Work Session

Well, good evening everyone. Today is the council [clears throat] work session on Tuesday night and I am not Mayor Harold Weinre [laughter] [gasps] and the reason for that I'm going to hand over to um interim town manager Russ Over.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim Bush. Be very formal tonight.

Yeah.

Um yes, as you can see, the mayor is not here. Thank you, Lori. Um the mayor asked me to read a statement as to why he's not here. So, as you can see, Mayor Wine Breck is not with us this evening. Um, last week, the mayor's mother-in-law, um, as you all know, passed away very unexpectedly. Our thoughts are with him and his family during this difficult time. Um, he's exactly where he needs to be tonight with his loved one. So, thanks for standing in.

My pleasure. All right. First on the agenda stays with you, right?

It does. All right. So, here is the agenda for tonight. We're going to um have a brief discussion, if you will, about a couple policies um that are coming before you on Thursday night. Uh we'll do a council initiated item, which is the external human resources consultant for council, uh which I think um you brought forward, so we'll let you say some words on that. And then I'm going to do uh several updates. Um I'm actually going to preview I won't preview, but I'll want to run through the dashboard. We've talked about it a lot in the last week. Um I alluded to it. Um I'm going to bring it on the screen and we're just going to kind of go through some of those items [snorts] especially so the public can see. Um going to run through since it's you've got another council initiated item. Um we were talking internally about what do we do when we're done with them. You all take action. You know that you take action. We don't really bring it back to you and say hey this one's done. Um so we're just going to go through a little bit of a tracker there and talk about some that are in process. Uh something that you all wanted done was um uh probably a a vote I believe on the council out and about. So I'll let you talk about that, maybe take some action and then assistant town manager Stacy Ti is going to do a um revenue update for us and then we'll toss it to Jenny to do a um um some scheduling review for some

of the upcoming meetings. If that sounds okay, we'll proceed.

All right. So the next item is the council initiated.

Oh, I'm going to do policy first.

Oh, sorry. Yeah. [laughter]

Got all excited, didn't I? Yeah. I was so excited.

All right. So, the policy updates tonight or policy statement 143 and 190. 143 um is your rules of order. And just very quick um we've talked about that, but that's going to be on the consent agenda on Thursday night. And it includes a you know a relatively um quick update regarding language of live streaming council meetings, minute meetings expectations, and quorum notice requirements. uh Jenny can answer any questions if you have any. Um obviously there's a staff report for all this with the attached um updates. So if there's not any questions, I'm going to move to policy statement 190 which is new. All right. So this is our anti- retaliation uh and protection for reporting improper activity. would be a new policy statement and specifically this is something that um as later we're going to review the dashboard but I want to go ahead and reference it because this was um actually ended up being in three of the recommendations. So Cherry Beckert was the first to bring this up. Um and it's just I won't read them, but you see where the um specifically in orange the word retaliation is mentioned and for Wimble Bond WBD Wimble Bond Dickinson had two to have an anti- retaliation and or protection against retaliation as well as a confidential employee tip line. So we're kind of merging those two together as you um preview this for you tonight and you will take action on Thursday. All right. So, I I mentioned it. You first saw it or maybe heard about it with the um Cherry Beckert on uh with our annual audit um internal audit [snorts] and that was on February 5th. Um we already have a non-discrimination anti-harassment. So, that provides some protections. It's not exactly the same

as a uh as this uh staff reviewed peer municipalities. Can I let's see I had that in front of me just to give you some update on the work but specifically looked at and called um and I should say that staff from our um organizational development department the legal office and HR were specific to working on this and bringing uh the manager's office some recommendations but they looked towards other jurisdictions that have this specifically Charlotte Greensboro Durham Wilmington and Fateville all have some form of this whether it's a policy or something that's in their um uh policy uh sorry their employee handbook type documents. Their work that they did um kind of looking at thinking about who's covered, what counts as retaliation, how to report it, and what happens when violations occur was kind of some marching orders, if you will. I'll give you some more details, but employees may report concerns to any director, any attorney, the legal department, um or the internal auditor. um there are alternative reporting procedures um when there's potential conflicts and Lisa specifically went through that. So the staff report details, you know, kind of some of the whatif scenarios. There's a provision to uh report things on counsel if if you will. Reports may be made anonymously. Um that brings up the issue if you know you can't be too specific or if it's too anonymous. uh an anonymity may limit the availabil ability to investigate. Uh but the town will protect confidentiality to the extent permitted by law. Carrie will promptly, thoroughly, and fairly investigate all reporting um or of suspected improper activity and retaliation, including referring allegations to um legal violations or misuse of public funds to the town attorney. So depending on who it goes through, the uh attorney's office would play a prominent role and could even um hire outside investigators to help uh review

something depending on who the tip was about. So then speaking of a tip line, uh which was one of the specific requests, we think that we should just go ahead and include a tip line in this. We're researching options for what that will mean. So you take action on a policy, we want to establish a a standard procedure that would go with that. That would be an internal document of how to do this. So, you know, should you adopt this on Thursday, we'll enact a policy and then we'll bring it along with establishing a tip line and uh figuring out if there's a substantial cost to that or not that we would have to bring back to you. Um, I'm not sure that it's a huge cost, but we'll make you aware of that as well. Um, so the next steps, I'm getting into the next steps a little bit, but upon uh potential taking actions, we've got to communicate this effort um, you know, with staff um, includes supervisors and department leadership and how this policy could affect um, working within it. We want to integrate it into onboarding and relevant training materials for new um employees and then obviously do the standard procedure that I mentioned and then monitor the policy for effectiveness and recommend updates since this would be the first time we had one. I hope we would learn um and potentially update it as necessary and then also figure out how we um keep you in the loop to any personnel action from it should there be any. With that, um, I'll open it up to any comments or or questions. And I will do a brief presentation on this at the council meeting on Thursday as well before you take action.

No questions.

I have I have a question. So, if an employee reports it to a director, if I wrote it down correctly, an attorney in the legal department or an internal auditor,

would they have to report it to the town manager?

It would at least depend on what it is.

It depends on

if it's about the manager, then it would not be reported to the manager.

Okay, that was my question given everything and just making sure there's a a safe avenue. Of course, you being you would be Lisa the only person on that list that wouldn't report to the town manager. So,

and yes,

I have one piece of feedback. Um, every year, my regular employer, we go through our onboarding process, you know, to reelect for our annual benefits. Um, and every year we're assigned, sometimes all at once in a flurry, a lot of annual required training. What I'd like to see in the policy is for it to be very explicit that the we'll will will in some way revisit the anti-retaliation process and policy annually as part of and [snorts] y'all know better than I do fill in the blank um you know where it could be most appropriately sort of tacked on just to make sure new employees are are aware of it that it's reinforced um and just revisited. I just like it to be pretty explicit because what I don't want for us to do, I think we've all learned the hard way that having a policy is 49% of the battle, right? 1% [clears throat] is people knowing about it and the other 50% is making sure it works.

I just made that up on the spot, by the way. I'm very proud.

Yes.

Yes. [laughter]

So, are you requesting then a sentence added to this policy before you adopt it Thursday? We can work on that in the next day or two.

Yeah. directs the manager to um

help me how exactly what you want the manager to what

well I'd like to know if my colleagues think that's a bit too much or

do you have it could be incorporated in the standard I'm picturing that when we do the standard procedure that's when we'll figure out how we're going to implement it with staff and how it will be part of orientation or getting it out to existing staff. So, I feel like we don't really know how that's going to work yet and we won't until as a staff

we work through the standard procedure.

Yeah, that that's what I'm asking is that it's um that there's language that says it will be part of new employee onboarding. It will be revisited annually during use some kind of general words um to for to reinforce its availability uh to all employees or something like that. Can I suggest?

Sure.

Um that at the end of the policy, the last sentence is that the town manager or designate is authorized um and we could say and directed to create standard procedures to further implement this policy including to provide training to all new and current employees on a periodic basis. Something like that.

See exactly. Is there any current

um when I worked in the private sector every year we had to sign a code of business conduct guidelines especially if you worked with government because you had to ensure that you identified and you understood that you weren't allowed to give gifts more than $25. So you would have to sign that.

Um which is obviously the same thing with government employees. Is there any sort of policy so that you can ensure that obviously there's the onboarding but just a reminder

for anything with regards to training.

There's no written policy that requires that right now.

That might be a something we should look at especially if we have PECARD potential training changes. We have other types of training changes some sort of

we do it annually. I don't know if that's the right cadence, but something that reminds people of what's important.

Yeah.

And when folks are Go ahead. I would just recommend one thing which is I mean it would not go in this policy but it could be a practice perhaps at the town level where we could um reinforce a training for managers on you know what

are the consequences of retaliation and how how that could lead to even you know losing your job. So it's we are handling this issue twofold. Not just developing this training or a policy

but also training the managers who are overseeing some of these employees.

So um gear training towards possibly if you're supervisor a little bit different than a subordinate who doesn't supervise or something like that. I I think we could add you know

Yeah. And I think so HR has instituted some supervisor training within the past year that um they're encouraging all supervisors to take. Um and I feel like the things that y'all are getting ready to do, this being the first of probably many that are end up going to be end up getting incorporated into a more regular cadence of trainings. And so that's something else I think the manager will need to work through is what does that look like? What's mandatory? What's repeated every year, every two years, every three years? And so I think it'll be part of that broader discussion as we move forward with additional policies too.

And we do do an employee orientation for folks that come on. They get a lot of materials. I don't know if they how much is signed or not signed.

In the old days, you used to sign a lot. I think now you do a lot electronically when you join.

So what mayor prom just said is exactly what happens in the corporate world. You you get that training that if you if there is a complaint and you retaliate XYZ could happen. In the end there is a digital signature

where you sign it and you acknowledge the receipt of the

probably goes in your personnel file.

Right?

If there were something like that,

right?

Well, especially now with cyber security being so important, all of our conduct, business conduct guidelines included things like that because those come you might have gotten the onboarding package 20 years ago.

Yes.

Right.

28 18 sorry 28 18 29. So cyber security wasn't as much an issue then.

Yeah.

