them that ticket and they go, "Okay, thank you." And they keep operating. And I think we're somewhat looking at two aspects of criminality. We have the potential criminal criminalization, excuse me, that was a big word. Um the potential criminalization of the pedaling itself. So if you don't have a permit, CP would have the option likely not on a first offense. You know, it would be sort of an escalation like education, verbal warning, and then criminal charges to the actual pedaling itself. But on the flip side of that, we have criminal acts that aren't the pedaling itself, but are derived from the pedaling. And I think that is where CPD already has all the tools in its tool belt to charge people for assaults or shootings and things like that that occur. So, nothing about changing the permit process would affect CPD's ability to charge an assault or um assault with deadly weapon, whatever, whatever could occur in that instance, but penalizing the pedaling itself from a criminal aspect could deter the pedalling and therefore deter the turf wars of the pedaling that then lead to the subsequent criminal behavior. If that kind of addresses like both sides of the criminality aspect, I know that that's helpful, Jessica. Um, you know, I I want us to take one step at a time, right? Uh, where we are going from $50 to, let's say, 500, which I agree with Councilwoman Mayfield that I think uh we do need to have a higher fine. Um, and I want to see the pilot program and and we revisit if this doesn't work, let's try something else. But, um, and we need to see concrete examples. How would this criminalizing would work if if you know during the pilot period of four five months um and um what else a few questions I certainly because of the incidents we have heard about uh we have heard from business owners we have heard from street vendors certainly we do need a comprehensive plan with a sense of urgency Uh so I hope that we at least proceed with the pilot and uh really look at the results of the pilot and how it's going and does it address uh the needs of our residents, business owners as well as street vendors and go from there. Well, that's all I have. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, council members. Mayor Cable Brown. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. by the time you get down and meet all these phenomenal, intelligent women that I'm on the committee with, they've already said everything. But I do want to um just highlight that, you know, thank you to all of Not um owners, community members, everybody that's come out about safety and their concern. I don't um safety is the number one goal and there's no hierarchy and safety. So, we want everybody to be safe. But with um criminalization, that's not even an option for me at all. I'm not even going to touch that subject. Um but that's a no for me. But I think um CMPD has their hands full already. You guys have recruitment concerns that you need to take care of for all your wonderful work that you do. Kudos to you and thank you for your service. I can never say that enough. However, doing nothing is not an option. I've looked at all these wonderful folks that have emailed me and I have tried to be attentive to their response. I've even agreed to go out and put my feet on the ground and be out there with them. I I just want to know that um I want to make sure that it's fair and it's not biased and that we would not be uh eliminating people that really want to be um in the vending space and in the community to uh make uh authentic revenue for their families if that's a part of their stream of income. And I think council member Johnson said it the space. Could we look for other spaces? And I'm all for not selling juice in front of somebody's store that already has um a business for juice. I would love to have some juice that's outside in front of the store and the juice in the store, but I would like to see how we could, you know, make it fair, increase um the fee. I'm all for that. I don't think that um criminalization for vending is is that's just ludicrous to me. But we could uh you know CMPD are the experts when it comes to what they need to target and what they need to um not saying they're targeting anyone but what needs to be done in that aspect. So I don't want to stay in that lane and recreate another narrative there. But I would like to see um maybe the fines increase. It just depends on what that looks like. And I know you did labor off of the cities, but doing nothing is not an option, but what do we do? And want to make sure that it's fair and that it's not biased. So that's all I have. Thank you. I'll give it to you, Madam Chair. Thank you, ma'am. Set your name for the record and welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Dante Anderson, Mayor Prom, District 1. And um first of all, thank you for all of the business owners that have come out today to express your voice. I've been working with many of you for for months and months and months on this, in particular with the community in NODA and um certain parts of Southoun. And so this is a this is a salient moment for all of us. Um I I wanted to just echo some sentiments as I said in the previous committee meeting. Um, you know, there's parts of our city that have have grown and expanded. Um, and then there are other parts that have had that level of densification without the infrastructure expansion. And, uh, NOA is a great example of that. You know, the the sidewalks haven't expanded, uh, but the buildings have, the multi the multif family units have, there's light rail there, and so, uh, it it it becomes a public safety issue. it can become a health issue in particular with food and beverage that's not um sold under proper certifications and procedures and um and I think you know I think this chart just uh Mr. He this this whoever made this chart I think definitely articulates it pretty well that you know we're one city up there and we are one of the absolute lowest we see the majority of them have some kind of some type of teeth to the violation as it