Woo! [music] [music] Heat! [music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] Heat. Heat. >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. >> [music] >> I met you. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. [music] [music] Hey, Heat. >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Heat up here. Heat. [music] Heat. I met you. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Oo. [music] Ooh. Hey. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] >> Heat. [music] Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. >> [music] [music] [music] >> We uh are pulling order. We've got our forum. Right. Okay. And uh many folks are absent as you can tell this evening. All of them are excused. Mayor Prom Harrison, Councelor Branch, and Councelor uh Lambert Melton. But we do have a quorum and so we will proceed. Uh the first uh person we have signed up is Woody Biggs. Is Woody here? I see him. >> Okay. Lisa Huitt. Good evening. Imagine walking into a government building to get one simple form. There are hundreds of doors, but none clearly say what's inside. Instead of parking permits or trash pickup, the signs say things like urban mobility services. You open one door, it leads to a hallway with three other doors. You pick one. That hallway loops back to another floor. You try a different door, which sends you back to the lobby, but through a staircase you didn't know existed. After wandering around a little bit, you can't remember which form you came to get, and you can't figure out how you got here in the first place. That's what it's like navigating Raleigh's affordable housing websites. There's good information. Unfortunately, it's buried under confusing web design, esoteric labels, and scattered across too many disconnected pages. Ideally, you could do a broader redesign utilizing a landing page with embedded drop- down menus, but short of that, I'd like to offer a few suggestions. The affordable housing dashboard is a good start, but lacks the level of detail that would make it worthwhile. For example, make a distinction between the number of units completed, under construction, or under contract, including AMI. Number two, consolidate what money is being spent and where. Are you being good stewards of our money? A simple table could show the project name, amount invested, funding sources, number of units, AMI levels, and expected completion dates. Number three, include a table for other goals such as the number of households moved into permanent housing. Number four, track and show how developers had have pledged to the affordable housing fund, how much have been has been deposited, and how many units have been built. Number five, track Noah units preserved and loss with links to relevant documents. Number six, show annual rates of rent and home ownership, unit shortfall, what trends are driving supply and demand, highlights and disappointments like the recent um situation where the developer pulled out of the More Square redevelopment. Number seven, include a list with links to all of the resoning doc cases that include affordable housing units or conditions. And eight, finally, gather all presentations related to affordable housing, whether to city council, planning commission, or other groups in one place. All of this information exists. I'm just asking that you put it all in a place where we can find it better. Sometimes pictures explain this better than I can list out all of my ideas. Um, I encourage you to take a look at Chapel's Hills website just as an as an example, not for competition. I sent you a link earlier today. They produce um easy to understand reports both measuring their performance and explaining current issues, which I think this city could really use a lot of to highlight what are the issues and what are we trying to do to address it maybe now or in the future. And they put it all in one place with lots of illustrative graphs. Thank you. >> Thank you. Octavia Rainey. >> Good evening. I have a huge concern. I have asked Evan Raleigh to take the sign down. There's a sign that's hanging that says wall drop and ber. Wall drop what? It don't even name the community that it's in. That's discriminatory. They have a big old sign. The that is in College Park. So when people are riding by, they don't know what in the world they looking at or what they are understanding. You know, that is discriminatory. But when you go out in North Hills, you have North Hills, whatever. Then you have the streets of what is occurring. But when you get in the black community, you don't do that at all. You don't do that at all. It's disrespectful. And I want the sign taken down. What community development need to be doing? What happened to the sign that she was supposed to put up after Larry Jas left? That's what I want to know. She won't return my calls. Third, we had a plan for College Park. Did nobody ask Larry to go and do Briar's Creek? So what happened to what we wanted? You know what happened? It didn't happen. You know, for the record, you know, I took Larry Jobs the hood. The only reason why I had I could take the step to go to the DOJ. They told me, "Octavia, you going you're not stopping the project. What