So it might be good to take a look into what's possible and they also track that. So if you didn't sign it, you received consistent emails reminding you to do so. And I'd say u maybe [clears throat] it's a good continued and ongoing conversation as we have other policy updates and maybe think comprehensively about what um policies we wish to add to type that type of procedure by itself even with onboard or other onboarding or other um annual type training reoccurring trainings throughout someone's career right [snorts]

because that is a good point and um we mentioned some at a director's meeting recently [snorts]

so I'd say we keep that top of mind a little bit as we as you'll also be seeing other um policy changes in the next um few months.

But if we're seeing consensus on the sentence that I

added, we can add that um we can add that to the online version and then have it so that when you adopt it Thursday night, that piece will be in there.

So, we will see this on Thursday's agenda.

Yes, you will.

And it's a discussion item.

It's a discussion item. Yes. But I wanted to take some time tonight to preview it with you and this was good so that we know if any changes we can make them before the meeting. So thank you. All right. All right. Now I'm going to move to the um council initiated item external human resources consultant for council. And I'll think we'll turn it over to you so you can um run through what you um put out there and have any comments on it and we'll talk about what your options are to take action.

Great. I'll uh just review. Um this recommendation came from the WBLE Bon Dixon um section called workplace environment improvements. I think it was number one on that list.

I had it as this was

well number one on that list as well

on that list but number 11 in the big list

right

um but number one in the workplace environment improvement and many thanks to council member Richards for seconding

it. Uh the goal was that we should uh look to an outside consultant to help us with our annual performance reviews of the town manager, town attorney, and town clerk. And for folks who aren't aware, um in the past up until right now, we've always leveraged our own HR department to do that. And that um what WBLE said was that puts them in a a very precarious situation. and the people that they report to um are they're actually seeing their performance reviews and helping with that process. So, that was part of the suggestion. Um, also included in the request is to um allow a a bit of a wider uh net than that to also be able to provide us with objective HR advice. So, it's a little bit wider than just performance review, but a little bit wider. Um, and I'll let Council Member Richards weigh in on that as well.

Well, thank you, Mayor Prom, for joining forces to advance this uh uh policy change or or uh to get additional resources that we need. And as many of you know, but we haven't yet had an opportunity to discuss as a body. I was able to attend a school of government training back in April uh evaluating manager and board performance. And so I I brought the um uh book that was part of the the course and uh the school of government recommends exactly this as well. I mean I think especially for a municipality of our size, you know, they they don't tend to prescribe oneizefits-all, but it's strongly recommended and suggested. And so I think this dovetales nicely with best practices with our Womble Bond Dickinson recommendation. Um but we know that this takes some staff resources um and we have to discuss of course budget um and and how we would implement this. Right. And so the rest of the council initiated request actually asked that staff bring

back to council for consideration a recommended scope of services based on these ideas. Um and I believe um you also went to that. Did you also go to the school of government?

Um they touched on it on on boarding session. Um, and then you went to a different training and uh, Scott Barry was at a session this week and had him do some research on it as well with with uh, folks at UNCC School of Government.

Great.

Probably y'all heard the same thing, I would imagine.

So, the idea would be to bring back a a scope basically a scope of work, a proposed approach, costs, a contract term, and any additional considerations that we're not thinking of right now at this table. Um and then to ensure that we would have access to that independent HR professional support that that keeps HR at arms length from the folks that we are we are engaging with

and I did reach out to the professor of both that [snorts] training and uh this is broadly her her scope of expertise too. I have not heard back from her yet, but to ask school of government what support they might be able to uh provide for us. Um and uh you know if we get to that point of if they were able to recommend potential firms um consultants um and so uh if I could pass that along absolutely

to perhaps you Lisa should we connect um I can do that as well

or even bring them in possibly

and I this I know the answer but I want to make sure that we're talking about this and people who are watching they also see you know what what the thought processes. I know it's a recommendation. So there are two things um on my mind. This HR consultant is not going to replace the director position that we will have that we we need to backfill for Renee. Correct.

Correct.

Yes. I was not hearing it that way.

This is a special purpose for or small um time frame that we're going to hire and just kind of is by project or is part-time?

Well, and we heard it as um for your appointed positions, right?

I view it as what you're asking is to look for um consultants. Um they will probably be lawyers, but there could be HR consultants that would assist you with the overall review process for the three appointed positions, which typically is not something that's happening year round. So, it would be someone who would give you that focused advice at review time, but then also be available on call for you if you had questions or concerns about performance during the year. Someone that the council could reach out to um separately and and talk to. So, that's kind of what I'm hearing and that we'll be looking at.

That's right. Question. I have a second question. Um so, now my mind always rings about, you know, where the money will come from. Have we kept some money in the budget for this or how are we going to pay this consultant?

Uh you have you have at your discretion $750,000 for midyear appropriation. Should you want to use that pot or you could ask us to bring you other options if you want, but we'd probably recommend considering that first. But we'll we'll research the cost and bring you that back before you have to make any decisions.

Sorry. Go ahead. Sorry. Uh um I have a question about the review because I think it's this is very important especially for the town manager because we oversee three persons and the town manager cover over 1300 staff. So uh another question is we review it annually or semiannually because uh in the private uh companies usually we set the goals for the CEO and uh we check it quarterly half a year or annually to make sure the ship is still targeting to the to the

destination and uh if it's annually checked I'm not so confident about if we go the other way how far away from the destination and especially I think it will benefit the town manager to review his own job. If the council wants him to put more effort on some issues, he could do more. So I I I have a question if anyone can give us a budget for if we need more services like this, how much would it cost?

We can look at that and I think that would be something you'd talk through with the consultant that you pick. you know, what would they recommend, how often? Um, and and it could be a different cadence. You know, here at the town when we have a brand new employee, they get reviewed every three months, it's six months, etc. Then it goes to annual reviews.

So, you know, there's they could talk with you about what kind of cadence makes sense for different positions.

Question. Are you saying, and this is just I'm not picking on you, promise. I'm just kind of clarifying. Uh are you saying the quarterly performance of the town or the quarterly performance of that individual?

Individual individual because we are uh we are working with town manager to manage the whole town because we cannot work with every dayto-day job because that's too much. But still the town manager could um give us more feedback during the year. So it's not the end of the year you see oh we have so many questions but during the year we have like our quarterly meeting so we meet uh we can or town manager can give us a report of anything we want him to do or he want to do more

and Lisa can correct me if I'm wrong but all that would occur in a close session

that part of it the reporting out on the personnel you know whether it's either of the three appointed positions those discussions would happen in close session.

So my point is it'd be at your discretion as to hold those um close

sessions after meetings that you're having. And best practices would tell you that continuous feedback is um the best option of anybody that is supervising another person.

Lisa, you said a new employee, you would usually do a three-month review, six month, and so on. Has that been the case for new town managers in the past?

Um well, it's been 10 years since we had a new manager. Um, so I don't I don't

I don't remember. Okay.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to guess probably not. [snorts]

Yes.

I think the best idea or that I hear from everyone is understanding from this HR professional what the best practices are. Um, also, you know, maybe reviewing our policy associated with the appointed with the appointed individuals and whatever those personnel related questions might be that come up like should it be should be on probation basically or should there be a quarterly check-in? I mean, private sector has a variety of ways to do it. So, it would be great to get that policy or that expertise

and I think it will dovetail um with your future discussions about appointing a permanent town manager and what the contract for that position looks like and how that plays into the review process and all those things. So, they'll all they'll all tie together.

Yeah, good points.

Okay, we need a motion.

Um, yes, you have three Well, it didn't do it.

Yeah, at your seat there is a print out from policy 143. You see that on the bottom of when this meeting when at a meeting when this item first appears, you have um three options. You can discuss the issue and take action. If no additional information is needed, refer the request to a future council meeting at which a staff report with a staff recommendation will be prepared or decide not to pursue the council initiated request.

Do we have a motion then for the updated policy 143?

Oh, no. No.

Oh, we don't need that here. No, no, not for the updated policy. These are your options for taking a motion on your council initiated items.

Oh, I mean,

Gotcha.

Yes. And that's the name of it. So, that's what we would capture.

I think we're going with number two, right? The refer the request to a cons future council meeting

at which time a staff report with staff recommendation will be prepared.

A motion. Does future council meeting mean always a Thursday night council meeting or does that it could is that inclusive of a work session?

Um we've talked about staff reports are more typical to go to a regular scheduled council meeting. Um so if it has a staff report with it, we'd probably think about sending it to that. But now that everything is um live streamed or televised, we have some bit of flexibility to bring it to either

because we can do what we did tonight with the um other two policies which is talk about them

prior to voting on them as well. So there's

being given options much like you've done in the past where there's like option one, two, and three I think would be helpful in this situation because I couldn't even fathom a guess what the cost is, you know, how much services do we need? It's just uh it's hard to even guess what

any of those are and I don't want to go into this guessing at all. So

but would would it to answer Karissa's or concern do you think we can probably before it comes to the council we can discuss during 3x4s then it comes to work session then it goes to the council meeting for

certainly try to do that

voting maybe right

especially when it comes to the cost I'm sure it'll have lots of zeros attached

right

just so I understand in the past we've done a council initiated item everybody votes on whether or not this Council initiate item is a uh request for additional information to come back.

That also that needs to be voted on.

Yes.

And then it comes back and that's a second just for people watching so they understand why we'll see it twice. [clears throat]

So is the suggest is your suggestion I'm

trying to understand the motion to put it on the next agenda or do you want to vote now?

I think

on the the council initiated it

you said I heard I heard the motion. Can I do I need to take it back? How do I take it back?

I heard number two, which is refer the request to a future council meeting. So date undetermined at which time a staff report with the staff recommendation will be prepared. And I think the clarification was if a presentation could count as a staff report.

Yeah.

So that you could talk through options.

Yeah. We need some a little bit of time

probably longer than next.

It won't be the next. Yeah, of course.

Yeah. So there's no date here.

It says future council meeting. So, is it valid or no?

No, that's fine. That's

And that's pretty typical of how um you've you've done that.

I've already put the motion. I don't know.

Yes. [laughter]

I just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page.

Yes.

Is someone second?

Second.

Great. All in favor?

I oppose. Okay. The motion passes.

