agenda review I believe is what do we call this now we call this the agenda overview and we are going to start with our city council we had some questions and Miss Marie would you dare their questions that have been submitted that we have to review in advance yes ma'am you. And y'all should all have a copy at your table and I have a few questions there actually on consent items. Mr. Bacari and Mrs. Asmira. I don't know if you've had a chance to look over them yet or if you would like additional information. Ms. Asmira, do you request that some questions from Marie? And so I think they've been distributed, so but she wanted to know if you had any additional questions. No, my questions were on the business items. Okay, so I don't have anything on concerned agenda items. And I appreciate Marie for helping me understand there was one consent item that you provided a response to. So I'm good. Thank you. All right. Any other questions on the consent items? I would probably just pull for comment not for a separate vote, 17. All right. So item 17 is police recruit advertising services. And Mr. Bacari would like to make a Brief comment about that. Is there any other item that anyone wants to pull from consent? Harry none. We'll go to the cons we'll go through 18 through 29. I think we can just so it all at once and all come. All right, and sorry that would be 17 through 32. 17 through 32. Sorry, I saw the consent agenda down here. Okay, so Mr. Bakari, your comments? We'll do a motion probably first. I'll move to approve second. We have a motion and a second to approve now. Mr. Bakari, were you including item 17? Yes, I'm just going to make comment. We used to do comments. Yes, we can do a comment. All right, Mr. Bacari, your comments. Yeah, I just, this is one of the first times we've seen some data like this. And again, I'm not going to belabor the point or even at this point, try to figure out and hold back the vote of the point or even at this point try to figure out and hold back the vote of the consent item. I want it to move forward at this point. But we don't get to see a lot of the data that I believe at the core of many of our organizations get towards things like recruitment retention, overall morale. And I would just say that there are some concerning things here to look at. And if you look at your numbers like Recruit Class 197, large number coming in, 85, but only 48 ended up graduating. 26 resigned during the process. 14 were recycled, a record-breaking number. That this could mean a lot of things, and I haven't drawn any conclusions. But I do think this is the kind of exercise we need to start drilling into because I do personally believe this is indicative of what could be a serious problem down the road. And the culture, the morale issues, the recruitment and retention are all critical to that. So I think it dovetails nicely after this comment into what the manager is already going to be doing in a series of our meetings Drilling into particularly in CNPD Different topics where we as a council can ask questions of data. We want brought back of things we want to understand So I'm not going to jump to any conclusions now, but I think it dovetails nicely into that it was a concern I had I was glad to hear you were doing that. So I just wanted to make sure that everyone kind of saw some of those numbers there so that we keep that in the back of our mind in the series of conversations. All right. I think Mr. Bacar is referring to the managers meet a presentation along with the chief this afternoon, but that will be on our existing on Dias after we have the speakers and all of that. So we'll have that included from the manager's report, okay? So with the, I'm sorry, Ms. Sashmira. Thank you Madam Mayor. So I want you to follow up on Mr. Bookaris point about police recruitment. I know usually we discuss this item specifically during the budget process. So I think having, if we can get a head start on this item, so if there are budget implications to it, we are prepared for it ahead of time. So, Mr. Jones in the presentation that will be provided to us later today, are you expecting in terms of if we can tie this to our overall budget discussion for next year so that we are really being proactive. So Council Member Ashmarra, I believe the last business meeting I'd mentioned to the council that during the management report we would set aside time to do a deeper dive into public safety. And so we have scheduled at least I'll present later today for different areas. So to your point, one of the things that I am trying to do because public safety has been on the majority of the council's mind for a while is to not reduce it to one half day budget session. But to begin the conversation in November, not in March. And not to boil the ocean tonight, because there are going to be a bunch of opportunities. But to start to feel some of the questions that you would like to get more information on. So success tonight would be to introduce the concept of coming back for a couple of times a month to talk about public safety and that's quality alive. That's safe Charlotte, that's violence as a public health crisis and everything that comes along with it. That's great. Oh, great to hear that we are getting a head start on this and we are being proactive. I appreciate that. I'm a methodology. Thank you, Mr. Jones. All right. Is there any further question or comment on this item? Fairing none for adoption of approval of the consent agenda. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Raise your hand. Anyone opposed? Very none opposed. We'll move forward from the consent agenda. So, if I can keep up with you guys, action review. The next topic is for the proposed 2025 federal and state legislative agendas. And I believe Mr. Jones, do you want to introduce? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So thank you Mayor, Mr. Council. We have two items tonight on the action review. One is to propose 2025 federal and state legislative agendas that has been spent some time in committee, as well as what we do this time of year to have the city court go over the proposed 2025 calendar. There's no vote on the calendar tonight other than to prepare you for a potential December vote. And so mayor, if there are any questions for Council, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Fenton. But before I do that, I'd like to make one quick announcement. So many of you know that we've been in search for someone to fill in for Dana after Dana retires. We've had a series of conversations and after a lot of begging and pleading on my part, Mr. Fenton has decided to stay until July to get us through this next session because there's so much riding on this next session. So I thank you Dana for postponing your retirement and I think folks, we're super nice to you based on your presentation, Knight, how's that? Thank you, Mr. Jones, Mayor, Council. Thank you very much. I'll say, Council. Thank you very much. I'll say for the record, I'm Dana Fett, and I am honored and privileged to serve as your Intergovernmental Relations Manager. Tonight I'm presenting the 2025 State and Federal legislative agendas that were approved by the committee, the Budget Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee just a few weeks ago. We'll cover the agenda development process, what the factors we use to help you make informed decisions. We will review the legislative agenda items and then talk about the next steps. Of course, annual legislative agendas communicate your priorities. In this case, these would be the 2025 priorities to the federal and state bodies, the U.S. Congress and North Carolina General Assembly. And we try to base the request upon several issues. And I think the committee took that job very seriously this year. We're looking at things that are achievable in the political climate and the economic climate. It's actionable through legislation, budgets, grant requested, intent to strengthen relationships with legislators. This is the agenda development calendar. And I'm gonna focus your attention on the top row, the yellow row. The committee started its work in October. It culminated in November with the proposed legislative agendas. And we're here tonight for the action review. We have a number of things to do in December and January and beyond. So I will get to that at the end of the presentation. Now let's turn to the proposed legislative agenda for the US Congress. Mobility has always been a top priority for the Charlotte City Council. And this year, this coming year, we're going to be facing the start of reauthorization of the Federal Surface Transportation Program. This is a two-year process that provides federal matches ultimately for local road and highway, public transportation, and other types of transportation projects. And again, this is a two year process, and a bill will typically not be enacted until the fall of 2026. And then we would also continue competing for federal funding opportunities. Aviation, secure funding for the fourth parallel runway and other airport projects. As you know earlier this year, the airport was awarded. A letter of intent for the fourth parallel runway projects. Now we need to get our congressional delegation to sponsor a budget amendment to secure the first branch of funding for that project. And this is the same process it's used for a lot of other things of this nature. The letter of intent, think of that as an authorization for the Congress to appropriate the funding. We had to do this also for the Lynx Blue Line extension back in the mid, back in the last decade. Talent and workforce development. We have several things in here. It's a continuous your support for immigration policy and regulatory changes, digital inclusion and corridors of opportunity. Couple of new ads this year to this would be support reauthorization of the workforce innovation and opportunity act that directs funding to local areas to support talent talented business needs and also support funding for childcare resources to replace the pandemic era funding that has expired. And also continue, we have been very active this year. There are actually the quarters of opportunity team has been very active. And also a few other departments here,, your information and technology department, especially have been very active in trying to seek competitive grants for their areas. Public safety, the committee felt very strongly that, I'm sorry, I had the wrong script there. This is a staff recommendation. The airport would like to see additional staffing for the security screenings that are done for folks who are arriving at the airport with their bags ready to go on a flight. And that also for the international arrivals when folks arrive from overseas. If the staffing has been somewhat spotted the last few years and it has created a problem at times. The environment, the city will continue supporting the policies and funding to implement and meet the federal forever chemical mandates. It also to protect the local governments like ourselves ourselves, from a reasonable liability by advocating for liability protection for municipal drinking water, waste water, storm water utilities, etc. As you know, with the forever chemicals, those were chemicals not created by us, but rather by industry. And we were obliged to treat those, to treat those, that water as it came down the pipeline. And then housing, one would be to continue supporting reforms to the federal housing voucher programs. And then also support greater financial services, financial resources for housing programs, such as the CDBG, Home Investment Partnership, Lead Based, Painting Hazard, and Healthy Homes, and Low Income Housing Tax Credit. And with that, I'll now turn to the proposed state legislative agenda. The first one is one you have seen several years in a row now that is support the region's efforts to improve its competitiveness and grow the economy through investments to the Transportation Network. And that would involve taking the draft legislation to the General Assembly for enactment. And then also the same time, I need to say this is really not really a legislative agenda item per se, but rather we would continue working on securing access to the portion of the O line from the Beckenberg, I or Dale County line to downtown, North-Sail. The next one is aviation. In continuation of last year's agenda item to support the North Carolina Airport Improvement Program that provides funding for capital needs at the 10 Commercial Service service airports in North Carolina. The environment earlier this year Charlotte Water initiated a they published a notice of intent to modify their interbasin transfer agreement that takes water from the Kataba River basin to the to River Basin, to a comedy growth that's occurring in the eastern part of our county. And that includes the Towns of Cornelius Davidson, Huddersville, Matthews in Maintell, and of course the city of Charlotte. And even recently the Town of Moorsville requested a similar certificate. And there's a lot of other utilities in the state that are considering initiation of their own certificates or modifications to address their water needs as well. The reason I bring this up in the context of the state legislative agenda is that there had been some rumblings from some northern neighbors of ours about maybe there's too much water being drawn from the river and there's some environmental concerns are being brought up as well. That data is being studied. The process that was kicked off this year by Charlotte Water is a three-year process. There'll be an environmental impact study done through the Department of Environmental Quality at the State of North Carolina. And that will provide information that's needed for the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission to make a final decision on this modification request. The court system, the committee was very strongly desirous of addressing court system funding. And simply is support the county state court agencies as they seek the allocation of additional state funding for their operations. And finally public safety, in the public safety area, the committee was really wanting to address the issue of the arcade gaming establishments that are all around the city. And there is legislation being planned for the next session from some members of the general assembly. These are members of the majority party in other parts of the state where their localities are having to face the dilemma of these different establishments. And they are looking at ways to help, especially with the planning and zoning issues and code enforcement issues that are, and also the public safety as well that are inherent in some of these establishments. And with that, the next steps will be taking input tonight from the City Council. If there's any input that needs to be directed back to the committee mayor, the committee is poised to take that up next Monday at its December meeting. And then we'll be back on December 9th with a doc for requesting consideration of the state and federal agendas. And then we have several events next year, uh, especially, uh, just to give you a few, just the, uh, we would be planning for a state delegation briefing with our, with our Mecklenburg County state folks, uh, anywhere between January 13th and January 23rd. And then congressional briefings would be held in conjunction with the National League of Cities conference that's got to be held in Washington, D.C. of March 10th through the 12th. And with that, Mayor, I'll be glad to stand for any questions. All right. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you, Dana. You've been a trooper in all of this and so that's really good but before I turn it over one of the things that I've noticed is that as we are beginning to do meetings and we're having conversations among each other that I can't see people that sit at the corners and I can't see who's making the motion and who's not doing this so I'm going to work really hard to identify the speaker that would make the motion and then come around so everybody has a chance to speak. If you do, who's not to speak, that's okay. But everybody to have a chance without me leaning and guessing who had their hand up. We can do two cycles of it, we can do three. It just depends on what item that we're working with. And I believe that Miss Watlington, they'd be my first person to try this out on. So Miss Watlington, any comments, and then we'll go right to Mr. Bakari. Yes, ma'am. Thank you Madam Mayor. I've got three things. The first one is on slide number seven. I just may have missed it, forgive me, but I just wanted to hear in that first bullet continue supporting immigration policy and regulatory changes. What exactly do we mean by that? Yeah, we've had a position on this for several years. It would be substantially the same. It would be support the workforce needs of people. For example, some folks come over here with H1B visas to work. They have to bring their family members over. And there's all sorts of issues that crop up when you bring families members over. Whether espouse can work, whether a son or daughter can stay after their 18th birthday, that type of thing. Thank you. And then my next question is, as it relates to the environment for, I think specifically the state legislative agenda on 13. As we start to see data centers across the country move to more urban areas, we know that it has an impact on water usage in those localities. And so I'm wondering if that's been a point of discussion as it relates to our legislative agenda, as we specifically talk water, and as we think about how we're trying to really attract and recruit more fintech and IT related businesses. Yeah, from what I know is that, of course, the growth here has been phenomenal, with a lot of other urban areas as well. And these issues are being watched very carefully. There's a benefit to the entire state by the Charlotte region and the Raleigh region and others growing and bringing in more tax revenues, for example. At the same time, we need to be cognizant of the needs for the rural areas. We know that the areas up north want to expand industrially. They want to make sure they have enough water. And so those types of things are definitely going to be talked about this coming session. Sure. So I would love to see us champion policies that incentivize data centers and the like that look at different ways to provide energy and a renewable and a sustainable fashion Because I think that that is going to continue to be sector and certainly we as a city would want to be a part of it So just want to make sure that we're thinking about how we do that in a in a sustainable way So if we could add that to the discussion now, we fantastic and then finally as it relates to the discussion now, we've been fantastic. And then finally, as it relates to the public safety measures on slide 15 to implement stronger arcade gaming regulations and protections for communities negatively impacted, for some time now I know we've been talking, I've been working with CMPD over the years around alcohol outlet density. Many of the same ills that you see where you see arcades being set up are also seen where you see a higher density of alcohol outlets that are permitted for off-premise consumption. So I would love to see that coupled with this because I think that they're happening in tandem. In terms of the arcade game regulations, I know that the density of those outlets expressed through separation distances will be considered. In terms of the outlets that sell alcohol, wine and beer, for example, that's a whole different issue. And I think just as we talked a few years ago, I just don't see that being something that could be driven forward this coming year. I understand I would still like it to be included because I think that there are so many different, or there are so many similar issues and exactly what you were talking about from a zoning standpoint in terms of distance apart, all of those things, those same kinds of measures could be used. Not just for, we think about entertainment districts and things like that, but specifically for outlets that sell for off-premise consumption. So I would like to see at least included in the discussion. So I want to make sure that what you like to see is something that the committee could have in address. Does that make sense? Okay. All right thank you. Mr. Bacari, Mr. Drix, Mr. Grimm. Mr. Grimm. This is a quick question. I think you touched on it, but I'd like to get a longer explanation in terms of where we are with mobility. We were thinking that this would appear in the 24 legislative session in terms of the one-cent sales. Do we have any updates since we're two weeks away from the election. And they've already been meeting. I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part of what you had to say, Mr. Graham. Do you have any updates on where we stand with the mobility tax that we're supposed to try to get in this abbreviated session? Oh yes, yes, thank you very much. That's a good question. There was an intervening event called Hurricane Helene, and that is taking a lot of the bandwidth from legislators they've already passed, I think now, three different packages of relief for Western North Carolina. And so right now, it looks very iffy that anything could be done this year. So we'd love to have that done this year, but we have it on here for 2025 just in case it's needed. Okay, because I've been spending a lot of time in Raleigh to last two weeks I'm working with the Governor-elect on this transition and depending on who they talk to, I get to feel that it won't happen in 24. And Mr. Manager, do you kind of concur with that in terms of that? I'm absolutely not going to concur with that. So Mr. Grim. The point being is that we will continue to take every avenue we can, whether it's in the short session or the long session, but I don't think we should tap out at any point until the session is over. I concur with that as well, but at some point reality fits in. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Let's see Mayor Pro Tem. No comment. Mayor, thank you Dana. Ms. Hashmer, this will be coming to your committee. Do you want me to move on to Ms. Molina? Yes, okay. I know, but if you had any other amendments or choices, all the changes have been, all the changes that were recommended by the committee have been incorporated into this. So I appreciate Dana and our consultants for working around the clock to address all the concerns that were raised at our committee meeting. I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Ms. Malena. Do you have any comments? at our committee meeting, I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Ms. Malena? Do you have any comments? Well, it's not really a comment. It's more of a question for Dana. I know that some of there's just a bit of overlap. The North Carolina League of Municipalities has a legislative policy committee, and actually serv on that committee. So a few of the items that I see there's overlap with the legislative policy agenda for the North Carolina League of Municipalities and some of what we would like to see from Charlotte. Do you have any reference points on what the league is going to present? And- At this point, no. I don't have any- I don't have an idea what they're going to present, but they have. It's been fairly consistent through the years. They're big on infrastructure funding. Trying to get local sources of revenue to help build infrastructure. There was one in particular that I brought up in the last meeting about the arcades because of, you know, there being a general interest to, you know, kind of mitigate those. Right. And I was told that there are actually cities in our state that actually like those types of businesses as opposed to them being a nuisance. And so what they did was kind of rate the items A, B, and C. a possibility and seas were items that won't be presented and that made it to the sea list. And I mean I was really like putting our position out there but I didn't want to be like Charlotte in the room to say like you know we want it because everyone would have got mad at me so. But I just, I'm really excited to see, you know, what you're able to, you know, get, and I know you're a tenured, I know you got great relationships there, but we're really interested. It just didn't seem to be kind of a consensus across our state, unfortunately. Yeah, that's true. You talked to different areas of the state. They have different responses and But we understand that you know, there's been legislation passed or not passed but introduced the last two sessions in 21 and 23 and there is a There seems to be more urgency this time around from from some legislators So we're we're hopeful on that. That's what we're pinning our hopes on. All right, really great. And that's all I have. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Okay. Thank you. All right, Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can you bring up slide number seven? I want to piggyback off. Councilmember Watlington and ask the question about the immigration policies. I know that these recommendations were given on October 7 prior to the federal election, but I know that the new leadership is going to have immigration policies that we may not agree upon on a city council level. So I wanted to know from the chair what the direction or what the thinking was there, I'm a little concerned about stating that we're going to be aligned with the certain immigration policies on a federal level so is there any input or detail i would be glad to take that i know that uh... this was uh... uh... moved out of committee the day before the election and uh... we haven't changed this at all you have a policy on things or actually it was adopted by the city council in 2019. I think it's called the, it's the compact immigration. It sets out in there what the goals of the city are, including addressing the workforce development aspect. Also supporting a pathway to citizenship and other things. So that's what we would continue. That's how we would approach this. And I know that the incoming administration has some different ideas. But also, we still have a bicample legislature that has to adopt these things. So there could be some other opinions that are brought forward. I understand that, but we're saying that we, I think that's just a blanket statement that I don't know that I'm, maybe we can consider, I don't wanna continue to support the incoming legislators or at a federal level their immigration policies just with a blanket statement so I don't know if there's more detail that we can have. Yeah there's gonna be more detail in the supporting position statement but we're gonna try to keep it to what you see in the legislative agenda the last few years and actually since 2020 I believe is when it was first put in there. You would follow the compact and immigration. And by putting a general statement like this doesn't mean that we're supporting the incoming administration or folks who have different opinions, but there's going to be more information provided. And when you say we, do you mean council? We? Yeah, you said we oh yeah with I'm sorry I think I was referring to the the position statements that that we typically draft it's going to stay Close if not identical to your to the compact and immigration and other documents like that that have been supported by city council Well just because this is is on the federal legislative agenda, we're talking about continuing to support immigration policies. We know what's forthcoming. So I'm not in agreement with that. So I don't know if we want to change that. And I know we'll discuss that more or vote on it in December, but I would ask council to also consider changing the language, maybe put some more detail in that, because I'm just not comfortable with that statement. So I wait, Ms. Esmer, the manager wanted to respond to this, so if we could do that. So thank you Mayor. So Dana, let me make sure that I'm clear on what you're saying. I believe that bullet means the council is going, we're going to continue to support the positions of the council related to immigration policy, digital inclusion and corridors of opportunity. That is correct. That's what I read in it too. So we're not changing our policies in terms of what we believe in. And this would just continue now. We don't know what's going to come down the pipe and, you know, but this is where we stand. And so any other. So again, Mayor wanted to say something about it as well. Yeah, so Ms. Johnson raises a good point. In fact, Councilmember Mayfield had raised this issue at our committee meeting. And that was for additional request for federal officers. And we got a clarification from the airport that those additional resources will only be staffed for to meet airport demands, not to enforce federal laws. In terms of federal immigration laws, let me just be very clear. But going back to that slide that Ms. Johnson has raised, continue supporting immigration policy. I think Dana, I guess because I have seen this DAC a few times, I get where VE are, but I think it can be interpreted differently. So I think having maybe including the compass that we all adopted back in 2019, I think it was called welcome. Yes. Welcome something. So if we can just clarify that, that was unanimously adopted and approved by this council. So if you can just include that language so that we are all on the same page because our language is that we are a welcoming city, and we recognize that immigrant community contributes to our city economically, culturally, and in other ways. And it also includes the GDP impact and so on. So I think having that specific language of whatever the policy it's called would be very helpful. But I also wanted to respond to Councilmember Molina's question about arcades. There was a very passionate discussion at the committee level. In fact, Councilmember Mayfield and I wanted to see more teeth into it. But I understand that we, I also recognize the reality of the makeup that we have in Raleigh. So, in fact, I'm not sure if you all had an opportunity to read the memo from Alison Craig, but Alison has really provided details around some of the changes that are in the UDO that prevents some of this establishments from operating at certain locations, where they have to maintain certain distance from neighborhoods. They are also limited hours. They can only operate till 10 p.m. So those requirements will help us keep our communities safe and address CMPD's concerns while we wait for the state to see whether that item will get ever upgraded from C to A list. But I appreciate Alison's work on it because that is an issue that I often hear about, not just from East Charlotte, but also it's an issue in other parts of the city, West Charlotte, East Charlotte, and even the one establishment of a Providence that certainly has created some very valid concerns among our residents. That's all I have. Yeah, thank you. So thank you, Ms. Hsmear. So if we could add that language that we will support the City of Charlotte compass agreement or whatever that is specifically because again This is on the federal legislative agenda and we're saying we're going to support Immigration policy and regulatory changes. So we don't want you know, and next year for someone to say well What's the what's the term? Unintended consequence, right? If this is a foreseeable change that needs to be made. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Brown. Councilmember Brown, do't have any comments. All right, so You have a question miss it's not a question each just it came up in the conversation It's really for the clerk's office. Sometimes ago. I know there was a discussion about having a repository of the active council policies So that we could go back and refer to things like the immigration policy, etc Can we get an update after this as to where that stands? Because I just think it's very important that we as members of the council can go back and look at what we've adopted. I know it's buried in the minutes somewhere, but a little more easily found. That's all. Okay. We'll see how we can get that reviewed and an assessment of it. Okay. We'll see how we can get that reviewed and an assessment of it. Okay. I think that that covers all of the items that we have for the legislative request. And now let's go to our calendar request with the city clerk. Does everyone have the copy of the proposed 2025 calendar. You all have a copy of the proposed calendar in front of you. I think you may have also received a copy in your packet on Thursday. And what I will say to you right off the top is that there are no sweeping changes in the calendar. A couple of exceptions I will note though. One of them is that the the annual strategy session has been added at the end of January as it was for 2024. And the summer schedule is a little different than it was last year for this year. For 2024, there were no meetings in August and for 2025, there are the addition of the Council Committee discussions and on the August 4th meeting and the business meeting for August the 11th. Overall, there are not any significant changes to the number of meetings that you have annually. This year you had eight committee Council discussion meetings there will be eight of those scheduled for 2025 there were 16 business meetings for 2024 There will be 18 business meetings with the addition of the August 4th and August 11th meetings and there are well Yes, there will be, there were 11 zoning meetings for 2024. There also be 11 zoning meetings for 2025. Three, fifth Mondays where there are no meetings and four budget workshops were scheduled for 2024 and the same as scheduled for 2025. So that is and I will also point out to you that exceptions to the calendar are noted in red. Those are national meetings that you, some of you may be attending or either there there may be like the NLC meetings, the North Carolina League of Municipalities meetings, ICMA and other such meetings. I think there's also on the calendar the NAACP Charlotte will be hosting the meeting here and I think that has also been added to the calendar. So that is what I have to present and I welcome any questions or any feedback that you would have concerning this. There is no action for this on tonight's agenda but it will come back on December the 9th for vote of the Council so if there are any changes or any revisions you'd like to see we have ample time to discuss those. I'll follow up with Ms. Johnson and then we'll come around. Ms. Johnson, any questions? Ms. Malena, any questions? Ms. Sejmira? Yes. Thank you, any questions? Ms. Sejmira? Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, in a deep, well, while adding those two meetings in August, what's the count of the business meeting total versus what we had in 2024? Are they about the same, you say? Well, there would be, there were 16 business meetings in 2024. There will be 18 business meetings in 2025. And one of those is the addition of that August 11th meeting. And the other one is the the 2024. There was there was a meeting canceled in September because of the overlap of the North Carolina League of Municipalities meeting, I believe. So that meeting has been added back. So there's just two additional meetings, business meetings for the year. And we're also taken into account or removing meetings from the calendar because of the election schedule. You will also notice that the election, the primary is September the 9th for 2025. There is no business meeting scheduled for that particular night, which would be a business meeting. And for the general election, which is on November the 4th, there would be a council committee discussion that evening, but there is no council committee discussion meeting schedule for that evening. Thank you. Mayor Pro Temmie, questions? No, no, thank you. Mr. Graham. Mr. Drix. Mr. McCarrie. Ms. Watlington. Yes, I've got three. The first one is I see here it says to the scheduled legislative action review and evaluations for the city attorney slash city clerk city manager. I'd like to see those evaluations slotted. I know that was something we've discussed once before, so I know that it is noted here, but I know especially in the summertime, we can start to have trouble with people's schedules, so I'd love to see that slotted as a meeting since we know it's gonna need to happen. Also, I just wanted to clarify, four budget workshops, I see the two and then the budget presentation and adjustments and then the struggles. When you say four workshops are you including those particular? Yes. Okay. And then finally, I know this is standard procedure at this point, but just to be clear, I wanted to verify that there in terms of the methods of our meetings, that that was captured. I know that we captured it in previous years, but just didn't see it here. I don't anticipate a change. We just wanted to make sure that it was called out. The method? Yeah, so committee meetings being virtually council meetings, being in person, et cetera, et cetera. I know that that was something that we added to the top of the meetings before. So I just wanted to make sure it was included in the policy we adopt. I miss Walton, can you help me? I'm going through with that. Tell me you're saying at the top of the calendar to include additional descriptive? Yeah, it should be in the one from last year or the year before, whatever's been there I think every year. And like I said, on anticipated, it changed, but just wanted to include the method of the meetings at the top. The method of the meetings at the top. Whether in person or virtual. Right. Okay. Well all your business meetings zoning meetings all your official meetings will be in person and committee meetings there's an option. Okay. We can add that. All right. So I believe that this is something that we will vote on. On December 9th. On December 9th. Yes, ma'am. Thank you Madam Mayor. I walk in but I know that we were talking about the calendar and we added two more dates. Is it to make up for something that we have in the calendar and we added two more dates. Is it to make up for something that we have in the calendar? The 2025 calendar or something that we may possibly miss. Sorry, clerk. Well, there are a couple of meetings that were taken off of the calendar because of the election cycle that will be- It's a 2025. 25. Your September, I believe September the 9th and November 4th meetings are not, they're not a part of the 2025 calendar, but we added the business meeting for August the 11th. That has been added back as has your Council Committee discussion for August the 4th. There were no meetings in August in 2024. Put. None at all. ZERO. There was. There were two, the zoning meeting and the second business meeting. But the first two meetings of August were not scheduled for August of 2024 but they have been scheduled for August 2025. They're four meetings in the month of August 2025. Okay, thank you. Okay. So do we have a motion to approve the calendar? No action required. On December 9th, sorry. December 9th is going to be a bear. I'm sorry. It's going to be a very important agenda to be prepared and ready to go. So maybe I'm just trying to push it along a little bit faster. So okay. I'm sorry. So there are changes. That was proposed by Councilmember Watlington to add those three evaluations to our calendar, just so that everyone's calendars are blocked ahead of time, where staff is not trying to, as Scratch, trying to get everyone in the room. I think it would be important to have those schedule and before we approve this. I think we had that suggestion as well as the other one to make sure that we had them all labeled correctly for whether or not they're virtual or in person. So, all right. So we have that and we will come back. The clerk will come back and um, at our next meeting on the 9th. Yes, ma'am. All right. Let's see. So I believe that that carries us through all of our consent agenda. It includes all of our action agenda review. Let's see. Do we have coming up next? I think that's it. So we'll start on time downstairs and if everybody can get in, we can get there and get through this. I did want to say that Council Member Smudgy Mitchell will not be attending the meeting today. I didn't hear from LaWana. Okay. Okay. So, didn't know that. So, Miss Mayfield and Mr. Mitchell. All right. Let's go downstairs. We do have a full speakers agenda, as well as a number of other items, I think that we have to find a way to use Johnson 630. I know, but we can do some other things, I think some of them. I'm going to play able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to have to go. I'm going to have a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little to play a little bit more. I'm going to have to go. The Okay. May I wait a minute? Studio, wait a minute, one moment. Studio, we're not ready to go live yet. I'm not to have to go. One today is public safety update. So Mr. Jones, I'm going to open it up for you and see where we are on this. So thank you, Mayor. Yes, we're on. So thank you, Mayor, Mr. Counselor. And Amanda, am I getting the presentation pulled up? Okay. So as we have discussed over the past a few weeks. There's been a concern about having enough time to talk about public safety. And so what I committed to at the last council meeting was to bring back during the manager's report a series of conversations dealing with public safety. And it goes across the whole horizon, everything from illegal truck parking to homicide. And so what I didn't want to do is put us in a place as council member, as Mira alluded to earlier, that we are trying to cram something into a budget process as opposed to try to lay a foundation for the beginning of a discussion that we would have, you know, not just tonight, but also at the next business meeting and the first business meeting in January as well as the first business meeting in February. So with that said, I'll sort of put this public safety update in Jason. I guess somebody's going to drive the slides. The, and I talked a bit about the schedule. And so what's important is there are a number of issues that I think we've been talking about for a while and maybe some types of solutions to various issues. I'll go back to May of 2020, when there was a series of discussions about what's happening in terms of violence in our community, which led to a series of discussions at each committee meeting with recommendations that came back that became a safe Charlotte approach and approach that has gotten accolades from across the country. But there are a lot of things that came out of that report that I think are extremely important that Charlotte has become a leader in trying to do things that are other than just policing. So we want to talk a bit about that as well as a quality of life approach. Then we have at the end of January, the CMPD annual crime report, and would really kick this off even before May of 2020 was a city, county collaboration to look at violence as a public health crisis. So with that said, if I go to the next slide, we had our Safe Charlotte report. And again, if we talk about the three legs, three legs, get stool with a good paying job, a workforce development, and we started to talk about a safe place to live, housing, and we start to talk