- WELCOME
- How Council wants to spend their time during the next six months
- Coordinating/collaborating as a council
- Collecting/understanding City data and national trends
- Leveraging strengths/backgrounds
- Staying “close to ground” and community
- Keeping vision and big ideas in mind
- Downtown/Red Hat
- Support for non-downtown areas (Brier Creek, Downtown to Dix)
- Stormwater and preservation (trees)
- Triangle Town Center activation
- Greenway Reactivation
- Pickleball capacity
- Catalog big ideas and outcomes
- Read-out from February 5 Big Ideas event
- Taking care of ourselves so we can better serve the community
- Successfully navigating disagreements and difficult conversations
B. STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE
1. Strategic Plan Update
C. LEGISLATIVE AGENDA (presentation not available)
1. Legislative Agenda
- Items to consider, bearing in mind that shorter legislative agendas are usually more effective per the panel which included lobbyist Phillip Isley, a representative from Wake County government, and a representative from the League of Municipalities – transit (including pedestrian and bike transit), housing (including building code reforms, property tax relief options, tax credit limitations, state-owned land), stormwater, partnerships, historic preservation, Ranked Choice Voting, and public safety partnerships
D. BUDGET AND FINANCIAL OUTLOOK (presentation not available)
1. Budget and Financial Outlook
- City has annual budget of $1.426 B
- FY25 key investments include
- Operating infrastructure
- Critical public safety services
- Dedicated penny for the implementation of the class and compensation study
- Advanced recruitment and retention efforts
- Maintained efficient core services delivery to meet increasing demand
- Dedicated penny for capital and deferred maintenance needs
- Revenue collections are on track but need to increase
- Enterprise operations are largely on track (Raleigh Water, Solid Waste Services, Stormwater, and Convention Center Complex) but two (Transit and Parking) are being watched
- Feedback from budget listening sessions indicated people are happy with parks and greenways, public safety, and water, stormwater, and solid waste services. They are not as happy with affordable housing, sidewalks, and maintenance of city facilities.
- Predicting slower growth for FY26 budget revenues
- Looking at more frequent but smaller bonds.
- Budget work sessions are scheduled for 2/17, 3/10, and 4/7. Balanced proposed budget presented on 5/20. Public hearing scheduled for 6/3. Council budget work sessions scheduled for June 2, 9, 16, 23, & 30. First possible date of budget adoption would be June 16 or June 17. Last case on June 30.
E. DISCUSSION – PUBLIC COMMENT PERIODS
1. Public Comment Period Structure
- Asked staff to bring back suggestions about use of videos and photos during public comments
- Asked staff to come up with a way to let public know if/how their comments are listened to and/or would be followed up with
- Several Council members (Cowell, Lambert-Melton, Forte, and Branch) would like to limit duration and/or scheduled time for public comments
F. AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND ZONING
1. Staff Presentation
- Only 8% of housing units produced in Raleigh in the last 7 years were legally binding “affordable housing” units
- Area Median Income (AMI) in Wake County is $122,300
G. SMART GROWTH AND ANNEXATIONS
1. Staff Presentation
- Over 70% of Raleigh’s built environment has been built since 1980
H. DISCUSSION – ADVISORY BOARDS AND COMMISSION
- Council wants to review charters and work plans to determine best use of these boards and commissions, opportunities for synergies, etc.
- OPERATIONAL UPDATE FROM THE CITY MANAGER