Thank you. All right. We're going to move through several um manager updates and I'm going to start with um our moving forward dashboard and a little bit of information about that. Uh obviously the on July 16th the state auditor's investigation report was released. Um we held a news conference and we launched launched a public uh dashboard as well. So this is a screenshot of it. I'm going to um go to it on the website for a little bit interact with it uh for a bit. And so so you know there are 39 total recommendations. Five from Cherry Beckards, 13 from the Office of State Auditor, and 21 from the Womble Bond Dickinson report, which you will also receive a um report on uh from someone with that firm on Thursday night on the dashboard. Um it is um let me go back for a second for this. Obviously, you'll see um how there are four

buckets. Um specifically, they are um of a key and they are council expenses and reimbursements, PE cards, fund balance, and financial um reporting. And then there's workplace. So, they're the four um charts, but there are also um the status of each recommendation. So, we've got night not started research uh development complete and we've got some in uh various stages probably more that aren't started especially since um we just received the WLE uh Bond Dickinson report. So, I'll just see that there graphically. All right. So, let me The guys are going to Oops. I'm going to leave it here for a second. They're going to bring it up for me, I believe. I'll switch over. All right. This is where someone can yell at me because I am running with a mouse. Um, so you see we've got it. We've established the get the facts page moving forward. And this is kind of the jump page with a little bit of information, but um, including links to the reports, but what I'm going to focus on tonight is really clicking this button, which pretend I clicked it because it's already clicked for me. Um, and we're just going to jump to the other. So I'm highlighting what, you know, each bar is specifically. And I know this is kind of hard to read on that. Uh you see the 39, but you can filter it, which might be helpful for some through any Cherry Beckard. It'll make mention that Cherry Beckard had five recommendations. Um you know, the state auditor had 13 as mentioned and WLE Bond uh 21. Then you can filter it through any bucket um workforce. I'm going to give you some of those numbers, but I did just want to briefly, you know, it's it's scrollable to see what each recommendation was specifically from the report if you don't want to read them out of the report. It'll be updated periodically with um regards to what changes. We went

through a little bit of the numbering convention. Um so I think this will be helpful for folks to to see um as more things turn um green and completed. Specifically, I was going to um give you a little bit of data on what each one was, but Cherry Beckert had five recommendations. Two were of council um expenses and reimbursement. One was about PEC cards, one was about fund balance and financial rating, and one was about the workplace um which actually is the um that you'll be taking action on th Thursday with regards to anti- retaliation. The state auditor had two with regards to council expenses and reimbursements. They had 13 total. Let me back up. 13 total, two with council expenses and reimbursements, six related to PECards, five related to fund balance and financial reporting, and none with regards to workplace. Wombleon Dickinson had 21 total. Um they had none related to council expenses and reimbursements, four related to PE cards, six related to fund balance and financial ratings, and then 11 with regards to workplace. And as you've already seen tonight, some some overlapped to some degree. Uh but I just wanted to spend some time to highlight it and get any feedback um or comments that you may want to have with regards to the dashboard.

I just want to say um that there has been a lot of discussion about the compensation for um council. Do you think this would be a good time to get that on the list? I think if you would like to, I'm glad you brought it up. If y'all have um specific priorities, especially with the Won Dickinson report or others that you would like to give, um staff's been working on um some timing some from some of these and obviously the state auditor asked us to give them timing. Wobble Dickinson is the one you'll um officially or we've received, but we'll receive a report on it on Thursday and staff's going to work through that. So, if you'd like to provide any um

discussion or prioritization, um you know, I hope you don't have to council initiate too many of them since we have the whole list, but that just gets into helping us prioritize it. Several are regarding policies that are specific to you and I think it might be helpful to spend a little bit of time if you even wanted to focus on those. Um and you mentioned compensation. I think travel was one, meals. Do we do we have compensation on the list? I'm pretty sure it came from state auditor's office, right? Because they did talk about the compensation.

Um,

do we have a policy on that list?

You do not have a policy.

No, I'm saying do we have that recommendation? Sorry, not policy but recommendation on that list or something. I think they they as us to give uh like compensation policy about education or all kind of

that was initiated in January by me but I'm wondering about the compensation like did state

focus on transparency don't

yeah did state auditor um mentioned in the report that we

he verbally I believe he verbally or in the report said he'd like to see it um on our budget. Okay.

Is an a fairly obvious here's the exact costs and compensation

for transparency

item if I remember that correctly.

The um Cherry Becker. So this was really helpful. I pulled up the dashboard and I filtered it by council um and one of the Cherry Becker um recommendations was to consider adopting a policy um addressing allowable expenses um for council. And so I think um a lot of it's related to travel and different things, but I think I think it's partly in there and it will be part of what we talk about. You know, we're not just going to bring you a policy that only talks about travel or one specific thing. The auditor, while he talked about car allowances, he did not make a specific recommendation that said Carrie should,

you know, do something specific related

to council compensation or car allowances. Certainly something we can look at.

Yeah. Maybe um allowances. I'm sorry. I I thought I saw it. Car allowances was specifically called out in the Cherry Becker um recommendation.

Well, I think this is fantastic just as a visual representation of the work that's happening in a way for residents to check our progress, but a maybe a procedural question is this is a lot of recommendations, 39 total recommendations. you know, our town response to the state auditor in particular, we offered some broad timelines um and perhaps even uh more more than timelines uh when we would hope to have most of this work completed, but um that doesn't specify of course the prioritization in what order. Are you thinking of proposing to us some kind of calendar schedule of how exactly we're going to tackle all of this and in what order and when and at what meetings and how

and we'd like [clears throat] to um because we'd like to kind of give a a thinking towards milestones possibly deadlines for all of them. We don't have that for WBLE Bond Dickinson yet where I think it might be helpful for y'all are some of these are policies that relate to you. They're not staff policies. So, if you get into compensation or travel,

um that's an area where I think it it could be helpful if y'all wish to assist in the working of that. Um

when you say that, does that mean you want council initiated items for those items? Is that what

um I'm saying we don't have to have that, but it would be helpful if you wish to talk about it. It doesn't have to be tonight obviously, but if there's some thinking of that because it could be helpful if um a a group of council members or an individual council member wish to um um there's ways of doing that um through committees or task force or

temp of a temporary nature. have uh one council member lead on the effort to do research on your behalf um talk to you individually or otherwise and give us your feedback of what you wish to see versus the way we normally do it of giving you options of how to proceed.

Um certainly it's a little bit nuanced when they're your compensation or you know travel they would be your preferences not ours. So you may be best to give us um you know feedback on how to develop such policy. Uh I have a question about the council's compensation because uh Britney and I were just for seven months and we were on board and everything is there and we just receive whatever the town provide to us. So I I think uh like Sera and a lot of council members also the same thing when they f they were first elected. So how do we get the history? How was those compositions or what kind of policies were created and how the at that time the council decided to provide those compositions to the council but not that council council were elected we're not appointed by anyone because if we make a

that was in 2016 right

it predates my tenure as town attorney it predates Russ as interim or deputy manager I believe we're not familiar with exactly the history of the timeline.

So I think that's also should be a a flag for us to take a look at that deeper

because all I I think all the conversation is reasonable if we have a discussion in public and we are not shy to take any benefit from the town. I think we work and that's all the elected officials have some kind of conversation but uh the transparency is most important. If we discuss in public and we agree with everyone especially with

some uh consultants uh professional recommendation we can take it no matter um we cut or we add that's all the recommendation we can discuss. Yeah.

So there should be some I I agree. I think part of the issue is getting whatever best practices there are understanding how the rest of the municipalities in North Carolina operate as well as what this body wants. I mean I the history is important just to figure out how we ended up here.

But I for me it's more about what should it be and how are we aligned to some of our regional partners. Right. So Russ, is it possible for us? I know you want us to weigh in since this is council policy and you know we have to determine what works for us as a body and you know what would be acceptable and not accept things like those. But would it be possible for staff to research and share with us like what other municipalities are following?

Yes. And anything's possible. Um

that's why if you want us to do it, we can do it. If y'all would rather accomplish it in a different means, um, y'all can also do it.

How would we go about establishing a committee, workg group, whatever it would be appropriate for because this is I've heard about it happening before, but it hasn't happened in my time.

Yes.

On council,

I mean, I maybe I'll let the clerk do it because you'd establish a group, but it would be subject to quorum rules and then you would want to establish whether it's held on um televised in some way. Yeah. And all your work session and regular meetings are now. So it could be a committee that meets here that is smaller than quorum of council and the council would vote on that establish the chair of the committee and then also the duration of that committee as well

and all the technical details of who's

taking you know do you have clerk support? Is there someone taking you you would have to take minutes

um you would have to have you know um and vote on your minutes and publish your minutes just like a regular council meeting

and they would be noticed so they would you would have to establish a type of schedule.

Yep.

I do think that's a good idea to at least take the four council related items

and take those off of

full staff. You have 30. Yeah. Right. 30 I don't know 39 of them.

39.

39. So you have 33 others to well I guess that's six that's four 35 others that you want to that you'll be working on and I think that we can take on that burden of determining for ourselves

what we want to be held to and I'm happy to um help figure out what that looks like

the group and bring it back with maybe work with Jenny or Lisa on what does the structure look like

and we could bring you back some options for a structure y'all can decide

that would be who's on it if you wish us to do that and we probably did the same thing but I put the four know they're harder to read

depending on your eyes how far you are away or easier um but there's those were the four

does it need to be a nonquorum

it would be to be three or less

and if we do that it does not need to be televised my only reason for asking is so that we don't take on additional expenses

that would be council's decision

be your choice

that's my next question like and now we've got to

but I think

incur the video expenses I'm also worried that you know if we come up for something ourselves it might be seen as you know conflict of interest that we are kind of planning for ourselves and then voting and saying yes this is what we want instead of us like if a staff recommends something and a committee discusses and makes a suggestion to council we can make changes based on what our deliberation is going to be that would be the process that we have followed right

well you'd want to take action action in

an open setting, televised meeting. I imagine it'd be

so it's like a working group. The three people aren't making the decisions for the whole group. The three people are like a working group

to then bring recommendations, a list of recommendations,

right?

Perhaps or options back to the larger group to then

talk about.