relates to monetary fines and yes you can pay a $10 or $50 fine as a cost of doing business but if you get a $500 fine because you you're selling things properly, you'll think twice before you go back out there. Um, for sure. And so I I I certainly support an increase of fines. I think that will bring us into the the 21st century, if you will. Um, I also wanted to speak to the the allocated vending locations that are part of the Uptown structure. So uh you know center city partners they they oversee that process but those those permits are for a specific area. it is a vending location is it's not licensed to vin any and everywhere in uptown and I think when we look at the our permitting process we need to do the same because we don't want to have some um unintended consequences of having concentration of vendors in one area that's not you structurally not able to sustain that. So, we need to definitely have um allocated vending locations in specific neighborhoods akin to the process again that city center partners um administers uptown. And I do believe that we should have permitting um everywhere in the city. It's it's really interesting that for the 14th largest city, you can vend any and everywhere outside of the congested business district with the just sheer number of growth of people coming to our city to live, let alone to come for events and you know to um partake in tourist activities. We need a permit uh permitting process that is citywide for allocated spaces to make sure that we are not creating unintended consequences. And lastly, I think that annual fee should be a fee that um you know just allows you to to get in the game um but it shouldn't be overly burdensome, right? And so that that fee that's for uptown I believe it's $160. that that sounds like a a decent number right now, you know, uh it's not a little bit of money, it's not a whole lot of money. Um but it allows you if you want to go through the process of ending on the street, you can go through that process. And so I I certainly support that. And I think there's a variety of neighborhoods just throughout our city. This is not a district one issue. It's not simply a NOA issue. It's a it's a city of Charlotte challenge that we need to uh step up and certainly over these summer months. We're about to take our break as a council, thank goodness, to have a little bit of a break. But when we come back, it'll be August. And so, you know, the the balance of the summer is over with and that's where you're going to see the heightened increase of all these activities. So, uh with that, thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to speak. No worries. Um, so what I'd like to do, I know that we've got a couple of more comments from the committee. Um, so we'll do a second round, but before that, um, I'd love to just go around and get for those of you who've been sitting for those of you that have been that have come to join us, thank you again for coming. Um, and we certainly want to make the most of uh, the time since you've come. So, what I'd like to do because we have a little bit of time in this meeting, I'd like to just go around if there's something you'd like to contribute to the conversation that is um informative from a policy standpoint would love for you to provide it. Whether that's an experience that you may have had um in another city or something that you did as you began as a small business owner in this kind of Yep. in this kind of environment. Um something that is that you haven't heard yet that might be impactful. What I'd ask you to do is to limit your comments to 60 seconds. Uh because we've got quite a few folks in the room and we want to make sure that we're able to wrap this up at the end. Um and give time for the council members to react to what you said. So with that, and if you don't have something to say, then that's okay, too. I think I saw your hand come up. Um please go ahead and thank you um ACM Heath for running the microphone. So I when you were speaking especially about food and drink and again unfortunately William could not be here today. It's Juggo Juice. You can look him up. He's phenomenal. He has worked so hard to build a business and he has to work with multiples aspects of the city to produce a juice that he can sell in the city of Charlotte. And then he pays me rent and he does co-op work through this space. And then people come and park a van in a no loading zone for the entire evening, open it up in the back, set up a table, pour juice that God knows where it's made from, and then block his door. We're better than that. And so the food and the drink, if he has to go through 10 steps to be able to do something, anyone should. And we're all about, we're all small business owners. I'm just old now. But if you work and you do it right, you have something and it's not fair. Thank you. So, like for a food truck, you have to have a permit and I have to tell the health department, I'm going to be at X parking lot in a designated space from 3:00 to 7:00. So, the health department knows that they can show up and maybe do an inspection randomly or whatever, but I can't just pull up. I'm a taco place. I can't pull up in front of Taco Mac and set my food truck in front of their restaurant. But that's what's happening in NOTA is they're people are allowed to set up just in front of your business with whatever trinkets, food, juice that they're selling with no kind of regulation. Like I'm all for getting a permit and having a space to do it. And so if you're going to sell t-shirts, there has to be a designated space that you're I'm renting that space on Saturday from 3 to 8. And that should be like your name. You fill it out. That's how I do for a food truck. I can't just drive my food truck around Charlotte and park it and sell it. I have to make all the um permit stuff, right? I have to health department has to prove it and then I have to have a legal spot to even be in. I can't just randomly show up. So, that's where I think there needs to be that kind of regulation for street binning because you