a [Music] [Music] uh [Music] uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the um manager saying let's roll to our consent and action review um this afternoon so I'm going to call this meeting to order let's begin with our introductions and we'll start with Miss Brown well certainly is a pleasure to be here mayor thank you T brown Charlotte City Council District 3 hello everybody good evening I am going to say happy Eagles Black History Month as well as kri Lamar's Black History Month I am Lana Mayfield I serve you on Charlotte City Council as an at large member tet regard six Malcolm gram District Two Marcus Jones city manager B mayor diple AR at large good evening marer Molina District 5 good evening Renee Johnson District 4 um and I want to wish my grandbaby a happy birthday happy birthday okay Anthony Anthony Fox interim City attorney Billy T Deputy city clerk it's back okay Mr Driggs would you like to introduce yourself Ed dggs district 7 good evening all right thank you very much um so now I think tar has already did you already put T C is that's what he is yeah so that's okay all right let's move it on all right so are there any consent items um for a separate Vote or comment Miss Johnson I'd like to pull item number 34 please okay 34 for a separate Vote or for notes or just a comment separate vote all right and item 43 okay anyone else Miss Mayfield yes thank you so we do have a speaker tonight yes so are we going to pull out 37 38 and 39 or do you need me to add that into my on my understanding and Mr um an M I'm sorry Mr Anthony if you would remind us this is a lawyer and I would my understanding is he would like to speak at one time on all three items right uh yeah mayor and Council you're uh you're correct this item uh is related to uh condemnations to be filed by the city with regards to a public purpose for acquisition of property that's important for the public good the attorney in this matter has been notified that this item is on your agenda this e for dinner agenda and that action may be taken by the council prior to his comments and he's is aware of that so then I would like to pull 37 38 and 39 for separate for discussion and vote because I think that's a challenge if we're if we move forward with a decision in this room but then when we get downstairs he's so he'll be able to speak in this room so I just wanted to make sure that there was the opportunity to hear but just for the sake of the records then I will pull 37 389 for separate boat okay thank you all right so do I have item number 43 as well as 37 38 and 39 anyone else have anything that they'd like to have separately all right so the clerk understands and has the information that she needs and I'd like to address um Mr Odum if you would join us at the Das of pier and the so that we can have you on the record and you are going to address Charlotte water property transactions Davidson East and Rocket Rock Rocky River Ro sanitary sewer outfall is item number 37 item 38 is Charlotte water property transactions Rocky River sanitary sewer outfall and the same for item 39 Mr Odum you have three minutes um thank you mayor uh mayor protim City Council Members my name is Tommy Odum I'm going to attorney here I represent the May family the henen Housen family and the Davis family and I emailed all of the city council members um with a summary of what I was going to say tonight and I want to make it short because I know that you're you're busy but we believe this is a very serious matter um that we believe to condemn these three famili properties for a private developer um would be unlawful um and UNC constitutional and we were asking the city council to take a stand today and vote not to do that and instead have the developer who has some 50 acre project in the town of Davidson to go and acquire what he needs in the free market like everyone else does and and that we think that doing it the way this under the this program when it appears to us from a public records request that this sewer line some 2,000 ft across these three families properties was not even in the Sip or was not funded by the Sip until the developer came knocking um at Charlotte wat's door um would be uh impermissible unlawful and unconstitutional and we would ask that y'all um T deny that um tonight and I'm here for any questions if anybody would like to ask or I can also send my packet to you again but I know this is my only time to speak all right thank you Mr Odum um Mr Fox what was our next I think we have Thomas poers here on behalf of Charlotte water water to address the condemnation actions that are on your concern agenda Mr odm um I know it's really tough to have those big shoes to fill but we want you to know that Fountain was one of our very best so thank you very much well I thank you and that warms my heart um mayor uh mayor members of council uh just want to kind of give you an understanding in regards to this matter uh the properties that are being represented by Mr odm are part of a larger project that Charlotte water is undertaking uh in the town of Davidson this is a actual uh project that was recommended and requested by the town of Davidson in 2016 and so as part of this phase one aspect for the Rocky River um CIP project we are crossing some of the projects that Mr Odum alluded to as well as multiple other projects as part of this development uh for a pipeline just to make sure you're fully aware that this developer is doing this pursuant to a reimbursement agreement that the city of Charlotte through Charlotte water has entered as part of this development reimbursable uh they are actually uh procuring the necessary uh infrastructure building that and then the city of Charlotte is reimbursing them um under that agreement after the fact now again since this is part of our CIP project uh it is my legal opinion that this does meet the public purpose standard necessary for condemnation under the North Carolina Constitution as Mr odm is requesting to you tonight he is alleging that the use of the private developer for this project is what is causing a improper purpose under the Constitution and is my legal opinion and after my review of this matter that does meet the public purpose that is necessary under state law for this Council to vote on the matter to allow for the condemnation to to proceed I will also highlight as a separate matter that uh notwithstanding your vote tonight the staff of Charlotte water as well as the city attorney's office will continue to engage uh Mr Odum and his clients in regards to the just compensation that is required under the North Carolina Constitution to pay for the necessary uh easements that are going to be obtained by the city of Charlotte so I want to just kind of summarize again one uh this is constitutional from the city attorney's office standpoint but also that we will continue to have engagement and discussion with the actual attorney Mr odm and others in regards to obtaining Fair compensation related to the easements that we're obtaining at this time um um Madam mayor if I can just add to that uh what is before you tonight is the initiation of the condemnation process that that process is initiated by the filing of a complaint declaration taking and notice a deposit uh the amount that is being uh identified as Fair compensation just compensation is how it's really termed will be deposited into the court and will be available to the property owners at that time the property owner will have an opportunity in the proceeding to challenge the public purpose it was not so you do not have to concern yourself with that Mr odm will have the opportunity to raise these concerns at the appropriate time in a Judicial setting all right thank you very much all right I have two people that have raised their hands Miss watlington and Miss Mayfield thank you thank you madam mayor my question not withstanding what I just heard from the attorney I just wanted to understand a little bit more clearly what is the impact of not including these Parcels in the work that um the city is trying to get done here like are they and I know we don't necessarily have Maps but are they Square in the middle of of the development or are they on the Outer Edge I'm just curious to these Parcels that are uh part of the actual uh pipeline route are at the uh I would say the rear of the property line uh they're not in the middle of the property line or uh directly at the front of the uh Road Frontage uh this is towards the rear actually the properties in question are uh I think AB buding uh cabis County for what I recall and so this pipeline is again at the rear of the property closer to the cabar county line uh running down again from um the top part of Davidson all the way southbound uh at the rear of these properties okay and then my last question is you mentioned condemnation the inti we're ini we would be initiating the condemnation process if I'm understanding that correctly what specifically is required for condemnation this not for condemnation but what does it mean that something needs to be condemned like what condition is it in there that's a separate question when you're talking about uh condemning you're all I think you're referencing the actual minimal housing standards for housing uh code this is not a situation where we're condemning because it's dilapidated or deteriorated this is a situation where we're using imminent domain to acquire property in involuntary setting um as as Mr Fox alluded to and as I stated before uh this action that you're taking tonight is Administrative action but it does not preclude ongoing negotiations to actually uh reach a fair solution to the question of how much money is appropriate for this actual uh taking of the property thank you m Mayfield thank you madam mayor excuse me so Mr poow I want to make sure that I'm understanding so we're utilizing our process through the CIP for a private developer when we say the market is going to do what the market does and what I heard from Mr odm is that for his clients the concern is that opposed to this private developer going through the market process of having to no negotiate with these individual homeowners our process is allowing for imminent domain to gain access to this property and then on the back end if we were to move forward with this tonight through condemnation then they then have to fight and go back and forth in court which is something that could take months and or year and in the meantime could the development still happen if they have a challenge with it so there's a couple of uh points here I need to raise number one in regard to the use of a private developer uh the city of Charlotte has Authority Under state law to use private developers to build public infrastructure pursuing the reimbursement agreements so when we're actually using this private developer to actually facilitate the CIP related to this pipeline it is not just for the benefit of a private developer it is for the benefit of the entire Community as a whole as I stated earlier the town of Davidson has requested this pipeline to be built to actually open up development in their Community uh Rel reled to this first phase as well as the second phase as well uh this is an area that they're targeting for further development possibly in in various forms but this is not a private development in the sense of the pipe is being built for just one property or one person if the city of char is being uh is involved in this type of project from a reimbursement standpoint there is a public purpose meaning we're opening up large tracks of land and possibly multiple tracks of land for future development that could be tied into that direct pipe the the only aspect about this is a question of whether we're using a private developer to actually expedite the project which is in this case what we're doing versus the city of Charlotte undertaking it directly themselves but not withstanding the private developer issue in my opinion is a red herring because it does meet the public purpose test we would not have entered into the agreement unless we are actually using the rate payer dollars to uh have pipes in the ground that would benefit multiple properties for future development what Mr uh Odum is alluding to is a situation where a a individual developer would use pipes in the ground to benefit their own single property that is not the case the city attorney's office would never authorize something of that nature because that would be unconstitutional in its entirety this is why again I I reiterate it meets the public purpose test because there multiple properties in the town of Davidson pursuant to their Council resolution requesting of of Angela Charles to build this infrastructure for their actual development and so I I don't want you to get focused on the developer piece because that's the red herring in the situation what is really is rate payer dollars are going to be spent to actually build infrastructure that Charlotte water will own Charlotte water will maintain that's going to be able to assist the community of Davidson with their growth and development going forward so I have a followup question that you may or may not be able to answer this I don't know I didn't notice if Miss Charles is here someone from I think she might miss Charles is here is in the corner so we I'm trying to understand you said these properties happen to be at the end so if these three are at the end versus stopping where you've already negotiated with some of the other property owners to redirect the piping mainly because of what I want to understand and get it what I want to have better understand understanding as the what ifs so we are already and have received numerous concerns where development has happened close to residential community and those individual homeowners now have had disturbances with our pipes in their yard that they are then told this is now your this is your responsibility because it's in your yard I'm trying to understand if we were to move forward and this condemnation when they are not comfortable with where we are with this pricing if we're going to force this if something were to happen later what happens who's then responsible couple of things in regards to the actual aspect of just compensation as I alluded to it can be negotiated directly between the parties myself Mr Odum or any other attorney under the Charlotte water team could actually negotiate that price and reach a resolution uh I will say that we have multiple aspects of property acquisition whether it's easements or actually fee simple will we have directly negotiated and actually purchased the item without any need for condemnation in this case again even with this Council approving the item as requested tonight Mr odm can negotiate that as Mr Fox also alluded to if it goes to trial a jury can make that determination as to the value of the property that is being obtained by Charlotte water at that point Charlotte water would then pay the those necessary dollars and then would have ownership of that actual pipe and that location of land um so I think yes I wanted to answer sure question so I just to kind of give you just the legal understanding the aspects of the condemnation are either resolved voluntarily through negotiation or through a jury determination the operational aspects that you're also looing to I think Miss Charles can actually answer at this time thank you yes good evening welcome back thank you m Charles thank you good evening uh mayor council manager Angela Charles director of Charlotte water council member Mayfield uh Charlotte water will maintain the pipes going through these easements so it it sounds like to me you may be asking a question more related to storm water versus uh drinking water and in this case this is a Wastewater what we're doing here is backbone infrastructure that's what Charlotte water funds through the capital program and since 2018 these uh sewer lines were in our Capital program and so the agreements allow for items in our Capital program to be put in the ground before we have it um programmed for funding in our Capital program so that's what's Happening Here we do have a resolution from the town of Davidson Commissioners uh asking uh for this line but in terms of and it's multiple lines it's 5900 ft of waste water uh 15 in and 12 in that we will be installing in the town of Davidson but in terms of Maintenance um it it will be maintained uh by the forces of Charlotte water so if there's a Wastewater backup then that is maintained by absolutely absolutely all 5,900 ft of this line will be maintained by thank you for that clarification thank you Mr than all right um Mr Bari yeah real quick I I don't want to belabor the point but I want to make sure I heard something correctly am I understanding this right it's not end State being presented to us a problem because we know the eminent domain and there's a process in court to come where they can challenge that I thought I heard Mr Odum say that it was the process was circumvented in some way where the developer came late or after the initial scoping and then tried to insert this into it whether it's 2,000 ft away or whatever was said with the objective of using this whole process as a way to have that negotiation occur did did one am I understanding that correctly two did this come late into the process so so because that that might be different from our perspective I agree let the court handle all of that stuff if it meets the criteria but was the criteria used after the initial scoping because the developer said hey let's do this something was changed and now all of a sudden it's in scope for for the RightWay acquisition did all this get scoped at the same time in the beginning or did something happen through this process with the developer or this was brought into the the fold let me let me let me suggest I don't know if I know it may be ma it may be important to you but what I'm concerned about is that we've got potential litigation that's going on here and we're getting way in the weeds and I know Tommy will this is providing free Discovery for him I I will with the question on that basis but this the the one thing I would say is I want to make sure they're going to point to this body's decision during that process and I want to make sure that we yeah understood what it was we were we were yeah I think what you hear is you have your subject matter expert who runs your Charlotte water that builds a sewer system that says that this is a this can be a component of your sewer system and there Bo and therefore provide for a public purpose I will defer my questions at that basis then Miss Johnson Miss Johnson okay thank you Madame mayor so I I think that council member rari's question is important and I also um I guess I'm concerned about approving it now and then working out the details later um especially if it could cost more to go to court um to come to an agreement I I would think if we deferred this for another month or so we could get the questions answered that council member barari as offline and also maybe give the parties time to negotiate um an agreed upon price if the property owner is concerned about the amount of compensation offered what could happen if we go to Court we're going to end up paying it anyway and just end up paying more because of time and legal cost so I would just I'd be willing to defer the vote if it if that's okay I don't is there is there any harm and in putting this off uh for another month Miss Charles or Mr Jones yes there has been um up to this point there have been months of negotiation and so what I would ask this body to do is to move forward uh with this project reimbursable agreements um especially in areas that don't have water and wastewater are common and so when one of the reasons we are here is that the real estate staff and the appraisers um were not able to come to agreement on a a price and so I would ask this body to go ahead and approve it and let the process go through so that folks that can continue to negotiate but there's been ample time up to this point to negotiate and to come to agreement all right Mr Driggs so just to be clear are we basically saying tonight that in our opinion this is a public interest project absolutely uh and and recognizing that a lot of stuff still gets worked out and that the rights of the owners are not a bridged all we're doing is saying we think this is and we think it's appropriate for us to move to the next step absolutely and on that basis I'll support it thank you Miss Molina thank you Madame mayor um so I I'll I'll just inject in that uh first of all this was a part of consent so had the guy not you know if the attorney hadn't come before us this wouldn't even be a conversation which is a bit of cause of concern for me right because there's this this greater implication that says um you know if someone hears something like condemnation or something like that the the enduser understands that as like we're trying to take somebody's house from them and tear it down and stuff like that despite there being all of these you you know um uh you know um explanations about what's actually happening so I don't um I'm I'm at a crossroad on what we do here I think you know especially with this being an open Forum conversation I would have much rather had this conversation as a council maybe behind some closed doors especially consider not without the public consumption let me make sure before somebody hit me with that and say that I'm saying we do it behind door and undisclosed that's not what I'm saying I'm saying where we could have as a council whether that's out loud or whatever had some type of conversation where you know we weren't given free advice to the opposing attorney by asking our questions i' I'd just like to get the questions answered so that we can go into this Eyes Wide Open so that's that's my concern right now I'm ready for a motion um this reminds me of one of our former city attorneys who used to say that you know when you go to court you probably are getting the best chance to get a resolution because this will be with citizens and they'll be with the same kind of thing that you would have in court so I I I just wonder if we are we may have some questions about when it happened or whatever but basically this is an opportunity for them to have a solution inside something people that know a lot more than we do about judgments and court so um do I have a motion yes please thank you mayor so I I listen to my colleagues um concern a very delegate situation if we know that Mr Odin was going to be here tonight and he's on the agenda then maybe what council member Molina said would make the most sense in a closed session even though it's open to the public we could have discussed it everything is open to the public they're going to know anyway whether in a close session the information that we discussed in the session is then released out but it sounds like in this situation with some of the language used and with the public watching I I don't know I I don't know how to vote I'm going to be honest with you I I'm kind of stuck with the language that's went around the room and so in order to be extremely authentic and transparent and fair it sounds like that we're not ready to vote well I think I have a motion so