concessions can we make?" I'm sick of this. I'm sick of the disrespect in Southeast Raleigh. I really, really am. I want that sign taken down. It don't respect me or the people who live in College Park. They live in College Park. That sign don't say that. It says Boyer and Wall Drop Redevelopment. Why didn't she come to me? I could have went back to Michelle Grant and told her what was agreed upon. What is the problem? Why she's not returning my calls? What is this really? That's supposed to be a culture district. It ain't no culture going on. Take it down. I'm working on five proposal and and I'm and my proposal is going to go through because I'm working hard on renaming Newman Avenue Clarence E. Lightner Avenue. I want my memorial garden. So, I'm bringing in my proposal for $500,000. But this is ridiculous, Janet. I want that sign taken down. I want it down. Evan Raleigh, I called you and we talked about that sign. Nobody has ever gotten back with me. Is that right down disrespectful? The culture of the black people don't even matter. Something wrong with that picture. Something is seriously wrong here in the city of Raleigh. Thank you, Hannity Ali. [clears throat] My name is Hennady Ali. I'm a Raleigh born Palestinian American. I lived in occupied West Bank Palestine for four to five years of my life. My husband is Brian McInness, a Marine veteran that served from years 2000 to 2004. He was a gunner on an LAV for 5 months in the Iraq war. He has stories that within an indoctrinated mindset, he believed what he did was for good. When he married me in 2015, he entered into a Muslim Palestinian family. And I'm honest and if I'm honest, still carried a lot of indoctrination. I asked him what broke his Israel is innocent. Palestine is a terrorist indoctrination. and he said when he saw the Israeli propaganda machine through Tom Tillis's mouthpiece of f 40 beheaded babies which was found to be a lie. This absurd lie and many other absurd lies by Israel has taken us to a minimum of 93,000 Palestinians having been killed with 85,000 tons of bombs dropped in Gaza as compared compared to the 15,000 tons dropped on Hiroshima. Think about that for a second. Collective punishment is a crime. At least 27,900 Palestinian children have been killed. Once and if the dust ever settles, the count will be much higher. Military officials have started speaking of end of times war to try and gain momentum and steadfastness with this rhetoric. Does this sound like extreme Islamic rhetoric or does it sound like extreme Zionist Christian rhetoric? And for those abiding by this extreme Zionist Christian rhetoric, you are protecting Israel, which means allowing Zionist Jews to displace and kill native Palestinian Christians and Muslims. And after that, it plans for greater Israel, which encompasses Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. So with this picture, is it the Muslims that are being extreme or is it Israel that wants to take everything? And since they have bought Christian Zionism, doesn't that mean they paid for your support? The question is, when will your mind wake up to critical thinking and stop this before you you can no longer say that you were on the right side of history? alongside my husband. My late grandfather served in World War II. My uncle served in the Vietnam and I have a nephew currently enlisted in the Marines. We are patriots. We do not accept this compromised government of red and blue. Vote green for with Brian McInness for US Senate so we can stop this madness and make Israel and America ceasefire and stop putting our sons and daughters in harm's way. And as as always, this is urging you as a city, Raleigh, and as a state, North Carolina, sanction Israel before they create more madness in the in this world. >> Thank you. U Myasa Sultari, >> good evening. If you want to know who rules over you, so simply just find out uh by uh criticizing them because recently something happened last week to Brian McKenna who stood up during a Senate hearing to voice his opinion. This is not just only an opinion. He is a He is a Marine veteran who served this country. He's also a firefighter in Raleigh. Someone who risked his life protecting this city and its people every single day. This is a man who runs towards danger and another runs away. He served his country in the military. He served his community as a firefighter. And when he stood up to use his voice, the very freedom he once fought and defended, he was removed by force. His arm was broken. And even more disturbing to see Tim Sheihi physically interfering, he is a Senate. He physically was removing and being violent with a Marine veteran. Why is a man protected this country and this community treated like a like a threat for speaking about Israel? Why our citizen punished when they question a war? And why are some governments our policies treated as if we are be beyond criticism? Because this conversation is not only about tax dollars. And we have been coming here for so long and talking and saying like we're paying our tax dollars to wars that we don't want to be involved in and killing innocent people. But now our children, our brothers, our friends are going to be fighting a war. Nobody wants to die for Israel. American families do not want to sell their children the military so they can be sent to die in wars for this interest for a for a government. They are already committing genocide in in in Palestine. Our soldiers swear an oath to defend the United States of America, not Israel, not to be sacrificed in endless conflicts. Can we just learn from Iraq? Can we just learn from Afghanistan and all these countries? We we can't we have to learn from this history. In Iran, they have bombed last week a school, elementary school full of little girls. 