can't just set up in front of my front door. Sure. And sell t-shirts. Thank you. I'm concerned, too. I love the idea of permitting, but if I have a permit, does that still allow me to block a sidewalk? Does that still allow me to set up a table, gather a crowd? I saw uh a grandma pushing her husband, grandfather in a wheelchair on a Saturday. They couldn't get through. I I think the grandfather in the chair had to use a bathroom somewhere, and he they they were just blocked off. So the permitting is good, but what does it allow? We need some restrictions on what the the permitting uh allows. Uh so if it can solve some of the obstruction problems if it could solve the one of the most precious commodities in not which is parking, these these trucks are there from morning through through night. They have trailers behind them. They take double spots. We've got that beautiful pull out in front of the old fire department on Davidson. people set up in there where where the fire trucks need to to pull out and uh what are they gonna do? Move move their racks of secondhand clothes and and get it out of there? No, the fire truck will just run right over it. Um so yeah, permitting is good, but what does the permitting allow? Thank you. Before we get too far down the line, did you have something that you wanted to add or are you good? Yes. Well, I will add that before I started baking and actually just go through the expense and time to set up a kitchen inside Smelly Cat, which is quite involved. Before that, um, my daughter and I started testing out baking our own items in our home. And in that, the health department had to come in and inspect my home and not have a cat, not have animals. Um what what they inspected my whole home to make banana bread. So I'm not understanding how this the food and drinks are being is happening on the street when my home had to it was illegal. So this the law is there. It is illegal to make food for sale to the public. Currently it's illegal. So I don't know why people are not getting um fined. Thank you. Dr. You have something? Sure. Um again uh just a point of clarification. I think C councilwoman Ajara mentioned a pilot program. Um now our food truck program is referred to as a pilot program. I don't know whether that's what you are referring to. We have six locations already in uptown uh for that and it's a permitted program. Now going back to to the comments that have just been made, we support uh exactly what I think you've all mentioned uh one uh permitting uh citywide. Uh we support higher fines. And I think one thing that we should think about is what enforcement will look like. So even in the Trion uh uh vendor program, we still have issues when it comes to enforcement. Uh the program ends at 1:00. Uh a lot of illegal vendors come in after that. We are not able to enforce that. So I think we have to think about what enforcement looks like going forward. Thank you. Anybody on this? Good. First of all, thank you. Thank you for your your time and efforts towards this. Do you want me to hold it? Okay, you got it. Okay. My name is Jamie Brown. Um, but thank you for your service to our community and the thoughtfulness around all of this, too. We're really grateful for that. Um, I wrote a few notes down as you were speaking. Um, one I think as uh, Councilwoman uh, Anderson was talking about is just those spots of where vending is allowed because some places it's physically not possible. And so I think maybe even designating some areas like the congested business district example could be very helpful because when you look at a place like NOTA, it we have very narrow sidewalks. they aren't the way the city is tending towards building now where you have to have 8 foot sidewalks. We don't have that. As soon as you get to the edge of the sidewalk, you're on the street. So, um that's something that I think would be great is if you guys consider um some sort of areas where it just doesn't work or if the sidewalk is not a certain there is no room. Um, and then, uh, possibly consider escalating fines, um, where, you know, I know the young lady at the end there was talking about, you know, you give a warning and then you continue to escalate it, that might be something to look at that could keep people from wanting to go back out there is is to make it larger and larger. Um the then I also thought maybe with um the the permitting um maybe there is a dark green and a light green, one for food and things that are ingested and then one for goods and maybe those look differently because they will be regulated differently. Um and but I I'm very much in in support of having just generally those higher fines and certainly having permitting throughout the city. Um and I don't know that we're in a place to do a pilot program. It sounds like the that we've we've tried that in some areas. I don't know that in Nota we'd be open to doing a pilot program um just because of the physical space, but that could work potentially in another neighborhood where there is space. Thank you. I have something a little bit of history says I've been there since 97. In 2000, the city invested in the no do business district. They put in on those sidewalks, those pedestrian sidewalks, the city actually put in the tree planters. They put in these benches which Paul sire local artist decorated with ceramics and um what else they do? The the trash kits. Trash cans. Oh yeah. Anyway, and now I took a tour of there on Sunday and just hadn't been walked in on Sunday to see the vendors. And one of the uh benches in front of Rob's Cabo, someone had set up using that bench to sell and make lemonade right in front of his business. And across the street, there was another bench being used as a display for whatever their wares are. And the the loading in front of Cabo was there were cars parked there in the loading zone. the whole time we were there eating lunch and walking through there you have to dodge and then the there's loud music blaring up when you're sitting out on the patio and you know those sidewalks just are not made for