so let's see what the motion is that's I think that's probably the best way to resolve this um Mr Graham you have a motion motion for approve second we have a motion and a second um I think we've had a good discussion um about the concerns um all in favor of the motion please raise your hand one two three anyone else okay all right what's our next huh we're no we're coming back let's go around and do opposed okay all right what's our next step Mr Fox motion fails it fails motion okay uh motion to defer uh till we have some answers if you can prepare a memo uh like you have done Mr Fox on other matters uh before this comes in front of us I think there needs to be if you can provide background information for Council to be prepared I feel like the council doesn't have all the answers so if if he can get all the answers before we have to make a decision on this do you want to include a a date in time certain in your motion to your next coun business meeting of the council could miss Charles can we have those answers by I think so yeah I she just made a motion to defer it hasn't been second wait a minute wait a minute did she decide to defer to your next council meeting yes the next business meeting is going to be on 24th point of order so the motion failed yes so the motion failed so we're just going to bring it back it's not a deferral actual failed the motion was not a deferral your motion was to approve the motion to approve was did not gonner the majority vote this another a new motion was made because there was no motion on the floor by Miss dimple okay all right thank you all right we have a motion um and we have a second I think I saw the second over here but let me be sure I did that's right deferral deferral yes okay so we have that before us um any did you have a question Miss watlington I did um I was so there's somewhere in our rules of procedure where it talks about a matter not coming back for 60 days if it failed but I just wanted to make sure that because this was a motion that included a time frame that that was within the rules Mr Fox now you're challenging [Laughter] me I did give you copies of your rules Now where's those rules on our P that is well and I will say this I think that because there is a motion if that motion passes then that will address whatever the motion was that was associated with that subject so I think we're okay but I just was making sure it's fine I thought it was I thought the rule applied to when it sit back for count to a committee and then it had to come back within 60 days if it doesn't come back within 60 days then you have you're free to on the motion all right so we have a motion to defer and we have a second all in favor please raise your hands that is the majority um anyone opposed we have one person opposed thank you very much um so we'll be back on the first the very next business meeting with more information I think yes February February February yes it's February the 24th today's the 10th I no it's the 10th the next bu meeting yes okay all right um so now let's go to the consent items I think that we need to do all right so we have we that covers Miss M Miss Mayfield's um request for 3738 and 39 they'll come back under a deferral um now let's move to we have one other item 43 which was who which was requested by Madame mayor I'm sorry what Miss Johnson which one was it 34 thought it was 34 33 all right which Johnson was4 Miss Johnson you were 34 all right let's go with 30 4 sorry I dyslexic over here 34 all right hold on item 34 approve approve the titles is that the correct one yeah approve the titles motions and votes reflected in the clerk's record as the minutes of June 3rd June 10th June 17th June 17th June 24th august 19 August 26th uh September 3 September 9 September 16 do I have a motion motion to approve second right we have a second all right is there any discussion yes just the discussion I wanted to get an update on where we were as far as the backlog of of the um the minutes um just get an up update from the city clerk on on where we are on the backlog how soon we can expect the next batch of minutes and also what is the expectation for the minutes um I went when I went online today I noticed some of the zoning minutes and audio are available and committee meetings and video and audio and minutes and I just wanted to know what the expectation was for um availability we can get that information later I didn't I know you weren't prepared for that if you we can get it later or you can give the answer now but what's the expectation should we expect or should the public expect that all of these zoning meetings and committee meetings um will all be available via video or audio um and and how soon will we have the rest of the minutes you want to so for the City Council meetings not the uh committee meetings Marie can probably talk about the committee meetings but where we are now is the vendor who is contracted to do our meeting minutes uh they're working in October and they'll finish through the rest of the year of 2024 on March 24th of 2025 okay so you can expect to get all of 2024 city council meeting minutes not the committee meetings Marie can speak to that one Madam mayor Maya yes please so Miss Johnson for the committee me meetings for owner we have a Facebook page and a YouTube channel and they're available live and then save so both they're available both those places the sorry well actually the actual um business meetings are as well but all the committee meetings are there are you sure about the committee meetings on Facebook I know they're on YouTube I'm 90% sure but I follow but definitely on YouTube yes and we'll definitely follow up to make sure they're still saved on Facebook as well and then if we could just get some clarification you can um you can give me this information later what's going to be expected on that page you know some some meetings there's video audio meeting summary meeting minutes and I just like to know what should be expected okay thank you okay mme yes uh thank you Madame May so I just want to make sure Maria I understood this correctly committee meetings um do they not uh have written meeting notes U meeting minutes like we have for Council meetings yes ma'am okay because you said something about online so that's that version is there but I'm talking about written meeting minut yes they're not verbatim but yes ma'am we do we have action minutes yes yeah so I guess what's the timeline for that it doesn't have you don't have to give it to me today but in a follow-up report so for your committee we always try to make sure they're posted prior to the next committee meeting but it's we'll double check with the other committees yes okay great thank you okay so now I'd like to turn it over to the manager for an overview of our item3 we didn't vote oh we didn't vote on the motion for defer 34 the minutes sorry okay I'll in favor of item 34 please raise your hands do you need a mo she the motion is there anyone opposed all right thank you that passes so now I'm going to turn it over to the manager for Action review discussion so thank thank you mayor members of council um I I want to start off by asking the clerk uh has has anybody signed up for any items outside of Mr what's happening in 267 not that I'm aware I cank okay so I I just start with that because um tonight we are bookending uh some of the conversations we've had around Public Safety and we have a number of uh outside guests and so mayor because there's no public forum I would hope that the council would have a robust conversation and not end at 6:30 because we don't have a public form and we don't have anybody signed up to speak for anything in addition so I just set that out okay great so the next the next portion of our meeting would be items that we would have a policy vote on we have a couple we have speakers on a couple items at item 37 38 and 39 but it's the same person we did that already okay okay it's awesome so I just want to make sure that you can have a robust conversation in that field that you have to stop at 6:30 if that's okay mayor yeah so why don't we shoot for 7 well so uh thank you uh I will turn it over to to Sean Heath I'm very excited about tonight mainly because of um the collaboration that's been going on uh within this community for a number of years around um Public Safety and violence as a Public Health crisis what I've heard from this Council since the annual strategy meeting is just this desire to have more collaboration and I believe you're going to see it tonight I think we have a a row of doctors lined up there and uh I I'm I'm very proud of the the work that has occurred but having said that Sean has all of the the script he's moving forward and I just wanted to you know thank you guys for just being here tonight is that okay mayor I'll turn it back over to you mayor all right Sean let's go with this we're looking forward to the discussion thank you mayor ly manager Jones go ahead and jump right in this has been the schedule over the last two and a half months since the city manager initiated this multi-part series around Public Safety we've had multiple departments leaders across the organization provide some perspective uh starting on November 25th uh tonight's a nice bookend for this series focused on violence as a Public Health crisis and we've got a lot of ground to cover tonight obviously have some guests here to move through the presentation materials so I'll be quick with the table setting part but I wanted to make a few key points before we jump into some of the details uh first of which is this concept of violence as a Public Health crisis is certainly not new to the city not new to the county not new to council if you go back to early 2020 a lot of conversations at what was then called the safe communities committee leading to conversations with full Council during January February and March of 2020 and ultimately the city adopted referred to as this framework to address violence using a public health approach so the purpose here which I'll read quickly City County Partners and Community work together to reduce violence increase Economic Opportunity and build healthier more resilient communities that's what was adopted by Council in 2020 as were these five building blocks which are summarized here and as the city manager alluded in in the opening remarks there's a real heavy emphasis here on collaboration across agencies collaboration with other community partn Partners a and I think there's also an acknowledgement that while policing is clearly a Cornerstone in our Public Safety efforts at all times uh this is intended to be a much broader holistic view around Public Safety what was not included in all of the information that Council looked at in early 2020 are these activation examples at the bottom because we thought it might be helpful to very quickly provide some perspective on all the great work that's happened across the community over the past 5 years so when this framework was adopted in early 201 20 starting with intergo intergovernmental collaboration there's a lot of discussion around wouldn't we as a community be better off with a CommunityWide comprehensive violence reduction strategy uh a significant body of work was launched and that comprehensive strategy was in fact forward with input from senior City staff and Senior city city staff have been integrating with meinberg County over the last couple years for those of you that serve on the housing safety and Community Committee we had a specific conversation of about this strategy in committee last year when we were focused on the juvenile crime policy referral so you will hear more about that from Dr Washington momentarily on community collaboration in priority areas the emphasis here in 2020 was wouldn't it be beneficial to have targeted approaches in certain geographies the initial conversations then were around four hotspot areas um and that ultimately evolved into what we now know as corridors of opportunity which in a way is easy to take for granted five years later but at one point it was actually just an idea on the drawing board and here we are five years later the numbers change month by month uh I believe most recently the total investment in corridors ex exceeds 200 million uh with over half of that investment coming from the private sector so here are a very specific example of intentional strategies and collaboration and funding leverage that have that have achieved some great benefits for the city and the county on interrupt violence the real emphasis in early 2020 was let's identify evidence space programming that we really think can help move the needle in the community hospital based violence intervention was one we have our partners from atum here tonight to discuss an update on that work and then violence Interruption through ultimately what we called the alternatives to violence program was a second opportunity which Dr Stewart will provide some perspective on tonight invest in community Le efforts you've already heard an update on the safe Charlotte work and recommendations and the safe Charlotte grants are kind of our our signature uh investment under this particular building block and then use data and evidence a few years ago there was a lot of work done collaboratively to develop what we have now which is a community violence data dashboard so members of the community any of our agency partners can review Community violence data all the way down to the neighborhood profile area level in terms of tonight as I mentioned Dr Washington is going to provide perspective on his office of violence prevention and the The Way Forward plan which you have in front of you Atrium will then get into project boost which is the hospital-based violence Intervention Program that's been in place for a few years we'll round it out with Risha focused on the alternatives to violence program and then at the very end I will come back up and talk a little bit about what's next so you've gone through this six-part series and and I think we've been asking that question you know where where do you want to go uh now that we're done with this particular series we've got a couple ideas and recommendations but we need your feedback so that's what I'll do at the end having said that I'll now turn it over to Dr Washington you can either right there's the arrow where I can click it for you I got up perfect thanks I've been up here a time or two just not for this audience uh good evening uh city council Madame mayor it's really great to see you all this evening uh I don't get to talk with you all in this format very often but it's always my pleasure to come and invited to do so uh I am reard Washington for those who don't know me I'm the County's Public Health director uh so I have been in that since December of 2021 uh tonight look forward to talking a little bit about our office of violence prevention that is both a partnership with the county health department the county at large uh but works very closely with the city of Charlotte as well as our law enforcement Partners as well as a whole host of Community Partners who are so critical for us and the work that we get done in this space all right uh so just to give you a quick snapshot I only have about 10 minutes I think but I look forward to answering any questions tonight but to talk a little bit about uh first what the office of violence prevention is why we created it uh many of you may know Tracy Campbell who used to be our leader of that office who has now moved on to Greater pastures uh as a result of the great work that she was able to do here in mecklinburg I'll then talk a little bit about sort of what it means in general just to be an office of violence prevention actually I'll talk about that first um and why why we consider violence a public health issue uh and then I'll talk in detail a little bit about the plan and some of the progress that we've made over the last a couple of years as well as some of our Partnerships directly with the city and the work that we're doing uh across this country and here in North Carolina I think there's a growing acknowledgement and recognition that uh that violence has an impact on the community's health not just in terms of individuals being directly impacted by violence itself whether it be injury or death uh but entire communities are impacted by violence that happens because it tends to be concentrated in communities uh that EXP inance that violence on a regular basis uh that has a whole host of uh direct uh and indirect impacts on the health and well-being of our community and what we mean by violence as a public health issue is that we have to acknowledge that um while law enforcement as has already been said tonight is a Hallmark and a critical component to our ability to be able to respond to violence uh there are other things we can do to both prevent uh violence from happening on the first place to keep law enforcement out but also to make sure that when violence does occur we're we're we're tending to the community as a whole and not just the patient who's directly impacted by either a gun or whatever the weapon might be in the case of violence uh it also takes the posture that violence can be prevented uh and so it takes this at it's very core is that we can stop violence before it begins uh we all know violence is cyclical it's deeply rooted in community uh it's not a new issue that just popped up and we can't just put a Band-Aid on it and it will take a lot of effort uh for us to address those root causes which are often Economic Opportunity lack of opportunity uh and of course the um the pervasiveness of criminal activity that happens in some of our communities uh it also we we look in public health for sort of a tiered approach to prevention I won't go into all the particulars about primary secondary and tertiary prevention but basically it just means that we take every opportunity to intervene before somebody is involved either as a perpetrator or a victim of violence in the work that we do this could look like educ programs Interventional programs or even as we all know the role that behavioral health and mental health play in what happens in terms of violence in our community uh this is a graphic from uh the way Fort which is our community plan and I'll talk a little bit more about how we got to this plan in just a few moments here uh but in long and long and short of it is that there are a number of types of inter interventions that we can do some of which you'll hear in detail about tonight uh on the very primary prevention side sort of at the top of this pyramid we're thinking about how do we stop people from ever getting into or ever being exposed to violence in the first place how do we make sure our youth have opportunities for Outlet they're receiving a quality education and they receiving Supportive Services as needed and the secondary prevention tier that's where we're we we folks have some risk for violence whether because of their neighborhood where they live or some involvement in certain activities and so we have we think about programs like violence and erruption programs hospital-based programs that try to intervene when someone comes in as a victim of violence to reduce retaliation and those kinds of activities and then lastly is sort of tertiary prevention which is this whole notion that that people who are involved in violent crimes whether as victims or perpetrators uh the data show have a likelihood that they'll be involved in something else later so how do we stop once we know that our person's at greater risk uh and it look could look like restorative justice programs like some of you all may know uh we we do in the county on the Criminal Justice Services side or re-entry programs for people who are coming back from incarceration so so when the County initially started uh the work on violence prevention uh it was started initially as a partnership with the city as well as our law enforcement Partners uh and we established what actually ended up being the very first office of violence prevention in the state of North Carolina uh this was in 2019 uh and the first plan as as Sean has already said was to lay out sort of a community level plan uh that would allow us to bring together all the important Partners including law enforcement but also our social services Partners our County and City agencies to be able to facilitate not just the law enforcement strategies but these three tiers of prevention that would help us do a better job of trying to reduce the likelihood that Valen acts would occur in our communities uh we also wanted to make sure that there was infrastructure and resources invested in our ability to evaluate what was working uh and what wasn't working uh and bring to bear some of the best researchers to help us make sure that as we are making those Investments any new Investments uh that they're making uh good progress and having the impact that we intend to have and so that started the office of violence vention since that time there are several across the state including a state office that was just established about a year and a half ago um so being an office of violence permission does not mean that the health department is responsible for all violence or reducing Violence by itself it just means that we sit at the center of an ecosystem of organizations and partners who can help us to be able to both and understand what's happening in the community but also make sure that we're building infrastructure that's lasting to be able to have systems for prevention in our community that are accomplish ment to what our partners in law enfor and law enforcement are doing and that's where this whole array of Partners have come into play over the course of the last two and a half years and so in addition to the city and the county working closely together we have Federal funding we have some funding from other agencies across the state we also have an advisory body of community organizations as well as Community Partners who are advising us as we move forward with implementation we have uh resources from nor Eastern and the University of Charlotte and common data good to help us both maintain retain that data dashboard that Sean spoke to but also to evaluate some of the initiatives that we are invested in for impact and then there's a whole host of this work that really is at the heart of of what how we get to prevention and that's our community members so when the the plan was first created um uh Tracy at that time was an office of one uh and she went around every neighborhood in Charlotte uh to host meetings to have conversations with people and to ensure that the stakeholders uh who are impacted every day by violence had a voice voice in this work and that voice was uplifted uh and they actually set the priorities that are outlined in this plane uh this was not driven by the Meet myself or the county manager or the city manager uh the entire objectives that were outlined in this initial plan came from those conversations with our residents with Community leaders actual Community leaders and Folks at some of the nonprofits that we partner with uh to Tracy's credit that work happened over the course of almost 12 to 16 months to make sure that we were um we kept ourselves honest