So, it's just a it's a way to narrow the scope of all the work so we're not doing that work at the big session. I think it will be and probably should be scrutinized either way openly like I mean I I think no matter how it

how we initiate the process and go through it it I mean it should be scrutinized and I mean I think it's fair but I'm fine with taking minutes and all of that. I just am looking for ways not to add additional expenses. Perhaps we can do it like we do the board meetings where people can listen in

and um like we do the boards and commissions

and we don't have the full setup

and that has a webex so people can join in if they want right Jenny

they could join in yeah

so there is no additional expense for video

right

um and airing or something right

so what would be the ne we've discussed it what's the next step then

you you would need to establish here.

Well, I would say if you would like staff to bring you back recommendations on how to do it,

that's what I was

That would be great.

Sounds like another council initiated item in which you would need to take a vote to say, "Hey staff, we'd like we're voting to tell you staff to bring us back recommendations."

For staff to bring us recommendations on how to do it, not

how to achieve decide to do a committee.

What's that?

Or you could decide. I think what Lisa is suggesting is that staff could a committee could be one of the things staff recommends to us in a future in in a larger scope of how we're going to get this work done.

Um because I would love to expand it beyond I you know I'm just thinking

again procedurally of how we do all of this. And so perhaps the onus is on council to tackle these four in whatever venue and format that we do that work. That leaves 35. That would be mostly staff's perview. If the recommendation that would come back to us would be procedural. Here's the recommendations for how council could address these four issues. Here's how we're planning on from now until I think our our auditor response most of it was February of 27, right? May

here's between, you know, now and late winter, early spring of next year. We're planning on [snorts] in some order of operations tackling the rest of the rec beginning and an ending.

Yeah. [clears throat]

Yes.

Is how my brain works. Uh if that makes sense to everyone else.

Yeah. Absolutely. I I do feel strongly though that we should manage this and not have staff

work on these limited to the scope of the four

these four.

Nobody's going to come back. No committee is gonna form and then come back and say let's raise pay to 100 grand and do this and that right there just

and if they do others can vote right

because it's it's just a working group and the work

no decisions would be made without just to be clear one more time [laughter]

no decisions would be made without open session of full counsel. So, is it possible to make a motion here that we are going to form a committee

um to look at the four council related items that came out of the recommendations

um and um who wants to be on that committee?

Second,

wait,

wait. Do we need to do we need to identify all the components so that we can make progress? I don't want to

give staff a process and then come back. I mean, yeah,

I think we need to come back to you with like the layout of like how we're going to operate the committee,

when you're going to meet,

when you're going to

that has to be part of the committee motion to form a committee.

We need to know um have decisions about and maybe need to think through like is it the WebEx? You know, it has to be open to the public. So, um what room we recommend? I think the motion probably should be that we let the staff come back with the process, make a recommendation, and then we can pick one of the options from that and then move forward with forming a committee.

I I think you can you can do it in I would say it doesn't sound like we're ready to do it all tonight, meaning make all these decisions,

right? Um, so you could do as council member Bonsel said and kind of push all the decisions off and have staff bring you back kind of a menu of recommendations.

Interested in forming a

should be, you know, should it be live streamed or not? You know, what are the options? Or if you were ready to form a committee tonight, you could do that piece and say, well, this is who the committee is going to be, and then staff come back to us with the technical details and we'll then decide later how those meetings are going to work. I would prefer I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I'd like to make some progress in instead of just always waiting for a staff report, waiting for a staff report. That's just me.

Yeah,

I would prefer like, you know, letting the staff take the lead and bring that process. Plus, mayor is not here today. What if he wants to be in this committee?

I did think about that. Would would he have the option to join since he's not here?

Can it be a rolling group? And the old operations we used to have, remember way back when had an operations committee and a

you changed when council changed, I believe. So it was more

yearly. Exact every two years.

Okay. It was an appointment. It was an appointment to the Okay. I couldn't remember what it was. [snorts]

Okay.

So this would pro hopefully temporary a year. I'm hoping.

Yeah. I can't read that specifically, but um do we feel confident? Does everybody who can read that feel confident that it would be one committee for all four?

So those four, let me give you the uh bucket if you will, but it's council

expenses and reimbursements. They were the one specifically um to council. Okay.

The four of them aren't really distinct. They overlap in area. So four separate, but there's overlap between the four.

Yes. So, um, I'm trying to move us forward. So,

is there perhaps a compromise between the two, which is to say, we definitely want a committee, but we're not going to make the decisions on the committee tonight as as opposed to we don't know what format we're going to uh tackle this in at all, and we want to form a committee and decide on a lot of the logistics tonight. we say we feel like a committee is going to be the right move but come back to us with the specifics on it.

I think that's fair.

Right.

So a combination of the motion. The motion then is the council would like to form a committee would like staff to come back with the processes for understanding the um implementation the you know the um attendees the participation and transparency efforts associated with that committee uh creation.

Yeah, that would be

I'd second that.

Oh, okay.

That sounded like a motion.

All right. Oh, so who had the motion? Britney with Zara.

Um um I second it. So Britney, go for it. Okay. You don't have to repeat it. Okay. I just want to make sure.

So So moved then. [laughter]

All right. So all in favor

I

Any opposed?

Okay. Motion moves forward.

All right. Well um thank you for that discussion.

I also have another motion um as well.

Uh with regards to some of these.

No. U with regards to uh our current agenda. I'd like to um make a motion to amend tonight's agenda right now for discussion later to add an item to consider the timing of the public hearing for the resolution uh authorizing Raleigh Housing Authority to acquire and preserve mixed income housing in Kerry. So, so that we can talk about it. So, amending tonight's

agenda so that we can talk about it later.

Second.

Are you saying later like tonight's meeting?

Add it to the end of tonight's agenda. Yep. So what are we discussing?

We're just right now we're just this tomorrow or not or are we discussing that in detail?

The first part is amending the current agenda so that we can talk about it. So I don't know what what that will be but amending the current agenda.

Okay.

So we have a second. Any more discussion?

Hey. All in favor?

I. Any opposed?

Okay. So the agenda is amended and we'll talk about it at the end. All right. Thank you.

Yes.

All right. Um, since we're talking about um several of these things, I thought it would be nice to just bring you back um some of the council initiated items you've really done over the last eight months and maybe bring some clo even though you've um finished some of these is just acknowledge the work that's been done and the fact that some of the status is complete. Um and this has this is our tracker. um want to figure out a cadence of doing this um so that you can see the work that you've been doing because at a regular meeting you're just taking the action of something. So we know like as the first um row um change discretionary authority and so um you know when that was done the fact that it was complete some of these we maybe still be working on the second one with um Sria and Michelle um some are complete some will be wrapped up into the into the uh work that's going on with the uh recommendations that have been made but we know an easier one down below with the RFP for the independent external auditor that work was done and that's complete. eat. Um, I'm not going to talk about the gravel lot again anymore.

I I would record with that though. That lot looks terrific.

It does.

The a very good job was done with a limited more limited amount of money. And I every time I walk by it, I'm impressed. So, I just want to say that well done.

Thank you, Jimmy.

Who's that? Jimmy. Well done, Jimmy. Well done, Jimmy.

So, Russ, can I say something? Um for those watching um online and people probably don't understand what does this council initiated item means like you know could we touch upon that just for few seconds just to talk about absolutely

how did this pop up on your list?

Yes. So, your rules of order um give Did I say it right?

Yes. Um give you um you've adopted this as a way to and any individual council member can bring up an item as long as you have a second and per your rules of order. Um it's Jenny and I, but we're really Jenny's going to we're going to get this placed on agenda for you as you saw earlier this evening and you can take one of three actions. Um, and so all of these came before um a televised meeting um a previous meeting where they came up and you took action to I think in almost all of these to send them back to staff to bring you more information. Then you took action at a further meeting. Um so I think the date submitted is meaning to be the date that you emailed it um to us.

I think I emailed 12:15.

Okay. All right.

So

I second it on the first. So I think um that and we'll work on the submitted date

and we presented this on January 6th in the work session.

Yes.

And I think um I just want to add that some of these issues that we as a council have seen over the last eight months. That's what we sent to the staff. And for a council member, we needed a second by the policy and the mayor does not need a second. Mayor could just get anything added to the No, no, he needs a second.

Okay, he needs a second, too. Okay, got it.

Um, and for the same thing, since you there are many of these just as a tracker, we're still working on some and we'll add the one from tonight as well. Um, so I wanted to give you a little bit

update on where we are with some of these. Um and recently we've talked about smoke-free ordinance and moratorum and on the ebikes as well to give you a specific updates um with one that was to partner with Wake County Public Schools for safety improvements. We have a meeting with uh school officials next week to see about doing more on that. So we'll bring that back and more. And I actually I did see John walk in um but and I don't know if he has anything to add to this or not or if y'all have any questions but um a while back you also did um uh a request to do a Cricut RFQ. So we've done that. Um interestingly we only received one statement of qualifications. it's from a real estate um development firm and um really at this point I just wanted to make that you know known that we've gotten the qualifications back and we'll update you at a future meeting if it's what that means moving forward because you would typically move forward to a um request for proposals from that group and so we need to evaluate that and bring it back and this was for Cricut at um Mills Park. So, just a few updates on council initiated items.

All right.

Can we do the RFQ again? Is that um

Oh, you could. Yes.

Is that something that's done on a regular basis where we don't get enough responsible minimum, you know, responsible bids back on things or we don't get

I don't remember doing it off. I think that's a good question because um John did we get lot of bids and they like none of them were

they none of them qualified or they were there were some issues that's why we rejected those and only one could make it to the final list.

Yeah. So at this point we haven't rejected or finished evaluating. We just received but we did receive just the one. Um, and quite frankly, we were a little surprised that it was that number in terms of low. Uh, and so we'll look at that. We've got some evaluation to do

of the one that we received and then we'll come back to you guys for what action you guys want to take on that.

That's odd because I got a call at least from three different groups about this and um I did not know what the processes and I just said go talk to the staff. So I'm surprised that you know

Yeah, we had we had lots of conversation with lots of different folks. We held multiple uh different meetings that were open to anybody who was interested in learning more, answering questions, all of those things. And we did a pretty extended uh time frame. We did 90 days uh for folks to be able to submit. And so we felt like initially we were going to see far more responses than we actually received by the due date um with only one coming in. But I don't know if they've even met the qualifications or what they've submitted. Uh we're still kind of processing all that. But we'll be back. Thank you.

