[music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] >> Hey, [music] [music] hey, hey. Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. N. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Afternoon [music] everyone. >> Good afternoon. >> Thank you very much, Miss Brown. Um, I want to call to order the um consent and action review portion of our agenda, which has started a little bit late, like 5:00 p.m. And we'll start that by saying um we're glad for those that are watching us online and or those that are joining us on in person, the same thing we will say about that when we go downstairs for our the remainder of our business meeting. So, right now, what I'd like to um say is that we um are ready for the call to order. We'll start with our introductions with the city clerk. >> Ariel Smith, lead city clerk. >> Andrea Leslie Feight, city attorney. >> Welcome, Andrea. We're really We'll talk a little bit more about you later, but I want you to welcome upstairs, downstairs. That's the way it works. >> All right, here we go. >> I'm Marjorie Molina, District 5. What's my name today? Oh, [laughter] James Mitch at large. >> Dimple at large. >> Dante Anderson, mayor, pro Tim, District 1. >> Viles, mayor. >> Marcus Jones, city manager. >> Johnson C. Smith, District 2. [laughter] >> Championship game on Saturday. Malcolm Graham, District 2. >> Wow. >> Ed Driggs, District 7. >> Lana Mayfield, council member at large. I do want to say that um yesterday Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Brown. >> Say the best for last. You know, >> of course, of course, >> Council Member Brown, District 3, JCSU, you nope. >> Oh my gosh. Pretty soon you're going to be doing that all day long. So, um I just want to actually um address yesterday we had a Panthers football game. While that game perhaps wasn't exactly what we wanted it to be, we had the Aggie Pride band come in and perform for that. And they did a fantastic job. Oh, and there we got to we got to keep up, Smith. Hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Y'all got to you got to start keeping >> They're not playing for a championship Saturday at all. We won nine games. They won two. They can keep the ban. [laughter] I I I don't I don't I don't know what he's talking about. I really don't. So, congratulations on all of that. I I just think that when I saw those young men and women come out of that tunnel, it just I it just showed us that while we have the stadium, the stadium is actually made for the people in this community. And I just want to say that and especially um because it's something that I think we really can be proud of. But nonetheless, I think right now we're going to start with the city council policy. Well, no, we're going to talk a little bit with the city manager. Mr. Jones, do you want to have some comments for us? >> The consent agenda. >> The consent agenda is important to do. Miss Mayfield is going to help us with that. Let me see if I can find our pages. Let's see. I don't know that I have. Here we are. All right, we've had the clerk and so everybody's okay. Um, Miss Miss Watlington has joined us and so um we will now consider consent items on tonight's agenda and so I see Miss Mayfield has raised her hand. But before we begin this, I know it's really hard when I can't see around the dis downstairs about who's making the motion and often it's I really like to have your help that when we are going to have a motion or you are making a motion that it's easy that I see have some eye contact that would really be helpful. So Miss Mayfield, why don't you start me out like that? >> Thank you madam mayor. So for the items for consent to pull put aside for either separate vote and or discussion item number 26 27 and 34 please >> could you repeat that >> 26 27 >> and the number 34. >> Okay. Thank you. >> In addition to that the staff has pulled item 30 as well. This do we have any others pulled from the staff? Okay. So 30 will not um be addressed this morning this afternoon as well. So with that um why don't we start with item 26. >> Miss Mayfield I'm sorry. >> So Madame Mayor Madam Mayor Marie >> I just wondered if Miss Mayfield wanted to make the motion. >> Oh no. There needs to be a motion. >> I'm sorry. >> I'm not making a motion. >> Okay. You're not doing a motion. So, madam mayor, can I I'd like to motion uh that we approve all the consent items uh withstanding 26, 27, 30, and 34. >> Second. >> We have we have a second for that. All in favor? Is there any comment? Miss Mayfield, >> Madame Mayor, just one quick moment. >> Okay. >> So, we have 26, 27, 30, and 34. 26 2734. Yes. Second. We have a motion by Council Mitchell. All Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion. All in favor of that motion that we made without those that Miss Mayfield um pull. All in favor, please raise your hands. Anyone not anyone opposed? That passes our consent agenda with the f with now we'll move on to Miss Mayfield's request for item 26. I believe there still needs to be a motion to it. I'm not going to make the motion. I need to speak to this. >> Well, will you speak to it and then we >> move to [clears throat] approve item 26. >> All right. So, we have 26 to approve. Um um do I have a second? >> I need a second. >> Thank you. I have a second. Now, let's hear the discussion. I think we want to start with the discussion. Miss Mayfield. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Maria, I sent a email and to all of council. This particular request is for the mobile payment services for the on street parking contract which will create an amendment of this amendment would increase the contract estimated amount to $800,000. My question was one as this is a online app what is the justification for increasing the administrative fees but also Maria you and I had a chance to speak earlier what has been the actual revenue that has been generated from this particular vendor and again to justify this additional cost for this app management. Yes, ma'am. And thank you to your point, the this administrative fee um the fee is not increasing, just the number of transactions. So, it's 12 cent per credit card transaction. And your question on the revenues, yes, for for this fiscal year, we're projecting around 3.8 million, which is roughly 70% more than in 2024 when they first started the year of the contract. >> Thank you. >> All right. Any other comments or questions regarding it? So, we have a motion on the table. All in favor of the motion, please raise your hands. All right. That is there. I mean, Miss Miss Watlington and Miss Brown, did you have your hand raised? >> I don't know what the motion is for, but it's a yes. Anyway, you walk away. So, what difference is it? >> Well, it is when you're here. >> It's only when you walk away, but number >> Okay. Is anyone opposed to the motion? the app department. >> Okay. Anyone opposed to the motion? Okay. None hearing. None. Um, the motion passes. Thank you. Our next item is >> 27. >> 27. Miss. >> Yes. >> Do we have a motion? >> Madame Mayor. Actually, I would like for us to consider a deferral on this for more clarification to come in on the question that I sent. But if my colleagues have a different motion, then we can move in that direction. Okay. Does the staff have any comment or or any concern to have a second on the deferral or somebody can make another motion? I'd like to make >> I made a deferral motion and then and waiting and see if it's going to be a second. >> Yes, I did. I defer. The motion was to defer. >> It's a motion. Miss Mayfield made a motion to defer. Is there another motion? >> Was that seconded? >> It was. >> We have a second. You have a second for Miss Brown. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Any is that agreeable? Do was is there anyone that has an alternate to the motion? Hearing none, I'll raise your hand. We will do it and we will return this item in the next meeting. >> Mayor, may I now have the opportunity to speak to it. Thank you. So for colleagues, the reason I asked for a deferral this particular request is the fact is for spectrum of which has been a great partner. What I want us to consider is we have we city have been providing the traffic control services for the spectral arena event since 2005. The initial question that I sent to Miss Harris and I copied all of you on is how much is Spectrum contributing to the cost of this traffic mitigation and why is the city absorbing the financial request? What was shared is that this is a cost that we've incurred since 2005. My follow-up question, which I want to give enough time for that to come back, is okay, in this 20-year period, have we not considered a cross sharing model because the idea of just because we have done it, we should continue doing it. With the financial potential shortfalls we're looking at and the multiple needs in the community, we have made a considerable investment in Spectrum recently. I think we it is time for us to have a conversation of if this is still the best model versus some of the other growth and opportunities within the area and buildings that we're responsible for for us to move forward. So that was the reason for the deferral. Thankfully my colleagues did support it. But I did want to share and have it on record what this the expectation of this conversation is because just because we have been doing this particular model since 2005 as we're going into 2026 I think we deserve the opportunity to review if possibly a cost sharing model will be more efficient and more beneficial to community. >> Okay. Thank you. I think Mr. And >> I just want to ask the manager, does the contract we have with the team provide that we make these payments? Is this negotiable? >> Um, I'll have to ask Charlie if that is a part of the contract that we have right now. >> That 20 year old contract, >> well, we renewed it in 2022 and 2024. >> I don't have an answer for that. Um, we're focused solely just on the traffic control piece. Um, providing the services to the community. So, I think there'd be some more research to see where those agreements lie. >> So, I think it's just worth noting we will abide by the terms of any agreement we have with the team. Okay? We'll look into what Miss Mayfield suggested, but not to the point of reneging on any agreement that we've already signed. >> So, Mr. Jones, you um we'll do the research to determine. I don't know whether it's for our attorney or however the folks that are around this will have to come back um and with a deferral and a discussion around how it operates. Mr. >> So we we we are voting to deferral. We are deferring. >> Oh no, we are voting to vote it. >> We we have we agreed to a deferral already. >> Yeah. Yes. >> When just now people weren't paying attention. >> It happened really fast. >> It really did happen. when people weren't paying attention, that's when it happened and we asked and went around. >> Well, again, we can defer it, but it's a I can speak to it if I can before. >> Yes, please. >> Well, you know, it's a community benefit. We generate millions of dollars of economic impact. We have thousands of people traveling to Spectrum, traveling at Bank of American Stadium, traveling at all our art venues uptown. We're fighting the perception of safety in Uptown. and this is a small investment and the return is greater. We can have the discussion. Um but you know we just had literally what between Charlotte FC and Carolina Panthers game this weekend and o over 150,000 people visiting on uptown and they all have to get around it. I think we'll be a pennywise and a pound foolish um if we don't take the public safety issues, even traffic control seriously, and I think that should be a city investment. We'll have the discussion, but I I think we just got to look at the bigger picture of what's happening uptown. >> I think that what we have a motion that's been approved and so we'll come back to that. I think that we're hearing Mr. Graham's cons concern >> I understand. So with that, all right, all in favor? >> We've already got this motion. So we've already done it. So we'll have the miss the manager come back. >> It was a courtesy that I went back and clarified what it was. >> Okay. >> I didn't record. >> Okay. >> The vote has not been recorded. So let's raise our hands for the deferral. >> Oh yes, ma'am. I'm >> for the deferral. All in favor of the deferral, please raise your hands. This is of item 27. >> From item 27 for >> spectrum >> for us to get additional information. >> Additional information. >> You failed. >> Okay. One, two, >> three, four. >> What's it? Four. >> That motion has now >> do all against. >> I know all I know against, but I was just making sure. So, we have four people that raised their hands to come back for deferral. All of those that oppose the motion please raise your hand. >> That remained information. >> I think she wanted Molina had a point of information. >> Okay. Miss Molina has wait we let we we have voting on the table right now. >> Really quickly just clarify if it were deferred when would it come back? >> On the 24th is our next meeting. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> Okay. >> And and is there any type of uh like is is there something that would not happen as a result [snorts] of us not approving it tonight? Just for clarification, >> I don't think we can answer that question until someone on the staff gives us more information. >> It would it would not be a bad impact for two weeks. >> All right. So, we have um now those that oppose the motion, please raise your hand. >> One, two, three, four. I'm sorry. >> What do you have going? We got a full cap here. Eight four. >> I know. >> Where's everybody? What's really going on? >> I don't know what's really going on except I I have the ability to have Miss Mayfield. Let's see what your your hands up. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, we can all level set. There wasn't an initial motion to approve. As there was silence, I made a motion to defer. I was able to get a second on that motion to defer. I then asked and I thought you had said for us to for the motion to defer, but evidently the clerk said they didn't catch that. But I thought we had actually voted on that. And it was after that that I said I would like to speak on it to give clarification. The clerk says no, she didn't catch that. So when I was sharing to give clarification why I was asking for a deferral versus just making a motion to deny is again this contract from 2005 and we are now in 2025 is to give us additional information because as we continue to grow as we as a council have approved quite a bit of funds to our partner it's a cost sharing option. Has it even been discussed? Is there a consideration? Now's the time to look at the contract. So when my motion to defer was seconded again, I was under the understanding that we did raise our hands. Clerk said she did not catch that. So now we have this other conversation. But the challenge right now is there was not six votes to approve my motion. Neither was there six votes on the other conversation. And I don't believe that I heard a amendment to my motion which was the original motion to defer. So I don't think I think we didn't have enough votes either way to come to a decision on this. But so Miss >> No one has a hand. >> Can I ask a question? >> Yes, please. >> I just want to ask a question because Miss Mayfield, I had stepped out. That's why I was un trying to understand what was uh what were the challenges. So it so there was an RFP there was responses and you're asking for information regarding >> No, no, no. Item 27 was spectrum traffic control. effect some it's traffic >> the traffic control services right it says on July 20 20 22nd the city issued an RFP there were five responses received is your is your that's item 27 the third bullet or fourth bul third bullet point is your is my point is is your question related to the RFP process and the outcome of that or is your question just a higher question around um cost sharing in general. >> So my question specifically for the Spectrum Center traffic control services is a clarification on are we continuing just because we've always done it because this contract is from 2005. So, >> okay. >> Also, because of the amount of money that council has already approved in support of our partner, has there even been a conversation of cost sharing for this particular resource to the community? So, that was the original question. The original email that everyone was copied on that was sent to Marie asked, "How much is Spectrum contributing to the cost of traffic mitigation and why is the city absorbing this financial request?" Conversation with Miss Marie is when I learned that actually we're doing what we're contributing to is the of which you all have a copy of that. The city has provided traffic control services for Spectrum Marina events since its opening in 2005. >> So my question followup was then we are now in 2025 going in 2026. This deferral that I initially motioned is not going to cause any challenges in this contract but it will help to give us clarification on where we are on this contract and the expectations. >> So I believe if the manager can provide the information we can get the information as well as coming back to but Mr. Jones help us out of the >> Sure. Uh thank you uh mayor's member of council as Marie said it doesn't negatively impact um what we're doing um if this were deferred for two weeks so that everybody could get [snorts] more information and feel more comfortable and I feel very comfortable with that >> but I didn't get a vote so >> well no I have people that have I mean Miss Watlington and >> and then Mr. Driggs and then Miss Molina >> and Washington >> and I'm sorry I can't see around that far. >> No, Watlington was already first. She's first. >> Watlington. >> Yeah. Just a couple of things I want to make sure I understand because given the way the vote happened, if you're not a no, you're a yes. So, it technically passed, but I mean I would for clarity certainly we can just reconsider the motion. Um, I want to understand how this particular information is going to change or impact your vote because if it's just a matter of point of information, I don't know that a deferral is necessary, but if it's something material about the information you plan to get back that would impact your vote, I just want to understand that because I certainly want to support if I can. >> [snorts] >> But >> for me, yes, it will determine the impact of my vote because this is >> Thank you. >> which [clears throat] I don't send the questions to Marie unless I think that question is going to help me identify [snorts] if this is something I can support or not. >> Can you tell me why or what what what are you weighing? >> So, going back to the actual question that I sent to everyone, that states how much is spectrum contributing to the cost of this traffic mitigation and why is the city absorbing this financial >> is there any question or any answer that's going to make you say oh that's enough I'll vote yes >> it's not a point of me voting giving an answer of of I'm going to vote yes or no it's a point of why are we absorbing this cause and if the answer you give to me is well we've been doing that since 2005 that's not a good enough answer for me to say, well, that's how we've always done it. We've been doing this since 2005. We're in 2025. We're looking at potential financial shortfalls all across. We just made a major contribution to this partner. My follow-up question was then have we considered or had any discussion about cost sharing which would actually probably be more beneficial to the community >> to know if that to get the response from staff would help me to decide if I think that this is an investment that we should continue to make and that's what's going to help determine my yay or nay to this request. >> Thank you >> Mr. Driggs. So the concern I have is the vote tonight is about a contract with a vendor with whom we engage in order to fulfill an arrangement we have with the team. The time to discuss our arrangement with the team is not now. We actually renewed our agreement with the team in 2024 in great detail. It's all spelled out. I assume our commitment to absorb this cost is in there. And I don't think this is an occasion to have the conversation that you're talking about. I think maybe we can have it and uh but I don't want to appear to the team as if we are using this opportunity to contemplate some sort of renegotiation of our deal with them. This is a vendor. This is a company that provides these services. We pay for them based on an understanding we have with the team. And uh I think we should go ahead and appoint the vendor and whether or not the team participates in that cost could be the subject of a different conversation, but they shouldn't hear that we're discussing this this way. Like we should approach them and tell them, hey, we'd like to have this conversation with you. The the vendor itself is is is somebody we need in order to control traffic. Who pays for it is another conversation >> day each game. Miss Molina. >> Uh thank you, Madame Mayor. I just so my it it's I have no problem providing time to what would give more clarification to you, right? Uh because I think the challenge we have now is now we have public engagement because this conversation is happening right now. So the public is going to have questions like what you're bringing to the table. Um I'm I'm willing to entertain I just for the scope of and and I agree with you Ed in saying that you know I would never want to communicate to our partners that we intend to reneg on any type of you know contracts that we have but I think spelling out the fact that there is a contract Mr. Manager that says that we've agreed to X right with certain dates and etc. um and and some of the things that you know, Miss Mayfield is bringing up. I think if that means that we give that a week to make sure that that answer is out in the public and then it returns to the council, you know, and like I said, making absolute clear to now the public and our partner that this is in no intention to reneig on anything and we, you know, I I I don't see a problem with that. you know, as long as it's with the understanding that we're not intending to undo something if we have contractually obligated ourselves to it. I want to make sure that that's clear. >> Thank you, Mayor Prom. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. And and that was the initial um my initial uh reasoning for the questions because my understanding is we've already negotiated our um partnership with the Spectrum Center, what we would cover, what they would cover. I mean that was a long robust conversation um last year and so this is just a step in the execution of it. If you if you want additional information 1,00% you should have it about the RFP and what it entails and the inner workings of it. But it sounds like we're going back to the original question of whether we should be paying for this or not. And we had those discussions last year when we had the negotiations with the team and it wasn't a quick negotiation. It was a robust long conversation. And so and so as we're looking at this information tonight, I I think we can move forward with the vote to to um to to stand up to our part of the bargain for what we're going to cover because we have already had that um negotiation. Now whether or not you you have questions around this particular vendor or if it should be another vendor or what um what else they should bring to the table that's a different conversation those are those are two separate conversations and I think um opening up the can to say hey we need to go back to uh have a negotiation [clears throat] around this with the spectrum center and the team that's a relitigation of something that we've already agreed to. All right, we're going to close this out with Dempage. Miss Bashira. >> All right. Thank Thank you, Madame Mayor. So, bottom line is there is very minimal or no impact from what I heard from Mr. Jones. Is that correct? >> So, I don't see Yeah. So, I don't see a reason why we wouldn't give a benefit of doubt. I mean, our colleagues is asking for information. There is no impact. There is no rush. Let's wait two weeks, get her the information. She might be yes. Uh but I think uh I I see this out of respect to our colleague. Um I'll be supporting the deferral. That's all I have. Thank you. >> No, I for clarification I I think there was some confusion. >> No, I we the clerk does not have um the motion that would that I think there's something that's passed. Am I saying that correctly? >> You do not have a motion that she has put in the minutes. So, we need to have something for the minutes that we're doing this with. So, all right, Mr. Grab, Mr. Mitchell, and let's see if we can get a motion here. >> Oh, hang on. Is there a motion on the floor? >> There is a motion on the floor. >> There is a motion on the floor. >> But not one. >> Okay. >> Would you read the motion, >> Miss City Attorney? Miss Clerk. >> That's right. >> So, the two there was a motion and a second on the floor, and it looks like there were two who did not respond. And so their their non-response is a yes vote. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So then they're Yes. >> All right. So it passed then >> the deferral >> deferral is passed. Okay. >> All right. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Um >> Mr. Graham I mean sorry Mr. Mitchell. >> So So mayor counsel I just >> so as defer I just don't want the team to think that we are now. >> We understand that back to them. >> I think that's included in what Miss Molina said as well as you and Mr. Graham. So, we'll keep >> my issue is bigger, right? Because of public safety in Uptown, notwithstanding the contract interfere with the public safety. >> Okay. >> Eyes on the street. >> All right. >> 34. >> 34. Let's go to item 34. Water and sanitary sewer infrastructure engineering and surveying services. Miss Mi Miss Mayfield. >> Mot. All right. We have a motion to approve and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing no further. Oh, Miss Mayfield. >> Thank you, Madam Marie. offenders that have been identified as CBI subcontractors during the award process that have not actually been contacted to perform work. What language has the city added to the contracts andor what mechanism is in place to ensure what council approves is being implemented. We were able to have further clarification to have further conversation for clarification for my colleagues. Some of us have heard over the year or so that we have approved contracts that have multiple partners who are the subs and those subs have not been contacted for work by the prime over a period of time and we did not have a mechanism in place. Both myself and council member Mitchell from going to multiple small business meetings have reached out to staff notably Mr. Coker to find out okay what are we going to do to try to help mitigate this process in the future. So this was a question since we have identified in this particular process multiple opportunities marine. >> Yes ma'am and to your point now um that is automated with the B2G now application. So what the contractual agreement is gets loaded into B2G now and the cont and the prime has to go in and load their payments and then once they do that then the subcontractor gets a notification through the system and they have to go in and validate it. So, it's a not just the prime saying it, it's also the sub validating it and um Stephen Coker staff monitors it as well and runs reports on that information. >> Thank you so much. Thank you, Madame Mayor and colleagues, because I wanted to give an opportunity to let everyone know that steps have been taken where we have an actual tracking mechanism to help ensure that our partners are not only being identified for opportunities, but also are being paid in a timely manner. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. I think that that ends the um list of >> We got a vote on it. We need to have a vote on the water and sanitary infrastructure engineering and surveying s services. All in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone um anyone opposed? Is there anyone in opposition? All right. So, that passes unanimously. All right. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Take us to the next step. >> Okay. Thank you, Mayor, members of council. I would like to um just propose a a quick flip on the two agenda items tonight. We have a mobility um update as well as our [clears throat] community area plan uh update also. um for the mobility update. Uh we'll be brief, but what I we wanted to do is uh hot off the press, come back and have a conversation with council because there's so much uh to talk about with mobility with the passing of the sales tax and we're trying to ramp this up between tonight and the annual strategy meeting in uh January. There's no way in the world we're going to be able to cover everything tonight. Um, so we really want to focus on just one portion tonight and that's what's in yellow on the screen. Uh, the roads. So, if you will recall, we have the the roads piece and we have the the rail and the bus and the microtransit piece. If you take the rail uh piece, that's 40%. If you take the the bus piece, that's 20%. Tonight, we're not proposing talking about that. That is something that you'll talk about over the course of the next several weeks as you start to think about the authority and appointments. But let's set that aside just for a moment and focus on the 40% of roads that's coming to this body. That's $5.7 billion dollar over 30 years that's coming to this body. Uh we can go back to um and we won't go back to 2019 with Charlotte moves and all that. A lot of great effort. Um we're going to fast forward to some of the staff work of the last uh two to three years and also the question that came up about infrastructure and how we would go about paying for infrastructure. It was very clear there were two paths. One is the property tax and one was the sales tax. With the passing of the sales tax, again focusing only on the 40% that comes to the city of Charlotte. Um that's where we want to have a brief discussion tonight. But within that you can see what's also the highlights are project delivery, small business readiness and workforce development. Okay. Um so if we go to uh again the what we're trying to do tonight is uh focus on these pieces and we will have uh Ed McKini who's come back and really like that tie Ed um and he'll talk about the road investment the project delivery and we also have Daniel Frasier who will talk about the workforce development piece as well as um Monica Allen who will help frame a gap analysis that we're having to see what kind of gaps do we have with scaling up businesses as well as what's happening in the workforce uh space. So [clears throat] in the small business space we'll also have Holly Estridge. So uh with that said we start off with just these plans okay and I could go back to 2019 but let's just stick with the last few years and I would call it the three volumes. We came up with volume one which was our needs and it was just a spreadsheet of about 2004 separate projects from lights to roads to to you name it. And you said no no no we we need to do better. We just don't want a list of projects. So that brought us to uh the approach volume two. And with that we were able to uh do more bundling. we were able to talk about these projects in a way that we hadn't talked about them before to really think about connectivity and then it really came to uh volume three which is uh our plan and that plan uh includes what we're doing around 16 strategic investment areas including our six corridors of opportunity and what you did for us in 2024 is that you had enough uh confidence in us to just let us test something. So last year was a $400 million bond. Okay. I know Mr. Triggs, you and I had many conversations about how big that bond was, but pieces of it were extremely important. So things have already been approved. In that $400 million bond, $238 million was just for transportation. So let's not again, not the 60%, not the authority, the city of Charlotte. And with that $238 million, we tested some things. We had $20 million in vision zero, five times the highest we had ever done in vision zero. We had $50 million just in sidewalks. Okay, that was a record number for sidewalks. What I was most excited about is what I would call an experiment. $55 million in these strategic investment areas, 16 of them. And uh I believe that the entire organization had this uh I guess big leap because we had to prove to this community that we could spend $55 million in a way so that they could be convinced that we could spend $5.7 billion in a positive way. What I will tell you the early returns on that 55 million I think I have this right and I I hope I'm not taking your your presentation. Uh we we we're going to we're going to deploy that $55 million in two years. We're going to have these projects done faster and cheaper than we've ever done before because it is a comprehensive approach for connectivity throughout our comm community. Um, so if we can deploy $55 million faster, cheaper, uh, within two years, I wouldn't bet against this team in being able to deploy 5.7 billion o over 30 years. With that said, uh we have this at the same time that Ed was working with his team on deploying this $55 million in these strategic investment areas, we also had um our workforce development team and our small business uh team, ED team work on two different plans. And these aren't plans that are going to sit on a shelf. What we're prepared to do through this gap analysis is make sure that small businesses have an opportunity to take advantage of this 5.7 billion dollars as well as uh our workforce has an opportunity to be engaged and involved in the jobs that come along with this. So with that said, again, don't want to talk about the 60% tonight. [clears throat] There's so many other things to talk about that we need to talk about. I know anti-displacement. We'll talk about, you know, uh a lot of things around uh this investment, but tonight we just wanted to focus on the Charlotte piece. So, with that said, I'll turn it over to Ed and then I think Ed will turn it over to Monica and then I think Monica turns it over to Danielle and Danielle turns it over to Holly. Did I get that right? All right, let's go. >> Great. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we got lots to cover and I'll jump right in. uh you did steal a little bit of my thunder, but we'll we'll move through real quick. We appreciate that. Um yeah, so let me give you a context of uh what we've been doing around the road investment uh getting ourselves ready and how that relates to project delivery and our our ability to uh take advantage of this new funding. This this gives you the context. We've we've talked about this before, but it's important to mention that our plan is tied to that transit plan. that these two things working together will make us successful from a mobility standpoint. We've been developing our plan in concert uh all the way through. These two things work together to be successful. So there's there's the headline that we just talked about. We had the 55 million last year. The team's been working as we gave you an update earlier this year at this the uh your annual uh strategy session uh to talk about how we were going to do that and the strategic investment area approach and the team that did that is uh essentially the strategy by how we invest and doing that uh $55 million in two years uh is a huge accomplishment and I'll talk about a little bit how we've been doing that. The other point I'll be making there is the whole point of this is what the manager just described is to make sure that is a model and a foundation for how we will scale up essentially it's the way we are going to test how we identify and build projects so that we are ready uh potentially with this funding source available. So how do we do that? It's actually relatively simple. We have a great team. You have to bring them together. You give them a problem to solve and a focus and that's that's how we get there. And so this is an example of bringing together everybody who touches a project essentially from conception to completion. This is procurement. This is it. This is the fire department, storm water. Everybody who touches a project, they're at the table. They understand the vision and they're all sitting there from their seat trying to uh use their talents and resources to achieve the the goal. And so they're essentially all working together to solve a problem uh in a new way with the the skills and talents we have. 5 million $55 million plan. If you if you're a grew up in the 70s, you might get the reference around the $6 million man. We can do it faster, better, and cheaper. So that's that's a it's a great way that uh we're thinking about this a little bit differently. >> Yeah, raise your raise your hand if you know that reference. Um, [clears throat] so what does this look like on the ground? So, uh, you know, the joke is, um, you know, a plan is only as good as your ability to implement it. So, this is an example of that team working together out in the field. You've got to get out there first and early. That's how we start to think about how to implement these projects in new ways. This is a great example. It's sort of a ownorous task, right? That's a developer built sidewalk. The team is out there. This is Arowwood. Uh you can see we've got utility issues, you've got rightaway issues, you've got storm water, you've got to think through the design. They're there trying to identify and figure out a way to weave all those things together to get to a solution. That solution has to be done in a way that's quick because time uh leads to money and that's the risk of all of these projects. So just gives you an example of the the focus the on the ground being out in the field identifying risk uh early and quickly so that we can get to solutions. Engagement is also integral and key to the success. So what the team the strategic investment team has been doing over the last year is a a pretty comprehensive approach to how we've been engaging the community. It touch upon a few of these areas. It's certainly about awareness. So we've got lots of materials. we've handed you all and many we've given out I think thousands of that purple book that plan. Uh so those that information is important but we have to build just basic awareness. The the the value we've gotten out of just putting signs on the Harrisburg Road corridor talking about projects uh coming is driving interest. It's driving understanding. It's it's creating awareness of the investment uh that we're putting out in the in the ground quickly and showing uh progress. Community events, you know, the basics of this are important. Uh we've got great examples of how we've done this. We did two over the summer. Numbers are important. So over the summer we've got 250 uh people to attend two events. You know, a non-controversial issue over the summer. That's that's good. That's great. Numbers are important, but the dialogue is more important. So as you can see here, what we're doing is we're learning, we're engaging, we've we've adjusted, we're thinking about the priorities of these projects. So that's happening in real time. And again, the uh the nimleness of our plan and our our project team allows us to be um to use that information in a very valuable way. These build partnerships and relationships. So, we go from uh breaking ground. This is this is just a few weeks ago out on the Harrisburg Road corridor with the Fenco neighborhood. So, there we are breaking ground on a new project. You know, it's a great way to celebrate, but this is also an example of the relationships that we're building. We're cutting ribbons. This is a image of a few weeks before that out in the in the Arowwood corridor. That's the Swan neighborhood. Again, they're at the table. We've got great dialogue. Even these kinds of meetings have identified projects uh and opportunities uh through those relationships. This is the most important slide though. Uh what happened after this? This is an example of what happened after the the groundbreaking in Harrisburg. So that little conversation is about a rightaway easement that the project needs from that neighborhood association, the property that they own. So that relationship that was built allows that conversation to happen in a partnership way. It's not a project we're doing to you. It's a project that we're doing together. A typical conversation negotiation around an easement right away in real estate is one of the biggest obstacles to projects. This can now happen as part of a partnership. It might take six, nine months to do that in a conventional way. This is a neighborhood that wants the project. They want to work with us. They're going to be duly compensated for the for the easement they they we need, but it's we're doing the project together. It's a partnership. That's really why engagement is important. And that that alone is an example of how we will accelerate projects as we move forward. Trust and accountability is a key part. So over the last year certainly been out there we've been out there talking to the community about this mobility plan getting engagement more broadly the most common thing I hear right is no matter where you are on on support of this is we need to know that you're going to do what you say we need to know where the money goes we need to know what the projects are we need to know schedule budgets etc we hear that and one of the things that the team has done is we built this dashboard so this is live this is the the sort of project program dashboard for the strategic investment areas It just published a couple weeks ago. This is a screenshot of that. This is the program view. So you see scale of investment. You see the types of projects, the number of projects. You can click on a map and see where those projects are. It dives into the detail. So this is just one example of a project. So you can see where it is in the process. This is a great example of one that went from uh design to completion. And you get a sense of the scale, uh the budget, the investment, and the the sort of the purpose of that project. This another point about this is this is for the 55 million but the whole reason for that is it's the foundation for the 5.7 billion. So we will scale this. This is a platform that becomes really one of the more important ways that we will engage have accountability and trust with the community as we move forward. We've also been engaging with businesses and so in this case I'll give you a couple examples of small businesses. So our team has been working with our broad team uh doing community engagement small business engagement over the last year building awareness about these opportunities. That awareness gets down to something like this sort of a cliffnotes or cheat sheet for the business community understand what these opportunities are right down to the commodity codes the specific skill sets that we're looking for. Small businesses don't have time to think through all that. They don't know what our opportunities are. They don't we need to break it down for them. So this is something we've been handing out so they understand where those opportunities are, where they might fit and the detailed skills that we're looking at. A great opportunities is and a good example is we are also not just making folks aware of the opportunities, we're actually creating opportunities. This is a great pilot that bore out of the strategic investment team work. We're we're testing a solar pilot uh street lighting project and what we wanted to do and this is something that doesn't exist in the market. we don't have skill sets in the business market to actually implement and and install these things. So, we said, well, we'll bring the uh the manufacturer of this uh solar lighting to town and we'll spend a day and we'll train people up. We invited everyone, every small business that's on our registry, spent the day with them, trained literally handinand how these projects work, how you how what our expectations are, they could learn and understand. Then we targeted the bid to that group. And so, it's very tailored. we used uh uh the what the general services department has already spearheaded with this informal bid process. So if it's a project under 500,000, we can go directly uh to that list of vendors and get to a bid process very quickly. So we're we're extending that. There's lots of other opportunities where we can do training around other portions of the investment we do. We do a lot of sidewalk work with ADA. We do a lot of uh pedestrian signalized crossings. all things that have some very specific skill sets that we can train up uh our community for. I'll I'll pause here and and really this will be the handoff to Monica and her team, but I'll just make the point again that this is about building uh and creating opportunities. We essentially this is the this is the the folks that participate in that training and and all the workforce and the businesses that are represented. What this represented was a new opportunity done in a fivemonth period from training to contract. We're putting $175,000 in a small business's hands. We've now given them a whole new market, a a skill set and a and a um business opportunity that they didn't have before. It's 175,000. If the pilot works for us, again, street lighting is one of the most important things we hear from the community. Getting it out there fast is a challenge for us. this isn't a great opportunity opportunity of how we could do that quicker. So that 175,000 could be much bigger. We've now built capacity in the market that can grow. So uh that's [clears throat] a great super small example. This is a great handoff to Monica and her team to talk about how we might scale that u more comprehensively over the longer term for the investment that we're talking about. So I'll turn it over to Monica Allen and her team. All right. Thank you, Ed. And good evening, Mayor, Council, uh, Manager Jones, and others. So, what we're talking about um for the next several slides is really building the people and the business infrastructure that is going to be needed to really support this work so that we can grow um Charlotte's future and grow that capacity that we really need to to be able to do the work. So I think Ed highlighted for us very nicely the current and the the past work um that has been done with regards to this model. So just want to just kind of give you a big picture visual on how we're thinking about all of these things um as it connects. And so you'll notice that there's various departments and offices that are listed on this slide. And so we've been really intentional in trying to think through the alignment, right? So I'll just go quickly from left to right. So we start with of course our our ecosystem of businesses and that would include certified businesses as well as non-certified businesses, right? So we're not just targeting those certified businesses. The thinking there is that then those businesses that need to have um capacity built um and that need some readiness support that we would take them through um training and development programs that uh Danielle and um Holly will talk about in a second. making sure that the business um needs are there when it comes to that capacity building. Our hope is that we would then align the workforce that's needed. Right? So, if I'm a single member LLC and I'm an electrician, I may need that workforce support to be able to do the work um at at a greater scale. If businesses are not registered as a vendor or they're not certified, we would hope that after the training, the now what is answered and we can say, "Okay, make sure you go through the process and become certified as a vendor with the city as well as um or register with as a vendor with the city and then become certified if need be." From there, they're made aware of the opportunities through the contracting procurement process. Hopefully, they bid and win and then the execution of work occurs. And so what this slide shows you is five six different entities that are going to be coming together to make sure that everything aligns so that we can be able to do this work. You'll also notice on this slide that there's mentioned at the bottom of a gap analysis. And so that's something that I'll talk about on the next slide and that gap analysis specifically is for us to really be thinking about small businesses. What are those needs and what are those workforce needs? So the goal for the gap analysis is to prepare the local businesses and workforce um so the people in businesses can capitalize on the significant economic opportunity. So right now we are um waiting on the final recommendations um of the gap analysis from a consulting firm that we've been working with who's helping us quantify and qualify what are those needs. Right? So if we're where we are with our businesses today and then we determine what those needs are going to be for the next 5 10 15 years, what is that gap? And then what are those strategies and tactics that we need to put in place to be able to make those businesses um be and individuals be in a a specific place to effectively compete for city contracts. Some of the questions that we've been asking are like how many jobs are needed, right, to do all of this work that's going to be before us. What are those small business opportunities that small businesses who may be new entrance or who may already be existing businesses have? What are those business needs specifically? And then how do we prepare for through our processes? And that could be the contracting and procurement work. And how do we also make sure that we're scaling up those businesses? Recommendations in full should be provided to us next month. then at that time we should be able to align those things that we've said that we were going to do with the recommendations that are coming out um of that document. I just put one recommendation that we got very early on in here which was for us to really be thinking about our um internal small business and procurement processes so that we can make sure we're doing the work effectively and efficiently. So at this time I'm going to turn it over to Danielle Frasier and she's going to talk specifically about some of the workforce development initiatives. Good evening, uh, mayor, council, and