about a safe place to live, housing, and we also talk about mobility, a way to get back and forth. We've talked a lot about those areas over the course of the last year or so. So I wanted to spend some time to focus on the another piece of that, which is safety. And then lastly, before I turn it over to to the chief I just want to go back to the safe Charlotte pillars where we talked about a safe healthy and inclusive neighborhood. We talked about affordable housing and we talked about an economic climate where businesses can thrive and how do we implement a mobility network. So tonight it's really setting a foundation a baseline with some data. My ask is that there's, I know there's so many questions that we have. If we can begin to get those types of questions on the table, it will help us frame what the next few meetings will be like. And maybe there's some things that we're missing. It will help us frame what the next few meetings will be like. And maybe there are some things that we're missing. I also hope that we don't try to solve everything tonight in this first presentation because again, we will be talking about public safety between now, which is November, all the way up into February, even before we have our first budget workshop. So, with that said, Mayor, there are any questions I'd like to turn it over to the chief. Chief, thank you for being here. What I'd like to say is that there's lots of opportunities to write down what you want to come back and see, and there are going to be three additional sessions that you can have and do that. So Ms. Johnson will start with you. I just have one question. Is it realistic that we can get a presentation and be able to ask any questions in 15 minutes? That's what I was trying to say is that I think this is an idea of how do we get the questions that you have. And then that will have them time to actually work on some of the responses instead of it being like hurried and rushed. So what I'm asking is jot down your questions so that they can get into the process so that we can have the next meeting, which is December the 9th, those answers. I just think this is a very, very important issue that 15 minutes is just not a responsible amount of time for us to jot down questions and not be transparent. So that's just my thought. Then I think if that's the way that the council sees it, if that's your comment, we'll have the chief give us our presentation and then we can do the questions as a refresh when he comes back. Okay. All right. Chief Jennings. Thank you, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Manager, Mr. Manager. Appreciate it. I'll try to get through it if we have a chance to get to some questions. I'll be happy to ask answer whatever I can. So what we're going to do is kind of share, I want to share some of the crime trends that is almost about 35 years of data to kind of give you a perspective of where we've kind of come and gone to as a city when it comes to crime. So the first chart that you're seeing here is going to be the violent crime count. You can see a decrease in year to date from 1990 all the way to the current year 2024. The trends that you see in the violent crime reductions, we've had some, particularly in 2020, you can see the increase in violent crime that is up to 8,068. And then since then, we have seen crime reductions every year, significant crime reductions in 2021 and 2022, 2023 saw flat in violent crime. And we are currently heading in 2024 to probably be on that same trajectory to hopefully be flat in violent crimes once again for 2024. It's what they have right now. Well, it's about flat right now. We're right now about a 1% but the trajectory from the middle of the year has been continuing to go down so we're making progress there. So. All right, then you're going to look at which is, we don't often put this chart up, but to talk about the violent crime per capita, per 100,000 in population. And I'm going to have some other slides with that as well. But if you look at the green line, that is the trend of population within our jurisdiction. And then you look at the blue line, that is per capita, the rate of violent crime victimization per 100,000 people. So that has consistently gone down. We saw a little spike in 2020, but now we're starting to see that to go back on a downward trend, which is pretty encouraging when you start looking at the population growth and how we're able to keep crime under control and manage violent crime in particular. So the next chart we're going to talk about homicides in particular. If you look back into the early 90s we had some major homicide rates and as we go into 2020 we're also looking at those numbers kind of mirroring what we saw in the early 90s, but we're also seeing that these numbers are kind of the last few years, we're trying to keep them a little bit steady. In 2022, we saw a number of 110, but over the last 34 years, we are looking at homicide rate that's kind of unpredictable. Those are some of the most difficult ones to get in front of and to make sure that we're keeping homicide rates down. But also I can tell you that our detectives in the homicide division are stellar detectives, the solvability rate. They're always above the national average of homicide solvability. So, so far this year, the number, even though it says 99, we just had one that came off of the numbers because it was ruled by the district attorney's office as being self-defense. And we expect a couple of more of those. Every year we kind of have a few at the end of the year that come off based on the DA's ruling of being self-defense. So we are actually at 98 versus 80 at this time last year. And again, the homicide rate per capita for 100,000 population. Just short speaks for itself, but generally, we kind of hover around 10 homicides per year, per 100,000 population. This year looks to be the finish of same. We did have some low numbers in early, or late 2000s that were down to about seven in one year. In particular was 2014 we had five per capita and that was a, that was a, I believe that was about 48 homicides that's that year. That was a really successful year when it comes to how many homicides that we had. So the next chart year-to-date property crime counts and property crime has been a challenge for the last couple of years and if you look I want to point out specifically even though the trend continues to go down I want to point specifically to 2023 when we that the spike there with 38,187, that was specifically run and driven by our Kia Hyundai thefts. And if you remember the issues that we had with the Kia Hyundai Challenge with teenagers that were stealing those vehicles and that wasn't just a trend in Charlotte, that was nationwide. We are now starting to see some of those efforts kind of quail that trends this year. So we're actually hoping to see a reduction in auto thefts this year. So even though that was a pretty big spike back in 2023 that we were looking at, we're wanting to try to get that back down to, if you want to call it normal levels But get it back down to where we're managing those Kia Hyundai thefts that we saw that was that spiked our property crime So next chart property crime per 100,000 and if you again that trend is something as you see the green line again is the population growth within our jurisdiction and Again, that trend is something, as you see, the green line, again, is the population growth within our jurisdiction. And we're seeing the steady decline in property crime per capita for our city. And then part one crimes. These are the crimes that we report to the FBI that are being reported out. That's across the country that every agency reports out. And again, we're looking at the trajectory of the Part One offenses. Some of your most serious crimes that is continuing to, even though you have your ebbs and flows, it still is continuing to go on a downward trend. And again, we'll look at the chart based on per capita, and that speaks for itself as well. So we talk a lot about, you know, what are we able to effectively measure within when we talk about crime? And we look at preventable versus non-preventable. measure within when we talk about crime. And we look at preventable versus non-preventable. And it's very difficult for us to sit and say, well, we prevented, you know, 15 homicides last year. We prevented a certain amount of crimes. That's one of those intangibles that we sit around and discuss all the time as our staff is that we really have the efforts to show what we do on a daily basis within Charlotte-Maconford Police Department. However, it's difficult to say the effect of that, but all we know is that when we look at recidivism rates of those particularly juveniles that we have within a lot of our services that we see success in those areas but to be able to measure those crimes that we prevented is very difficult. But one of our philosophies that's not anything new, we didn't come up with this but you look at the crime triangle, victim, opportunity, and offender and our goal is always to disrupt one of those elements in the crime triangle. And if you take away one of those, you don't have the criminal element that we have to deal with. So, some of the most challenging ones, as I mentioned earlier, homicides, domestic violence, and just impulsive acts of random or non-random crimes that are difficult, like a lot of our homicides that we've seen this year, and we try to track what they started those homicides. Arguments seem to be one of the number one issues that we are dealing with. So a simple argument turns into a homicide, and that's really difficult for us to be able to say how effective can we be in preventing homicides. So I will go back and just another thing we looked at that's not on the chart here is the number of crimes that we have with, that are as far as random crimes, particularly we talk about people that are minded in their own business that don't have any culpability or involvement in any of the crimes that we often can see that high risk lifestyles, for example, are contributing factor to being victimized in violent crime. We have very few numbers of people who are not involved in high risk lifestyles that are victimized in violent crime, but it does exist. But at the same time, we have to make sure that these don't escalate to the point to where it becomes a homicide or an assault with a deadly weapon or a shooting or even at the same time getting some innocent party involved in a dispute that two people might be having. So we have concerns there as well. And then our efforts, like I said, our efforts within our department, we continue. Every year I look at our numbers as far as the proactive work from our officers who are doing just a phenomenal job that it continues to go up. Just when I think that we've reached a peak of gun seizures, we've reached a peak of zone checks of arrest, things that our officers are doing on a daily basis. Every year they get the numbers continue to grow and get higher and higher. So that's just a testament to the men and women who go out there every single day, despite any distractions that they're going to be doing the work and they're keeping our community safe. So very proud of those efforts. Last thing I do want to mention is we will be doing the end of year public safety report that will come out the week of January as well. So hopefully we'll have all those numbers that will end up for the year of 2024. We'll have any homicide numbers and if we have any that come off and do the self defense that we'll have as accurate as we possibly can to be able to report out and make sure that we have finalized numbers for everyone to see so I Think I've finished with like one minute left Thank you. Thank you chief for doing this I I know that we don't have a lot of time, but I think this is time that would be well spent so why don't we actually think about this and see where we, what we might want to make possible when December the 9th comes up. And, see, if I guess one of the things that I think about is that we've been growing really so rapidly. Yes. And I don't know how to calculate your strategy or how, if our strategy needs to change as a result of population or where development occurs or what's going on. So could you at some point speak to the idea of what makes it possible for us to get this data, but also to make sure that people understand that this was something that we did not want to occur or should not have occurred. As far as population growth. Yeah, and you know, that's one of the things I've stood before, Council before, and I said I never want to make an excuse that the population's growing, so crime's going to grow with it. And we don't want to lean on that that so we really haven't pushed that data out probably as much as we should but I think it is good informational data for council to be aware of I think we're probably the fastest growing major city in the country and if we continue on that then we certainly resources for policing and public safety needs to increase with that as well. But at the same time that we are seeing success as that population grows but the trends continue to go down. It's very difficult to say on a year-to-year basis we're going to compare crime based on what happened last year. That's why we focus more on the five-year average. In the five-year average is continuing to, we are below our five-year average if we look at it in that sense. But you're correct. We do need to make sure that information is as the population grows, that we have some sort of comparison to what crime looks like based on per capita in the growth of our city. Okay. All right, Ms. Edgmera and we'll come down this way and go around. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Chief, first let me thank you for your leadership. I appreciate the study leadership that you have been providing. And I appreciate how you have been very outspoken and advocate for your team, especially with Pretty Child Integrity Act. So thank you for leading that effort and successfully in Raleigh. Thank you. So this data is great because it shows, it really shows how it's not a year over year comparison. We are looking at it more holistically over a long run. And that's great. But when I look at safety, it's more of a perception. And when I talk to someone, how do you feel safe in the city of Charlotte? If you and the perception about certain parts of our city is truly concerning. I've heard often from those who live in uptown or those who are going to restaurants or dining here in uptown, they'll say it hasn't gotten better. And that is certainly concerning to me. When we hear often about street car racing and that's not concentrated in one part, I know that's an issue in still Creek University area and other parts, but that is certainly concerning. We have seen shootings on occupied dwellings where children have been put at risk, that is concerning. So when we look at public safety, I think we have to look at this from perception perspective. And what we are doing to address some of this, some of this other crimes that I just mentioned. Yeah, you're 100% correct. We battle perception just as much as we battle the reality of what the objective numbers say. And there are things that we can, we're in an era today where news is immediate. As soon as something happens it's put out there and it's put out there in full force and people have more access to information than they ever have. I think that plays into perception as well. But we always say that if people perceive themselves not to be safe, then that's an issue for us that we have to be able to deal with and whether that's through presence or education or when we have these really good responses to different things that we've done for street racing for example, we want to put that information out there. You know, when we seize 50 cars because they took over a street, we want to make sure people know that that's the work that we're doing every single day. And we've had more success in that category than many major cities across the country because they've just not had the legal tools to be able to deal with it. But you know we are fortunate that you know we've been able to get legislation passed to help us in our efforts. And we're going to continue to do that and advocate to keep us safe. Not just through a police perspective, but I think everyone who has a piece of that pie to keep our community safe. Thank you, Chief Jennings. I certainly appreciate holding people accountable, especially if we have been able to do that successfully because of certain legislations. That's been passed. This is the first time where I'm not had data on repeat offenders, especially our youth. Have we seen an improvement since the Pre-Trial Integrity Act was implemented? I can tell you off the top of my head that, yes, I believe there's been significant improvement, not just in that, but also in some of the juvenile efforts that we've been putting forth. We will we usually put that data out at the end of the year briefing so all of that will be gathered and accumulated and and shared with our end of the year statistics. Yes so that is so not a December 9th but January 13th. January 13th. Yes. So I would be interested in seeing that as to what is the trend now and have we made a meaningful difference in that? Yes. Yes. We'll be able to put all that information together and you know, just so you know, I've had other cheese from across the state that are just, you know, just couldn't be more thankful for some of the legislation that's passed that's really helping them in their jobs too. So. That's great. And I certainly also appreciate how you all have been very proactive in cracking down on some of the arcade game facilities that have really been crime magnets in certain parts of our communities. So thank you. Thank you for your leadership on that. Thank you. All right, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And Chief, thank you as well for your leadership in the community and for your team. I get to speak to some of your team members from time to time at events and they're very appreciative of your leadership so I want to thank you for that. I have three points. One is we really need to lean into this public safety conversation, but I'm also clear I that it doesn't simply fall on the shoulders of CMPD. You have to have partners to help you. And we've done some innovative things like stand up our cares team and I know we're investing and expanding in that. But I was down in Tampa for National League of Cities and I set through a couple of sessions on public safety. And there are cities like Albuquerque, New Mexico is doing some really innovative things around their community safety model. That supports their police department, but it sits as a third plank, right, outside of police fire and emergency response. But I wonder if you, I'm not sure if you're aware of some of these community safety models around the country, these multidisciplinary echo models. But I wonder if we would benefit from a learning more about them and how they directly impact crime activity and outcomes. And then if we believe it's something that could work here in the Queen City. Are you familiar with any of these activities in cities like Albuquerque and Detroit? Yeah, I'm not thoroughly familiar with them, but yeah, I'm good friends with the chief in Albuquerque. And we talk regularly and we do share ideas and with as with a lot of other major city chiefs. But I can certainly ask him a little bit more about that and listen to what successes they've had as well. Yeah, that'd be great. It sounds like they've had a lot of success with their program. So that was the first point I wanted to make. The second one is just throughout my district, I have several neighborhoods that have troublesome convenience stores and marks that are really sort of a tea tree dish for a crime to begin. And I know many of my other colleagues have the same thing. I also wonder if there's an opportunity for us to have a laser approach to having a heat map of some of these troublesome convenience stores and markets and having a specific approach to trying to mitigate the crime that could potentially occur district by district throughout the city in that regard. Yes, I mean, I probably get one of those a week where there are complaints about whether it's a convenience store or a residence or something. But that's another factor that we look at that where we're fortunate doesn't all fall on the police. We can look at measures. you know how difficult it is. I think everyone in this room is dealt with nuisance abatement and how difficult that is. But we just have to continue to keep some of that pressure on and continue to be visible where we can. We were just talking about one this morning where for weeks, we put resources almost around the clock at a single convenience store. And, you know, that's just something we obviously can never sustain and continue to do. But we will, you know, we always try to use whatever resources we can to break some of that cycle and hopefully it goes away. But we can probably put together something that lists the top of convenience stores that we've had calls for service and I think that'd be some data that we certainly be interested in seeing. I'd like to see that data absolutely. We'll put that together. And then just lastly with the conversation around reality versus perception, right? And it's something that we deal with in the uptown community as well, and with people coming out and enjoying themselves. But we're in a state now where you're right. We have access to so much information and so much connectivity. And yet, there's so many of our residents who feel like they're isolated and alone. And that just feeds that fear and that perception as it relates to crime. But I think there's something that we could do being intentional around addressing perception through a messaging campaign, through community activities, et cetera. But I think we have to be intentional around addressing the perception in addition to continuing to do the good work that you're doing to actually mitigate the crime. But we have to address that perception issue. Yeah, certainly. And a good model for that is our work with Michael Smith and Senator City Partners, the groups that we've had over the last probably most of this year. And dealing exactly with what you're talking about, not just the perception of it, but also how are we going to make sure that these events that we've seen particularly with the young people don't continue to hinder people from enjoying our center city and having a place to work play and live. So we're going to continue those efforts as well. Absolutely, thank you. Those are my three points, Mayor. Mr. Grant. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Chief Chinese, I too want to applaud you on your leadership. I want to weld there. I think we have to write man at the right time, doing the right job. So I appreciate you and the ladies and gentlemen I'd see to my far right. But I want to be a little bit critical here and be very direct to you and to the council and to the community. And as a policymaker, I clearly understand and respect that the data and the research and that you displayed earlier. I can go in any corporate board room or any community meeting and talk about data. Because folks just won't get it, right? It's a feeling, I think you heard that before. And if I even told you this before, wherever you don't feel safe, you're not safe. And there's too many people throughout this community that does not feel safe. And I think it's not just a perception, I'm thinking some cases, it may be their reality, especially if you live along the Bayesville World Quarter, if you die in an uptown Charlotte, and someone randomly gets shot and killed. We take three steps forward and two steps backwards. And so I just hope that when we have this conversation that we certainly have a policy conversation, the data and the, it's really, really important for the policy makers. That's the kind of thing about how do we move forward. But we just need to really have a real conversation on a wide variety of issues. The issue of nuisance and basement needs to be a real issue. And we need to find some correlation between your department and the City Attorney's Office in terms of identifying these hot spots. If it takes two, three, four years, the clock needs to start running on number of these facilities throughout the city. ABC enforcement needs to be a very heavy presence throughout the city of Shao. There may be some stores that are in compliance. There may be others that are not. I think we need to crack down for the lack of a better word and making sure we're the fortified bear licking wine on being sold. All of these vape shops really selling the generic marijuana are they doing something illegal in these shops. We need to figure that out. You probably heard about the meeting I had two weeks ago on Bayes Fort Road. We had about 20 stakeholders. There were it's not mine. No tolerance. No tolerance in terms of some of the behavior that I've witnessed myself, open-air drug sales along the Betty's Fort Road Quarter. We made some major investments from the city's perspective, quarters of opportunity. Private developers have done the same for third, Chase Bank, TD Banks. They're getting these establishment rockstone through the window of what you know. You heard the report. We had our conversation and it's this health issues and mental health that we need to really have a real conversation with Mecklenburg County and our health department about because those are the core components of some of the crime. The homelessness and I think we dropped the ball because we hadn't even went for it with the home fall thing, right? We've spent years literally going back to tent city putting a City-wise dig holders group in place coming up with policy recommendations and we've kind of sat on that for whatever reasons. I think we need to really have a sense of urgency about these issues, lastly, but not least, we just talked about a legislative agenda. We need more resources from Raleigh for the judicial system. And so that should be our top priority, more so than mobility. Right, because no one wants to get it right, that should be it, right? And we need to use our corporate support, the same strategy that we're utilizing for mobility to get to our legislators and Raleigh who are on the opposite side of the aisle to understand that the largest city in the Carolinas is woefully undefended when it comes to judicial support. And if we don't talk real about these issues, the stats are one thing, I get it, I understand it, I'm a policy maker, I will interpret it to make decisions, but we need to have some real conversations about crime and all those elements I talked about can be posed in a serious questions along the way, right? So I appreciate the four or five meetings we're going to have moving forward, but we're just going to have presentations and you know then there will be another shooting at some point in time in Uptown, Charlotte. There'll be more trouble coming all the base for it, because we don't have to afford it to go and Catherine Simmons and forcefully nuisance of bait the owner who loves somewhere else. We don't have the fortitude to make hard decision as we grow, then we just got four more meetings. Thank you. I don't disagree with most of what you said. 90%, but I will take, there are certain limits. Nusense abatement, there are certain limits that, like Newson's abatement, you know, there are laws behind that. You can't just say we're going to shut you down. So, and it's difficult. And a lot of what you said, and I hope rest of Council's heard that is not simply falling on police. We partner with anybody, and we have and we will and we'll continue to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to do that. with the DA's office. I mean, we've had this conversation before. Absolutely. So I know you guys have solved it from a institutional perspective, from a policy perspective. The policy makers were fragmented from my perspective. Right? And it doesn't seem to be a cohesive approach of working to get the type of legislation we need, all our rally, to do things that we have to do. And getting more court support, working with our agencies like Atrium and O'vall and others around the issues of mental health. Now they're doing some things, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't seem to be a cohesive fit with other community partners where the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. And there's some coordination beyond what we're trying to do. So. And I'll always continue to fight for this return, he spends a mere whether he's, I don't know how he can, with the resources they provide him, he's doing the best he can. Well, that's the rub, right? And so I get it, but there's more that we can do, and it's just other than, you heard from the mayor pro-tem as well as Councilman Benjamin-Mere. There's a perception problem that we're fighting each and every day, notwithstanding the data. And that perception sometimes, again, people's reality because they're living an experience that each and every day out throughout the city. Thank you. Mr. Drake. Thank you Madam Mayor. Chief, you know I appreciate you and your officers and I hope they understand I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm in support. I wanted to mention, I don't know if you know that Kelly Weeks, the widow of the Marshall who was killed on April 29th, spoke at rotary last week. Yes. And she's spoken very moving terms about how CMPD officers rushed to the scene and into harm's way, recommended. You can find it on their website. Yes. I would say as far as the feeling of safety is concerned, I live in New York during a very bad time in the city. It was famous for having a high crime rate. If you lived there, you kind of knew that if you went to certain places at certain times, you weren't worried. You could ride the subways, you could travel, but you did not go into Central Park. You didn't ride this subway at night. So as long as you played by those rules, you were safe. What I'm hearing about uptown Charlotte is people don't feel that way. And I've heard that they don't see a police presence and they are exposed to either behaviors or to attacks on their person, verbal, or whatever, but they don't feel that there is a kind of a safe presence there at a Time in a place where they really should be so I just use that parallel You can't be everywhere all the time But if you can't be uptown in the evening and restaurants are closing early It's a bad situation and I've had a number of business owners tell me about that One other thing I wanted to mention was I had two calls in the last couple of months from people who had been in car accidents and had called CMPD and waited for an hour or more and no one came. So I'm curious to know what the latest is in terms of response times or whether we're having to prioritize in such a way that basically nobody goes. One of them, by the way, was a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives. So that's not a good look for us. I just offer that to you. And I don't really have any questions. I appreciate the work you do and want to bring that to your attention. Thank you. Yeah, one thing I will tell you are civilian crash investigators. They do roll out next week, I think. They're finishing up their training, but that's 15 investigators that will do nothing, but property damage vehicle accidents. So hopefully that'll help some of that response time. But yeah, if they left after an hour, they probably did respond, but an hour for a traffic accident, that's unfortunately that's kind of where we are now. So is that a manpower shortage? Or are we just not, I'd not recognizing traffic accidents? Well, I mean, people want to see the police for the report and so on. Certainly. The insurance, I realize it's not a safety issue at that point. But are we just not promising anybody that they can expect to see a CMP officer at the scene of an accident when there's no injury? No, no, we'll respond to accidents. Now what I will tell you is you ask if it's a manpower shortage. I think it's more of a call volume issue that we continue to increase our call volume. And as we continue to up our staffing and fill some of these vacancies and get the trainees out and to where their radio response officers then we'll probably hopefully see better response times on that. But at the same time I look at our dashboard on a regular basis and there are literally times when every single officer in patrol is assigned to a call and they have to get off of that call to go and if they get off of that call and there's another higher priority call that's higher than an accident then that will push that accident call back a little bit. So yeah it's certainly an issue I'm not going to hide behind that and say that we're responding well to those, but at the same time, our officers are prioritizing those calls and getting out there as soon as they can. We have talked about response times before. It might be helpful to get an update on what the data will collect. Thank you. Mr. Bacari. Yeah, I just say that particularly Mr. Graham's comments, I wholeheartedly support that approach. I think that is the way he articulated prioritization amongst other things for this topic about getting other resources at the table. I think that's an absolute no-brainer, something we should get behind. I'll also say I'll applaud you, Mr. Manager, for putting this series in front of us. We've talked about it for a long time. I kind of get one-way presentations a lot of times. And the way you've articulated to me is this is our opportunity to kind of help shape what the next meeting and then the next meeting look like based on what we want to see. So I think we have the right foundation to move forward. I would just, I would tweak what I heard from Mr. Graham just slightly. In the exploration for these next couple sessions, where I don't necessarily know. The data is the data and we jump over it and we just move on to perception and policy. Any of us who work in data know there's a thousand ways we can slice and dice and present things. And sometimes it's presented to us in rose colored glasses. Sometimes it's presented in a way that sheds the best light on it. And what I think we need to do is like you've suggested offline, is we work offline to request what specifically we want to see. How we want to see breakdowns in property crimes, violent crimes, repeat offenders, juvenile crime. How we can see the internal views of morale, recruitment and retention without any kind of skewing it one way or another, and it may take a couple iterations to get there. But I think my belief is if we can get to the real crux of the data, there may be a scenario where it isn't just perception is different than data, and somehow we've got a correct perception. I think that we might have to face some hard truths once we get that and be willing to go to the community and say, see here it is, this aligns more of what you're feeling in this specific angle. But we can't be unwilling to go down that path because it puts a bad light on where we're going. So I just think that's such a critical part of the exercise for so long across all topics. We kind of present things in its best absolute light. But I think those of us especially district reps who are out there fielding calls and solving issues and talking to neighbors and those who are talking to people in the department. I mean, there's some point where you got to scratch your head and say anecdotally, how come this is so different than what the way it's presented to me every time. So I applaud you for doing this and I'll work with you offline as I encourage everyone to really not jump over the data part and ask some questions. Ms. Watlington. Thank you. I've got a few questions that are database that I think will drive some of the program evaluation work. So I can share this with you offline, but I agree with much of what some said. I will say though that a lot of it is not new, right? This is the same conversation we've been having for some time. And I would challenge us to really think about how do we approach this outside of a government lens? Because for me, you can't legislate people's hearts, right? And we've got a cultural issue across the nation, period. When we think about what we consume on a daily basis, what are youth in particular, who we know show up disproportionately as offenders, we know that there is something markedly different about what we see in and out of everyday whether it's social media, whether it's through music, whether it's through movies, et cetera, et cetera. So we've got to think about how do we impact the economics of media? How do we think about partnering with these media corporations and with our federal government entities to think about how we incentivize or how we deter certain behaviors when it comes to what we're broadcasting over the airways? That's a small piece of it but again much of it has already been discussed but I think ultimately we're going to be chasing our tails if we think that we're going to solve what's going on inside of people's hearts and homes from this diet. I just I think we're missing a fundamental human centered approach to that. Yes, we have partnerships with nonprofits and with our faith-based community. But there is something much deeper going on in our world today. And we've got to be cognizant of that if we actually want to make some headway. Thank you. All right. Ms. Brown? Yes, thank you so much Madam Mayor. And Chief, thank you so much for your hard work. I've watched the 11 months that I've been in office and to you wonderful folks. I mean, thank you everything that you do every day. I could not be a police officer. I can't be anyway because of my history, but I would have no desire. Not because I don't like what you do and how you do it, but the world that we live in, I have to piggyback off of Dr. Walatine and where I come from and family members that I see every day that choose to make the wrong decision, even after I share my life story, after they know they fell off the family tree, all of that is cultural for me and is deep for me. When I think about my district, West Boulevard, four corners, they've been working on it forever. I'll even get out the car because I know some of those folks This is real life stuff. Why are you standing on the corner? What can we do to make it better for you? You've been standing on the corner for years They're gunshots there memorials that are on each corner at the store Somebody was murdered. I know these people. I grew up with them. I grew up with their parents or their family members When you talk about district 3, you say woodline disaster, woodline road, nation 4 road, I'm talking about some of the areas you and your staff have to deal with. Wilkinson Boulevard, Ashley Road, of course the four points on West Boulevard. Talk to those folks all the time, every time I go to the store, I walk to the store. Yes, the nuisance and abatement order, I get it. But I also would like to see, and this is for us. Like Dr. Lois said, we are simply not going to be able to solve what's in the person heart, what their will is to do. I know that the call volume has went up. I was in Still Creek, there was an accident, and I was, I just stopped because that's just who I am and maybe it was unsafe. It was a young person. They have been driving under the influence about three weeks ago and they ran off the embankment and it took the offices a while to get there. But when I was talking with them on the phone. Now I'm on one place mail home. That's not the amputee. I was placed on home. I'm telling you, I made the call. And we were standing there with some other civilians. They stopped residents in Stil Creek on the corner of the mall, the premium outlet. The young men had been drinking. So once your officers got that they did what they did, but we were put in a category where we were rated on the seriousness of what was going on. I know this because I was out there. Yes. And so I kid it. Your man was talking. He was alert. They asked me all these questions. So maybe somebody on the other side of the town was maybe in a bad accent where they're about to die. So then we do have to allocate the priority of the call and where it needs to go. I would like to see this is me. I don't think you need to deal with the animal shelter. I don't know what that looks like or how we get you after my mother that you guys have so much to deal with. In the 11 months that I've been sitting here, the seriousness of woodline, West Boulevard, nation-fort road, all these areas that are mine that I grew up in, the airport. You don't have time to create a traffic stop. I know that every single night on the weekend, Friday, Saturday, not Sunday. From longhorn on 160, those young folks they line up. They were so concerned about people being unhoused on the corner where premium outlet is, where people could see them so what. The likelihood of a unsheltered person killing me versus somebody coming out of the lawn horn speeding at 200 miles an hour in those muscle cars. It could be your family, my family, or any of our families sitting at this day is. So why I do care about unhoused population that was a priority put there and that area has been cleaned up. Yet those young folks still doing donuts on 160 where they can ultimately kill any of us because if you get hit that impact there's no way we're going to walk away. And if we do is be something greater than God's grace. Partner partnership. Very important. Faith-based organization. For me, I know in some areas, because I travel to rural, dealing with justice, impacted individuals that have backgrounds like me that have been through this stuff. When you put people in front of them that look like them that have been through what they have been through and you reimagine what a community can look like, that is what continues to happen. We reimagine what a community can look like. And some of these things, CMPD, wouldn't have to deal with. Cause to me, West Boulevard is just as important as our city center partners. I love them. I understand the economic driver, maybe downtown Charlotte. And I don't know corner West Boulevard, but it could be if we invest the proper way. It's a corridor of opportunity. And so once again, you guys can't do everything. And I don't need to pick for you to do everything. You work very hard long hours. The perception over reality is just that some folks feel like they're down on their luck and they're going to continue to do the same thing because they feel like I have a background. If I go out, I got to check the box. And if I'm checking the box, I'm only going to be able to get 750 to $12 an hour. That's not going to take care of anybody's family. I'm an exception to the rule. That exception don't have to often. It just doesn't. That's the real world where I come from. And so when we put it in front of what can we do? And how can we do it better? organized and mobilized and let our nonprofit organizations come in step up. And again, I'm an animal shelter. I don't think you should have to deal with the full, beautiful, creature animals that are running around here. You have two legate