Yeah. You're welcome.

Yeah.

It's been some amount of time. So I thought it was you just do an update.

Yeah. [snorts]

So more information soon, I hope.

All right. Um this was something that I think y'all asked to bring back. Uh really it was um you've done a council out andabout um email.

Yeah, it was a newsletter.

Yeah. Jenny, why don't you just detailing it?

So, council out and about, it was a newsletter um I think um the former town manager was involved in the creation of it um related to the newsletter that he sends out as well. And it we started it back in August. Um we ended it in May. And because we took council action to create the newsletter, um we were just coming back tonight to take action to remove it. And the newsletter covered activities that council participated during the week. It was posted on social.

And I'll just start part of um why I asked to bring this up was although I think it's a wonderful opportunity to share what everyone does in community. Um I felt like that we all had a variety

of different ways to share that whether it was social media, our own individual newsletters. And my original thought was, you know, we we need to be taking things off of our, you know, hardworking staff's plate at this time while resources are stretched. So then, and since we do have other mechanisms by which to do that, um, why don't we do it on our own rather than asking staff to put that together for us?

I shared with Sean that I did not feel like this was a good use of our clerk's office time um, when it was initially brought up. So, I am very very much in favor of discontinuing it.

And Jenny, just to confirm, engagement with this content was pretty low. Correct.

Very low.

Yes.

Just a motion. That's what we need.

So, do you want me I'll make a motion that we stop the council out and about second.

Who's a second? Sorry. I'll

second.

Three.

All right. Any other discussion?

No. All right. All in favor? I

post. All right. Bye-bye. Out and about.

Bye-bye. Thank you. Well, hello, assistant manager Stacy Ti, and she's going to go through some uh revenue updates for us.

Yeah, it's been a little while. It's been a I don't know, probably about a month since I've stood before you all, right? Um so, we're going to take a little trip backwards to fiscal year 2026. Recently, when we've been talking together, we've been talking about 2027, and that's where we find ourselves today. But I want to give you an update on some of our larger revenue sources. This is the typical routine update that you all get. Um, we're going to start with a conversation about sales tax. Um, this should look familiar to you all. The orange line represents uh fiscal year 2026, the year that we just completed. You're not seeing things. The orange line really does extend just to April because if you remember the way we get that revenue, it runs about two and a half months behind when the sale happens in April. We get that revenue in July, right? Um, so you can see where

we're trending along the way compared to the prior fiscal year of 2025. And on the next slide, we'll get into a few updates. Um, this box to the left is giving you year-to- date carry sales tax revenue information. And it's showing us year-to- date in fiscal year 25, we were at about 48.8 million. And year-to- date, again, this is through April sales in 2026 of of the year we just finished, we were at 51 almost 51.3 million. up a little bit. Um we do still have two more months that we will receive. September we'll get our last distribution. Um but you can see that in April the 20 April 2026 the sales tax receipts were 5.1 million and that was up just a very small amount 39%. I think it was about $20,000 over April of the prior year. Um April 26 sales tax receipts were 8.42% lower than the prior month or March of this fiscal year. And right now we are projecting, and this is a projection, right? It could change. I just said we still have two more months of revenue to to bring in on this area. Um, but we are projecting uh $62.2 million in sales tax, which would exceed budget by about 4.2% or $2.5 million, which is would be lovely if it if it came through that way. So that sales tax,

excuse me, Stacy, is this one of the factors that contributes to our talking about projected budget numbers and not concrete budget numbers um particularly towards the end of a fiscal year?

Absolutely. It is. I love that you stopped me and pointed that out. Yes, it is great news that we project we're going to be $2.5 million above in this revenue source, but we don't have the information in yet from the state on the remaining two months and we don't know what kind of sales we're talking about for those months. So, that could dip. It could mean that we meet our budget number. It could mean we go below our budget number. Could mean we exceeded. But yes, that's why we do projections is to help us understand what we think we may be looking at. And then the actuals

when we know those, we know those. And when we budget at the beginning of our budgeting process for the the future fiscal year. Yes.

Can you remind us where we come up with or or what organizations help us estimate what we think our increase in sales tax revenue might be for the future fiscal year.

Yeah. Love these questions. It comes from a number of areas. First, we look at historical. Uh we secondly look at information that the North Carolina North Carolina League of Municipalities uh presents. They produce a quarterly revenue report. It's very helpful to kind of understand trends that they're seeing. Uh we watch what uh economists in North Carolina, particularly some of those banks out of the Charlotte area, what they're projecting. Um and that is generally the resources that we go to on sales tax when we're trying to understand what that picture might look like for a given fiscal year.

So clear. Thank you so much.

Good deal. And though

not the only reason, not the only factor in thinking about our fund balance and which we just made decisions about how much fund balance to use, but because we are projecting.

Yes.

And don't know what those numbers actually are was why we have to be a little more conservative. Correct. Is that correct?

Well said. Would you also say that we were more conservative, more liberal than the recommended um experts that you just shared?

For 2026, we were probably a little more conservative. We I'm not going out on that limb yet for 27. It's too early in the fiscal year. You're not going to get me there yet. Um [laughter] but yes, I would rather personally be a little bit more on the conservative side because then if you do earn a little more then you are con if things go well with spending and all things hold true then you are contributing a little bit more to fund balance right but yes there is definitely I talk a lot about art and science um sales tax is not a science sales tax is an art right trying to understand how that particular revenue is going to come to be

okay thank you

thank you

all right yeah I don't want to rush you property tax collections. This is a

different story, but I bet we're going to have some of the same questions. How's that? Um, in this case, the year is complete. We have received our our uh property tax revenue from uh our counties, Wake Chadam, and Durham. Again, orange line is 2026, the year we just completed. Blue line prior year. It's very hard, and we'll talk about it in a minute, and I'm going to step out of my box, but this orange line is just a titch below where we were the year prior. Just a very small amount. Um, but that's not really a surprise. We've been talking about that throughout the budget process and some of the things that we've been seeing. So, looking again at this is a year-to-ate chart. In this case, it was year-to- date through June because we had received those receipts. There may be a few things in true reps through the audit that may happen, but for the most part, this is a solid number. Um, so in 2025 at year end, we were at about 167 million. 26 at year end still projecting 178.3 if you round up. Um so 26 property tax actual revenue is estimated to be about 0.56% or approximately $1 million below budget. Um some of that is you know uh we collect the majority of our property colle tax every year but there are some residents that do not pay but it's a tiny amount. Some of this is taxbased changes that we've been talking about uh particularly in Wake County that information that we received from our tax administrator there. Um but all in all it is good news. It is 0.56% less than budget as as estimated but that is a million dollars. Um so take that into account with what we just talked about with sales tax. If we think that's going to be up and this is going to be down to some degree they wash. Um 2026 property tax receipts are estimated to be 6.54% higher than prior year. So while this year is a bit below budget, we are trending more than the prior year. But that is that is also due to the fact that we did have a tax increase in 2026 above 25. We raised the tax rate 1.5

cents in 26. So that's primarily the difference there. So questions on this one. I don't want to go too fast.

Do you ever expect to get the 1 million that you expected? I mean, this is pretty tight at the end of the year, so I don't know that we're going to receive this, but um it's not I mean, you very rarely you very rarely receive exactly what you budget. How's that for the factors that I discussed, what people folks that don't pay their bills, that pay them late in the next year, whatever the case may be, or simply just it's all working from an estimate anyway at the beginning of the year, an estimate of the tax base and all of that. Good. Other questions on that? Yep. For people who may be tuning into this that didn't see prior discussions we had, some of this is because it's they are disputing it. Is that correct?

Some of that can be um some of this is if you recall, we lost about $200 million of assessed value in Wake County.

I just wanted to make sure we just restated it one more time.

Yes. Yes. And that loss, I want to be clear since we're restating, it was primarily primarily but not completely attributed to the charitable uh charitable tax exemption uh legislation, also known as the blue ridge or the loophole um tax exemption that we've talked about legislation that's being reviewed at the state level.

Someone emailed me about this. I think it was Mike Green who asked this question or it could be someone else. I apologize if it was not my green but um how many properties did we say and Tana I think I copied you on that email. How many properties were in the list where the property tax was being disputed for

the last the last information that we received is that there were six under review. Um but I don't have a number for how many prior to that and that was Wake County specific provided by Wake County. I just wanted to make sure it was clear to anyone watching that we're being good stewards, that we're not just saying $1

million is nothing and that it's not important.

Every dollar is important.

What one million below the budget,

correct? We are estimating a projection. Again, this will all be vetted throughout the audit process, the year-end audit process that is just now kicking off,

but the estimate right now is that we will be under budget. we will receive a little bit less than our budget.56% less than our budget

which equates to about a million dollars.

So that's the reasonable range of the um

it is not unreasonable in revenue estimates but to the prior point every dollar is important.

Okay, I'm going to go one more uh building permit. This is the only slide we have here. It's just a very quick update. This is a very just u it's a very variable revenue source, right? It's definitely not one that has a continuous stream you can count on. Um but we do anticipate coming in above budget on this. Um again, you can see both points go out through June, but we still have to go through our year-end audit process where everything is reviewed and double checked to make sure it was accounted for properly. Um don't expect much change on that picture. Um but is good news. Also good news for development. you know, a little spike. It's dipped again, but we'll see what happens in the year 27.

Can we raise that? Didn't we raise the cost of that of the permit for a building permit

in 2027 for the budget year we're now in? Again, this is 2026 year just ended, but yes,

but moving forward, we we raised the cost a little bit. Yes.

A little bit. Yeah.

Okay.

All right. One more. Last one. Solid waste. This one looks pretty predictable, right? This is one where every month your bill comes in, people pay your bills. Um and really the only difference between the two was in 2026 we increased the solid waste fee. Um again we've increased that in 27 as well. Um very steady just a little bit higher revenue because of the fee increase.

So the revenue of the solid waste fee um

will go to the utility

to the general fund because the expenditures associated with that are budgeted in the general fund within public works. Just make sure what are those revenues that go into

the water bill revenues go into utility fund.

