Work Session

Good morning everyone. So today is August 3rd. I don't know where July went, but welcome back to our regular uh number of meetings. Today is our first meeting of uh the new the of August August 3rd. This is our work session dated August 3rd, 2025. So, I'm going to read the public charge and uh Commissioner Burton, would you be open to reading the land acknowledgement? All right. And then we'll continue on with our program. The board of commissioners asks members and citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner both in the board with the board and fellow citizens at any time. At any time should any member of the board or citizen fail to observe this public charge, the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control. Should the quorum fail to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to the public charge is observed. Commissioner Burton.

Yes. Thank you, Chair Lee. Land acknowledgement. As we convene for the Durm County Commissioners meeting, it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Kataba, Eno, Okanichi, Shakori, and Tuscarora peoples whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival. We acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their homelands. Their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and spirit. May we humbly honor the ancestors and elders of these nations, both past and present, by committing ourselves to fostering understanding, healing, and justice for all who inhabit this land.

Let us walk forward together with open hearts, acknowledging the past, and embracing a future guided by compassion, respect, and unity. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, so the first item on our agenda are citizen comments. We have 30 30 minutes aotted for this. We have slightly more than uh well, we have I think 19 total. Two are virtual. So um I'm going to allow I'm gonna do the twominut thing you know to fit within the um time limit itself or slightly go over it a little bit there to make sure people have their opportunity to speak. So uh we will do two minutes two minutes each. Okay. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to call uh three names at a time and you can line up them over here and we'll just kind of uh make it go that way. Okay. So, the first is David Cororo. Did I say that? Curo. All right. Then we have Leslie St. Trey. And we have uh Scott Levitan. Okay. And those are going to be our first three. Okay. And remember, you're going to have we're going to have two minutes. Okay. Thank you.

Good morning, chair, commissioners, and county staff. Uh my name is David Curo, founder and CEO of MHC, Inc., which is Midtown Housing Coalition, and thank you for the opportunity to present. Um, I'm here to introduce Forest Grove Homes, an affordable, inclusive housing community for being developed in Durham County for adults with developmental disabilities, plus veterans and first responders with

disabilities. Um, adults with disabilities want the same thing that everybody else wants, right? Want a safe home, independence, friendships, and an opportunity to be part of a community. Unfortunately, people with developmental disabilities don't have that opportunity um because of limited income. So, Forest Grove Homes is our answer to that. Um we've already taken the first step. We have four acres of land off of Guest Road near Carver to construct uh a community of about 20 homes. Um and it's more than just a housing project. It's a community where residents can participate in gardening, uh cooking classes, wellness activities, social events, volunteer opportunities. Um, and we believe that people thrive uh when they have both a home and community that encourages independence, dignity, and purpose. Um, for families of Forest Grove Homes, it provides something equally important, a peace of mind. And I I will tell you, my son will will live there. He's 38 years old and he has a developmental disability. So, we all what's going to happen to our kids when we can't take care of them anymore. So, this is our answer. So, we're working with community partners, donors, and foundations.

Okay.

That that was the two minutes.

Thank you so very much.

So, before I leave, I'd just like to invite you all as a packet and then the end of it, okay,

is we're having a festival. Commissioner Bergen was there last year.

Thank you. And thank you. Thank you. Fantast.

Uh hello. I'm Leslie St. Dre, a resident of Durham and I'm part of uh Community Land and Power, which is one of the 24 organizations that makes up the stock data centers in Durham Coalition. So, we're here today to uh protect ourselves, our kids, our neighbors, our water, our land, air, um from your ongoing assaults on Durham. Be it through handing out 76 million to corporate landlords, which has gut our city and county budgets, or approving $16 million cop cities instead of housing, fair school salaries, or in today's case, considering making our public health inequality and climate crisis worse. By allowing racially biased, toxic, and even deadly AI and its toxic, deadly data centers in Durham, we have had enough. Uh we are facing the worst crisis that any most of us have ever lived through, right? The climate crisis, inequality, people can't afford their basic needs, uh people can't afford health care, data centers make all of this worse. We all need to drink water, to eat food that's not poisoned, to breathe air. A moratorum is about stopping things, right? Not allowing things to continue to happen that make things worse for us. Um, so we ask that you pass a moratorum without loopholes. um and uh listen to your constituents uh the majority who have begged you to pass a a loophole free moratorum and that's includes 70% of the country. So standing against that is standing against democracy and so we ask that you please take a big pause and study the impacts. That's the whole point of the moratorum. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners, county staff, and fellow citizens. My name is Scott Levitan, Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina. I want to thank the commissioners and county staff for their careful consideration of the impact the data centers will have on our quality of life, appropriate site selection, infrastructure capacity, utility rate impact, and tax revenue generation. It's important to plan thoroughly and I I appreciate your efforts. Data centers come in all scales. RTP currently has at least six enterprise data centers that are purpose-built to support some of RTP's largest enterprises among multinational companies. data centers are critical infrastructure for modern innovation and research companies that call RTP home and that RTP continues to attract to invest here in Durham County. We will need additional enterprise and commercially scale data centers to support existing and new companies in RTP. It is important that any moratorum on data centers include a pathway for these enterprisecale data centers to be permitted in Durm County because of land availability and cost, power grid capacity and proximity to power generation. It is highly unlikely that RTP can ever accommodate a hyperscale data center. That dog just don't hunt. We support the recent legislation passed by the NC House and under consideration in the NC Senate that addresses the concern that the cost and burden to provide to provide data center utility requirements not fall upon all of us who are existing rateayers and deploy environmentally responsible systems that do not overburden our water and sewer resources. We hope our legislators will advance this legislation at the state

level to address these important concerns. On behalf of 400 companies in RTP, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you.