uh in developing a plan that not just we had stake in but our residents also had some stake in as well uh there are five AIMS in the plan I won't have time tonight to talk through all five of them but there are two overarching goals that basically with our goal of reducing Violence by 10% specifically gun related violence over the next 5 years there are five core areas there are 21 evidence-based strategies we've implemented a number of them and so I'm going to talk just quickly about a few of the highlights of things that have happened uh and then you'll hear more about a couple of the specific strategies from my colleagues that are going to speak this evening from both the healthc care system and the city Side uh first and foremost as Sean has mentioned earlier uh one of the most important things we needed to do was to build infrastructure so that the county wasn't doing one thing the city was doing another law enforcement was doing another and our community based organizations were kind of all doing whatever they wanted uh and that really was why we decided to form both the advisory committee for the way forward which is made up of 50 local advisors who represent Community Partners residents Community Based organizations to help guide this work uh as well as really importantly is this violence prevention core team and that's made up of myself the city manager the county manager the chief of police the sheriff uh as well as representatives from the CMS side as well because we recognize our education partners are really important that Court team was formed uh back in 2020 to make sure that we also were making coordinated and collaborative decisions uh across government agencies uh and that we were co-investing were necessary and not duplicating investment across both the count specifically the county and the city uh and there was a um executive level uh Insight insight to what was happening uh so that those decisions could be made quickly uh and without a lot of um back and forth and up and down the chain uh lastly one of the things that our community members asked us for was a way to instill youth voice in all of this work because of course they are the Next Generation uh and unfortunately are being impacted by violence every single day in our community and so uh our team established a youth advisory Council which has over 100 youth that are participating who also provide their perspective to us about what we can and should be doing to address violence and some of their recommendations you'll see represented some of the strategies I talk about here in just a second uh we have been working uh quickly just to talk just to raise awareness about this issue and to use multimedia social media and other forms of media as a tool to help us get people to understand why this is everybody issue and not just people who live in certain zip codes uh so we have a number of awareness campaigns as you all know uh we had a series of really tragic accidental deaths that involve children uh and so we had a very targeted campaign focused on making sure that people were storing guns safely in the community uh we have had a number of young kids lives lost as a result of that uh We've also started a very significant gunlock distribution program uh that has distributed more than a thousand gun locks in the community and we still have a large Supply that we are making available to residents at a number of various venues across the community uh the not another campaign was a CommunityWide campaign it was on cats buses and other places and social media uh and then the last thing I'll mention is these clean clean graffiti campaigns which we've put around all the CMS schools uh that have been impacted by violence to basically say these are gun safe zones and so they B they spray paint the sidewalks uh to basically try to designate those areas as safe uh again it's a physical cue uh to let people know that they're in an area that we need to keep safe because kids are there I'm moving fast so just stay with me and I'm happy to answer any questions um we also launched the Peacekeeper Academy this was a a direct recommendation or request from Community Partners we have a number of hardworking nonprofits uh some of nonprofit someone just mom and pop that are working every day to help us in making opportunity possible for residents whether it be through mentorship or other kinds of resources for families that they provide uh but they didn't have all the tools they needed to either be official organizations to do business with the county to do business to write for Grants uh to be able to manage and demonstrate impact and so we started peacekeepers Academy which has graduated uh 22 organizations uh and provided a lot of resource to them to kind of start up as agencies uh peace skers is a is a training it pro it provides a number of not just uh information about managing finances and those kinds of things but also helps those agencies understand what best practice looks like in violence prevention uh and had a host host of experts from around the country actually to come and teach folks here in Charlotte how to approach it and so we are proud to continue this work as well and each of those agencies also received a small Grant uh to help seed them uh which hopefully will get them ready to to be ready to apply for a safe Charlotte Grant as well in in the future uh a number of activities happening on the youth front um um access mental health um access Mental Health Services virtually at no cost uh and so that is being supported by the County's AR arpa allocations and will be launched in February of this year and in March of this year we're having a youth violence prevention Summit uh that will bring together youth from around the county at a parking Rec facility to help us again continue to plan uh what what we should be doing to better reach youth in this conversation uh we had an art campaign and a number of other things and this will help us again continue to move that forward all right I'm going to skip this one because it's mostly about alternatives to violence which has uh been a co-investment of both the county and the city both to get launched as well as Implement uh and I know Dr Stewart's going to talk about that in just a second as well as we do have uh now Interruption programs at both of our health systems and again this is a lot of work that's happened over the course of just three years uh which I think is a huge deal for the city of Charlotte and meinberg County to say that we've made this kind of intentional investment I will also Echo though that this none of this is going to change the situation overnight there's no there is no simple answer to violence prevention and we have to do all of these things and continue to do them continuously to be able to lessen the responsibility on our law enforcement Partners you know violence is cyclical uh and it does it does have a lot of root causes and those root causes like poverty and opportunity are not fixed over night uh these really are interventions that allow us to make Headway uh while we continue to to address economic mobility in our community and with that I'll pass it to the team in Atrium thank you good evening you all good evening I'm thankful to be on this platform this feels brand new to me um I am Brittney Brown I'm the program manager for ATM Health's hospital-based violence Intervention Program and I'm joined with Dr Morgan Maxwell my colleague and we're going to talk really briefly on how project boost addresses violence as a Public Health crisis in the hospital standpoint so I wanted to talk a little bit about our Inception um and where we came from so our original pilot came in 2021 uh thanks to a grant from uh the city of Charlotte we received $250,000 in combination with um a matching donation in kind from atrim health which is now Advocate Health total we had $500,000 to start our program it was to last us for 2 years we have been able to extend that all the way out to 2025 um so we're still using those current funds and we have recently been awarded Federal funding thank you to uh congresswoman Alma Adams in the amount of $963,000 which is hopefully going to get us out until 2028 to extend our program we are looking to hire new staff and the services that we offer so our current funding has allowed us to hire two staff myself and then we have one intervention specialist who's in our Hospital currently seeing patients U about 9 to 5 hours Monday through Friday so as mentioned our official name is Project boost boost standing for building optimal outcomes for survivors of trauma this is us at our annual youth violence prevention conference hosted by Atrium Health that is our fearless leader Dr David Jacobs who helped get our program off the ground years and years ago we are super proud of what we do with that conference and Beyond so I definitely wanted to add that pick So currently we have four main goals that we focus on for our program the first being identifying the needs of our participants we're currently doing that through a social determinance of Health interview that we do with each patient sometimes it's done bedside sometimes it's done after discharge just to determine um what their spefic specific needs are our second goal is to connect patients with Community Resources based on the needs identified and that can be anything from housing um Financial supports employment mentorship there's an array of things we hope to support them with thirdly we like to grow our community connections we are currently using a community resource Hub where we have thousands of organizations house that we can look online to identify and connect our individuals with we also use a lot of Word of Mouth based on connections that we've made in the community for connections we know there's a lot of work doing in the city um and we want to make sure we have our hand and as much as we possibly can our fourth goal right now is reducing recidivism simply meaning we don't want our patients coming back for the same reasons as you know someone who is experiencing violence is about four times likely to come back to a hospital system for similar injuries usually more severe so we have a wonderful data team right now who is leading our efforts um Dr Morgan Maxwell so I wanted her to talk a little bit about um our recidivism efforts and how we are collecting our data thank you britne good evening everybody my name is Morgan Maxwell I am a senior valuation scientist a part of the impact evaluation grants management team we are embedded within the community health and prevention department of Advocate Health or Atrium health and we are also within the national Center for Health Equity essentially we're a technical assistance team that supp supports our programs with evaluating their progress we support data collection monitoring we distribute reports and we're essentially supporting them with improving the program and making sure that they're meeting all of their goals am I hitting this right okay so to speak to the folks that we have reached since January 2022 and to December 2024 we have encountered 270 participants I'm sorry patients and we've enrolled 131 of them so as essentially they may or may not um be a part of the program if they were outside of our eligibility criteria or if they declined their services um most of the participants that have been enrolled are male um 95% 85% of them are African-American and 91% of them are injured by firearm most of the participants that have enrolled fall within the ages of 16 and 18 so we really are focused on our youth wow all right and then in terms of the participants location we are one of the only level one Trauma Centers in the region so we actually serve more folks outside of our original goal which is greater Charlotte so we often times encounter um patients that are coming from South Carolina as well so these are some of the counties that we have been supporting outside of mecklinburg um nonetheless 63% of the enroll patients reside in meberg County representing 19 zip codes and these are the zip codes that we are finding most frequently so to support Optimum healing each project boost participant identifies program goals to accomplish during their enrollment so Britney and her team have been able to um identify over 162 goals with our participants most of them need support with employment with educational opportunities and Mental Health Services now we are tracking our participants progress at the 90day and 180-day Mark and so what we have found is that those at the 90-day Mark that were eligible that we were able to contact many of them are actually making progress towards meeting their goals so over 69% or close to 69% have also as bitony mentioned we are aiming to address their social drivers of Health needs so so each of them is screened at bedside and referrals are made based on their needs as well as the goals that were previously met and what we found is that most of them need support with housing safety obviously and transportation um what we have found again at the 90-day Mark those that screen positive for sdoh needs we found that over 90% of them were able to get support for those needs all right and I just wanted to speak briefly to uh the recidivism rate as well so what we found is that um we have less than 12% of our folks coming back to the hospital after they are injured so that's fantastic and we're also finding that um 83% of our participants are not interacting with the justice system after enrollment meaning they have no pending cases or arrests so the program is working and we have plenty more accomplishments that Britney is going to speak to thank you Morgan um so we are still a fairly new program um just under three years that we've been seeing patients but we are very proud of what we've done thus far um the biggest thing I'm focusing on is expanding our Community Resources there are a lot of needs for our patients and we never want to extend any of our community organizations too much we know there's a capacity for that so I've been able to access over 50 new community- based organizations in the community to add them to our referral system just to ensure that anyone that's able to support in the community um we can be a part of them and also we're looking to um expand and show what these organizations are doing for them to get the light they need and hopefully the funding that they need to support additional patients as we see them we're also looking to submit a manuscript for our program we were the first violence Intervention Program in the state of North Carolina and we want to share that information nationally how we began what we did our highs and lows and hopefully support those that are looking to start violence intervention programs in other cities this picture located here is from the first annual uh violence prevention conference in Raley it was the first Statewide conference and we were able to present the work that we've done thus far um on the stage and we are very very proud of it we're hoping to share as much as we can as we continue to grow I wanted to share briefly one quick story this is probably one of our favorites this is a young man that came into our hospital system javian at the age of 17 he was shot just a week before he was scheduled to go off to college he had a football scholarship and he actually lost that scholarship du his to his injury he wasn't able to go immediately to college he worked with our intervention specialist um Derek there who worked with him diligently he was able to help him find funding he was still able to attend Winston Salem University without funds that he would have to come out of and he was also able to walk onto the football team after a year of healing so we love to tell that story as much as possible um what I don't mention a lot is javan's friend that was with him during the shooting drove him to the hospital and we were able to do a bit of a preventative intervention with him as well to talk about the situation so it it really is holistic all-around care that we're looking to cover for these folks so any that comes into the hospital we want to make sure we touch point that anyone that is supporting them so as we look ahead for our program we have lots of goals that we want to achieve um first we'd like to hire a credible messenger meaning someone who could be a peer support for our individual patients as mentioned we are focusing on youth violence currently we are hoping to expand that as we grow and get more staff but we would love a peer support who has lived experience who could help help support our patients in a way that we're just not you know possibly able to identify with them we know that trust comes from when they see someone that they know and feel so we have to be honest with what we can do and what we can't do so we are hoping to get a peer support specialist in there very soon uh Morgan is going to lead some focus groups for us very very soon we have a lot of patients that have gone through the program thus far who have been with us a year or more and we want to hear about their experiences good and bad so that we can grow our program and see how we can be better and also hear about the good things we've done thus far we are also looking to expand our community resource Hub as mentioned we are hoping that all of our referrals go through our Hub through the online services there are a lot of ways to track that data and we want to make sure any organizations we are referring to on a regular basis are identified and shareed with the public to hopefully support their growth as well we're also looking to build an external committee and that's when I look at you all and smile in the crowd I know we do a lot of work within the hospital but there are a lot of constituents outside of the hospital that can help to support us so I'm looking to have a committee to show some support give us a feedback and hopefully um give us some advice on how we can grow and expand that is all we have so I'm going to pass it over to Dr Stewart and talk about ATV thank you all amazing that's the real change so mayor members of council I believe this is Dr Stewart's first presentation in front of you I know she's been at the committee level and I'm surprised that Rebecca hner didn't have walkup music for you but but but I'm sure you're rocket okay good evening good evening um I'm Dr rakisha Stewart I am the deputy director for housing and Neighborhood Services and I just want to give a big thank you to Dr Washington and to Britney and Dr Maxwell it has been a privilege to work with them as partners as we work through alternative to violence so as I move forward I want to remind you that at the top of the presentation Sean talked about the framework for violence prevention he talked about some building blocks so the building block we just heard about was the hospital so I'm going to talk to you about the community based efforts so I want to do a quick overview just to remind you kind of where we started and where we are so alternative to violence which we talk which we refer to as ATV is a community- based violence Interruption program it's evidence-based and we use the CVG model CVG stands for cure violence started in 2021 with one site that was in Betty's Ford area and then in 20123 we were able to expand to the West Boulevard area and then also over to the nation Ford Arrowwood our primary focus has been to mediate retaliatory violence between youth ages 14 to 25 so our program is operated by Yap also known as youth Advocate Program they run our Betty Ford site and our West Boulevard site Urban League of central carol runs our nation's Ford Arrowwood site um these sites are being funded by city of Charlotte mecklinburg County Wells Fargo Green light fund and other federal grants a part of the model is that the organizations they do work with green light fund to make sure they're able to work on their sustainability plan so that the work can be sustained so giving you a little information about the model that we use by cure violence there are three strategies that are very important and without them it would not be successful so we're talking about focusing on interrupting conflicts supporting high-risk individuals and changing those harmful social norms we're looking at being Community centered so our ATV members our trusted Community Messengers I think we just heard that from Britney it is very important that they are credible Messengers so a part of the model is we use ATV hires employees that have lived experience this way they can relate to and they can have conversations that you and I can't have and they can get through to individuals so you want me to say it again okay and then there's the comprehensive support which is Outreach workers engaging high-risk individuals and just like the hospital does they connect them with resources as much as possible whether it be housing employment or health support and trust me they do the connection because my phone rings it doesn't matter what time of night it is if they need assistance I'm going to answer and we'll do the best to provide whatever resources that the city has available so when we think about the Cure violence model you may recall in 2020 Council had an opportunity to review programs and a part of your commitment was the use of data and evidence so we chose to go with cure violence you also may recall towards the end of last year there was an action set before you to accept a financial contribution from meinberg County so cure violence is not free the training is very important to the work and we thank Dr Washington and mecklinburg county for Their donation and Council I thank you for allowing us to accept that donation so that we can continue the training for this great work so I want to share a few of the program activities and just give you a little bit more information so we're looking at 76 commity activities 3500 residents I'm not going to read all the numbers but I want to give you some specific information so lots of work being done in the community and a few examples of community activities are back to school events they're ensuring that the youth are prepared to go back to school resource fairs to make sure we're connecting them with resources and one event that I really want to highlight was in the summer so we know we want to make sure there are no idle Minds so in the summer we had a Midnight basketball game um we were there from about 10 p.m. till about 23 a.m. and we had the support of city employees were there County Employees were there and we were supported by deputies from meinburg County Sheriff's Office all three sites all three sites have participants now you know sometimes when you bring people from different areas there are some issues we had not one not one so it was a great event um I want to point out a little bit about the canvasing canvasing is basically just being out in the community where needed at all times so it could be within an apartment complex it may be in a school I know that our uh Betty's Ford site has an agreement with West Charlotte so they're at lunchtime every day to make sure that there are no issues um another quick story during a recent Cav last week um there were two individuals who were prepared to create violence against