175 little girls been murdered. Why there is no freaking somebody speaking about it? Why nobody say anything? It was it was and it was proved that he have like a tomahawk missile hit that school and the only one who has that that missile is United States enough. Thank you. Mamakai Sanders. Good evening. It's another amazing day in paradise. I've neglected to say thank you for your service lately. And whether I agree or disagree with your decisions, I do want to say I appreciate you. Um, and I appreciate what you do. So, thank you. I want to take a moment to speak about the joint city count city county affordable housing and homelessness meeting held the evening of the last public comment period. Thank you to everyone who prepared it, presented, and participated in it. I wanted to touch on a few things that were not mentioned that I feel are important. Like while Emila tripled the number of unsheltered people, wisdom and I don't count living in our car. Don't count living in our car because that is considered shelter. This is not for pity. I don't say this for pity just for information. People living in hotels or couch surfing aren't considered homeless either. Yet, we have hotels full of individuals and families trying to cover the cost just to stay inside. And while I believe it's still a law that once you stay past 90 days in a hotel, you're a resident and no longer have to pay taxes and the taxes that were paid are credited back to you. Now, many locations have changed their rules so that you're not allowed to stay past 28 days. Um, you have to check out for a full 24-hour period before you can return. It's also quite possible that no one realized that the number one indicator that truly speaks to the problem of homelessness yet is hardly ever um mentioned is the amount of students receiving McKenna Vento services. And I learned that's because McKenna Vento is not a program of HUD. So those 5,000 plus students in Wake County aren't counted and that number has been r rising. And I also want to be clear about something it seems one of our council members believes about Raleigh residents. Unfortunately, there's no video that I know of to prove this, so I'm not going to call anyone out in order for it to in order for it to apply to anyone who believes this. One of the comments directed to Morgan Mansa praised her for speaking about building mixeduse density. They added that it seems like the residents have a hard time understanding the importance of having people be able to live where they work. When I heard that, I wanted to scream because the reality is there are many commercial spaces below apartment complexes that are empty. And I'm not aware of any store employee that's making $4,500 to $6,000 a month to be able to qualify for, let alone afford a $1,500 to $2,000 boutique or luxury apartment since that's all it seems Raleigh has been building. I'm so tired of this explanation for mixeduse density. No one can afford to live in them if they're not working if they're working downstairs. And while and while I'm do you uh do you really know what it takes to live here with housing being taken up for Airbnbs for short-term rentals for out of town profession professionals and just empty houses for a variety of reasons? What about the application fees that don't get applied to rent or get refunded when you don't get accepted? Living in Raleigh is not just about affording a place to live. Today, thanks to density, it's more about just qualifying to get inside. Thank you. Thank you, >> David Almer. >> Well, this will be an interesting segue. Um, first, I'm actually pretty happy with council. The last 5 years, you guys have understood your financial constraints, the legal constraints, and just the general rules, and have made the best decisions you can. The judgment has been appreciated. One of you has pointed out that 150,000 to 200,000 more residents will be coming over the next 20 years. Unfortunately or not, most of that housing will have to be market rate, more than 95%. I appreciate Heritage Park. I think the work you're doing on affordable housing, you're you're up against it. It's a very fast growing city and I do appreciate everything you're doing, but most of that housing is going to have to be market rate. Missing Middle was not promised as affordable housing. It was implemented as a tool to increase supply and moderate price increases. By that measure, it has been successful. Some who oppose affordable housing will often talk about, you know, we haven't included enough of it, and they will then talk about greedy developers. But let's talk about developers because