[Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] um is having a meeting and so we'd like for you guys to listen to it somewhat. So, um, we are going to start our first item with our consent agenda. And, um, I'd like to have anyone that would like to have a consent agenda to speak to or to, um, have a discussion around, please let me know. Are there any? Miss Mayfield, if you'll give me the ones that you have. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I want I will be speaking to 27 29 33 and 44 but it's all under the same if you give me a minute statement 20 starting 7 27 29 33 and 44 All right, Miss Anderson. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, I'd like to speak to 51 and 52 and I can speak to them at the same time as well. Okay. Thank you. Um, the staff has pulled the item 65. So, that is no longer on our agenda for discussion or or part of our meeting. Is it? It is withdrawn. It's settled. Yes, ma'am. All right. Anything else? Miss Marie, is there Miss Harris? Is there anything else? Thank you. No, ma'am. Other than I was I'm not sure if it was for comment or separate vote on those items. U Miss Mayfield, are those for comment all together and or separate vote? They would be for comment. So I'm going to say pull those out for a separate vote but together. Okay. 27 29 33 and 43. Thank you very much. And madame mayor, but yours would be the same. Yes. Um as in regards to items number 59, 60 and 61. Uh Mr. Tommy ODM, the agent for the property owner, is here and has requested u an opportunity to speak and address the council. So he would speak at the for public forum in the chamber. No, he's speaks here to consent. Well, I'm sorry. Wait a minute. I want to make sure that I'm have hearing this correctly. Um so usually we would have people come down and speak um after we went through this but this this was this is not a part this he's asking to speak on items relating to matters on your consent agenda. Okay. Got it. Consent agenda is being carried forth here. Sorry. Okay. So um we'll go to Miss Mayfield um for items 29 33 44 52. Do you want to pass the other ones first? Oh yeah, let's go ahead and do the remaining of Can we have the me um the council approve the items without the exception of let's see 29 33 44 and then the 65 has been withdrawn and 51 and 52 as well as 27 27 27 and so moved. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Wait one minute. I do not know if you wanted to defer the items 6 59 60 and 61 after the speaker has addressed the items. Okay, we will we will hold the numbers 59 and 60 61 Wait a minute. I can't write that fast. 59 61 and 60. Right. Okay. All right, Miss Mayfield. But we need to vote. Did we not vote? No. Okay. All in favor of the motion for the We have a motion and a second. And a second. All in favor of the motion, please raise your hands. Anyone disapprove or not agree? Um, all right. So, we've passed all of those and now we'll go to Miss Mayfield for the ones. Okay. There was a lot of conversation going back and forth. So, I did not hear the motion or the second. I didn't either the motion with all the com with all the multiple conversations and pulling out 59 and 61. I did not hear a motion for everything. So yes, I requested item 27, 29, 33, and 44. And you're saying there was a motion and a second for all the other items. There's an item in there that I did not pull out that I'm going to be a no to, and that's 28. 28. I did not have 28. I had 29, 33, and 27. And you want to add 28. So, why don't we go ahead and Let me just clarify it for you, ma'am. M, if you like. Um, the items that have been pulled are items 27, 29, 33, 34, items 51, 52, items 59, 60, and 61. So for me it what I initially asked for was 27 29 33 44. That's what I mentioned. I heard you say 34. So I wanted to make sure that it was number 44. It's my mistake. Okay. Make sure and 28. Okay. All right. So miss we're going to we we have everything else to we have the motion m that we've completed for all the others except for those that have been withdrawn and number 65 was pulled from the consent agenda so it's not before you. Right. Okay. So Miss Mayfield. Thank you madam mayor. Just want to clarify that there was a vote to approve the remainder of the consent items except those that I mentioned. Right. A unanimous vote. It was unanimous. Right. Okay. Miss Mayfield. So for item 27, 29, 33, and 44. The question that I submitted and Mr. Manager, this one actually will fall into you. It was the same question and that was will council receive updates as the work is identified to ensure that the selected subs are contacted initial generally we don't receive further council contact yet I mentioned in previous meetings that I have learned that there have been our partners that have been identified by the city but three four five years later they never actually receive outreach to actually perform the work even though we don't know that until we actually go to a community or CBI or an event and run into someone. So that is why I've asked and I don't know if that's something that needs to be sent to a committee for discussion, but I am wanting to ensure that we have checks and balances in place because all of these are anywhere from three plus year contracts. But if we're not at least being notified, which one of these partners when we have anywhere from three to seven partners that have been identified to ensure that they're actually getting the opportunity to do this work, we're doing a disservice. So therefore, my request is that council is made aware whether it's in your memo, but if we identify companies, we should be able to track back to this petition, this agenda item number for this company. Here's the companies that's actually being outreached in order to be able to have the opportunity to perform the work. So, Council Member Mayfield, can I make sure that I will talk to staff to ensure that we can give you what you're asking? I'm sure we can. It's just what's the time frame and what um format and I appreciate that cuz I would accept it in the manager's memo because we're looking at 3 to 5 years. What I would hope is that we all see the value in ensuring that these companies that we identify are actually able to take advantage of the opportunities within the city. Thank you. All right. Do you want to move to approve? I'm sorry. What did you say, Miss Mayfield? Like which ones are that? I'm I'm getting ready to move to approve item 27, 29, 33, and 44. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? Raise your hand. I. Anyone opposed? All right. So the next item that we have for discussion is with Miss Anderson and it is 51 and 52. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um I I just wanted to pull this particular item because we've been having lots of conversation uh throughout the community throughout districts around um our partnership and working relationship with in Livian and um there is u sort of a misnomer that city council uh manages and controls in Livian and that's that that is not true and we've worked hard to clear that up. But one of the things that city council has an authority uh with Enlivian on is the approval and or the denial of um in Livian's issuance of bonds for um for incurrence of debt. And in number 51 uh this is for an affordable housing uh effort. It's called Central at Old Concord Apartments and it is within District 1. And I just wanted to highlight that we are through this action approving um an issuance of a bond for 28.4 million for this particular project to help finance um land acquisition and construction costs. And the council has already allocated $4.2 2 million of housing trust fund dollars for this particular effort. Um, which does target 80% uh and below AMI. Um, but that's not only a a financial investment from the council but also the approval of this issuance of bond as the same with 52 which is the view at uh Honeywood Apartments. It is for a bond uh not to exceed $17 million and it is for it's actually within district two and um the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency has approved a 4 point uh a 4% tax credit for that particular project. So I just want to be clear to the community because I get tons of questions. I know other council members do as well. It's important for the the city of Charlotte to have a good working relationship with Enlivian. Um, however, I want to just point out that over the course of the years, you know, Enlivian has a portfolio of 48 community properties. Um, and the city has historically invested in 32 out of those 48 properties in some way, form of fashion. um covering over $42 million. So, it's a significant investment um that we do make in Enlivian in the name of affordable housing. And I just wanted to point that out as we continue to educate our residents around the intersection between Enlivian and the city of Charlotte. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And with that, I'd like to motion uh that we approve uh number 51 and 52. We have a motion for 50 and 51. I see the attorney, Mr. Fox. Yeah. Just uh it's just come to my information that a a council member, Miss Johnson, does have uh uses property in the in the in the Olivian building. I do not believe that is tamount to a conflict of interest where there's a procure of financial interest with regards to this merely approving them to issue debt or seek grant funding. but she wanted to put that on the record to disclose that. Thank you. We now have that on the record. So, um, we have a motion. Yes. And a second. All in favor of the motion for the items 20 59 60. No, this No, sorry. That's the 51. Wrong group here. 51 and 52. All right. All All in favor, please raise your hands. In favor. All right. And is there any on opposed? Any opposition? Please raise your hand. Say all 51 and 52. Yeah. Okay. 51 and 52. Anyone opposed? All right. That passes. All right. The next one is items 59, 60, and 61. And Mr. ODM has asked to speak on those items. And then we do 20. You may want to know if I'm with a threem minute time period. That's right. We have a threem minute time limit. Good evening everyone. Mayor, mayor prom, city council members. Again, my name is Tommy Odum and I represent the May family, the Henninghousen family, and the Davis family. You may recall I spoke um in front of you about two months ago um voicing the objections of these families to um for h allowing the city of Charlotte to um authorize the taking of their land um for a project um at the request of a private developer. Um at that meeting there was a number of questions asked. Um the matter was deferred um till last month and I believe y'all may have discussed it in in close session and then it was put back on tonight for a vote. But again I I and I also sent all the city council members and all you folks um another letter um um voicing their objection to the taking for private developer. Um there was a number uh last month before the close session I set forth a number of questions um that we had not gotten answers to. I haven't received any anything with regard to those answers. And um I did also point out that um on another property owned this um condemnation, there has been a lawsuit filed not by me or my law firm, but by another law firm um asking that that the um the uh for an injunction and that those not go forward because there's um the paramount reason for these is for a private um not a public um a public purpose. Although there is some public purpose, you know, with regard to um putting sewer in, but when it's we believe that under the constitutional mandates of United States Constitution and North Carolina Constitution, um this would not be allowed in this particular case. And we would ask that this lawsuit that's already been filed run its course um and to find out what's going to happen in the courts as the city attorney's office said to y'all last time instead of moving forward with regard to instead of moving forward with regard to this case because you'll be tying up these famil family's properties and um I'm welcome to any questions and again we would ask that you not authorize condemnation. Mr. Fox, do you have any comment? Well, I don't know if the council has any questions. Council, does council have questions? All right, let's So, um thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity again. Thank you. And I'll just reiterate what's in your package is information that suggests that this improvement is for not just a single property owner, but but for multiple property owners. And this is in line with your previous commitment and agreement with uh a couple of the outlying communities that are in need and request that you support this condemnation. All right. Thank you. All right. We have one item that was left was item 28 on the Oh, we haven't voted on this one. So, let's go ahead and vote. Yes, Mr. Driggs, you want to comment? I I want to reiterate what I said last time. I think we would set a bad precedent if we depart from our normal procedure for things like this. Uh the developer is a contractor for the city. The owners have the protection of due process in the courts. We are not a tribunal. It is not our job to make this determination. and therefore I hope we can just go ahead and get this done tonight uh and not find ourselves in the future facing similar challenges. Thank you. All right. Any other comments by council? All right. Do we have a motion on the floor? There's a motion for 59 60 and 61 and 28. No, not 28. Move to approve 59 and and All right. We'll just go with that group. We'll have to come back and do that. 28. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? So, the next item is item 28 for approval or disapproval. Do I have a motion on item 28? I move to approve. Second. Move to approve. We have a second. Miss Mayfield recognizing you. No. Um I just wanted for a separate vote. Okay. So we have a separate vote. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion hearing? No discussion. All on in favor, please raise your hand. All right. Is anyone opposed? Miss Mayfield and Miss Brown are opposed. Okay. So that takes us through that. The next item that we have, if I can find it, is the um agenda review. As many of you know, the CRVA team has been working to bring the CIAA tournament back to Charlotte in 2028. Steve and his team are continuing to finalize a bid proposal to submit to the CIAA by April the 15th. They've worked collaboratively with our business community, the state, and the arena to develop a competitive bid for this wonderful program that we have that the opportunity to host. So now I'd like for Steve to come and share the work that he's done so that council's aware of what's going on in this engagement. So Mr. Bagwell, thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. Thank you, city council, for having us today. It's a pleasure to be here. Myself and Mike Buts, who leads our visit Charlotte team. Mike's going to come up and talk about uh our lodging package in just a minute. Uh so again, thank you for being here. I'm CEO of the CRVA. I've been in this position for about a year and a half, but I've been with the company long enough to remember all 15 years of hosting CAAA in our community and got a front row seat to the $650 million in economic impact that came to our community uh during those 15 years and how CAAA really reaffirmed that Charlotte was capable of hosting big big sporting events and I think that legacy carries on uh to the events that we're still hosting today. So, I want to share as the mayor said details about uh what we've done so far to work on attracting CAA back to our community. Uh first of all, I want to point out that uh we feel we're best positioned to go after years 28 through 30. That is different than the RFP that asked for uh a bid regarding 27 through 29. Um I've had informal sidebar communications uh with the league about adjusting that time frame a bit. I believe they are open to that and that's important because Spectrum Center uh is hosting uh ACC women's championship and NCAA regional in 2027. The convention center also has a big convention during that time period. So uh 28 through 30 is the time period that we'll be going after. I just wanted to point that out first thing. Okay. So, some background on the event just as a reminder, uh we uh attracted uh the Caa to Charlotte after a run in Raleigh for five years and we hosted it from 2006 through 2020 and you can see the impact of the event as I mentioned uh in 2019 which was the last year before COVID $43.7 million in economic impact. The high water mark for the event 57.4 million in economic impact in 2016. Generally, uh, the event attracts 60,000 fans plus over the course of the week and drives 10,000 room nights to the hotel community. You can see the numbers in Baltimore a little bit different. Um, $32.5 million in economic impact in 2024, 43,000 fans. You can see the lodging spend. Uh, perhaps one factor here is how well positioned Charlotte is geographically to host this event. We have seven, I believe, seven schools inside the state of North Carolina that are members of CIAAA. And we have one in South Carolina. So, eight of the 13 schools very, very close in location to Charlotte, which makes us have healthy attendance as part of the story there. Here's the timeline that we're under to respond to the bid and work with CAA after our bid response on what Charlotte has to offer. We notified the league that we were interested in bidding in January. Uh the bid submission deadline is April 15th. So we're working hard to put everything possible together ahead of that deadline. And then there'll be a period where CAA analyzes the feedback that they've gotten from participating cities and execute site visits. And uh there'll be a chance to present in person to the Caa in June. The league has let me know they really want to get down the road with hotel contracts, venue contracts in the selected destination ahead of a final announcement that I presume will be will come out later this summer. So that's the timeline we're looking at. Here are the cities that were invited to bid. Um uh you can see 10 10 were in that group. We we're only aware of Baltimore and of course Charlotte that is that is interested and has responded that they will submit a bid. Uh we're aware that a couple other cities visited Baltimore to learn about the tournament, but we're not aware if they have that they have actually submitted interest in bidding on the event. So right now just Baltimore and Charlotte in the mix that we know of. So here's the key deal points of the uh of the RFP. Uh we've got lodging, uh three important areas, lodging, fundraising for scholarships, and the venue package. And I wanted Mike to come up and talk about lodging first and his efforts on that front. Thank you, Steve. So with the hotels, obviously that's one of the big wins uh when CIAA or an event like that comes to town. Uh when you have an event this big, they make some pretty strong requests. And so this is representative of that. Uh one per one per 40 rooms uh complimentary uh $10 uh room rebate and then $25 reservation fee and then there's also another uh commission that goes to the housing firm that uh that manages it. So we are working with the hotels right now. The team is in reaching out into who's interested into what kind of rooms whether it's teams or whether it's staff or fans in general. So uh they have uh categories of rates and you can see down below there the teams they're looking for $125 rates and uh staff $200 rates and fans at 225. And the hotels are responding at different levels, some uh within and some not. I will say that these rates are in the range that they paid when they were here before. So Charlotte is a little different community and uh we're we're doing quite well. So the hotels are at different locations with in in that rate category. So, and then the other is the venues and reaching out to the venues so that uh they would be able to participate with the CIAAA in where events get placed. Uh now, Steve's going to talk a little bit more about putting more events within the arena, but there will still be some outside events and we want to make sure that uh we partner with those venues and with CIAA to make sure that