Thank you, Mr. Levitan. All right, the next three speakers will be Samuel Scarboro, uh uh Gabrisel, Gabrisil Pis, uh Peterson. Am I saying that right? Gab Oh, I'm sorry. That's my daughter's middle name. I You' think I'd be able to get that right. Gabrielle Peterson. and then Victoria Plant. Okay. All right. Mr. Scarboro,

good morning and happy Black August to all those who celebrate today. I want to talk on two things that I saw on the agenda. The first is that I want to speak in opposition to the over a million dollars in funding that looks to be allocated to the sheriff's office. It feels like every time I come here, there's more money for policing, but less money towards youth programming. The last time I came here, there was over 16.5 million dollars that went to a sheriff's training facility that was widely unpopular. And instead, we have large crises such as federal and state level cuts to grants that will support youth programming. And additionally, while interning at the courthouse, I also noticed that we only have one interpreter on staff that represents a courthouse serving over 200,000 people. I feel like a million dollars would be better spent on youth programming and ensuring that we have a fully staffed translation service uh department in our courthouse. The second thing is that we need a moratorum on data centers that is stronger than the city's one-year moratorum. You all's first charge here, the Durham County Board of Commissioners, is representing us and ensuring that we have livable futures with clean air and fresh water. It's not representing these tech corporations. We already know that large-scale data

centers consume large amounts of energy and that that will likely drive up our monthly light bills. We know that it's going to stretch our energy grin even more thin. And we also know that the priority of these tech companies is not pushing for uh large data centers that are going to primarily serve the community is for profit. And so I join everyone here in asking you all, as the AI industry continues expanding and as issues like climate change continue to become more disastrous, we need to give our county staff the necessary time to develop strategies to regulate how data centers will impact our community and we need a moratorum. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Scarboro.

Good morning, chairman and board. My name is Gabby Patterson and I am here today as a community advocate and Durham County resident to urge you to implement a countywide moratorum on costly and dangerous dangerous centers. I am a community outreach specialist at NC Warren, a Durham based nonprofit that has been advocating for environmental justice and community safety across the state for around 40 years. I have also called Durham home for more than two years. So, I have a personal stake in the future of this community. I care deeply about all of Durham having clean air to breathe, air, safe water to drink, affordable power bills, and healthy, livable, pollutionfree neighborhoods. As the Durham County Board of Commissioners, you have a responsibility to protect us, which is why is it essential that we pass a data center moratorum today. Not only do they use electricity, water, but they also contribute to pollution that affects our air, soil, and waterways. Their massive energy demand significantly drives up our power bills and is Duke Energy's primary justification for expanding polluting frat gas fired power plants across North Carolina. In fact, Duke Energy plans to spend $63 billion in the Carolinas alone over the next by 2030 to build new power plants to accommodate these incoming data centers. This

massive buildout will raise our power bills and expand polluting power that worsens the climate crisis that is already being felt across Durham County, especially by our most vulnerable. These impact these impacts include rising temperatures, droughts, polluted watersheds, and extreme weather events like hurricane tropical storm Shel. Um Durham has been a longtime leader in tackling the climate crisis. And as you consider the future of this county, remember who is at stake and why you made climate commitments in the first place. Durham residents, we are already struggling with rising power bills, increasing um temperatures, rising costs, and a worsening climate. Duke Energy is one of the country's world's the country's worst [clears throat] polluters, and last year they reported a record profit of $5 billion. We cannot allow this corporation to

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much, Miss Patterson. Uh, Victoria Plant, and we have uh Stephanie Gans, Stephanie Gans, and then uh Jack Jade Brooks. Jade Brooks. Okay. Okay. Um, hi everyone. Um, my name is Victoria Plant. Um, I'm speaking on behalf of the Sunrise Movement here today. Um, the organization that took up the Green New Deal. Um, and I'm going to take I'm going to talk a little bit differently. So, I'm not super repetitive of the other speakers. Um but you know I we could talk about the water usage, electricity usage, raising costs, um the chemicals and potential PIFAs in our waterways. Um the sound pollution the and the impacts of AI and and job loss and all that. Um but I would rather

direct everyone's attention beyond those fears and maybe start talking about the problem solving we could be doing. Um I I guess I understand that it's maybe not legally recommended to outright ban data centers and that's why we're talking about a moratorum here. Um uh but can we take some risks? Can we push it a little bit and have a conversation that goes beyond that? Um you know this industry is moving incredibly fast, adop adapting incredibly fast. Um, but we have an opportunity here to use the intense bipartisan political pressure um to regulate data centers um to the best that we can, the strongest we can. Um, we can have them pay for all of our utility costs. Um, we can make them use all renewable energy. Um, we can make them disclose their plans for what the data center's purpose is. Maybe it's not a AI, maybe it's something else like powering YouTube. I don't know. Feel like that's okay. Um, you know, we can make sure they're not taking jobs from Durham residents and not doing things that are morally troubling to us. Um, and regulate their cooling systems so that they're not using a ton of water or electricity and contributing to climate change. Um, we can make sure that they that we're regulating PIFAs and other chemicals that are put into the county water system. Um, and yeah. Um, Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Thank you, Miss Plant.

Hi. [clears throat] Hello. Uh my name is Stephanie Gans. I'm executive director of an organization called Clean Water for North Carolina. I'm also a Durham County uh resident. Um and so some of the concerns um with the sort of draft moratorum language as written, I think the big one is talking about allowing data centers to be exempt from what is

really a nine-month pause. um or you know in addition to what's already happened with the the city um you know that that exemption is a little bit starting to try to write the regulation that you all are supposed to be taking the nine months to do to really think carefully right um the pause you know in terms of what the gentleman from RTP said previously a ninemonth pause to get these regulations [clears throat] right is not undermining whatever it is they're trying to do unless it's to get through some systems that wouldn't get through after that stronger scrutiny, right? Um so I would say, you know, the pause of saying, oh well, ones that don't use diesel backup generation, okay, well there are natural gas turbines that is still air pollution for our communities. Why not have a special use permit process to have the data [clears throat] center developer actually have to prove that what they're going to do is going to protect our communities and actually have to have a public hearing in that process. Those exemptions are not sufficient like allowing those to continue on are not sufficient to protect us. I would also say the closed loop cooling same thing closed loop cooling systems often use PAS right um and there needs to be those things should not just go forward when we don't have a process to say let's have a public hearing let's show the public how we are not going to allow additional PAS to get into our water supply the same water we're asking you guys to pay 12% more on right to