that congestion. That's why they're putting their stuff in the street. You know the the racks of clothes and stuff and it's and got to keep in mind it is such a small area that we're talking about here from 32nd Street to 36th Street. It's not a it's just a drop in the bucket for the city of Charlotte, but it's a lot to these small business owners and a couple blocks that way as a congested business district is is a small small piece of all of NOA. It's not, you know, that's Yeah. Yeah. My name is Teresa and again I want to say thank you for all the thought that you're putting into making sure this is fair to everyone. Um I have a couple concerns. One is you guys are going on vacation or you're taking a break for the summer and then this uh whatever uh process you put in place it looks like a big endeavor and I'm assuming it's something that would take a long time to implement. What do we do in the meantime in not regarding the the vending? Um, and I so that's one concern I have. What do we do in the meantime? And then two, do we have the staff to really enforce it? Uh because I actually have enforced it quite a bit myself and I'm exhausted and sometimes I'm I'm scared and I don't say anything because by the time you call CMPD you could have just gone and asked a vendor, hey, can you just shift your table over? Can you make sure this is open? I do that quite a bit, a lot. And I don't think that should be my responsibility. And I'm I I I'm concerned that whatever process is put in place that um is not going to be sustainable to enforce. Hi y'all. My name is Jody McNeely and I um echo some of what Teresa said is that the ability to um uh take care of this is going to be a a a big project. So, I am asking you to consider uh CBD in our four blocks um as a quick fix and then implement something a little bit more involved um after you see um how that goes. Um it would be ideal if you could find a place for the vendors. Some of them have are a nice people. Um it's it's not that it's they're blocking the entryway to our business. Um, on Saturday, a week ago, I experienced a situation I think that is scary. Um, a white panel truck with a running um uh Oh, it does electricity. Darn it. And generator. Thank you. A running generator in a closed white box car in the park mobile lot in front of my business. They had extension cords running from that generator to the vendors on North Davidson. Y'all, that's scary. And the fire department came out and they made him shut it off. It lasted about 30 minutes and it was back running. So, those are the kinds of things that we're seeing and we really need help with before something bad happens. So, please consider taking a tour yourself and seeing some of the things that are happening. Thank you. In the corner back there, Mr. Heath and too and then here. Hey. Hey, Madam Chairman. I'm a simple guy. We got this passing through. I think uh what I'm hearing is about requirements. When you talk policy, define the requirements. You have businesses, you have small businesses, you have vendors. I've heard concerns about ADA compliance, somebody in a wheelchair, OSHA, small businesses have to meet all these requirements. Vendors have zero requirement. So, when it comes to safety uh from the police department, what's the ordinance as far as sound, music, people cruising through? I'm not from Charlotte. I'm down. I'm down at Fort Bra. Hey everyone all the way. Thank you. So I think the requirements come into play. What is it actually? I I've heard a pilot program. What does that look like? So safety concerns. You're talking economics. You're talking people in businesses losing business because people are right outside of their door. But the people and I've heard people saying, "Okay, well how much money is this their livelihood?" Well, okay. It may be true, but again, let's make it a even I heard somebody say make it fair. So, make it a even playing field. What are the requirements? The requirements should be achievable and obtainable, but not too out of reach. You know, going to a fine of $500, what's that going to deter? Somebody's going to pack up and move somewhere else. Especially if the city doesn't keep track with the violation. So, if you in violation of an ordinance violation, I don't go to a database. You come to got to get a permit. Okay, you don't have a felony, you got a permit, but how many violations have you had as a vendor? How many time have you been reported in a shooting just as a witness or somewhere that's somebody that the police department would say, "Okay, you might pose a threat to the public." So, we're going to put you in a database. So, when you have these incidents, who's keeping track of them? So, when they do go apply for a vendor, how do we deter them from getting another one? when I go from C is it CBD to the other district now I'm over well I don't need a a permit at all so how can you track me when I bounce around sure something should be there attract people sure to deter them thank you and then I think last yeah uh my name is Gary Alexander I'm a homeowner of um off of West Creek uh Patton Street uh two homeowners there and a homeowners at Rockwell Ward uh 6302. My concern is I come down here because I've been trying to get some help from the city, but everybody put me off on everybody else. Okay, it's a Northway builders that's all over taking over everybody's they busting up the streets, messing up our houses and taking cranes from the street, going up our street, busting up the street and stuff. Plus the houses are shaking and stuff like that. And I called the own the person that's in charge named John something. But anyway, he promised to come out here, pressure wash these houses, fix the road and they got holes in them. All kind of stuff couldn't get in your driveway. Mud and stuff going in people house. Same way now is on Rockwell. The same thing going on. They building over there now. All in your yard, tying up your yard and promising come back and fix it. But what I'm saying is won't nobody help to get this stuff started. Just like uh the sheriff department, they can't they took $30ome,000 out of my account from Wells Fargo. something that happened 20 years ago which had nothing to do with it but they went on they the sheriff department took up typed up a paper something that happened 20 years ago and Wales Fargo allowed them to uh Wales Fargo allowed them to take this money out of my account it was my sister's uh my daughter's gra uh college Thank you sir I can I can talk with you afterwards and get your contact Thank you for that, Sean. Okay. Um, now that we've had an opportunity to kind of hear from the folks in the room, thank you for your comments and definitely we'll follow up on that. I know that we've got a couple of uh committee members that would like to um weigh in. Again, I've got Council Member Johnson, Vice Chair Mayfield, and Council Member Ashira. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your leadership and allowing us to really um hear from the residents and also really take a deep dive. That's what committees are for. So, I appreciate that. For sure. The mayor prom pointed at me. She kept pointing at me when she said unintended consequences. So, we see their their signs on their shirt with the uh prohibited sign. So, unintended consequences prohibited. There's no such thing in my opinion for a group like us uh to talk as as unintended consequences. There's things that are intentional or and foreseeable. And I think we have a responsibility to ask the right questions to avoid uh unintended consequences. Um when you when you really take a deep dive, you can't my seven-year-old can't even get away with that in his uh classroom saying it's an unintended consequence. So, we got to do better. Um, I will also say most of our city has grown without the appropriate infrastructure. We we do know that. That's another thing that mayor pro Tim said. Um, I want to ask CCP and I don't really need to ask a question, but I would ask us if we're going to look at a pilot CC uh center city partners said that there are 15 allocated spots. I know there are certain vendors that have been at the same spot for a long time. They're almost a fixed a fixed structure at these intersections. And how is that determined? I mean, I guess city center city partners, they manage theirs the way that they do, but I would ask if we're going to do that from a city perspective that it be more equitable, perhaps a rotating um assignment. And um yeah, I just don't think that it's fair for one vendor to have to be able to monopolize one space if you're, you know, if you're trying to accommodate a number of vendors. Also, I and I'm going to ask again, where is the space? Where can we assist these vendors? Um we have city-owned space. I think that's really something we should take a look at. um these small business. We always talk about workforce development and small businesses and equity. I I think that it's up to us not to displace those small businesses. Maybe they have a following, but if they're following, if we allow them to help build their business, such as the permitting and, you know, the licensing and everything, um I think that we should try to assist them as well. Um in that permitting, there would need to be an education piece. I think um one of these vendors, he brought up some good points as far as the sidewalk and where that they can uh solicit or sell items. I think that there should be an education piece perhaps a online webinar or something. The these are things that are done when you're a small business and you're trying to get licensing or something. There's there's education from the jurisdiction that's providing that. Um, I want to recognize our code enforcement manager, Jerry Green. He does an amazing job and he's sitting here and I think this is an area I know you all are busy. Um, but I know we have a quality of life team that does a phenomenal job. If you notice in District 4, there's a lot less uh tractor trailers that are parked and that's that's because of Jerry and his team. So perhaps this is not if there were if there were obvious licenses or or permits, then that's something maybe the quality of life team could could go out um and enforce. Um someone mentioned that it's illegal to sell food. Um has anyone called the county health department? I mean, they have an enforcement process. So they won't. So the health department won't come. That's what they're saying. So, if if that's something that's I mean there's already an ordinance and there's already a process that that would help tremendously if we could work with our county partners and find out you know what can be done in that area uh especially for the food and drinks and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you madame chair and thank you council member Johnson. you mentioned a couple of things that came up and thank you all for sharing and giving us some additional thought. I also want to make sure that as we're thinking about creating a citywide vending permit, we also want to take into consideration how does that will it impact and prior to us rolling that particular piece out of which I do like the suggestion of designating some areas. I would say again, no and south end on the front end. That's something we should be able to do relatively shortly and not in August or September, even though we'll be out on a much needed break in July. The I think about Black Businesses of Charlotte. So, they now have a building. They've had food truck Friday, but they've worked with Camp North. They've worked with other businesses in order to go and set up. They aren't popping up in front of businesses. They now have done the ribbon cutting. They have their own building that's off of Wilkersonson Boulevard. So, they will be having events. If we do a permitting process, how would that impact the businesses that are working, the vendors that are trying to do it the right way, they're working with the business, whether it's Audi's or whatever it is. All along Brookshshire, if we drive up, you will see vendors out in front of a gas station, in front of a store. I'm