each other so because of the relationship that our ATV workers had not only were they able to prevent the action from happening between those two individuals they were able to go talk to their parents and my understanding is they worked it out and they understood that is not the way to go it is because of the relationships that they have because they're credible Messengers that they were able to prevent that violent action from happening they call the truth yes ma'am a truce so a little bit about our progress accomplishments so year one you may have seen the evaluation which was completed in 2023 uh we're expecting 20 in 2025 within the next couple of months to have our next evaluation but I do want to just point out real quickly some of the accomplishment so some of the strengths were the staff credibility which I think you've heard all three of the Pres presentations mention the importance of training and then the strong partner engagement positive outcomes we've seen a lot of changes with behaviors and reduced violence and then early impact so these were some of the accomplishments that we've seen and the goal is that we're able to continue as we continue this program so I want to share two short stories of impact so the first one is about Marcus he he is one of the participants in the Nations Ford area names have been changed uh he was known on the street names have been changed no I changed we I'm not using his real name I'm sorry you want to just pick a different different name Al together next time I promise you Mr manager this was not was not intentional the description does fit okay so Marcus was known for his quick temper and involvement in disputes so the program have the program basically helped him to manage his anger to understand there was a different way so with his new self-control and communication skills he was able to enhance his professional life so he started working at a local restaurant and quickly Rose through the ranks so his manager was able to recognize him for leadership potential and promoted him to a manager position so this was someone that just kind of hung out with the ATV people let me go with you to Canvas I know the community I know the people then eventually he took on a role because he really want wanted to make a change but what I appreciate is we help them make a change within themsel and when you make a change within yourself it's so much easier and more impactful to make a change with others so with Marcus we want to remind you that transformation is possible the second story is daniell Gardner affectionately known as dink he is the program manager for urban I'm sorry for um Yap for youth Advocate Program so he was recently named one of the great 28 black charlatans uh that are shaping our city for 2025 in the Q City metro article Donnell shares that he was incarcerated for 13 years but he committed to himself that when he was released that he was going to make a difference so for more than a decade he coached the rise Athletics Association youth football he started with us as a violent interruptor he was later promoted to a supervisor now he runs both the Betty's Ford and West Boulevard site for Yap and his quote is I put forth all my efforts to make a difference in the community and that's just what I've been doing so we are super proud of Donell and the work that he's doing in those two corridors so as I prepare to turn the presentation back over to Sean I want to share with you at TV is just one program operating as a part of a larger place-based approach to community safety so I was looking at one of Dr Washington slides and I like the word that he used it said ecosystem so we are a part we're not the ecosystem but we are a part of it so you hear a lot of different things and that are placed based of what we're doing within the city so you hear a lot about corridors so we have two sites two ATV sites in the corridor last week the corridor team actually had an intentional meeting and all we did was discuss what each of the Departments within the city that are working towards violence prevention what are we doing so we spent an hour and a half just sharing what we're doing to make sure that we know what resources are available as we continue to do this great work you heard cmpd talk about Community rad calls and enhanced footprint foot Patrols uh in a presentation by Debbie and Rebecca a few weeks ago they touched on quality of life such as Street lighting and youth engagement so I just want to remind you as I prepare to take my seat that we are doing a great job with alternative to violence but it does take a village that's why I'm so appreciative of my partners here at the table and we have to make sure that our goal is that we continue to work together well said thank you everybody I think that's great lots of evidence of collaboration and integration and funding Partnerships you know like I said things that five years ago were really just ideas have now been activated and real things are happening good news just two more slides I'll be quick and I think rishley you already hit the punch line here which is great so just a couple closing themes on the left here obviously Public Safety is driven by CommunityWide efforts and collaboration we cannot do this alone by any means and then on the right just a reminder back you know when we think about the existing priority areas and initiatives that Council just reaffirmed at your retreat uh when you take that long-term lens I think you can make a credible case that these priorities are helping to deliver Public Safety in the long term for the city of Charlotte access to affordable housing access to Mobility access to um Workforce good pain jobs and then all of the targeted investments in corridors of opportunities those things in the Long Haul have the potential to pay tremendous dividends for this community as it relates to Public Safety so here is kind of the end of this journey this evening and it's really kind of turning our attention towards the future now what this six-part series is is ending tonight and just to keep this real simple and straightforward we want to propose two options here option one and option two and and I would call option to the the staff recommendation option one would be let's continue the momentum with these series you can see the Chevrons here here are four examples of the types of things that could be done as deep Dives in future Council conversations you'll recall with the cmpd annual report issued in in mid January that there's an entire section focused on crime management and there are specific strategies and tactics focused on violent crime uh that cmpd has in place there could be conversations around that Public Safety and corridors R mentioned we talk about corridors a lot uh we could do a deep dive around all of the cross functional cross departmental work that's focused on Public Safety in various ways quality of life in uptown ongoing conversations thinking back to last year early last year on ordinance enforcement uh there could be interesting things to chew on there and then juvenile crime with the policy referral last year just building on where we left off so that would be one option uh second option the the recommendation here would be uh give us 45 days give us 45 days in a collaborative way the city manager's office cmpd and the int Department to really dig into what we're referring here referring to here as data analysis and insights and if I could give just a real quick example of what do we mean when we say that think back for those of you on the housing safety and Community Committee to the juvenile crime referral um early conversations we were looking at more like the macro data like oh my gosh juvenile crime has gone up significantly from 202 to 2023 there were over 3,000 juveniles arrested in calendar year 2023 it's a big number gets your attention if you look at 2021 to 2023 an even bigger number of course over 7,000 juveniles were arrested definitely gets your attention but what do you do with that how do you dig into the data in a way where you have actionable insights and that's where cmpd and it were quite helpful because we we shared an observation that if you looked at 38 juveniles in the community during that three-year period were responsible for over 800 arrests so I'm not making news here today these are things that were shared in the committee last year and those kind of insights led us into really interesting conversations around inconsistencies on secure custody orders uh which is more in the division of Juvenile Justice and the Court's space uh but it's relevant nonetheless interesting conversations around Juvenile Detention Center uh Juvenile Detention should always be the option of Last Resort um I'm not trying to resurrect this conversation but where we left off in committee is a a credible case can be made that if you're going to end up in a Detention Center we're better off as a community having one in mecklinburg County uh that led into interesting conversations around what are we missing in this community what else are we missing in this community behavioral health for juveniles Rose to the top we had really good conversations about the KY blessing center city and county came together to provide support oh by the way they're doing a ground groundbreaking a couple months out trans transformative kind of an opportunity for this community and then you'll also recall that cmpd introduced the Jade program in early 2024 real strategies cmpd officers doing approximately 200 home visits focused on kind of monitoring atrisk juveniles and intentionally proactively reaching out to those individuals literally showing up at their home in hopes of preventing uh further instances instances of violence so I use all of that just to illustrate if we can really dig into the data it puts us in a better position to come back not with the answerly but an opportunity to share with you hey here are some things that you could consider from a policy perspective or or even from a reshaping of Investments with existing resources or maybe there are some examples of of different strategies or tactics that could be meaningful so that's that's un approach you know and I know there's a tremendous of urgency on this I I wouldn't want to leave anyone on Council or the community under the impression that if we were to be granted this 45 days to do this work that that in any way means we're pressing pause as an organization uh Rebecca Hefner and team are leaning into to community engagement work and neighbors building neighborhoods U every day and every opportunity they get um you know the chief SEL report made a great reference to the core 133 initiative that was just launched in the fourth quarter of 2024 for specific things that cmpd is doing to elevate their presence in areas that are experiencing the most victimization so all of that work continues every day we're just asking for 45 days to do something a little different that we hope is additive to what's already in place so that's kind of the extent of where we wanted to just paint a picture of a couple options but then we're going to need to get some feedback from you on on next steps so with that I will pause and and ask for some help on how we want to do this Mr Jones so uh thank you mayor members of council great great job Sean one of the things I would like to point out tonight that everybody who's made a presentation to you over the last few months are actually here tonight from the staff perspective because it is a a combined effort and again I appreciate our partners being here U the the other thing I'll say to Sean's um 45 day proposal I I typically don't bet against this guy and he calls me Sunday and said do do you mind if I pitch this it started off at 60 so I guess there maybe some pressure on you make it faster uh and I just have know Full Faith and confidence in in the team and I would like for you to consider the opportunity for us to just get into this data and dive uh a bit a bit deeper but that was say it's a great great job to everybody so I want to say thank you to Dr reard I our friends from Atrium and our friends from I guess I can't say Miss Stewart's friend the people that make the city work I want to say thank you um I am sure that there's a lot of conversation and thoughtfulness to be in this moment but we just have to think about three years ago we were talking about you know how to do something in a hospital and Atrium stepped up so thank you and this team has done a terrific job thinking about what else we can do to make our city safer and so the chief and everybody else it's been an absolutely Marvel experience to learn more because I think we all know that we need to learn more about what's going on in our city and also what's going on with our youth especially so with that I saw that I know that we have a number of people that want to speak well and I was going to go ahead and start with Mr Graham and move around and then we'll come down this way okay Mr Graham thank you so so first let me say that I I really appreciate uh Mr manager the 70 60 days probably that we've spent uh reviewing and establishing a baseline for the council to consider um I did do my homework over the weekend I went back and looked at the safe Charlotte reports volume one and two I uh Public Safety has a Public Health crisis tonight uh the public safety framework um the public safety update um review the 2024 annual report from cmpd uh and so I I thank you for providing me and the council a baseline of information to jump from uh I want to thank all the presenters tonight for the work that they've done throughout those last 60 days giving us this information I think it's really really helpful uh data is important uh and I respect data and I think we ought to use data to make informed public policy decisions uh I also want to thank the uh uh this uh the chief and his leadership team that's here tonight I understand the work that you guys do is real hard um I really want to thank even the the uniform officers specifically because I have more interaction with them on the day-to-day basis for the work that they do the men and women uh on the straight despite our best efforts though in the eyes of the public we still are falling short um I'm not sure we have 45 days um the public while the information was good tonight um I'm sure that will not lead to news tonight what led to news over the weekend was yet another shooting in uptown Charlotte uh a young lady was gunned down at the El scholar Baro Resource Center in broad daylight uh two guys got in a gunfight one now is dead the other is probably in jail um which means that we got a gun problem in Charlotte and um that we got to solve quickly just in meetings today I was with cmpd and with uh Rebecca Hefner talking about the park at Oakline and some of the issues that we're having over there with the um property owned by levian and formerly the housing um Housing Authority I had a meeting this afternoon with charlott C City Partners talking about other issues but came down to Public Safety yet again in uptown Charlotte and I had a meeting over the weekend on the basille world quarter and follow up that meeting today and the issue was open the year weed sales luding public intoxication uh Etc and just as I'm sitting here um I got a text from a constituent um who probably was not aware that we're having this meeting tonight on this issue and um we need cameras we need lighting we need enforcement um there's three properties on the corridor one next to your police station on B for road where her she reports that there opena drug sales and um on a property that's actually owned by the city on the quarter um the speaker of the house is coming this weekend and uh on the 24th and the president protim and certainly Mobility is going to be an issue uh that we should talk about for sure but if we don't talk about the lack of funding for our judicial system and our court system and Charlotte mechur we're we're missing the point uh if we don't talk about the fact that there's legislation that want to do away with a permit for open carrying in North Carolina they we're missing a point right because I'm not sure more guns on the street makes us more safe it just means more guns in the wrong hands more guns and cars that are being broken into more guns on the Street uh more shootings in Charlotte so I I I understand where we are um uh but I I I would hope that there's a parallel track Sean that we are using this 45 days uh to scrunch the data and I you know I think we can do more than one thing at a time but uh I I think we need to really have a a a a specific plan of action on a wide variety of issues because no doubt about it the the the the work is being done there's no doubt about that cmpd is doing their job the uh the the city and the county their collaboration um while quietly as is kept it's it's working I guess right I I think we need to raise the visibility of it so people can know what we're doing I'm not sure they do despite our best efforts um I I just think that we just really have to focus uh crunch the data and come with some really really strong Solutions because we're losing confidence with the people that I that we represent and these are not my words these are words I've gotten from some of my cons constituents no tolerance I mean a force the laws that already on the books again focus on these convenience stores uh that's selling fortify liquor beer and wine focus on the luding issue on these quarters work with meinberg County to ensure that these parks are safe and secure and it's my understanding that there'll be 247 um Park Patrol starting July 1st provided by the county for parks in uptown but that doesn't do anything with the parks along the quarter especially Catherine Simmons where you you need um gloves and strong boots to walk through the park because there's needles and syringes and everything ungodly happening behind there we got stores that we know that there are uh illegal activities happening there and people are doing things behind the stores that um we pass ordinance about two or 3 months ago um that needs to be enforced and while homelessness is is not a a a crime issue the homeless that sheltered are generally victims of crime there is a perception that somehow that's a part of the problem which it is not they just we need to provide a better focused collaboration with the county and reference to how do we run people to services and so all of this is happening so I'm not sure what happens in 45 days Sean in terms of how you guys crunched the numbers crunch the data and you know me the report is 30 days old now so hopefully that someone's already started crunching it and there are a lot of recommendations that the chief has already outlined so somehow I hope that we can move quickly and 45 days may be quick for government it's not quick for the people that we represent um people are really really um asking for a response from this Council uh in reference to how are we dealing with with whether it's perception that there's a problem the reality is what I just mentioned those things happen this weekend and that's the reality that people are seeing every night on our Nightly News are comforting friends and our family members who are victim victims of some of this violence uh are being scared like the phone call was on today where buets are coming through people's home at night uh they wake up in the morning they sink bullets in their cars and people are afraid and rightly so and so Mr manager I hope and that we could move quickly and again 45 days may be quick I'm not sure from my perspective it is not um because I think we could have been working on Parallel track going back to the first presentation in November in terms of what's the course of action that this Council will take to demonstrate in a very vocal visible way um that we acknowledge the problem and we're taking proactive steps to solve it thank you all right Mr dggs so uh I agree with Mr Graham and instead of repeating what he said I'll just incorporate his remarks by reference uh to mine um the thing that uh I feel is is the important issue is we are sort of dodging a question and I've said this in the meeting before there are some difficult choices you can make about enforcement in particular and then there are questions that come up about whether we are invading discriminating doing those things and so I appreciate all the work that's going into this but I will note that we've heard a lot of it we were talking about datadriven Solutions years ago we were supposed to be seeing the results of alternative to violence a long time ago so I think we should continue every effort to try to intervene and not let it get to that point but uh at the end of the day that has to be supported by stronger enforcement and uh and with that we are uh the difficulty of our position also is we don't control the courts in the district attorney and therefore we are looking at what can we do when we have this problem with the courts and the district attorney and uh we are trying to maintain a balance in terms of the engagement and and I think Chief Robinson uh you took exception uh or question my use of the word aggressive uh and I use the word intentionally because what I mean is I don't think there is a p completely painless way to tackle this I think if we do something effective to tackle this there are going to be people who are upset I don't see a way around it and so we can Tippy Toe around it and we can come up with all kinds of programs but uh if we don't have the ability to take a certain core of repeat offenders out of circulation then we are helpless um so I'm grateful for every instance of successful intervention every life that can be saved um but I'm not seeing in the data and I'm certainly not hearing from people that talk to me who tend to be more uh Uptown business people I guess than constituents but I I'm not hearing that they are encouraged by what they've been seeing and uh so I don't know the answer yet I I'm not concerned about the 45 days I think you should go and do that uh um but I don't think we should we should assume that in 45 days something is going to happen that's going to make a huge difference we need to take this seriously now uh and Fin look at the data when it comes along but this isn't something that we should appear to just sort of put on hold for 45 days thank you right Mr barari yeah I uh I I I agree with a lot of that I think the only Nuance I put into this is I think this is a good idea and I think the outcomes will either be as good or bad SL status quo as how this 45 days in this go forward plan are focused um you know we've spent what the last two months going through this series of different things great applaud all of that but whether it's that period of time or the eight years before that we've had the same conversation over and over and over again and the problem isn't our intent it's the takeaways and all the takeaways are almost always anecdotal we have some anecdotes of this program is doing this or this person had a a great experience afterwards all very important but that doesn't get us to scalable outcomes which is what we need right now so I I would say that whether it's this last series over the two months whether