manager. Um, glad to be here with you this evening to share a little bit more about our workforce development implementation efforts, especially as it relates to this mobility, uh, plus initiatives. Um, as you recall, you all approved a workforce development plan back in March of this year. Uh, in that it's focused on career pathway access and awareness, skill development, and cred credential attainment, as well as job placement and career advancement. And as you could imagine, a lot of our workforce development implementation will be centered around this mobility plus uh work. Uh, Monica shared a little bit about the mobility workforce gap analysis. I'll go a little bit deeper into what that means for workforce development. Uh three things that we're really looking forward to uh reviewing when we get this gap analysis is understanding as as Monica mentioned what are the jobs over the next 30 years respect respectively in the construction skilled trades as well as the professional services fields. So understanding that then what are those jobs that are immediately in need in the in the near future mid and to longer term so that that can help us in how we plan and how we support whether it's training programs or other workforce efforts and initiatives to support our talent as well as our small businesses. And lastly, we're looking forward to diving into some of the recommendations that they share with us, whether that's best practices from other cities uh or case studies of what has worked well in other communities as it relates to transportation infrastructure uh support and development. So, what comes from this mobility analysis will really help us to plan how we execute on our mobility workforce readiness plan. And you'll see on the slide that really entails two areas, right? That's talent development training, which that means investing in more education and training programs to prepare our talent pipeline in the areas of these respective fields of construction skilled trades and professional services. And then we've got industry engagement and training. And so one thing that I continue to hear from you all as well as many others is it's one thing to get the training, but where's the job? And so fortunately, there will be uh many many jobs that come through this this work and these projects. And so we want to make sure that we support our businesses and helping them to source talent uh through our community ecosystem as well as continuing to support uh employee training grants that help them hire new employees as well as continue to upskill their current employees. And so we are looking forward to releasing some solicitations for uh grant proposals in the month of December so that we can solicit uh organizations that will help us in these two areas. And so we will be looking forward to sharing that information with you all council so that you all can help uh spread the word through your uh modes of communication as well as we have various other sources and how we will get uh the information out to community. Lastly, I cannot stress enough collaborations and partnerships as Monica has already mentioned how we're working internally across offices and departments to align around how we can deliver on uh these projects and support our talent and businesses. We are also uh aligning with our community partners. Meckllinburgg County being a huge partner uh in this as well as our workforce development ecosystem through our workforce education and community partners. We cannot do this alone and so we will be partnering uh with community as well as internally. We have already had uh community convenings and conversations around what this may mean if this referendum passed and so how community can come together to be able to support again our talent and workforce in a greater way. Um our message has been over this this time period is that this mobility plus plan is not just about how we move people around. It's about how we move people up. And so I'm excited about um putting some of this work in motion. And so with that, I think I'm handing it over to Holly to talk about small business. All right. Thanks so much for having me. Um hope you all are having a great night tonight. This is such exciting work really honestly and the collaboration, we keep saying it over and over, but it can't be done um by any one department or even um really even our partners or uh the county itself. So we're very excited about it. So one thing that you've heard continuously is we must equip our small businesses to be able to seize these opportunities that are coming from um these projects. And so we put together a small business readiness initiative that accomplishes this through executing on the goals of equipping small businesses, especially those historically underresourced, with the skills and certifications needed to pursue city contracts. We want to foster equitable economic development by connecting businesses to workforce pipelines and contracting networks. And then we want to strengthen Charlotte's local economy by ensuring public investments reflect the city's diverse business community. All those things are critically important and will be foundational as we build out um the work around this readiness initiative. So we to do this we talk about collaboration, partnership. Um, we really, this work will be done by the economic development department, the office of workforce development, contracting and procurement department, and then as well as Mechmber County and our local small business resource partners. We're going to have measurable, and I want to say that measurable outcomes around looking at information and outreach. So, how do we create sort of that one-stop shop that I know a lot of you guys have talked about and I've heard you talk about in other areas of the city where a small business can go. They can understand what programs exist um what those procurement opportunities are that um are available and other types of information. We're also going to do training. This is going to be a hands-on curriculum that covers topics like certification, bib preparation compliance project management licensing bonding legal and then financial planning. all things that we know our small businesses um have have told us that they would like to see. We are too uh in December going to be issuing a solicitation, a competitive solicitation to start this work around the development of the curriculum and then really making sure that the resources are present. So one thing that we constantly hear about are sort of mentorship opportunities and mentorship protege type relationships. Um really working with our small business resource partners. I know a lot of you all are huge supporters of theirs and they are experts in this field. Making those workforce connections that Danielle just talked about and then networking with prime contractors. Um so I will turn it over to the city manager. Next slide. >> So uh thank you team and I'll be super brief. So, mayor, members of council, I believe what the team uh didn't um tell you tonight is that we've had people study us. And [clears throat] part of this uh Uber collaboration, you see, is because we found out what our weaknesses are or were, and now we are really working better together. And so, with that said, uh I think we have a good blueprint here. don't want to get ahead of council. I will tell you that you um did approve money in the FY26 budget around small business. We um laugh about joke about Danielle's almost $3 million of workforce development money that's still out there. So, what we're doing is combining those dollars together as well as seeing um if there's anything left that we may have from uh other initiatives because we think this is the most important thing right now in terms of making sure that our residents and the businesses have an opportunity to take advantage of this um 5.7 billion. So, mayor u that's um what we have. >> Are you taking questions tonight? >> Absolutely. I would like to ask you one or two. >> All right. Well, [clears throat] well, I'll ask three. [laughter] Well, thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, this is a great collaboration. I love seeing how we are working across departments, C do DOT, small business, workforce development, and is really thinking ahead because we are looking at $110 million that we will be infusing in our infrastructure. That's a lot of money. Um, so it's great that we are thinking ahead and we are making sure that our small businesses and our workforce is ready to get to work. Uh I have c uh I'm sure so many of us have business in mind who can actually uh start getting ready. Uh I would love to get information about that once those opportunities are out are out so that we can uh help uh distribute that to people in our network so that uh they can all participate in this opportunity. That's all I have. Thank you. >> All right, Mr. Mitchell. Okay, >> I don't want Mr. Peacock. >> Your first question. Okay, >> staff. Uh, great job, Monica. I know for a long period of time you've been working on a gap analysis. So, uh, thank you for for championing that for us and and I like the collaboration between small business workforce development and our um small work workforce develop small business and then small business readiness. Uh, Monica, just a couple of questions on the gap analysis though if you can make sure that the consultant would bring this back as well. I think it'll be interesting. We look at our CBI firms. We have a lot of companies can do vertical construction. We need to be clear though. Where's our gap announcer on horizontal construction? Can you think about roads? What you think about the sidewalks, road pavement? And I'm not too sure from a historic perspective, we have got a lot of participation uh from our database, from our CBI firm. So, it'll be nice to see that gap analysis. Um and and then don't leave out professional services. I I'll be the first one. I'm guilty because construction what I do 247. I think about construction but there are some opportunity on the professional service side that I think we miss a lot and I would like to see where they would recommend we can do better from the consultant uh gap analysis. >> Let me just respond to that really quickly. So the gap analysis does include both construction and professional services. Okay. >> So it's a full comprehensive um end toend analysis but certainly we can um we can follow up with you with regards to those two pieces horizontal and vertical. And just to follow up with uh I call her Miss Workforce Development because she's on the national level. I'm sorry to embarrass you Danielle, but one piece I think it' be helpful for us as you have built the new office, the youth workforce development and how with the youth development be incorporated in your long-term vision. So I can wait sit at the retreat, but I think having that discussion and that strategy for us will be helpful because we're already [clears throat] getting calls now 18 to 24. How can they participate and be part of our our youth workforce development office? >> Thank you, mayor. >> All right. Um I believe I don't know Mr. Peacock, but Miss Watlington also. Miss Watlington, did you have remarks? Miss Watlington? >> I did. Um I want to echo my colleagues. Thank y'all for the work um consistently. Excellent. So, I appreciate that. This has been one of the most important community conversations particularly around this transportation investment. So, thank you for bringing it to the community um in short order. I got a couple of things and Mr. Mitchell was reading my mind on a few of them, but I'll just hit my questions really quickly. Um I know you mentioned that the plan the professional services was included in the gap analysis. I'm pretty curious as to what thought process is around um the creating opportunities work for professional services. Ed, you showed us an example on the contracting side. Had you all put any thought into how to reapply that on the professional services side? >> Oh lord. >> Yeah. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Um and as Monica said, that's part of the analysis, the gap analysis that we're doing now. So we understand very specifically the spec, you know, the types of services that we need. Uh looking at the innovative things that we're um looking to do in these projects. and there's probably parts of the market that doesn't exist and skills and resources that we need to build. So that's part of workforce making sure there's a pipeline of engineers and designers etc. uh that are part of this work over the long long periods of the long term. So certainly it's a big part of the gap analysis that we're conducting now. >> Sure. And definitely on the work for the um workforce development side I'm speaking specifically to this idea of we have a project we brought in the solar panels for example. So there's a gap in terms of installation. There's also a gap in terms of working through all of the things through Duke utility and SCO and all of those things. So I'm wondering if you all are intending to uh put together that type of pilot on the professional services side beyond the workforce development piece. >> Yeah, it's a great idea and certainly yeah, those are the those are the types of opportunities we're we're beginning to identify. I don't have some good examples yet, but absolutely. >> Awesome. Um, and then as we get into the gap analysis, there was a couple of things that I wanted to lift up um, as well and hope that it will be included in the consultants report out. Um, [clears throat] where you get here to the office of workforce development and you're talking about businesses ensuring workforce needs are identified. Um, there is a little bit of a chicken and an egg dynamic as you all are aware. um when it comes to securing contracts and then going to get the workforce to deliver on the contracts, you've got to have contracts in order to get funding to go get resources. How are we thinking about how to how to close that gap? [snorts] >> So, so your question is there the businesses would need the workforce in order to be able to effectively compete for the contract, right? So, so when we think about the gap analysis, it it it's we're not just assuming that it's businesses that don't have an existing workforce. We're assuming that it could be businesses that have a greater need for a stronger workforce. Right? So, I think it's that one of the things that we're going to be doing is looking at that when it comes down to the training and development needs. And so, if we're trying to work with businesses to build that capacity, the the question would be, do you have an existing workforce? Do you have gaps in your workforce? Or do you have need for stronger workforce? So you're right, it is a chicken and an egg, but we but the goal would ultimately be that they're positioned regardless of coming out of the training and development work in order to be able to compete for those contracts effectively. So I don't know if that answers your question specifically, but I think we would have to take those businesses on a case- by case basis. >> Yeah, to some degree. I think what I'm trying to highlight here is the gap between not only the workforce existing, but the funding to hire the workforce on some level so that they can be in position so you can compete on the formal projects, >> right? And so part of the training and development work would be how do you get access to capital? What are some things that you need to be considering um as it relates to getting that funding to support the workforce? I didn't go into depth in this and I I'll can certainly talk later, but we're also exploring opportunities for u micro businesses versus small businesses. So those micro businesses may be new in their um new in their experience and so they may need a little more handholding and help than small businesses that are a little more mature. Um, and so again, I think it's going to have to be a case by case basis because ultimately we want to meet them where they are >> and not create a structure and overengineer it to the point where they can't effectively compete. The goal is to compete and that they have the insight and knowledge to be able to effectively compete for contracts. >> Thank you for that. And then just as a followup to that, as we move further down this pipeline here on the gap analysis, when it comes to actually winning the contract, the dis the time between the award and contracting and then delivering and then payout is often times months. Um, and so when you again when you think about those businesses that have to go get that workforce to demonstrate competitiveness and then needing work for that workforce to do as they wait for this contract to actually start. If I would love to see us exper um innovate around shortening those timelines so that people can really be agile and responsive to those bids. Does that make sense? >> It does. And in fact, one of the early recommendations is around a quick pay program that we would implement um in order to be able to get the the funds out the door to those businesses sooner and quicker. Um and of course we're looking we're going to look at our internal processes to make sure that we can shorten that window and time frame. >> Absolutely. and not just the quick pay from where I've submitted my my um my payout, but we're going to do this work. We've awarded it. The time that it's going to take to then come to whatever governing board, in our case, city council, to approve that work and then contract and start and those kinds of things, that really upfront piece is critical. >> Um and then Mr. Mitchell spoke a little bit to the vertical development piece. I'm curious from a from a little bit of a different angle there because we know that this horizontal work is going to drive a lot of private vertical investment along these corridors. Um I'm curious as to how we're thinking about leveraging that development as well that's outside of our specific 5 however many billion dollars but that we know is going to be part and parcel with this horizontal development. I guess if I understand your question just the relationship of our infrastructure investment to development and growth or >> and how we're thinking about that because there's there's the investment horizontally but we know there's going to be even to another degree of investment privately along these lines. How are we making sure that we've captured what we can in terms of leveraging and preparing the businesses not only for the work that we are leading but the work that we know is coming quickly behind. We don't have to have an answer today but that's something that I'd love to see us think about. >> So mayor >> so um thank you Dr. Watlington. And I uh apologize to Monica because I pulled a slide out of this deck that dealt a lot with what you're saying because I wanted to have Cheryl Wright, our new director of contracting procurement to focus on some of the preliminary findings that we're getting from these studies, especially as it relates to um contracting and procurement. And many of the issues that you brought up are addressed the gaps that we have within our own organization of how to be better with that. Yes. >> Okay. Mr. Peacock, >> I want to go back to your example on the 55 million that we spent so well and so efficiently. Um talk to me about um when you do a project of those scale. Um this is obviously primarily construction, correct? We're talking about road and sidewalk building and infrastructure. about how many vendors are we using and that have met the certifications and have gone through the competitive bidding process and have been awarded the bidding. What how many people are in our I'll call it our bullpen people that we want to give business to how many of them are actually awarded tell me about the win loss ratio. Yeah, certainly would have to get back with you on the details of that if you're specifically relate asking the question related to the work the 55 million that we've been been putting out. Um, [clears throat] so there's more detail that I'm glad to we can provide a detail. >> Tell me what what are the categories of businesses we're talking about just in layman's terms. >> Well, we're talking about I mean a good example is the street lighting we just the solar street light I just talked about. Those are essentially electricians contractors that know how to do the electrical work. Uh we're doing tons of significant amount of sidewalk work. Mentioned the ADA work which is making sure all of the curb ramps and everything are are per code and need. That's really basic concrete work. There's grading that goes with that. So there's uh the the detail and the sort of granular nature of these things get down to in many cases lots of projects that we can do with small businesses and we're working as I mentioned uh to specifically target those um and and make the projects I get a point about this is making the projects as reasonably small as we can to make them um quicker. uh we can actually contract those things quicker and we can identify and work with uh contractors and and businesses that are working at that scale, small businesses. >> Okay. So, uh relatively small companies, correct? For a solar project, putting up solar lights off of a sidewalk, you have curb, you have gutter, we have lighting, we have hardscaping. I'm not in this industry, but I'm I'm just trying to like approximate how many people are we talking about that we are economically creating jobs for in that situation. And now when we scale it up as we're talking about, are we trying to spread spread out more business across lots of more small businesses or will this follow what many people know is the 8020 rule, which 80% of the business will still go to 20% of the people? I'm just trying to understand what what's the broad objective from across the board here and what we're trying to develop. >> So you're alluding [clears throat] >> gap. This is a gap where I'm trying to we're talking about gap. We're speaking all this corporate speak but none of it's kind of clicking through with me as to what are we really talking about? What kind of businesses are we trying to create here? >> We trying to handhold and bring up because we're trying to lift people that just currently can't get the business we want to give more business to. Am I hearing that correct? >> Correct. But I would say it's all the above, right? We're we're going to be doing big projects. We're going to need big contractors that can do large projects. Those contractors and businesses are going to need workforce to make that happen. Even on the professional services side, so we're we're working at all scales. We have a goal to provide and raise essentially the tide for all of the opportunities in the community. A lot of the details you're asking really good technical number details, which is really the work that's happening in the gap analysis. we'll we'll have lots of information around the scale of investment uh the scale of the type of firms that we'll be uh working with that that'll those will be details that come out of the gap analysis but it's not again I would say it's not just focused on the notion that it's just about small businesses it's really across the board because we're going to need all of it at the end of the day >> there's only so many concrete providers there's only so many people that can put together an actual road and meet specs for C dot and NC DOT and the federal regulations. Correct. So, it's going to be I'm just when we're doing roads and hardscaping and all these types of things, I'm just I'm trying to imagine this workforce over 30 years. Are we trying to make Charlotte into a construction destination? Is is it going to be tech, AI? I This is where the gap for me as a as a board member is I'm going What are we talking about here? >> And can I take a shot? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So um one of the other slides we didn't put in is uh basically what is the baseline if there were no sales tax that were passed. Right. Right. So you look over 30 years, what are the uh the opportunities with the sales tax uh those opportunities uh really grow and we know what and I'm I'm confident we will know what's the peak in terms of the opportunities in terms of uh jobs um and jobs and the workforce uh needs. What I would say is what we're learning is, and I wish we' put it on the table, um, but we started off with this uh maybe two months ago. [clears throat] There are some technological advances that we haven't even thought about yet. >> Sure. >> Okay. And that's where we can't limit ourselves to thinking about just building roads. Okay. And then there's direct, indirect, induced. And so early on um before uh um the campaign began maybe like four years ago there was a study. So we'll make sure we get the NCATE study to you about what is the economic impact of this. But again what we're learning is all of these different job types the professional services also let's not think about just laying concrete or or roads. It's much broader than that. That's why we're paying for the gap analysis. And I will say we're doing it not just for our projects, but it will be a nice gift that we hand over to the authority also because we're looking at the transit piece also. Last thing I'll say is that um maybe I won't do this one. Um we must maybe I'll do it, but you be kind to me. Okay. So um just think about microtransit in and of itself. >> Yeah, sure. >> Okay. and think about all the jobs and all the opportunities that come with having a transportation system within microtransit, things like that. >> Yep. Well, I what I'd like to have I'd love to see the list of the current vendors that we're working with right now on that $55 million example. Who are the businesses maybe that are on the sidelines that we're trying to I don't know if we have I don't know what you all call it. I mean, to me, it's like a sales pipeline. We got vendors that are interested in doing business with us, but they're not really ready. I'm just curious the scale of what we're trying to build up for because it looks like 2027 is what we're we're at right now. >> Yeah. And how do board members refer and get people into your system? I would love to know an answer to that, too. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mrs. Mayor and Mr. Manager. Thank you. >> How about um Mayor Proim wants to address >> Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just have three quick points. The the first one is, you know, we were talking about the youth employment program and how we could tap in internships um to some of the opportunities with CMS's program around uh employee enlists enroll you maybe we can start now collaborating with them around opportunities for employment that don't require a two or fouryear degree similar to the work that we do directly with them that the manager program just jumped off a couple years ago and we doubled the number of students that we brought on this year. I think that's a great opportunity for us as well as thinking about some of some of our other educational partners like CPCC for example and some of the things they're doing with some of the local corporations where they go through a 8-month ninemonth uh certification process and and get getting put to work right away in particular on some of the trades that we're speaking on. So that's just one the first point I wanted to say and just sort of tangentially to that as we as we get the gap analysis we know that there will be as the discussion has has um been had that there'll be gaps that you know we can't particularly fill here locally because we don't have the skill set and we're ramping up. But if we focus on how can we fill the gap locally to keep more of the dollars that we're spending in the Charlotte regional um community. I think that would be very helpful if we're strategic about that, especially in some of those areas, like I said, that you don't need multi-year um expertise or um multi-year certifications on. And then the um the last piece um Mr. McKenna is for you when we talk about the the road spin and you've done you and your team done a phenomenal job laying out the strategic investment areas and opportunities. Um but I would like to spend some time talking about the prioritization of those projects uh with an emphasis um of those high injury network areas where we know loss of life and accidents are occurring throughout the city. uh that they get some level of uh emphasis and priority. So looking forward, I know we're not discussing that tonight, but as you bring us that rubric around prioritization, I I would like to go ahead and lobby for um high prior high um injury networks being high up on the list of the priorities. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Hi. >> Um, I think that Miss Oh, Miss Johnson, >> will you first? You want to go? >> Well, she's >> Okay. Thank you. >> Go ahead. [clears throat] >> Thank you, Madame Mayor, and thank you all for your presentation. It was a great presentation. I I want to piggyback off what Mayor Pro Tim said, and I think that's already consideration. The high injury areas would have priority. I hope. I think I I know you're going to be working with Vision Zero. Um, I wanted to know I guess how how are we considering stateowned roads? Those would be a part of the project as well, right? Because I'm thinking of roads like WT Harris. Um, I know of a a catastrophic injury that occurred recently there. And and so I mean how does a person ride their bike from Sugar Creek to the Y or Sugar Creek someplace very close? So how are we considering stateowned roads is my first question. >> Yes, good question. We we partner across the city on state road projects and it's in our strategic um investment area plans there. A lot of those projects are on state routes. Those are state roads. Those are uh can be as simple as street lighting on a state route. It could be as simple as a shared use path or sidewalk on a state uh uh maintained facility. So we we do those partnerships all the time specific to the things you're describing, safety, pedestrian access, crossings, etc. So those are all embedded in that purple book and that's part of the uh the projects that play out in those strategic investment areas. Harrisburg Road is a good great example. That was the one of the test uh cases that we've been doing. All the projects we're doing is on that state facility. Those are all done in partnership with the state, but that's investment that's supportive of of the growth in the neighborhoods along that corridor. >> Okay. Okay. And we can talk offline because WT, you know, District 4, we've got a lot of stateowned roads and WT Harris um um there's just no way to travel on WT Harris. And then secondly, I wanted to talk about the the small business readiness initiative. I think this is wonderful that we're doing this for contractors. Are we also doing something like this for nonprofit organizations, Mr. Jones? Um getting small business [snorts] businesses ready for funding. Um because what we what we want to be sure of is that we're not awarding money that where the organization's not ready for that type of award. Um if we if do we have a program that helps nonprofit organizations uh be prepared to accept um financial training and reporting and all of that, can we have the same consideration for nonprofit organizations? Uh >> thank you. Uh, Council Member Johnson, I know we've done that in the past. I'm not sure what we have in the pipeline right now. Um, I'll get back to the body on that. Yes. >> Okay. I think I think it's great. I think it's necessary if you want to help organizations move up to the next level, but we also should consider this across the board. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. >> Miss Molina. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. And for the sake of time, I know that we're over. I'll I'll try to condense what I was going to say initially. First of all, I want to say thank you guys for the presentation and the comprehension in your work. I mean, I'm always super impressed with every last one of you. I have absolutely [clears throat] enjoyed working with you and I am really excited about the direction of where we're going as a city. I think what you're laying is the foundation for something especially and and dare I say, first of all, strategic investment areas. Ed, you know how I feel about that. I'm so proud of what you and the team have done out there. You've seen the faces of the neighbors. You see how happy they are. They've been asking about that implementation for a long time. And the areas across this city once they get that same type of emphasis, they're going to have the same reaction. I'm absolutely certain of it. Um not to mention, you know, once, you know, the connection of, you know, transit is actually connected to their areas in addition to that infrastructure. It's just going to be very exciting to see that across the city. So, uh, very proud of what I've seen you and the team do. Um, I I cannot say enough. I think a lot of the times when we were talking about the comprehension of what this plan would represent, I think we left out the fact that there was workforce development in it, planet in it. Um, and because of the work that I do every day, I already know that we're going to have interest from companies around this country that know that we have $19 billion on the table and they're going to start coming and they're going to start trying to date the city of Charlotte because they want to do business with the city of Charlotte. And I love to see that we're out ahead of that, right? saying that we have now, you know, and a lot of the times when I talk about workforce development, we have kind of this cheat sheet of, you know, what the alliance does with regards to the the types of industry that we would like to, you know, attract to our area. And some of that is adjacent to transportation, but not with the idea that it's going to be for our work. So now we literally have a new lane to work within that is going to be a dedicated lane for at at minimum the next 30 years, right? And I imagine it would evolve. So um I I love that you have a gap and and I'm really excited to see how that evolves as far as our workforce is concerned. Um because that's going to be important. And lastly, I think it's something that the manager said that I think is very important to mention because I keep reminding, you know, those around me of the same thing. And I leaned over to council member Mitchell and said 30 years is 20 55, right? [laughter] We said the same thing like, you know, because you you think about how old you're going to be in 2055, right? And you're like, [laughter] "Wow." Right? And you know, it it also lends itself to the idea. I mean, I think about 30 years ago, right? Well, >> hey, hey, look, I ain't in no rush to get to aging, but you know, the the the the reality of it is is that, you know, if you think back 30 years, right? 30 years and I keep saying this 1995 we had pagers and payoneses right like we had pagers payoneses analog computers that were like blue screened and you know it was just a completely different time and so leaving room and space mentally for that evolution I think is grand right the level of malleability that we're going to have from a workforce perspective from a you know an implementation what I What will cars be doing then, right? Like how will we even be planning transportation and infrastructure in 10 or 15 years, right? And how will we be planning, you know, workforce adjacent to AI, you know, and the possibilities of AI and how we train? So, like I said, we're at really exciting times. This is literally generational setting tone. Um and and um I'm just blessed to be at the the ground floor that when I'm, you know, much older, I'll be like, I remember that, you know, [laughter] and if God allowed me to still be here, right, healthy and intact to just look at the fruits of what has become and remember what these conversations were like. So, congratulations to everybody. I think it's a great time. Uh, I think we're, you know, in the beginnings of something that will evolve to be absolutely spectacular for this region. So, kudos to all of you and the council. >> All right. Um, Mr. Manager. >> So, uh, mayor, members of council, uh, two things. I know we have community area plans. Um, what I would recommend is that we move it to the manager report. Also, um, I have, uh, Dr. Stewart here and director Hefner. We were [snorts] going to talk about the office of youth opportunities during the manager report um because it dove tales into what we're saying tonight, but we if that's okay, we can push that off. But I just want you to know that just like we have this team thinking about small business and workforce development, we have our office of youth opportunities team thinking about I won't say how many internships, but thinking about how do we make sure that um people from CMS and many of the youth that we've been talking about over the course of the last year also have opportunities. >> I came to council tonight just for that presentation. [laughter] >> [laughter] >> Okay. >> Is that is that everyone? Miss Mayfield have been >> Thank you, Madam Staff. I just along with telling you thank you, manager Jones. Thank you for listening to us. We had these conversations back in 2017. How do we fill the gaps and create opportunity because that's what I believe should have been the role of CBI is to not just present us opportunities but the gaps when we say well we didn't have any MBE or SBE that did that particular work in order to create opportunities. Thank you all for coming together. Workforce development is so important because to me it's directly tied to access to housing to quality of life. My goal for our community is to not need a subsidy for you to earn enough dollars or we have created enough diversity in our housing stock where you are able to pay the rent based on the income. But we create opportunities. We're partnering with Central Pemont of which is one of the top community colleges in the nation. and I am a proud multi-graduate of CP at this point. We have a lot of opportunities with Honeywell, with Microsoft, with our other partners. I would also like to highlight as we grow these small businesses, as we look at what our role is. I don't necessarily agree with my colleague that we should be looking in that nonprofit space. The county has a role. The county is a great partner. If we look at the priority area for the city, growing that workforce creates the opportunity where we don't have a prime that's outside of the city of Charlotte working with a sub who's in the city of Charlotte. We're keeping our dollars right here. We're growing our small businesses. we're growing our economy versus the money leaving out of Charlotte to pay a company to hopefully within the 30 45 days get that money back to our small business. But in the impantime that small business might face challenges because of the model that we have. So, anything that's going to help identify and grow businesses in our backyard and keep that money and that opportunity to grow that business from a small business to a prime is something that I look forward to watching you all achieve over these next few decades. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. Miss Brown, did you have something? >> These folks are wonderful. I know they're going to miss me. [laughter] I would miss them too. You guys are amazing. Just really hard workers. It's a joy to work with you and keep up the good work. If anybody come behind me give you problems, I'll be watching. [laughter] >> Serious. Now, thank you for all that you do. You're amazing. Thanks. >> All right. So, we're going to go downstairs and we do not have a close session, but we do have some items. Okay. >> Thank you. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Here we go. Happy. Hey everybody dancing. >> [music] >> Everything beyond [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. >> [music] >> about what we're doing. But today, I think maybe perhaps everyone wants to do something a little bit different today. So, >> um, >> okay, we're good. Thank you. So, I want to call the business meeting to of the Charlotte City Council to order. Um, good evening. Thank you for those who are watching us. And um, for this meeting, which is our November 10th council business meeting, we usually start with introductions, but yes. [laughter] >> Good. So, all right. I'm usually we start with introductions. Um but tonight I think that we all know who's sitting at the dis tonight. But if you would like to I'd like to actually take a moment of privilege to introduce to those that are in our um that are watching that would be the introduction to our newly appointed city attorney Andrea Fi Lesie Feisty. So, a little bit about Andrea is that, you know, she most recently served as the Guilford County Attorney and brings more than 18 years of experience in local government. Her previous roles in government included city attorney for Shelby, North Carolina, senior assistant city attorney for the city of Charlotte, assistant county attorney for Cleveland County. there'll be no assistance in this work. So, please know that we want you fully here and there. Um, Andrea earned her jurist doctor from North Carolina Central University. >> I'm sorry. Sorry. I got too excited. [laughter] >> North Carolina Central University. Um, but she also has two law two bachelor degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in political science and communications, which you will need to use often. She began her career serving local governments in 2007 as an associate with the Yelton FAR 4 where she became a partner in 2011. She was in instrumental in guiding and providing legal support for major Guilford County economic development projects such as the initiatives such as Jet Zero, Cascade, and Lenova. She has also provided legal guidance and to for the county for the county's 1.7 billion bond initiative. Now, that we're going to work you through um and the key land use projects including Guilford's recent adoption. So, I want you to know that she has already um shown that she's a member of a number of organizations, which I will not go all the way through, but I do want to say to her, we are welcoming you here to this city. And I hope that many of you that are watching today will know that we have, I believe, the next person that will serve this community well. And we're looking forward to having you do that with us. So, thank you. Welcome. All right. So, now let's go ahead and um have our meeting. We usually begin with an invocation. Um we usually have someone to help us do that. I think that Mr. Graham said that he had to step away. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with the Lord's Prayer if you're interested in doing it. Let's all stand and we'll begin with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us notation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. >> Amen. Amen. Thank you very much. Um, let's now have our pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you very much. Um, Mr. Jones, >> Mr. Jury, still mayor. Um, as we mentioned in 267, this is an opportunity for an update with the community. All right. Community area. >> Says Office of Youth Opportunities. We'll switch it up just a little bit. Thank you. >> Okay, while they are um getting that pulled up, thank you all very much for having me here tonight. Uh mayor and council, I'll be giving an update on the community area plans. Really checking in on where we are and our next steps. We've had a very busy summer and fall uh getting ready for uh this moment and this opportunity to share with you where we are. >> One there for >> Yeah. >> So the presentation tonight uh once we get it pulled up we'll really uh speak to a general update, talk about the revised policy map and uh give you a deep dive as to where we are. So you should have received earlier this evening uh a packet that has all the proposed changes that broad overview and so as I give this presentation uh you'll have that to refer back to afterwards. >> Monica, is that this right here? >> Yes, that is it. So I'll give the presentation. Um I'm sure that they will pull it up shortly and then when that uh occurs we can I can go ahead get started. But that will be your takeaway. so that you'll have uh that to refer back to uh after this evening. [snorts] So uh tonight I'm going to give a broader overview why community area plans should matter to our community and why they do matter, why they matter to you and your decision- making, how our community has shaped those plans and what our next steps are. So, as we know, growth is coming. You can see here on the left a picture of Charlotte in 1975 and a picture of Charlotte today. So, just for a point in reference, 1975 was the last time we did a citywide plan up until uh 2021. So, without a plan, we are still going to grow. We're still going to have anywhere between 150 and 170 people move to Charlotte. Uh that growth will be uh unchecked and uncoordinated. So the community area plans provide uh a basis on how we grow with an equitable lens. So it provides clarity around access to essential amenities, access to housing, access to employment and how we uh use environmental justice tools to make decisions around land use and growth. So how does that actually play out? What are the benefits for the community? They provide the community area plans provide community level guidance on where we see change happening where uh growth will occur and that they further refine the 2040 plan. So the area plans specifically update the policy map. So the policy map was adopted in 2022 and the area plans the the past two and a half years have taken recommendations on revisions to that policy map and they are included in the adoption of the community area plans. Uh it also helps us to memorialize what the community needs are so that we can look through a lens of those community needs for future resoning petitions and what benefits we want uh the community to reap from that development. And then finally, the area plans incorporate all so the area plans that existed prior to the 2040 plan. The area plans today incorporate recommendations from those what the built form should look like, how tall buildings should be, uh where they should be located in the community and things that really matter to several of our neighborhoods. So the area plans are really about how we take vision into action. So let's talk a little bit about what has gotten us to this point. We started this journey in 2019 with the 2040 plan and that had over half a million interactions. That includes everything from emails to in-person to walking tours and the voices that that represented. So whether that be neighborhood leaders, uh, community activists uh developers passionate passionate people from our community were all represented in that first phase in the 2040 plan. We then move straight into the community area planning process. And through that process, there have been 750,000 additional interactions with over 2700 voices or very specific comments and feedback that we've gotten through that process. So again, that really represents that wide variety of neighborhood leadership um community voice and vision in the plans that those interactions have occurred through all five phases. So you can see on the right side uh starting with how we be began the process to how we set the foundation for great places to supporting the vision and then finally where we are today plan for action and then review and adoption. So we started this final phase phase five uh in April. In April we released 14 community area plans. you are all aware uh that was uh several months ago. We worked with you all to figure out what type of additional engagement should we have. So that started in April, May, June, August and then we got to the September time period where we decided we needed to uh continue refining and understand a little bit more. So looking back at that September uh 22nd deferral, we really focused on two major areas. One is how do our neighborhoods and residents know that their feedback is incorporated, that their feedback has been vetted and that it has been addressed as most thoroughly as possible? And the second is does that feedback does uh the ch do the changes that we propose do they reflect the neighborhood's vision? And so we had some very specific issues that we wanted to tackle with uh some communities that I'll walk through tonight. So, Stillbury Acres Stillworth Cherry uh Northend and then we wanted to make sure that everyone's voice was heard. So, I'm going to talk about both of these categories and how we have been, uh, addressing them. So, the first thing we did is we talked about what does comm community what is continued engagement and continued community engagement look like. So, that started with uh we want to make sure that we are leveraging all the wonderful work that the city does to make sure we're hearing from our neighborhood leaders and that our neighborhood leaders know about this. Uh they know about the community area plans, they understand what they mean for them and they understand how they can plug in. So, we scheduled uh we for November 6 an informational webinar. We reached into our partnership with housing and neighborhood services and the wonderful work of their nest team. Uh they reached out to over 2,000 neighborhood leaders. They uh did reach out in phone calls two separate times to make sure that people really understood why this mattered for them and how this could be important to the future of their community and their neighborhood. And we had that webinar uh last Thursday. We had we followed the same format that the Nest team used in prior webinars. So uh we we used their technology uh we followed their format uh and we had over 90 neighborhood leaders participate in that. We are still working through some of the general questions that are were from that webinar. several of you attended which I really appreciate that and and I will say that uh from our initial review of the questions the majority of questions are really clarifying or understanding what does this mean for my community meaning I'm not opposed to it I generally think it's a good idea I just want to understand how I can use it and how it applies to me also did continued engagement with those very specific neighborhoods and some of the issues that you all raised at your September 22nd meeting. So, we went on a