thank thank you so much. Uh, Miss Brooks,

good morning. My name is Jade Brooks and I live here in Durham on North Roxboro and I'm here with a group Southerners on New Ground Song who's part of the

coalition to stop data center. So, I'm also urging you to take action to pass the data center center moratorum and we'd like to see you pass a moratorum that's as strong or stronger than the city one that just came earlier this summer. I wanted to take a minute and use my time to share with you all the community groups who have joined in on our coalition and are in support of you all taking action around passing a moratorium here in Durham. So you've heard from some already. Community land and power, clean water and sea, sunrise. But in addition, this moratorum is also supported by people in the Durham People's Alliance, Merrick Moore CDC, Walltown Community Association, UEIE 150, the Durham Association of Educators, Sound Rivers, Toxic FreeNC, The North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Mothers for Ceasefire, North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, Durm Art Guild, Durm Beyond Policing, Triangle, Democratic Socialist of America, Carolina Jews for Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, Mom's Clean Air Force, the Sunrise Movement, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Durm Youth Activists, Black Men Build, and more every day are joining in our effort. So, we want you to really hear that people, not industries, are your constituents, and that we'd like to see refocus this conversation on what the community wants and put our voices, concerns, and health before profit making of an industry. Um, so with that, thanks so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the next three that we have are um Cole uh Par West, we have Rachel Meyer,

and then Eva Paige Benuk. Hi everyone. Good morning. My name is Cole Park West. I'm a resident of Durham County and a member of Southerners on New Ground, uh part of this coalition. I'm also the pastor of a community called Farm Church. Farm Church works to leverage our resources to address food insecurity in Durham. So, we don't have a building. We have a garden and we grow as much food as we possibly can to share with our neighbors. Not having a building means that especially on Sunday mornings, we are especially attuned to the land, the water, and the air. With that attunement, I'm here to encourage you all as the decision makers elected by the people of this community, not by corporations, to pass a data center moratorum without loopholes that is even stronger than the city's year-long one. We need to push the brakes on this development in order to allow for proper due diligence that prioritizes our people, our shared ecosystems, and the economic health of our whole community, not just RTP. In Durham County and across the country, people are saying no to data centers. This isn't some sort of fringe Durham thing. It's a majority position here and across the country. Elected officials are meant to serve the will of the people and the people of Durham County are clear that we do not want more data centers. At the start of this meeting, we took a moment to humbly honor the ancestors and elders of the Kataba, the Eno, the Okinichi, the Shakori, and the Tuscorura people. People who loved this land first. And I ask that we might build a future um as we have committed at the start of this meeting that is guided by compassion, respect, and unity. That we might take our commitment to rectifying the wrongs that we have inherited on this land and

build a better future that cares for our land, our water, and our people. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share my concerns about data centers in Durham County. My name is Rachel Meyer and I work with a statewide nonprofit of health professionals who are concerned about climate change and I have learned about the health impacts of data centers through my work with them. That said, I'm speaking today as a health advocate resident of Durham County and as the mom of two young kids growing up here like I did. When I think about data centers and the health of my children and all our children across Rome, there are four health related issues that I believe merit a strong moratorum and further study during that time. The first is water contamination from PAS. Um the second is air pollution from uh backup generators and the data centers themselves. The third is excessive or constant noise, which I don't think is talked about enough. Um, but is the number one complaint of people who live near data centers. And constant or excessive industrial noise even at low volumes leads to cognitive alterations, chronic stress, headaches, vertigo, dental wear like grinding your teeth, hypertension, sleep disruption, and increased cardiovascular strain. Also, children in chronically noisy environments suffer from increased stress, behavioral issues, concentration deficits, and lower reading comprehension. And the fourth concern that I have is related to data center heat islands. Data centers create heat waste which artificially inflates the local temperature as though we need higher temperatures here in Durham and that could also increase related heat illnesses. So we are already exposed to many environmental harms every day and we know that the cumulative impact of more

exposures to more harms is bad for our health. As a parent and health advocate um I believe we need the strong moratorum so that we can plan appropriate policies and protections because our children will carry the results in their hearts, lungs, kidneys and brains.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Eva and I live in Durham County and I am also in favor of at least a one-year moratorum on new data centers as strong or stronger than the city council moratorum. We need to take the time to develop and implement wellressearched regulations that will place strong limitations and transparency requirements before we pay a price that can't be refunded. As many of my fellow citizens have said, the whole point of a moratorum is to give us time to develop these regulations, to do the research, and putting carveouts into it undermines the point of having one. According to Gallup polls, seven and 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48% who are strongly opposed. These data centers emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases and toxins that can cause asthma and exacerbate heart disease. And even with temporary limits for each new individual data center, like if we had a 50 megawatt carveout, allowing multiple data centers through that carveout necessarily means cumulative effects. Some of the largest data centers being built now cover hundreds of acres with steel and concrete. We have a beautiful state. Why would we want to do that for something that gives very little benefit, very few permanent jobs and makes a lot of noise? They use uh they're often incredibly loud. They use water with little to no transparency, typically drawing from a single source to satisfy AI inquiries from around the world. And we have been in a drought all

year. I hope that you will support the moratorum and use that time to implement wellressearched regulations that place strong limitations and transparency requirements that protect our county, the people, and the land. Anything worth having can stand up to the scrutiny of research and information gathering. Thank you.

Thank you. And I apologize. I said Eva is ever so right. So, we have Lauren Resnik, have Ashley Daniels, and then Camille Leonard.

How y'all doing?

Hello.