hoping they've had a conversation and they have an agreement. Want to make sure we're not putting necessarily an additional burden on them. I want us to make sure that we don't lose focus on who's the target. And at the end of the day, you if you walk into for those that use the women's restroom, you walk into the restroom, we'll see a sign telling you not to flush certain things down the toilet because someone did it. So all rules are made for the people that tend to want to break them. But we also want to make sure that for those who are good partners and who are small business owners and trying to do it the right way that we create do believe based off the conversations, Mr. the heat that you and the team are hearing that there's some energy of which we're probably going to actually put a motion out there to vote on something at some point hopefully today to move forward to at least start the conversation to look at what it would look like to uh identify two more areas as the designated areas and move forward while we work out the other details and look at what is that how quickly can we implement the fine structure and the elevated fine structure because that will deter some because those who want to do it the right way they're already attempting that these are the ones who are not and ADA is a very important concern for me whether council member Ashira mentioned as a young mother trying to maneuver with her children as was shared with the elder trying to maneuver we need to make sure that we have safe streets the streets are not safe if you're having to step into it and you have someone going 45 plus miles an hour and what that impact could be. So I think there is interest in us moving more swiftly versus coming back in a couple of months to have another conversation that doesn't say here's the things that we've implemented in the pilot. Thank you madam chair. Thank you ma'am council. Thank you madam chair. Wow, that's a lot. So, I see Charlie's taking notes. Um, a couple of questions for you. Um, after hours with CMPD currently, what is the enforcement like if there is any after hours? I can answer that. So, um, again, the current ordinance doesn't have any teeth. So it's it's it's with all of our priorities. It's not one. Go. You know, I was talking about the folks. I I think there was one example where they don't have the county says we're not going to come out there for an inspection, right? They don't have a food and drinks permit. In that case, does CMPD actually enforce um No. No, CNPD wouldn't enforce that. That is um a health department um I say ordinance in law, but see not a criminal matter. Do they have any enforcement for those that do not have they're not supposed to be selling food and drinks? Is there anything? I am unsure of what they do um as a penalty of enforcement, but I am aware that they do have the ability to go out and inspect whether you have your permit or not if you're selling food. But I'm unsure of the sort of penalties that come with with that. I I think if we can get some clarity because whatever it they have it's not working. Uh it's not sustainable. I've actually even se seen this people selling out of their vans uh in where the airport uh overlook is the new airport overlook. I've literally seen people just um come into the parking lot, open their trunk and selling food and drinks. And that that is really public health issue. Uh I don't know how it was made. There was no inspe inspection but uh that certainly needs to be considered. So I agree with councilwoman Johnson. If we can have quality of life team work in collaboration with CMPD on enforcement because let me tell you, yes, um Councilwoman Johnson is correct. trailer truck parking has almost gone. I mean, uh, because it was a safety issue off of WT Harris Road right off the freeway. Uh, and I have not seen lot of trucks being parked there. I know it took us a while to get there. Uh, but the quality of life team is working and maybe that could be a solution to some of that. Yes, we certainly would love to share the burden of of enforcement on I I understand C CMPD has a lot going on. I I will I will mention um C dot and in partnership with our friends in code enforcement have been uh enforcing parking violations in Nod. Uh we have been doing that after what we would consider normal city business hours. Um one of the challenges is just staffing. Um and the other challenge we've faced um that we hear from our parking staff and code enforcement is the fine structure for the illegal parking uh in NOA is such that uh people just ignore it. Um we we've got one car that likes to be there every time we're enforcing and they take the ticket and move on or they take the ticket and stay. Um so we are working to do some of that and we can you know work to expand those things as well. I think that would be helpful. Um so when I know there is a program that center city partner runs um that's specific to certain areas does it have a specific sidewalk requirement that it has to be certain width uh in order to allow food truck or street vendors. So uh that Dr. O doesn't have to answer that because I know we are in the have a document here. Okay. So if we can look at that Charlie uh for our program permitting program because that is important um you know especially with ADA councilwoman Mayfield is correct about that and also if we can look into the program that addresses safety public health issues also repeat offenders uh escalating fines um and see how all of this would work in a pilot program. So Charlie, you got a lot in your plate, but how soon do you think we can implement something sort of a pilot? Um, do you think we can do it before we leave on a summer for a summer break in July? Actually, I'm sorry. I'm going to stop you, Charlie, because we've got 20 minutes to go and I know Council Member Brown wants to speak and I believe there's appetite for a motion. So be thinking on that because if this motion comes up, then we'll want to know, right? We have 20 minutes. Do you have anything? No, I'm fine. I'm not going to go