walking tour with the Cherry community. We sat down in person with the Dworth residents. Uh we had already reached out to and really worked hard with Steelberry Acres doing both of those things, walking tour and sitting down and talking to them in person. And we last just last week even had another conversation with our North End uh partners group and are planning to continue to work to make sure that people are educated and people are their voices are heard and they understand how they can participate both today and tomorrow in planning in the city of Charlotte. So now let's talk a little bit about how we handled that that other uh category that I mentioned which is let's make sure that everybody's voices are heard and that uh it's really clear as to how their voices are incorporated. So we took another deep dive into all the comments that we heard in the in phase five. So it was over a thousand comments uh and we really wanted people to understand exactly what action was being taken with their comment. So if they needed an answer, we gave them an answer. If they asked a question that was, "How does this impact me?" Then we explained, "How does it impact you?" If they said, "I want to make this change," then we took another deep dive to say, "Is this feasible? Does this make sense? How can we make sure that their change is incorporated?" So that's exactly what you see here. I'm going to deep dive a little bit into some what those categories are and the actions just so you can see some examples around that. and then I'll walk through some of the changes that have resulted from that. So before I go into that deeper dive, I just want to show you what that actually looks like on our website. Uh we had feedback from you all that it needed to be easy to understand. So uh again, we took all of our revetting all of our new work and we made sure that it was um easy to find. So, we reorganized the order on the website so that uh you would really see it and that we created versions where it's all the same information, but if you want to have it in a sortable spreadsheet, you can sort by the area plan itself. If you want to look at it just for a specific council district, you can do that as well. And it also includes all of our prior webinars and our series that take a deep dive into each area plan. So, you can find that there as well. So, some of those uh comments that we we said before, you know, we had a lot we had a number of comments that didn't warrant changes, right? So, uh those comments, they weren't just all things that could be incorporated. So, I wanted to help explain uh when you hear those numbers, what does that actually mean? So, we had a bulk of comments that were really just about clarifying questions, which is exactly what we saw in the webinar on Thursday. you know, uh, things like how does the planning process, how would this be used in the planning process or zoning process? Uh, how was this created? Does this affect my ability to develop my property? That's a clarifying question. Okay, it it requires an answer, some additional information. We also had comments that were just generally supportive. I like this. I can't wait till it uh is adopted and goes into action. Uh we had some that were uh concerns that were already addressed. I want a tree policy that does XYZ and we may already have a tree policy that does XYZ. We had things that were out of scope. So uh things that were just something we can't control in an area plan, helmet laws, school funding, police enforcement. Uh we had some general uh opposition to citywide goals. So, we had about 3 to 5% that were just opposed to foundational policy for the city, things like equity, things like uh housing choices. We had sight specific issues that was about 2% which is really just a parcel level concern. I want a traffic light here. And we've made sure all of those were forwarded and accepted by receiving departments like transportation and transit and cats. And then we had some that were just general misunderstandings. So with the with the comments that uh did yield changes, I wanted to talk a little bit about what some of those comments uh specifically looked like. Uh for example, this comment which actually came from uh one of you all which is a great comment which had was how do we provide additional clarity around where we anticipate change to occur. So, we've gone back in and highlighted with a blue outline in each of the area plans where we anticipate change to occur so that it's very clear for the community uh exactly where they can expect to see changes in their area plan. We've also made some very granular changes to uh the policy map which again are in this outline proposed changes. So on the left you see the adopted map. That's the 2022 map. Uh that is the guidance that we are using today in our resoning decisions. On the right you see the revised policy map with changes. So uh we heard loud and clear at our public hearing and through continued conversations that Steelberry Acres really wanted a better transition between the manufacturing that surrounded their community and the growth of the airport and their neighborhood. So we worked collaboratively both with Steelbury Acres and the airport to uh come up with this compromise of industrial mixed use instead of manufacturing and logistics. The industrial mixeduse was actually a choice by Stilberry Acres because they looked at all of the things that uh could be developed in th those zoning districts and thought that was the best fit to accommodate that transition from uh manufacturing to their community. So again that on the left is what we would use as policy today. That on the right is what the revised map uh is with Cherry. We went through the same exercise. So we walked around the community with them and we identified uh where prior they have in the adopted policy map regional activity center. So that darker blue higher intensity uh land use. Bless you. And then on the right um they have you can see where the changes are proposed which is uh lower density it's community activity center because they were really passionate about having a transition from uh the metropolitan and the higher intensity area to the center of their community. So, you also see changes here um with around a new park and preserve that's proposed in the revised policy map and also uh some changes to a couple of the blocks specifically around where they own parcel and I mean where they own the parcel and really want to see more of a neighborhood to scale development. So, we then made sure that those changes were also reflected in the illustrative concept. So, you can see that here. This is a change where uh the prior version was much higher intensity and this is a a lower intensity. Um and then finally I'll just walk through the changes that we worked through with Dworth, which again the one on the the left is what is adopted today. The one on the right is what is proposed. And you can see there um it's hard to see on the screen, but there are a couple yellow outline parcels that again reflect what that community vision is and what they would like to see different from the one that is currently adopted to the one that is proposed. So I want to also just take a moment to make sure that we understand how the community area plans can further clarify the 2040 plan uh that was again adopted um in 2021. So the community area plans have a couple policies that add some clarifications and some learning from the 2040 plan. So uh in the 2040 plan we had uh you know neighborhood one was neighborhood one. We see that every third Monday of the month. And so we often have petitions where someone wants to go from a neighborhood 1A to a neighborhood 1 C and perhaps disrupt the character of that neighborhood. We've learned that we need to put some guard rails on that so we can understand uh how to evaluate that request and how to evaluate when people may want to change that. So, in the community area plans and all 14 of them, uh there's a policy that uh gives us some additional guidance where you really need to evaluate what the existing neighborhood pattern and character is, what the average lot sizes are, what the road frontages are, what is the road that the developments on, and where the location is before you make that decision. So, it's not always appropriate to go from one um neighborhood one to another one. Sometimes there need to be guard rails on that. So that policy if the area plans are adopted would help us to clarify and provide additional guidance to the 2040 plan. It also gives us this new policy map that is about 6 to 8% more accurate than the one that exists today. So it is closer to the community v vision and it gives us clear guidance within the area plans on how that map evolves. And then finally, uh, something that was not in the 2040 plan that is really added in the community area plans are the environmental justice recommend recommendations and environmental impact recommendations. So that is um things [snorts] like taking land surface temperature into consideration when we're looking at proposed developments uh measuring that over the long term so that we can understand what the impacts are. So again, I'll just finish with uh why we believe these are beneficial, which is really they give us additional guidance. Uh they update the policy map. They help us memorialize what those needs are so that both our community has that tool and you all have that tool uh to use when you're uh vetting resoning petitions and development proposals. and they also pull forward the area plans that existed prior to the 2040 plan and have a new updated version. So these plans give us that 100% coverage. You can see here uh where we have evolved from uh when we started the 2040 plan we had about uh 27% coverage for our city. uh we now are working to get towards that 100% coverage and we want to make sure that we have the best tool in place to provide guidance for both our investments as a city and uh for um the community. We also want to make sure you're really clear about what our next steps are. So, uh this is a foundational document that again builds it puts the structure on top of the 2040 plan. It gives us more of a framework to work from. Um but we know that planning is iterative and we will keep planning. So uh very exciting. We have a lot of transit station planning to do. Uh so we will start uh working on all of the different specific plans uh in parallel. If this is adopted, we will keep working towards environmental impact action plan. So we have a couple neighborhoods that are very interested in that. uh we know the need is high. We have communities like Stilbury Acres and North where you have manufacturing right next to residential neighborhoods. That is a great tool that we are testing in corridors right now that we believe uh we can uh use to get that fine grain detail that they want and the tools in place. And then we also know that again we have a lot of uh transit station work to do as to how we link our transportation and our infrastructure investments and what uh type of investment we need in a very small area to leverage uh our new transportation system. So that is the work that will continue. Uh you can see here all of the different actions. We have an updated resoning staff analysis uh that we will launch that again gives us that umbrella framework. It uh we will reference specifically the community area plans when we're looking at consistency. Uh we will and and we really uh were excited last Thursday to see some people interested in this CAP implementation road show where we will go um multiple times a month to community meetings to help people understand and continue answering questions um around what this means for them. And then we'll kick off those specific plans like the environmental justice action plan and the transit station plans. And then last but definitely not least, we will be doing an audit and a five-year assessment of the 2040 plan to again uh take our learnings from the past five years and figure out um how we move forward into the next five years. So with that, I'll answer any questions and be happy to provide any additional information. >> I think you have a few people that would like to address this. We'll start with Mr. Griggs, followed by Mr. Peacock come all the way around the dis and then come back around the dis. Okay, Mr. Driggs, start us off. >> Uh, thank you, Mayor. This is another landmark for us along with the vote last week, which we should note, by the way, last week the the mobility tax was approved. It's a big deal. Uh, it does create uh an opportunity and also a responsibility for us. But talking in particular about the area plans, um I've had the the pleasure of working closely with the staff uh going back to the inception of the 2040 plan and uh I just have to comment on the extraordinary uh competence professionalism dedication. Um I get text messages on Sunday afternoon. They answer calls at 7 in the evening. I mean these guys are tireless. Uh I believe we have the best planning staff in the country. Frankly, um we've reached a point now where uh I think we have to move ahead with these plans. And it doesn't mean that everything is fully baked and that we're done. But I think there are questions now that can't be answered until we gain some experience with this plan uh after it takes effect. um we we need to find out how it works and uh identify issues that in practice require more attention. I also believe that uh the great majority of people will not participate in a discussion of our planning process until it affects them. Uh and and so uh we need to get that feedback. We've had that feedback through our zoning process and other engagement. I've had it in my district. But uh we need to gain some practical experience with this uh and not [snorts] talk in generalities. I think that we have done all we can prior to the adoption of the plan. But uh understanding that we're not done and the work will continue. We're going to have seminars. Uh we will uh obvious continue to have the website. The staff will be available to engage with people and answer questions. So this doesn't uh permanently lock anything down or cast anything in stone, but it's the transition from the development and the theory of the plan to experience with the use of the plan. So I'm very hopeful that next week when our vote is scheduled, we will be able to reward the staff with a a good solid majority vote to pass this plan and move ahead with our process. To thanks to all of you, great job. >> All right, Mr. Peacock. >> Madame Mayor, my colleague has just captured all of my thoughts in in exactly four minutes, so I have no questions. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayfield. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Monica, thank you for the presentation this evening. Couple of questions for clarification. So, with the next to the last slide, we have the planning is irritative. So for clarification, we have smaller geography plans for specific issues. Is your expectation to still move forward with the 14 area plans but then for business activity centers, station area plans, employment district plans, focus investment plans, environmental impact that we slow down for those plans in order to have smaller geography plans for them. >> So the plan is they all they all work together and build on each other. So you start with the comprehensive plan. Uh then we had strategic plans like the mobility plan then the 14 area plans which provide the next layer of guidance. The specific plans are specific issue driven. We have some that have occurred like corridor playbooks. Uh we have uh some very specific work that's occurred while we've still been doing the while we've been working on the area plans. Uh I I let me make sure I understand your question correctly. But the goal is is that we have the foundation in place so we have the next layer of guidance to lead us on these specific plans. We can they they they don't they work together. >> So manager Jones, I have already shared on more than one occasion the concern I have with trying to move forward. all 14 area plans. So I and my colleague did have opportunity to tune in online last week. I have some concern regarding the numbers that we list as far as interactions as well as impressions. There were a number of questions that were asked that via online that were not identified to speak to. >> Why do I know this? Because I took screenshots in the majority of the conversations. So one of them where [snorts] a question was asked, I have a business incubator employment generator concept. Now, that doesn't really have anything to do with what the plan is. Yet, I think the opportunity when if we're going to say we're outreaching to the community is why staff is presenting cuz staff use for a email that we receive of which I'm quite sure my colleague is going to speak in more detail to we use a lot of technical language that isn't necessarily as easy to follow for community. So when community was asking some questions online those questions were not addressed. So for me, a basic question would be as we're having this conversation, manager Jones, you and I at one of our recent monthly meetings, I took you on a journey along Mount Holly as well as Mount Holly Huntersville Road. Council approved a project that was a reszoning that was outside of the 2040 plan. It was approved. Clear-cut happened. We said we have sustainability goals. Streets have been named. That construction project has come to a complete stop because there's a good possibility the company has run has gone out of business and or in the pro uh process of bankruptcy. But in the meantime, we allowed this clear cutting to happen. So now we have this vacant lot that has some infrastructure in place. Nothing in the discussion of the plan talks of that. So, one of the reasons why I am attempting to encourage my colleagues that we need to break these plans up because some areas of the community are ready to move forward and I don't want to stop that growth. But we have other areas that are experiencing different challenges such as approvals that have not moved forward yet they have done they have committed a certain percentage of the work that now is causing impact to community. again this clear cutting that you did because trees crazy idea create barriers and a certain level of protection and safety for single family but we've made way for diverse housing options multifamilies the clearcut happens the construction doesn't continue any language that addresses that but we're seeing pockets where we have more of that happening that area isn't necessarily ready for our plan. Especially when also one of the questions was about the fact that we have approved a number of things that are in direct contradiction to our 2040 plan. So, help me understand how this benefits. I appreciate the outreach that has been done. Personally, I've enjoyed the in-person more because then I've been able to attend a number of those and people are able to have that oneonone. the online is a little more of a challenge because the questions don't necessarily get chosen to have discussion about or even if it is when you respond it's not necessarily in a way that makes some residents feel like they understand not only what you said but how does this apply to me because again all I want to know is what's going to happen in my neighborhood what's going how is it going to impact my time from leaving my home to get to work, to get to school, to pick up children, family, whatever it is. And it's not necessarily shared in that way to where it's easily I'm easily a able to grasp it based on some of the questions that were typed and or conversations I may have had. I appreciate the work that you all are doing. We have a little bit of the luxury of time because of how we build it out. I do not believe in unintended consequences because if we address it on the front end, if we have diversity and thought on the front end, so when the question is asked, you're making a conscious decision where you're saying this is a negative that I can absorb or that I'm comfortable with. So you can't say I didn't know because you did know because it was brought up. You just chose not to address it. So then when it happens, that was a consequence that I was comfortable with versus unintended consequences. I'm just asking the consideration of us breaking it up in order to make sure that it's right. >> Thank [snorts] you. Madam, >> can I just speak to the comments the qu just the one qu on the questions from the webinar? So we worked with housing and neighborhood services. they had done several uh webinars prior and did an excellent job of getting people there. We had a lot of questions and so what we're now doing is going through all of the questions and responding in as plain language as we possibly can to answer directly provide resources answer directly what all those questions are. So, uh, we communicated, which you probably received, we communicated today with everyone that that just takes a little bit of time for us to make sure we're really giving them the right information and answer. And so, we will deliver that by Friday with all the specific answer, resource, clarification, etc. with links so that people if they did not receive an answer in person or even if they did, we're making sure that they get um a direct plain language answer by Friday to address what their question was. Even if it is not specific to area plans like the example you gave, if it's a business incubator, we want to make sure they have the information and they understand where that fits. >> Thank you for that that trigger for Mr. Manager Jones. I don't know if this is accurate or not and it will be helpful just to update full counsel at some point soon. We no longer are have access to our meetings and information on Facebook. It's only on YouTube. That's something that was mentioned to me earlier today and I was like, well, council didn't receive a update on that. if we're talking about how we engage and reach out because one of the challenges on Facebook and this isn't the first time because again Monica you all have done a wonderful job getting out I personally like the in person but it's very difficult on when we're outreaching getting the communication or at least acknowledging to people so that they have a paper trail saying hey I did get your message I'm going to follow up because others we're reading that so we also may want that information because we also may have had a similar question or the same question. So what forms of communication are we utilizing would be helpful to know but thank you for not only capturing and getting that information back out but sharing that [snorts] >> Watlington. >> Um thank you and thank you Monica for the presentation and for the work you all are doing. Um, this becomes even more critically important as we think about how this marries up to the mobility plans going forward, particularly around neighborhood stabilization and displacement. So, I'm particularly interested in the updates that have been made and in the work that you all are doing here. Um, I do agree with my colleague in that I would prefer a phased approach um based on readiness of each area. Oh, I do agree with my colleague and that I prefer a phased approach of adoption uh given that some areas are more prime and more ready and also more vulnerable to potential displacement as we think about upcoming investments. Um I also agree with the previous comment that said there are some things that we will learn along the way as we implement. Uh to that end, I really would like to understand what is the change management plan knowing that there are going to be some things that we're going to learn along the way. It's extremely important to me that we are able to react and respond to that within a timely manner. I think about some of the things we learned uh after the UDO was adopted. Some things that we wanted to make sure that we um addressed. Many of those were very foreseeable consequences. Um but in this case certainly there'll be things that pop up that we want to change. Can you talk about what is that plan going to look like to be able to stay agile over the course of the next 6 to 12 months? >> Yes. So I was just trying to flip through my notes to make sure I had the the right answer to give you. But so we expect in the actual document in the area plans themselves it outlines uh what we call map amendment criteria. So basically how would we update that on a regular basis? So both the policy map and then the area plans themselves. So we we will have to adapt and do that on a regular basis. So you you will see we I'm going to look to Kathy as to if we have the specific time frame identified in the plans as to when we would bring forward those um edits, those kind of learned lessons. Uh so we've we've discussed it's those specific. >> Yeah. Yeah. So the whole thing is whole every five years we do a whole overview in the interim the specific plans are on that when they're completed they kind of rise up to make changes to the overall area plan. So if you were to do a specific environmental justice action plan in a neighborhood and it had recommendations that change the actual place types then that would get adopted up and then reset the frame. So