they uh run smoothly. Thank you, Mike. Uh, I want to draw council's attend attention to the right side of the page uh to talk about the venue package for a second. Uh, it's it's very important, very key part of our bid response will be Spectrum Center. Uh, the commissioners made clear to me that uh Spectrum they want the tournament to be at Spectrum Center for the full week. Some of you may remember that we split the early rounds between Bojangles Coliseum and Spectrum Center in previous years. Uh what the most important thing that's driving that is the footprint of the uptown area. How everything is centered there, everything is walkable. That is a really wonderful feature of our city that helps us draw conventions uh to our to our destination regularly. The CIAA values that greatly and that's the reason that we really need to work on uh Spectrum Center being uh the home for the full week. So we are working with the Hornets on that. We have not gotten to an answer yet. One of the challenges is uh being able to accommodate the NBA schedule and different activities that are flowing through the building at the same time. One of which will be ACC men's championship in 2028. So, we continue to have conversations uh with the Hornets about that. They are open-minded about this and I've appreciated their cooperation as we analyze this opportunity. Um, we also are looking at the opportunity when it comes to venues to put more activity into Spectrum Center. As Mike said, we exposed the CIAA to the renovations of the building. Um, and they're looking at that as as a potential positive. Um, with the suite inventory the way it is, with the with the investment in different spaces in the building, there's the possibility to bring more activity into Spectrum Center, and that would be a good thing uh because it would also help drive more revenue to the building and give the Hornets an opportunity to cover the costs of operating the event. Some of the things that we're looking at is the step show potentially at the convention center. None of this is affirmed at all, but things that are possible, potentially the step show or other activities from the convention center, lunchons that take place around the community, day parties, receptions that would be perfect fits in the renovated suite space. Those are opportunities that we're looking at to drive more activity to make that spectrum center even more of a hub for activities uh for CAA. You can see we'll also be using the convention center. Uh and I put some dollar valuations there. Those are very tentative, but uh I did want council to realize that the CRVA is uh planning to uh take on those costs and we're planning for about a million dollars of investment there. Uh the the venues, we'll see uh what they run depending on the activity that goes in there. Uh but also the CRVA uh also generally makes investments in transportation um and also marketing. We'll have a robust customized marketing plan to work with Caa on. So, u one other thing on venues before I move on to scholarships. Uh we have had initial uh I would say encouraging conversations uh with the uh North Carolina Commerce Commerce Finance Center uh and Mark P who's director of that organization. They're the ones that govern the use of the major events of uh events, games, and attractions fund about potentially some uh funding going to reimburse expenses at Spectrum Center. If you'll remember from that legislation, Spectrum Center, Bank of America Stadium, uh the racetrack, um golf events in town would qualify for funding there. So, that's something that we're working on to see if that can be part of the equation. If we receive funding in that capacity, it could allow some of the money that the CRVA is planning on to go to another purpose, which would enhance our bid. So, that is uh that is one one other thing I wanted to look at and mention. The last column here, scholarships, uh fundraising for that, the RFP calls out a $1.5 million minimum fund raise for that, and we're hoping that the corporate community in Charlotte can come together and help us satisfy uh that fundraising piece. So, last slide. uh if we have strong success in fundraising and potentially have money coming in from the state, we may be able to invest in some of the other areas that it calls out in the bid that could enhance the strength of our bid. Reducing team expenses. Uh that could be in hotels, that could be transportation expenses. That is a place to invest. You can see the different categories here. The last one is ancillary event support for uh awards programs. They have the Hall of Fame induction ceremony that they do each year, education day, career expo, investment in uh events like that. And that'll wrap up our update. Uh be glad to answer any questions you have. Do you have questions for questions? All right, we have I'll start with Miss Mayfield and we'll come around. Miss Mayfield. Thank you, Madame Mayor. While we're on this slide, when we're looking at revenue opportunities, leveraging parking, concessions, other streams, what does leveraging parking look like to you all? Probably they're looking for a a revenue share there um for parking at the venues that are used. Not sure what opportunities will be there for that, but that was something that was outlined in the RFP because I know we made some changes last year with parking up town. That also includes I think after 10 o'clock. I don't know if it's just Saturday and Sunday, but it's a flat rate for on street parking. So, you can't park for an hour or two for $3. It's like $10.80 um flat rate overnight. Can we go back a couple of slides? Sure. And I think right there is good. I think you just mentioned and I'mma back up. Thank you for a great presentation. Of course. Given us a lot of good advice. Thank you. So when we're looking at you mentioned possibilities with the newly redesigned spaces that we have at Spectrum. So, one of the challenges that I heard previously was that we would open space for concert promoters, event promoters to come in and be able to access some of our venue spaces, whether they had day parties. A lot of that potentially conflicted with the actual games. While we're having these conversations and we're talking about potentially partnering with space, has there been any conversation or is there a possibility to have conversation where there's a revenue sharing there where if you're going to have a day party in our city during this time that as part of you getting access to venues in this area, whether we identify uptown specifically or a little further out, that a percentage on the front end, a percentage of that is going directly towards the tournament because at the end of the day, this is a tournament for scholarships for our young people. And even with our commitment of 1.5 million, which is which is a great start, there is a lot of money that are made over that week with outside promoters. If we have the ability, I don't know if we do, if we don't, but if we can have the ability on a far end to have those conversations where if you're getting access to any of our venue spaces, and I'm looking over here to hta as well. I'm peeking over over there to put the language in place that here's what your commitment is going to be. If you're going to come into our city and make money a leave out, this is how you going to need to benefit. if there's a possibility of a consideration in that conversation. So, I' I've got that noted. Uh we have on rare occasion, I believe, Mike, reserved um made sure that that a entity like the NBA has a voice in uh uh approving the reservation of entertainment venues. I don't believe we've ever had a commission go back to an entity like that, but I've got that noted as something to look into. like you said, we're a brand new city, brand new in 2025 and beyond. So, let's be creative on the front end when we know that that was one of the challenges. So, that would help, I believe, if I can get my colleagues to also to support that idea. That will help us to do more to help our young people to be able to achieve their academic goals. Very good. I have that noted. Thank you. All right, Mr. Driggs. Uh, thank you for the presentation. uh an exciting opportunity for us to cement Charlotte's reputation as a major center of sports of all kinds. Um I don't think should we should discuss this without recognizing the question of of safety. Um the I remember in the old days the event was fun and it was a kind of a holiday atmosphere but we have to acknowledge that in recent years uh there has been another element. this has become a destination during the tournament, people not attending. Um, and there have been incidents, uh, which I think concern the public. So, uh, I'm I'm generally supportive, but I will want to hear from CMPD what measures they will take in order to ensure for the benefit of all concerned uh that we somehow control the influx and the activities that go on a lot of these parties that are happening away from the tournament and so on so that we can realize the benefits of this and not have a downside. Uh the other thing I wanted to ask about was uh it's not clear for me what public funds are we talking about of any description that are likely to be committed by us. Do you do you have a s I mean I'm not sure the way that description is. I assume the hotels have got to uh uh meet the requirements on room rates. We're not subsidizing that. Right. Mike, did you want to Is that correct? Yeah, we're not Yeah. the hotels pay a rebate to the housing company and to CIAA to help offset uh some of those costs. And the only ones that are uh potentially something that we would look for maybe a sponsor to help with and that might be some of the team rooms that are special rates and uh so hopefully we can find some sponsors that would help uh reimburse the schools for those costs. Private sponsors. Yes. Right. But uh the rates themselves look pretty low compared to what people pay for hotel rooms in this town. So correct they are that we are not through from any source. We don't have public subsidies for the hotel room rates. Is that right? Correct. Okay. And uh but then we have the the budget for safety. So that there will be some CMPD costs. Uh and uh I don't know from what you said whether you expect that we will participate in the fundraising. Uh so long story short, I just like to know in financial terms what the ask would be from the city or from hospitality funds in order to make this happen and you know you can you can get back to me about that. That's just something I I'll need to get to clear on. Okay. We'll we'll get more details on that. But I do look at three three funding sources major funding sources at this point. Um the CRVA um I had talked about planning for probably a million dollar investment to help attract and handle venues, marketing, transportation, things like that. Um the uh the corporate private fundraising effort uh would be part of the mix and then potentially if we can t uh um uh receive funds from the major events front at the state level. Those are the three areas that we're exploring right now. Right, Mr. Graham? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, first, let me thank Steve and Mike for the hard work that you've been doing over the last several months. Uh, Steve and Mike, um, let me tag along with them to Baltimore and sit into one of their staff dinner and attend a meeting with the commissioner uh, regarding the tournament. So, I I really appreciate that the work you've done thus far. I think I should start here. uh that the one of the most important things that the CIAA really wants the city help with is their branding infringement and marketing. A lot of the incident that Ed referred to had nothing to do with the conference at all. Uh someone had a party in the city and uh the CIA happened to be here and something happened. So there was well there's there's they didn't sanction any of those events. uh they didn't authorize any of those events. Uh they were not a part of any of those events. I think we need to be very very clear about that. And that's one of the topics that we talked about in Baltimore was just making sure that we do um work with them to establish a protocol uh that protects their their branding and their marketing and and their name, right? Because they were just as upset about what happened as we were in terms of those incidents. And I've already had a conversation with the city attorney um attorney Fox about that and any protection that he can provide the conference in the city to to ensure that anything that happened is safe. Uh and touch on some of the comments that council member Mayfield said in terms of trying to do as much as we can to u lock down some of the facilities to ensure that uh the CIO has first right of refusal. Attorney Fox has already talked about working on that and um with me and and CRVA. Um but more importantly again you know while it's basketball it's really about as I said all the time um about the frontline workers um waiters and waitresses and bartenders and Uber drivers lift drivers small business owners all who work uh in the hospitality and tourism uh industry that really benefit from this or the PGA coming in May next year or other major sporting events for our community. this just happens to be basketball. Uh, and u that's uniquely um significant to a a a large segment of this population who who who relates to Smith and Livingstone and Virginia Union, Buoie State and Bluefield State that others may not. So, I think it's really a tremendous opportunity for for the community. Um, we do have um um it's not a slam dunk, right? But I I like the momentum that we have moving forward and and there are some things that we have to clear some free throws that we have to make to ensure that we have a a very very successful bid and one of them I think Steve outlining is to ensure that uh the availability of spectrum um center u I think that's a um that's a mustave and we have great partners over at Spectrum and I know a lot of folks have been talking with them about what it takes for us to really have a competitive bid and and certainly I think anyone who's coming to Charlotte uh looking to do a large scale event would want to go to Spectrum Center based on the investment we're making um over the last two years I think this the spectrum is closing in a couple of weeks for the second corporate support extremely important from least from my perspective extremely important from least from my perspective, uh, a commitment, right? That's a real thing. And I think we should use the last tenure as a learning experience about how we can do better, um, do better on pricing, do better on public relations, do better on on marketing, uh, and lean in as we lean in for the PGA that's coming in May and other major events that we want our city to host. Uh, lastly, the host institution, if we were to be successful, would be Johnson C. Smith University. They're a CIAA school in district 2. Uh, and I think the university sent some ambassadors tonight. The Gamma Delta chapter from AKA's I think are here. If you ladies would just stand or wave. So, they are they are here watching and monitoring and learning um from u from their perspective. Um, they're um the chapter does a great job in terms of community outreach and support. So they're here to be supportive of what we're doing here tonight as well as hear our public safety discussion as well. And so I think President Kinlock is really involved in what we're trying to do and ready to lean in on a wide variety of issues relating to Spectrum Center, our corporate support as well as the brand marketing issue. She is a voting member of the CIAA and has a lot of influence in terms of whether or not we get it or not. So, uh, again, I think if we can hit those free throws, um, I I think we'll be really successful, uh, and, um, winning the competition. Thank you, Madam Mayor. What, Councilman Grant, you left out one distinguished alumni from JCSU. Who's that? Oh, me? Oh, yeah. It just we just we just got to and we got to get to work. I know council member Mitchell's going to talk and council member Mitchell has really been um very very very very very supportive both in his words and and his and his dress. Thank you for the analogies Mr. Graham as well. What's the lane violation? Good. Miss Anderson. Thank you Madame Mayor. Um you know I think many sort of mourned the loss of CIAA. I know friends far and wide would um come down to Charlotte annually for that experience and certainly having a potential opportunity to see it back in the city of Charlotte um just continues to uh add to the the the notion that we are a sports town already with the ACC being the home of the ACC. We just had a U BCIC basketball tournament in and Bojangles Coliseum this past weekend and tournament after tournament um sports event after sports event. Charlotte is is a destination and so I think we we always want to um be able to um look at the numbers and do some estimates around what it would take to bring uh a a great sports event back to Charlotte. But I do want to double click on uh what Mr. Driggs stated as it relates to public dollars. And so I understand these three buckets and it they make sense, but it would be interesting at least for us to have some notion of what funds, if any, will the city of Charlotte need to put forward? Right now, I'm not hearing very much, but I I just want to have that validated by um you, sir, who's doing all the heavy lifting and and doing all the negotiations and and perhaps this is not the time to do so. Maybe it's a little bit further down the road, but with that deadline coming up pretty quickly, I think everything needs to be crystallized, right? Um in in a pretty short manner. So, I'd like to see more information on that. the the whole concept of um sanctioned events I think is also an important one. You know there are other uh there are other festivals and programs that go on within the United States that sometimes have trouble with that. I'm thinking of Essencefest in New Orleans and they they had trouble with many of their non-sanctioned events and so they really leaned into some protocol. The city of New Orleans leaned into protocols in working with Essence to ensure that it was clear what was a essence uh essence sanctioned event and a nonsanctioned event. And that's a that's a level of importance as as we've had these conversations because people it will help people um in their decision criteria of which events they would actually attend and support. They might just think, you know, all events are are are CIAA sanctioned when clearly that's not true. And so I think we need to lean into investigating what New Orleans and essence did in partnership and u come back with some potential learnings for the city of Charlotte. Uh the the last piece I'm I'm thinking about here is we we do have uh the PEC coming on board the uh the performance enhancement facility um for for our MBA team. Um and it will be in in district one. The spectrum center is in district 1. I'm wondering I hear I hear the concern about traveling out to Bojangles. Um, I hear that and wanting to have really a a nucleus of activity in in uh in the uptown area. Um, but I'm just wondering what role potentially the PEC could play. Um certainly as it relates to relief from the spectrum center, just having advance advanced conversations around that um to see what would make sense and be um helpful not only for us but for for for the Hornets organization as well, right? Um and then and then the last piece I just want to get some clarity on is the safety piece from uh CMPD. You know, when I speak to we love having a dynamic, busy, busy city, but sometimes when I speak to the CMPD officers, they're they're like, "Wow, we have four or five programs going on, big programs going on simultaneously on a weekend is it puts stress on our police department. And so just um thinking about what it it's really going to take for the police department to be uh prepared and staffed up and ready to support this in addition to any other um major activities going on during that window of time. Thank you, Madame Mayor. All right, Mr. Asher, do you have a comment? Followed by Mr. Mitchell. Uh thank thank you, Madame Mayor. So, some of my questions has already been asked. Uh, just want to thank Steve and Mike for all your work and I know with you as CRVA team as well as HDA, I'm sure we are going to put our best foot forward uh and bring CIAA back to our city. Um, when it comes to lodging package, I um I don't see why we wouldn't be able to put our best foot forward because you got Muhammad, he's got access to hundreds of hotels and motel. So, um, uh, Muhammad, this is your homework and um, well, that's all I have. Thank you. I love that, Mr. Mitchell. I can talk loud enough. Take Okay, you know I got a country. So, uh uh thank you, Mayor and Council. And I got to say kudos to follow with Councilman Graham to Steve Mike and our secret weapon, Beth Butler over there, right? Um for uh allowing us to come to Baltimore and help recruit. And I like the new idea that you include Lori Spratley and Keith Haywood, members from the CRVA board to join us as well. U thank you to Muhammad uh council. If you look at your inbox, Muhammad sent a nice letter uh telling how how well he would like to support this and we always know uh one out of one out of nine citizens and our community works in the hospitality industry. Uh I left I I presented to everyone a facility kind of timeline because this is very important. Uh one thing I will hope we present is a winning bid and to me a winning bid meaning uh making sure we can get spectrum arena. Uh this is nothing new. This is something if you look at the timeline we had spectrum from 2007 all the way up to 2017. reason why we left Spectrum, there was a little event called the NBA Allstar Game and so the CIAA and the and was nice enough to say we want to be a good partner and so we'll go to Bojangles while the NBA All-Star game was taking place. They have been a tremendous partner for this community and and for this city. And I would tell you even the excitement this weekend around the BCIC was created all because the CIAA uh basketball tournament. Um Stephen, thank you for reaching out to Mike Pool. I think we'll take advantage of that mega fund that the state has provided a way to be reimbursed of all the expenses at Spectrum. Um I think that's a a definitely um it's it's different for us that can give us uh some advantages in the proposal. April 15th is a big date for us and I'm sure you all will continue to roll up your sleeve and make sure we have a great winning proposal. Hats off to you. Um, this is hard work. Uh, Baltimore is going to be tough, but I like our chances and I'm excited that to Councilman Graham, the President John C. Smith is excited. She's ready to host. And so I think maybe the stars are lining up for us this time that maybe this summer uh we'll get good news in July about 2028 through 2030 in the great in the city of Charlotte. Thank you, Stephen, Mike and Beth. Keep up the good work. All right, Miss Molina. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Me and me and Council Member uh Mitchell are sharing the mic tonight. Um and I don't have much to say. Much of what could be said has been said. I just uh Mayor Brandon Scott is probably watching like uh probably watching like you know are they trying to take my CIAA away and it's funny when they were bidding uh Council Member Mitchell and I were really likeounding him and their team. Um and so to see the opportunity for them to actually come back to Charlotte where it's been a staple for a very very long time. The potential for it to come home is exciting. Uh so thank you guys for your work. Muhammad, as always, all that you do in the community, you're an amazing partner with us. Um, but thank you guys for all your work and I look forward to seeing, you know, um, the specifics around the bid and and bringing it back home. Thank you. Okay. So, Steve and Mike and Beth and the whole team of RC CRVA, I want to say how much we appreciate what you're doing to make it possible for us to host this event and that um we look forward to as things evolve that we come back and kind of catch up to make sure. I think that um one of the things that I had great concern is that when we were in DC doing delegation stuff with the um with our delegation I was thinking we were talking about the CIAA but the council didn't really have a chance to talk about CIAA and that is not something that's um you know what we do is try to share the information so everybody's on the same page and you have made that possible tonight. So, thank you very much for what you've done and we look forward to the next time we have the opportunity to speak with you about it. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council. We look forward to it. Thank you. Okay. You you you could stay for the public safety portion of our meeting. I think you've had enough public safety right now. So, wow. So, thank you guys. All right. Our next um item on our agenda is the public safety update. the the I guess renowned 45day um event. Um Sean is going to come forward and do you have anything Mr. Jones? All right, Sean. Yay. Sean this guy. Thank you, Mayor Lyles. Sean Heath, city manager's office. Is it okay if I just jump right in? Please. Okay, great. Uh, two quick things I wanted to mention before I get into the content here. First, just want to acknowledge I do not have all the answers tonight, but I do hope this is a real demonstration of forward momentum. So, we did commit on February 10th to do a 45day review. I believe today is day 42, so we're coming in just under the wire. Um, and the idea with the 40 42-day review was to take the six-part series, which concluded on February 10th with a discussion around violence as a public health crisis and a closer look at some of the data and translate those things into some specific actions, planned actions. So, that's that's where we're headed tonight. Uh, second thing I wanted to mention real quickly, just acknowledging that any discussion around public safety, words matter. Um, I think we've done our best to try to be sensitive that certain words have baggage. Uh, I would expect I might stumble once or twice tonight. So, just as I asked for your grace last time, uh, Council Member Brown, you and I have had some good conversations about words. So, if I stumble, please know my heart's in the right place here. Yes, sir. You are a good person. Thank you. I can't say that about everybody. What? Let's try this again. Good news is there only six slides tonight. Uh the the bad news is the last slide is very dense. So we we'll get to that one as quick as humanly possible. Uh real quickly, this topic of course is directly aligned with your council priority related to safe communities. In terms of the purpose tonight, as I mentioned, this is a a follow-up discussion, but we're trying to quickly translate those previous discussions into a set of actions that we believe can further enhance public safety in terms of a few key takeaways that will be underscored on the subsequent slides. First, we're building from a foundation of strength. So, we'll give some illustrative examples and I know I'm preaching to the choir on this, but there's been a tremendous body of work advanced over the last 5 to seven years focused uh advanced by this council focused on public safety and economic mobility. Second, having said that, there are opportunities to do more and that's what we really want to focus our attention on this evening. Third, just to state the obvious, we cannot do this alone. Public safety is a bigger equation than just the city of Charlotte. We have other public agency partners, nonprofit, community- based organizations, and the private sector that all play a role as well. Since we're nearing the end of the first quarter, we wanted to just uh quickly comment on the year-to-date crime data. So, this would be new information incremental to what was was shared last time. You can see that and what this is comparing January 1st through March 17th of 2024 to January 1st through March 17th of 2025. So you can see going from the top level overall crime down 11% compared to this time period last year. If you look at the two primary categories inside of overall crime, that's of course violent crime and property crime. Violent crime is down 19%, property crime down 9%. So 19 and N respectively. And then if you look at the standard subcategories that we report on in smaller font there that build up to the violent crime and property crime statistics, you can see with very limited exceptions, we've seen some positive momentum. So, as I'm leaving this slide, I think I I would of course underscore that we always need to be careful when we're looking at at quarterly results that we shouldn't really make any assumptions necessarily in terms of how those trends will play out during the year. But all else equal, I think it's fair to say that this is a promising start. So, as I mentioned before, with the strong foundation that's in place, you know, we could have come up with three to five slides to list all of all of the things that have been done over the last few years, but wanted to highlight just a few things focused on economic mobility, public safety, healthy neighborhoods, etc. Major investments in underserved communities. We've we've talked a lot recently about corridors of opportunity surpassing that $200 million investment level when you combine public and private sector investments, affordable housing. If you go back to 2018 through the 2024 bond, that's $250 million of capacity for the housing trust fund that's been endorsed by approved by council first and then endorsed by voters. If you look at just a few examples of collaborative investments in human services, the umbrella center, which is f will be focused on domestic violence and sexual assault survivors, we committed $5 million. The county committed $10 million. I believe construction will start in the May time period. Katie Blessing Center, which we talked about last year, transformational first of a kind sort of a facility in the state of North Carolina on in East Charlotte, juvenile behavioral health facility, city and county both program, $2.5 million in support of that facility, and I believe there's a groundbreaking scheduled over the next month or so. Street Outreach, we've talked about before. Once again, it's a city and county collaboration focused on the unhoused population. the funding that we're providing is really focused primarily on center city and south end. Um so I I'll stop there. You you can see the list, but once again just attempting to illustrate it's not a comprehensive list, but illustrate u the full range of things that the city has invested in recognizing that public safety is more than just policing. And it's a lot of a lot of investments and policy choices that you've made over the last few years that are supporting positive outcomes. Moving along. So, when we took a look at the 2024 crime statistics in terms of what was happening, where it's happening, and by whom. There were really three key themes that emerged. So, I'll I'll go through these one at a time. First, and this won't come as a surprise to anybody in this room, there's a real geographic concentration of crime in our community. not dissimilar from other large cities in the US. We've all seen the heat maps before that show where the hot spots are. Um once again, this is not newsbreaking. This is not new information. And in fact, all of this information related to violent crime at the neighborhood profile area and calls for service at the neighborhood profile area is available to the general public through our community violence data dashboard. uh nuisance locations. These would be the persistent trouble spots that every council member in the room probably has a few in your mind and and you might even have the specific address in your mind. Um they drive quality of life concerns. These are the types of things that many residents will will contact council members about with great concerns and it could be a liquor store, a gas station, it could be a single family residence, a hotel or an apartment complex. But once again, there's a real geographic concentration to those nuisance locations. So that's first theme on on the geographic concentration. Second, once again, this is not a new item, something we've talked about before. Uh repeat offenders have an outsized impact on our violent crime statistics. And there were a few noteworthy stats that are included here. So 66% of violent crime arrests in 2024 were individuals with a prior arrest. Prior arrest could have been violent crime or nonviolent crime. So two out of three uh 33% of violent crime arrests are a person with a prior violent crime arrest. And then when you start to look at some of the averages, if you take a distribution of all the individuals that had a violent crime arrest in calendar year 2024, um you can see here that the average number of prior arrests was 5.6. And if in that distribution, if you were to look at the quote unquote top 10%, i.e. the 10% of individuals with the highest number of prior arrests, those had at least 17. And if you look at the most extreme of the most extreme examples, you can see scenarios in the community where individuals have had in excess of 80 arrests over the last 20 years. So once again, that's those those are kind of the outlier scenarios, but they do they do exist. And then the third theme, kind of similar to repeat offenders, youth and young adults. And for purposes of this analysis, we're including the age 10 to 25 range. That age range accounts for approximately 20% of our charmeck population, but it they account for almost 50% of our violent crime arrests. So ve very disproportionate impact. Couple of the substats here, 62% of juvenile violent crime arrests were someone with a prior arrest. And then you can see that 32% of violent crime arrests were someone with at least one prior arrest when under the age of 18. So once again when you when you peel back the data even more and look at some of the most extreme examples you can see scenarios where individuals as juveniles have been arrested in excess of 30 or 40 times. So those were the three areas that emerged but that obviously leads to obvious questions around well what does this mean? What do we do with this? So that's where you can think of a set of reasonable assumptions or hypotheses for each one of these. So real quickly I'll I'll go back through the three and then I'll translate that to what's on the next slide which is our last slide. So as it relates to the geographic concentrations I think it's a reasonable hypothesis to suggest that the types of investments like corridors of opportunities uh pay dividends not just for those particular corridors but for the community at large given all of the effort that's placed into building stronger communities in those corridors that have the highest need. I think it also demonstrates that more emerging programs like CMPD's core 13, which was introduced last year and focuses on an enhanced CMPD presence in the most victimized communities and not just in the corridors. That's something that they're doing in each of the 13 divisions, but once again, it's a demonstration of devoting resources to those areas in the community that are most in need related to geographic concentrations. I think it one other reasonable hypothesis would be as a community we need a new tool or new tools in particular related to the nuisance hotspots. So I'll come back to that on the next slide in terms of one of the planned actions with repeat offenders. Uh I'll just cut to the chase. Two things come to mind. Uh not earthshattering here but greater accountability is necessary. If you think about scenarios where someone has been arrested 5.6 six times on average or 17 times um or 80 plus times what can be done not just by the city of Charlotte but across the ecosystem in terms of greater accountability and just as in last year's conversation around ordinance enforcement I think there was a recognition that in those instances where we're leaning further into enforcement are there also opportunities for us to lean further and heavier into non- enforcement kind of thinking about these things holistically so here I Say one example could be as a hypothesis that as a community would we not be better off if we did more and more support related to for example the re-entry population and formerly formerly incarcerated. Last on youth and young adults here. Uh it seems like the you know the obvious assumption here would be continued investments in youth and young adults not just by the city of Charlotte but by our partners as well can pay dividends in the short term and the long term because these 15 18 and 20 year olds today are going to be 25 30 35 year olds tomorrow not literally uh but in the future. So what are the things that we can do now through additional prevention through additional diversion and in some instances through additional enforcement. So with that in mind, sorry about that. I think Amanda has a handout in case anybody's having a hard time seeing this on screen. So, this is the last slide. And what we've identified here are are nine specific plan strategies. Some are short-term, some are long-term, some are things that we've already started. Uh, some are on the drawing board, some are just ideas, some are things that are within our own control in the city of Charlotte, some are items that would require support or actions by others. And really tonight, what we're asking for is your feedback. So, big picture, are we pointed in the right direction? And then little picture, as you think of each of these nine, what would be very helpful is, are there certain ones on the list that you feel very strongly about? either strongly in favor or strongly opposed. Uh because that'll help us prioritize as as we're thinking about each of these. And we placed them into three distinct categories. First is more inward focus city of Charlotte investments and policy. Second, evidence-based community programming. And third, state policy items. So, if I may go through these as as quick as I can um and then I'll pause and then we can just open it up. So first where certainly the comment I made before that public safety has much more to do than just policing uh you can also make the two things can be true. You can make the case that an adequate size police force is an important part of any community's commitment to public safety. So you see the first one here planning for anticipated growth in CMPD sworn positions starting in fiscal year 2027. So if you think back, CMPD has been on a recruitment and retention mission really since 2019. CO was a challenge not just for our police force but everywhere across the country. Our vacancies in CMPD peaked in about 2023. Uh since that time we've been chipping away, chipping away. So we don't have a crystal ball. Uh but if you look at the forecast of where we're headed, it's reasonable to assume that by the end of fiscal year 26 is when we'd be in a position to start thinking about adding sworn positions to CMPD over a multi-year period. So why would we do that? To sustain and enhance 911 response times and to have the opportunity to expand CMPD violent crime focused units. In terms of next steps on this one, uh CMPD continued to move the ball forward in terms of closing vacancies down uh leading into FY27 budget workshop conversations about this topic presumably. So that would be less than a year away. I'm going to keep moving through these at about that pace so we can get get turn things back over to you. Number two, uh we had a number of internal conversations over the last 45 days about this notion of a local enforcement option related to nuisance properties. So there are opportunities for us and we do from time to time rely on the US attorney's office to support us related to nuisance properties. There is a North Carolina statute chapter 19 article one focused on nuisance abatement. Uh that's proven to be more cumbersome and challenging for us to use. Outcomes can be somewhat unpredictable. Um, and as a bit of an analogy in the conversations we've had about this the last few weeks, we we point back to the work that was done in 2019 to amend the noise ordinance where there was an identified community issue uh and there was a multi-month process to think through what are some very specific things that we could do to enhance governance around noise issues. So, we got real specific in terms of what do we mean when we say unreasonably loud noise? uh what happens if someone is a repeat offender and then they're then labeled as a chronic noise producer. Um if that happens then we have the opportunity to work with them and they have the obligation to work with us to develop a noise mitigation plan. What happens if they don't abide by the noise mitigation plan? Well, there's an opportunity to pursue civil penalties or court action. So, you know, these nuisance properties that we all have in mind that has have nothing to do with noise, um, drug activity, violent crime, etc. is what we're trying to address. But we felt like the noise ordinance was kind of a parallel path that we could go down. So, we don't have anything specific to share tonight in terms of what a new ordinance could look like, but uh, those conversations have started. We've assembled a small working group. We're going to meet on Wednesday of this week to continue to breathe life into this concept. What, you know, what are the boundaries of our local authority to develop something specific for this community that could better help us attack some of these issues with nuisance properties? Like I said, whether it be a liquor store, a gas station, a single family residence, a vape shop, whatever the case may be. Um, how can we develop a stronger tool in that regard? drones as first responder, which really would be an example of how CMPD could further leverage technology. There are other communities like New York and Las Vegas and Miami that have already rolled this out. Uh, you know, picture a scenario where you've got drones in tandem with CMPD personnel arriving on scene. um and just the aerial intelligence that could be provided to CMPD personnel for greater situational awareness and how beneficial that could be both to their safety as well as the safety of the general public. So with this one, there's a RFP that's under development. There's work going on to finalize funding. There's some external partners that have stepped forward to to make some commitments and that will um hopefully get off the ground soon. Okay, moving quickly down evidence-based community programming. On February 10th, Atrium uh came in and provided a good presentation on Project Boost. Uh and the results were very favorable. I think one thing that we liked about it is how targeted this work is. So, this is of course the hospital-based intervention program. 