back and forth around what you guys have said over and over and over again. I'm just looking for something to be done so that we could appease the business owners and um give them some type of release and make sure that we could u just be fair and unbiased and still not hinder the vendors that are out there. So that's what I'm supporting. Thank you. So you want me to make a motion? Yeah. Okay. I So before I make a motion, I want to hear from Charlie because I don't want us make the motion. Okay. We can have a discussion. Yeah. So, I'll make a motion to have a pilot program that addresses all the things that I mentioned um that we mentioned. Well, we mentioned sidewalk requirement, uh safety, health concern, repeat offenders, uh also uh escalating fines. So, is that some I guess what is the time frame and how soon can we have it implemented? If I can just make one comment then I'll turn it over to Charlie. If the concept of a pilot program would include a change to the fine structure, that would of course be a policy decision. We couldn't staff couldn't just run off and do this on our own, right? We would need the referral. We would need the vote today to allow us to take something to full counsel. So, and the same for the and the same for Nota. there was a desire to have a pilot program in NOTA where there was a permitted vendor program which I know they're mixed views whether that's even desired or not but if that's being compared to a status quo during the summer where there's no changes whatsoever uh that would also require a policy action because the only way that could be done in NOA is if first there was a prohibition of street vending in a certain area and in parallel to that there was a city administered pilot program to have certain assigned spaces in NOA just like we do with center partners. Yeah. So, what was your motion? Was it second? So, I think what I hear you say that should be two motion. One for increasing fines. That'd be good to keep that stand alone. Okay. That's and and then second would be for this pilot program. So, I think there is consensus to increase fines from what I heard from my colleagues. So, I'll make that motion separate. Uh, so I make a motion to increase the fines based on the recommendations of our staff. Second. All righty. Any discussion? Yes. What are we increasing? Which fines are we increasing? Are you just going to research? Is this to move forward? Well, right now the fine is $10 in the North Tryan program and outside of North Try in the congested business district, it's 50. So the motion would be I mean that's left it open-ended. Uh, so it could be left like that and we would come back with something specific at an action review or if you wanted to have the motion include a specific amount up to 250 or up to 500. So I know that we discussed escalating fines so from 50 to 250 to 500. So it gives some tea to CMPD's point uh because I heard Councilwoman Mayfield as well as Johnson and I think Watlington I think pretty much all of us and Brown agreed that escalating fines would should help. Um so are you all okay if we get up to 500 but we do it in esc up to 500 escal in escalating manner. Okay, we're nodding. Yeah. Okay. So I'll consider that a modification of your motion. Does your second still stand? Second only. This is a discussion. Nothing changed on the motion though. Madam, do I have permission to speak? Madam Chair, yeah, nothing changes on the motion, but I have to be clear. Although I did agree to the fines. What when they get the fines to one of the community members point and I don't remember which one it was. Are they going to get the fines and overlook the fines or you going to come back with something specific as to now you have this fine, you can't move forward to one location to another location because you have this fine. How is that tracking system going to be put in place? I mean, I'm all for that. And, you know, we're all for everybody trying to thrive and live and grow together um in one perfect harmony and that's in a perfect world that we don't live in. But that's just what's going to happen. You know, we escalated. I get it. The fines are there, but how are we if they're not moving from the juice place now they over here at the donut shop. So, on another side, I'm just curious. I mean, right now, I think all it would do is make it more of a deterrent. It would change the threshold level from 10 or 50 to something that Well, 10 is definitely unacceptable in all forms, shapes, and fashions, you know. And to answer the portion of your question about someone moving from one location to another, um while we haven't necessarily gone deep into CTS's involvement in creating like sort of a a database just for peddlers, CPD has a abilities to um sort of document field interviews like they would do with someone who was unhoused in these resources. So, there's some level of ability to take notes on that to know that if I put in this person's name and see they've already had a sort of um compliance conversation and they've already received one civil fine of $100, then that could dictate to an officer that there's the fees escalate from there if I'm correct. Yeah. I just didn't want it to be in the situation where we're putting fines out there and the fines are piling up, but then we still also have these near misses. But whatever it takes when we come back with policy, we want the community to know that we hear you. We're doing something. Your emails did not fall on deaf ears. And although we may not be able to move expeditiously, I'm sorry. On every subject that we get, this was one that warrants immediate attention because of safety and other concerns that the community members had. And so I can say that we we heard you loud and clear. And we hope that you understand that we heard you. And to add just one more thing on it, someone could move different locations within one day because only one citation is allowed in 24 hours. Just to clarify that. So in a 24-hour period, if you're at trade and tryon and you're not supposed to be, you can move