HIGHLIGHTS
- Councilors Jones and Black ask for agenda changes to address priorities
- Community Engagement Board’s immediate focus will be on improving public comment process and access to community centers for CACs
- New councilors ask to be involved in reviewing and setting legislative agenda. Mayor suggests this be discussed in “4 x 4 meetings” which potentially violates the open meetings law and certainly violates the value of transparency.
- Public budget hearing scheduled for June 6
- See slides (links below) on Strategy and on Budget for more detail
- Each councilor listed their top priorities – housing affordability was a common theme
- City Manager’s 2023 goals include dealing with homelessness, community engagement, support for First Responders, disparity, crisis communications, housing affordability and choice, advancing critical projects, address downtown concerns, curb gun violence, and continue to build internal and external relationships and partnerships
Recap of Previous Day’s Activities
- Councilor Jones, supported by Councilor Black, feels that there hasn’t been enough time to talk as a council and that things keep being put off for later
- City Manager says the agenda will be flexible
- Decision was made to cancel Bus Tour at end of day
Community Engagement Board Update & Public Comment Options
- https://go.boarddocs.com/nc/raleigh/Board.nsf/files/CNHJXA4F4893/$file/20230128OCECommEngageStaffPresentation.pdf
- Mayor leaves the room as soon as community engagement presentation begins
- CEB Board working very quickly and need to get by-laws approved before submitting work plan for Council approval
- Reviewed public comment policy and would like to continue reviewing
- Create a potential minimum of 90 seconds (?!)
- Need more clarity on policy
- Find a way to allow more time for zoning comments
- Boards and Commissions and their Committees want to have remote meeting options
- City Attorney continues to say remote meetings are illegal unless there’s a state of emergency which contradicts the School of Government (despite what the City Attorney says) and contradicts what the Town of Cary actually has been doing in practice
- City Attorney says Boards and Commissions can meet remotely but public can only listen and not participate
- Councilor Jones asks what can be done to change this
- City lobbyist Philip Isley says he thinks General Assembly would be reluctant to make changes
- Councilors want to look into what subset of Boards and Commissions can meet remotely and/or at least be live-streamed
- Quarterly Town Hall meetings
- Increase to quarterly opportunity for each council member (0-6 months)
- Engagement Campaign
- Use libraries, bus stops, etc
- Access to Community Centers for CACs
- Proposing one per district
- Develop Engagement Network for community groups
- Access to community centers up to 8 times a year
- Seems like they are making this way too complex and resource-intensive
- Regular meet and greet for service departments
- This has traditionally happened at CAC meetings
- Establish External Service Unit
- Host City of Raleigh Expo twice a year
- Councilor Harrison pushes for CAC access to community centers
- Councilor Harrison asks to move Council Concerns to just before public comments
- Councilor Harrison asks to add another meeting each month to allow more time for both public comments and public hearings; Councilor Melton supports
- Councilor Melton supports minimum time for public comment and more access to community centers
- Councilor Jones asks for more info on Community Connector program and how it relates to this
- Mayor wants to do door-to-door outreach
- Mayor says if there is a separate meeting for public comments, the time could always be three minutes
- Councilor Forte suggests annual meetings for all Boards and Commissions; Mayor agrees
- Councilor Branch asks for support for CACs that haven’t met since Covid; says it’s perfectly fine for Councilors to hold District meetings without staff support; supports a separate “public comment” meeting but also questions whether there will be other opportunities for public comment
- Councilor Black supports minimum time for public comments and support for speakers; asks for more engagement from Council when public is speaking; asks for more intentionality about what groups are appropriate to be part of Community Engagement Network, i.e., not Hate Groups
- Councilor Melton asks about improvements to voicemail public comment option – possibly read aloud during public comment period
- Councilor Harrison asks for recommendation on separate public comment meeting from CEB in February and put in place in March. Asks for opportunity to respond in real time.
- Councilors Patton and Harrison discuss locations for community meetings
- Councilor Jones requests that public comment meeting be added as a separate meeting
- Councilor Melton suggests keeping afternoon public comment opportunity and adding new public comment meeting and how voicemail option can be included. Also supports councilors having an opportunity to respond and doing Council concerns as part of the meeting.
- Councilor Jones asks what additional resources are needed and what the CEB additionally needs and if they are clear on their direction.
- CEB Chair and Mayor ask for more time regarding public comments options.
- Councilor Melton asks that new public comment option be up and running in March with opportunity for continuous improvement.
- Councilor Black also suggests putting out minimally viable product asap and getting feedback for continuous improvement
- CEB Chair welcomes more partnership with the Council; says they understand public comment charge
- Councilor Branch asks for work on restoring CACs and how to deal with rezoning cases which he admits was part of the issue with CACs
- Councilor Jones asks for clarification on what is needed to restore CACs
- Councilor Harrison asks how quickly CACs can start using community centers; Tiesha Hinton says ready to go as soon as Council approves; Councilor Harrison wanted to make a motion but was told that she has to wait to make a motion until next council meeting. Mayor wants to hold up to learn about cost impacts.
- Councilor Jones asks how Communications Department is supporting these community engagement efforts
Legislative Agenda
- Former City Councilor and current City Lobbyist Phillip Isley explains how much power the NCGA has over the City and how much they are aware of because of living here while serving
- Says the City has been successful in recent years in not being perceived as behaving inappropriately, which helps get things done
- Bills will be filed that will impact tree ordinances and permitting process (requiring only 21 days)
- City of Raleigh’s Legislative agenda has not yet been finalized, but Isley suggests sticking to just a few top priorities
- Isley says it will hurt that Wake County delegation has no Republicans
- Mayor and Isley talk about need to play defense and not just offense
- Isley says Raleigh is viewed “quite well”
- Importance to emphasize the “why” and the cost of any requests
- Isley says reducing taxes and increasing rainy day fund are NCGA priorities, along with Medicaid expansion, alcoholic beverage control, and medical marijuana
- NCGA is aware of our affordable housing issue, as are most municipalities, and League of Municipalities is promoting as an important issue.