Correct. Yeah.

Correct. They are build together which does create a little confusion because you do pay your solid waste fee with your utility payment together on your utility bill. So

and solid waste fee is something you've talked about in the form of a cost recovery amount. Correct. to pay for the solid waste service even though it goes to general fund but just more recently in budgets you've talked about it as to what you wish to recover

on a

right and we moved that up because it was at 97% to a higher cost also continues to go up

so if you don't do anything the percent would go down

yeah so I think that closes things out and brings things back to you Russ

does and I'll turn it over to Jenny for what should prove to be a fun part of the agenda [laughter]

as we look at your schedules.

Yes. So, you got full warning that we were going to go through schedules today. And so, just kind of a couple things at your seat as you think about this conversation. You have your 2006 um 2026 meeting schedule followed by the proposed one starting January through March in 2027. And um this was initially adopted by council on December the 4th, 2025. The 2027 will come back to council in the December, but we we'd like to plan out a far in advance. And so we start scheduling them and populating them on your calendar as well and then bringing them forward when we adopt your calendar throughout the year. Um next you have it's a list of dates. Um that's our reference list of holidays that um that are carry state holidays, carry holidays and then also dates that we observe um because we know they have impacts on

people attending um also then followed by a list of dates that we are mindful of but they don't influence our scheduling of meetings. So these are two things um that we send out each year to council. I think we've been doing the reference list for I want to say three years now. Um, it just helps with our scheduling. And since we're talking about schedules, I thought it'd be good just to bring those, have them at your desk where you and then also so you get familiar with them. Hopeful. But, um, so out to the fun part.

All right. We're going to go through quarterly date review. So, the purpose of tonight's activity

is to look at for an August September quarterly date. Um you'll see in red I have the original date highlighted and you'll see August. This comes straight from your council your um meeting schedule calendar online so you can kind of see everything. Um the X's is marks out one um dates that are not available from a staff perspective. Also some of those dates on that reference list list that I gave you. So, we need to find one that is after the August 13th date. Um, and I put these at the top. The new date cannot be the same week as a regular council meeting. That's just a lot on staff to try to get ready for both. And, um, also noting that the mayor is not here tonight, we'd like to find maybe two to three dates that would work. I can run those by him and then have a date that would um, be on your agenda for Thursday so that we can get it settled. and um quickly get the calendar updated and everything. And so I didn't ex out anything from your um personal calendars or personal obligations. So those are the things that you bring forward tonight to to see, you know, which date may work best.

And so we need a quarterly date that's in August or September is the first thing to

Yes. look at

and we already have one scheduled for November. Is that also to be discussed or no?

Yes. And at a previous work session, I think Lori, you said that you could not make the November one, right?

So, it's the conversation of, you know, would you want to reschedule that and if so, looking at that tonight as well.

I also mentioned in 3x4 this week that I think it's time for us to just decide on how much flexibility we want to we have to keep doing this,

right? Um we get because we get it this so far in advance if people can't come they can't come right unless we're not going to have a quorum of course.

Yes.

Uh but it's

Yep.

Just to just for

how important is is it to everyone if one person can't make it correct.

Right.

And I I appreciate that because I missed them before. So I understand that the need or desire

for some people to need to be here but um I'm not Yeah. I'm not

Oh, I get it. But in the same breath, I introduced the idea that we should move the annual retreat date because it falls on my birthday every year. [laughter]

No.

Or the weekend of my birthday, right? Um so take take that for what you want.

Well, and and I'll add with um technology now, you can call in. Um you can watch it later. Yes.

Um there's just a different means that you're able to stay up um to date with what happened at a meeting,

right? Yes. So Jenny, do you need dates proposed then for August?

Yes. So August, September, especially for the August, September date, you can't go to October. You know, you're kind of bleeding into the November um time frame. So I mean, we can start with the 17th, 18th, um 25th, you know, any of these dates kind of moving forward. 25th would not work for me from I'm going to I will not be available starting from 19th August I have to go

drop off my child in DC so I will not be I will be very grumpy

you said not after the 25th

so um 19th from August 19th

and then I'm out on vacation

and do you know the mayor's unavailable on the 18th

unable 18th

and so Jenny we usually aim to have these on Thursdays, but it looks like in the interest of getting this scheduled, any weekday is up for grabs.

I think so. Yes.

Being mindful of the criteria at the top.

Yes.

Jenny, um 17th, 18th of August, or September 15th, I'll propose any of these dates if

you said that.

You just said you couldn't do the

You just said you couldn't do the the 17th or 18th. No, she said

no I said 17 18th I can from starting from 19 and not available

but Jenny said the she knows the mayor is not available on the 18th but so the 17th

could be

is in contention [laughter]

could be an yes if we want to talk about the 17th first

the 17th is okay

the mayor and I are traveling I don't know when he's coming back but I won't be back until later on the 17th but if it's just me I'm comfortable with others moving forward That sounds like a lot. I I say probably those dates are for the best.

So, we can go down to the maybe because we went to the next week because it's the same

as a council meeting

as a council meeting date. So, then you go into the 31st, the week of the 31st.

I'm um out of country. I'm um I will be back on 7th September. So, any date after that would work. How about September 15th?

September 15th. Okay, we can look at that one if everybody wants to weigh in. Works for me. September 15th.

September 15th worked for me.

Bella, anyone have a problem with

I don't plan too far away from it. [laughter] Just go ahead.

It doesn't help to plan ahead.

The date pick the date. [laughter]

Should we put two on the calendar just in case? Should we Can everybody look at the 29th? September 29th. So that in case Harold work

both work for me

works for me.

Both work for me too.

Okay.

Jenny, can we put the block on the calendar so that we don't overbook ourselves because I would hate for these dates to get blocked. [laughter] So, I'll go ahead and put the blocks on tonight after this meeting and then um figure out the um I'll talk to the mayor tomorrow and then we'll have the list on we'll amend the agenda on Thursday to include the final date.

Jenny, if you wanted up to three dates,

you could add the 16th as well or does anybody have a conflict? 15.

16th is a Sunday.

Oh, September.

Oh, September 16th. I I can't be here the 16th.

Okay,

that matters.

Yes.

Yes, I think that matters. [laughter]

You decide my vacation days like you say more than I do usually. So, yes, we'd like you to be here. [laughter]

Well, I was I was going to spread the love to this wonderful group could lead you through a quarterly meeting.

Happy birthday. Mhm.

So, we'll Sounds like we'll go with the 15th and the 29th.

I don't know of any I don't hear of anything else available. No, I mean, if you want another one, um maybe the 2nd of October. Oh, no. Sorry. It's blocked.

I see.

And we can ongoing September.

Might be too close.

Why not the first week in September? Sure is out until the 7th, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

I will be in Europe, but if you guys want to go ahead and have the meeting, so be it.

I [laughter] mean, we'll check maybe if

the third

find out if he's available for one of those and if we need to come.

If we need to back off and make it the third.

So, the third would be the third option.

Yeah.

Yes.

Third is not an option for me. Okay, make note. Okay. All right. Um, in November, are we leaving as scheduled?

Just Just leave it. I'm not going to force everybody else to move it because I'm not here.

What's the date? November 5th.

5th. Yeah, because then you back it into Thanksgiving and people who are

Yeah, that one hard for me to move.

That's fine.

There's not much room. call in from Europe.

No, it wouldn't.

Oh, another [laughter]

Wait,

wait, there's more.

There's more.

Oh my god.

And we have to take in consideration our optional dates, too. So, um, at the June 23rd work session, council asked that we schedule start scheduling joint meetings with a couple municipalities. And I um so these are after hours. I don't know if that makes it a little easier. Not a full day. They would be

when you say after hours, that means like after 5 5 p.m. Okay.

Yeah. And so we're just looking for um and we highlighted a couple options knowing that you know you just filled up two options with a quarterly potential and we can still look at those but five to six preferred dates that I can go to the clerks of these municipalities um and say to them like here's [snorts] four dates which one works best for you and just kind of work through the list. I I'm I was just I was going to say we could do it after or quarterly, but I'm

always so pooped my brain is squishy. I don't want to do that.

And if you go long that kind of

Yeah.

Um

I know we might have some challenges with like Morrisville, their council meetings are on Tuesdays, right? So that might limit different ones. I'd really like to not miss a volunteer border commission, but I understand that's

potential. So maybe we could lean into some of the other days when there aren't when they aren't there.

How many meetings do we Oh, we need four.

We'd like five to per six five to six preferred dates and then there's four um joint meetings that council has requested.

And what is this yellow?

Yellow is the ones that we suggest. Um just kind of we

knowing that we had to pick so many, we thought we would just like start somewhere. Yeah. Wednesday, September 16th is is going to be okay. My public art board is very they're very nice people and will understand.

Okay. And does that work for others?

Which one was that again?

September 16th.

Yes. Yeah, that works for me.

And on September 2nd, my senior advisory board's at noon. So, it doesn't interfere with if we want to do after 5:00 p.m.

So, you're out. Is that okay with you?

Which date?

Um, September the 2nd. Yeah. I'm not

Oh, that's right. You're in Europe.

Yeah.

So, that's for all the console meeting.

And well, could we say let's the 15th and the 29th as long as Harold is available that we schedule one?

Mhm.

On [snorts] one of those days.

Opposite the quarterly.

Yes.

But not in conjunction. Yes. Yes. [laughter] So, whichever one Yeah. a flip-flop and we can I mean you know this one can go into October and November.

Yes, let's look at October

as well. it, you know, October the 15th,

even though you see um something there for a volunteer committee, it's the greenway committee, so account there's not a council leazison involved in that.

You don't have the the the Hamsa Diwali dance here like what date is that?

Oh, what the actual performance?

It's on the 10th.

It's on Saturday.

Oh, okay. So on the

19th

September

October 3rd to the 17th I am out of the country.

October 3rd to the

but I'm not going to Yeah. I'm not going to block off half of the

month

and and I'm up to the 6th on October the weekend through the 6th. So the 5th and the 6th. So those two wouldn't work for me. But the 12th,

Chissa, would you be okay

if we

I'll live.

Okay. [laughter]

So, maybe the the 12th and what about the 15th? 15th works for me, too.

