[Durham INC] March Delegate Meeting Minutes -- DRAFT

[Pat Carstensen]

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


March  Delegate Meeting

InterNeighborhood Council of Durham, Via Zoom

March 28, 2023


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Burch Avenue – Richard Ziglar

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen, Ed Harrison

Leesville Road Coalition – Steven Knill

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Bruce Mitchell

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien

Trinity Park –  Mimi Kessler, Mary Molina

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller, Sherri Zann Rosenthal (non-delegate)


Guests

Derek Bowens – Durham County, Director of Elections

Brenda Baker – Durham County, Deputy Director of Elections

Emilie McIntosh – Durham Parks and Recreation



President Bonita Green called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone; those present introduced themselves.  There were no adjustments to the agenda.


The Durham County Board of Elections has 5 members; they appoint a director, Derek Bowens.  For 2023, there is a primary on October 10 and general election on November 7, electing three at-large Council members and the mayor.  Voters will be allowed to do write-ins.  Durham County is getting new ADA-compliant equipment to replace the aging Automarks, and will possibly need to implement voter ID requirements (but probably not given time to get implementation in line).  There may also be some district adjustments, with new boundaries for US House and NC House and Senate, depending on what the NC Supreme Court decides.  There have been some precinct changes, splitting some really big precincts and consolidating 2 smaller ones.  Some other precincts are close to the maximum size we would like to see so we may be splitting them in the future.  We typically see turn-out percentages in the teens to mid-twenties in municipal elections, which is much smaller than in even years.


Mimi Kessler moved to approve the February minutes as written, Mimi O’Brien seconded, and this passed.


It took 12 meetings for the subcommittee to get through the Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development (SCAD) proposed revisions to the UDO, analyzing what is wrong, or confusing, or promising about it.  Members of the subcommittee went to Council work session, which wasn’t all that friendly to citizen involvement but our comments helped Council to start to understand how complicated the proposal was and they agreed to postpone the hearing until May 1.  Jillian Johnson wasn’t there and pushed to have the hearing anyhow as scheduled this month, but this was voted down (barely).  Today members of the subcommittee presented to the Coalition on Affordable Housing, and have been speaking to other groups.  The subcommittee has been amazing in what they have done.  There are definitely some ruffled feathers on Council and in the development community.  Unfortunately, because of the mandated process for developer-initiated proposals to change the UDO, Council cannot pick and choose parts of the SCAD to adopt; they have to either approve it or vote it down.  If there are good parts to the proposal, Council can vote the proposal down and then ask Planning to develop UDO amendments that incorporate these good ideas.  We might want to do a community forum, post information on the website or otherwise get information to the public.  We also need to take an official position on the SCAD.  After much discussion of variations on a resolution, Steven moved and Mimi Kessler seconded the following motion:

Based on our report of March 8, INC opposes the proposed SCAD changes to the UDO.

We will have a special meeting on Tuesday April 11, at 7 PM, to conduct a vote.




Neighborhood Reports, Announcements, and Issues

  *   Old North Durham is having a spring social to get people more engaged.

  *   Burch Avenue had a mediator to lead a discussion on National Night Out, though they haven’t decided what to do about the event.

  *   Leesville Road Coalition had a food drive for Fort Bragg (which is becoming Fort Liberty), where there is  food insecurity of 25%.

  *   Durham Neighborhoods United is hopeful about better outcomes on party house issues, with new Duke person and Sgt. Wagstaff from the Police Department.


Adjourn - Mayor O’Neill will be at the April meeting.





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