it's always just assumed, I guess, in some crowds that they reach into all their wallets and just pull out $100 million. See, what nobody ever does is talk about the capital stack. We don't talk about what the developer invests, what some of our other equity investors invest, and then the bank loans. Some of you may be familiar with the North Carolina retirement system. Possibly it rings a bell. I don't think they've ever invested money for a 3% return less than a 10-year Treasury. They don't because they have to take care of our retirees. So, the brutal math of it is that this is a business decision. In many cases, sometimes developments don't happen and don't pencil out because the equity investors just aren't interested in 5% returns on a new expensive project in late 2025. Right now, benefit street partners. It was, this was our North Carolina treasur at the end of last year, benefit street partners for a fund put in $1.15 billion. That fund has to generate returns. And so, that was an investment and that investment was in real estate. This is what we don't talk about when we have our community meetings. It's really easy to have a feeling and to share the concern, but my concern is we don't explain the facts. And if you don't believe that's true, we got a clown in the White House that all he does is reflect that anger. He just votes on emotion. That's his voters are emotion. And so if you're having conversations with people and not explaining when something doesn't pencil out, that means something. That means the money isn't there. So, we may reszone something because a developer wants to see that growth. He wants to see that return, but they're entrepreneurs. They're business people. Sometimes they make mistakes. They think they can get something done. There is nobody that can do a real estate project that's looking at 12% returns that isn't building now. It's just a money thing. And I'm sorry that the world hasn't worked out the way everybody thinks it should. That there's some sort of magic fairy stick that's going to just make everything equal for everybody. you do the best you can with the affordable housing and then you have to understand the constraints that you're working with and I appreciate the fact that this council has done that marvelously. So, you're doing great usually by a vote of 6 to2 and I appreciate it. >> Thank you, >> Marco Casillus. Mayor, [clears throat] mayor and city council of Raleigh, North Carolina, I am here to put you on notice with you and RDU and your your um administration. I'm here to put you on notice. Freshen up on the Constitution. Stop violating violating our constitutional rights. You all will lose your qualified immunity. There is no ex excuse especially when you are sworn in to follow the constitution. Thank you. >> Thank you Charlyn Parker. >> Okay. Uh Jane Hubbend, >> thank you for having me speak today or allowing me to. I'm speaking on behalf of the Anderson Forest neighborhood concerning our opposition to your chosen route for the Big Branch Greenway 1B. We have heard from our ne you have heard from our neighborhood many times an indication of how serious we are about our opposition. Previously we have described city staff's flaws presentation and disingenuous actions in swaying public and council opinion. We have spoken about dangerous flash flooding, excessive cost, violation of state repairarian rules and conservation easements. The safety lack of the safety concerns about crossing Six Forks Road, one of the state's most dangerous streets, loss of trees, a greenway at our back door. None of this were described by the city staff in their presentations. In voting for this option, you voted to violate a conservation easement that is was made and accepted by the city for the protection of this fragile stream and city's water quality. It prohibited any imperous surface within 30 feet of the stream. You've aided also to violate state repairarian buffer rules to protect the stream and a conservation easement. Um I don't know if there any environmentalist on this board but that's an important thing water quality and conservation of streams. I ask what good are laws and rules if you can violate them at will? Then why does the city even accept those? Do riparian buffer rules mean nothing if you can just violate them? The privilege is certainly not given to us citizens. We what if we all decided I don't want to stop at the stoplight. Um we can't do that. We can't ignore it. These are serious there are serious repercussions for that. Cost is another factor. How can council approve such large amounts of money when there are cheaper alternatives available? How can Raleigh approve such large amounts of money when there are so many crucial needs in the city such as affordable housing, rent assistance, safe neighborhoods, more security for our city, bus drivers who are experiencing serious safety issues, the homeless, upkeep of our roads, traffic concerns, transportation, lower property tax. Please vote to spend extra money like this on these. Thank you. >> Thank you, Joshua Bradley. Find my glasses so I can read. Everybody looks super happy today. How are you? It's a great day to be north of the