My calendar resets every year as the school year sets, so I have nothing on here. So, I'll just have to be flexible, okay, to be there when I need to be there.

November 9th and 16th are great for me, too. that work for everybody? I mean the other option would be the 26 October 26. I mean

I know you the planning and zoning board is recorded but

you don't generally interact with them. They run their own meeting. So

that might I have a thing on

say I have something on my calendar for that day.

Yeah. October that is the downtown park Dvali.

Oh. Oh, it's not on my other calendar. Never mind. And then there's the 16th of November.

The 16th also November 16th work for me too.

And November 9th

and not not for me. The 9th. I'm not here. You're not here.

I'm not here on 16th and 17th October. But I'm not going to hold my breath for this one.

The 16th of October. Right. Okay. Yeah, those aren't any of the proposed dates, so that's good.

Okay.

Yeah, I think we have enough um to work with, you know, 15th starting in September the 15th, 16th, 29th, October the 12th, the 15th, and then um November the 16th.

Works. Okay. You sure you got what you needed? Cuz this is this strike while the air is hot. I mean, I don't know if I can come back. [laughter] Um, okay. And the last one is to talk about the retreat date for the 2027. So, it is, if you wanted to kind of put in the perspective date, you would go to your meeting schedule for 2026 and flip to the next page. It's 2027. Right now, we're holding the fourth Friday and Saturday, the 26th to 27th um for the annual meeting.

[snorts]

Say that again. The 26th and 27th annual meeting,

February.

Yes. And so there's been the request to change it. Um, as Carissa said, and just looking at the weekend before

that's so far out, it doesn't matter. [laughter]

Well, what I'm asking,

my vacation's a year ahead. I'm what I'm asking is for us to permanently move it to the third third weekend in fe February instead of the final weekend in February.

Is it a random date? I mean, we need it to be a certain time.

Um, it doesn't need to be a certain time. If we had I mean I think it's always we compare it to like the logistics. So, um, if we had some

expectations of when council wanted it, then that would help kind of narrow down also the logistics as well.

I I actually like your idea of changing it in our heads to be the third weekend of February rather than the last one because I think that way it's a target for all of us and we know that for the future rather than always celebrating your birthday and

then they don't have to race home and have a surprise surprise party again. So, I'm good with that if that's I don't have anything and I'll block it.

Okay. Does anybody else have any problems with that?

I don't plan that far on. So,

Oh, we [laughter] need to check with Harold, too. I don't think I brought it up to

all these dates. I'll run by him. I'm sure he's going to be listening in tomorrow or even tonight right now. Um, but that works. So, we will have we'll bring this back on Thursday and then also update the retreat date on Thursday, too.

Thank you.

So, we got it.

I'm solid.

I'm really going to miss having Chris a birthday cake at the retreat, but [laughter]

that's it for you, Jenny.

That's it.

All right. Before we adjourn, you amended your um agenda um for one additional item. So,

that's right. There's been um a significant amount of discussion about the Raleigh Housing Authority, which is currently on the agenda for Thursday. Um and there not only have there been obviously resident concerns, but recently heard that um the Raleigh Council was not aware of as well of the Raleigh Housing Authorities and I think a few of us received some calls about that today. Um, in order to allow us some additional time, I'd like to u make a motion to remove the public hearing that's item three for the RHA resolution from the July 23rd agenda to and I would need a second and then we could discuss it.

No, second. Okay. Anyone want to weigh

in? Well, we haven't had a chance to discuss because it is a relatively recent addition to an agenda and we haven't had a chance and I haven't had my 3x4 this week yet either to know the timing of it and I don't know if Heather might need to chime in. Was this time sensitive because of the nature of the sale?

Yes. So, what they provided us, but based on their contractual arrangement for making a um purchase request for that property, they needed it to be done.

Uh sooner rather than later by the end of July, I believe. Yeah, maybe July 27th. I can't remember the date.

They already paid the um down payment. Not not down payment, but like

earnest money,

due diligence.

Due diligence is like $2 million. If they don't go ahead, they will lose the two million. So that's why they're in a uh urgent, but they can still without our um uh this um carry everything, they can still go ahead with without this ordinance. So um

I want to make sure I understand the motion is for us to remove them from our agenda.

It is currently on the agenda to discuss and to make a go no-go decision

tomorrow. Uh th

Thursday

because today is Tuesday.

Sorry. [laughter]

But the applicant wants it on the agenda on Thursday as of what we know right now because they scheduled a meeting with me tomorrow to try to run through this. I'm curious about the president of being asked to vote yes or no on something and us removing it from an agenda when it's been requested to be on the agenda.

I mean, that's a great point. I also am concerned that there's not enough I don't want to use the word due diligence but discussion and that they're they and we are prepared to make a decision on

Thursday.

Yeah.

Um without giving a time certain of when they may or may not return. I just think that from my perspective there's still a lot of work and a lot of intergovernmental relations that need to be talked about. I'm quite concerned when a Raleigh city council member calls you and says, "We didn't know about this."

Oh, I completely agree.

I don't think it's I I feel like they they need an opportunity to do that ground work before they come to us.

And that sounds like new information that you got today, which probably wasn't discussed in the 3x4s for others, but I'm along with Council Member Richards. I'm wondering if it's like you assume you missed something if you haven't if you weren't editing if if there's anything staff would like to tell us that we haven't been told since we haven't had our 3x4s this week or can and st can staff also speak to what council member Wong was just saying what happens what happens if we vote yes on what was just proposed. So we had our 3x4 um Chris and I met with um the staff and mayor was there too and we discussed this briefly at least from in that meeting at that moment and I believe that every day it changes. So I I just want to make sure that you have not missed out any information like

usually never but you always assume you have if you

Heather's ready to share

at least in that meeting um I don't think we had all the details to be shared with the council members. So I felt like leaving that meeting that I am not ready to vote on this particular that's just my opinion. I don't think the expectation was for us to feel comfortable voting on it after that without getting and as we always tell people, we haven't had the hearing yet. I can't tell you if I support or don't support something if I haven't had

the staff report, which is always critical, right?

And, you know, hear from the the applicant.

Like right now, I'm tempted to pull things up on my phone, but I don't want to look like I'm like texting someone.

Yeah. Exactly. [laughter] And clearly there's new information seemingly every hour on

but just before other but just to be clear the intention was to vote on it

tomorrow. Thursday saying it. Yes.

I'm hoping Heather you can add clarity. I'm sorry Miss Wheeland if you can add some some clarity into what the repercussions would be if we do not allow the public hearing and vote as requested. Well, I can I can share with you that the Raleigh Housing Authority asked us to put this forward to you for consideration um during the due diligence period when they have an offer in on the property Amberwood at Lockmeir. So, that this is the soonest that we could bring it forward for community and council consideration. Um and they petitioned us to do that and provided the information that they are under contract to do so. Um it's naturally occurring affordable housing. Um and so um based on the housing plan and and some of our imaginary community plan policies and and them being a um state chartered government agency, we wanted to bring that to you for your consideration um as they requested. And so um in the in the prior couple weeks, we have, you know, continued to get questions from residents um and potentially, you know, information that residents and that you might want. And then um today it um this is not this is new information to me but um the Raleigh Housing Authority indicated that their board um and um whatever governance they need from their um elected officials that that had been procured. So um so that is new information if there's not full alignment um on their end but we were bringing it forward to your for your consideration um based on their request you know um and their um due diligence period.

Yeah.

Can they move forward if we don't vote or we vote no? They have indicated to us that their due diligence period ends on Monday and they cannot operate in karaasa housing authority without this authorizing resolution. So that would be their decision to make whether they wanted to, you know, withdraw from their due diligence period or wanted to move forward. I don't know what they would choose to do, but if they want to operate as a housing authority, they would need your your your authorization to do so. And they still right now are in their due diligence period. So they certainly have put money on the line and my understanding is that would become hard money on Monday. Um so hence their their request for you to consider it um at this time.

Yeah. So my so my concern is having heard from a Raleigh council member um for those of us who who know Raleigh Housing Authority um is partially funded by the city of Raleigh um receives authorization from Raleigh. um some of their board members are appointed by the Raleigh City Council and my feeling is that it might be shortsighted to ask Carrie for authorization for the Raleigh Housing Authority um to be here when they aren't aligned yet as it was shared with me with Raleigh. So that they're using Raleigh funds

in Kerry and I would it just for me the right uh moment is to to slow down allow Raleigh and the Raleigh Housing Authority to align internally and then have a a deliberate

discussion about you know how we all can work together in a regional affordable housing way because we're all well I don't want to say all but uh majority of the of the council I know wants to preserve affordable housing but and but we need to have expectations and discussions about safety and accountability and the use of public

funds. So I'm afraid that this is this is too quick

for us to make a well informed data informed decision

and I'm not sure why did they not engage the council before giving this due diligence because it's a big amount. Did they did they not want to

I can't speak to their their strategy around their own council engagement.

Yeah, great question. Yeah, this might be a similar answer. By statute, they have to request our authority to operate as a housing authority within our municipal borders, but there was no equivalent or ordinance that they had to get authorization from Raleigh. Um my understanding is no. Their board is appointed and once they're chartered um you know I don't they're and and we um

you know weren't monitoring their own governance within their board. You know it's the executive director that's making the request to us. So we're bringing that forward you know in earnest to you um with the presumption that they're following their own um governance procedures.

Out of curiosity when did the due diligence period begin? I don't know exactly when it began, but they've notified us that it ends on Monday. And we first um were uh approached about this at the be beginning of June. So, this is the the soonest that we could bring it forward to an agenda for you and you know pull a staff report together.

Yeah.

Did did they indicate that they could um extend it in any way or they were not able what do you know about that the end date? They indicated that there's no further time in this contract due diligence period, but I don't know, you know, potentially. Um, I think it has been on the market.