it's the reports and the nice bound things we get two statements can be true at the same time A lot of people are doing a lot of good work and violent crime is UN unacceptable levels property crime is at unacceptable levels and the problem is it feels feels like when I'm talking in conversations around here it's either one or the other and I think we have to get to a point where both are okay statements for us to accept and that latter one that these are just unacceptable levels that we're experiencing right now actually needs the data analysis to arm us for our big takeaway what policy changes or changes in budget are we actually going to make so you know I I I personally believe i' I've said it multiple times so this is where I think Council comes into play in this 45-day period it's not like we'll see in 45 days we've got to provide Direction and and and inputs into this what I I've stood firm in a hypothesis I have that I have searched everywhere for the data to be able to get my hands on and I can't do it yet which is a smaller number of repeat criminals are responsible for an outsized portion of the property and violent crimes that happen in our city and that meets the the trends and themes you heard before of the criminal justice system is broking they're falling between the CL cracks how can the data one confirm that I'm correct about that statement which again we can't get to that when we're being presented things that are a view of look at how much great work is happening and we're not disputing that we're saying this is not a perception issue to Mr Graham's point the comments he and all of us get are not perception they're people that said this happened right so we got to get into that data see that that is indeed the case and then have policy procedure real medy conversations here where we get to those parts that are a little uncomfortable where where my idea is simple I this isn't the right term for it but I think we need to have a Charlotte's most wanted list now that wanted list doesn't mean we're going out and searching for these folks and trying to find them invade their privacy but when they hit the system the next time because they have 30 or 40 offenses and they got sent right back home all of a sudden the jail the da the courts the everybody is now it's on their radar to say let's pay closer attention to this because that person probably wouldn't commit another 30 violations over the next 12 months and that's meaningful change I believe in the measurements and what we can do so I think it's it's got to be data focused it's going to be either based on battling the problem of perception that's out there which I think is the wrong answer or battling the actual reality that we are we are at uh um un untenable levels of property crime and a violent crime and that we're going to quickly move to policy movements on those things that can actually change the measurable outcome in the short term so I I I think I've heard that we're going to take a databased approach before I don't think a lot more than anecdotal stuff came out of that I have hope that this is different that this approach based on some of the things he outlined there and the fact that you know Sean has a track record of delivering on what he's doing uh that that we can make this one different but I think it depends largely on what happens there and our involvement inside that 45-day period so we just we get brought something that's directionally correct but I think the punchline needs to be we're not trying to change hearts and minds and perception we're trying to change actual stats and Trends and themes in the data that are moving these numbers that impact so many people's lives Miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor I want to start out by thanking Dr Washington Maxwell Brown and of course Dr Stewart I obviously didn't see everything that my colleagues saw in this and although I agree with some of the comments we have had this conversation for many years but what I saw in tonight's presentation is highlighting the data that we have been asking for I also for me think there's a different conversation that we need to have Mr manager and for my colleagues as the city continues to grow as the city continues to become very inexpensive for a lot of people housing food Transportation access we are going to see challenges but we also got to have a conversation within our households cuz it's our cousins our our children our friends of friends that we know that are out there having access to certain things because that is what they have in their household we as a body have control over our manager who has control over cmpd once that individual is arrest arrested they go to the courts so we have individuals that are back out on the streets before the paper work is done at the same time while we're sending a limited number cuz we now have 23 2400 officers that's not even 23 19 okay 1,00 officers in a city county that's over a million individuals so the work that you all are doing of which I think in their own way my colleagues may have said it but I'm saying thank you because the work that you're doing is not going unnoticed but we also have to have a real conversation of all the other obstacles that's in the way cuz we cannot pluck that individual and put them on punishment and say you going to stay here we have individuals that go out and commit the crime even when they have a ankle monitor on that's a different conversation that's happening at home now we have a lot of challenges but we also say it takes a village let's be honest our village has been scattered for more than a decade for a number but the work that I see you're tracking we know those 38 but we can't make our magistrate and our judges do something different than what they're doing we can if we collectively took our butts out and actually voted consistently but that's a completely different conversation but what our chief did do is go with our da to the North Carolina general assembly and let it be known I about to cheat every day all day any chance I get cuz I'm always saying I'm going to need you to do more but what we what I don't want anyone walking away with in this conversation is this idea that we don't see what our Charlotte mcber Police Department is doing and what y'all are doing with 1,900 people if we had 5,000 officers that would be not enough to keep you on every corner even what we have on the corner of Oakline they don't even live there you don't even live in my neighborhood so I can't go to your mama door and say what is what's the knucklehead doing you driving down the street having a dispute with someone and just start shooting cuz you don't know how to use your words and you don't have emotional intelligence what I saw in this presentation is the fact that y'all are actually teaching people something that you thought they would already know but they don't so that is why I'm started off with saying thank you for the work that y'all are doing the expectation is not for you to do everything this is a all hands on deck but I want us to have a real conversation about what the expectation is there are parents around this table I am not one of them I don't have no children I don't have no pets either yet it is our responsibility to try to figure out how we can help so as long as we have groups out here trying to do the work and that are teaching adults how to have better communication with their children and teaching their children how to better communicate their emotions and know that a gun is not the answer you gave us a a great example of an individual who is getting ready to have a discussion using violence that y'all figured out how to because of relationship building because that's what it's all about we walking around in pain and we don't know how to acknowledge and we don't know what to do with that pain so then it escapes the way that it escapes but I need us to understand that we got something that we can do I don't know Mr Heath if the additional 45 days is going to help but what I'm interested in is learning policy-wise what is the recommendation for city council for what we can do to help okay we have grants out there for some of our partners we have neighborhood matching grants okay security cameras okay now this business are you going to allow our cmpd to have access to those cameras so we have immediate on the spot interaction or are you going to put up the signs that we've asked you to put up to say no solicitation and are you going to stay in communication CU there's some things that we have been trying at neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood since I was here the first time in 2011 to 2019 we need commitment but for this tonight I'm seeing progress in what we're doing yes we want more but we also got to recognize we're growing people are hurting they don't know how to express that hurt yes we keep seeing on the news and receiving calls hell in my own neighborhood I look on next door did y'all hear that boom did you hear that shot the answer is collectively we have to figure out what we can do but only thing Charlotte City Council can do is to continue to support the work that's happening figure out in a budget whether or not we can afford to identify quality officers but I think we're going to also see a difference with the community officers for lack of a better word that are going to be out there and we can do more with helping with sending out our violence interruptor Partners to some of these situations because they have the relationship to DS escalated it before it gets to the next level thank you mayor all right Miss watlington thank you madam mayor um I agree with a lot of the sentiments of my vice chair here uh thank you for your work and thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for the work that you all are doing you all continue to be tremendous um you're the tip of the spear we we can sit here and talk about how much more needs to be done and how we're getting text messages and this or that that's always going to be the case but the answer comes back to the very things that we've seen in this presentation right and so I would encourage each and every one of us when we get these text Messer we get people saying I saw XYZ tell them come to the table hello that part so tell them to come to the table because that's what it's going to take the work that I see here is scalable the work I see here is database the work I see here yes the work I see here is about prevention and you're not going to see that data what we should be asking ourselves is what would those numbers look like if they weren't doing the work that they're doing and how do we grow the work so that we can continue to see the gains I do think that we've seen the data that confirms what you said Mr barari about um about an out or disproportionate amount of crimes being committed by a certain number of folks we know that guess what our community officers and our our beat officers our Patrol officers know who those people are and those are the people that can connect with ATV resources who can connect with those that are working on this that's already happening what we need to do is continue to support the work so that it can grow we're doing the right things and I just want to continue to stress that because we can sit here and talk platitudes all day long the work's not sexy we're not going to see it every day at the top of the headlines the average person watching the news at night's not going to see it but we can see right here with what they just presented to us that the work goes on and it's impactful to the people that they're touching how what did you say the recidivism rate was on your programs 80 something per correct it was North 80% yeah go ahead P the see oh sorry so we're seeing um 12% of those folks who are coming back into the program who were in the program coming back to the hospital so it's over 80% of the folks are not coming back after they're enrolled and I'll do you one better that's almost 90% these are the people um I think about who else needs to be involved what can we do and I know some of this will be um a part of the analysis which I do not support more data analysis you got that said never ever uh by me I absolutely support the 45 days um cuz we got to continue to do the work it has to happen right so here for that I need to understand what that means to us uh Mr Heath resource-wise TimeWise are you asking the manager to get something else off your plate so you can prioritize it what do you mean when you say you need 45 days I'm just saying that that across the city manager's office int and cmpd I think we know we've already had some preliminary conversations to be sure that we're ready to move immediately if that's the direction Council wants to go so we don't we don't need to add resources to the mix we just need to prioritize our work perfect okay um well I'm absolutely supportive of that um uh so I look forward to that the question that I would ask is who else who else needs to come to the table I see all of the um all of the logos here of cmpd meinberg County Atrium Health besides the people in the text messages the private citizens the neighbors are matter of fact our neighborhood and it's real cuz that's who it's going to take there's no Heroes coming in to save our community we are the community and we got to do the work and so as I think about our neighborhood organization leaders as I think about even our faith community our our coaches so many of our like our football our basketball coaches are interacting with some of these youth every day right they've got influence so I'd love to see what what some more of those connections with CMS um would look like and then the the final question that I would leave to you all uh and definitely would like you to weigh in what I'm hearing from my colleagues is they're asking for answers what do they what do we tell our constituents what do you if a constituent came to you and said what can I do how do we change this how can I help what's the first thing that you would ask for to help support your work from a hospital standpoint I think we need 24-hour coverage there are a lot of patients that are coming into the hospital and leaving before we get a chance to even see them and we know that they are at a higher risk of coming back and they're also at a higher risk of committing crimes and we're not able to touch point with them because there's one a half of us right now um so 24-hour coverage is going to be big for us we also want to step into preventative measures so we need more staff who can see folks that are maybe in the hospital that aren't violently injured but they're um proving to be risks for violence in their community so we we need more hands- on Deck uh I mean my short answer to that if someone asked me what could they do I would say do something uh I mean I think you guys are right in that uh this is not there is no simple answer it's not just law enforcement it's not just the Interventional work that's happening but it really is a community effort to be able to create safe spaces for folks uh and there is something for everybody to do to help in that equation depending on a person's perspective and what they're doing you know that answer might change a lot um and I do want to just be clear that you know it is all of this must happen it's it is not in in cities across this country that have seen progress in violence reduction which we are seeing saying uh I know that there are still too many lives any life loss is a problem so I'm not in any way trying to minimize that reality for folks and it is real and and it's not new in Charlotte and it is certainly something that happens in communities across the country unfortunately and we don't want to happen uh but in cities that have seen progress they invest in both sides of this equation both in terms of the work that we talked about tonight on the preventive side and Interventional side and also on law enforcement and law enforcement when I say it is not just cmpd I mean that reflects the court syst system that reflects the district attorney and I didn't call them out earlier the sheriff but they all participate in the core group um but it is all of them you know and also recognizing to I think councilman bari's Point earlier there are policy issues that I play here uh and so from my perspective you know if I'm talking to you guys uh there is a policy agenda that could be shaped around both the issue we have with guns uh as well as the issue we have with the courts and other issues and so I do think if if it were me um you know we are working very hard collectively County City and and and staff agencies and I know our partners and the chief are working really hard in cmpd with what they have uh but there are also some policies that remain to be barriers to the the forward progress that folks are trying to make thank you so for me I would say we need to know what is needed so it goes back to what you said about bringing them to the table so um grateful that the mayor put the out the policy referral because we were able to survey about 300 youth as you all know you're part of your committee to find out what they need so we heard about mental health we heard about social norms we talked about mentoring but we need to bring youth to the table so that we can know what they need and not us assuming um that we're going to put together this big program and it's going to meet their needs so we want to make sure that we are truly being intentional about we about what we um address and we want to make sure that we're we're getting everybody so for example my youth programs team we're out at turning point we're out at the relatives with the unsheltered youth so we need to make sure that not are we only bringing people to the table but we're bringing everybody to the table so that we can hear the needs and I just wanted to reiterate um Britney's point my team and I are completing a gap analysis for the year but at the midyear point we found that 149 patients met our criteria and we missed 104 of them because they were coming in outside of the normal business hours they were coming in on with weekends when we don't have any staff so just to reiterate more support for the program could allow us to reach more patients thank you so much that's all all right Miss Brown now you know you should have came to me first cuz I'm an expert but I I'll let you slide today by the time you get to me everybody said everything I need to say but I will go back to um my um housing Safety Committee and Community Committee with our vice chair and our chair great job um what you said I I get that when people say they're not safe in our city they're not safe that's understood we hear that loud and clear but also when I get a text message or when I get an email and they say what are you doing about the people putting a entt up in Ste Creek what are you doing about the crime that's on West buo I asked him I got to seat at my table for you because it's going to take all hands on deck and I mean that with everything inside of me it is a cultural issue it is an issue where cmpd cannot fix a loan they will not be able to fix a loan the shooting that happened on Freedom Drive a very close friend of my family wonder why cuz I've been living in this community for a very long time I've been incarcerated number of times over and over and over again it's no secret that I dated somebody that was heavily involved in Narcotics so the generational curses are out there so I understand what goes on I I knew the young men that was at the gas station you know they were friends and then they shot at each other and one of them died that was a bad decision that they made that night and to the family members my heart goes out to both the one that died Desmond I know his mom very well she's a Christian lady so it does not happen inside of their home going back to cine Simmons there's an organization called Safeguard atone validate educate I work with Mr Dean that center is open 24 hours a day been able to take a 100 people and I've walked in me this is the work that I do I eat sleep and breathe this work outside the city council it was what I doing before I came here it's going it's going to be what I'm going to be doing when I leave from here so why I understand my colleagues saying that they're getting text messages they don't feel safe they've heard this story time and time again now let me come to you thank you thank you thank you thank you and thank you because at the end of this day I am an expert I am an expert in this line of work why because I have lived experience I've lived this I've walked this I understand what it takes for people to change their lives when I came home from incarceration if you put somebody in front of me like Dr won I love her but she's never been incarcerated she has the education she has the expertise to tell me what I need to do on the clinical side but from a person that has lived experience that have walked this line that understands what it takes to turn your life around and I've done that and that's nobody in this room that cannnot say I have it so although it takes a very very long time it does not if you put the right program in front of people to me the program is being put in front of the folks so at the end of the day when it's all said and done when folks start to text us and say hey what are you doing ask them what are they doing and then check their record and see if they vote because for me I have 167,000 people in my district so I've been told don't quote me on that number but it's more than than I can handle I'm one person so when I get a text message and a mandal can vouch for this or email that says what are you doing to ask them what are they doing and do you vote because I'm not being rude but I'm being truthful although I am a constit although I'm a city council person for every constituent in this district and in this city a lot of people don't vote but they still want to have their problems heard loud but what about the people that vote every day we want to make sure they're taken care of because they care about us when we go back to the data we ask for the data analysis we ask to work with in we're doing that so the way to move forward the path to move forward is to continue this approach that these expert folks have done back here that they've went and they've grabbed people with lived experience they got people that understand what needs to happen you take Mr Danielle Gardner who I work with out in the community very well it takes a very special person to go stand on the 1500 Block of West Boulevard speak to those young men when you know they got guns in their pocket when you know they got drugs in their pocket but when they see you walk up they respect you now I'm not understand that I see it but perception is real I know what they're doing on the corner 1500 Block of West Boulevard because I grew up there but you can't just have cmpd walking up to those guys you got to have a pro you got to really we have it have to be strategic if you want it to work is what I'm saying reism is real you go you talk about we can't afford to live here there's no affordable housing hell I can't afford to live where I live at and I'm just being real 110% it is the god Heaven