dirt, ain't it? Um, okay. Well, it started. Uh, Josh Bradley, 1324, Spring Long Court. Um uh I did had something else to say, but I did notice that um a hero of mine is in this room. Uh Brian Raleigh firefighter um who uh bravely did more than this council was able to do for the people of Palestine, even though that we have uh lots of people live in this town with family there and have lost family there. Um my concern is that he has his job when he's healed up and back to work. and I just would request that y'all make sure he can go back to work. Um anyway, that's uh very important. Uh and uh the ceasefire resolution hasn't come back. Uh hopefully we can get that done soon because there is not a ceasefire holding right now. Um so I mean the children of Palestine deserve everybody's action. So can we do it? Uh the other thing I was going to talk about is um off uh David was up here earlier saying that the developers can't afford to build affordable housing which means that what we can do as a city is that we raise the money and have it built ourselves on city land. Cut out the profit motive entirely and we can create more housing. Uh there's a way to do it. We have resources and certainly have enough skilled people. Um and the last thing I wanted and what I was really here to talk about was about the new primary system. >> [snorts] >> Uh, I fortunately was able to make it through the primary. Thanks for everybody that voted. Um, but March f primaries favor wealthy connected candidates. Running a citywide campaign in March requires early fundraising, early advertising, early field operations, and competing with state and federal primary noise. uh frontload it and it it frontloads the cost and it is an advantage to incumbents to people that have a lot of developer backing, a lot of corporate donors or have existing political networks. Grassroots working class and renterbased campaigns typically peak in late summer and fall, not in the dead of winter. Um let's see, I I don't have time to go through it all. Um the the final four atlarge primary del dilutes grassroots votes. In the old system they had to compete in a central single general election. Now a crowded field triggers a primary. The top four advance. The November election becomes more developer friendly. Uh but because you've got well generally wellunded candidates that are duking it out, right? Uh eliminates the people that don't raise a whole lot of money at the beginning. Present company accepted. Um so uh uh, my advice, uh, is going forward is to move it back to, uh, municipal years and just advertise it to where people know there's election and I'll continue next time. >> Thank you, >> Ashley Heath Armstrong. Is Miss Armstrong here? Okay. Uh, Randy Finch. Good evening. I'm the uh my Randy Finch. I'm the vice president of land development for Mickey Holmes. I had a great speech when I was walking up here, but uh we have opportunity for the Oakleaf project, which is 24,000 trees to be planted in the city of Raleigh. The >> mic to be 24,000 trees to be planted in the city of Raleigh. This is a huge opportunity for all of us. As a land development guy, you know, obviously we change the greater land. We know that it happens, but it's how we leave it behind and that's the most important thing. Um, recently as a home builder and a developer, we have partnered with a nonprofit organization who specializes in planting native trees back into North Carolina. As a developer before, city councils or planning boards will always put certain types of trees that you had to plant. I didn't really understand the impact until I started working with the nonprofit. Um, through that nonprofit, we have gone back to other communities that we have already finished and planted more trees. The reason why I say this is because we all want some type of legacy in this world. And I'm a native of Raleigh. Been here my entire life. I'm old. I'm just a native. But I was walking up the street, so my speech went out the window. Right across the street is natural trees. They've been here forever. That's what we have the opportunity to leave behind, not only to our kids, but to their kids. So, just wanted to put that out there to you. I hope you support the OLED budget. I think it's very important, not only to myself, to others, but also to our children. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Jason Aenheim. Hi there. Uh, my name is Jason Aenheim. I've lived in Raleigh my whole life as well. And I wanted to talk about some changes in Raleigh that I disagree with. Uh, the employment of flock cameras in the city. I know there's one next to me mushroom. Uh, there's a few more. To my knowledge, the only ones that are in use are the Falcon models, which are automatic license plate readers. Uh there's also the Condor model which I would advise against. Either way, there are a lot of issues with the employment of these cameras. Uh firstly, there's a concern that they infringe on privacy in public as defined by the Supreme Court. It is continuous tracking of citizens, largely innocent citizens, that feels very unjustified. There's also the fact that flock cameras are inherently different from older security systems. It's