90% of the individuals participating in that program have been injured by a firearm. Uh 75% of the participants are between the age of 15 and 23. uh they conduct follow-ups with the participants at the 45 and 90day mark and in their most recent results 85% of the individuals had no criminal justice involvement during that 90-day period. So this is one where Julia Martin and I are in touch with Atrium and evaluating what the opportunities could be to help them extend their hours. Right now they're really operating during normal business hours and we'd like to see if there's a way for us to help them extend those hours to midnight. So that is that is in play. youthled social norms campaign uh a year ago. I I didn't know what that was. I didn't know what it meant. Robert Dawkins was in here earlier. He uh brought this concept to my attention. So, I'm going to just quickly read to you the definition of social norms uh from the CDC. Values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of young people. Unspoken rules for how they are expected to behave. So this was discussed a little bit during the juvenile crime policy referral last year. You know the basic concept is youth are of course very heavily influenced by messaging and imagery in their community and on social media. So this initiative would attempt to change perceptions and acceptance of youth violence, promoting positive social norms. And the one feature about this that I'm most excited about is it would really be designed by young people for young people. Um, and we have plenty of youth forums that we can leverage and tap into to make sure we're getting the right kind of input from from our youth. Uh, we would we will put out an RFP. Funding for this has already been provided through council's FY25 budget. So, we'll have a credible third party by our side, but one of the expectations of that third party would be that they engage the youth community on the design of this work, re-entry services and programming here. Um, I was thinking back to this notion of a three-legged stool that we've talked about before in terms of a good paying job and an affordable place to live and a way to get way to get between those two things. For folks that are formerly incarcerated, it's almost as if two legs of those stool are missing sometimes, right? Finding a job uh finding a place to live can be incredibly challenging. So the idea here would be what are the things we could do through additional supports and programming uh to really get them on a pathway to stability because if you think about an individual having a trouble having trouble finding a job and finding housing that can quickly lead to economic desperation that can quickly lead to a return to crime. We have great partners that we're already working with in this area. You think of freedom fighting missionaries and and what Kenny Robinson is doing. Uh what I love about his model is it's not just housing. It's not just jobs. It's not just healthcare, it's all of those things and more. Uh we're working with city startup labs and some things that Danielle Frasier is doing. They have a great partnership with Atrium around access to healthcare jobs for formerly incarcerated. So here the idea would be we've got a growing number of partners in this area. We have more policy focus on this area. For example, the housing funding policy that council endorsed in September identifies re-entry as a specific priority population. So, uh, we're not asking for anything on this one. We're just we're just saying to you that we intend to be more intentional, as intentional as possible in terms of marrying up existing funding stream funding streams and programming focused on the re-entry population. Last, real quick on state policy items, North Carolina House Bill 50, uh, which is Senate Bill 320, is uh, something that already has momentum in Raleigh. Its emphasis is on uh retention of law enforcement officers that are with at least 30 years of service. It's a modification to the separation allowance formula. Uh there are uh RS and D's within the Meckllinburgg delegation that are supporting this bill with in both the House and the Senate. Representative Ctham is a primary sponsor for the House. Uh Senator Sawyer is a primary sponsor in the Senate and uh Senate Senator Burgerer is also a sponsor for this. Uh, moving down to number eight, it just so happens that the district attorney um and a leader from the court system was at a Meckllinmberg County Board of County Commissioners meeting not that long ago discussing resource needs. Right now, uh, District Attorney Merryweather has 84 prosecutors. And if you look at national benchmarks for a city our size, he could make a strong case that he needs dozens more. If you look at our court system here locally, once again, you look at national benchmarks, a case can be made that they need many more clerks. If you look at the public defenders here locally, a case could be made that we need more public defenders. And why does this matter? It kind of gets back to the greater accountability reference on the previous slide. You know, timely justice or swift justice, I believe, is in the best interest of the entire community, the victim, the accused, the community at large. So, how can we um and this is already in the state legislative strategy, but how can we breathe life into it so it's not just words on paper, but be part of a coalition that's trying to advance that over a long peri what would likely be a longer period of time. And then finally on the working with partners to advance options for local juvenile detention center, as I've said before, we would always want detention of juveniles to be the option of last resort, unquestionably. Um, but having said that, in those instances where a court deems that it's in the public best interest to have a juvenile detained, in those scenarios, and the chief has been very outspoken about this, and for what it's worth, I've been outspoken as well. For what it's worth, we believe it's it's truly in the community's best interest to have a local juvenile detention center, have them closer to family, their support network, legal resources, uh the court for hearings, and what community would be willing to invest more in supports for juveniles in our in our juveniles than this community. So, uh there's there have been starts and stops in this conversation over the last year or so. I did reach out to William Lacier who's the deputy secretary deputy secretary of juvenile justice in the North Carolina Department of Public Safety just indicate our desire to to have a seat back at the table on that one. Okay, I did that as fast as I possibly could. I think I got through I got through the nine. So, I'll I'll pause. All right. So, um we have Thank you for that, Sean. I um I don't know if you had one more day if you could put any more on that slide, but I want to say that um we I thought we would go around this way because I've started this way all the earlier. I'm going to start with Miss Brown and then come around this way. Miss Brown, I don't have much to say. I wanted to say to you, Mr. He, thank you so much for all the hard work that you put in and the comment I made about I believe you and you're a good person. That's intentional because you spoke with me oneon-one about how to move forward and how to change your language and don't many people come for me to do that. So for a point of clarification that means a lot to me and people that come from where I come from. I know you're hard your intentionality because you showed it to me from day one. So let me clarify that. I don't have a whole lot to say. I've already spoke to how this feel. If you're going to change the trajectory of what we need to do for safety, the people that are involved need to be at the table. You're trying to do that. policing simply does not work in a community that has cultural issues and um I the drone idea I think is just completely outrageous but that's just me. Thank you. All right, Miss Mayfield. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Thank you for the presentation, Sean. I do have a concern that it was mentioned about us putting a RFP out for regarding drones when we're just hearing about it. There needs to be a lot more conversation. We have gone back. We can go back to 2021 to 2023. There are challenges with facial recognition. There are challenges in multiple communities. We regarding technology, how technology can be used, how technology can be hacked, where it's been deployed. There's a number of articles online regarding the fact that we just need to slow down even though other communities are using drones. We're seeing a lot more challenges that have been considered. So I don't know, and this is really go back to the manager. I am not comfortable with hearing that staff is moving forward with something with that council has not had a long conversation about as a group and that is utilizing drones and if that's best for our community when we're looking at number nine working with the partners to advance options for a local juvenile center. The only way I would even consider being comfortable with that is if our language clearly states that this can never be a privatized facility because a private facility is a money generator. And it is more a issue of having heads on those beds than actually creating opportunity. So, if there's ever a time that we are talking about the potential of having a private facility come into our community, especially when it comes to our youth, that is not something that I would ever support. So, I would like for us to have much more conversation of what it could look like if we were to partner with a juvenile detention center. But again, and that would probably be through the attorney's office to let us know if we can legally have language in place from the front end to ensure that that is a facility that cannot be privatized because that would be detrimental to our community. I also want to find out while we're doing all of this work, have we had and have we had or recently had a community survey regarding law enforcement cuz we have a lot that was presented and as mentioned we've done a lot but have we actually gone to the communities where we're seeing the impacts because I've had indiv individuals reach out even small business owners. So we have private, let's say towing companies. Our law enforcement are on captured on video not doing their job. So we have some challenges in community that creates some of these challenges that we're seeing because a lot of this is based off a relationship. So, manager, do you know of the last time that we actually had a s survey directed not only to residents, excuse me, but also small business owners regarding Charlotte Meckberg Police Department interaction. Uh, I think that during one of these presentations, CMPD was in the middle of an RFP process to bring in um a a group to do one of those community assessments, one of those surveys. Yes. So, what I would like for us to consider, we need to get that information before we put a whole lot of money, investment, and time into what we have identified as to be some steps to move forward. The community needs to be locked step with us because a lot of these challenges that we have seen unfortunately especially with our youth there's a responsibility and we don't necessarily like to talk about it because it's not the popular conversation but you need to know where your 12 13 14 15 year old is. So we need to have those real conversations but also we need to know where does the community either direct impact or perception how do they look at CMPD because if I don't look at you as a partner then all of this is just gray on paper. So I would like for if it was started go ahead and fasttrack that to get that survey not only to our residents to our communities especially with a targeted outreach in communities where we have seen quite a bit of interaction but also with our small businesses because if our small businesses are having a negative impact with law enforcement if we get receive a video showing our officers not doing the job that they're supposed to do or protect and serve. That is a concern because that's breaking down trust and we have to figure out that piece in my opinion like a we all got one before we can get this right. We need to start there. Thank you, Mr. Picari. Thank you. Um what while of course I would have liked to see more teeth in the initial takeaway here, I do want to step back and not let that overshadow the fact that I think this is a uh a a major milestone for the city and for our conversation in this topic. Um it's it's it's historically been a hard conversation for us to have um for all the dynamics that Sean kind of teed up in the beginning, but also because there's not a lot of appetite for us to dissect and open up the things that are indicative of problems uh and the reflection those problems bring. So while it was kind of you know soft played in my history and experience here this is the first time we've actually taken a cut and said here are some of the problems and the data points behind that that we can draw these hypotheses on and then bring forth ideas. So I I I think that the punchline and takeaway of all of this is let's not make sure we don't make this a one-time exercise and then move on. This is a living thing that we get better at the data. We get better at figuring out what ideas to bring forth. We debate them from a policy and a budget perspective. But then this group continues to look for them and starts to track and report back to us the things we implement and we put in place. And I think that will be incredibly powerful. I think some of the things I mean this is a great list and I think everything on here for the most part should have some element of being in this but I think there are some ways where we can operate within our partner group locally and be a little more aggressive. I mean, if we know that there are data points that 66% of people have prior arrest history that are committing the crimes, again, are backing up our hypothesis that a smaller number of people are responsible for an outsized portion of the crime we we we face, yet they keep getting let out in a revolving door. We need programs that 100% worked on reaclamation and and workforce development, but we also need to say, okay, when this person hits a radar, whether it's the DA or the jail or what the court system, whatever it is, like let's pay attention if it's if it's a lack of focus on that stuff. Um, that is just and too many other, you know, noise angles that are making it be overlooked and a revolving door occur. That's what we can get deep into. I think the other thing I would love to see on there is um is a the same kind of way a deep dive focus on property crimes because right now when we talk about the most violent of crimes, homicides, terrible. We don't want to see that go up. Obviously want to focus there. But that impacts hundreds of people in Charlotte. Property crimes every year impact tens and tens of thousands of people. And I bet you we will be surprised and will be informed by the data points that come out of themes that we can go after there. So I really think property crimes need to be a focus. I think tactical, you know, um um making sure people aren't falling between the the cracks and we have enforcement there paired with these programs to move forward. But all in all, I've been waiting for something like this and I won't critique it because it didn't go as far as I would have wanted. It's a great start for us to build upon, but we need to be focused and dedicated to it and make sure that it's one of our top initiatives because I know uh Mr. Graham and several others, you know, we were like, okay, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I can see a framework for how we get to what we do and how we track it and how it's evergreen, but we have to stay focused on it as our number one priority around here. Otherwise, it will just be a great conversation that that falls away over time. Mr. Driggs. Uh, thank you. So, uh, in in past meetings, I've expressed some skepticism about our efforts based on the fact that the numbers look persistent. Uh, and I think there was a public perception issue. So, I want to acknowledge these numbers are good. Uh, and I want to congratulate CMPD and everybody else that's involved in our safety efforts for what looks like a a meaningful impact in this first quarter. I hope we can see that through for the whole year. I would just put two questions out there not not for discussion right now but for one uh do we know what's working? So Sean can we uh somehow attribute some of some of the progress that we see to the things that we're doing in these areas and the second thing is uh in the past we had an explanation about how the response times to calls kind of implied a staffing level for CMPD. I haven't seen an update of that analysis. So, I would be curious to see an overview of our actual response times and what kind of staffing levels it takes to achieve the results that we want. Are we achieving them now? And if so, because I do believe that there is a a need for us to staff up. I think a greater presence of police uh visible presence of police has a calming effect. Uh so it's not about arresting a lot of people. It's just about the visible presence which gives some people confidence and discourages bad behavior. Thank you, Mr. Graham. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um uh Sean, thank you for the for the presentation and and and thank you for allowing me to barge into your office and giving you my two cents uh from time to time on this matter. Uh I think it's really important. Um, I would want our city to be the safest city in America. That should be our overarching goal, right? And so, while the first quarter numbers are extremely encouraging, as Council Member Dre indicated, I hope we can continue that pattern over the next three quarters. And I think CMPD and others who are involved on a day-to-day basis should be commended for a for a relatively good first quarter. But they're still crying, right? in uh in in a real world, like I said, I would love Charlotte to be the the safest city in in America, but but here we are. a couple of things and I really like the way you kind of outline the presentation um because it demonstrates our commitment uh uh for investing in alternative programs, diversion programs, preventative program, youth programs, domestic violence program, mental health and substance abuse programs in conjunction with Mechanburg County and a wide variety of other programs committed to helping people help themselves And I looked at that list and I voted for every single one of them, right? And I would raise my hand uh again and again again. If someone around the table has a smart idea about preventive grassroot programs that that has community impact and drive the numbers down, I believe that's a part of the equation that we have to we have to invest in and I'm willing to make that investment for sure. So I think that's a good way to kind of define that one leg of that three-legged stool. the the other leg is the the public policy piece coming from the state of North Carolina and we we just have to have a the stamina of a marathon running in terms of some of these issues that we're dealing with especially related to uh public funding to the district attorney's office and the magistr's office and despite the chief um best efforts and the DA's best efforts they've made meaningful progress in terms of trying to push that ball up the It's going to take all of us, corporations leaders city county nonprofit organizations, grassroot organization, really making the case to Raleigh of additional funding that is needed to make sure that our judicial system here locally is effective and efficient. uh and that the the type of public policy that they're supporting like allowing people to have a gun without going through a permitting process uh makes no sense for a big urban community like Charlotte because we've end up having these guns stolen uh and then we wake up one morning there's a shooting on anywhere street Charlotte North Carolina with a stolen gun. Uh and so gun uh the proliferation of guns uh across Charlotte and our state is continues to be a problem and those the type of support and help that we need from our our legislators and over many of sessions uh to kind of get to where we need to go which is two four and a session is two years. So we're talking about six, eight years really this really grinding it out talking about this singular issue of funding for our judicial system um from all parties involved and and while we have it on our legislative agenda from time to time this it seems from my perspective it's just words on paper right there's not a proactive uh movement in terms of really trying to articulate the rationale why the these requests are needed and so I'm hopefully that as a part of this working group uh and through Dimple's committee that we can really rethink that issue and and how we present it to the general assembly and and how we kind of coordinate our our efforts with others uh so that it's just not Charlotte going up there. Charlotte, it is Meckllinburgg counties, our corporate community is everyone saying the same thing that we really really need more support for our uh judicial system and smart legislation that doesn't impact urban communities like Charlotte because we see the impact of and that's a tough sale from a blue city going to a red a red state, right? But it's I think it's a argument that our residents want us to make. And then lastly and probably more importantly uh is the the first bucket which is bucket number one. Um I I I do believe uh that um that's extremely important. Um like like uh BARI said I I I won't um uh I I I I want a lot more specifics. Um but I can live with the the start that that we're having and hopefully through the internal work group a lot more specifics will come out of that. I do think as a community that we really need to really think about long term about filling the police vacancies that we have currently today, right? And then think about how do we make sure that we increase the percentage of of our police force commission to our growth. Right? We're growing exponentially, but I'm not sure that our staffing from a policing perspective is keeping up with that growth. And so at some time, Mr. mind, right? We really need to sit down and and not talk about 267, 28, but really 30, 31, 32, and 33 in terms of how do we make sure that our uh the the uh number of officers we have on the street is commensurate to our population growth and and I think that's long-term planning. Obviously, it has budget implications because uh the the police department is a lion share of our budget. Um, but I'm not sure that they're keeping up with the growth, right, in terms of having enough officers on the street. And then lastly, you know, this internal work group, I I hope that they will really really get into the weeds of some of the issues that I think still are pressing us, right? And one in particular, Mr. manager is you know I know we've made a a significant um investment on quarters of opportunities and there's a lot of metrics that we we evaluate what measures um gets done but one that we don't measure is public safety on these quarters as a part of the quarters of opportunity met metrics and I'll just give you an example we had a meeting last month this time when number of people saying get citizens involved and these are mo my most involved all citizens. But we had that meeting on Monday and then that same weekend uh CVS on Batties Road uh closed because of of shoplifting uh at that store. So they closed the store down and so there's no uh pharmacy from I77 all the way to Sunset. Uh so they're closed. That same weekend, both Chase Bank and TD Banks had their their um front windows busted out again for about the third or fourth time, right? Uh causing the individual property owner who was an African-American gentleman um insurance to increase yet again. And on that same weekend, there was a a gentleman that uh was found dead uh behind Nikki's off of Katherine Simmons from a drug overdose. That was 4 days after some of you guys tell me to get people more involved. And so these are real incidents happening on our quarters that this internal work group really needs to not be afraid to uh ask tough questions in reference to drug houses and trap houses, nuisance property, uh repeat offenders, really uh getting the city attorney's office involved on the front end in terms of simply sending a letter to some of these nuisance properties, right? um and beginning to if it's going to take three or four years to kind of get to the end of the road, then that two or three or four years needs to start with the first step, right? Which is identifying and letting people know that we are watching you and it's going to be targeted enforcement. We're not trying to lock everybody up, but what we are trying to do is really send a message in the community that we clearly understand despite the progress that we're making, right? Despite the numbers that are coming down significantly, despite the programs that we're investing in, uh that there's still work to be done in a very targeted way that is focusing on not individuals but business owners uh and a number of these other uh institutions that are causing some of the issues that are impacting our community. And so I like the steps that we're taking. I I think it makes sense in terms of the way it's strategized, but unlike Mr. Mccari, um we simply cannot allow this that um to sit on a shelf or doubt we're doing along the way and not, you know, uh be complacent until something else sparks in the community and then we all come to the back to where we are today. We spent five months getting to where we are today. That's almost half a year of of of processing. So, I hope that now we can really begin to um identify more programs that we can invest in that keep people uh out of crime. Um that we have a better relationship with the state and ongoing relationship in terms of really saying that if if funding is an issue that it has to be our top priority. And then thirdly, really really focusing in a narrowly tailored way to addressing the hot spots where they occur. And some men said we probably need to uh heat them up some more, right? Because we kind of know, you said it yourself, uh every district representatives get these same calls about a particular address or a particular street or a particular individual, right? So that we use that intel really begin to try to um um be proactive and working in conjunction with CMPD and others to address the the the perception and the reality of crime in Charlie. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Johnson. We are, but we're going around this way now. Okay. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I I won't be long. I think this is something that if if we can, we should send this to committee because this is a very in-depth conversation. You see how each council member wants to to talk about this and we have public members of the public that are waiting. So, this is one of those presentations that we would like to have a lot more time. I will say that council member Ashmeira and Winston and I served on a triple E committee, the equity equitable equity committee. And what we talked about is that we wanted to develop a framework where all of our policies were viewed through that lens. I would say the same thing about this. I think this is a great first start. I think it's a great comprehensive plan, but this is something that all of our policies should be looked at through this lens and and each each committee. How can we improve policies to improve public safety? Um I I will one example I think of re-entry services from the housing committee perspective tax credit dollars or incentives that we give to developers or even economic development for employers. We should be requiring re-entry services or um ban requiring to ban the box when we are supporting employers or landlords. So that kind of lens we need to get serious all hands on deck. Um, we when we looked at the juvenile detention center the first time, we learned that I think was it 99 or 90% of the juvenile offenders had history of mental health issues. So, I'd like to see what kind of percentages we're looking at that will go towards social services versus incarceration. The Katie Blessing Center, we're we're excited about that. So, I like to lean more towards addressing the root cause. I'm going to do a proclamation tonight talking about brain injury. I know that up to 87% of individuals who are incarcerated have history of head injury or possibly. So, looking at the root cause, but in order to do that is to really look at take this and and how can we improve all of our policies to take a look. Council member Graham talked about this this intersection with with all of this all of this crime. Do we have a camera there? I mean, so there are some very common sense approaches, but I think it's a matter of really making this a priority and taking a look at all of our strategies from a public safety perspective. Thank you, Miss Molina. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, for the sake of time, I'll be brief. Um, there's been a lot said already, so uh, thank you, Sean, for your work. again when you walked away last time. Um I think you you took what we said and you've made what I feel like in the time frame a valiant attempt to implement some of what we've said. Again, I I see this as um a moving deliverable so to speak. I think the policy itself and how we said it not to belabor a point that's already been stated but you know the policy itself would be a standardized what we can do from a city perspective but I think how we monitor and control this will be ongoing. I think you know the the the young adults that we see today you know we're planning this right now based on those young adults and in 5 to 10 years those will be adults in a completely different age bracket and then we'll have new adults coming in with new technology access um and and from a from a from an understanding of crime and things like that. I mean I remember when I was a young girl what I knew as drugs is totally antiquated now. I mean, there are things I hear of on a regular basis that I I didn't even realize were possible. And so, you know, as time goes along, crime goes, it it evolves. The potential for what can happen evolves and and as it moves, we move like everything that we do. So, um I like my colleagues would like to stay attentive to this. You know, we're already working on a few items in East Charlotte. Uh CMPD has the chats program that is coming online. Um I can't wait to get involved with that. That's where we, the district reps, can actually go to community meetings with CMPD and we'll have a direct opportunity to engage with our residents from, you know, um, a public safety perspective. So, a lot of that's going to be rolling out really soon. Um, so these are ways that we, the, you know, representative can engage with our community members, touch them, find out what they're looking for, you know, in partnership with CMPD. um particularly for us in you know the um east area there's an area that Dante and I share um that's an area of emphasis where you know the chats program is going to come online and the north triion division and some of those other divisions and I'm sure it's going to be across our city with our particular divisions where we can reach out touch our like I said residents and etc. So, I think it'll be ongoing. I think we're going to learn through this process as we, you know, engage with our residents, as we gather more information, as we partner with our state, right? Because they they have, you know, different ways that they can help our DA and things like that with capacity issues. So, this is completely and totally a public and private and state and maybe even federal partnership in order for us to achieve these objectives. So, thank you for the work. I'm looking forward for the continuation of the work and I'll give this microphone to him because we're we're sharing tonight. Tag team. So Sean, thank you for the presentation. I'm very excited about number one, uh, number six, and number eight. So, thank you, sir. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I agree with what my colleague, Council Member Molina, said. Great job, Mr. Heath. You took all of our feedback, 12 different feedback, and you incorporated that into one slide. Great job. Uh, in such a short time frame. Yes. In such a short time frame. Thank you. Great work. I appreciate how you incorporated state policy items because we hear loud and clear from our law enforcement partners that they're arresting same individuals 30 40 times and we need support from our for our DA's office for our judicial system for our juvenile detention center. So it's great that we are working on the next steps. All I ask is that we get uh continuous update and we continue to monitor progress. So if we can have some sort of progress tracker on some of these next steps, that would be very helpful. That's all I have. Thank you. And thanks to CMPD for all the work that you all do to keep our city safe. Uh it's not easy. Thank you, Miss Anderson. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Hey Sean, can you go back to your intro slide where you had the metrics up? Uh I think it was the intro the second that that slide there, right? Um and so what I want to do is uh just make sure that we have we're casting the right light on this discussion. uh because I I typically have the the CMPD uh report in my in my book in my backpack, but I took it out because I had to do something else. But when when you guys released that report at the beginning of the year, there were the numbers were good. You know, we we we have areas of opportunity, of course. Um but the numbers were pretty good. And now, uh, Sean, you're standing in front of us with these numbers that you can just look optically at at everything that's in green. Um, you know, doubledigit decreases. Um, so clearly with only really two lines of red uh that have some issues that that need to be addressed. So, I just want to make sure that we have the right tone on this uh on this conversation. Charlotte um is is not a particularly violent city. Uh we're a growing city and our crime is not growing with the same at the same rate or the same clip of our population. That is that's good information and we want to work of course to all of the all of the strategies and programs that you've laid out um to ensure that we're doing so. But um Charlotte is not an unsafe city. Now I do want to I do want to preface that by saying if crime is happening to me then I feel that crime is happening to me right crime is personal of course but on a on a macro level and that's always the case right um but on a macro level um Charlotte is not an unsafe city and so I just want to make sure that even for citizens who are who might be listening to this or watching it that we have the right um messaging there. Um, can you also go to slide four for me for a second? So in in my opinion based on what I've heard you present I believe that the collaborative investment in human services um of course Katie Blessing Center all three of them um they all have a different level of emphasis but that particular box as well as the crime prevention and intervention programming. I think if we focus on those two areas and really lean into those two areas, we can um see some some um noticeable decreases in if you go to slide five, just advance one more slide. um in the area that at the the bottom one, the youth and youth adults, we're talking about um citizens who are aged 10 through 25 accounting for almost 50% of violent crime arrests. Um that's that's a burden on the system, but that's also a lack of accountability because many of those many of those individuals are juvenile, right? And there should be increased accountability with the parents. I'm sure there's a direct correlation with um CMS um attendance whether it's chronic absenteeism or or um advancing in performance academically. So, I really feel like this area is an area that we can lean into that could have in addition to doing the other things, but putting a stronger emphasis on this particular population will help increase our numbers and visibly and and we'll we'll be able to feel it um that that that crime is changing in the city. And the last time the chief was here, he had a map of um the convenience stores and gas stations and crime that happening close approximate to those areas. And it was, you know, there were in specific areas, but the second point I think we could focus on are these, as you said, nuisance properties where crime is taking place. there's uh congregations of individuals that eventually lead to crime and it's chronic. Um so tag tag teaming the the youth and young adults and those nuisance areas with some targeted emphasis. Um I believe when we come back a year from now those those percentages for the crime rates would look very different. So thank you for your work Sean. I know it's not it's not easy um but thank you for this work. was very insightful. So, thank you for CMPD officers that have stayed with us all the way through this conversation. Um, we know how difficult your job is and we appreciate you very much. Um, we know that we have a lot of work to do. Someone once told me that there's no such thing as the justice system because that would imply that there was organization and abilities to do things fast. Well, and it isn't. It is about taking the time to do the things that we believe will have the most impact. And you've heard from the council members. Now, I want to um say that we are about to go