So, my name is Lauren Resnik. I'm from Texas originally. Lived all over the world in the country, but I've been in North Carolina for almost 30 years. So I want to put a moratorum on all big data centers in Durham County. I'm also calling for a statewide moratorum on all big data centers in North Carolina. Why? One, these data centers are gambling with our water supply and quality, air, land, privacy, energy, and security. These are our birthrights. And as an American, as American citizens, we will not be placed in a position where big tech, big pharma, and any monolithic corporation put our natural resources. we need to survive in jeopardy now or in future. NC's water table is already struggling. We're the third fastest growing state, never mind this drought and future droughts. Massive entities like these daily entities taking millions of gallons of our water we need to live and grow food have absolutely no right, no business to do that in this state or country. Secondly, it's already been predicted with high confidence that much smaller unimpinging facilities will replace these fast. Hence, the data center

bubble discussion. Logic dictates Mo' Moore's law applies to this. So, it would be very impolitic to forge ahead with these data centers, clearcutting hundreds of acres of our precious trees unnecessarily for one. Thirdly, security. Look at the cyber attacks into seven of our state's water systems last week. 30 facilities targeted. Our current NC water infrastructure is not secure. Combined with massive water hogging data centers centered on AI everything. This spells suicide. We need a country and county and wide statewide moratorum on data centers. Lastly, I'm speaking as a human. I'm no longer political because it divides us. We're headed into the into the wrong direction with big tech, big pharma, and mega corporations all smothering and controlling every part of our lives.

Thank you. We have Ashley Daniels, Camille Leonard, and Jennifer Griffith.

Good morning, commissioners. Good morning.

My name is Ashley Daniels. I work with North Carolina organization ToxicFreeNC. I'm here today with members of the Durham community to emphasize the need for a complete moratorum with no carveouts for data centers in Durham County. Since a moratorum, unlike a ban, is a temporary stop or pause, commissioners should see this opportunity for a data center moratorium less as a threat to b the business community. A moratorum is not a threat to the business community. It is an opportunity to perform the necessary due diligence to ensure that any business you choose to to permit in the area will be compatible with the resources and health of Durm residents, which should be the top priority of commissioners. Since a one megawatt watt data center can use the energy of approximately

1,000 households and the water usage of approximately 300,000 people, how would Durham County manage the water consumption of data centers in another drought year? If Durham were to allow data centers access to the county, what percentage of residents would have increased respiratory illnesses? What would decreased air quality mean for childhood illness? According to the International Association of Firefighters, fires from dur from data centers occur less frequently than than in the past. But firefighters still require excessive training and planning to ensure they're prepared. If a large-scale data center were in Durham County, what would training in preparation for firefighters look like? How much would that cost the county? Environmental advocates often bring up the dangers of POS and data centers. POS is used in the cooling of machines and is still unclear how much impact POS would have on the environment. What authority will Durham County have to require any potential data center to take responsibility and to dispose of POS waste? How would that look and what measures would you take to ensure protection for citizens? Uh calling on you to respect your land acknowledgement.

Thank you. Hi, I'm Camille Leonard. I'm a Durm County resident. And I think the things we need to look at instead of all these statistics is what's the difference between a data center and an AI super mega data center. Well, we need the data centers. If you're using Google or whatever, we have data centers for that. Why do we need the big AI data centers? Because the billionaires want them. Because the government wants them. We don't want them. We don't need them. And there's no reason we should even be talking about this because we already

are running out of water. We are already running out of resources. This is a ridiculous and unacceptable policy that we are following right now with these big mega data centers. They are ridiculous and irresponsible and that's all I have to say.

Thank you. [clears throat]

Good morning. My name is Jennifer Griffith. I am a Durham City of Durham resident and I just want to second pretty much everything that everyone else has said. The situation with the data centers the moratorum needs to be extended. Whatever moratorum is being planned it needs to be a longer term moratorum. There are too many concerns the water we're having drought. Uh we saw what kind of watering restrictions we had over the last few weeks with the drought we had. uh what kind of situation, how much worse is it going to be if we have data centers that are using important resources? Um we've seen the commercials. I think everyone's seen the commercials. Oh, data centers are so important. They're so wonderful. We don't use that much water. And I think most of us know that that's misleading because they are talking about smaller scale data centers and as everyone has pointed out these are mega centers which are going to be having a much larger impact on our environment on our employment sit situation and um heaven knows how much water they're going to use too. Um I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, next we have Eiku, um, Jagon. I hope I said that right. Pete Eelman and Kimberly Lamb. I'm thinking that's what it is. Kimberly Kimberly Lamb. Okay. Good morning, Durham County Board of Commissioners and fellow residents of Durham. My name is Footu Jagun, and I'm the Durham County Community Organizer for the North Black Alliance and a proud product of Durham Public Schools. The North Carolina The North Carolina Black Alliance works to enhance the well-being and advancement of black communities across the state. We collaborate with strategic partners to amplify collective impact and foster intentional, meaningful impact and engagement with black constituencies across North Carolina. Data centers have been around since the 1940s, but technological but technological advances in the focus on generative AI have resulted in the high energy and water consumption emissions and noise pollution. These projects produce a surge in short-term construction jobs followed by a steady stream of tax revenue although they receive federal, state, and local tax incentives and provide few additional benefits. As one of the organizations that signed on to the stop data cent's position, North Carolina Black Alliance is in support of a strong data center moratorum such as the ordinance passed by the city of Durham. Boratoriums are a pause, not a permanent ban on data centers that will allow our communities to develop guard rails against major issues such as increased greenhouse gas emissions, heat island effect, and noise pollution. This is especially important considering that there are already several data centers in Durham County, but the planning department has not assessed their water or energy usage or their environmental impact. For reference, a 1 megawatt data center, which is not considered hypers scale, has a power demand of about 500 to a,000 homes. A moratorium on data centers will allow um us time to answer important questions and develop requirements on power and water usage

effectiveness, noise levels, and protection from elevated utility bills as seen in the ongoing Duke Energy rate hype proposal, which is in large part due to significant power demand from data centers. A moratorum combined with a community-based agreement is advised to protect the interests of local communities. Please vote yes on the strongest mortorium possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Morning again, commissioners.

Good morning.

