[Durham INC] Draft September Minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

Please let me know about additions or corrections.  Thanks, pat


September Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

September 28, 2022


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Bragtown – Vannessa Mason Evans

Burch Avenue – Richard Ziglar

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Leesville Road Coalition – Steven Knill

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias, Patti Reiser

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien

Trinity Park – Mimi Kessler

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller


Guests

JB Buxton – Durham Tech

Brenda Howerton – BOCC, Board of Durham Tech

Julius Monk – Durham Public Schools

Claudia Hager – Durham County

Carrie Heinonen – Museum of Life and Science

Elaine O’Neal – Mayor

Keith Lane – Durham County

Anita Scott Neville – Hayti Reborn

Mary Helen Moore – News and Observer

Emilie McIntosh – Durham Parks and Recreation

Max Cawley – Museum of Life and Science

Deborah Craig-Ray – Durham County


President Bonita Green called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone; those present introduced themselves.  The agenda was adjusted to move approval of the minutes to the business section.


Mayor O’Neal expressed thanks for allowing her to come and mentioned the many grants Durham has received: money for housing, new electric buses, and revitalizing the bus station, for example.  She had lunch with Secretary of the Treasury Yellen and visited the White House, along with other NC elected officials, to talk about the innovative and intentional ways we have spent ARPA funds.  Council did a “deep-dive”retreat on housing, to determine their common base of knowledge about this complex issues, including transportation and other infrastructure out to the areas where we are building; in the future, they will be building on what they learned.  Durham City and County have to make a decision on regional rail (and make sure that it works for all of Durham).  Shot Spotter will be going live in November.  It has been really hard to recruit for the Durham police force.  On the perceived culture of disconnection of the Planning Department from the people of Durham, the “deep dive” on housing hopefully will address this issue.  There was discussion of the funds for the vision of Hayti Reborn.  Bragtown shows what good can come when developers work with the neighborhood and the cooperation starts early – and also of how much effort is required from neighborhoods.  Mayor O’Neal invited folks to continue the conversation with all these interesting ideas.


2022 Bond Referendum –  Public employees can only provide facts about the bond proposals, but cannot advocate.  The capital planning is an on-going process, matching needs and “borrowing affordability” in a 10-year outlook, including how costs are changing.  The BOCC voted in the spring to go ahead with a bond referendum and then approved a total of $550.2M; because of the growth in our property tax base, the costs will be “spread wider and thinner,” lowering the impact on any single property.  We borrow as we need the money.  Over the next 10 years, capital needed to support the services we want to provide is about $1.8B so we will likely have another bond referendum in 2024.  The DPS portion of the bonds is to make sure that there is space for a growing elementary school population and that the schools are safe.  They are taking bids for Murray-Massenburg; other possible projects are DSA and modernization, increased pre-K space and added space at a number of existing elementary schools.  The projects in the Durham Tech part of the package are all about pathways to get Durham residents into well-paying careers in growing parts of the economy, which often require in-person training (hands-on stuff for the projected growth in the healthcare/life-science sector, for example), as well as having enough real estate for the future.  For the Museum of Life and Science, building on their commitment of accessibility and engagement, the bonds would be used to renovate about 30% of the exhibits inside and upgrade infrastructure in general.  Advocacy for the bonds is coming, but folks pointed out that it seems to be really late.  If DSA gets a new campus, the public will want to get involved in what happens to the DSA/Historic Durham High campus.  The basic information is at: https://durhamcounty2022bondsreferendum.org/. See also https://engage.dpsnc.net/, https://www.dpsnc.net/Page/4141, https://www.dpsnc.net/Page/6785.


Tom moved, second by Mimi Kessler, that the minutes be approved with the correction that Bragtown is a paid member.  This passed.








Report of the Nominations Committee for INC Slate for the next year -- The committee has nominated:

President -- Bonita Green

Vice President -- Steven Knill

Secretary -- Pat

Treasurer -- Susan

At-Large Executive Committee -- Vanessa, ??

Communications -- Pakis

We will vote next month.


Bonita shared a proposed letter in support of Hayti Reborn; she will get an improved version to the list-serve.


We will have a presentation on the proposed change for the UDO at the next meeting and a discussion of the public meeting on the subject.



















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