not the same as a local business or a string of local businesses having security cameras and then people getting access to those, the police getting access to those. This is interfaceable. It is connected. It's a whole system which can be accessed by flock by customers of flock and it has been abused already. There are several cases in which officers with access to the flock camera systems have been caught stalking exes, stalking people in general because there was a there was oversight and really just there there's not a barrier between the operator, somebody who has access to these lock camera systems and just the LA the last month of data of what they've retrieved and so it's led to a lot of issues. Uh there's also false positives with it with them being automatic detections. Other automatic detection systems have led to people being held at gunpoint uh because they were misidentified as holding gun. In the case of automatic license plate readers, there were some recent cases where people it tagged them as having a stolen car or kidnapping somebody and these people were wrongfully put in harm's way because of it. And there's also the key point that flock camera systems have been hacked repeatedly. There are a number of security concerns with them. I watched a video the other day where somebody very easily got into the flock camera systems of a certain town and they were there was just this large database where you could click on the last month of information and watch people walk walk around. You could and you could take a face from that video. Oh, my time's up. >> Thank you. All right. Uh final is Eugene Mrick. Uh, good evening. Um, I first have to take a quick Oh, Eugene, southeast Raleigh resident. Um, resident of Builtmore Hills, historic Builtmore Hills neighborhood. Uh, I want to acknowledge some of my neighbors who came to be here this evening. You have um Miss Peacock, you have um Miss Love, you have Miss Troublefield, you have the Haka Days um um Fern and her husband Rufus. Um I'm acknowledging them because these are some of the original home owners in Builtmore Hills. Um just a reminder, Builtmore Hills was a neighborhood that was built that allowed black people to own homes in the city of Raleigh when they couldn't purchase homes anywhere else. Um we're dealing with a number of issues there. Um, first and foremost, there's this um, horrible vibration that's going on that's shaken a number of our homes. Many of you are aware, Councilman Branch is aware. I believe somebody's actually suing you in regards to this, mayor. Um, but this is, we've been reporting to whatever number Councilman Branch gave us. Um, we're dealing with cracks in our homes. Um, but that's a whole another story. We're also dealing with um, issues in the park. A lot of folks are now walking around there exposing themselves to folks there. There was a story in the news recently. Um that gentleman don't want cameras. Y'all more than welcome to put those cameras in Builmore Hills Park um because we've been asked for that as well as traffic calming for years. Um another issue that we're dealing with, we um council member uh Ford, you were you were kind enough to bring a number of city agencies to in our neighborhood to talk about the traffic calming. All we were asking for were was a sign to stop the trucks from coming in on Garner Road as well as um some uh speed bumps. However, we were told that we were going to get just the bike emblems on the street, but this weekend some of the neighbors woke up to literally half the street being split and there's a do not enter sign except for bikes. That's not what we asked for. We we didn't even ask for the bike lanes. If you remember that meeting, there was one gentleman at that meeting who was adamant about we needed tons of bike lanes in the city. Builmore hills, we still don't have streets. We don't have sidewalks. The bus stops don't have uh places for people to sit down. And the these neighbors, as you can see, um Miss Hakaday is in the wheelchair. So, folks need access to get to their homes. We can't even get to our homes. But now, we have a a two-way a two-way bike lane. Not even the um the the the painting in the street. No, it says no. do not enter except for bikes. So once again, we're being disenfranchised. And I have to veer off for a minute because that gentleman made a very clear point. Those folks from Heritage Park was kicked out of that neighborhood believing that they were going to come back. Those black people are never coming back to that neighborhood. He made a very good point. Um and and this is what's what's continues to happen. The other gentleman made a point about the voting. We didn't have a primary. We have voter suppression. How is there a primary when the candidates don't appear on the ballot? We don't even have an opportunity to do a right in. But this has to be corrected corrected immediately because we didn't want the bike lanes and we sure don't want half the street to be taken up. Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you. All right, that concludes our public comment for this evening. Heat. [music] [music] Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] Heat. Heat.