Now, our muzzle goes from three to two minutes. How about that magic trick? Good morning, commissioners. I'm here today because data center policy cannot be discussed separately from taxation, housing, schools, family policing, climate, water, energy, and public accountability. Durham County is operating inside an economic model that gives corporations and large property owners tax access to tax breaks, incentives, appeals, favorable treatment while telling ordinary people there's not enough money for housing schools, public services, family support, health care, mental health care, worker protections, or real community safety. Indie week's 2006 investigation found that billions in reduced assess property value flowed overwhelmingly to commercial property owners and corporate landlords with commercial property driving 93% of the 4.4 4 billion value loss. The money does not disappear. It was taken from somewhere. Public schools, housing stability, public health, climate resistance, direct family aid, transit, water protection, the basic material supports keeping families together. A data center is not just a building. It's a political choice about land, water, energy, taxation, labor, and who gets sacrificed for economic development. These definitions meet in the same households. The same families facing eviction are the families most likely to be investigated. The same neighborhoods carrying bono bur burdens are the neighborhoods least likely to receive direct investment. The same residents who were told to participate in public comment are given two minutes while corporate interest sit at tables receive meeting staff time incentives appeals and policy language. This is not democracy. This is managed extraction with a public comment window. I want to be clear representation alone

doesn't change this. A multicultural, queer, multi-gender progressive commission can still produce extractive governance if the structure remains the same. Harm does not become less harmful because it's administered by people with progressive identities. The question is not whether this board has good intentions. The question is who benefits materially from your decisions and who pays for them. I'm asking you to stop treating data centers as isolated economic development projects require full public accounting of tax impact, water usage, energy demand, environmental burden, labor conditions, and displacement risk before any approval, resoning, or incent.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Kimberly Lamb. I'm a resident of Durham. I've been one for the past 15 years. I also live in western North Carolina. My husband is a professor at App State. I've seen the effects of Hurricane Helen. Uh I live them. Our our home was uh partially uh destroyed uh by Helen. And um it's it seems uh pretty um insane to me that uh we would be considering a data center given the uh uh climate crisis that we're facing. Um we're uh obviously still in the middle of a drought. Um I'm strongly in support of uh everything that everyone has said here so eloquently and I um really hope that um this uh uh the moratorum will will hold um that it will be serious and that the climate crisis will be at the center of considerations. Thank you.

Thank you. And so we had one for that was virtual uh for uh Chenise Hamilton is we don't have Shenise Hamilton online so we'll pass. Oh is she is Chenise here.

Oh we have we have people

I've recently admitted people in so no one has tried. Okay. All right. And that concludes our citizen comment. If we have Chenise come in, I'll um I'll take a break between whatever and we'll we'll have the public comment from Chenise. Okay. Make sure that is heard. Okay. The next item on our agenda are the is the consent agenda. Uh handed to Manager Hagar. Good morning, commissioners. We have several items for your consideration, many of which have um been to the board over periods um in the past, and this is now a time in which um it's for formal approval. The first one is 260249. This is an approval of a capital project amendment and budget ordinance amendment reducing um the Durham County Sheriff's Office completed detention center food doors capital project by $561,725 and the completed sheriff IT server room capital project by $371,73949. transferring those funds um of $933,4649 cents to the Durham County Sheriff's Office operating budget as well as appropriating $142,587 in PIGO funding to the Durham County Sheriff's Office operating budget for to support a one-year I'm Sorry. To support one year one of a 5-year contract with

Triek Software Solutions, a central square technologies company and upgraded computer aid dispatch and report management systems.

Um, Commissioner Jacobs,

I just have a clarification question. So, this we had already approved um this capital purchase. We're just um reallocating previous capital funding from other projects to go towards it. That is that's correct.

That's correct. Okay, ma'am. Just for clarification. Thank you.

You're welcome. The next one is 26356. This is a budget ordinance amendment to recognize $28,153 in LSTA grant funding awarded by the state library of North Carolina to fund the learning through play initiative. The next one is to is 260358 is to authorize the county manager to enter to a contract with Ardura not to exceed $114,800 for construction oversight services for the Whispering Pine stream restoration and storm water improvement project. The next one is 260379. This is an approval of the fisc year 27 Durham annual transit work program global operating and capital agreements. The next one is 26. Oh, I'm sorry. I just had a quick question. I noticed that there there was in the global agreements there was nothing referring to our projects with the city of Durham.

Um so I was just wondering because it it refers to Triangle West and uh go triangle but did not refer to city of Durham. So

good morning Brandy Miner transit program administrator. So yes, the city of Durham, they execute uh their own agreements. Uh go triangle is a party to all of their projects and Triangle West for those capital projects to have federal funding. So the commissioners um do not have to approve those.

Thank you for clarifying that.

You're welcome.

Great. Thank you. The next one is 260383. This is approval of contract with Mariah Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department for Fire Rescue and First Responder Services in the Magnum Fire Protection Service District. The next one is 260385. This is an approval to enter into a service contract with Roth Staffing, a temporary agency in the amount of 255,74 to support the board of elections for the upcoming general election. The next one is 26387. This is an approval of purchase of goods contract with PMC Commercial Interiors, Inc. for administrative office and miscellaneous furnishings from the North Carolina state contract and our Omnia partners buying programs in a total amount not to exceed $134,600

for the training facility. The next one is 26

county manager.

Yes.

Before we proceed, so I just have a question uh sort of tangential to the 26387. Are we going to be uh provided with an update regarding the status of the training center?

We can um coordinate with the sheriff for that at another um work session.

Okay. Yes, sir. Just really quickly, um, commissioners, if you all have questions, just jump in, right? It's it's kind of hard to make sure everybody gets there.

I don't I don't have to call. You just kind of jump in. Is that okay with you?

That's perfect. Yes. Okay. All right.

Am I right? Okay. The next one, some of these get really long title awards. Um, the next one is 260389. approval to ensure a contract to purchase paving, stripping, and concrete repair services from KPH Paving and Landscaping, Inc. using capital funds and ongoing parking resurfacing program in the amount of $149,500. The following locations will be repaired with this contract. The first one, Durham County EMS 6 building. um followed by remaining facilities at the Durham Center Access, EMS number one, Durham County Cooperative Extension Building, Foster Street Parking Lot, Durham County Main Library, the Durham County Community Shelter, the Durham County General Services Building, Durham County Main Fueling Station, and number 10, Justice Services center. Also, the board authorizes the county manager to approve any change orders or amendments as long as funding is available.