truth and I work three jobs okay this is a real story at the end of the day I work my fingers down to the bone but I'm in this work so I'm going to Echo my colleagues cuz I know what it take the day is here you asked for it they showed you the data they brought into Atrium Health you can't ask for a better program model than this Rome wasn't built overnight and city council Pro problem to um our our our solution to fix what we're going through is not going to happen overnight it's just not going to happen so we need to start somewhere and it looks like we're moving in the right direction 1900 officers for a city with a million people where you can't buy no food you can't get no groceries the um there's no affordable housing you got a circus at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue I mean I don't know what else you want to say at the end of the day when it's all said and done we got to start somewhere regardless as to who you voted for that's how I feel and I mean it I'm I'm grateful for the work that you're doing I'm grateful that I'm grateful that you take the opportunity to involve people with lived experience because the people that don't have lived experience they simply do not get it and until they get it these numbers are going to continue to grow they're going to continue to rise and you can ask anybody that's been incarcerated that's been shot that's lost their kid they want to see somebody in front of them that's been through what they've been through I you to my colleagues thank you Miss Brown um I believe we would have Miss Johnson next thank you madam mayor and thank you council member Brown for your passion and to all my colleagues um thank you to the panel for the work that you're doing um I sincerely appreciate it and I'm honored to be a part of this work when you see you know the the slides and the work that we worked on since 2020 we see it come into fruition and we see progress I agree that the number of officers for a city this size you know um is just not enough and I want to know as far as the the data and the the crimes increasing how is that on a percentage the numbers might be higher than they were years ago but so is the population so can you answer that question is that an absolute uh increase or where are we compared to the growth in the city I think if if we could we could reshare in the initial presentation back in November when Chief Jennings spoke he provided a lot of data going all the way back to 1990 and much of the data was scaled based on population growth so you could see both changes in absolute numbers but then changes in relative numbers so I don't have any of those specifics here with me today but we could be sure that you had that at your fingertips tomorrow thank you yeah and if I mean I would imagine much of it is because the city is growing so we we've heard a lot and this is a public health crisis and all hands need to be on deck right now so what can city council do for this and and city council we know that the city is growing we know that many of our schools are overcrowded are we are we slowing down the growth are we looking at cumulative impact are we are we doing what we can do to really ensure that our students are getting quality education as far as funding nonprofit organizations we funded organizations in the 2025 budget nonprofit organizations doing the work that still haven't received their money that's something the city council can do you talk about cameras this Council won't even approve red light cameras that we know can impact uh Safe Streets so what are we will really willing to do and not ask cmpd uh to do more or the courts to do more what are we doing as a council are we looking at growth in infrastructure are we willing to say to organizations that we fund ban the box so people can get a job are we willing to say to housing organizations that we give tax credit uh ban the box so people with the biggest barriers can get stable housing so there's opportunity for everyone um on Deck another thing that the city there's a there's a a rule that we have that only six people can live in a home when the county has a re-entry program that allows people to live based on the square footage that's a barrier it's a code enforcement violation to to have a group home for re-entry if you have more than six people we need to take a look at that so we all need to be all hands on deck we as Council need to do what we do very very very well and continue to to take a look at that so I would say are we willing to put more cameras in different places ensure that the nonprofit organizations that are doing the work are getting the funding increase the funding for nonprofit organizations um and then I just have a question for um Dr Maxwell or all of the um panelists so I'm a um U I'm a mental health provider I have a peer support organization and I know that individuals who have head injuries represent homelessness and criminal justice system at a um overwhelming rate homelessness it can be uh 50% of individuals who suffer homelessness have history of head injury and in the criminal justice system some would say up to 60 to 87% so in the hospital you know that you're dealing with individuals who've suffered trauma I would I ask is uh questions regarding history of head injury a part of your assessment and even in the ATV program if it's not in the assessment I suggest that you include that because then you have specific treatment Atrium has a dynamite doctor Dr Chandler he's amazing and um and so make sure they're getting the correct treatment because the cookie cutter approach does not work so I would just ask that you be sure to include that um and also if the individuals in your program are they receiving Behavioral Health counseling uh I can answer that so as far as head injuries we work in conjunction with our trauma survivors Network organization so they see all our trauma victim so not just gunshots and stabbings so they have a similar report that they do we don't have one set up in our program specifically um but head injuries PTSD Behavioral Health is all screened when they are in the hospital as we grow we do want to have a mental health uh provider specifically within our program so Behavioral Health Services are not necessarily going to be mandatory but we want to make sure every person that we see is screened for um Mental Health Services and Behavioral Health it's a top priority for us as we continue to grow okay than thank you and and ATV program so for ATV Our Workers are not MediCal so they will provide the resource um but we don't make it like she said we don't make it mandatory and they're not able to do a screening either oh I see okay all right well I appreciate the trauma focused approach thank you for the work that you're doing and thank you Sean I I do have one other question there's quality of life in uptown is there a reason that we're focused on the quality of life in uptown and not not all areas like there are areas that aren't in the state in the corridors of opportunity or in uptown so tell me yeah no I wouldn't read anything into that other than we just wanted to show a few examples of of things that you're familiar with from previous conversations okay well thank you for the work you're doing thank you thank you Madame mayor um it's kind of odd to come last there's been so much said well next to last uh yeah um there there's there's so much here um I I guess I I'll start with what my colleagues have started with thank you guys for the work um the emphasis that you've brought before this Council I do think it's comprehensive um and and I I do think it's a start um I don't see this as a Net Zero [Music] Sum uh opportunity crime is something that we will forever have to mitigate if if you could figure out how to put cmpd in the sheriff's department out of business then you know I mean there's there's just no such thing right um and so I'm I'm not saying that that's an excuse for this but I am saying that the continuation of um data driven you know Pursuits is something that we will forever be doing in a decision-making position um as stakeholders throughout the Continuum I I know for sure you know even the collection of this data if I was talking from a quantitative perspective if we were like what my colleague uh for an example uh council member Mayfield said which is a absolutely valid point but if you think about it in 2011 if someone was within the you know statistical range of of being a perpetuator of of some of these crimes in 2011 they're now an adult and based on the way that this data trends that means that they would now be trended outside of where they would be in the range of committing certain crimes right so considering that people through time inevitably Trend away from the data sets that we're trying to focus on it it actually implies that this is a continual effort it's something that we'll continue to mitigate I think we have to look at it um as if we are adapting to the current climate right and the current climate says right now that like everyone at this table has said we have what is at at at minimum perceived to be a problem with crime that has increased since 2020 that is perpetuated by a certain demographic right here it's saying 81% are African-American they're between ages 18 to 34 um and and the emphasis it it within the range range of 18 to 44 it's it's tremendous right um I'm encouraged by the fact that we have an intergovernmental assignment because like everyone here has said and you know I don't want to seem to repeat I feel like that it takes a village uh it takes all of us um and I don't feel like that there is um an entity that that that can't take these statistics as seriously as as everyone at the table does and so um I know you know from a council perspective we're looking at the what right you guys are set out to destruct or instruct the how right we we're not here to instruct the how but we have two immense possibilities at our disposal we have policy implementation and we have budget those are the heaviest weights that the council can bring to bear in what will become your house uh Sean I believe in you and I know how amazing you are as a leader and so 45 days from you I am excited about because again the being frozen in time right now says that based on the data we have the current issues what do we intend to do to mitigate the risks that are before us right now right we we we've had for a series of several weeks stakeholders our chief his team coming before for us with specific data and so you know with that you know what can we deploy as a council I'm I'm assuming that that's what those 45 days will instruct us on and then you guys have added on what that how is who else do you feel like can be at the table um what other how can we be of assistance we all have great relationships with our colleagues across leadership bodies where we can sit down and talk I feel like that's also a missing opportunity for us to talk talk to our colleagues and our counterparts to say hey what are you thinking about hey what are you talking to your colleagues about hey what do you guys intend to deploy with the resources that you have at your disposal to make sure that even within what we have you know a scope to Define that there are concurrent activities happening from a policy and budget perspective as well so um not to belabor any type of points I think all of my colleagues have made very valid very passionate points um very relevant points uh Mr manager I feel like 45 days I'm excited about I would love to support I'd love to see and and I don't know if there's any additional data that we could bring that would actually forecast anything different other than the fact that here is a a a freeze you know a a point in time with quantitative information on what we intend to impact um I can't let this microphone go though without saying that 28205 and 282 to one5 belong to me absolutely right and so with the emphasis on the crescent and having 81% of African-American males impacted that's not even a statistic that you hear out loud right so I and you two have already been on the phone with me right so we've already had these conversations the constituents that I represent don't understand that we've been having these conversations but with emphasis on the impact that we need to make particularly in East Charlotte I'm you know specifically interested in I know that from a policy perspective we anticipate deploying resources across 313 Chief square miles of location um and and and that's a big lift right that's a heavy lift but I I feel like with intention with quantitative information that can guide us specifically I feel like we can do that and we could do that responsibly so um I'm like I said particularly interested because because two of these zip codes absolutely correspond with the human beings that vote for me right and and based on some of this information at this table which I won't belabor any points on or bore anybody with but you know um there's a level of specificity that impacts me personally that I'm very um interested in continuing the conversation round and that's all I have thank you Madame mayor thank you m yes thank you Madame mayor when you go last you can reference [Laughter] everyone well uh first let me say this is a great collaboration with the city the county and Atrium I often hear that we are not collaborating enough so I think we all got to give a big hand uh to the collaboration here this is um this is what it takes to to tackle issues such uh especially around homicides uh it it takes collaboration so it's great to see this collaboration um last when we had this discussion I had talked about the root causes uh and this presentation does that uh very well because it talks about what is the root cause because we know we can't arrest out of our ways to this problem to solve this to solve this uh we got to get to the root cause and this what we are doing we need to do more of so council member watlington and Mayfield and brown uh and Johnson and Molina were all correct that we need to invest more into this program we got to do more we got to scale it uh now I I hope that AL maral Central will be one of the corridors where we can implement this and other corridors throughout the city um you know what I what really caught my attention is when you gave zip cods and when you told the stories about participants because I live in a 215 so this hits home um and you know some of these stories where we are you know this is just one story out of many participant that you have served um what would it take to scale it at a very very high I mean you know at a much bigger so we can make much bigger impact right uh I hear 24/7 support right right now it's one and a half person but what would it take and I think that's the question that I have for Sean and uh Mr Jones and other what can we do that is uh that we can really look at this at the root cause and uh scale it at much higher level than where it is because this was supposed to be a pilot when we started 3 years ago um and now we got to do it at every Corridor where we know there are areas that have been identified by the cmpd where it says here are where majority of our City's crime is happening right so let's scale it um so I did not mention three of my colleagues council member Graham DRS and bukari uh they brought up funding for our DA's office and our court system and they're correct you know this is going to tra take the entire Village so we have this on our legislative agenda but I think we need to advocate for more funding with the business Community Support so just like we are doing with Transit we need to Advocate it we need to be more vocal uh and we need need to talk to our business Community like Keith cochrell Jean woods and others to help us advocate for more funding for our DA's office and for our court system cuz you know we can keep arresting the same folks 10 20 30 times but if they keep getting out you we are not helping our cmpd officers we are not helping our alternative to violence program we are not helping the atrium team that we have so we got to also address the enforcement but then also ensure that there are resources in place that DA's office has the court system has to uh help with the prosecution um council member Johnson talked about funding that's been approved not been not hasn't gone out and that concerns me because I had brought this several times to Mr Jones and Mr Heat's attention about digital inclusion funds That was supposed to go out um couple of years ago that was approved uh for of underserved communities and still hasn't gone out because I get calls about it I have gotten calls at least couple of times I would like to see a list of organization that have that Council have approved the funding for but has not gotten their funding if you can get that list and last but not the least uh council member Graham uh uh often brings this up we got to make sure that laws are being enforced so if uh Chief jannings if you can provide us a list of any laws that are not currently being enforced cuz I'm not aware of any laws and ordinances that are not being enforced but hey you might surprise me so I'd like to see that um because if it's not being enforced why is it not being enforced is it the resource issue what is it so we need to get to the bottom of it cuz it truly takes all of us a village to get to the bottom of this that's all I have thank you your mic mayor I'm sorry did you go back around one more time mayor no no um I want to say thank you to the police offic listen here I want to say thank you to all of you so we I believe will be able to um continue this discussion and um Jones you have enough Sean yes mayor and we have to go back to consent I know we have to go back to consent um because we did the vote on these um items that Miss Johnson raised so now we need to go to the consent agenda which is is that vote oh my God like so many packets I know thank you guys for what you're doing let's see the consent agenda Marie is oh where is Marie Madam mayor I had um yes Madam mayor I believe we've done you you voted on 37 38 and 39 to defer you voted on 34 that was P pulled the remainder of the concern item though needs to be approved okay so so that would be a motion to adopt items 25 through 44 um 37 38 39 and 34 all right I'm sorry it was 20 Marie can you say those sorry Madame mayor oh you're good thank you so that would be an a motion to uh approve items 25 through 44 excluding items 37 38 39 and 34 which was already approved second all right we have a motion and a second any further discuss discussion all in favor please raise your hands anyone opposed okay that takes care of that agenda now we start on item number six of our agenda that we have downstairs and so yes ma' oh yeah oh yeah yeah we're going downstairs we have a couple of public hearings we got annexations and um I arts arts and culture arts and culture all right let's make it let's make it easy [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] he [Music] a [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] [Music] you know we are are we on [Music] meeting to order um and we'll start with introductions um and we'll start with our city clerk Stephanie Kelly city clerk lady Anthony Fox interim City attorney he he love good evening Tiana Brown serving city council District 3 it's an honor and a pleasure to serve you wonderful folks good evening Marjorie Molina District 5 good evening Renee Johnson and I'm honored to represent District 4 um Bishop John 's birthday hey your grandson good evening everyone James Mitch city council at large Marcus Jones city manager B mayor M gram District Two Ed drgs District s six good evening Lana M council member at large good evening Victoria watlington council member at large good evening dle as at large um we begin our meeting with invocation which is an expression for us as we look at how we um try to to manage and be um appropriate for the agenda that we have today um and so we're going to begin this and we're going to ask council member Johnson to give our invocation and we'll be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance if you choose the stand um and so I'll turn it over to council member Johnson thank you Madame mayor and I'm honored again to give a prayer on Bishop Johnson's birthday a happy birthday Bishop so if we can bow our heads Heavenly Father Almighty Creator and source of all wisdom We Gather here today as Servants of our community entrusted with the responsibility to lead with Integrity inclusivity fairness and compassion we ask for your guidance as we deliberate and make decisions that will impact the lives of those we represent grant us the wisdom to discern what is Right courage to stand for justice and humility to listen with Open Hearts and Minds May our discussions be filled with respect and our actions reflect the values of service unity and progress bless this city and all who call it home may we work together in harmony for the good of all fostering peace prosperity and opportunity for all in your name we pray amen amen amen all right hi you the church I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all job all right well the jury now we'll take it so we have um first item on our agenda we don't have Madam we don't have do we have any speakers tonight thank you very much so the first item on our agenda is item item number six um Madam clerk do we do we have any speakers on the BAM area voluntary annexation M close public hearing have a motion to to I can't even get it out here um to approve adopted annexation ordinance with an effective date of February the 10th 2025 and to extend our corporate limits to include this property uh is there anyone that um anyone to make a motion May for A and B we have a motion for a and do we have that already over here but that's okay okay thank you m Mayfield all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed all right that passes so the next item is public hearing on a decision on par Crossing phase one area voluntary annexation um anyone signed up Madam CLI no ma'am all right do we have a motion to close the public hearing and to adopt the annexation ordinance with an effective date of February 2825 move to closing we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing no discussion all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed all right no un opposed the next item is item number eight public it's a public hearing do we have anything on the River North Area voluntary annexation Madam clerk no one so do I have a motion to close the public hearing and to adopt the annexation ordinance for an effective date of January February 10th 2025 and to extend the corporate limits to assign it to District 3 move to close and we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor got more people all right thank you anyone oppos all right the next item we'll be moving into our policy agenda Mr Jones do you have any additional policy for us no uh no mayor members of council you have my 30-day memo what I would like to just introduce I guess into the record our newest assistant city manager Allison Craig she came to the city in 2018 and now she will be our assistant city manager with a portfolio that includes Economic Development planning water as well as