creatures that you gotta deal with every single day. And some of them are definitely more violent than animals. So while I've listened to all of my colleagues and say what perception is, for me, yes, I have some concerns. I have some challenges about where do I feel safe at? But no city diverts preferential treatment versus the other. So I think on a blanket statement, if we could all come together and see, we need to allocate our funding equally across the city and that's not going to happen. It hasn't happened for so long. That's why the four points at West Boulevard look the way they look and continue to look the way they look. I know there's some work being put in there, but it needs to be a little bit more work. West Boulevard wood line to get all the emails, all the phone calls. Nation for war, Wilkinson, these areas that I'm really concerned about and I know some of these folks because I've lived the lifestyle that they live. So again, I commend you. Yeah, that's more to do. There's always more to do. But CMPD just simply cannot do it by themselves. And I know because I call 911 and I was placed on hold. When your offices got there, it was two of them. They took over. They did what they do. But at the end of the day, we have really got to dig deeper. And it may not even come like Dr. Walgitson said from this day. So I commend you on the work that you're doing. There's always more that we can do. And I also want to put the same emphasis we put on those stores. Yes, we can speak to the owners. But I also would like to see us put emphasis on the rim on these hotel owners that are displacing people. People that don't have anywhere to stay, don't have anywhere to go. By the time we get it, it's past us. You know, I can take for instance, the lamp lighter. I want to be able to do today, it is a disaster. If I had the pick and choose, I'll choose to support the lamp lighter over those stores, people buying vape and those things like that, because I watch children get off the school bus today and come into the lamplighter that is their home No matter how much it make us cringe That's where they live and that's what they call home. I yield to my colleagues All right, Miss Johnson Thank you Madam Mayor and thank you councilwoman Brown for your passion. Thank you And thank you chief for the work that you do. I can see the pride in your eyes when you talk about your officers. So thank you guys, awesome. Thank you. I had the pleasure of seeing some officers at the University Safety Summit on November 7th. So they do a great job, so I appreciate it. I have a question. Councilwoman Brown talked about 9-1-1 being placed on hold. I can remember meeting with the city manager maybe in 2020 talking about 9-1-1 being placed on hold when there was a call and I also called 9-1-1 recently for something in the road or something and I hung up because by the time they would have answered I was past it and it just was kind of pointless. But they call it back like 10 minutes later. So there's still that issue. So is that a staffing issue and is there anything, any priority? Is there anything we can do as a council to improve that statistic? Yeah. And one, council did approve additional 9-1-1 operators or communication operators last year, I believe it was. So those positions were filled. But however, attrition, when it comes to telecommunications is pretty high. So we're constantly hiring and constantly losing people and filling those positions back. We are looking at other, we have looked at other things to try and assist such as part time, 9-1-1, answering people just answering 9-1-1 and not dispatching. And some of that has come into play as well, but we still have a lot of work to do. I'm not gonna, we did something with the 911 system to where there's an automatic answer, there's an answer to it. And I don't know if that's where we're saying we're being put on hold, but where you, where it's entered by an automated system that will also, if you are on, if you don't get picked up within a certain amount of time, it goes from the police telecommunications over to fire communications. And then if it doesn't get picked up in a certain amount of time, it then rolls over to medic communication. So obviously the police have most of the communicators in the office working but we try to make sure that instead of just if the police don't tell the communicators don't answer then it rolls directly over and it tells people not to hang up that it's going over to another system. So we have some work to do there. I know that that is difficult, but a lot of times when we have peak moments in non-1-1 calls, you might have a traffic accident on the interstate and you might get 50 calls that come in and that backs up the system as well. So I've been looking at some things also, can we use technology to help get these calls answered and dispatch, for example, I'm not saying we're doing this. So I'm just, don't go saying we're doing it. But like AI, for example, can we get AI to answer it and dispatch? That technology is out there and available, but particularly for calls where somebody just needs an officer out there and we can avoid having to have a real person take that specific call. But I think there are some options to look at. It's difficult to solve. Again, we get over a million calls in the dispatch center every year. And, you know, that's a challenge. Always going to be a challenge. Okay. And I can, we can talk offline because I know we have constituents waiting downstairs. So thank you for the work that you do. Thank you. All right. Miss Melana. Thank you, Madam Mayor and you know, recognizing the time, I guess how echo and not really a lot has been said. So I don't want to, you know, repeat anything. First, thank you, Chief, for your service to our community, for your commitment. I think earlier this year, our city, for, after a long period of time we humanized our officers again because of a desperate tragedy that we had to look at you know our public servants for public safety through a new lens and for the first time through something so tragic, I saw people, you know, different ideological placing, you know, start to look at, like I said, our public servants from a human perspective. And so I feel like, you know, that put, that put a new light on some of these conversations that we're having, right? Some people now realize some of the dangers that the public servants put themselves in, what ways they put themselves in in order to keep us safe. I want to ask you a few questions. How many precincts do you have, Chief? There are 13 divisions within Charlotte, Mecklenburg, Police police department so those each have a captain right yes okay and are you aware of the division among like the districts like I know for for example for me I see one of my captains who I who I I know and correspond with and it's just a rock star sitting back there. Three for my district, right, that I get to correspond with and go do ride along with. Are we aware of like which ones correspond with which district? I'm not sure what you're asking. So like we have seven districts. So what you hear in essence from us, right? I know that we have to commit to overall policy, but what you hear in each one of our passions is the people who contact us, right? What's there? Perception with the information. For an example, I have an ongoing conversation with actually one of the captains that are here for something that is specific to the district that may or may not involve my colleagues, but it may impact how we look at overall one, the captains should know who their council member is in their, that's overseeing their districts. And I think that council members should know who their captains are and have that dialogue that you're talking about, because at the end of the day, if you send me something, I'm getting in touch with the captain and asking for a response. So, you can cut out the middle man. I'm usually the middle man in that, but you can cut me out. But I encourage that and it saves a lot of time. And if you have those relationships, it can also get you some of the attention that you want that we can help prioritize things that are prioritized on your agenda too. So. Yeah. things that are prioritized on your agenda too. Yeah, and so like I said, what you're hearing specifically, like I can't speak to the passion of West Charlotte, right? Because I'm not there on a day-to-day basis. I'm not interacting with the community members, but those are things that are gonna impact how that particular representative brings forth that policy for East Charlotte. Mayor Pro Tem and I, we share an area of emphasis that we've been hearing a lot from lately, the Milton Road Plaza Eastway area. And we have ongoing conversations about that and I'm really hoping that with the help of our staff and our very capable captains and even our major who are sitting over there, I mean, that we can continue to ideate around what's possible for that particular area. But I guess I'll end with this, some of the data, right, that governs some of our decision making. It's going to be important for us to have it. I can say in abstract that I feel something for E Charlotte, right? Or that people are bringing to my attention something in, you know, specifically for each Charlotte, but that data from an overall perspective, it'll help us disseminate that information, but it doesn't say that we're not making strides. It doesn't say that I don't believe that we're making strides. It's just, I believe from a public safety perspective, there's always going to be things to do, right? I don't feel like that there is a zero sum game and that at some point will never have crime, will never have issues, but I look forward to continuing to work with you. I am proud of the E Charlotte leaders that I get to interact with, and that's all I get to say. Thank you. Chief, thank you. And I wanna say thank you to the council. I know that this was something that we said we ought to get to the audience. And we often do that. But I think this was one of the most valuable discussions because we have four different opportunities to have this. And this I think leads us into a great foundation. You've heard what people want and see and communicate to the leaders here. And thank you all for being here. I haven't seen you since this morning. But I guess they let you go home at night sometime. But I want to say, Chief, we're proud of our officers. We're proud of the work that you do. And I think that what this council has said is that we, as a council care deeply about the city and what we can do to support you. So thank you. Now we will go downstairs and we will have a council meeting but I would just say that if we had meetings like this that were as I think open and heartfelt, we'd be in a lot better position on a number of our policy issues. So let's figure out how to make this work for all of us. Let's go downstairs and have some speakers. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Yeah, thank you. music I'm going to play a song for you. I'm going to play a song for you. I'm going to play a song for you. 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I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to have to go. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I hope that you met someone new in the audience that you set by and learned something new about our community. We had a very long discussion with our police chief and I think it was one that was great value to us and so if you will forgive us for trying to create that ability for us all to begin to think about how our city can become more safe. I really would I really want to say thank you for doing this. So I'm not going to call the Charlotte City Council business meeting to order and we'll go ahead and start with our introductions. We'll start with our city clerk. Stephanie Kelly, city clerk. Good evening, Marjorie Molina district five. Good evening, Renee Johnson and I'm honored to represent district four. Marcus Jones, City Manager. By-laws, Mayor, Dante Anderson, Mayor, Pro-Tem District 1. Welcome, Graham, District 2. And Driggs, District 7. Carpecard is 6. All right. We're going to join in step you to the City Attorney. Thank you. We begin our meeting with a thoughtful moment. And today we've asked our Mayor, Tem, Dante Anderson, to give us a way to lead tonight, tonight, beginning. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I was thinking about this week being such a special week for family members to come together and to celebrate connectivity with your loved ones and your friends. And all the good time that we spend together during the Thanksgiving week. And so this evening, I'd like to share a Thanksgiving Day prayer of gratitude that was initially shared to the world by President John F. Kennedy. Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings. Let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world. On that day, let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God, and let us earnestly and humbly pray that God will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished task of achieving peace, justice, understanding among all men and nations, and of ending misery and suffering wherever it exists. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now please, John, if you would like to for our play of allegiance. I play allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, individual with liberty and justice for all. Before we move into our business meeting agenda items, I want to take a moment to read into the official record the result of our recent annual evaluations for positions of the Charlotte City Clerk and Charlotte City Manager. For the City Clerk, we will include a 2% base salary increase and for the City Manager, we will include a 5% base manager salary increase. Both of these payments are effective July 1, 2024. I want to say thank you to all the people that work in our community to make it better, and especially those that have to work in times like this, at night time in the way that we have to deal with these meetings and their guidance for us as we continue to build a great city of Charlotte. So with that, we'll now go ahead and recognize, I want to recognize Councilwoman Victoria Watlington to recognize the celebration that we're going to have. I think one that we're all interested in. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Whereas the month of November welcomes in both the time of Thanksgiving and the season for sharing our resources and our freedoms to worship, work and live as independently as possible. And whereas some members of our community cannot find adequate employment or are placed to live for a variety of reasons, both simple and complex. And whereas there are efforts to bring homeless children and adults out of the shadows of our abundance to address the diverse needs among them as well as to correct systemic conditions that have led to their poverty and homelessness and whereas our current economic challenges call for greater awareness and guidance to address needs among all of our neighbors and whereas the homeless services network of Charlotte Mecklenburg, its member organizations and its public partners in the city of of Charlotte Mecklenburg, its member organizations and its public partners in the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County desired to dispel myths and overcome stereotypes of homelessness and to provide opportunities for all of our citizens to learn more about the plight, the hope, and the achievements of homeless neighbors of our community and to welcome them. We commit to work together to overcome systemic causes of homelessness. Now therefore, by Alexander Liles, Mayor of Charlotte and George Dunlap, Chair of the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners, do hereby proclaim the month of November 2024 as homeless awareness month. In Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, it urged all of our citizens to honor this observance. I'd like to recognize Harper Ellis, Vice Chair of the Homeless Services Network of Charlotte Mecklenburg County and urge all of our citizens to honor this observance. I'd like to recognize Harper Ellis, Vice Chair of the Homeless Services Network of Charlotte Mecklenburg, and Randall Hitt of Root and Above to accept this proclamation. Thank you very much for the work that you do. We are going to have a public forum where we have people call the city clerk because they want to petition something from the city council. I want to recognize that when we are doing this and we're having this work done, that we actually want to ask people to be what I would call, or my mom would say, man-erable. We do not want disruptions and we do not want people to be against or speak against each other because what you're doing is speaking to us as a council. So I think that we would I'd like to say if the speakers has disruptions, then we will ask you to stop. And if it goes and continues, we will ask you to leave the meeting chamber. I will not be asking you that young man with the blue uniform over there and the stripe, great stripes will help us if we have any need for that. So thank you very much for that. If we can all do this work together. We also have a policy where we have 15 speakers and I believe today we are up to 15. So I'm going to begin with our first speaker and then the second person we have two podiums so please come down with two podiums. The first one is Manish, the mommy. And the second speaker is Tawana Brooks. Tawana Brooks. Each speaker gets. And each speaker gets two minutes. I'm sorry, I should have said that. So as you're thinking about what you're going to say, two minutes. Okay? Go behind you. Go to the podium and the microphone so that everybody can hear it and know we record it in the city's minutes. Be here. Be a accommodation. She's minutes. Mayor. Mayor accommodations. She's coming. She's coming over. People that may need the accommodations. What do you mean? The accommodations. Yes. If you need an accommodation or need any special help to come to the mic, we have one upstairs and we have one downstairs. Just so thank you for Ms. Brown for reminding me of that. All right, so Mr. Damani, is that correct? Male. Thank you. You have two minutes. Madam Mayor, council members, I appreciate you allowing me to come talk with you tonight. I'm going to be getting some handouts. So basically this is about a water main break that occurred on August 28th at my neighbor's yard at 2 o'clock in the morning. Basically I had moved into my house six months prior and hundreds of gallons of water poured out of this water main break, a couple of feet from the curb, leaving a 12 foot wide hole and about 10 foot deep and all that water flooded from my neighbor's yard into his house towards his garage and he has an elevated garage that then poured down into the side of my yard. Created four foot trenches in the side of the yard, all that water then flooded to my backyard. I just put a brand new pull in and the pebble Tech that had been applied the day before has to cure for several weeks with clean water. No water had been applied just as of yet, but my neighbor texted me at four o'clock in the morning and I found over 36,000 gallons of dirt debris letting the entire pool, the patio area, and basically destroyed everything. So later on that morning at at 7 in the morning, the pool company who had just come by to inspect and see what was going on had to pull everything out, reapply, pebble tech, clean the entire patio area, and basically had to truck water in because the entire street had to have its water shut down. Between that, the damage to the landscaping, the water also flooded the street in front of my house, created a massive sinkhole that then had to get repaired by the city. If you had up all the costs all in general, it was $22,331 and $24. I talked with the city as well, It was $22,331 and $24 cents. I talked with the city as well and they basically said through many emails that this was basically a natural disaster and they're not willing to cover anything. Thank you very much. My understanding is that we are aware of this and that there is a review of it and that we would have what we're trying to do is determine what we legally would have to do to make this work. So I expect you will be hearing more from the city as we go ahead and thank you so much for sharing that information. Appreciate it. Thank you. I did it right before the summer rides. Thank sharing that information. Appreciate it. Thank you. I get it ready before the summer, right? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. Miss Brooks. Good afternoon. Good evening. I'm sorry. I live in a town in a catalyst apartment right across from Baird and Park. There has been a lot of crime in that area as you all know. This summer there was a fight in July there was also a shooting right in front of the 7-11 on 9-25 and then on 11-2 someone was actually killed right outside of the park so we were told that you know there would be more police presence since that all of that has happened the police presence has been sporadic at best. We haven't seen very much difference since all of these events have happened. We need better lighting in the park. We need to make sure that the police are consistently patrolling that area, especially after the park closes. There's a lot of luttering in the park, especially after midnight when the park is closed. There's a lot of luttering in the park, especially after midnight when the park is closed. There's a lot of homelessness where people are actually sleeping in the park. And I believe in the information center building that is right in the park as well. And I just wanted to ask the council, what changes, are you guys, I heard you say that you guys were talking to the police chief tonight about the crime and I wanted to know what changes that you have of that area going forward. Well thank you miss broke. We have had several comments and requests for the issues that you've described very adequately, more than adequately, in terms of how the park has become something that has been more considered more negative, especially for the many residents in the catalyst and across the street and all of that. We are very much aware of it and I don't have an answer for you directly but we will have someone work with you for communication of what we are going to do. And as I say, we are quite aware of the issues that the park is supposed to be in a wonderful place, but it has not proven itself to do that and or be that in the last several months. So thank you very much for telling us about it. And we are continuing to work on it. Thank you. I just want more comment I wanted to make. If at all possible with new years coming up, I know you guys probably have a plan in place, but what I've noticed is, especially on the weekends Thursday through Sunday, there's really not any police presence. There are people that are drag racing up and down, church street, late at night. I myself, when the shooting happened, we called 911. It took an hour for someone to even reach back out to speak with us about what had happened. So I just asked the council, I actually beg you to please just really take that into consideration as for our safety, the people who live uptown because we love living uptown but we just wanted to be safe. Thank you very much. I'm going to ask Mr. Heath to get the additional information from you, Ms. Brooks, so that we can follow up. So if you would meet with him right over there, we appreciate you coming down and expressing this for us. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jay Walker and Vera Faulkner. Mr. Walker and this Faulkner. Can you go in here? So everything is going to be fine. It's called a day. It's going to be fine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I see four people that are coming down. So we'll start out with Mr. Walker and Ms. Faulkner. Followed by Ms. Murphy, Kate Murphy. We'll be next and then Martha Vanessa. Is that our next? Is that make the fourth? Thank you. All right. Why don't we go ahead and begin with Mr. Walker? Yes, hello. Now to members. Happy holidays. Actually, it's not happy holidays for me. I'm here with the supporters, the immigration situation and Charlotte, Grove Park area. And I'm not happy here because to holidays, because my wife is not here, Yvonne Walker. Because she just can't take, she can't take this racist, Richard Uri. It's a racist person, difficult to street. In District Council Five, I was told not to call the person's name, in the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States, the United States, and the United States more. This situation, the police and the community is enabling this white racist supremacist across the street from me, right across the street. And there's been two newspaper articles about it. And still, we're not getting any help. We moved here over 10 years ago from New York, and we moved here. We've retired. We're over 70 seniors. This is our dream home, supposed to be, and we moved into a growth park area. In New York, I lived in mostly black neighborhoods. This is my first time living in a mixed neighborhood. Even though he says this is still a white neighborhood, I'll be going to run you if I can curse here. But Niggins is not a curse word. Yeah. But Niggins is a curse word? No. Okay, well, he says, we want to lend you. You're two minutes or up though. I understand that. We'll go to Ms. Balkner next. And they see, there's Walker Z. Yes. No. No, you can't because we have rules and I know that it's difficult sometimes when you're I can we will not I'm just explaining that we have rules and we follow those rules and if we begin to think about it differently. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. The one that we become something. Let him see. Let him see. Let him see. Let him see. Let him see. We haven't started the time with Ms. Falkner, so we will begin with you, Ms. Falkner. Hello. I'm a previous neighbor in Grove Park and towards the beginning of. Inferiging on privacy, verbal harassment, dishonesty, creating an environment of fear, constant surveillance, repeatedly calling 911 while the walkers are existing on their own property, the list is endless. These acts of racism have been well known for a long time. Not only are police involved and aware, but communities and council members too. Numerous newspapers have reported on it, calls actions have been made, and potlux and rallies have been held yet. Nothing has changed. Instead, Jay is told to lay low while Yuri continues his harassment unchecked. This has been happening for years now, and even longer before Jay. No one has told Yuri to take down the signs or held them accountable. Since 2020, Mr. Yuri has called the police on the Walker 66 times. From a February 16th call, Queen City nerve obtained from 901 conversations in which Yuri tells the dispatcher, I'm a cancer survivor, I'm weak, and if I have to shoot him, I'm going to do it. You need to get somebody out here quickly because I'm going to. When asked if he had a firearm, Yuri replied, yes, ma'am, and I will use it. He has threatened me, he has assaulted me. I'm tired of it. It's in my waistband. This man is a clear threat to the walkers and anyone around him. Who knew defending yourself to Mr. Yuri would mean a call to the police? He doesn't stop at this. He takes hundreds of pictures daily, not only of the walkers, but anyone who passes, including women and children. There's absolutely no reason for this disgusting behavior. This is not a harmless neighborhood dispute. Mr. Yuri's criminal record speaks for itself. Assault on a female, assault with a deadly weapon, driving well in parrots, reckless driving to endanger, shooting in city limits and simple assault, dating all the way back to 1987. How is he still not being questioned? Why has it taken all of this just to get someone to possibly listen? There should be no excuse for this racist. When members of this community haven been facing it for years, where are the people called to protect? Where is the action and why is this being treated like it's nothing? And the QC nerve article, Mr. Walker says, it's almost like if your neighbor's house is on fire and you just ignore it. How could you do that? I couldn't do that. I'm not saying to run into a burning building, but you do something. Thank you very much for your comments. Our next speakers are Kate Murphy and Mark Little. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Reverend Murphy. I'm the pastor of the Grove Respiratory in Church and the Grove Park neighborhood. And I want to continue to speak about the harassment that the Walker family has been enduring for more than five years. Truly, the values of a community are not in what it says, but in what it tolerates. And the walkers have been living in hell for five years, and everyone has just been tolerating it. The police and the criminal justice system have been weaponized against them, and leaders shrug their shoulders and say, there's nothing we can do. You'll just have to endure it until you can't anymore. Charlotte brands itself on being a city of the new South. But right now what's happening to the walkers feels a lot like the old South. Dr. Jamar Tisbe says sometimes justice requires taking aside. We as a community need leaders who will take aside and go to Mr. Yury and say this kind of behavior is unacceptable in Charlotte, North Carolina in the year 2024. And the fact that that conversation isn't happening is speaking volumes, not just to Mr. Yury, but others like him in the community who are learning that they can harass and weaponize the police against their black neighbors and no one will do anything. We need your help to get involved and to stand with the walkers and let Mr. Yurrie know that he cannot harass him in this way and go without experiencing any consequences. Mr. Walker is telling me that he thinks about Medgar Evans getting shot on his way home every night that he looks in the bushes and wonders who's gonna be waiting for him with a gun there. How is this gonna end? He needs to be able to live in peace in his house without fearing for his life, feeling like he can't even sit on his front yard. Please intervene. Let Mr. Yuri know that this behavior is unacceptable. And Mr. Walker has a right to live here in peace. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right, so Vanessa. Don't sit up there and clap where you have the power to be. This is something against it. Woo! There you go. You don't tell me what to do. I'm a clap if I want to. I agree with our. Let's go ahead. We're ready for you Miss Vanessa. Other situations have escalated. Last month in Minneapolis, Mr. Davis Maturi was shot by his white neighbor after he and his wife complained 19 times about the racist harassment. The neighbor was never arrested. After the attack, the senator said that the police refusing to arrest on basis of avoiding conflict is in contrast to other situations in which black men have been killed. Mr. Moturi recovered in the hospitals from his injuries. The police chief himself said, we've failed this victim 100%. And to that victim, I say I'm sorry this happened to you. Apologies after ignoring a situation or waiting until it escalates means nothing. Hearing broke, Park Mr. Walker has made several complaints and has been told rick's actions are not criminal. In 2023 and C passed the Hate Crime Prevention Act, stating that officers had to be trained to identify, respond and report hate crimes. CNPD has a crime prevention unit that states that the best way to stop violence is prevention, but the walkers have not seen preventative measures. Mr. Walker has not been contacted at any recent time about the harassment. This year, the Resource Officer for Growth Park has been contacted by neighbors with no response. Racism is violent, racist threats are violent, racist intuitions, practices, and systems are violent. Black homeowners in Charlotte have a history of being ignored and displaced and not treated with respect. In 2021, our mayor apologized for the role of the City Council in 1958, in voting for an urban renewal program. That program displaced in the destroyed Brooklyn, a black neighborhood in Uptown. Our mayor said that the current council has a commitment to equity, social justice, and our city's role to address systemic racism. If you can't address a white supremacist in a neighborhood on a local level, you damn sure don't believe they will ever be addressed on a systemic level. The district council member of the Grove Park neighborhood was contacted about the issue and stated that they're exploring additional resources. These resources have not yet been presented to the walkers. They also stated that previous efforts, including CMPD and community liaison involvement, have not yet resolved the matter. The only previous community efforts from CMPD was in 2021 and there has not been follow-up. It resulted in officers telling Mr. Walker that rick's actions are confrontational but not criminal. If the shooting of Mr. Meturri was 100% a police failure, it indicates a lack of preventative action. There was no follow up with Mr. J. and Mr. Vaughan about what they have experienced since and as a thank you. Despite not one one call. Mr. Vanessa, thank you for the comments. I'm waiting for this to escalate. It can escalate. Mr. Walker. Mr. Walker. Would you come down and Mr. Heath, would you follow up with him? I have to say that we have heard a number of people that have intervened in this way, and I'm just not quite sure. So we're going to work on this, and it's going to take some time. So let's go ahead with our next speaker, which is Nikki Thomas Thomas followed by John Erwin. Hi, I'm Nikki Thomas. I live in Ravenwood and I'm a neighbor of Jay and a Von Walker. I wanted to share my perspective on the response or lack thereof from our neighborhood. I've lived in the neighborhood for six and a half years. I drive past the Walker South probably five or more times a week, but I'd never spoken to them. I noticed when the hand made cardboard probably five or more times a week, but I'd never spoken to them. I noticed when the hand-made cardboard signs went up and the Walker's yard, then signs went up across the street. Mr. Uri's yard and I did nothing. I kept driving by. When Mr. Uri erected the large lighted signs, I discussed it with friends, but I still didn't do anything. response was not that much different than the response of most of the residents in Grove Park in Ravenwood. When I recognized the Walker's front yard in an Instagram post raising money to purchase security cameras for an elderly couple being racially harassed by their neighbor, I went to their next event, a potluck last June where I met Jay and Abon. It took the outreach efforts of university students to get me to act, and it took seeing the situation on social media for me to pay attention to someone who lived on the street. My reasons for not reaching out are varied, but I know a big part was fear. Fear that I might offend them by knocking on their door, fear that I would be meddling, fear that without the whole story I should mine my own business. My fear of shame, of embarrassment, kept me disconnected from my community. I think there's another kind of fear at play right now in our neighborhood as well, and that's fear of Rick Uri. We live in a neighborhood that does a lot to build community. We have events throughout the year. We live in the kind of neighborhood where they would say that we would rally behind our neighbors to put a stop to harassment and racism that the walkers deal with on a daily basis. But the walkers neighbors are afraid that if they stand up for Jannevon, Mr. Uere's wrath will turn to them next. There are enough stories about Mr. Yere's past actions and behavior, endless police calls, and aggressive dog that were justified in our fear. We would be remiss not to be afraid of someone who takes photographs of our children, someone who's taken photographs of Jay on his trips to the grocery store. And this fear is all the more supported by the facts of Mr. Yere's history. There was an info session at the home on the other side of the neighborhood. The attendance of our residents at that event was two to three times more than the events in Jay's front yard. That front yard's directly across the street. Your time is up. Thank you. We'll go to Mr. Irwin. John Irwin. Members of the council, I'm here to speak on behalf of Mr. J. Walker and Mrs. Yvonne Walker. As a concerned citizen of the city and an e-shallet community member, I find that the unimpeded harassment and intimidation of the walkers face that's a dangerous precedent for the people who work and live in the area. Mr. Rick Yerrie's behavior is disturbing to basically every decent person in the area. He scares his other neighbors, harasses the neighborhood dog walkers, and takes pictures of children and adults doing nothing more than just going about their day. The walkers have had to continue with this behavior personally taking the brunt of it for years. Imagine working hard to build your dream life at home and in your twilight years not being able to enjoy it because of a petty racist and antagonistic little man. This situation has put so much stress on the walkers keeping them from enjoying their home and exacerbating their health concerns. This is also resulted in Mr. J being falsely accused of criminal acts. When it is in fact Mr. Yury who is the criminal and that's on record. Everyone who is ran across Rick can attest that he is a foul person. We are here today asking that the council and the city help the walkers in some way. Providing resources, making C&PD and their community liaison do their job, censor Mr. Yury in some way, one look at his property and just know that he is violating some city or county ordinances. Something needs to be done to let him know that his behavior and treatment of the walkers is not acceptable and cannot continue. I fear for the safety of the walkers and the community at large as he is allowed to continue to escalate his campaign of bullying. In conclusion, our city leaders should be willing and able to take a stance against racism and discrimination in our city. And if they cannot or will not, then they are not worthy of being our leaders. Thank you. Our next speakers are Xavier DeCano. I hope I said that was close. And then we'll have Jen, the Dacia as well. So is Mr. Dajan the non here? Yes. Thank you. And you'll go first and then we'll ask Jen the liaison later. So you have two minutes. Good evening. It is Javier Dijonon. Thank you, council members. Mr. J Walker wakes up every morning to signs with his face across the street. Meanwhile, the city council criminalizes the house list. Mr. J Walker then goes to Garden. And his white neighbor takes photos of him that he then prints for said photographs in his v yard. Meanwhile, the City Council ignores demands from the people to make a resolution against the genocide in Palestine. Then Mr. Walker complains, and he gets arrested by the cops. He gets charged again and again and again. Mr. Yuri takes 50C protective orders against him that get dismissed because they're bogus. Meanwhile, this city council approves plans to wipe out entire neighborhoods to expand the airport. Mr. Walker had a picnic with community members. People here in the audience, teens, minors, children, women, Mr. Yuri took pictures of these people with a photograph that is like a golf camera and then prints them. He walks around in front of these people, these guests with a gun on his pants. Mr. Walker has tried everything to seek justice, to seek some brief rest from this harassment. But of course, the City Council is more interested in funding the police. This City Council is more interested in criminalizing the house list. What are you going to do to help Mr. Walker in this city that prides itself in being equitable that it has plans for equity? Yet there's a white supremacist running around taking hundreds of pictures every single day of his black neighbors. I demand that you do something for Mr. Walker. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you Before we move on to another topic with our next next speaker we have got We have our police officer our Community relations officer and Sean Heath our assistant assistant city manager, who Mr. Walker, if you would please speak with them so that we can understand more what we've heard and that we, I want you to know we listen and I think Mr. Walker will have the opportunity to talk to this community or the people in that work in this community to see what we can Actually accomplish in this situation. So mr Heath if you would help us mr. Walker if you would actually go out with one of our team people team leaders, okay? All right our next speaker is Jen Desea. Thank you. And then we will have Neil Samson following her. Yes, you have two minutes. Okay. Good evening, council. Thank you for your time this evening. My name is Jennifer DeAsa, and I'm here on behalf of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Animal Care and Control. First, I want to thank you for approving the zoning necessary for the new shelter expansion. This is a vital step toward addressing the pressing needs of our community animals. However, as we look ahead to the budgeting season, I urge you to secure the necessary funds for the construction of this facility. Our current shelter is overcrowded, under staff, to not able to meet the demands of our growing city and county, which not only puts a strain on the animals, but also on our dedicated staff who work tirelessly under demanding conditions. It's imperative that we prioritize funding, not just for the shelter's physical structure, but also for the welfare of the animals, the employees, and our community as a whole. Additionally, as we celebrate this progress, we must continue to advocate for the creation of an independent department to manage the shelter. Transitioning away from the CMPD oversight able to develop a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better environment and a better effectively. In conclusion, let's work together to secure the funds needed for construction and establish an independent management structure. Our community deserves a safe and humane environment for all of its residents, including our animal companions, as well as city, staff, and volunteers. Thank you for your time and support this evening. Thank you. Next, our next two speakers are Niles Samson and Shanice Williams. Miss Williams and Miss, is Niles Samson? No, is he available? Is he here? Is Mr. Samson here? Okay. Then our next speaker with Ms. Williams will be Mika Balan. Mika Balan. Okay, thank you. So we have I want one speaker, okay, and Is that are you miss Williams? Yes, ma'am. Yes, Williams. You have two minutes. Thank you Thank you. Good evening Just coming to shot a little light on the lamp lighter in Tango Wood and timber bridge apartments that are having a lot of problems. At the moment we are suffering as far as housing go. Not all of us are not working. Some of us are really actually working very hard. We have gotten, you know, in a little bit of a bind. Some of us have fall behind. And we just need a little bit of help to be able to get to the next step. It's about to be Christmas time. I know the lamp lighter in which a lot of us are here from right now. We're having to move out by the 11th. Our children who, sorry about them y'all. No, the beautiful. Children are great. We just really want somewhere safe for them to be. Whether there's not a lot of drug activities, there are people breaking in rooms. There are people who are doing different things, and our kids aren't safe. And it's not that we're not trying. We're really trying hard. We go to work every day, we just had an obstacle that we couldn't get over. We just need some funding, some help, some house and collaborative, some supportive house and there are buildings that can be used for supportive house and for single parents or even just people in general who need help with that step. Miss April Lewis is more than willing to help us and have been helping us. She's been the, you know, one of the best things that's been there for us right now. And we just need someone to help us in here our story and understand that we are really not bad people because we stay in a hotel and we stay in bad apartments. We're not. We're not. We do not think of you as bad people. You work every day in this town. So do not think of yourself as anything except a member of this community. Thank you. I— We just want some words to say for our kids. We haven't leave on the 11. That's right before Christmas. So we are doing a lot of work on this. We understand the issue, the problems. We have understood that we have displacement and we also know that it's Thanksgiving and it's Christmas. So please just give us the time to think through this and get it done in a way that's respectful to what you have done all the time that you've lived in this community. So thank you very much for coming down and saying that we'll continue to focus on making sure that people have a place to live and sleep. And not just from hotel to hotel. Permanent, permanent house. Yes. We need permanent, a permanent place for our kids. Not from one hotel that's crappy to the next hotel and then we find out two, three months later that this place is crappy too. It's going around town and it's like we just really need. They're building all these nice places and it may be an eviction, it may be something small. But if somebody would just give us a second chance, we deserve it. And we know that. So thank you very much for seeking to tell me nothing forward. Okay, so Micah, you... Yeah. My name is Micah Long, and I'm a minister of the gospel to those on the outside. These people are in this situation because of the systemic injustice caused in this circle, in this council, because you criminalized homelessness and instead of investing $650 million in the housing that could keep all of these people, all of these children in a house on Christmas, you decided to give that to Daddy Tepper, who makes that in three months. Why would you waste money on that when we haven't even made back the money? You wasted on him last time. You gave a hundred million dollars to affordable housing when your city said we needed one point one billion dollars. And instead you're wasting money on a stadium for a jersey that costs forty-five dollars? That guy is making his own money. Why are you wasting the money to be housing those children on stupid stadiums? The affordable housing crisis in this city is your responsibility. And there was another child 2,000 years ago who was left without an in to stay in. And you know what he said, whatever you do, onto the least of these you have done also to me. It is not enough to tell these people that they can go to coordinated entry because you know what that looks like. That looks like someone will get back to them in two months after they've been homeless for eight weeks. And then they'll tell them that in six months, they have some place to stay. And then in six months, they won't have some place to stay because there's another year waiting list. Because you have not approved the affordable housing, they need to live. APPLAUSE Whenever you have done the least of these, you have done to the Son of God. And those of you who believe that we will see that Son of God at the end of times, I'm here as a minister to call you to repentance, to call you to do right by those children. And don't offer them coordinated entry. Offer them a home. Thank you, Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Micah. Thank you Mr. Parish here? So we have Alicia Harvey. If Mr. Parish is not here, Mr. Cone, you have two minutes. Okay. Good evening. Respectfully out asked that if speakers are told they'll be given three minutes, that they'll be allowed three minutes to speak in the future. In 2017, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to an organization known as ICANN for their work drawing attention to the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, as well as the creation of a treaty, known as the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons for the TPNW. Almost half of the world's countries, 94 to be exact, have signed the treaty to date. The World Council of Churches, the Dalai Lama, and Pope Francis also support the treaty. The fact is that nuclear weapons have power for too much devastation, killing, and ruining of innocent civilian lives. For those who would argue that the US needs such weapons for protection, I ask them to consider whether in this global community they place more value on the life of a US-born resident than they would on the life of a foreign born resident. Among many other US cities, seven that have expressed support for the treaty include Baltimore, New York, Los Angeles, Durham, Asheville, Chapel Hill, and Washington, D.C. Residents of Charlotte are seriously concerned about the threat that nuclear weapons pose to communities throughout the world. We firmly believe that Charlotte Tians have the right to live free from this threat. I do not anticipate a resolution tonight, but we do call on the city of Charlotte to sign a resolution requesting that the US sign the TPNW. This week, I will email a link of the TPNW to all Charlotte City Council members. Thank you for your time. Are there any questions or concerns? I don't think there are any questions. We will get back to you if you send the email and the information in the link. So thank you. Thank you for your time. All right. Thank you. All right. It's Harvey. Yes. You have two minutes. Thank you. All right. It's Harvey. Yes. You have two minutes. Thank you. Councilman, thank you for having me. My name is Alicia Harvey. And I am a current resident at the LempLighter Inn. And on behalf of those residents, the conditions there at LempLighter Inn due to bad mismanagement, declining, utility and maintenance issues that have declined over the last eight months there. It's very, very inhumane at the lab later. And this is very dear on my heart. You know, the tag onto what Shanice is saying, you know, we are in need of immediate, immediate, safe, affordable housing. Most of us came there under Vermil's place, which was supposed to be transitional housing, and which was false, not that we know new management took over, and we didn't understand who we were paying to, or who the new owners was, and the conditions just continued We have a lot of people who have been working with us for a long time. And we have a lot of people who have been working with us for a long time. And we have a lot of people who have been working with us for a long time. And we have a lot of people who have been working with us for a long time. And we have a lot of people who have been working with us for a long time. And we have a lot of people who have formed community, they're at the LempLighter and doing the best that we can to sustain under conditions that what they are. We have lately been with the water off, not hot water, no lights, no sanitary drinking water, no cable, no TVs, all kind of conditions that's just not favorable for our families. And we're asking, I'm asking today on behalf of the Lump Lighter, that we get immediate help from the city and the county begging you. We are not people who don't want nothing in life. I would like to see that narrative changed the way that the city, this county, this nation, and this world looks at homelessness. Thank you. Avery. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Our last speaker is Logan Newsson. Mason. What's that? I understand. Logan is the last. Logan. Mason. Logan Newsson? Masson? I'm a set. Logan, Masson? I don't have a room. I have a room. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think thank you. Nice job. My name is Logan. I'm a young and agent for Prospect at the airport. We work under a contract for American Airlines. I assist kids that are traveling alone. I love helping people that's always what I want to do. I'm 100 of the airport workers that went on strike today. I felt great. I made a difference. That's all I wanted to do. We went on strike today. I felt great. I made a difference, and that's all I wanted to do. We went on strike because we are fed up. We are fed up with the property wages and to be treated with respect on the job. Even though I wasn't scared because I know my rights, my co-workers were terrified. Prospect has been threatening to fire us if we went on strike. And that's not fair. We keep the airport running without us traveling is not possible. We shouldn't have to go on strike to be treated with respect. We deserve to be paid wages that are livable. I love this job. I want to keep this job, but I can't live off of 14, 50 an hour. And my co-workers are feeling the same. So I'm here because I hope you all support us. I'm going back to work tomorrow, but many of us are scared. They really are threatening us with our jobs. We are asking you to stand with us as we demand more respect and higher wages. Thank you. Thank you. That is the end of our public speaking. This meeting. We do this once every month. So please feel free to join us and stay as we go through the Remainer of our agenda, which we will now begin with item 18 or 18. It should be 33. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. I don't know. We'll be having the 32 in there. Let me see. We're on item 8, the item 8 in the agenda. Two. I think I'll be about six. Five, nine, 17. We have a series of public hearings. All right. So we have a hearing item number eight, a public hearing on a resolution to close a portion of alleyway between 1609 and 1615, Matheson Avenue. Do we have any speakers? No speakers. Do we have a motion? Go to the floor. Sorry. We have a motion and a second in a discussion hearing. No discussion. All in favor of the closure. Please to the floor. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion here? No discussion? All in favor of the closure? Please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? All right. That passes. The next item, do we have a item number nine? We're going to have a public hearing on the resolution to close a portion of Cecil Street. Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers? No ma'am. All right, do we have a motion? So moved. So moved. Thank you. All right, thank you. Any discussion? Hearing no discussion? All in favor, please raise your hands. Anyone opposed? No one opposed. Item number 10, a public hearing on the resolution to close a portion of Century Post Road. We're not going to open a public hearing if we need to. Anyone here, Madam Clerk, sign up? No, ma'am. All right, we don't have any sign-ups. So, your motion to close and a second. Any discussion hearing none? All in favor, raise your hand. Anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Now we'll go to item, we're now going to open the public hearing on blue mount on steel creek voluntary annexation. Do we have any speakers? I mean, you don't have any speakers. Do we have a motion? It's cool. It's so much. The motion needs to include that we adopt an annexation ordinance with an effective date of November the 25th, 2024 to extend the corporate limits to include this property and assign it to the adjacent city council district three. We have a motion and a second any further discussion. Hearing none, all in favour please raise your hands. All right any opposed? No, no one is opposed. The next item is a public hearing on the decision on Marion R and Levin Marsh House as a historic designation. This is item 12 on your agenda. Do we have anyone signed up for the public hearing? I think we see the staff person here and say hello. Anything that we need to know, signing up. So with that, do we have a motion to adopt an ordinance with an effective date of November 25th, 2024? Does it date in the property known as Mary and R and Levin Marsh House? With the parcel identification number 153-061-11 as a historic landmark. To adopt and close the hearing. We have a motion and a second. No discussion. All in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? So that passes as well. Item will go to the next item of policy, which is item 13. And do we have anything else to talk about under the mayors? The manager's report. Thank you. We'll do that at the next meeting. So the next item, I'm sorry, Ms. Johnson. I have a question from the manager's report. So we heard some really important issues today and I know that we're not allowed to respond to our public as a council. It's really hard. I think that we should be able to, especially when there's issues like that. But I would like an update on some of the things they talked about. Is that okay? Some of the things we are working on such as displacement. Yeah. Can we get and do you have an update? Can we something that we can get something to you tomorrow a manager? What do you think sure that in your in your packet Thursday? We put together Any I'm serious of documents that I explained what was going on and what the city is doing as well as I believe the mayor did a referral to the housing and Save communities committee, but I can make sure that we get send it back to the top of your hall. I think it's important that the public knows that, but I did call, I can't remember somebody from housing. I don't know if it was Sean or Rebecca and ask about the displacement. I know Lamp Lighter in is on our radar, and there was another one. I can't remember the name of them. So, one of them is actually in my district council member that's my first time in the world. My name is Lamplighter and what else? Timber Ridge? No, the Tanglewood. Tanglewood. So Timber Ridge. It's in my district. And I spoke to someone last week that wasn't on our radar yet. So I don't know, well, we were working on two, so I want to make sure that all three of them, that there's a plan. I don't know who's. So make sure we're working on all three of those, a plan for those. Okay. And then I also had a question about the racial harassment. And maybe you can give this to us later. I think I sent an email to the chief and to Patrick Baker, but is there an ordinance that would prohibit that type of behavior and something that can be done from the city perspective? I'd like to know what can be done. Because it's not that we're not speaking for myself. And probably most of us, we're not willing to do something. What do we have the ability to do? I think it would be helpful. I received a letter of how many places have gone. We have helped. We have addressed this with our Community Relations Committee. It's gone through CMPD. We need to figure out what didn't happen. So I think some of this has been out there for a while. I think Ms. Melina, she and I talked this morning about this because it's in her district. And she has a very in deep, you can see from the perspective. OK. And so, but I think that what we have to figure out is what didn't happen instead of what did happen. Well, when I was thinking, I know we passed the India. So the non-discrimination ordinance. And I know that was from employment, and what teeth do we have surrounding that, and can we expand that to residential or to something else? Does the non-discrimination act that apply here? But I think the answer to that. So we need to get some legal advice, and we'll try to do that so that we can go in a path that we don't guess what we're trying to. Okay. I mean, I'd like some information. Just we sat here and didn't respond. I'm sorry that you, you know, but I think the public should know that it does concern us. We just aren't allowed to respond. Thank you. Madam Mayor. Yes. And it's Malena. Thank you really quickly because I you know now that we've kind of said something I don't want to go through the semantics of it but I just there isn't awareness and what one of the residents said is right our deputy city attorney actually set in on a meeting with me. One of the several meetings that I've held regarding this issue. So I anticipate like the mayor said that we'll have some additional information to come out. I did send a memo to you guys. It's two pages completed to give you an update on all that's been done so far. And all of the information that I have internally, so I encourage you to take a look at that. And then I anticipate that the manager and the team will give us any information and I hope to be able to disseminate that as well to the community members that are particularly interested as far as what we can do from a city perspective. be able to disseminate that as well to the community members that are particularly interested as far as what we can do from a city perspective because that's what we'll be able to answer for. And there were some answers about other entities. We can't speak to that specifically, but I'm hoping to get our answers firmly so that I can disseminate that information. Thank you. I just, as the less that officials, I just, I think it's important that we do respond to that. Thank you. All right. Senator LeBenz. Yes, Miss Fowell. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So yeah, I would just have to say to what council member Johnson has said, and definitely my heart goes out to my colleague Councilmember Marjorie Melina that is a tough situation. She's highly intelligent I'm sure that she's doing all she can to do what she can in that community as far as the lab lighter and The animal shelter I've already spoke so I feel but mayor understand where where we're coming from. When this is a community forum people are looking, they see it. One, you can't say anything to me, not you mayor, with all the respect people in the audience. I'm going to say something to the back. If I can't, I need to see where I can't because I am not going to allow anybody just to paint a picture. I can't. It matters to me I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine what it is. I can't imagine anything. So our silence can be perceived as whatever they wanted to be perceived as and our refuse to let that happen. How I vote is public record, but maybe folks don't know that. But I sit together as a whole, as a council. I'm not gonna let ignorance just speak out to me in whatever way they think they can because that's not going to happen. It's not gonna happen. Okay. Thank you. The sash mirror. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree with what my colleagues have said. It's important to respond. Whether that response comes from you as the mayor or the city manager. Some of this, Some of this public speakers that spoke are probably something that you expected, right? I mean, the lamp light rain or even the water main break, racial harassment. We need to have some sort of report to the council ahead of time so that we know what we are dealing with. And I remember Mr. Jones, you used to send us a report after public speakers addressing everyone's concerns. And I haven't seen that in my package lately. So I think having that in a consistent manner would be helpful because otherwise it seems like we are hearing it but we are I don't know what are the next steps other than the staff talks to them but really we don't know what was the outcome of that. So I think having that would be important. Yeah, so I'm surprised that we're not giving you those back in your reports. I'll double check and we did anticipate that lamplighter in it. That's why we put so much in your packet on Thursday. Right. So that you wouldn't be flat-putted tonight. Yeah, and we'll land up, and I think there are times so you cast a memo. I was undone. I'm sorry, but that's a short period of time for you as a district rep. It just doesn't seem fair to the housing committee and yourself with what we got with that lighter. That's the disaster over there. No, I've been involved in talking with staff for days. Day? When this became an issue and actually went over there once or twice myself. And the information received the factual thirst that was very comprehensive and outlined the steps that we were taking and why we were taking those steps and the referral that the Mayor made to the committee to take a broad look at what we were doing. So I'm not sure I felt prepared and felt that the council should have been prepared based on the information that was distributed to us last week. No, sir. So I still have the floor. The information that was in our package about the lamplighter and wasn't communicated to folks in the room, and I think that's where the gap is, because they feel like we are not listening. I can hear. Even though we are doing a lot of work, there is so much that is happening, but I feel like the information is not being communicated to the public. So I think that's the same thing with water main break, right? We got this whole package and here we are sitting. We have no idea as to what has happened. This individual inherited thousands of dollars in bills. We don't know, we haven't got any update on that. And I know that staff has been working on this for a while. So how can we get any information on that? We haven't got any information on animal care and control. I appreciate the work that's being done in terms of the rezoning and that's great. I think what I am concerned about is that we are getting information about the topics that are being picked, cherry picked for us, not everything that is being brought to our attention. So I think if we can just have a comprehensive information from A to Z that would help. I'm sorry. So I think it's important. We get a speaker's list on Friday. So we don't know what the people are going to come up. I mean, Clark, it's speakers all through the week, but we get a list, you know, about the same time that maybe you guys get your packet. And I will say that staff have communicated with many of the folks at the lamp lighter in. We just didn't throw something in your packet. There have been communications, there have been daily communications. So we will try to get you the information maybe in a different way. But I don't want you to think that we cherry pick. It's just that someone, the last person signed up, signed up just now. So there's no way we would have known what they were going to ask us. Oh, God. So in that case, there is a balance there because we do get people that come in and even if you said, this is what I know that you're going to talk about, it's very seldom what you're going to talk about. And so often we do try to figure out and reach out to people that have called in. I mean, the clerk's office calls them. We get a sheet and it has information on it, but it's very seldom the same consistent information because we're all human. You know, you come in and you've got a crowd like that. You're going to talk differently than if it were someone just one-on-one with the council. And I'm sure that on Fridays when these packets go out that we certainly can get more information in them, but that's not going to guarantee that we have the accuracy that you would want to have because the last thing you want to do is say we're going to help you with the lamp lighter and then not have the capacity or the ability to do it just like when Marjorie and I talked this morning. I talked about the man Mr. Walker and it's very difficult when you've got people from the DA's office, you've got people from the United States, the attorney's office, you've got people in the CMPD, you've got community relations. So how do you know? You know, these are things that are very important to people. So maybe we have to really, I think, work on making sure that we're accurate. So Mary said, well, as we can get a follow-up report after the public's speaker forum. So now that we heard from all of the public speakers, if you can get a follow-up report on what each person spoke, here is the follow-up. So for an example, water main break, here is where the status is. I think having that would be important afterwards. I understand we may not get all the information ahead of time, but now we have the information. So I think getting an email update tomorrow or the after tomorrow would be helpful. All right, Ms. I think that Ms. Watlington was next in the Mr. Graham. Yeah, I just want to make a suggestion and if it's already somewhere out there, I'd love to learn about it. But I agree with the point that it's really sometimes it feels like communication is about managing us versus getting information out to the public. Like as long as those of us are sitting around the diets and know what's going on and then everything is fine. And I think that that part can be an opportunity for us to communicate to the people because while we may not know who the speakers are until Friday, none of these topics are brand new, right? We know what the pulse of the community is. Just based on the emails that we get in volume and the things that the news picks up, et cetera, et cetera. So what I'd like to suggest if you don't have it already and if we do again, let me know, is that we just make a simple QR code, hot topics. If you're in the audience and you're sitting here and you want to speak on something and there's a report sitting in front of me of two pages of what we've done, just let people go to the QR code and read up on the topic they care about. might, you know, keep save us from getting a whole bunch of higher with inaccurate information because we're sitting here looking at it and they don't have to benefit of it and maybe if they did their comments will be different or they might not have come down here on a Monday night when they could have been at home. So if we could figure out how to push information be a very easy way where people can go look at information that they care about on a particular topic then that might save us some time. And again, if we have it already, I'm happy to help push it. I'm scared. I'm scared, doctor and now. I'm scared. What, damn. I love it. Mr. Graham? Yes, I think it's just, as Ms. Johnson said earlier, the inability to communicate what we've already done, right? And certainly the council responds to the issue of the lamp lighter, I thought was well documented and we're all reported out to council members last week. Certainly on our desk is a comprehensive write up about the racism issue. Certainly I wanted to scream and holler about it, being personally impacted by it. But we have this rule that we don't communicate. Because we want to make sure that we're not communicating based on emotions, but based on things that we can actually accomplish and not selling false oaths. So I'm not sure how we fill that gap, right? When we know, hypothetically, you know, the topics of the issues coming before us, Kiral, I'm not sure that might work, I'm not sure, but certainly if there's a way for us to provide information that we have as a body to the public in a way that when they, and some folks just won't care, was written, right? Because there are emotionally attached to that topic, right? So that's where they are. I'm emotionally attached to any conversation about racism based on my personal experience, right? So it is just how do we, it's a process issue and one of the things I keep saying over and over again for the last several weeks and months, is how we process our work that we keep stumbling over. Right. Most of the managers, how we process the work and how we disseminate information to those who need it and when they need it. So I'm not sure. Okay. My aim was actually up. It was up before Mr. Graham, but I was going to respect you just and see it. I just want to say it was never about the speakers list. It was not for me, it is making sure that I am equipped along with my colleagues on how we can be responsive to executing allocating this information to the community while it may be Mr. Graham's district. Folks know that I'm near and dear and it got it mixed up because next one. I'm not sure if you're going to be in the next one. I'm not sure if you're going to be in the next one. I'm not sure if you're going to be in the next one. I'm not sure if you're going to be in the next one. I'm not sure if you're going to be in the next one. I'm not sure if you're going to be three, four, five, six, or seven. If it's happening in any of the districts, people are looking to be displaced, misplaced, however you want to say it. Those folks have children that they care about, that's their home. Irregardless of what the conditions are, that is their home. Those children only know that that's their home, that's where love is, that's where their parents are, their mothers are. So to me, days is not enough. It's just not enough. I don't know. How do we get into where we get something so drastic like that? We just get the information in days and it's okay. It's not okay just to get that information in days. And the package last Thursday is not okay for me. It's not enough time to digest that and then be equipped with the resources and information and knowledge that I need to disseminate it back into the community. That's for me. And the media came to me and I went to staff with all due respect. And I think I did a very good job today on my interview and communicating with staff to take their lead and their information, which I didn't have to do that, because I wasn't elected by staff. I was elected by my constituents, so I could have just interviewed off of my passion and my experience, but I went to staff with all due respect. Yeah, I think we all understand it's been a long day and a long night and a lot of tough issues that are going on in the city right now. So as we're continuing this, I think the most important thing is that we try to get the information time that we've had people have to vacate a hotel and at some point we can try to figure out what is our system and who are our partners in doing this because that's a huge part of the success of making sure that people get housed before and I believe that if we can then also talk about and remember the committee is going to meet on housing and I've asked every council member to participate in that because it needs every idea and it's like you said if you're in district 3, you're in district 2, you don't know what that means. It can be something that all of us need to look at and so that's what we've been asking, all of the council members, what you did, where you were at the NLC. What did you find that was actually resonating with you? I, you know, what do they say? A really good council member follows one of the persons that they found out but a great council member copies them. So let's figure out how we can copy places that are really doing this good work around housing or around our safety and all of that. I think that's really the way that we can go. And all of these ideas, if we would actually have the ability to have small meetings and see each other in the hallway, that might help us a little bit. And I know it's not everyone, it's not possible for everyone. But I think a lot of this is when we're together, we actually do better. I think it's always been as a council that we're best when we are talking with each other and really trying to figure out how to resolve the issues that we have in the community. So with that, I don't think we have any, we do have more work to do. Let's talk about the restaurant. That's exactly what we need to do right now. So which item is 14? All right. Anybody want the information on that? Okay. Item 14. The action is to adopt a resolution approving the lease of approximately 4,700 square feet of city owned property at 1600 East Fort Street to government restaurant LLC for the operation of a restaurant and author as a manager to execute the documents appropriately. Do I have a motion? So move. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? No question. All right. We'll start with Ms. Brown and then we'll go to Ms. Johnson. I just want to know. So show Mars is believing. Let's see. We need to get our real estate people up and so that we can have this conversation and questions can be asked and answered. Good evening Phil Rieger of General Services. Okay. I thought just give it to say something else okay. So I'm just asking show Mars is in place now they still there. They are still there yes. Do they have a time that they're gonna be out Their lease has expired they are Month to month and so the way this currently is set up is there'll be would be a transition starting on December 25th So they their last they would be the 25th of December 2024. Technically the 24th will still be and then the city would be closed the 25th through the 28th. Following Monday and the transition would happen over that weekend. So we're going to be looking for someone else to come in. We're taking bids. House is working. Now, this item recommends to enter into a lease with what's called Pida Boy. It's also called Costus Kitchen. And Costus Kitchen has developed a specific limited liability corporation in order to enter into this lease with us. So, Costus Kitchen would be the new restaurant in that space. Peter Boy, Costus Kitchen, okay. And we used an RFP to make that selection. Okay. Is there going to be a gap in providing services? No man. Okay so they're gonna come right in and start there so there's no gap so folks in the building that need to eat on the outside that are used to coming here for lunch will still be able to do that. Yes ma'am. That was my concern. Thank you so much. I yield to my colleague. All right Ms. Johnson. Thank you Madam Mayor. Is this rent amount considered market rate? Yes ma'am, we did an appraisal and negotiated this amount with the restaurant, it's a market rate. And there was an RFP? Yes ma'am. Okay. And is PETA, what's it called? PETA Boy? PETA Boy Incorporated. PETA Boy and Schoemar, is there any business relationship? Yes, ma'am. So the relationship is simply that the owner of the current show-mar is the owner of Pita Boy or Costus Kitchen. The difference is the show-mar, that's currently our restaurant is franchise. Costus Kitchen is an independent establishment and that comes with great advantages because it allows the owner to create a much more flexible menu and they don't have to follow all the rules that the franchise the show mars franchise requires of their restaurants. Okay and I can't remember I believe show mars the rent was under market values. Is that correct? Yes ma'am so it has a long history. Back in 2019 the show mars restaurant was paying a $3,000 a month lease payment. Council in 2019 authorized a reduction because the the restaurant was was losing money. And then we went into a period of pandemic which really threw sort of that restaurant space into an uncertain period. They stuck with us. Showmar stuck with us. And but the lease has expired. There was no option to renew. And so we felt it was important to put this back out for RFP. So there was no option for Showmar's to renew? No, the 2019 amendment when the lease was reduced, only allowed that period of time to the end of their first five years and so the lease expired. So I will end. Is there anywhere in the background or in this explanation that it's the same owners? Is there any disclosure about that? I didn't read it. I just felt like it were related to space mode type of restaurant in the name. I do not believe that we named the owner in this. That wouldn't be something that we traditionally do. Traditionally call out names. This also states this is a real estate leasing contract that is exempt under the CBI program. The fact that it's exempt under the CBI program, the fact that it's the same owner that just happened to win the RFP, I won't be supporting this contract. We talk about equity, we talk about opportunity and exclusivity and this contract just does not appear to support that, in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we have a motion on the floor and on the second, all in favor of the motion. Please raise your hand. One, two, three, four, six. Anyone opposed? All right. Thank you. All right. Our next item. Very good. This item, we do not have a closed session, but we do have item 16. This is recommended. 15, here. 15, here. 15, here. Yes. Shelton Null Apartments naturally occurring affordable housing preservation and rental subsidy support to approve 1.1 million of the housing trust fund allocation, arrow hawk nullah and unfillied of asset housing for the acquisition rehabilitation of Shelton Null Apartments approved the annual reimbursement to the housing collaborative and an amount not to exceed the development city tax bill for naturally occurring affordable housing rental subsidy program over 20 year period. For seven new long term rental subsidies at Shelton Noll apartments for households earning 30% and below the median area income. Authorized the manager to negotiate and make the process to complete the transaction. Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussions? Yes. Absolutely. All right. Mr. Brown. So I support it. I do have several points that I like to make. This property is an older property similar to Southside Home, similar to Delaye Courts was built in the early 1980s, which was Charlotte House and Authority, and now is delivered into 1996. My only concern, and I hope would be the concern of the council and everyone else. The population is there now. It's a population that goes to work every day and cannot afford an expensive income. So I'm curious as to how many residents that live over there now will still have the opportunity to live over there once it's done. Anybody want to speak in detail about that? It's going to speak to you about that. Good evening, Rebecca Haffner, housing and neighborhood services. The short answer to your question is all of them. So the residents that are currently living in Shelton, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, the staff member, And as those units turn over, they will be converted to the 30, 60, or 80% units. But the residents that are currently there will be able to stay, according to their lease agreements. So the NOAA guidelines that you all have in place as a council are an anti-displacement play to ensure that as these kind of properties turn over, that residents will not be displaced. So thank you so much, Rebecca. I know that you do amazing work. You work really hard and thank you for bringing that information just for the public hearing. So everybody could hear it. I got a phone call early. I said I would support it, but I did want to get some information. The information that you're giving to me is very, it's appreciated. And I just want to ask the question. So they're going to stay doing a renovation. They're not going to move out and have the opportunity to come out. Come back because a lot of times when they move out, we know that they're not coming back. They get comfortable where their new home is. And so that's my question and my concern. Sure. So the renovations that are planned are essentially things like roofing, HBAC, some electrical, some things like that. And so most of them will not require that residents move out completely. If there is a unit that might need more extensive repairs that will be handled on an individual basis. But if residents need to leave for any time they will be able to return according to their existing lease agreement. So there's no displacement of the residents. So hearing that there's no displacement of the residents I support. Thank you, Ms. Hepnick. All right, Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Rebecca. You do do a great job. But I heard you say the residents will stay according to their lease agreements. Will they have the option to renew their leases? So, yes. I mean, the goal of the NOAA program is to allow residents to stay. And as there's lots of turnover in lots of apartment communities, as that natural turnover occurs, if people choose to leave and then the apartments are vacated, it's that point at which they will be transitioned from the current 60% AMI into either 30% or 80% according to the number of commitments per unit that are listed in the action. Maybe we can talk offline because I'm thinking if they renew their lease, then when is that unit renovated and how long are they able to stay or have a first right over fused or something? So I want to understand the transition. I'll be supporting and I support Ascent housing. They do a great job, but I would like more information as far as that transition. Sure, bring a file out. Thank you. Go ahead. Ms. Ashmeera? Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is a great Noah model, because you are competing with the private sector, where we have seen hedge funds buying up a lot of the older apartments and doing an upgrade and jacking up rents. So this is a great model to preserve affordable housing in our city. And this is a great way to protect families from displacement and really create housing options for people with modest income households. So I really appreciate the work that Mark Eteresian, his team is doing to preserve affordable housing in Archivina. So I'll be supporting. Thank you. May I follow you? Yes, please. My district. So one one last thing. Rebecca again, I do appreciate you and all the work that you did earlier today as well. My concern is I do support it, but I'm very concerned because it's a community that that's very near and dear to me. It's a historic community. And we're losing our historic communities and I just want to make sure that I'm signing on to the right thing and listening to you and what you said and your transparency I think and I know that I can vote moving forward to say yes and I just want you to know that that's where I'm coming from okay. Thank you. Now you're to you Mayor. All right. Any other comments? We have a motion on the floor. All in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? No one's opposed. So that item is, we move on to item 16. Recommended uses for American Rescue Plan funds have approved 25,400 and 1,000 and months a little bit more from the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery fund for government services to offset the revenue loss as a result of COVID-19 public health emergency. An adopted budget on its appropriating set amount from the general operating fund to the American Rescue Plan at fund. Do I have a motion? So we'll move. We have a second. An motion? Are there any questions or comments? We have a second and a motion. Any questions or comments? No questions and comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? Any comments? To those of you who have taken the ability and the time to watch us on television, I want to say have the happy Thanksgiving to all of our community residents and we hope that we will see you safely and enjoy your family, however you describe it, just make sure that