- Councilor Jones asks for more information about how legislative agenda process works. Isley says it is up to Council
- Things on the list include citizen enforcement, affordable housing,
- Councilor Harrison asks about last day for filing and amending. Isley says it’s all open.
- Beau Mills is also a lobbyist from Metro Mayors and League of Municipalities (Councilor Melton is liaison)
- Councilor Jones asks that current council members be brought into the loop on legislative agenda; Councilor Patton asks that council meet and discuss and agree on priorities for legislative agenda
- Councilor Melton points out that it helps if Raleigh asks for things that other municipalities want as well
- Councilor Black asked where there is space to support tenants’ rights. Isley says need to first meet with Apartment Association to understand their perspective.
- Councilor Black also asks about tree ordinance and investigative power for Fair Housing Hearing Board and legalizing medical marijuana. Isley says he will introduce her to Republican legislator who wants to approve medical marijuana because he’s a cancer survivor.
- Mayor suggests discussing this in “4 x 4 meetings” which are ways to avoid the open meetings law and should not be allowed.
Strategy and Innovation
Budget and Finance Outlook
- https://go.boarddocs.com/nc/raleigh/Board.nsf/files/CNHJXK4F52CB/$file/20230128BMSFINBudgetFinanceStaffPresentation.pdf
- FY2023 General Fund budget is $590.4M
- Property tax is largest revenue source for the general fund (53%) ($292.4M)
- Next re-evaluation takes place in 2024 and will impact 2025 budget
- Public safety is largest expense
- Raleigh is a AAA city – we have the best credit there is – which means we get best interest rates when we borrow money
- $73.2M in ARPA funding – most went to Community Health ($13.2M) and Housing and Homelessness ($10.5M), along with Infrastructure ($11M) and Economic Recovery ($8.1M); $23.7M remains
- Budget work sessions starting February 20, continued on March 13 and April 10
- Staff will propose budget on May 17
- Public budget hearing scheduled for June 6
- Councilor Black and Mayor talk about expanding information about grants available to nonprofits from the City and about leveraging nonprofits to help increase engagement about budget
- Councilor Patton asksquestions about increasing opportunities for participatory budgeting
- 14% of annual budget is put into rainy day reserves (recommendation is 8%); anything above that is capital reserves that can be used for one-time expenses
- Councilor Jones asks about staffing shortages; City Manager says this is a common problem
- Councilor Patton asks about debt practices
Council Priorities for the Upcoming Year
- Each Councilor lists their top three
- Councilor Jones
- How often council interacts as a body
- Community engagement
- Mayor Pro-Tem Branch
- Help for small businesses
- Housing
- Youth and Parks programming
- Councilor Patton
- Seconding Branch’s Economic Development theme
- Affordable Housing, including having a stronger shared plan with metrics that is incorporated into all decisions
- Unarmed responder unit outside of RPD, but as part of 911 Call Center
- Voting reform – Mayor says this will be dealt with in March – Melton asked that it be prioritized and that it should be effective for 2024 election. Previous Council discussed that Mayor and At-Large should run during Presidential years and other councilors in off-years
- Mayor Baldwin
- Incentivizing construction of ADU and Missing Middle and Tiny Homes and Cottage Courts
- What are we doing with Civic Campus
- Commuter Rail
- Increase first responder pay
- Downtown revitalization
- More funding for nonprofits
- Councilor Harrison
- Seconding Branch’s focus on growing leaders across the City
- Tree conservation
- Being thoughtful with risk management
- Walkability, especially incorporated into rezoning decisions
- Parks summer staffing
- Councilor Forte
- Homelessness
- Panhandling policies
- First Responder pay and adequate resources
- Councilor Black
- Affordable Housing especially about replenishment, Tenants’ rights, and investigative powers for Fair Housing Hearing Board
- Deeper implementation of Climate Action Plan, including sidewalks and walkability
- Correcting harms from racial justice tied to Covid
- Councilor Melton
- Not going to focus on obvious issues like Housing
- Neighborhood-scale retail
- Transit equity – Councilor Black seconds this
- City-owned land – Councilor Black seconds this
- Discussion about stormwater infrastructure issues and affordable housing, alternative building materials and affordable housing, acquiring land for mobile home parks to protect the residents
- Councilor Forte asked to move things along
- Mayor Pro-Tem Branch stresses importance of equity lens
- Diversity, equity, inclusion, and community engagement should be a part of all departments
- Update from RPD Chief on status of protests downtown this afternoon – all going well and preparations have been made based on potential reactions to Memphis incident
Open Discussion
- Councilor Jones says there are so many important issues – Council needs to make more time for that
- Councilor Jones asks about taking care of residents and community after Memphis incident; what are lessons learned from George Floyd incidents
- Mayor says she can’t publicly say why she didn’t call for a curfew; says she should have followed her gut, but didn’t
Operational Update by the City Manager
- 2023 Goals
- Homelessness
- Community Engagement
- First responder support
- Address disparity study findings
- Refine Crisis Communication Strategy
- Housing Affordability and Choice
- Advance critical projects including civic campus, BRT, customer experience and interlocal agreement items
- Address downtown issues
- Curb gun violence
- Continue to build internal and external relationships and partnerships
Closing Remarks
- Thanks to staff
Blue Ridge Corridor Highlights – Bus Tour
- Cancelled to focus on other priorities