somewhere else. You can only get 1500 block. Yes. One every 24 hours the way the ordinance is currently written. Okay. I I I think we just need to have a tracking uh mechanism in the pilot or in this model. We need to be able to track the the individuals who've gotten a permit or a violation and then so we can escalate so those we can escalate those fines and then perhaps the penalty be that they don't get a fine or something. But we have to be able to hold people accountable. I mean they don't get a permit. Yeah. Okay. All right. Any more discussion on this one before we move to the next person? All right. All those in favor of uh directing staff to develop an escalating fine uh up to 500 up to 500 to uh including tracking to come back to council for review in the Actually, it will it will come to full counsel for an approval. Yeah. Well, I'm trying to think of which uh the next available business meeting for an action review. Okay. The next available business meeting for action review. All right. All those in favor? Okay. It's unanimous. Thank you. Great. Um and then I believe there was I'll entertain another motion if we had one for sure. I I think there there needs to be a sense of urgency. We heard from business owners, residents um before we go on a summer break, they want to see something, right? Uh this is a public health issue, public safety issue. Uh so I propose that we have a pilot program that addresses all the concerns that were raised by my colleagues and I um and we implement that as soon as possible. I don't want to put a date on my in my motion because I do not know what Charlie's timeline would look like for implementation, but sooner the better. Um, so unless you want to add something, um, I need to confer with, you know, other C dot staff and enforcement data before we can really put any kind of hard dates on it. Got it. I think all this does is just gives them a go ahead to develop something for us uh be and we will still have an opportunity to review it before the full council at our next uh business meeting. clarifying question. Madam Chair, council major. So for your second motion, uh we saying we're looking that what you're proposing is a pilot to expand the conested business districts since we have the CBD out there. So that is very clear language or is the recommendation to expand the congestion business business district since we already have that model. So for me I think I'll be leaning on our staff whether it would be CBD or it would be something else. I think we just give him uh a sort of a green flag so he can come up with language because I don't know if CBD is comprehensive in terms of all the concerns that you heard today from my colleagues and I and business owners as well as residents. Uh so I just didn't want to put CBD because I haven't read CBD in in in depth. So I I I I just want him to bring us the pilot program back um at our next business meeting. It may be CBD, it may be something else. I just want to be make sure it's a comprehensive solution. All right. So just for clarity, what exactly is the motion at this point? Is there a second? You mean the second motion? Cuz the first pass. This is a separate motion. Can you say the separate motion again and make it Yeah. division and make it plain? No, that's right. So men can run with it. All right. So the let me just simplify this. We make I make a motion to have a pilot program that addresses the concerns that's been raised by business owner, residents, and my colleagues and I and come up with a pilot program to be implemented as soon as possible. What's as soon as possible? Up to staff. I that will give them some uh that will give them flexibility. Hopefully it's soon. Hopefully it's July. Hopefully it's August. I know we are going on a summer break in July. So we will not meet till August. So if Charlie and her his team is able to uh implement something before that's great. Uh but I think this gives you a little bit of u leeway as to h how soon. So I would thank you for the second. I would ask that um we tack on a um a specific date before we recess to get an update on what that pilot looks like at that time. Um so if we could if you'll accept a friendly amendment to the motion to please include an update on the status of that pilot development uh before we recess. Yeah, that that's good. Madam Chair, um go ahead quickly. So according to the ordinance that we have out there which is ordinance 2788 which was initially approved January 8th of 1990 the city manager or his designate shall have the authority to amend that area designated and defined as the congested business district of the city by expanding or reducing the number of streets contained therein. So we already have in that language and as Mr. Heath mentioned earlier well was mentioned by our top-notch team that we haven't really looked at this in a few years but we do have the language in place where if this was a recommendation later this evening out of committee. I think we have time in June for the business meeting to potentially get something back, especially around the expansion since we already have the language in place that the city manager or his design shall have the authority to amend by expanding or reducing. Thank you, ma'am. Um, are there any other comments from committee members on this particular discussion? All right, Madam Chair, just a a point of information. Miss Ashira's motion was that a motion to come back to this committee or is it a a motion to come back to fuller council at the next business meeting because of the sense of urgency cuz we don't meet till August of course. So that's why it will come back in front of us whether it be on the 9th or I I don't know or two weeks from 23rd. Oh yeah. Great. I just want either one. We're not we're not not sure the date yet. Just one of the two before we leave. Thank you for that. All righty. We'll call a question. All those in favor? It's unanimous. Thank you so much. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor. See y'all next time. Thank you so [Music] much. Heat. Heat. [Music]