downstairs for the city council meeting. Um and there are a couple of new changes or one one or two new changes. One new change. Um we have been doing proclamations and reading them and um they I thought that they would be just read and that was it. But instead, Mr. Fox has helped me. No, I may have I may have to amend my conversation. Okay. Because I've looked at your rules. There was a rule that was adopted by the council some years ago as it relates to proclamations and awards and it specifically provides that as to those types of events by the council. There's not an opportunity for someone to speak on that. Okay. Um that's a part of your rules and I need to get with council member Johnson on that. uh just to clarify that and also if you look at rule five it specifically provides that that rule does not apply to proclamations and awards as well. Okay. All right. So thank you. I don't have to say anything about that and we can um Miss May Miss Mayfield. Yes. clarification on what since all of us don't know what this conversation was that y'all had going back to what year because we have over time when proclamations have been read people have been invited down to say a few words. So what's the background on this conversation? You have an agenda item number 15 file number 15-5247 and it's a policy item and it specifically was designed to address awards and proclamations and awards and it it specifically provides that these are kind ceremonial in nature that the honore doesn't even have the opportunity to speak. I I assume the council can wave this, but that's what the rule provides. But it also does specifically provide that um it establish certain parame parameters around awards and recognition of of council at council business meetings and it provides that um that uh the mayor uh read honores will be recognized. No remarks or presentations will be made during the meeting. My god. Um and and this is coupled with I'm sorry to get in this. I wish Miss Johnson was here because I need to go talk to her. It it when you have your rule five that allows individuals to identify an item on the agenda, put a a request to be heard and to speak. That rule though has a section E and it says the provision of this rule shall not apply to speakers addressing council on awards and recognitions. So that rule that allows people to come and speak to an agenda item does not it specifically excludes awards and recognitions under your rules of procedure. Can we vote to suspend the rule? You can do that. So the issue is we we have a proclamation related to people with brain damage and there are people here who want to speak about that. So I would move that we suspend our rule in order to allow those people to speak after the proclamation. They are on the waiting list otherwise to speak and may not even get a chance to say anything. Second. Y third. Okay. I'm just Okay. So that's about 14 additional people. No, I thought you said that's speaking to specifically to brain damage. I know, but there are 14 people. Um, so I'm that's I'm just saying if you look at the number of people that have signed up. Yeah, but mayor, you have the ability to in your discretion to impose a different time for large groups of people. So, we can do that and we can do it for everyone. But I want to just I just want you to be aware that there are a number of people Johnson is not here. Maybe there's a motion three of them. Okay, we have a motion and a second and it'll be point of clarification. Mayor, um, what are we voting to to completely suspend our rules for all speakers? No, just for tonight. I think I'm just asking. I'm asking. All right. I was going to I thought it was only a few from talking to Miss Johnson, but uh maybe I'll amend it to say we suspend our rules in order to allow three people to speak after the resolution is read. Would that be okay? We'll have to do them all. And we're we can't do three. I've got one, two, three four five six seven eight. No, mayor. There's a there's a prerequisite for them of being able to speak is that they've got to have filed with the clerk a form to speak. So, if you wave it, you wave it as to those people who have timely filed the form to speak. That's what I was asking. That's what I thought. Yeah. So, we get the people who have actually filed to speak and That's right. We're Yeah, we're good. We're It's those All right. So, that's the motion that we allow the people who have timely filed to speak to talk after the resolution is read. All right. Rules. I I Anyone opposed? Okay. Okay. Thank you. That confus [Music] [Music] Hey, hey hey. [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] Hey hey [Music] hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey girl. My Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] down. Hey, [Music] feeling. Hey Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey, heat. Hey. [Music] I don't know. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] bell tones. I understand. Um, welcome to the Charlotte City Council March 24th, 2025 council meeting. Thank you. We have a full house tonight and so I'm going to dive right in. We'll begin with introductions and we'll start with um Miss Asher. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Good evening. Dimple at large. Good evening, Lana Mayfield. Council member at large. Good evening, Tark Buri, District 6, where the Boy Scouts are from who are with us today. Thank you. [Applause] Grace, District 7. Malcolm Graham, District 2. Good evening. Dante Anderson, Mayor Prom, District 1. Hello everyone and thank you for being here. I'm V LS and I serve as mayor. Marcus Jones, city manager. Good evening. I'm Renee Johnson and I'm honored to represent district 4. Good evening. I am Marjorie Molina. I represent district 5. Y'all know what it is. Sean Brown represent district three. Let's go. [Applause] Okay. I I was about to say that if anyone does an outburst, we will remove you from this room, but I'm a little bit scared right now. So, that's not going to happen. So, thank you all. Um I do say seriously, we often have people come down and we want everyone to feel safe and respected in what they want to do and achieve by speaking with this council. So we begin our meeting and I'm not quite sure who is in our prayer for this or oh Miss Molina I want to recognize Miss Molina who will lead us in prayer and if you choose to do be a part of it that is fine we understand that not everyone um participates in the same way with their faith or if they have faith and then after the um prayer we go and we have a pledge of allegiance of our flag and that again too is optional but I bet the boy scouts wouldn't mind coming down here and doing it. All right. So, which one of you is going to come down and help us with the pledge today? All right. Pick somebody. Um, the mayor has chosen this course of business on the fly. You young man, you come down, but wait until after the prayer. All right. Okay. Come on down. So, Miss Molina Oh, what are you doing? I think he's praying. Oh, he's praying to us. Mr. Mitchell is starting us off with a prayer tonight. Off to a great start, everyone. Okay. All right. Uh thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh actually, it's not really a prayer tonight. I actually would like to say good evening and thank you all for coming out uh to be with us here tonight. And as we gather tonight for the work of the council, I invite us to reflect and to center ourselves in purpose and in presence. Uh this season of spring reminds us that even after long stretches of quiet, rebirth is nature's rebuttal. Dormant leaves are budding again. And though and for those of us who believe like I do, we know that soon he will rise. This is indeed a sacred time, a season of renewal and preparation for what's to come. March is also women's history month, a time to honor the women who led with courage before us and to hold the reverence and hold with reverence uh the fact that we are a majority women council shaping the legacy for those who will follow us. May our decisions tonight be thoughtful. May our service be grounded in integrity. And may we remember the weight and the opportunity of the seats that we hold. Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful name. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. Come on down, buddy. You can lead us. You said you volunteered. That's right. Come on, baby. Follow your lead. There's the flag right there. Look at the flag. Just look over here. Right there. Okay. You tell us when. Tell me when. I 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. All right. Well done. Well done. [Applause] Thank you very much. Too bad your um parents weren't here with the cell phone, you know. All right. So, um, the next item on our agenda is a proclamation which will be read by council member Renee Johnson. Miss Johnson. Okay. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Are we Are you going to call the speakers down or No, I was going to let you read and then we'll call this Okay. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank Madame Mayor Biles for your support and your leadership over the past five years as we recognize March as brain injury awareness month. So, thank you for that. Let's give her a hand. Thank you. I'd also like to thank county commissioner um George Dunlap and also county commissioner chair Mark Derell for their co-sponsoring of the proclamation. I want to thank Charlotte City partners. Uh if you when you leave tonight, if it's dark, the buildings that are lit in blue and green are in honor of brain injury survivors. So, I'd like to thank Charlotte City Partners for the coordination of that. Um, if you are in here tonight, I want you to think, you don't have to stand up, but if you know anyone that has suffered a concussion, suffered a stroke, uh, lack of oxygen, and has the brain injury, menitis, a brain tumor. There's so many individuals that we live among that have suffered a brain injury. It affects one in three of Americans. So, I really want you to think about that. um and the needs and and the chronic illness that it can become. It it affects so many areas uh memory, cognition, mood, depression. So, as you think about as I read this tonight, just think about your loved ones that might have suffered a brain injury and may have challenges um that we should all be aware of. And I and I just believe the more of us that are aware will make it easier for individuals to find services and recover back to a quality of life that they um that they they would like to. Whereas recent studies show that an estimated 80 million Americans report having history of a brain injury, approximately 31% of US adults live with an acquired brain injury. And whereas acquired brain injury is considered a chronic condition and includes injuries sustained from medical conditions such as stroke, menitis, tumor, lack of oxygen and also includes TBI which is a traumatic brain injury suffered from a blunt force trauma or concussion. And whereas approximately 50% of individuals who survive a moderate to severe brain injury are unemployed five years after their injury. Whereas research shows 90% of domestic violence survivors suffer physical injuries to their head. Whereas research shows that up to 50% of homeless individuals and up to 87% of incarcerated adults report a history of a brain injury. Whereas public awareness and understanding of these injuries, prevalence, prevention, and treatment will improve the recovery process and the quality of life for these brave warriors. Now therefore, we via Alexander Li Liy, I'm sorry, mayor of Charlotte and Mark Jerel, chair of Meckllinburgg County Board of Commissioners, do hereby proclaim March 2025 as brain injury awareness month in Charlotte and Meckllinburgg County and commend its observance to all citizens. Witness our hands and the official seals of the city of Charlotte and Meckllinburgg County. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] and Miss Cindy Daniel. And I and I will give Is she Yes, she's here. Cindy Daniels, if you Sydney Daniels, please if you come down and um receive the proclamation and I also have a a couple other that I'd like to give it. We we actually had someone reach out to the office independently from um his name is Tracy Suggs. Tracy Suggs and he wanted to get a copy of a proclamation for his organization. He has the organization Protect Our Skulls Incorporated. So, I'd like to give him and also Jordan Slate a proclamation. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. All right. So, um, we have a number of speakers that want to address the brain injury awareness, um, proclamation. And, um, I want you to know that because of our rules, we have, we're going to give everybody two minutes to speak and we will begin. I'm sorry. Has every One more person. One more person. Thank you. Thank you. There you go. Okay. Okay. And I'm going to ask everyone to um, abide by our rules. we do two minutes for speaking um because we have over I think 20 people to speak but we will have the brown the brain injury folks come down first so Jordan sled sled please come down to the podium right here you can walk around that way and then you will be followed by Kimberly Morris not Kimberly's not here. So Cindy Daniel, you went all the way down and you're next up then. And then Tanisha Dcasta and Kimberly Wilson are also invited to speak. All right. So are we ready? Uh yes, ma'am. Thank you. So please begin. Thank you. So I appreciate the opportunity to be here and speak on behalf of the brain injury community. It means a lot to me. I um I'm a huge activist state and nationwide. So the more awareness that we can raise for brain injury, the better that the community can be. I don't know if anyone knows about brain injury, but a good portion of someone's life when they sustain a brain injury is taken from them. So they no longer have that community interaction. Um, so things such as support groups, uh, one-on-one conversations with people, all those really make a huge difference in a brain injury survivor's life. Um, but I just I wanted to thank everyone for acknowledging this and making it official. Thank you very much for doing that, please. Daniel. Daniel, I have to get it a little bit lower. It's not a talking podium. There is someone behind here. So again, I thank the committee and madam chairman, I thank you all for your support and for the proclamation. It means a lot to people with brain injuries and disabilities. Um, there's about 200 million Americans that sustain a brain injury and 28,000 sustain are are in North Carolina. And there's a lot more because a lot of times we call brain injury a silent epidemic because you really it's not one that you can really see. And a lot of times people don't even know they've been concussed or have an injury or even share because of the stigma of having that disability. So, it's really important to have these days and acknowledge that we are people that we are someone. I have I'm a person that has um I'm a walking parabolgic and I'm also have a brain injury. So, I'm kind of I don't want to say a twofer. That's what they call on that, but um I served under the president's committee on employment with people with disabilities. Um and we worked very hard to change the laws, to change the policies to show that people are people. Doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter how you move or if you have a disability. Everyone belongs and everyone has a voice, a story and needs to be heard. And it doesn't matter what you have or what you look like or again what the disability is that we are citizens. We're citizens of the United States. We are citizens of North Carolina and a lot that live here in Charlotte. And so we appreciate the time, your support to see that people with brain injuries and concussions are truly that your citizens, your neighbors, your family members, your children because um disability doesn't stop. I mean, anyone could get a concussion, could get a brain injury, can get anything. We can leave this building and boom, fall down, get hit by a car. Hopefully not, but still there's so many things that can happen that can cause. and by the awareness and by education, it makes these things happen. So together we're unity. Together we're together. And again, I thank you again for your support, for the proclamation, and um and what you do as committee. Thank you very much. Mr. Costa is not here. Kimberly Wilson. Kimberly Wilson. Good evening. My name is Kimberly Wilson. Thank you. She's up there. My name is Kimberly Wilson. I'm a fivetime stroke five time stroke and seizure survivor. I had my first stroke in 2008 after my 33rd birthday. I had my second one in 2019 while working in Maryland as a caregiver to people with disabilities and going to the Galedet school in Washington DC to learn ASL, American Sign Language. After being released from the hospital, I was staying in a nursing home. My sister, Judith Brown, brought me here to live with her and her family in December 20 2019. I'm grateful for this because there were many people in my situation who did not have access to stable housing while navigating all that having a life-changing disability entails. I was safe here with health care from the Novant Health. Novant Novant Michael Jordan Clinic when the pandemic hit. I am grateful for my attorney, Chad Brown, for walking me through the process of obtaining my disability benefits. I am also grateful for my brother-in-law, Brandon Brown, aka Mr. Excitement, for introducing me to prominent individuals trying to make a difference in our community, community leaders, our lawmakers, and local agencies. I also want to thank the young stroke and aneurysm survivors support group and my mental health team during this part of my life. These programs are needed to help people like me coming into my new normal world after leaving a 9-to-f5 working world. It can be very mentally taxing experience. Today, I have my full disability benefits in healthcare with Medicaid. I volunteer in the community, travel independently, and just started a remote part-time job. I attend church weekly, and enjoy all the diverse cultural events in Charlotte. I can say I am confident where I am now and enjoy life. I would like to thank city council councilwoman Renee Johnson for her consistent support for people with brain injuries. Thank you, Mayor Levi Liles, for this proclamation. And thanks to all the city council for recognizing National Brain Injury Awareness Month. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Music] [Applause] So, thank you everyone that um you came to help us be better understanding of something that's very important for all of our communities. So, thank you very much. Now we have our public forum where we have our speakers come down to address the council members. The first person again the twominut rule replies and our first um speaker is or is Jackie Robinson. Mr. Robinson is he here? Mayor, do you know if we have anybody outside since we go? No. Think they have somebody out? There's someone out. Oh, you mean the staff is outside the doors? Yes. Well, if we had anybody waiting since it was pretty full in here. All right. So, Mr. Robinson. Miss I don't see Jack here last month, right? He was he came last month, but he wasn't he didn't get a chance to speak to. All right. Our next speaker then is Elena Sepli. Did I seovva? All right. And then following Elena, it'll be Anna Ratliff. She's here. Take you. Okay. This is the original list, right? We should do I know sideways. You have two minutes. Please. Okay. My name is Elena Sepulva. I've lived in Charlotte for six years. I'm retired and involved in the community in a number of ways. Working at Seven Second Harvest Food Bank, acting as a guardian at Lightum, and volunteering at CMPD Animal Care and Control. I'm often asked how I can work at the shelter and not have my heart broken. Every time I'm there, I say, "If I don't do it, who will?" I let them know like most volunteers I have my own ways of coping which sometimes involve telling myself the dogs I see one week and don't see the next have been adopted or sent to a rescue freeing them from the frightening confinement of the shelter. Staff and volunteers are stretched to the limit both physically and mentally due to lack of funding. While the majority of the public who visit are civil and respectful, the handful of citizens who aren't make life difficult, especially for front desk staff, who are constantly under pressure from all sides. And yet, with all they do, they remain profession professional and courteous in situations where most of us might not be so polite. They truly deserve our respect and support. I'm here today because we need more funding for a newer, larger shelter to keep up with the everinccreasing population of Charlotte. for more staff positions to allow for more efficient and effective shelter operation, for life-saving programs that benefit the public and their pets. We must make CMPD animal care and control its own department, reducing the bureaucracy and red tape, and allowing the staff easier and faster access to decision makers. Every month, we make the same plea. Take action now to make sure our animals receive the respect and care they deserve. In the words of writers far more articulate than I, please remember we can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. Let us make the changes needed and find the funding required so we as a city can be seen as caring and compassionate. Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character. And we know how important it is to be judged by the content of our character. Thank you. [Applause] Anna Ratliff and we have two um places for you to come down and speak. So let's go with also um Matthew Swindler. Skip. You got Kristen number four. I know. But Kristen is coming down as well. No, that's Adam. I know who I know who that is. Thank you. All right. You have two minutes. Thank you, Madame Mayor and members of council. My name is Anna Radcliffe. I'm a dog mom to four rescue pups, one current foster, and a passionate don't shop adopt advocate. I'm here to discuss the current situation at animal care and control and in shelters and rescues all across the Carolinas. In 2024, North Carolina placed 34th for animal protection laws by the animal legal defense fund, a 501c3 nonprofit fighting for animal rights since 1979. Between July 2022 and July 2023, Charlotte's population increased by 15,600 people, according to the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, but staff, funding, resources, and space have not kept pace at Animal Care and Control. In January of 2025, 61 dogs were euthanized, many for no reason other than space. As of March 10th, 2025, Animal Care and Control had 456 dogs in their care. On Saturday, March 15th, shelter staff and volunteers arrived at the shelter to find nine cages on the sidewalk, each containing one dog to be surrendered. This was in addition to the 43 dogs that were taken in the day prior. Mother Teresa said, "The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. So, the staff, volunteers, rescuers, and animal advocates across the city and state continue to show up day in and day out. We cannot foster or adopt our way out of this crisis. But here's what we can do to promote change and better outcomes for the animals in our community. Pass local legislation banning retail sales and puppy uh retail pet sales and puppy mills. Demand mandatory registration and oversight of breeders. Require breeders to limit the number of litters that can be had per female per year to vaccinate all animals in their care and to vet potential adopters. Petition for legislating ma legislation mandating spayneuter to end the cycle of unwanted unwanted litters and puppies beginning and ending their lives on the shelter floor. Enforce harsher penalties for persons accused or convicted of animal cru cruelty of organizing participating in or observing dog fighting and pass a ban on tethering prohibiting animals from being forced to live life outside or on a chain. Allocate additional funding for animal control officers, veterinarians, vette techs, office staff, adequate facilities. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] You are Christian, right? Yes. All right. And so, Matthew Swindler, you could come down on this side of the room if he if you're here in the room. All right, Christie. Thank you. Good evening, council member members. My name is Kristen Zurakis, and I've been a proud District 3 resident for five years. For the last three, I have been deeply involved in animal rescue, fostering volunteering and coordinating events with Charlottebased Rescue Billy's buddies. Being on the inside of both our municipal shelter and a local rescue has shown me the harsh reality that Charlotte's shelter is critically overcrowded and underfunded. Everyday, rescues like ours are faced with urgent pleas to save animals from youth in Asia. No matter how many fosters we recruit, we simply don't have the capacity to save them all. Losing animals, not because they're sick or dangerous, but due to a lack of space, is heartbreaking and simply put, cruel. It's unfair to them, and it takes a profound toll on our volunteers and rescue workers who show up daily knowing that the problem is bigger than we are. We show up every day for the animals with a simple smile on our face. And there is an underlying sadness in all of us that the problem is bigger than the volunteers and people working in rescue can solve on our own. As someone who has fostered over 30 dogs, I know firsthand the sacrifices. When a box of puppies is dumped on our rescue, we take them in without hesitation. that that means sleepless nights, time away from work, and less time and energy to contribute back into our local economy. We do this because we care. But we cannot fix this problem alone. And simply put, this is not a volunteers problem to solve. We need bigger changes in the city. We need funding for a shelter that can handle intake demands and for animal care and control to become its own department. Only then can we create real change for the animals and the people of Charlotte. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Lashanda Carter. Um, and is Matthew Swindler not in the building? Okay. Um, so Lashondaanda Carter and Marqu Marqu Brody, if you're here, one of you can have each side of the podium. you would just miss Carter. Thank you for joining us. Good evening, city council. My name is Lashanda Carter. I am the founder and CEO of Xdefender. We are a technology and safety company that's committed to improving public safety through innovative technology and safety training. So, I stand before you today because we have safety policies in place for food handling. We have we enforce the fire codes and we also regulate alcohol services. But what happens if someone has an overdose or their drink is spiked in a nightclub? Who is trained at that moment? So, I stand before you today because overdoses are happening everywhere, not just in the city of Charlotte, but worldwide. They are in our public spaces, our businesses, and our nightlife venues. Yet most establishments have zero training on what to do at that moment in the situation. That's why I've created exfenders overdose prevention and public safety course. It is designed to equip each businesses with the skills and tools that they're needing in order to stand up and save as many victims as possible. Um so it's not about if or when. It's not about if it happens, it's about when it happens. So, I stand before you today to see if I can partner or the city of Charlotte would like to partner with X Defender on coming together as a community and mandate in our overdose prevention training course for each business that serves alcohol. Well, thank you for that. We just finished having a conversation about public safety and if you would speak with Miss Sean over here um to talk to him more about what you are recommending and suggesting for us. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] So, Maris, are you in the room? Okay. Laura Kelly, Miss Kelly. She's here. She is. You are here. Thank you. [Music] and Mbel McBeath. Is Mbel McBth also here? All right. Thank you very much. If you you have two minutes, right? Hi, my name is Laura Kelly. I'm an unaccompanied minor and passenger service agent for Prospect at the airport. I take pride in being a protector of kids and providing services for American Airline passengers who are disabled and elderly. I treat every passenger as a member of my family, making sure they get something to eat, go to the bathroom, and are comfortable while in my care. I love my job, but we are having a lot of issues at the airport. We are so underststaffed. Sometimes I see multiple wheelchair passengers waiting for help. Rushing through the airport pushing a passenger plus their luggage is dangerous. And sometimes I'm being asked to push two passengers at the same time. Councilwoman as mayor, we had a warm conversation where you told me your mom actually uses our services and I hope we can still provide that service. This isn't safe for passengers or the actual workers at the airport. I injured my ribs a month ago while pushing two empty wheelchairs up the jet bridge after pre-boarding two passengers. The pain was unbearable. Experienced people like myself aren't sticking around because it's impossible to survive off the low wage and the benefits we have. That's why the turnover rate is so high. And those of us who do stay are suffering. As the owners and operators of Charlotte Airport, you can stop this. We ask that you have a committee hearing on the ordinance that we submitted to raise standards at the airport and truly make CLT bit for [Applause] queen. I know. Okay. Miss Miss Kelly. No. McBth Marbel. Thank you. Hi. You have two minutes. My name is Marbel McBth for 12 years. I've been a cabin cleaner for AVM, a contracted employer for American Airlines at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. I clean the planes to keep people safe from germs and diseases while they travel. We also do security checks and sweeps to keep passengers safe from items or weapons that can cause harm. I'm honored knowing that I am the reason people can travel safely. But if we want to continue to support safe travel, we need more workers to help me to help make the airport secure. We are underst staffed and sometimes only have four people on a team to clean these planes. We are constantly rushing to clean the planes and get to the next one. That puts us in danger every day. We're exposed to blood, human waste, and used needles in the pocket in the seat pockets. When you combine that with not having enough time or staff, that's a recipe for disaster or an injury. And with the low number of people, we barely have time to use the restroom, drink water, or even take a break or either to take necessary medication like I need to. People don't stay because they pay the pay and benefits just aren't worth it. That means double the workload for the rest of us. We deserve a living wage and good benefits so we can reduce turnover and keep experienced people like me on the job. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim Anderson, for hearing my concerns last week. At your town hall, we need you to act now. Raise standards for the thousands of people that keep the airport and passengers safe and secure. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] All right. Our next speaker is Margaret Marshall. Miss Marshall. School board. Good evening, mayor, city manager, and council members. I am Allison Rhodess. I am the executive director of Tree Charlotte and with me is Margaret Marshall, my board member and we are here to thank you the city of Charlotte for your support of Tree Charlotte. Tree Charlotte is a nonprofit and we are dedicated to growing, diversifying and stewarding Charlotte's iconic urban forest all while educating the residents of the community on the value of trees and how to care for them. Charlotte is losing thousands of trees annually. primary friends. So, I'm going to give you some numbers here. During the October through March planting season, Tree Charlotte held 31 plantings planted 1,698 trees. Tree Charlotte has provided 3,450 trees to residents through our adoption program and cared for 2,152 previously planted trees. We've also expanded our Tresilience program to three neighborhoods, reaching 549 households in the under canopy to underserved neighborhoods of Ramblewood, McCroy Heights, and Greenbull. And hundreds of volunteers participate in these activities every year. And at a recent planning at beautiful West Charlotte High School, we had 58 trees planted that on that campus by volunteers and alumni. So Charlotte's tree canopy is more than just a beautiful feature. It is an economic driver for our community. It's an environmental protector. Trees promote biodiversity. They help mitigate storm water runoff. And they help preserve our well-being and health. And so preserving and growing our tree canopy is a shared responsibility. And a collaboration is the only way forward. So, we are looking forward to expanding our reach and ensuring a greener, healthier, and more tree-filled Charlotte for generations to come. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is I guess Tara Moser. Tara Moser. She's up there. She's upstairs. She's coming down. Okay. Can I use this mic? You can use that mic. Yes, certainly. Sorry. Hi, my name is Miss Moser and I've been a resident here uh in Charlotte my whole life. Um about 13 years ago, I came here to city council to let y'all know that I'm one out of 88 um families who was unlawfully evicted, who would be illegally thrown in jail, who child would be taken away, and I lost everything. But I'm not even here to complain cuz that was 13 years ago when I walked up to when I came to city council to tell what had happened to me. Since there was no response, I've opened up an emergency moving services where I help evicted families save their items. I've been helping homeless individuals recycle with me. And they've been able to get housing. They've been able to get off fit. They've been able to put their guns down. And they're listening to me. And so I'm here to present the rescue tiny homes program, which I've already bought tiny homes. I don't have any land. I don't have any way to really help the homeless like I want to. Um, so I'm here to see if I can get support. Um, a little bit of love. I've been locked out from everyone for 10 years, so I'm just now bouncing back, getting my money, right? And, um, I do have a 501c3, so I am looking for some some support and some help here because the homeless population is growing. It was 30,000 evictions when we were evicted 13 years ago. So, I know now that the evictions have tripled. I'm not here to complain. I'm not throwing any any bad words or anything, but I I was hurt 13 years ago when I stood up here in front of everyone. I had nowhere to go. I actually supposed to be dead. But I am here to tell all of you that I love you. I hope everyone has a home. I hope the animals get a home. I hope everyone is treated fair. If you need moving services, I'm strong. I'm 48 years old, but I can move any and every much. I appreciate that. Okay, it's my two minutes is up, but once again, I love y'all and everyone needs a home. Amazing. [Applause] Miss Moser, we're going to have Sean Peak come over and speak with you so that you will have a response this time. Thank you very much. [Music] All right. Our next speaker is Theres Hutchinson. She's absent. She's not here. She's absent. And Braxton Winston is our next speaker. Who? He his coat. Come on, colleague. But your coat. Look at this new face. Welcome back. [Laughter] Y'all for suspending the rules for the public forum. I see that. Good job. That council was your two minutes. Mayor, council members, mayor prom and staff, you have heard from workers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. These workers are essential to a major contributor to our state's GDP. Yet, many do not earn enough to live in Charlotte. From wheelchair agents to cabin cleaners to pilots, airport workers are not easily replaceable. Their specialized training and experience are crucial to airport operations. CLT's efficiency depends on retaining workers, which is directly tied to the airport producing good jobs with competitive wages and benefits. Many essential workers do not earn a living wage, fueling high turnover rates and putting airport operations at risk, especially as CLT continues to expand. It is unacceptable that those who keep our airport running cannot afford to simply work there. We urge you to act. City policy provides a framework for action. In 2022, you adopted an equity and governance framework that acknowledges systemic inequities and commits to addressing them through an equity lens. Airport worker policies fit squarely within this mission. Beyond tackling workplace inequities, we must recognize that airports are potential targets for attack and other threats. Airport workers play a critical role on the front lines, ensuring passenger safety and securing our air transportation system. Studies indicate that low wages and high turnover lead to a workforce less familiar with essential security protocols. It's time to put an end to this revolving door of workers. Other airports throughout the country have shown that higher wages and benefits improve worker stability, performance, and security. It's time for us to do the same. The airport is a prime place to implement your cradle to career priorities. Airport director Haley Gentry's career path from intern to CEO was possible to due to city employment protections. All airport workers, including contractor employees serving companies like American Airlines, deserve similar opportunities. You have successfully intervened before. In 2019, city council delayed an American Airlines lease to help food service workers win better wages. In 2020, a council subcommittee helped allocate CARES Act funding, aiding Charlotte's strong pandemic recovery. These actions show that both incentives and regulations can improve worker conditions. Please take action now. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Carson Con. Well, we'll give it a moment. Carson Con. Angela Edwards. Great job, Angela Edwards. Angela. Oh, yes. Angela Edwards. You going text me later on. Text me later. Angie. Angela. He's here. Yeah, but so it's Angela. Can you Well, we'll wait for you to walk down. So, Angela Edwards and Kimberly Mar No, I'm sorry. Wrong one. Angel. Angela Edwards. Yeah. It was Champion. Yeah, Tanisha's already. So, we have I said, "Oh, we'll wait. I'm looking for I don't see her. Yeah. You can't see her. I'm trying to make sure they clear out. I see a gentleman coming. Carson's coming down. He's making No, I don't see him. Mayor. Uhhuh. People can see her. I think this gentleman knows this last one. Okay. He's Angela. That's not her, man. I don't think she's present. Of course. Okay. C. Give me your name, please. Uh, Carson Con. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Carson. All right. You have two minutes. Good evening. A resolution in support of the IAN city's appeal for the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Whereas the existence and threatened use of nuclear weapons minus all humankind and the earth's environment and whereas China, Russia, the United States, Britain, and France affirmed in 2022 that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And whereas 700 million people were living in poverty in 2020 24, the money squandered and the fortunes made through the manufacturer upgrading, maintenance, and sale of nuclear weapons being immoral. And whereas Charlotte taxpayers paid an estimated 93,280,000 tax dollars just for nuclear weapons and associated costs in 2023. And that money is needed here for the residents of Charlotte. And whereas the new generation of nuclear weapons that has been proposed will raise these costs significantly and burden us with weapons that are more destabilizing and riskier. Whereas the threat of accidental or deliberate explosion of nuclear weapons is real and increasing and nuclear accidents include two bombs dropped near Eureka, North Carolina. And finally, um, whereas cutting nuclear weapons is possible and bipartisan, since the late 1960s, the US has reduced nuclear warheads from 31,255 to the 3,748 we are threatened by today. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Charlotte City Council, I I hope, would support the following statement and notify the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons city appeal of that support. this statement. Our city is deeply concerned about the grave threat that nuclear weapons pose to communities throughout the world. We firmly believe the residents of Charlotte have to have the right to live in a world free from this threat. Any use of nuclear weapons, whether deliberate or accidental, would have catastrophic far-reaching and longlasting consequences for people in the environment. Therefore, we support the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and call on the federal government to sign and ratify it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our last speaker, Alicia Gata. Is it G or is it soft or Jeta? Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Lyles, council members, and staff. My name is Alicia Jeter and I am the founder of Gateway Learning, a talent development consulting firm that I founded in 2022. When I started this journey, I spent a significant amount of time researching the resources in the Charlotte metropolitan area, including those offered by the city and county. What I found was a city that is deeply committed to investing in its small business community by providing training events support and certifications to the business owners of Charlotte. It does not go unnoticed. However, I would like to bring to the attention of the council certain areas of improvement. The city spends a lot of money on supporting construction industry vendors and it should as we are a growing city. However, what I am requesting is uh our resources to support businesses that may be newer or service and goods providers that are not in construction. The current programs offered are marketed and/or structured in ways that prevent businesses like mine and my peers from being able to participate in city sponsored programs and initiatives. Even with upcoming launches, the language repels many businesses because we don't know if we should even be in attendance. Additionally, while it is clear that as a city there is an effort to provide resources to smaller businesses, the resources are, to be frank, not always helpful. The information is not up to-date. The training is not always city specific and websites are convoluted and hard to navigate. And these are just a few examples. Due to time limitations, I do have a document where I list some examples. Um, and I'm also requesting a meeting with a member of the city manager's office or the CBI team to further discuss my request. A lot of these improvements are easy fixes, fixes that can support the entirety of the small business community and further enhance Charlotte's commitment to small businesses. Thank you very Um, we'd like to ask you to work with Monica Allen who is doing a lot of our workforce development work and that might be something appropriate for you. So, Monica's gonna Thank you. Monica's going to put her shoes on. That's what she's going to do. Why you call that? I understand, sis. I'm telling you. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. I should have given you a heads up on that one, Monica. So, um, thank you very much. Um, so I believe that is our last speaker. So we'll go to item agenda item number eight, which is a public hearing for DetRel, Inc., a business investment grant and to conduct a public hearing. Do we have any speakers in the public hearing? Madam Cler, move the public hearing be closed. Second. All right. We have a motion close the public hearing and approve the city's business investment grant to Detropel for amount not to exceed 22,843 over three years. Need a mo. I need a motion. So move. So move. So we have any con any cons. Would anybody have any comments? Just vote. No. All right. All in favor of the motion A and B, please raise your hand. Anyone not anyone opposed? All right. We'll go to n item number nine. Public hearing for Granager USA. Conduct a public hearing and approve. If that happens, we approve the city's business investment grant to Graner Grur for to not exceed 171,936 over 5 years. Do I have a motion on A and B? Will the public hearing be closed and approve action A and B? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Mr. I just want to say briefly, Groinger USA uh is a great company and among other things has an apprenticeship program on the German model that I think uh is something that I hope many other people will emulate. Just want to acknowledge them for that. All right. Thank you. So, we have a motion on the floor. All in favor of the motion, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Our next item is a public hearing for RXO Corporate Solutions LLC Business Investment. Conduct a public hearing regarding the approval of this for the business investment and approve the city's business investment grant for a total not to exceed $166,874 over seven years. Do I have a motion for A and B? So move second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all Miss Mayfield. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I would just like to say in partnership, RXO already has a relationship here. I had the chance over the weekend to attend the robotics championship and they are to me one of the great examples of corporations that come in and immediately connect with sponsoring our youth with teaching them robotics and other trainings. And it was actually pretty exciting to watch the whole competition, but this is an example of to me of how businesses can come in and actually support the local community. All right. All right. Any other comment? Well, we have a motion on the floor. All in favor? Please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? No. Anyone opposed? The next item is item 11 for port a resolution to close a portion of rideway off Paulie Drive. So, do we have anybody on the public hearing? If not, we would have adopt a resolution and close a portion of Rightway off Paulie Drive. Do I have a motion for A and B? So move. Second. All right. Any comments? Hearing none. All in favor of the motion, please raise your hand. Thank you very much. Anyone oppose? All right. So, the next item is item 12. I think that's the city manager report. There we go. So, thank you, mayor, members of council. Just a few things. Maybe I'll I'll state the obvious. A lot has occurred today and a lot of it's come from the hard work of the committees. For instance, financial partners having the um budget governance and in intergovernmental relations committee have a framework was very important. Um, as we start to think about um, public safety in the the conversation that happened earlier, we had the housing and uh, community safety committee playing a role in that. Then later today, you will vote on a workforce development strategic plan which came out of jobs and economic development. So, a lot of great work from the the committee so that we can get things in in play. you do have in front of you my uh 30-day memo um which I think the the big highlight will be over the next 30 days, April 14th, there'll be a discussion about the housing trust fund, the recently approved uh $100 million bond and uh clearly there's a lot of excitement around um different uh organizations have applied for that funding. While I don't see her, I want to just acknowledge that um earlier this month I named Sarah Hazel as the chief of staff and she will head of government affairs. I think it's very important because it's a team a team's approach where we're going to really change the way we have handled uh government relations intergovernmental relations and really think about um not just Raleigh in DC but what we do in this building with the county with the school system but some of our partners in the private sector and the philanthropic community as well as what we do internationally. And then uh lastly, I think there are going to be a couple of uh slides that pop up behind me. Uh we were in uh New York and in Boston last week really to talk to the rating agencies as well as some of the folks who invest in our bonds. I think it's very important that we tell the Charlotte story because we want to continue to have those investments. And one of the things we talked about was infrastructure and it's uh very important. has been something we've talked about this council for a while and I just want to talk a little bit about some of the things that are happening around infrastructure. So FEMA ranks Charlotte among the top communities nationwide for flood management. So what do I mean by that? So Charlotte ranks among the top 1% of more than 1500 communities that participate in FEMA's emergency management uh community rating system. So, um, as of April 1, 2025, FEMA will recognize Charlotte as a class 2, uh, recipient that creates about a 40% discount flood insurance rate for the National Flood Insurance Program. It also, um, provides policies for buildings and regulated flood planes and a 10% discount for all other um, policies within the city. What does that mean? That's about a million dollar savings annually for uh Charlotte residents. Now, I think I see Mike Davis over there. So, uh so Mike, we really appreciate what you've been doing, right? And I didn't have a chance to tell you, but there was this thing called a backlog ABCs that's been wiped out. We really appreciate everything that's happening around storm water. So, uh, kudos to, um, Mike and his team. And then lastly, as we continue to talk about, uh, infrastructure, uh, there's a rib ribbon cutting ceremony that recently occurred, and it's very interesting. We celebrate things like, uh, 300 ft of sidewalk. Um, that was earlier at the retreat, but that's how important it is to actually implement. So, I just want to say the first mobility project in the Arowwood strategic investment area. uh recently occurred. Uh we had the ribbon cutting there. Leadership, remember this, a team of teams, 15 different departments are involved. I think what's interesting from the moment it was planned to the moment that it was executed, six months. So this is what we talked about if that $55 million that's in the strategic investment areas is just a drop in the bucket. But if we can prove to our residents that we can do infrastructure projects quicker months when there's an opportunity for another revenue source that may come in around transportation we will already have created a system where we can implement quickly. So I think uh there's somebody around the dis that may be on that picture too. I think I saw someone and love my energy didn't you? So, just wanted to celebrate uh some of the hard work the staff is doing. So, I appreciate you allowing me to have the opportunity to do that. Thank you. All right. Thank you. That's a great manager report. We want one like that all. Um so, our next item is item agenda 13, which is the workforce development strategic plan. And this is to approve the jobs and economic development plan council committee's recommendations to adopt the proposed workforce development strategic plan goals and strategies to guide the city's effort in addressing our current and future workforce needs. Um the plan is a vision to cultivate diverse and skilled workforce system that enables residents to attain sustainable employment and business access to to skilled talent. Um that's the formal presentation. The informal presentation is that this is a lot of good work on behalf of the council as a whole. Uh I will be remiss if I don't recognize vice chairman James Mitchell for his leadership right from the very start. I think council member Mayfield as well played a significant role in terms of kind of jumptopping uh how we um uh introduce and refocus our workforce development efforts. uh as a team uh we brought in Miss Frasier who has done an outstanding job and her team really kind of listening to the council members and taking our feedback into consideration and uh thank uh thank you madame mayor and to the chair thank you for your leadership when it came to the committee uh chairman you really pushed it through to make sure we can be here today I this is just should be a proud moment for all of us this journey began in January 2023 and we had our strategy retreat session at UNC Charlotte and we as a council say that workforce development need to be a priority. Then we challenged the city manager to go out and get the best talent um in the country and that talent happened to be in Charlotte, North Carolina. And um after three attempts, she finally learned how to say yes instead of no. But I want to say this publicly to Danielle, to the city manager, thank you for your leadership. Thank you as council Graham said for listening to us and putting together a document that definitely think it would separate us from other cities. The panel you had at the strategy session in Asheville was just awesome from Austin, Texas uh to the other representative and then the mayor beat me to the punch. I was trying to take you nationally but she beat me to the punch and so now you are the director of workforce development for the US Conference of Mayors throughout the country. So once again, we applaud you for your leadership. So thank you Danielle. Thank you city. [Applause] Um I want to um we have a motion. So all in favor of this motion, please raise your hand. And nobody can not be nobody can say no. Okay. So we have no opposition. Okay. So now we need to go to our business. I'm sorry. Just kidding. All right. We have our next um portion of our business is item 14, the lease of city-owned property at Archdale Avenue. Adopt a resolution approving a 5-year lease with Meckllinmberg County. Talk about collaboration and what we're doing and authorize the manager to execute the necessary documents to make this happen. Move for approval A and B. Second. We have a motion A and B. Does there any discussion? Hearing no discussion. All in favor of the motion, please raise your hand. I'm sorry. Happy to see it. Okay. Happy to see it. And so that's a part of the motion that we're happy to see it on Archdale Drive. So, um, anyone opposed? No. It's unanimous. All right. Here we go. The next one is an interlocal agreement for assignment of street addresses, which you know, most of the time you think that should be the post office, but this is about us, I guess. So anyway, um this is adopt a resolution authorizing the manager to execute interlocal agreements with the various towns and other parts of our governmental organizations and to have this interlocal agreement around the assignment of street addresses. Do we have we have a motion and a second? Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone oppose? All right. Thank you. The next items are nominations for the Arts and Science Council Governance Board. Um, Madame Clerk. Yes, ma'am. Um, mayor and council members, there are numerous um opportunities to appoint people tonight. Several boards received six or more nominations. So at the end, if you feel so inclined, you can make a motion, second and a vote to appoint these individuals. For the Arts and Science Council Governance Board, Allison Allen received seven nominations. Nan Moulder received six nominations and Sam Spencer received seven nominations for the Charlotte Meckllinburgg Public Access Corporation. Nashorta Lidle received nine nominations for the civil service board. The incumbent Crystal Screen received nine nominations for the community relations committee. There were four positions available. The following individuals received six or more. Willie Holly, the incumbent, received nine nominations. Chris McFarland received seven as did Comeland Onod and Nixonet Wright all received seven nominations for the neighborhood matching grants fund. Kimily Dinker Dinkler the incumbent received 10 nominations and Maria Nab received 10 nominations. And finally for the Waste Management Advisory Board, Michael Jacome received nine nominations. All right, council. You heard that the clerk has gotten enough or sufficient funds to be able Can we do this in one? Yes, ma'am. You can appoint all of those. You want to appoint by clamation? Second. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion around that? All right. So we um have all in favor of the clerk's I guess resitation around the boards and commissions. All in favor say I. I. Anyone opposed? Hearing none. We are there. So mayor I have a question for the manager before we close. Yes, Miss Mayfield is recognized. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um Manager Jones, I didn't get a chance to ask after you gave your report. I would like to know if it will fall under you or if our city clerk can let us know if there's any le leg legal language why we cannot look into legal question the presentation of the case much like we adopted the nest recommendation for uh housing and neighborhood services and public safety. I do think we have an opportunity for our employees that came down and spoke regarding SEIU and our workforce and protections at the airport. There is a case recommendation that was emailed to all of us. They have presented it to individual council members. I would like for us to actually look into what legal ability we may have because as I just mentioned, if we were able to adopt the nest recommendations, there should be some language where we can ensure that our employees have some basic protections. So I would like to find out from either the attorney's office and or your office what if any legal language says that we cannot and if so how can we move forward with case being presented to council. Yeah. Um I will just tell you this. Um we've been proactive. We met with uh Mr. Braxton and his representatives. Uh we uh pointed out some issues that we had. We invited them to respond with uh with their positions on our positions. We're awaiting that response. We also offered to sit down with them and talk and see if there's a path forward. But remember what they're asking for is for this council to regulate employees that this council does does not they do not work for you. They are employees of other concerns and there is some questions around preeemption around wage and hour and fair labor standards act all which allow us to regulate our employees but does not allow us to regulate others but we're I pointed this out to them. They're going to push back and I'm waiting to and then waiting to hear their response. And just for clarification, as was mentioned, we've had this conversation a couple of different times over the years, we have some opportunities because ultimately the city of Charlotte, we have employees within the airport. We are the ones who identify our contractual obligations. council who approves say either yes, no, or defer on any contract that comes through. So if there is a challenge and if the ultimate goal is to ensure that the residents of Charlotte can actually live in our beautiful city of which you did contribute to the taxes, there should be a way for us to have a conversation just like we move salary compensation for our Charlotte employees. we can have greater expectations of our partners who are funded through those same tax dollars. So that consideration I would appreciate us re researching and getting information back to full counsel. I hear you to be continued. Thank you. All right, Miss Johnson. I'm sorry. One thing that I would add is if if you could take a look at our procure procurement rules and um if there's anything that we can do because what I've been told we when we want to leverage the contracts is that we have to accept the lowest bid and so sometimes these contractors can submit a lower bid because their wages are so much lower. So if we can take a look at our procurement rules and see if there's any flexibility we can discuss that offline. I think that would be helpful. Thank you. Okay. All right. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So move. I got a pizza going to everybody's house. So y'all get there before 9. Oh, I'm going to be looking for mine. I'll call you. You should never tell me that. I I'll be driving around looking at lights at the sky. Oh, look. Look at you. Oh, look at it. There you go. [Music] [Music] [Music]