Yeah. I had a question. I was just wondering is there like a cycle as to when all the parking lots get repaid? Like it's all a fiveyear cycle, 10 year cycle. Okay.

And um we will have um general services staff Sean Shaka to answer that question. Uh but for our facilities, we h try to have a uh a cycle for replacement, whether it's roofing, paving, and other services. And Sean will give a a more detailed response. So yeah, for the paving side, we do a cycle about every five years for resealing our parking lots, unless we find repairs are needed. But we try to do a cycle of every five years to prolong the preservation of the current pavement and try to minimize any repairs that are needed. And this is also a part of our pay as you go funding that we have budgeted so that we can plan for those kinds of projects and protect our assets. This is asset management. Mr. Lane,

manager Hager, just take this a brief moment to educate. If you look in the budget document under the capital financing plan fund, it's somewhere in the middle of the document, you will see a list of PGO projects, sort of cash that the county pays annually. And there are a number of projects out of general services, not only for HVAC systems, for paving roads. We have a lot of buildings and we have a lot of space that needs to be kept up every year. And so they've developed a schedule and we donate cash. We put cash in those projects every year to allow them to keep that schedule up. Thank you.

Thank you, Keith. The next item is 260390. This is an approval of a budget amendment um to distribute the board approved 2% cost of living adjustment for fiscal year 2627 to the respective budget

ordinance approved functional areas. The next one is 260391. This is an award of triangle wastewater treatment plant residuals transport and disposable to McGill Environmental Services of North Carolina, Inc. in the amount of $569,660 and to execute any of the related contract amendments not to exceed $626,626. The next one is 26392. This is the Durham Sports Commission in a local agreements renewal.

I had a question about that one. I was just wondering um the board of directors why did it's going from nine members to 12. That was one of the recommendations. I was just curious as to why that decision was made or why.

Or maybe that was the wrong one. I'm reading the wrong one.

Let's see. So yeah, Marie. Yes. Marcus Manning, executive director, Durham Sports Commission. Uh, first I want to thank the board of county commissioners, uh, county staff for your for your support of the Durham Sports Commission. I think that's a great question and the the rationale is is we wanted to have additional people at the table in terms of representation and so that was the um the thought process behind that. as we look toward the future.

I think that's a good thing. I was just

curious as to why that decision was made. So, thank you so much.

While you're up here, Mr. Um I was having an interesting conversation with uh Miss Angelique Stallings about we were at the Durham Bulls game and wondering uh maybe this is a conversation for later but that the sports commission could come to us of the work that y'all are doing with the study about the you know expanding like a larger sports facility where we're at in that conversation about like NCCU and a baseball softball stadium because when I was talking to Miss Stallings I learned that they the NCCU baseball team or softball team actually travels all the way to Wake County um to practice because there's not actually a facility for the students to be uh playing here.

Great question. Uh and for context, Angelique Stallings is our board chair u and this is her second second term. And in terms of uh North Carolina Central University and and their softball team currently, they do play in Kerry. Uh we are looking at the possibility Athletic Park being a home site for them uh in the future. Thank you for that question. So, I have an additional uh question. Uh Marcus, good to good to see you.

You too.

Um in part three of the interlocal agreement, it talks about uh funding going directly to Discover Dorm from the state. Is that money in addition to what goes to Discover Dorm um in accordance with state law? Is that additional funding that? And I'm I'm looking at our CFO here um for that. He's going to come in and provide an answer for that.

[snorts]

Yeah, Tony Hall, CFO, Discover Durham. I think the intention of that language was really talking about the redistribution of the OSPY tax and so the additional funding that is moving from the city and county and therefore discover Durham is picking up a large portion of the funding for the sports commission because that funding did move.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. The next item is 26393. I believe I may have read this um already and then I squint back, but I'll read it again. Award of collection and distribution system emergency and schedule repair services for the utilities division RFP 26036R contract to Carolina Civil Works Inc. and Access Utility Inc. The next one is 260394. This is award of the triangle wastewater treatment plant emergency and scheduled repair services for the utilities division RFP 26035R Nikkens Electrical Contracting LLC and Access Utility. The next one is 26397. This is an approval of capital project amendment 27 CPA 06 and budget ordinance amendment 08 decreasing the open space and farmland preservation capital project by $115,000 and transferring that funding to the open space and real estate department's

general fund operating budget as well as recognizing a 330,000 contrib contribution from the Army National Guard's readiness and environmental protection integration program to the OSE to support the purchase of a 41 acre conservation easement from Billy and Tony Stevens for the total cost of $445,000. Uh I just wanted to jump in here uh really to speak to not only this item but the next one 26-0398 and also the last item 26-0401. Um, again, I want to celebrate uh the great work of our open our um open space and real estate staff and just highlight these three different conservation easements and how um our uh we are using very creative partnerships to achieve the goals that we have in our community to protect land and water and farmland. Uh I also want to thank the property owners. Um so in this case, Billy and Tony Stevens for protecting their historic property and the fact that we are utilizing federal funding and it is a 3:1 match in this situation stretching Durham County taxpayer dollars. This the next one which we'll hear about um is a partnership with the city of Durham uh to protect uh the watershed and again pulling in outside money to uh leverage county dollars.

Um and thank you to Robin Davis. And then the third one is a complete donation to Durham County government from the Durax uh worth a half a million dollars. And so again, I don't think any of these things would be happening if we didn't have the trust of our community. So I want to thank our staff for your great work and just celebrate all three of these items. Thank you. Commissioner Jacobs, I echo your comments. Um, we are at this place because of relationships and grateful for uh all the efforts that have been in place for decades um for our community to trust us and for residents to see conservation is important. So, thank you to Celeste and engineering team and many others is when you start calling out names, that's when you get in trouble. So, I I'll stop right there. Okay, the next item is 260398. This is an approval of a capital project amendment and budget ordinance amendment decreasing the open space and farmland preservation capital project by 123,000 transferring that funding to open space and real estate department's general fund operating budget as well as recognizing a $117,500 contribution from the city of Dorham's water supply protection program to support the purchase of a 19 27 acre conservation easement from Robin Davis at 505 Mason Road for a total cost of $240,500. The next one is 26400.