Um,

and I want to mention that uh, Mayor Proan Bush uh, to add this to our discussion today, especially a lot of

things happened today before the work session and I appreciate uh, Scott and Heather bringing the time. is very tight meeting because I was just came back midnight today and we had a meeting with Lochmir HOA this noon during lunchtime. So uh also we heard a lot of questions from the residents and I think that's very important and they're not against affordable housing. they just need more information and feel the timing is too rush [snorts] and for our council me uh for me I feel it's hard to make a decision for such a short time and uh Heather you could uh bring in more thoughts on the resident size uh I think uh the people in front of the um screen will hear more. Yeah, we met with several me residents at Lockmir and there's been a, you know, a number of comments that we've received um as we often do when we put out a public hearing notice. Um and so that is is not unusual, but um we've done our best to respond individually to comments that had questions in them. Um but certainly, you know, the the residents raised um legitimate questions from their perspective um across array array of issues. So, um, I think many of the questions are addressed in the staff report, but but not all of them.

So, Heather, you don't have a crystal ball, unfortunately, to tell us how this all plays out. I I do just want to think about though the consequences of, you know, any one course of action because my fear is the possibility in a a perfect world, we would have all the time we needed to collect all the information we wanted and to answer all of the residents questions before we made a decision. My fear is if we delay this vote or remove it from the agenda on Thursday, there's the scenario where that delay is

effectively foreclosing the possibility of this being preserved as affordable housing. And it sounds as if and we don't get to make Raleigh Housing Authorities decisions for them, but it sounds like one course of action for them could be that then this deal doesn't proceed. And we know that then a likely scenario is this goes back to the open market and a private entity purchases it and we've talked about the scenario if it's refurbished and rents are raised. So my my fear is is that it sounds as if we remove it from the agenda in order to have more time to make a decision. Really we might in some ways be making that decision tonight.

Sure. If we

making a decision to not make a decision is a decision.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, it's not as it's not as if we we don't know for certain that removing it from the agenda tonight actually gives us the opportunity to consider this exact scenario at a later date. It might be that this scenario then is no longer on the table and

we're in danger of affordable housing.

Yeah. And we're also in not in danger but

uh there's a consideration about being re good regional partnersh

right and it there's also a consideration about our Raleigh neighbors using their money

to fund affordable housing in Kerry. I don't have a problem with that as long as they don't have a problem with that. [laughter]

And I don't know that there is enough transparency.

Yeah.

That I would feel comfortable making that decision. That's how I feel. Don't get me wrong. I I there's a lot of great things. There's a lot of pros about this. There's some considerations and issues but the base the foundation on what what we do from a governance perspective which is to be good regional

partners to understand we wouldn't want if the roles were reversed we wouldn't want that.

Yeah. So that's how

and I also want to say something u Michelle to your point um that you know my understanding of the conversation from our 3x4 meeting was and Heather you could probably confirm my understanding that just because let's assume that we all vote no for RHA to

like if we like on Thursday if we voted no

on Thursday if we were to vote I mean um that property is still um an affordable housing um property.

It's not

for sale. Correct.

For sale.

Correct.

But but it is for sale, but it still has that affordable housing component. So, we're not losing that right now. But if that were to be purchased by someone else, then that would be a subject for conversation on how would that change and how would that impact. But if there's also a component of taxes, right? um if the other um builder or agency whatever purchases this uh property like how would the tax be treated? Are we going to

what other builder or agency are you referring to?

Like not agency. I mean I'm talking

Oh, you mean if just somebody else

like yeah if somebody else like XYZ comes in I was like what did I miss? And if it's a private builder, let's say private builder, then you know you get taxes and right now we don't um with this deal you don't get taxes. So there is pros and cons in both sides. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not ready to make that decision because I don't have all the variables to make that decision and I feel if if I make a rushed call on this um I might regret later on. So that's where I am.

Yeah. And I I agree. I think it's just the clarity that removing it from the agenda might mean we are making that

decision tonight. This there is the possibility then that it does not come back to us as affordable housing. And I I want to share I I agree with every single word you said uh Mayor Prom Bush Lori I did every word and to quote you that and you are you were literally pulling the words out of my head and so for me this is just I'm only speaking for me. I cannot support this motion to remove it from the agenda because we were asked to to make a decision. Um, and I don't feel comfortable making a decision by stepping back and saying, "Uh-uh, I'm I'm not going to vote on this. I don't like ma I don't like stepping away from something and that being that action being a decision." Um, so it and for me it's simply we were asked to make a decision. It is rushed. It's going to be we're going to be bombarded with information in the next 48 hours. That is not an ideal way to come to us and get us to make a thoughtful decision. It could make all of us so uncomfortable. We vote no because we don't feel confident enough to vote yes. But I feel like we were asked to make that decision and

and it's simply just a you know what, if somebody comes and asks asks me to make a decision, I feel like it's their right to rush me.

Oh. Wait, we don't always have all the time in the world.

Do we need a vote on this? Like who is going to support and who is not going to support or are we just going

This is just whether or not it stays on the agenda to make that decision on Thursday.

Right. So, are we going to vote on that or No?

Well, there is there's a motion and a second. So, right now we're in the discussion phase and then we'll take I'm not I I will be totally transparent. I'm totally with you. I would much prefer to make a decision

in a month. Well, when I had not even no, not even if I had the answers to all of the

questions and that and I knew,

you know, whether or not the Raleigh Council was going to be supportive of using Raleigh dollars and carry if I knew the answer to that, yes. But can we get an answer for that in two days? I'm not sure.

Yeah. Right. Council member Con Johnson, I I do lean though towards your way of thinking about it that not ideal to have 48 hours from tonight or maybe a little bit less in order to answer those questions and to gather all the data, but we could try our best and if we don't get sufficient answers or we get answers that one way or another,

break by the way, they're not coming back until mid August.

Yes. Then we

at city council. So

we always can vote no. you know, leaving it leaving on the agenda at least gives us an opportunity to have tried our best in the next 48 hours to yes

answer these questions to our satisfaction and take a vote and if we don't then a no vote is still available to us

and I understand why my colleagues feel the opposite because that's how I felt earlier and then I was like

I didn't want to leave this until Thursday and then have someone come and say we didn't know anything about this.

Yeah.

Right. And

thank you. Yeah,

I wanted us to have this discussion. If we if [snorts] we're up for leaving it on the agenda, I'm fine. But I didn't want the new information that both Bella and I heard.

Um to just leave it without being in this new age of um making sure everybody knows everything

and this is the best way to tell everyone.

Yeah. Especially transparency is the most important thing we need to do. And I have a question for Heather. If we push that uh uh proposal after July and the RHAs still go ahead to purchase the property, can they come to the council ask for the same proposal?

I don't know the answer to that, but they have indicated to me that they would likely not move forward with this contract. That doesn't mean they couldn't engage in a new contract if the property is still on the market.

Um, but I don't think their intent based on what they've indicated to me, their intention is to move forward with your authorization or not move forward with this contract period.

Um, yeah.

So, I get any more discussion? Guess we'll call the question. So, uh, all in favor and use your hand of removing it. I think that was my motion to remove it from

the um July 23rd agenda. Um say yes. Two, three. Okay. Opposed. It's e

it's even.

It's even. So

motion fails.

Motion fails, right?

We needed Harold. [laughter]

Harold's going to watch this.

And that is why there's an odd number. [laughter]

Yeah.

All right. So it stays on the agenda.

Mhm. And we will

unless you were to amend the agenda on

we still could and I would love to share with you that uh chief salt provide the public safety data and he couldn't provide more details because the the timing is so so tight. So I'm um I want to make this decision with confidence but now it seems the timing is too rush for us.

So that might make you lean a particular way on Thursday. My point with um if we were to learn more information ahead of the meeting that you wish to consider removing it from your agenda,

we can

we can amend the agenda.

I think the way I'm looking at this is not from a perspective what you said because of the information and the time uh tight timeline. I'm not looking I'm not going to be looking at this as from affordable housing um perspective or kind of that we are retaining affordable housing by voting yes on this. I'm going to be looking at

it from a very different lens that I don't have enough information to make that decision in such a tight timeline. Mhm.

All right.

Michelle Craig,

while we have you still here,

have we seen anything like this before? I mean, like some of the questions we've been seeing are, you know, you only gave two weeks notice or whatever. And

my initial thought was

council, I mean, staff did what was appropriate.

We followed all the statutes on notice. Mhm.

So, um, and again, given the time frame and their request to have it heard before July 27th, this was, you know, really the

the best we could do,

but we could revisit this. And in transparency, I'm meeting with the applicant tomorrow.

I hope

uh early evening and I think a a council member or two are joining. I I don't have enough information to say now,

I don't want them, you know, on I don't want this on the agenda on Thursday and here's why. not just to frustrate you as I often do, uh, Lori, but I might change my mind completely tomorrow, you know, and and be the one saying, "Hey, let's amend the agenda." And I I don't know. Uh, but I just wanted to be transparent and say, you know, we are meeting with the applicant. Um, I feel like my due diligence in this situation is not it's not necessarily to go get the hose, hook it up to the fire hydrant and all that, but it is to try to drink from the fire hose when all the information is blasted at me. So, I would if the applicant is listening, I would hope that they work really hard to get us all the information and answer the questions um to the best of their ability that were posed by residents because the neighbors near this community, they've [clears throat] got, you know, questions that I'm sure they've heard before. I don't think probably the the neighbors in Kerry are going to invent new questions for the Rally Housing Authority that other neighbors in other

with other developments haven't already asked them, right? So, um maybe a a FAQ, you know, with

I mean, one of the great things about having this discussion out in the open as well from a transparency perspective is the applicant probably is listening and watching um as I'm sure um our Raleigh friends as well. And so they I think having this conversation makes them realize we care about this relationship enough. We care about the process quite a bit and we want it to be done right.

And so if things can get done in 48 hours, that would be great.

And we don't want to upset our neighbors either. You you said that well. This is

right. And it seems like it might be incumbent on the applicant to do some of that uh bridge building, right?

And come to us with maybe some uh remedies.

Gives us an opportunity to have this discussion out in the open so that they realize that we are all concerned about this as well. So maybe that might help move things along. So,

and for the record, I just wanted to say my vote right then was to allow two more days to gather information with I mean there are meeting requests and such and I also want to be a good partner with with Rally.

Agree. Yes.

Yes.

I agree with everybody [laughter] but somehow disagreed with the motion. That's a first.

All right. Well, I think that's it. Anything else from staff? All right. Well, then this meeting's adjourned. Thank you.