the Charlotte Development Center and she's really going to have our hands in the qu of opportunity we have a little bit of a uh an agreement that for short period of time she will also wear the hat of the um acting economic development director we're actively recruiting that position and uh because of that we have a ripple effect that Monica Holmes will be the uh interim planning director and you may recall there's a process there's inter local agreement with the county so we have to go through certain steps in that process but we're very uh happy that we have uh both both uh Alison as an ACM and Monica Holmes who was able to step into the interim planning director position so I just wanted to announce that thank you very much congratulations that's really good good news all right so the next item on our agenda is the um Arts science and culture Council governance board discussion and this came out of the economic jobs and economic development committee so I'm going to turn it over to the chair for his comments and I believe that it is Rec will go with what you're doing in terms of your recommendation thank you madam mayor uh the jobs and economic development committee receive a referral to recommend what role the city council should serve within the governor structure for arts and culture after review and discussion the committee voted 41 on September 3rd 2024 so this is an item that has been with us for a while to advance the item to F Council for consideration um and again the out the um the ation is in your package it talks about the governor's board um the membership of the structure Etc and um again the economic development committee voted 41 for approval thank you all right do you have a motion move to some to approve the jobs and economic development um committee recommendation to participates in the new Arts and Science conct government structure we have a second any discussion all right M Watling yeah thank you madam mayor um two things the first thing is a point of clarification I see here that it captured in the last bullet point uh at the December 2nd meeting that the committee voted unanimously did not recommend using Hospitality funds for ongoing arts and culture support I want to understand why that bullet point is a part of this background I'm sorry the committee I I do know that the committee talked about the tourism funds right and made a recommendation or or made a statement I I'm not sure it's anymore trying to understand this vote it's not part of the action it's informational the action is the Bold top at the top thank you um and then the second thing is as no surprise to anyone um I will not be supporting this motion um not because I don't support the Arts not because I don't think we need another way to um organize our governance but as has been mentioned the two or three times we've seen this particular structure come ahead I think we're getting too far away from the voters um and I have some concerns about what seems to be a do Loop in terms of appointment structure relationship between the uh recommending board and the actual um board that does the awards so I will be um a no on this particular vote thank you thank you Miss Johnson thank you I want to piggyback off what Dr watlington said I know that it's not a part of the recommendation but it was a specific point of conversation so I wanted to know what is this a response to that request does that mean this is will no longer be discussed at in committee so I wanted to understand that also the committee um voted 5 Z from my understanding um to not recommend using Hospitality funds for ongoing arts and culture support um so I'm toring on this one also I know that the the artists um are waiting on our decision but I like Dr watlington there doesn't seem to be any change from what's been presented previously and I also from a just a practical and principal position how we can say that you know our Al arts and culture aren't a part of the economic development or that this is a fund that we should just take our hands off meanwhile taxpayers and you know we we're looking at sales tax and property tax and everything when there's this fund I I it's it's just a challenge to me why we we won't even discuss it um I know what the state legislators say but as a council I mean it's hands off so I just don't see you all know how I feel so this is a challenge for me I do have a question as far as this this um group would this be a pilot um would this be a pilot project Mr manager would we look at this in a couple years to assess the success of it um how are we planning to determine the success of this of this Council uh so it would not be a pilot but again um each Council um every year has an opportunity during this budget development process to um you know change things but I don't believe that's the recommendation going in so what do I mean by that so if we start to think about it it's about uh $21 million that is going into the ecosystem let's deal with just the city's portion which is about $1 million the county about 10 million a lot more than I think the 3.5 million when um the city was at a low point in terms of its contributions to the um arts and culture community so let's talk about the 11 million on the city Side 9 million it's what we've been saying over and over again is hardwired so those decision that decision will be made by this body today tomorrow the next day the next day 2 million of the 11 million would be for grants for some of those 30 plus organizations that um aren't hardwired and with that there are opportunities for um inclusion opportunities for um making sure that some of these hardwired organizations are making themselves available to partner with some of the others I think what's also important is that 2 million in this process to Dr watlington point would be in would be determined by a board that you appoint you appoint foundation for the Carolinas has appointments as well as the county but even that board will have a grant making body that looks at applications but the grant making body isn't the final approval final approval will always be the board in which you the county and the foundation um appoint it I think what's important I'm going to go a little bit over to the $10 million from the county but not too much is that in this Arrangement $3 million of the County's Mone would be able to come over to those 30 some organizations that that you're funding in the in the hardwire 9 million for educational purposes so I will say I had a call this morning that some of the so your 9 million is out the hardwired money um some of the county money is out um to to like culture block to some of the other organizations ations and I think what has been the the challenge is and it's kind of tough is to look at this as one bucket of money that is helping so many different areas whether it's cultural grants to individual artists small groups neighborhood organizations Ed educational grants for mid to large groups uh annual operating support for organizations in the county venue assistance there's a lot of things that are outside of the N million that we've hardwired and so that's I think what makes it unique um and something that's very different okay thank you we miss Mayfield thank you Madame mayor manager Jones just for clarification cuz I think where I feel there's the disconnect is who's really accountable for this governance so normally we all which we have tonight a number of appointments to boards we don't historically receive a update honestly from the boards that we appoint once we make the nominations we don't really necessarily hear about what the board is doing previous history with Arts and Science and some some of us wanting more accountability as far as what is actually happening to ensure what we've encouraged what who has access to funding actually happens So in theory because we have five votes that's what gives us the ability to see the asc's work but in reality one of the CH challenges is that our committees really don't come and report to council unless we do a very specific request so I just want to clarify that what this recommendation tonight is saying with our five appointees along with our partners that will also be appointing that in essence is our way of making sure that the cities expectations are heard in the room for this new board creation yeah yeah that's a great point and I'll take it one step further um under the infusion fund the city set aside 1% for admin it's a little bit more than one I don't think it's 2% under this Arrangement but part of it is now you will get an annual accounting of the performance of all of these organizations that are receiving funds both from the city's perspective and the County's perspective so again this is designed to have this accountability I'll say one more thing which I what I I think really makes this unique and makes it good um good better and different there was a cultural plan and I think you council member Mayfield went to many of the um public meetings in that cultural plan which the city paid for I think with the foundation um came up with eight recommendations this coun those bodies really working on two funding as well as governance this body will make sure that those other six recommendations are actually being addressed somewhere in the ecosystem doesn't have to be the public sector could be the private sector it could be you know other grants so it is much broader than the discussion tonight but the the legacy of that report has to live somewhere with accountability of all the pillars not just two thank you all right m asir yes um thank thank you madam mayor so Mr Jones as part of our as part of uh 2020 uh 4 2025 budget that was approved we had allocated $2 million out of 11 to go towards individual artists um and creatives so I know the funding hasn't gone out yet even though it was allocated um I was I guess my trying to why would the why we do we need this structure in place to get the funding out because there are individual artists and creatives that I've heard from they said doesn't matter what or what governing structure you have in place we need to make sure we get enough funding there are so many artists their livelihood depends on some of this funding um and you know we are uh what 9 months since the budget was approved and the funding hasn't gone out I know at some point we talked about Charlotte is creative should help us get those $2 million out and then we talked about the RFP process which and RFP process should help us get the funding out and that's great but why there has not been any progress in helping us get those $2 million out because that was already approved sure and my wife tells me not to overe explain but I'll explain just a little bit okay going back in time so the there is no ASC the ASC as you knew it is now the ascc it's a it's a different organization ation I get that right it's a different organization and so we thought to get if all of this imploded right if the county didn't do their part or what have you we wanted to have a vehicle to get the 11 million out because the infusion fund existed for three years and then there was something new that was going to happen July 1 so we thought was to Charlotte as creative because they had made grants before we absolutely positively stopped because you asked us to do an RFP so we're going through an RFP process uh for this 2 million and unfortunately rfps take time and so that's where we are and that's why the money hasn't gone out because we were asked to stop okay so let me just make sure I I know that the council asked you to do the RFB process back in October right maybe a little later than that but yes okay um so am I hearing that RFP takes three months if you're lucky yeah if you're lucky okay so so what I hear the RFB is already out there the process has started process has started I I don't know if the RFP has actually gone out but the RFP is in the process of being drafted and if it has gone out it's gone out I'm not sure that it has right so I guess there are two separate issues here one is the governing and one is that's $2 million that is for individual artists and there is uh they're mutually exclusive because the RFP whoever we select whether it's Charlotte is creative or other partner or combination will help us get those funds out so all the independ depent individual artists that have reached out I I just want to make sure that this governing structure is not stopping the funding uh it is not getting in the way of individual artists getting the funds uh because individual artists did make calls I got some calls saying hey I haven't gotten the funding and it it sounded like that this governing decision that we are going to make today was getting in the way but that's not the case I just make sure that uh those who are not supporting it does not mean that we are holding this $2 million back $2 million have been approved by this Council it's going to go out the RFP process has started I would like us to get an update on where the RFP is of where we are in the selection process and when individual artists would get anticipate their funds right if we can get a timeline of that so as individual artists had reached out to us we can tell them this is what the timeline looks like for an example n lber reached out she does lot of individ she does a lot of shows and uh you know she's having to pay out of pocket for some of this venues because she hasn't gotten funding from the city which she has gotten in the past and I think that's unfortunate uh but if you're let let's get those funds out uh regard of what happens here uh tonight um and and I just want to make sure so you said it's 1% fee management fee that Foundation is charging yeah let's back up on the uh 9 million uh during the infusion fund it was 1% it's a little bit more I think now it's like 150,000 but some of that is literally because it's cutting checks and putting the checks out another piece of it is to um assess the program in general so it's good to have some to C member Mayfield's Point some level of accountability in assessment of the performance of how the money is is going out now I will tell you this when we put out the RFP for the 2 million there's no way in the world there's going to be admin fee around 1% okay it's it maybe 15 but that is just part for the course when you have some of these Grant making organizations um run grants right no I certainly I think Foundation has a track record uh of getting the funds out in a timely manner they have helped us with arpa funds in the past uh getting those funds out to small businesses in a very timely manner uh with a very low management fee uh and that's great I mean 1% is not heard of in that industry um so it's certainly a very good use of our taxpayers dollars uh but you know also want to keep you know keep this in mind when it comes to individual Ras it's very different because you're working oneon-one it takes a lot more resources versus you're working with you know you're writing a $1 million check to an institution right so there's a lot more work involved so obviously the management fee will be lot higher for those individual artists and um groups that are that are uh getting $50,000 or $100,000 checks right so uh suddenly there is more performance metrics work that's involved so I get it the management fee will be a lot higher uh in that regard other question often comes up when it comes to individual artists is that this $2 million that's been approved by this Council in last year's budget does it go to the same organizations who have historically received the funding or can the new organization get be eligible for this for the funding so uh I I guess two things it would be the latter but I think it's important to start off where we were with with Charlotte's creative the the RFP is very important the way that it's structured or the engagement is very important because the concept was take some of the themes from the cultural plan to make sure that there's more collaboration I know it's been a long time but I think that was one of the first things that the ad hoc work group talked about is you can't do the same thing how can you make sure that you have collaboration between some of the bigs and some of the smalls I I would say I think it's important to say this going forward the the the 11 million would go over the N9 million would be hardwired 2 million would be associated with other artists and um organizations and I think that's important because you you have board seats because that board is going to be make determinations about how money is dispersed and right now the County's got like 10 million associated with some portion of that and we have two so it's important to to to realized that sending it all over nine hardwired to not hardwired to some of the points that you made is the reason that you have appointments on this this board yeah it and you know as as we make appointments to the board it will be very important that we have diverse representation especially representation from Individual artists as well as institutions uh that operate in our city owned buildings as well as those who work in this industry um I I just want to make sure I get clarification on this up for collaboratives there was open calls so what's really designed after the way the infusion fund worked for three years okay y That's all thank you any further discussion or question Mr barari just a comment I I'm struggling here with this but I just want to remind everyone of what the table Stakes were when we started going down this path years ago our our objective at least my objective and my work towards it was to disrupt the status quo and the status quo at that time when we came in was basically a mixture of the private sector over the previous decade having reduced their commitment and accountability and ownership in funding these places which when they do that bring brings along its own accountability of where they're going and how they're they're growing paired with the fact that the ASC as an organization was just you know it was something that I thought was a bit unhealthy as to how the money was being deployed what the priorities were in the sense that it felt more like in addition to the overhead there was just there was just a lot of of subsidizing of things and the objective here was we'll put more money in in order to fix the status quo which is get the private sector back involved push things to become sustainable where it's a seed funding mechanism to revive and Revitalize a sustainable arts and culture organization so I I'm struggling to which way to vote right now because I I don't think that this is the answer even though the foundation being involved is a is a step forward there's still just all this stuff that leads me to believe it's still going to remain a larger dollar amount subsidy mechanism that won't incentivize sustainability and growth and evolving out of subsidy for the arts and culture organization and a you know re excitement of the private sector but on the other side I don't know if I should vote no maybe I should vote Yes because there's clearly just nothing happening to change that so so we can either like I really truly at this moment don't know how to vote because if I vote no somehow on the six Vote or whatever to make it not happen I don't know that anything is going to change in offline but so maybe that's convincing me out loud to to just give it a try and cross my fingers that we don't nominate and and and appoint a whole bunch of I while I agree with the diversity of views and all that stuff is good we need like business people on this board that can figure out almost like this is a business how they're going to give seed money for opportunities not and subsidize the you know the costs that are ongoing costs that are never going to change are never going to uh uh you know Inspire the community and sustainability to all get behind it so I I don't know the answer but I just know one plus is the foundation's involved one minus is we're going to just appoint a board like we appoint boards it's going to be full of people that aren't going to be equipped to get the job done and we're dumping more money on top of it so I again I not to be the glass of cold water on everything thing I don't even know if I convinced myself what I'm going to do I need to think for the next 30 seconds as it relates to what the lesser of these two evils are I mean the only right Miss Johnson I'm sorry Mr Mr Dres had his hand up Mr DRS Johnson we don't say thank you Madame mayor so two things I don't think that we should if if it is approved that we should cross our fingers and hope it works and uh pray there are no unint intended consequences Mr Jones you mentioned the infusion fund and the followup and the accountability I think we should be sure that we get a survey from the community I know there's going to be accountability um of those artists but we should hear from the public to make sure that this plan is working it's something new I think that we should be intentional about re-evaluating this plan next year because it is a change so so the the next Council uh if if we could incorporate this in the plan to do a followup is this working some benchmarks um of what changes we'd like to see how is this different from the ASC so I think that rather than rather than voting for it and seeing if it works we should be intentional about following up to make sure that it worked um secondly we talked about organizations that were awarded in June and still haven't received their funding and we talked about that in the earlier meeting that's just not acceptable for a small business when you're a small business you budget you budget based on funding there are organizations that are getting loans to meet payroll because they anticipated 100,000 or whatever that number is from the city so we need to ensure that these checks are out we need to we need to know why we need to know as council member ashme asked we need a list of organizations that haven't gotten their funding but nine months into a into a budget year for a small organization can shut organizations down oh yeah so I think we as a city need to be more accountable to our constituents and to our small businesses it's a struggle to run a small business so if we can just make sure that's done I think that that we we be doing a a true service for our for our organizations and for our citizens so uh because that's come up a couple times I want to clarify a few things the the first thing um we had some arpa funds that we had to do Revenue replacement with the moment we did that and I'm speaking specifically about the digital divide digital inclusion the arrangements that we had we had to stop those arrangements and begin fresh with the RFP process so that's not us that is um what we were informed we had to do the other thing which I think you will this will help your decision I guess last month some of the organizations that haven't gotten their money and Mar is going to do a run for me tonight you um we had never had an arrangement with them ever so we were starting from scratch and so when you don't have an arrangement with the organization you have to establish a a contract with them and so some of this is just due diligence by the the staff I don't believe it's