This is an approval of capital project amendment 27 CPA08 closing multiple capital projects that were completed in fiscal year 2526. The next one is 260401. This is to approve acceptance of a donated 22 acre conservation easement from David and Carmen Dorak at 1700 Woodstock Road and 3900 West Cornwallis Road for permanent open space protection. Commissioners, this concludes our consent items and please let me know if you have questions.

All right. Thoughts from commissioners? I know we did it kind of along the way, but any uh further thoughts about the presentation of the consent agendas. Those items will be officially voted on in our work session on the 10th. Yeah, it should be the 10th or the 24th depending on where it lands. Okay, next item on our agenda. We move into our discussion items. We have a couple discussion items and the first one is the ordinance the comprehensive plan amendment uh 25 a bunch of zeros and two evaluation and assessment report policy changes. Sweet. All right. Good morning, chair, vice chair, and commissioners. I am Payton Burgess with the planning and development department here to present the ER policies this morning.

So, what is the ER? Um, that is the evaluation and assessment report. It is something that is mandated by the UDO to be performed every two years um to sort of monitor the progress on the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan implementation. Um the last E that we did was in 2018 due to the drafting of the newly adopted comprehensive plan. So this is the first one that you've seen um in a little bit of time. The overall E process includes two phases. Um phase one is the community goals and objectives report card. It also includes plan update. So that's place type map changes, urban growth boundary amendments and policy edits. Phase two is the implementation report on actions and also includes a technical analysis. Um what we're talking about this morning is just specifically the policy edits. You can see with the you are here star. Um that's what we're discussing. You guys have seen everything previous to that. And then the next steps would be that phase two. Now the policy updates that we've worked on began in summer of 2025. Um staff took our recommendation of policy changes to the planning commission in October of 2025 where it got deferred. So we brought it back in November of 2025 and then it was ultimately voted on at the planning commission in January of 2026. Um during that time we worked with different community groups to gather feedback and made some sort of changes uh to the recommendations that we were suggesting. In April of 2026, we took our policy recommendations to JCCPC to seek guidance on how to proceed forward. Um after that, Ste staff met with a subcommittee of the JCCPC to sort of workshop the policy changes. um incorporated a few edits that were

suggested during that workshop and then ultimately brought those policies back to the June 2026 JCCPC meeting where staff was getting directive to go ahead and proceed forward. Um so now we are searching for an August 2026 adoption and this is something that you all will have in front of you um next week on August 10th. Now for the actual policy updates, what we did for the project was review the D policies and their commentary. So certain policies of the comprehensive plan have the D designation and that means that those policies specifically are intended to address development and as staff we use them in our comprehensive plan um consistency review report card that goes out with every case. um so the resonings and annexations that we take to you all and city council and so staff looked through those policies um and made edits to those ddesation policies um and we also made changes to the commentary of those policies. Now the actual policies themselves the edits to those are required to be approved by elected bodies. Um the commentary is something that staff has created to sort of reflect the intention of the policies. um it's something that we've included in this report because it's important to understand how the policy is supposed to be applied. And so those are sort of the changes that we made to the actual policies in the commentary. And then we've also recommended the removal of the ddesation of certain policies. And I do want to be clear that that does not mean that the policy would be removed from the comprehensive plan. it just would be removed from the development case review that comprehensive plan consistency review that I mentioned. Um so no policies are being recommended for removal from the comprehensive plan. That's something I want to be clear on. Um and the goal of this whole project was to implement largely technical changes and make that comprehensive plan

consistency review a little bit clearer and more concise um and just a better tool to do case review. Again, I mentioned earlier through this process, we've had community feedback. Um, we met with several groups, boards, and commissions that all provided feedback that have been incorporated into the edits that you have in front of you. A good example of that, I think, is policy 79. As you can read, um, we had initially proposed a staff a larger scale of changes to this policy. And after meeting with the community, it became clear that those changes that we were proposing didn't reflect what they thought was the best interest of the policy. So, we've worked to scale back the changes and you can see they're really largely technical um and it really stays true to the original intention of the policy. Uh policy 50 also was updated with feedback from parks and recck so that we could be aligned uh with some new national park standards. And then we've also included policies that staff initially recommended removal of the DD designation because again we heard that community feedback um and that those policies were important and so we wanted to make sure that we included those and it reflected the work that we did with the community throughout this process. I'm going to end on the summary of changes. Uh so this really just kind of highlights the overview of what exactly has been done to which policies. Um, I do want to remind you all that a lot of the changes are very technical like you saw on that previous slide. Um, and the changes to the commentary, especially with the place type policies, um, are oftentimes us adding commentary where there wasn't any before. So again, this is something that staff wanted to do and include with this process just so we can be transparent about how the policies are being implied and um, consistent across the application of the policies of different cases. So with that um I will take any questions that you all have about the edits to the policies commentary or the

overall process.

Commissioner Commissioner Jacobs.