that can happen, you know, every several months basically. >> Okay. I'd like to, if possible, I'd like to dig into that much more because I want it to I want people in our community to feel like they're able to drive that change. >> The worst thing we can do is see a problem and have people lifting it up over and over and not be able to do anything about it in a time that means something for them. So I hear the every five years for the full plan. I'm looking for something even more agile, even more community uh led so that we can be responsive uh in a timely manner. >> Yeah. And that's outlined in the major map amendment criteria and it outlines how a community can basically jumpstart that so we can make sure and follow up with you. So, thank thank you, Madame Mayor. I agree with some of the comments that's been made by my colleagues. Um I agree we have one of the best planning staff in the nation and I hear that from my colleagues about how we have uh done our work with our UDO and other 2040 plan. Um but I also want to acknowledge some of the concerns that's been raised. Um [clears throat] specifically uh Mr. Drix is right. There are times where uh people will pay attention when they know how it affects them. So I think if we can provide an example uh it is easier to follow like uh I was going through this PowerPoint if you can make it uh give an example how will this plan be used number one just pretty simple very basic what happens if we don't adopt the plan uh do we go back to the previous plan or do we go back to no plan at all I think having a real example and maybe district by district do a seven do seven examples um and and break it down because council member Mayfield mentioned how technical this is and that's one of the comments we have heard like I got um I see that email that was forwarded to me from Dr. Janette Reverend Gar Mullins and she talks about in her email how we need to have plain language because not everyone can understand this development and planning language. So if we can have some sort of plain language of maps matrix that would help. Uh also one example she gave in her email is that if we can have slower paced interactive sessions where residents can ask questions uh where we have enough time for community questions and reflection. Um that's the type of feedback I have received. So I'd like to continue that conversation, but having a real example would certainly u put things into perspective as to how it affects residents in all parts of our city and I think that is that is missing. >> Yeah, I will just answer really quickly because we we're making edits. So uh we we have some outlined information around kind of what happens if we don't adopt the area plan. So if we don't just if we did not if we were to say we're not adopting them then the current adopted map which is the 22 the 2022 map would be the guiding policy for the city in partnership with the 2040 plan. So the 2040 plan citywide would be the referenced material and document for all of our future resoning cases. all of the kind of those 10 goals and priorities uh would be the lens at which all uh resoning cases would be evaluated and all decision making would be evaluated and that the the policy map from 2022 would be our land use guidance. So from a community member perspective, um there would not be the needs assessment that identify where there are needs in their community. That would not be, you know, adopted. They could use it as a reference, but it wouldn't be something that would be guiding policy. We wouldn't have the priority goals for their 14 geographies and we wouldn't have the adopted revised map that takes into account their feedback and their perspective and some of the changes that they wanted to occur. Um we also wouldn't have the program guide uh which is part of the adoption includes um how we evaluate change and very clear metrics so that anyone can pick it up and understand what uh change can occur near me and how it may or may not be supported. And so that provides clarity for community members and for the development community and for all of us to understand if something is appropriate or not. And so without adopting it, we will not have that guidance. We will just be using the 2040 plan and the policy map. >> I get that. I think that's where you we you need to have an example like okay here is a site. If we don't adopt this, it's going to go based on previous plan. And here is what it says. It doesn't take into consideration environment justice, tree canopy to council member Mayfield's question. Uh, and let's go, let's take an example of acres because I know you all met with them and a neighborhood did reach out and said they were satisfied and with the changes that you all made. Let's take that example. Here are the changes that's been made. If you don't do this, uh, it's going to go back to the previous plan that where it shows heavy manufacturing, right? Right. Or industrial, whatever that is. I think those are the concrete examples that you need to show because this is this is too technical for community to understand. I appreciate I mean you're doing a great job as a planner but I think if you can break it down to third grader this is how it impacts you. This is how it impacts your neighborhood. This is how it impacts your quality of life. I think that's where we can truly make an impact. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. So, we'll go over to this side of the day as Miss Brown, do you have any comments? >> Thank you so much, Brian Pro Tim. Um, I was looking through my notes trying to figure out uh some of the community leaders that had some concerns similar to what uh council member Mayfield and Watlington, Dr. Watson has already shared. I did want to note that u first of all, Monica, thank you so much the team and the staff for all the great work that you all have done on this extensive project. um is complacent and it's a lot of information to be able to to to look over uh the broad spectrum of how the the community area planning uh placement maps and and and how they need to be configured. However, um I would just have to stick with um >> there's a lot of unanswered questions for community leaders and I know that time is of the essence in everything that we do. We're always um under a time frame for where we have to have things in and they have to be done. But the one thing I don't want uh to forget about is that as we're looking um to move the plans forward in inclusivity, make sure that you know the vision is bold, but we have to make sure that we're uplifting our most vulnerable population. And I don't think that's being done. Uh if we could break down maybe more sessions and uh host more intimate sessions for community engagement for them to be able to come out and express how they uh feel about the maps in a greater detail. And what I mean by that is let me get a little bit more simpler. District 3 is humongous and some areas of district 3 may be um ready to move forward when we start to look at uh the displacement and uh the gentrification that's taking place in district 3. want to be very very mindful of how we go about getting the information out and the dialogue and being able to be receptive in the information that's coming back from the community leaders and and the emails that I got in my email. Um, you know, I'm blessed to work with you and have about 20 days left. So this will definitely fall into the hands of um our other team members and I hear my colleagues hear me attentively as a deas. It's very important that these presentations be rooted for the community and that they understand the rhetoric. And what I'm getting is that the language is um too complex for uh the neighbors and our constituents to understand um the data and um just incorporate um more understanding with a deeper dive into our communities that are asking for more information and more input. and I wouldn't be able at this moment to to go and um sign off on the entire project moving forward. I would look at um us breaking it up and moving out what makes the most sense. But uh for me and uh the constituents that I'm hearing from loud and clear in District 3, I wouldn't be able to to to do it today. And I know you all work really hard. I've been on several phone calls with you and I respect your work to the fullest. But I also respect uh the people that are reaching out to me and gave me an opportunity to serve for two years. And uh they are very very vocal and I'm very diligent in listening to them and digesting everything that they've shared with me and those are my concern and that's my feedback. is too complex and too many unanswered um questions from people that work really really hard in the corridors of opportunity to make our city a better place to live in. So um thank you so much Monica and thank you guys for all of the hard work that you do but just I'm just not ready there respectfully I wouldn't be able to do it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Molina. >> Um thank you uh Mayor Pro Tim. I uh first of all I I echo I don't want to repeat anything. Thank you guys for the work that you've done. Um I again because I've had the opportunity to be on the transportation planning and development committee. I've heard a lot of these updates in committee. Um I think the challenge lies in the fact that we have thousands of neighborhoods thousands across the city. um and they have individual needs and and what I hear uh from my colleagues and and even residents is um we already have an adopted 2040 plan and we have a unified development ordinance that also preempts some of what can and can't happen already based on the policy. Right? So for an example u and and then I I think what is expected and I'm making an assumption. This isn't something that I can give you any type of qualitative data but I'm making an assumption based on what I'm hearing. Uh people are expecting barriers that could help against some of the things that residents are currently being preempted by. So for an example um the idea of something being by rightight um which already takes place without there being an area plan just simply because of the language of of of what can and can't take place in certain you know uh plan types um they're looking for things uh that would provide protection and I see that in the community area plans you know there are some I guess some forward thinking right so this is good foresight, right? Like what we've already learned. This is my synthesis and I need you to help me understand whether I have this right or not. Um the 2040 plan, we got a plan that already says how we plan for this community as a whole overall to grow based on what we anticipate as growth. And then we got the plans based on where we anticipate those people moving to, right? And then we got um kind of a design of what people can do once they buy a certain type of property, whether that be residential or commercial, whether they to what level of density they can take their property to based on where it is and and what the plan is for it going forward. I think what people are expecting these things to do is for them to provide protections when community members have things happen in their neighborhood that they don't want. is what I think I'm hearing. And I I don't know if there is anything that can provide that at this time because of preeemption. And that doesn't mean that I don't think we try, but I just, you know, because I wasn't on the council when we adopted neither the 2040 plan or the UDO, I think that it would have been um I don't know if there ever would have been a place where we had all of the information considering the size of city that we are. So, of course, what all of decisions we make, we learn [snorts] as we go, right? Um but I I like I said I think the challenge here is um the challenge here is and and the opportunity. So the thing that excites me is the idea of the specific plans. Specific plans means like what she had circled those areas where based on [snorts] the specificity of an area you can make decisions and then those decisions can actually after a certain period bubble up to change the entire overall area plan from what you're learning. But specific areas having the same issues would determine whether they affect the overall plan. Right? Uh in a case like the east side, however, that's a very large geography. So, how many specific plans would we need to be affected by something before it actually affects that one overall? I mean, it's a lot of questions, right? And so, I don't know if we could have definition properly um at any point um where we'd be able to answer that for every neighborhood in the community. So, lots of questions and and this is just me. Do I have that right? Is there anything that you would add to that? No, that that was uh that was a pretty good explanation of it. I think it was the the key point is is that yes, every piece of property has uh a property right attached to it today, right? That is in line with the UDO and their zone zoning existed prior to the UDO, right? Um, and so the Charlotte Future 2040 plan is our guiding document for policy uh for our decisions that we make that changes those entitlements, you know, when when you guys make a resoning decision. We're trying to further clarify that with the area plan so that there's there's more clarity as to what's going to happen and it's not as broad as it kind of is today, right? So, so that is the guidance that we're trying to put in the area plans and that we've been working with the community for is is more specificity and then we get even to additional specificity beyond that so that you're not just looking because we know that what's good in one neighborhood is not necessarily good in all neighborhoods and the 2040 plan applies to all >> all neighborhood >> neighborhoods. Um so we're trying to get that level of specificity and we've learned some things along the way. So, hence the environmental justice work that's in the community area plans and hence the um you know the the tweaks and and revisions, lessons learned along the way with the neighborhood one. >> Well, I do largely appreciate the amount of feedback that you all are taking, you know, um and and implementing into these plans intermittently as you're getting that feedback from us and the public. So, thank you for that. I know that this is not easy work. Um, I know that this is challenging to plan for a city of our size and now you got transportation running adjacent to that. So, um, I I I guess I'll look forward to, you know, just communicating with my colleagues over the next week or so to see kind of what the sentiment is. Like I said, I do realize some of the areas of opportunity in this. It's not perfect. Um, and like I said, what I hear and what I hear, you know, here and at the community level is that people are looking for things that will protect them from on a neighborhood basis from things happening in their neighborhood that they would not like to have happen is what I'm understanding. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Madame Mayor, and thank you, Monica, for the presentation. Uh, you all do a a a great job and and are very professional. Um, my position has has been that there are residents that have spoken out and their concerns are not being incorporated into the plan. um which is why I led the deferral or um on the 22nd. So, I've got a couple of questions. From the 22nd of September to to today, how many more resident recommendations have been incorporated into the plan? So the you'll see here on this first page of what we distributed these are the concrete um changes whe they whether they be map changes or recommendations that have been proposed since the tw the 22nd. So these these resulted from all of those specific meetings that we've had uh one-on-one sessions kind of taking a deep dive into what specific issues are. So, uh, please let let us know. I mean, we we are happy to we we've met with a lot of people and we're happy to, you know, if somebody has a specific question, concern, changes, I mean, even just last week, uh, you know, we're having a meeting this week because we need to understand if you have a concern and you feel like it's not being heard, we need to understand what specifically are the things you want to like how can we incorporate that feedback in a way. So my question was for a number because the public can't see that spreadsheet. >> So there are well there are there are nine boxes but it's about 20ish changes because there well I'd have to count because there's several parcels that might be changed. So whether you count them as one change or a whole change. So, 20 is changes since since September. Yes. Okay. And I I I saw your numbers, the 1,000 um comments I think in phase five [snorts] and and we also saw categories of the different comments. Can you pull that slide up, please? I can't change the slide. [snorts] >> You would have to be It's It's slide number 10. >> Let's go. because I saw different categories of of um the comments. >> Yeah, it's like questions support like basically breaks down the different categories of what the comments are. >> Okay. such as clarification questions, general support, concerns already addressed, out of scope issues, opposition to citywide goals. I wanted to know, did you categorize how many of those comments yielded changes? >> Yes. So, those were the ones that didn't warrant changes. about 20 once about 20% uh so the there were about 20% of all comments yielded an actual document change about 38% of all comments were just asking a question that then that question was responded to. So then we had about 17% that were just out of scope, about um 7% that were a misunderstanding, 2% that were sight specific, 3% that were already addressed, 7% that just said their comment was like I like this, 3% that were their comment was I don't like this. So we we can get view all the percentages of breakdown of what those were. 200. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, that's the concern. >> It's right there. >> Out of a million people >> in the city almost >> about a thousand comments >> were [snorts] received in this phase and 20% of those changes which is 200 yielded changes. So th that's been the concern and even of this what I'm saying is there are residents that have been involved since the beginning that have not been or felt or been heard and um one of the things that Ed McKenna said earlier is numbers are important but the dialogue is more important. So we we for in order for me to support this and I would hope council this is on us now because city staff has done what they're what they're charged to do. Um our residents are not feeling heard and the the goal for that meeting on the 6th was my expectation was engagement with the residents and we [snorts] talked about it and I asked you for just 15 minutes overview and allow time for questions and answers. Mr. Jones, that that that didn't happen. There was a 40minute presentation >> and we ran out of time at the end. That's why there were numerous questions that weren't addressed and and so I got an email. Um, Council Member Ashmir mentioned Reverend Garner [snorts] and her email says, "I joined the 2040 area plan webinar with hope and curiosity. The presentation offered a rich tapestry of maps, metrics, and momentum. But the pace and the complexity left many of us overwhelmed. What was meant to orient felt like a rush, swift, dense, and difficult [snorts] to digest. I write not to critique, but to call us higher. Planning for 2040 is not merely technical. It is communal, ceremonial, and deeply consequential. If we are to build a Charlotte that reflects the fullness of its people, our engagement must be accessible, paced with care, and framed for understanding. She also sent a second email that says, "I reside in the West inner and have had opportunities to be on several calls and also to have attended the West Boulevard corridor wide meetings with where presentations were made by local government staff. I've spoken out with questions and concerns regarding the cap relative to the west inner location. In speaking with some residents, they are still somewhat confused, not sure what changes will take place in the west inner and concerned about displacement. And she lists several recommendations. One of is plain language summaries. And we've talked about plain language before. I mentioned that before. So, and we've talked about since the 2040s simplifying if we're only getting 200 comments out of a million people, we are not we can't blame the residents. Just can't. I have another email from the north inner and I had the pleasure of being on that call and uh there are communities who've expressed concerns specifically north inner which is led by Karen Sullivan of Northend partners to help illustrate the issues. The members in that community they partnered with the urban institute at UNCC to [snorts] create a map which shows that community carries an inequitable level of the environmental burden. I saw the map. there's no uh red line stations. There's several challenges in that community that they feel they're not being dressed in their setup for displacement. So I we again council, it's on us. I agree that we should not uh approve all of these together because these are residents that haven't felt heard. That meeting on the 6th was invitation only. There were people that didn't even know about it. There were calls and and phone calls. Um, and it just wasn't I had asked for the webinar for each plan like we had had before so that these people who had been engaged could ask very detailed questions but it was a cap 101. It was very basic and it was not appropriate and it did not meet the needs that that we deferred the vote for. So, um, I [snorts] asked for the transcript of the meeting for all of you so you could see the questions and see the percentage of questions that weren't answered. We didn't receive that. Um, we and and someone mentioned the public being engaged. We have people that are engaged, but they're not being heard. So, I'm not willing to support a plan to to see what happens later because we know, Dr. Watlington, that there is no change once it's done. So, I think we need to get this right because there are no unforeseeable consequences. I keep telling you, my seven-year-old grandson, he's learning responsibility for his decisions and we need to take responsibility for ours. So, that's all I have to say. We we cannot move forward with 14 plans in my opinion. The public's not ready and um and they've told us that. So, now it's up to you, council. Thank you. >> Okay, Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell, >> I think a lot of comments from my colleagues colleagues been said today and I I find it a little interesting. I'll be the first one to tell you that because other priorities I had on my desk. Um I did not make this a top priority. Councilman Johnson, they called me and asked me was I going to join the meeting on November 5th. So just in the conversation um around the das I'm going to come to two conclusions. One um I don't want this be like UDO where it really caused a lot of tension among this council. Um, I was fortunate enough not to be down here, [laughter] >> but I know there was a lot of battle scars and me, I guess, Councilman Mayfield, we just from afar uh, looked at and I remember telling the citizen if I was down there, I would advocate for more time. I think sometime we just have to get it right collectively. Um, secondly, I do think there's enough partnership. You heard comments that [snorts] and Monica don't kill me. Uh but I do think a peacemeal approach I I think would be could be more acceptable among this council. I don't want to use the word peace meal. So uh we would phase in different area plan. That's that's better than saying peace meal. I don't like the peace meal. So phasing in the community area plans might be more acceptable. Just listen around the diet. I think for two reasons. I think there's a lot of concern that if we don't get it right the first time, we will never change it again. >> I think secondly, I do think it's a u a still a lot of noise out in the community. And and here's where I think we have felt as a council. So, council, I think we got to put this on our responsibility. I I'm not sure we've had made realistic expectation of staff. And so, you got 12 different expectations what they wanted to see. And I think staff, you have then tried to take care all 11 of us. I'm not going to put the mayor in it. All 11 of us. And that caused confusion. That caused frustration on your side. And I think you hearing from some of the council members. They are still frustrated as well. So if I can remember, we delayed this council member Johnson. We delayed this to come back to us. And November 24th will be our last council meeting with this current council. So, uh, we we are stuck in a bind. We got we got one more week uh to decide. Well, two well one more week, right? >> November 24th because December 1st it it's a new council. So, >> um I can't remember the timeline, but we say we'll defer. We're going to have new committee assignments probably December 2nd. >> And I I don't know, city manager. Break it up. Um, do we go what we feel comfortable on November 24th that council can get support by phasing in different area plans or do we just continue to say we'll visit this again in ed committee after December 2nd? I I I just think we kind of in a crossroad especially from a timeline. My recommendation would be if you're going to move forward on November 24th, uh you use a phase approach and continue to allow us to work through certain part of this community who voices have not been heard as loud as we would like for them to be heard and continue to incorporate and get their feedback. >> Madame Mayor, >> yes, Miss Mayfield. >> Thank you, manager Jones. I would just like to point out 6 months ago >> when I made the first suggestion of breaking it up, >> we could have already passed possibly three or four of these during this time versus the push back of we want to do 14. >> Correct. had we went on ahead and put the energy and the time in the areas where we were hearing from community cuz I never said the whole thing let's not do it but six months ago if we had taken the first recommendation of instead of pushing 14 let's break it up we possibly could have already passed >> district six a lot of their work a lot of the work in parts of South Park area and some of the upper north area. So now we're in December. We're down to our last two meetings but [snorts] six months we have delayed we have deferred but if the direction from your office to the team was one uh phasing because that >> language feels more comfortable which I'm fine with the language as long as we did the work we wouldn't be now having this discussion where we're possibly concerned that we only have two meetings left. So, what we going to do? So, I'm hoping as and I know we have a responsibility council to get some writing back to you as our manager based on conversation, but I'm hoping that we take this as an opportunity as we move into a new term that if you have multiple members on council that are sharing a similar question on procedure and policy that from your office it will be reflected through staff to listen. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um Mayor Prom and then I want to um address Council Member Driggs. Mayor Prom. >> Thank you. >> Can you put me in the queue, please? >> I'm sorry. She >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um I wanted to uh make my comments uh like the rest of my colleagues, uh Monica. And first of all, I just want to say thank you to you and your team. As you mentioned, uh in this packet, there are several changes and modifications that uh your team has done due to listening to community and in particular in the south inner um area where a couple of my uh neighborhood leaders who have been well engaged throughout the entire process. Um but you've you've listened to them and you've continued to listen to them. you've gone out to meet with them and I've heard specifically back from a couple of them um that they are uh first of all very thankful with the high level of engagement that your team has had but then also um they really appreciate the movement and um and the flexibility that your team has demonstrated throughout this entire process. So, uh, thank you for that and because I think it's really important to reflect when a community does engage, um, with staff listen and they do make the modifications. So, I see this here in writing, but I've also heard from them in writing um, over the last uh, day or so. So, thank you for that. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. >> All right. Before Mr. Driggs, I think the manager wanted to have some comments as well. Uh, thank you, Mayor Brims of Council. Uh, first of all, I'd like to uh thank Monica and the team for the hard work. Um, going from um the comp plan to the UDO to where we are here tonight. I don't think there's ever been a vote that hasn't been complicated. Um, one thing I learned in that process is in this exchange between the team, the staff and the council, I it's um becomes very difficult when the goal line gets moved and I'm not necessarily saying that anybody's moving it. What I'm saying is if all of a sudden there's a new barrier with let's say a recommendation that we have like um phasing the approach um I think you will be very upset if all of a sudden staff says well that doesn't work right so and I'm not saying that's what it is what I am understanding that there are two issues one engagement and either it's u adequate that are not adequate. But engagement is an issue and that's something as a team that we are reviewing because what engagement may look like in one part of our city may not be the same way for another part of our city. >> We know there are certain things you don't do when on Wednesday nights, right, >> in certain communities because certain things are going on in those uh communities. Um so I I think that's you know point one second point is this whole concept of um adopting all of the plans or phasing them in um seems to be another conversation that's happening around the the the day what I don't know and this is what I mean by let's all be careful about the next few comments let's say moving the the goal the goalpost I don't know what happens to a neighborhood that has an adopted plan versus a neighborhood that doesn't have an adopted plan. I don't know if there one's at a disadvantage versus another one. Um I don't know what confusion exists if some neighborhoods have adopted plans and others don't. So So that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying don't do one, don't do the other. I just don't know um the consequences of having the phased approach, but it seems like the majority of you would like to [snorts] have something different than just an allin. I also believe or I pray that the majority of you would like this to rest on this council and not necessarily the next. >> I agree. >> Okay. So, that's just observation. [laughter] >> Okay. We want to do it right. >> Okay. Okay. >> All right. Mr. Dreads. >> Thank you, Mayor. So, I don't know if you remember a couple of months ago, uh, we were having a conversation in September about the deferral. And I told you then, guys, we're going to be in exactly the same place in two months that we are now. And somebody try and tell me that isn't true. Is anything different? And the fact is uh that um so I don't know exactly what what is going to what could happen that would move us from here. I I just don't see uh what it is that we can do that's going to respond. Bear in mind it's been seven months since these plans were released. The drafts of these plans were released [snorts] 7 months ago. and we've had that much time to engage with the community in any way possible. Uh to review for our own benefit what the plans say and um and to try to work through them. I I will say to you these plans are intrinsically complicated. If you try to simplify your explanation of this plan, there will be people who said you left something out and you misled me. Transparency does require a certain amount of detail just in order to render the plan faithfully. So I don't know how to solve that. Um and some people say they haven't been heard. You know the problem is not that they weren't heard. The problem is that they didn't get what they wanted. It's not the same thing. They had every opportunity to express their opinion and then in the greater context of our planning process. Maybe that position they took wasn't the one that prevailed. This plan is being created by the staff and by us, not by individual members of the public. So we listen to what they say and a whole lot of effort has been made to accommodate what they said. But there are times when people said, "I wasn't heard." And what they really mean is, "I didn't get what I wanted." Because the amount of engagement in some of the neighborhoods that we know the most about uh has been extensive walks, discussions, and so on. A lot was actually done. I've seen the way certain areas were redrawn, but um so I'm just at a loss in terms of where we go from here. three people who worked hard on this over the last year uh will now be left out I guess if we say we need more time. So that's unfortunate. I do agree that a six to five outcome is not a good thing. Uh you know I went through that and uh it was uh it was mean right and uh I think everybody with good intentions was pretty adamant about where they stood and the reasons that people had for being opposed or in support. I voted no. Right. Uh and my concern was primarily 2.1 and the fact that the plan looked like it would invade all kinds of neighborhoods, not just in my district. And sure enough, we found out right suddenly that N1A started to be a problem. And we had to work on that. We're still working on that. Um, but I I think the idea of not having area plans would be a bad thing because these area plans are mainly there in order to give residents the comfort that the structures of the planning process and the things that developers are allowed to do uh will not hurt them. >> That's really the main purpose, right? >> So, uh, and if you look at I mean the developers don't like it. They're they're now being told, look, aside from everything we told you before about how far apart and how tall and everything else, you these are the things that you also have to consider. That neighborhood, as we just heard, has these qualities, and we want you to respect that in your development proposal. That's the kind of thing that's in these plans. There's nothing there that is intended to benefit the developer community. These plans are all intended. So, the fact that some people don't think it's perfect shouldn't be interpreted to mean that they aren't good, that they aren't beneficial. There are about 65,000 people in each of these planning areas. And uh I would say in spite of all of our efforts after seven months, we have heard from a tiny percentage of them. And the responsibility to speak for the rest of them falls on us. They elected us. And so the question really is if you don't like it, what's your suggestion? Now we could look at the phased thing that came up and in the past one of the issues about that was um the fact that you have an uneven planning environment which means the rules are not the same in this place is in that place. Uh there could be a question as to whether that raises legal issues. We'd have to talk to uh our attorney and ti about whether there might be problems that we are administering these requirements from the plan unevenly. um they might also have an impact on where development occurs. So the people that held out find that they don't have the protection of area plans that we pass in other places. And wouldn't it be ironic if they ended up of all people being worse off? So uh with the best of intentions and I'm hearing what everybody's saying, I'm trying to interpret it and I just don't know where this group wants to go. You know, how does this come out? So, we don't do it now. And let's say we introduce a few of these plans early on. Now, three new people come in and they're going to have to get educated. That's going to take some time. Remember how long it took you? >> They signed up for it. Who cares, >> right? >> What's that? >> They signed up for it. Who cares? >> Uh, trust me, when you come on this council, we've all had the experience. There's a whole lot of stuff that you don't find out until you get here. >> I know. >> Uh, no. [laughter] >> Uh, so, uh, there's that. and and then again I I I just want to know what the body intends like so we don't do it now because after seven months we still think that there is something more that we should do. >> Uh what comes next? >> I think >> and this is the thing that I >> Watlington has raised her hand. >> I'm not sure if it's next or >> she's got the floor. >> Thanks. Um, this is always so interesting to me when we come to a place where it seems like we're clear about what the will of the body is and yet we have these conversations about all the ways we can get around what it seems to be the obvious will of the body. Um, I'm not sure why we continue to do that. To me, the what's next is either we vote it all down or we vote some of it up is what I'm hearing around the dis. to your point, it's been months and months and months. We've said the same thing for at least six months. At what point did we pivot to how do we figure out how to get done what they're asking versus how do we continue to move forward with what we've said we want to do that they've said they've got a problem with. So to me, what comes next is what are the plans, if any, that the district reps, after having connected in with their uh respective communities are comfortable with, well, let's let's let's vote those up if that's what the will of the body is. Go find out from a legal standpoint what might be the things that may be the watch outs. But until we have those answers, seems like we're going to be right here. Um, when it comes to the areas where there are still issues, I think from a communication standpoint, and I know that council member has spoken on this before, we've got to we got to update our communication to this century. Um, when we start to talk about ways to really engage with the community, while absolutely it's impressive that these numbers with the methods we're using are higher than they normally are, and that's a testament to the work you all are doing. every single person in this community has the world at their fingertips. We got to figure out how to reach these people where they are in a much easier way and and that means moving beyond some of the traditional methods. We see it happening everywhere in guerilla marketing. Why can't we figure out how to make that happen at the city? Um, so to me, what happens next is we innovate and I think until we get clear about the pivot, we're going to keep talking about how to bring back the same thing over and over and over again. So, that's what I'd be interested in is understanding from each district rep or and even the at large, what are the particular um plans that you're comfortable with? If you're comfortable with the number or the plans in district 7, you're comfortable with the plans of district six, I'm fully on board to support the district reps in those spaces. But we just need to know where people are. >> Well, Miss Flatlington, how about if you have an a way of putting that in a motion? I think that Mr. Driggs has said what's next and what do we want to do and how do we walk out of here maybe sometime at some point. So, if you have the um ideas to put that into a form of a motion, then we can go and I'll let Mayor Pro Tim go next and then hopefully you'll be able to get that done and provide it to us. >> Before you do that, can we have a clarification question from our new new city attorney? Are we able to vote on this tonight? We are not. I did not think so. >> So, we feel like we're flirting to come up to the edge to vote, but we cannot. >> This was information tonight. Yes, it is. But [clears throat] the 24th is going to come around pretty quickly >> and we need >> nothing's going to change. I think Mr. Driggs has been very clear >> vast and it's not we unless we have a change. So I'm Mayor Prom and then Miss Asher. >> Thank you Madame Mayor and Mr. Peacock. You took my first point because I think that's where we were going. But more importantly, so I I get and I understand it um that we're we have this tension between some areas that >> that are okay with the modifications and some areas that are still struggling to Mr. Drigg's point. I do believe that those who have wanted to participate in this process or learn more about this process has taken advantage of the numerous opportunities that this team has put together as a touch point. I I I do believe that the the communities at least for in district one that I know wanted to know more about the community area plan. They wanted to ask questions. They wanted to see more. they've figured out a way to tap into a variety of different touch points and I want to thank the team for engaging with them. Um so the the whole point of thinking about well if we delay we have to really be uh cleareyed on what's the endgame because I do also agree that with a deferral or a delay and and allowing a new council to come in who probably know very little about this process. They probably know some because they've been tracking, but um very little as as as much as the rest of our district reps and and current council members that have been engaged with community, there would be a high ramp up. But my point is what is the endgame for the deferral? Because if we're if we're having the conversation around a community area plan is really meant to first and foremost protect those communities from the developers having their way. Um having an uneven unbalanced city to me where there are guard rails in some communities and then there aren't guard rails in other communities create inequities in my from my perspective. So, that's my first concern. And I' I'd love to for staff uh to maybe perhaps share what you've seen in other communities, perhaps that's been done in other communities where you've had a a midway or a partial um enrollment of this, what has what has been the outcome? What has been the impact? Or has it been just great and not a problem at all? But I think that there would be challenges um to that from a community perspective. The last thing just in preparation for a vote um on the 24th is um our new wonderful uh city attorney. I'd like to understand the city's exposure to moving forward with a partial implementation because again in some areas if certain development is possible or allowed and in others it's not allowed um are we exposed from a a municipal perspective um from litigation from from certain communities or even from particular residents that can circle back and say hey you all did not act in my in my best in my best favor as a res as a taxpaying resident of this community. So, I'm open to the a way forward, but number one, if we're not going to do a full um implementation, I want to know what what are we being exposed to legally and what are the ramifications from a from a municipal perspective and perhaps looking nationally at some uh cities that may have done that and what have been the outcomes because I think it's a really really important question around how are we representing our residents and ensuring that we have the community first and certainly up for any additional marketing um levers or campaigns that we can do. But I I do want to say that I know that the staff at least in district one, you all have created a number of touch points and I know that uh my community leaders have leaned in and engaged in those more than one [clears throat] time. So, thank you for that. >> So, Monica, do you have >> Mayor I'm sorry. >> Okay. So, um um to the mayor Pro Tim's point, um I think any comparisons from other states or places is secondary to legally can it be done. >> Exactly. >> And I think that's the question that needs to be answered. >> Absolutely. >> We'll bet it. And we'll bet it. >> Okay. That's why I I've given her a first homework assignment. [laughter] And I think Miss W Miss wanted to speak as well. >> Yes. So while that's being explored, I think there are uh takeaways here. Uh [snorts] we all provided feedback. So there was let me just remind so I asked for examples district by district specific example that is easier for constituents to follow. How will this plan be used? What happens if it doesn't get adopted? This is what the difference is. Uh I think having that very simple example would certainly be helpful. I think we can work on that. Um also technical language. I know I hear that number of my colleagues talked about how this is very technical and we got comments from our neighborhoods asking for more um just plain language. So if we can have follow-up sessions for deeper dialogue uh because I understand that the webinar we had on the 5th did not we did not have enough opportunity to have Q&A at the end where we could engage with community. Um I think if we can have follow-up session and uh just having slow paced presentation where it's more interactive rather than we are just presenting let's ask let's we have at least 50% of time dedicated where community can ask questions um and uh I think those are the takeaways if we can work on those while we are exploring this other legal questions I think that would be helpful that would at least address some of the concern that my colleagues and I have raised. That's all I have. Oh, and and the communications that um Dr. Watlington had raised about just making it how can we engage the community. Uh I've seen some very innovative ways where um our communication has helped us push out very critical information through social media and I think we can do that with this. Uh I see Jack here. He's got his hands full, but I'm sure he's up to the task and we can find a way to be more innovative. How do we break down break this down into very just simple to understand uh and we can do even SCM targeting based on geographic area like for Far East here is where it's I I I'm sure um council member Molina gets this all the time about jobs and opportunities uh in Far East. how does this plan address that right uh or in near east we get often asked about environment justice and tree canopy so these are just the example I know in airport area the question often gets asked about oh are we seeing more industrial now uh very close to residential I I think it's just very we already know what each community area plan has asked for based on the feedback we had received so if we can just break that down and put it uh where we can get the information out on social media. That would certainly help get more engagement to Council Member Johnson's point. That's all I have. Thank you. So, um, let's figure out Miss Watlington. >> Mhm. >> If you have a motion, >> you I I don't know that we have to have it right away. I'm not saying today, right now, this moment, >> we'll have to have our legal um folks do this. So if you're taking that opportunity to draft something, okay, because I think that many of us are saying yes, do something like we have to do something based upon what we have the ability to do legally as well as have the votes to achieve it. And so I think that we probably have had a number of conversations. I mean, it's been going on for a while. So my suggestion is to have you work through that and then working through that we come back after we get the city attorney's um review and then we come back into the committee to start that effort of be able to com convene that and let's focus on getting something achievable that is workable as well. It's probably the only way that we'll be able to get this in a way before we have the people that are coming on board next week. So, Miss Johnson. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to address a couple things. Council member Driggs asked, you know, [snorts] what's going to be different? It would have been different if the staff had done something differently. When you do the same thing over and over again and you expect something different, we know that that's what that leads to. Yeah. So we asked for for them to hear from the residents who felt like they have been engaged. These if you saw the transcript of the questions these these questions were from from people who are informed and and engaged. This wasn't community area plan 101. >> Yep. So, if we had a a meeting where those experts and those folks who have asked these questions and their issues aren't being addressed, if they were in a room and we and they could talk to staff and their council members could hear from them to to hear that your residents don't feel heard or what's going on and why weren't these changes made and that's that's what I was asking for. And keep in mind, this meeting was invitation only. Oh, >> it was in it wasn't even communicated broadly. >> I understand. >> So I mean that's >> that's what happened. >> Yes, >> agreed. >> And then I also in the future I think we should set a benchmark for uh what percent of feedback we're hearing from residents. We have a million people. [snorts] Even a thousand comments is only 1%. And then less less than what 002 less than 1% >> 200 is 002 >> 200 is 0.02 so less than 1% of the public's comments was incorporated to into the plan. And these are the residents that have to live with this. And [clears throat] so I just think we should keep that in mind. I think as a policy we should set a benchmark that we need to hear from x number of residents um uh before we move forward. And if we're not meeting that again, let's move our communication up to this this decade or or we have to do we have to do something different >> because we this is a problem. This has been a problem. >> Okay. So, I I appreciate that, but right now, let's figure out how we can do something that's going to actually make a difference to the people that we're working with right now. >> Oh, and lastly, let me say this. >> Wait, wait, wait, wait. May I just finish? Can I Okay. I I just want to say we're looking for opportunities for something that can be valued and workable for the community as well as this council. And so that's where we are right now. So, >> but does it have to be this council? We all came on board and had to vote on something that we may not have had history. I know for a fact that at least one of the >> So, does it look where we are now? Well, I mean that's anyway I kne I know at least one of the uh elect council members was was in the meeting. So I I think that I don't think there's something that says this has to be this council. Again, that's part of the job. >> Well, let's wait until we see what the city attorney advises us to do on how we can promote something that works for us as a community as this as the council. All right. So, >> Miss Brown, >> Miss Brown, >> I did. Uh, thank you so much, Madame Mayor. And I'll be very, very quick. Uh, I just wanted to say that, you know, these meetings are recorded and people are watching and they get offended like when they send us information for us to to to communicate to our council. Maybe that's just the per people watching and they hear that. And so when you say things like that, we've already acknowledged we've already acknowledged that the staff I know I have the utmost respect for the staff >> in the highest, but I also know that constituents, they matter. They're very very important. And um if they have something that they want us to say, it's our job to be able to to uplift them and to deliver that information. You know, you're in district seven, I'm in district three. you know, the Democrats, the the needs are different. The scales are unbalanced totally. But, uh, it's not that they don't get their way. They're educated. They run West Boulevard coalitions. They've been around for a long time. They show up for community meetings. They're on boards and commissions. Their voice matters. And so, I'm going to echo it every single time. And no one's going to stop me from doing that. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. So, um, we have an understanding, um, Miss Watlington will provide a draft that she will get out and we have the opportunity to begin to think about this that what's workable, um, as well as what we're going to be able to do legally. Okay? Is you know, everybody okay with that? So, let's go to our next item. We are now ready for our business agenda. >> All right. So the first one is the first item on our agenda is the fire building inspection schedule. Is there a motion? Oh, do we have to have a presentation of this? Is there a motion to update? >> Second >> the established fire building inspection schedule as required by the North Carolina. We have a motion >> from >> Peacock. >> Mr. Peacock. That's why I tell you I cannot see especially all all of y'all got on blue and black suits tonight. So that's really tough. Makes it harder for me. >> It's winter time. Okay. So second, we have a motion >> and a second. >> I have a question. >> Any discussion here? >> Yes, I do. >> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. >> I have a I have a question. >> You have a question? >> Yes. >> So for the fire chief or anyone from fire if they can come forward up here on top? >> Yes. So I understand [clears throat] that there is going to be changes more frequency in terms of fire building inspection. Could you tell me how is it different in terms of schedule uh than what we currently have? How many days? >> What's the time period now and where we are heading to? >> Yes. So thank you for having us today. Um >> thank you for coming. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Um so this is more an update of uh the paperwork versus procedures. Our procedures are have already been in place. This is merely updating a 1992 resol resolution that has uh that is not meeting what our current practices are. So highlighted changes of that is um private educational facilities uh would move to mirror that of public educational facilities to twice a year. Vacant properties would be inspected annually to uh address occupancy changes in a timely manner. And then properties with an operational fire permit um would be inspected annually regardless of their occupancy type to address any kind of increased risk associated with those operations. Again, it's more so to update the paperwork than to match what our current practices are. >> Yeah, that's that's all I have. Thank you. >> All right, we have a motion on the floor. All in favor, please raise your hands. Anyone in opposition? All right, that's unanimous. For item eight, is there a motion to adopt a resolution approving the transfer of city-owned property located at 6514 Freedom Drive, a portion of a parcel identification to the North Carolina [snorts] Department of Transportation containing approximately 1, I guess.10 acres to be used as public rightway and approximately 1.226 two 26 acres to be used as a public utility easement and authorize the manager to um or is designated to make the transaction. Do I have a motion? >> Motion right here. >> All right. Do we have a second? Okay. Somebody want to talk about Freedom Drive or a second motion. >> Second. >> We have a second. Okay. Any further discussion about it? >> All right. All in favor, please raise your hands. Anyone in opposition? Okay, that moves forward. For item nine, is there a motion to approve the con a contract for program services for the youth violence prevention communication strategy and social norms campaign with creative marketing resources for a term of two years authorizing the manager to renew the contract for up to one-year term with possible price adjustments and to modify or amend the contract consistent with the purpose for which the contract was approved. >> So moved. >> We have a motion and a second. I have a question. >> Yes. Who Who asked about the question? Miss >> Yeah, Peacock. Peacock and Mayfield have questions here. Is Creative Market Resources, Mr. Manager, are they a Charlotte company? >> Nope. >> Um, we're going to have Rebecca. I know it's an MBE. >> Okay. >> Yeah, >> this company has Rebecca Hefner, director of housing and neighborhood services. uh and Office of Youth Opportunities. Uh when when we had the um the presentation punted, I let Dr. Stewart go home. So, I'll do do my best on this one. So, um, Creative Marketing Resources, they as a whole, they are a firm, um, out of Minnesota, but, um, they they have, uh, identified a local, um, Charlotte based staff to lead the initiative. So, a person who lives here in Charlotte, is on a remote staff for this firm, is going to lead the initiative here in Charlotte. uh they have partnered with my brother's keeper to lead the recruiting, hiring and training of the youth who will participate and they will be working with the UN Charlotte Violence Prevention Center as the academic partner for evaluation. >> Okay. Um >> is this been um worked in conjunction with CMPD and the new police chief? Um is this working a part of a a public safety plan of some type? I'm assuming it is. Yes. So, this recommendation came out of the mayor's [clears throat] referral to housing safety and community committee related to youth crime. It was one of the specific recommendations uh that was um brought forward out of committee uh and the uh there there was about $2 million in PGO that was available for the slate of recommendations. That referral was um completed uh with CMPD, Housing and Neighborhood Services and the Community Relations Department and those organizations partnered on developing the RFP in identifying um this work. We have not done that with the new police chief yet um because of the very recent um appointment and this has been going on for you know several months for the procurement process. But we did work with um the current police chief and and his staff in developing the um uh proposal. There other programs right now in place that are youth violence prevention >> either from CMPD or maybe even our partners at CMS. >> Yes. So, um the uh office of youth opportunities that was created uh just this fiscal year uh combines a whole range of programs that the city offers and strategies that the city advances around workforce uh youth employment and workforce uh youth d development and youth safety. And out of out of the youth safety bucket, there's a range of programming that's specific to uh violence prevention, violence intervention, um as well as things that the broader community does like the Meckllinmberg County has a way forward, the community violence prevention plan. This is one of the recommendations in that broader plan. And so, uh, we've really been thoughtful about partnering, um, with with our partners, whether it's law enforcement, CMPD, uh, the county folks who are already doing these things. What we did is identify this as a specific gap in that landscape of programming. Uh, and the really uh, exciting and unique thing about this is that it will be led by youth. >> Okay. Thank you very much. All right, Miss Mon. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Rebecca, I hate that staff was sent home. Here's the question that I have for you because it is noted that we received 18 applications. >> Yes. >> Which they were not attached. I have asked again, manager Jones, on more than one occasion for that information to be provided to us. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't [snorts] as an attachment. When I attempt when I search Creative Marketing Resources Incorporated, what was identified is that it's actually headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But that is the headquarters. So my question is since we did not receive access to the other applications, are we saying that we have no local business that's working with our you that could have been considered for this contract? Because what I am thinking about is even though you mentioned that they have an individual that works here, that's still us contracting with a business outside of Charlotte that may [clears throat] have an employee here that's still having to work with our partners when we very well could have had somewhere in those 18 a local Charlotte nonprofit that we are already working with that has proven itself. They very well should have had greater consideration for this contract versus continuing to work with outside groups basically as the prime again because was what was just mentioned is that they have an employee here but they're going to be working with my brother's keeper and others group other groups. So we're basically identifying them as a prime headquartered Milwaukee or in the location that Miss Hefner >> noted either way. Not in Charlotte. >> Why? >> So help with that. >> And and I apologize I misspoke. It's Milwaukee, not Minnesota. >> That's Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. >> Quarter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but we received 18 applications. Help me >> Sure. >> get comfortable with this. So um so we partnered with um procurement and and consulted with CBI on this solicitation. [snorts] Um the the creative marketing resources um based on a panelist of seven um seven folks who were participated in evaluating this um this was our highest ranked proposal. Um creative marketing resources is registered in North Carolina. It's MBE certified. um what what they brought to the table was extensive experience in these largecale social impact and public health messaging campaigns. So they have worked with centers for disease control on other violence prevention campaigns. They've worked with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration and what they brought to the table actually was a fully developed campaign approach um that included all of the components of the RFP, message development, brand identity, integrative media, creative design, measurable evaluation metrics. They were able to clearly define their staffing plan. They were able to demonstrate deep uh partnerships with these aid uh community partners uh and their um staffing reflects really, you know, an an awareness of the issues here in Charlotte. Um we did have a second uh agency that was local that was um we we talked to them about would they be willing to do a partnership where they where they worked together. Um but this other the the second highest scoring group um actually had their u business registration revoked by by the North Carolina Secretary of State. Uh so we did not move forward with that approach. Um but I'm happy to um provide the list of agencies that applied. It was actually a mixture of national and um local agencies. Not all of them met the requirements. And then out of those that did meet the requirements, um, Creative Marketing Resources really had the strongest proposal, uh, as well as demonstrated uh, commitment or or demonstrated staffing of people who understand the community, especially um, most importantly, um, the on the ground work with My Brother's Keeper, so that the youth who are most impacted um, by [snorts] issues of um, violence in their communities are are the ones who can actually be developing um these messages. And I would just add again that part of this is paying those youth. Um so it's not all um funding that's uh going to a marketing firm. This is paying our youth to create these messages for their peers. >> Thank you for that, Mr. Manager Jones. This is a another one of those examples of an opportunity >> where it could have come to committee. >> It did >> or no for for discussion on this where we did not talk about the 18 we did >> that um applied for this. No, we did not. We did not have unless and you know what it could have been one of the the 10 meetings for the year that I missed. So I would own that. I do not remember having a conversation regarding 18 cuz I would have said the same thing then. I am really focused on how we grow Charlotte. >> How do we support Charlotte, not how do we create our opportunity and the overall and my chair >> and like I said I totally own if it was one of the 10 meetings for the year that I missed. I do not remember having a conversation where we broke down that the 18 had applied because I would have asked these questions then because again my focus is how do we create and support here because there are too many conversations that I'm having in community where we identify this outside group and the money that's supposed to trickle down here doesn't actually make its way or we have a challenge with the group that is actually doing the work. The accountability piece with them as far as if they're waiting on a third party to get the funding released or to get the support signed off on that is causing some delays that is causing some additional challenges. So we have full clarity as we move into these last two meetings going into 2026. Charlotte at first we have amazing organizations here. We have some organizations that could use a lot more work and we need to identify that because not all of them are ready. But the idea of going outside of Charlotte to come in for you to have to build relationships and build resources and connection in Charlotte to do the work of Charlotte when you don't live in Charlotte, live, work or play in Charlotte is concerning. >> So could I just mayor just uh make sure because we may need a legal opinion on this. So, it came um the mayor had a bunch of referrals about youth to different committees and and what came out of the committee was to have this type of social norm campaign. Um and then we did an RFP. And so if the council is now saying they want a local only preference, I I need some guidance on that because we had a bunch of people review RFPs. We had an RFP. We had an open process and this organization landed on top. And I'm not sure if this council wants after there's an RFP for all of the people who apply to come to a committee. So I'm I'm just trying to figure out where we want to go with this and I'm open to figuring out where we'd [laughter] like to go with this. >> Good job. I that's that was a great way to maneuver that [laughter] those minds. What I would encourage is prior to RFP that we get an idea and where committee has a chance to not only review what it is we're discussing, but so that we're on the same page of understanding what is it that staff is looking at, what is it that council members are looking at as we move forward in this. My Brother's Keeper is a partner that we have been working with for a number of years. We have others that we have been working with for a number of years. What I'm seeing is now that we've created this, just like another conversation that you and I recently had, Manager Jones, the interpretation of some council members of an idea and the concept that staff moves forward with may not align. What I'm asking is that we take a pause long enough to make sure that we're at least in the same paragraph. Even if we might be at the end of it and you're at the beginning versus the same chapter, can we at least get in the same paragraph on some things versus implementation and then bringing it and saying, hey, we've done this amazing work where staff does amazing work every day. But sometimes at work when it comes to us, it's like, hm, why do we think this was a good idea? And where's the other information? >> That's what I'm asking you to consider. All right, Miss Brown. >> No, Mr. Brown, I have I'm just listening. >> Okay, there. Thank Thank you, Madam Mayor, and uh and thank you for uh your comments, Miss Mayfield. I just want to make sure that we keep keep it in in the middle of the road here, right? um because we have a procurement department, we have a process and if we want and I know that we're looking at the process and trying to enhance the process um but let's just make sure as we are and I am 1,000% in agreement with a um a Charlotte forward I would say Charlotte forward rather than Charlotte first mentality. Let's get our people in into the mix, into the pool if they qualify. If they don't qualify, let's do all we can to ensure that we're getting them up above the line so they're eligible to submit in RFP process. But I want to make sure that number one, legally we are conducting things the right way as it relates to um city spend. And then secondarily that we have that we are adhering to the process u that we have agreed to and that we've laid out um for ourselves. And if again if that means that we need to make some modifications and and there are times throughout the year where we can do that fantastic. But if we have gone through an RFP process it void of any u just wildly obvious mistakes or gaps. I think we need to honor the RFP process because that is the legal process. Now, if something has been identified as incorrect or a serious gap or seriously overlooked, that's something different. But we need to adhere to our policies with the notion that we I think we all fully share that we want Charlotte forward. We want money to stay in the Charlotte market, but we want to make sure that those individuals who are awarded have the right skill sets and they and they have the right certifications and they have all that they all the qualifications they need to take part in our RFP process. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. >> Right, Mayor. >> M I have Mr. Graham next. Mr. Graham. >> Yeah. Thank you, Madame Mayor. And um I thank the council for your patient with me tonight. Something I had to take care of. But I I agree with u the mayor prompt. She took the words out of my mouth there. There there was a formal process uh that everyone went through and the cream rose to the top. And obviously I I want to invest in Charlotte firms, Charlotte institutions uh and and Charlotte programs, right? Uh but there's a a legal process that we have to follow. And then and then secondly, the services. Uh and I I I happen to know the young lady that's the Charlotte lead for this program. She's well known in the community. Everybody kind of knows who she is. Um and she does great work. She has a great reputation. Uh and the vision is for the campaign to be led by local Charlotte youth. So while the firm may be based somewhere else, the delivery of the services are from people that live, work, understand our community, understand the issues that we're [clears throat] dealing with with youth crime and youth violence and the need to get more youth involvement. That delivery system is certainly um Charlotte Teens being um being led by understanding have a relationship with a number of council members around the DAS. And so I I I don't think we're missing anything other than trying to ensure that uh that we encourage those individuals in our community to apply uh and to participate uh without any guarantee. We can't guarantee that they're going to rise to the top. We can only guarantee an opportunity for them. But in this case, I'm very comfortable because the delivery system [snorts] is by our youth themselves. and is someone that I know is very intimate in the relationships with a wide variety of nonprofit organization, community groups, uh youth le groups, uh church organizations, etc., etc., uh that will meet the uh and exceed um what I think we're looking for. Thank you. >> All right. So, the city attorney, >> city attorney, mayor, >> do you want to do you have any comments from the attorney? Yes, madame mayor and councel. With respect to the RFP process, we do have to follow the legal process in that if it has been outlined in in so far as there has not been a violation or a legal challenge to the RFP process, we have to honor it. That said, I'm hearing there's an opportunity to explore outreach and engagement with community members perhaps in future processes that would allow for on boarding for the the needs of council with respect to a lot of these u concepts. But but short of a violation or a concern with the specific process with respect to the engagement um with the posting and advertisement, I think um we would be hardressed to to challenge this one. Johnson, >> did we set a budget for this proposal? >> So, the maximum amount that's available from the funding that council set aside is $600,000 over two years. Um, and so that will be done in one year chunks. So, the as indicated in in the council action, the estimated budget for one year is 300,000. Um, but that's that's the maximum that was allocated. >> We allocated that for this specific project. >> The well out of out of the total dollar amount that was allocated for for the referral recommendations, that's the amount available. >> Okay. Okay. Because if it was over budget, then the city manager has the authority to dismiss all of the bids and reissue. But Okay. Thank you. I knew that was coming. [laughter] >> That threshold was up. >> Yeah. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second, I believe. Y >> So, um all in favor, please raise your hand >> for item nine for the Youth Violence Prevention, Communication Strategy, and Social Norms Campaign with Creative Marketing Resources, Inc. for a term of two years and authorize the manager to renew the contract for up to one-year term with possible price adjustments. All right. All in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? We have three opposed. All right. Did we get that, Madam Clerk? >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> I know. And now we come to the portion of time where we begin the nominations. The council members have submitted their nominations earlier to the clerk via email names of nominees will not be read at the dis. Tomorrow the clerk will email city council the name applicants and that that received at least two nominations. These candidates will be considered for an appointment for appointment at the next business meeting. Any applicant receiving six or more nominations can be considered for appointment tonight upon a motion. second and a majority of vote of the council. Um so the names of all the nominees will be recorded in the official minutes of the meeting and the clerk will now proceed with announcing the results of the nominations. Madame clerk. Thank you madame mayor and councel. There are several of the um advisory boards that have received six or more nominations. So, at the conclusion, if you so desire, you can make a motion to approve um these individuals for appointment. The business advisory committee, I can tell you, will come back on the November 24th agenda. >> Okay, >> ma'am. >> No, I was saying did we have a motion to do >> uh I need to provide the uh the nominations for the Arts and Science Council Governance Board. The um incumbent Allison Allen received 10 nominations. For the Charlotte Business Inclusion Advisory Committee, Jeremy Johnson received 11 nominations for the Charlotte Tree Advisory Committee. Richard Pinbaker and Elliot Forese. Um, Richard received eight nominations as did Elliot Bere who also happens to be the incumbent. For the Civil Service Board, Michael Kosac received nine nominations for the Enlivian Board of Commissioners. Barbara Ratliff received 10 nominations for the Keep Charlotte Beautiful Committee. Stephanie Griffin received nine nominations for the passenger vehicle for hire. Um, Alexis, excuse me, Alexis Bergrren received 10 nominations. And for the unified development ordinance board of adjustment, Janice Shirley received 10 nominations. >> Move byation. All those six or more. >> We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? Anyone? Oh, everyone's that's unanimous. Um, we now have a motion to um dismiss. So, move second. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. >> Do we need a motion to adjurnn? >> That was it. >> Just have a motion to adjurnn. Thank you. >> Thank you everyone.