many but what we'll do is see who has not received funds from some of the outside partners that came uh during the budget straw votes I got a clarifying question for I'm sorry Mr dggs was next and he had asked the speak so then we can come back to the order who haven't spoken right that's well he has not spoken and that's exactly why he's being recognized next let's go all right Mr um so this has gone on for years right and I just want to remind everybody we we had a a working group that was created uh we started going over what our criteria were what are we trying to accomplish it was clear that the old model didn't work it was clear that $3.5 million of grant money to the ASC was really not accomplishing what we wanted to do and was leaving as Mr bukari suggested a big deficit because of the decline of private money so we started down a road and then we said we're going to create an arts and culture plan uh and while we did we had the infusion fund and a huge amount of work went into the arts and culture plan uh including interviews and input from uh council members community outreach and we established some principles of what we wanted to do so we wanted to be sure that we had secure funding for legacy organizations we wanted to have diversity and Equity we wanted to include small artists and we had 20 I mean during the infusion fund $12 million a year now we've got $21 million a year it and the thing we're losing sight of is this is amazing compared to what was going on we have finally after years and years we have tackled this question if we don't adopt this we're putting ourselves back almost to square one it was clear the whole time we were talking about it there was never going to be unanimity uh and there just wasn't there were too many different points of view too many concerns but if you go back and reread the arts and culture plan which will be sort of the guidepost the charter for our commitment of public funds I think you'll find that just about everybody's concerns are acknowledged and addressed in there so I'm concerned with what happens if we don't take this step which does not deprive us at any date in the future from uh revisiting examining how it's going changing this cutting off the funding uh that you can't bind future councils and but we need to do something and I don't think this is bad I think this something that that evolved from a huge amount of work an evolution and I would just hope that we can take this step and if we have to continue the conversation and uh and make changes as needed in the future thank you okay all right I um we need a motion we need to decide what to approve May there there's we have a motion second a second we need a second a second we have a second two people that the um people that were in the meeting actually all right so any are we still in discussion yes we are okay all right so I believe we have had people that would wanted to speak we'll just go around the DI is here Mr bikari followed by Miss mayi I just need a quick clarification question the manager um I stand by all the comments I made before but obviously there's the two additional wild cards one if it's voted down what are we going to actually go do that's different than before and I'm pragmatic enough to say if if that ansers nothing then that's that's the answer but then the complexity of the County's money and the timeline with the foundation and all this so I mean I every I I don't want to vote Yes for this but I also just don't want to sit around and do nothing and if there's a role of the dice where the foundation plus the county money gives this thing a shot and we treat these board appointments very seriously is that is that would that be is there some I'm trying to not give you like a question you can't answer sure um I I'll give it a shot all right I do believe this is the best of all options and I believe it's a good option just look at what happened in 267 earlier collaboration between the city and the county I'm not so sure four years ago we would have ever thought we would be at this place and you have the foundation for the Carolinas involved also with a level of oversight much like um Reed Charlotte and some of these other organizations the what the inverse is which I don't recommend at all you what we used to do in the past the county has its money the city has its money and there's no opportunity for collaboration and I would hope we don't go down that path do you believe that this approach gives us a more than meaningful shot at two to five years from now having an outcome where funded indiv Smalls are graduating to a sustainable lifestyle of of Arts contribution to the city the private sector increases in it's in it's do you believe those are the kinds of things that this approach can can generate yeah absolutely the private sector good bad or indifferent basically said that you can say they said that they don't want to get into these individual organizations operations there are other things they'd like to do like sponsor events or you know be the key sponsor so the concept really makes sense it is consistent with the report um it's it's not a bad place for us to be and the foundation is going to quarterback that in this model the foundation Foundation is going to quarterback that coordination so the the a the new branded ascc will be responsible for this plan but think about this you have appointments to this board the county has appointments to this board and the foundation for the Carolin has appointments to this board I think that's where the accountability will reside thank you all right M Mayfield I just had a clarifying question either for the manager or for Marie because I think I'm hearing two different conversations regarding funding of our partners cuz some of our financial partners we had a conversation about but manager remind me the 9 million that we originally started with out of this 11 that 9 million has already it's gone that's gone so this two million out of this 2 million that was grant that was going to be a $2 million grant that has not been promised to anyone yet correct so I just wanted to make sure for the sake of the minutes that we're having very transparent conversations when anyone in our community reaches out and say they haven't received funding which I bought it up as well but our financial partners that's a different which we need to figure out why cuz it shouldn't be in January but for tonight's conversation for arts and Council ASC this 11 million 9 million is already done allocated we're now having this back and forth on 2 million in Grants that have not been promised allocated because we don't have the RFP that went out because we still have to do that process so I just want a clarification absolutely there could be organizations that benefited from the infusion fund the last three years this is not the infusion fund it's something totally different I just wanted clarification on that so y you said you got a motion in a second as Miss ashir did you miss they apply they lying anybody they get not thank you madam mayor so just just a couple of thoughts as I listen to this discussion I share many of the concerns that I've heard particularly from uh Mr parari as it relates to what started this discussion what were the original goals I have not seen any of the original goals actually be addressed in this situation outside of an operations transfer of we don't have to make individual decisions about an organization that that feels like perhaps is an answer for staff for me it doesn't feel like it's delivering better for the community as a whole and I I certainly have not heard anything that would lead me to believe we have a sustainable Arts model that addresses any of the things that we initially discussed we've seen this three times we've sent it back at least twice and we keep getting the same thing that gives me no confidence that we're going to do anything different going forward we've had this conversation about living documents we said the same thing about 2040 plan and here we are now hosed because we've got a Senate bill that doesn't even allow us to do the things that we knew we should have done on the front in other 2040 plan so I don't have a high degree of confidence that we're going to take this and make it better after we voted on it and moved on to the next topic of the day when I think about us having board appointments well we've had board appointments before and I just as council member Mayfield mentioned I have not seen that mean anything in a real way as it relates to us actually getting results down the line so for me it just feels like it misses the boat on virtually every every item I get that there are some things that we feel like we're getting from the county in this deal but frankly we don't need to get in this deal for the county to Pony up $3 million for something that's a county choice that they should be making frankly regardless um so I I I too don't want to do nothing I don't want to continue down the same path but this feels to me like a reinvestment in the same approach that we were taking before except now we have less opportunity to have a direct decision-making space to me this represents the broader conversation around the Arts as we think about funding I saw the footnote that I asked about um as it relates to finding other dollars whether they're tourism rental car tax otherwise um to to address arts and culture because quiet as it seems to be kept arts and culture is a tourism draw to this community and so there is absolutely a reason to have convers there does it mean that there doesn't require work to go do at the state level of course not but what I'm not seeing here is an answer that says let's go innovate it's let's break it down and put it back together in virtually the same way that it looked before under another name and I don't think that's going to get us to the next level of where we're trying to go as a city not just in arts but in in policy in general so could I have all right so what I'd like to do is um frame this in in a way that maybe we can just lock into the main thing hey Monica Holmes I didn't see you earlier okay um I would say that the infusion fund was wildly successful it was a partnership between the city and the private sector that put $12 million into the ecosystem over a three-year period you had a board 18 members you appointed some some of the board members the private sector appointed some of the board members they ran grants much like this is proposed that you had no decision making over you left it up to the people that you appointed the this is based on the success from the infusion fund which I think for three years no one around the diets complained about it that's because we were under the impression we were going to have something different at the end of the three years but the infusion fund was something that the artists and the organizations bigs the smalls the mediums thought worked so you have a plan the plan suggested this two of the eight pillars as well as you have the history of the infusion fund so I just want to make sure this isn't that different right in terms of having appointments where your appoint te are making decisions about grants that go out I think that I I can't remember if if if it were was Miss ashmir but I too have gotten calls saying are we going to do funding and for the um and I think right now if we decide that we're going to do this there has to be some Pathway to get it done and this is what's being put on the table but if we are not going to have the opportunity to help the people that are young I mean people that are really saying the smalls we call them or the individuals um pretty soon they won't need this because we wouldn't have a place and a way to give it give the money or funding to them so I I think we have a real dilemma and um I don't know how we we're going to address so but we do have a motion on the floor I'm the only one that haven't spoke I think I just want to say something real fast I hadn't spoke I had my hand on everyone else has had an opportunity to speak at least once or twice but you haven't so please I do I just wanted to um well you haven't spoken I had not on this topic him oh Mr Mitchell iok the Arts and Science and culture it's very important and we need to do something but I'm for me if I go back to our strategy session I really want to try see how we can come up with some type of valuable solution to move forward but there's a lot of confusion so with me it just further disturbs and confus me so I just want to be able to be a team player but there's there's a tug of war going on and how do we come to some type of resol res solution where we can move forward for what's best in the community and for our constituents but I do hear my colleagues and there is a very some very valid concerns there so how do we move forward and try to close this at the day and be able to do more as we move forward so um I Mr Mitch have you spoke I haven't heard from you if I'm just trying to figure out what to do and I want to be respectful but I'm also trying to remember us moving together forward as a functionable council like we said we would do at our strategy meeting so I'm trying to just Implement those skills and I'm having a difficult time doing that I think it's a um question about right now the short term are we going to support the arts and culture people for this time and Miss um watlington is true we've been doing this and doing it so it's on us I mean it's truly on us for not having this kind of discussion but we have um we we have got and I understand what you're saying you're not quite sure because of all the Dynamics and the con you know sidebars and all of that which I understand so but I think the question is maybe we don't have any of what choice do we want do we want to have our artists be able to get grants for this fiscal year or will we um go back and start thinking of another structural way to deal with our artists so question to you mayor if we point do not give the artist any money right now we vote no then what would happen I'm just curious um Mr Jones yes so yes Council Brown if um you chose not to be a part of the structure you could still have an RFP you could still get the 2 million out y if you chose not to do this you can CH and how long would that take Mr Jones to do I'm not so sure how long it would take to um to get it out of we I believe we can get it out this fiscal year um so while I do recommend that you be a part of the structure they are two separate issues you could choose a different Pathway to get the 2 million out right all right we have a motion on the floor that's been debate already everybody has had an opportunity to speak oh I have a question though I I I need to follow up because Mr Mr attorney could you uh we have rules okay and everybody has spoken and the mayor has said is closing the discussion to the discuss and move on so we're gonna go the only requirement of your rules is that it allows after a motion everyone to speak after the motion and and everyone has spoken then it's appointed chair to decide when the debate ends unless there's a motion to call the question as well call the previous question so so the mayor decides whether we want to continue the discussion or not right yes yes yes that's how it works okay so I think um we need to go ahead and vote on this and the decision of the board will be what it is so we have a motion and a recommendation from the committee to approve this item and so for the Arts our next for the Arts science and culture governance board so um do we have a we have the motion that says approve the jobs and economic development committee recommendations to participate in the new Arts science and culture government board so all in favor of that please raise your hands 1 2 3 4 5 6 78 that's passes thank you everybody thank you very much right record all all the the knows who's who is in opposition Miss watlington is in opposition Miss um Johnson as well no Alternatives problem you just wait so the next item on our agenda is making our road safer across jurisdiction study Grant mayor move approve actions a b and c second we have a motion and a second for item 11 A B and C any do we have a second thank you Miss Molina anyone else um any other questions or comments about item 11 I hearing none all in favor please raise your hands yes yes thank you we had a motion a second yes we have a motion in a second um so the next one is a comp item 12 comprehensive Safety Action study Grant move for approve action a b and c second all we have second you're doing a b and c all in one okay you can do it all in one yes because it's all for the same okay cool work all right so we have a motion on the floor all in favor please raise your hand anyone opposed that's unanimous the next item is item 13 norfol Southern o line Corridor acquisition financing may I move for approve of action A and B second I have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in Miss all in favor all right anyone opposed okay the next item is item 14 Sharon Point Apartments naturally occurring affordable housing preservation and rental subsidy support move to approve action a b and c second I have a motion and a second is there any discussion Miss Mayfield thank you you Madame mayor so something that I am happy about thanks to the work of my colleagues over the summer Dr watlington as well as council member Dre we were able to clarify some language moving forward and this will be one of the first projects in 2025 under that new language would basically set aside I personally would love 30 years I'm not a fan of 20 but I recognize that here's the opportunity for us to move forward with Noah and I also want to make sure that my colleagues take note that there is a bullet point in here regarding the County's commitment regarding the subsidies we do know it's on the second page um there's a bullet point on it if you haven't had a chance to see it but we do know the county has identified that they are looking at some budget shortfalls this discussion for abnc tonight is not hindered if the county are not able even though I do believe that they have already identified this line item in their budget for this particular project but if there is a shortfall we're still able to move forward and we still have our commitments as far as mainly when we have a displacement event which unfortunately we are seeing because of other properties here kicks off the beginning of making sure that we have some different opportunities for our residents thank you thank you Miss Mayfield all right Miss Molina thank you Madame mayor um and I just want to say how it um there and first of all I'm actually um I spoke to my colleague Miss Mayfield and she has some concerns and it sounds like she's gotten her questions answered uh just give to some degree um so I'm I'm excited about that but I I want to bring up some highlights Mark ethd um has been doing some outstanding work across this city in serving our community members that are in need of affordable options and this particular uh opportunity is is for the 30% Ami and below I mean I'm I'm talking like some of our our our community members that have the highest needs would be able to be served uh with this particular opportunity along with a number of other things that I don't want to read through but I just I want to lift up um you know the ascent group and the work that they're doing and I am so incredibly happy to support this and um it's funny because when I was speaking to uh Mark over the weekend we were talking and you know he even takes phone calls from us when we have someone in need I mean I'm sitting here whispering to council member Johnson you know if we identify if somebody who has a need he'll take our phone call and he'll look through the portfolio he'll reach out to people he'll you know attempt to try to meet that need on a personal basis and I think that speaks to the human being that he is and the group that he works with it so I'm like I said I'm happy to support this um and I ask my colleagues that you support me in this endeavor as well thank you everyone all right so we have a motion on the floor all in favor please please raise your hands that's unanimous is there any I don't think that we have anyone that's um in opposition so this is I think our last item on the agenda we have nominations that that's not on OPP we're now going to talk to the clerk or allow the clerk tonight we consider nominations to various boards I think a number of them and um you're not going to read them at the Das tomorrow the clerk will email everyone um the results and um these candidates will be considered at the next business meeting is that right Madam clerk did I miss something um those persons that have six or more nominations can be appointed upon a motion second and a vote if you so choose tonight okay and they won't come back at the following meeting okay so there was a question Molina U Madame mayor if if I may one of the nominations in particular um item number 15 is for uh a Community member in District 5 um Mr John Holmes he lost his life last year last month um on the bicycle advisory committee uh John was absolutely one of the sweetest committed most heartfelt human beings I've experienced um in my service to the community um and and one in particular actually I had to sit still when we were making the elections to know that we would be replacing him because it's not really a replacement but it's just one of those people in the community that when you lose them you you feel it real deep and so um number 15 is really special to me to see thank you for that and appreciate so much they have the opportunity for you to say these remarks for him so with that um do we have a motion to adjourn or we got to read the we got to read the six we got to read the people that got six sorry for the bicycle advisory committee um the two Isaac oyer and Andy Zoo both received nine nominations for the Charlotte business inclusion advisory committee the incumbent Candice Gaddy received eight nominations and she is um for a three-year term for the at large representative for a prime construction company for business inclusion the incumbent Jason Deans has nine nominations for the representative recommended by the Asian-American Chamber of Commerce Kim Lang received nine nominations for the um representative of the National Association of women business owners Chris Jared the incumbent received nine nominations for the Charlotte mecklinburg Public Access Corporation Alisa G Glover received eight nominations for the historic landmarks commission Christina Benton received seven nominations and the others will come back to you the public transit advisory committee will come back to you at a future time and any others not presented will be um at your next business meeting May I make a motion we move by acclamation those who receive more than six we have a motion a second and no discussion all in favor please raise your hand all right thank you and we'll have the other ones coming back um our next we had a motion to ad Jour we are I'm asking now do we have a motion toour you said so quietly that's ajour we didn't hear you okay we have a motion to adjourn this meeting is ajour second thank you in a second all of that [Music] oh [Music]