Thank you Payton and Aaron. Um I just wanted to share with our board uh since I'm on the joint city county planning committee just the process that we had um which was a really really good process. um the subcommittee that Payton mentioned, uh Commissioner Valentine and I participated in that with um two city council members and we really went through line by line um all the areas that were of concern. And I also want to thank members of our community, Preserve Rural Durham, and also be uh DOSS members and other um people and groups that gave input. as as Payton mentioned, there were a lot of changes in response, but I I certainly um it helped me when we had the subcommittee understand that what was happening is that especially with resonings, which we don't see those staff reports, but basically um it was a proposed developments were often getting credit for things that are just required and it really was giving the wrong impression um in the staff reports um that things that this relates to some of the things that have the D removed. They will still be addressed at this site plan but won't make it look like um a proposed resoning is is actually contributing something that has to be done anyway. That that really helped me personally. um understand some of the rationale for

the changes. I also if you notice with the E the proposed changes the a lot of work the staff has put into the commentary and I thought that was really important too. I I appreciate that you all really focused on improving the commentary section so that people understand what is the um applicants understand what is the intent of these policies. So I think um this is I support these changes. Um I do want to ask a question which is um how much of this is related to the fact that we are not able to approve our UDO um and how much of what is here will actually be dealt with once we can adopt our new ordinances. Um because I really that I that's an important issue. So I'd love to hear your response to that. Uh thank you uh Commissioner Jacobs Aaron Kane with the planning and development department. Um I would say they're somewhat related but this process was something we began a year ago now and is mandated by both the UDO and the comprehensive plan. And so we were looking to do this independent of the new land development code. um if and when the land development code is adopted, we will take another look at this document and see if there are other changes that need to be made. Um but we're trying to keep those two issues as separate as we can. It just seems to me that a lot of the things that we're trying to address um will really be [laughter] um better taken care of when we when we are able to move forward with our new uh ordinance espec you know the policies because the comprehensive plan policies come from the community what the

community wants to see and we're not we're trying it feels like We're trying to like p make a patchwork of trying to patch things together to meet make our current UDO meet the newly adopted policies when what we really need to do is is pass our new LDO land development ordinance. Um and just to reiterate for the community, we are not able to move forward with that due to um the state some statute that was passed by the state legislature that we're trying to address.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, I I would agree with that. The the new land development code is intended to implement the comprehensive plan that was adopted in 2023. So, I think we'll see a lot more of these policies um met through requirements of the code rather than having to do something above and beyond beyond the the current UDO.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. I just have one really quick question about the process of community feedback. Um the the how much weight does community input have? you know, if they suggest something, does it automatically go in as a change or is it is that suggestion reviewed and then put forward as a an item for joint city county for the planning commission uh committee and so forth. Um we treated a lot of meetings with the community uh very conversationally and so a lot of times there might have been uh community feedback and we discussed why the change was being made and they whoever we were working with at the time um sort of understood you know maybe it was coming from u some legal reason or something and so a lot of issues sort of resolved themselves throughout the process. Um but when there was something that was uh

a community recommendation that we thought, you know, was reasonable, we incorporated it. Um so a little bit of both. Uh it wasn't not that any community feedback was automatically applied. Um but we did want to make sure that we put uh significant emphasis on the feedback that we got.

Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? All right. Thank you all very much. Thank you.

Okay. So the next item on our agenda is which is a data center data data center moratorum discussion. We've allotted about 60 minutes for this um this topic. Good morning, chair. Good morning, commissioners. I'm Maurice Jones, deputy county manager, and we are here to present information related to a proposed temporary moratorum on the development of data centers in Durham County. Our goal today is to receive feedback from the board on this proposed moratorum and to advance an ordinance to a public hearing and possible vote on August 24th. We'll start pro providing a general definition of a data center. They are phys physical facilities or buildings that house groups ofworked computers, service and data storage infrastructure used by companies to organize, process, store and share large amounts of digital information. There are different types of data centers largely defined by their uses and their size. Here are four examples. A cloud or hypers scale. These are large facilities used by companies like Google, Meta and Amazon to manage their data needs. AI focus once again large facilities with a heavy emphasis on artificial intelligence. Enterprise uh

data centers those are smaller buildings used for internal use. Many times they're secondary uses for an institution like a hospital or university. And edge data centers, those are smaller sites used to speed up processes for local users. Few quick facts about data centers. There are an estimated 4,700 data centers in the United States. The US is by far the world leader in data center construction. Virginia leads the way with over 650 data centers. There are nearly 100 data centers in North Carolina and we have an estimated 10 to 15 data centers here in Durham. Most of those are considered enterprise centers. Although data centers have become an important part of our everyday lives, there are, as you heard this evening or this morning, there are uh growing concerns about the impact on the environment, electricity use, water usage, and the impact of the noise that they generate on their neighbors. These issues have led to concerns about the future of data centers around the country and here in Durham, especially because our current UDEO does not address how data centers can be regulated, leaving us potentially vulnerable to the construction of hyperscale facilities. We currently do not have definitions for data centers, data processing facilities, cryptocurrency mining operations, or any other uses associated with data data processing. And this issue is not exclusive to Durham County. Many local governments in North Carolina are now catching up with this grow with this growing use leading to a significant increase in moratoria across the state. An estimated 30 have been passed in the last six months alone. In each case like ours, a moratorium was passed to provide staff the time needed to research this complex issue and to engage in community engagement through regulatory processes. Our proposed moratorum will prohibit the new

development of data centers during the next nine months in order to align with the city of Durham's moratorium which they passed back in June. There is one exemption being proposed for smaller enterprise scale data centers. Uh there is initial uh interest in using megawws to set a threshold for these data centers. However, we cannot use megawws as a determinant for data centers. So staff turned our focus to square footage and settled on a suggested maximum of between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet during this moratorum. This would allow enterprise centers to possibly move forward while protecting against hypers scale projects which tend to be much larger. So our next steps we'll get guidance from the board of commissioners today. We um if um once we receive that feedback, we'll move towards a public hearing and a vote on August 24th and if approved, the regulatory process would continue. Um the U planning uh and development department has been working um since the city passed their moratorum on this issue. Um and they plan to to um engage in the the regulatory process with that which would include uh regular updates to uh different bodies. And I'll let Bo talk a little bit about about that um over the course of the next um three to six nine months um what we should expect to see from planning and development.

Sure. Um [clears throat] as you're all aware Bodinsky planning and development um we've begun uh the research and engagement process uh conducting analysis and digging into the um potential impacts of data centers. Um we've been working with the Central Pines Regional Council as well um with a a committee across u the region on this topic. Um we'll be uh taking this information before the joint city county plan committee in the fall u continuing

to uh take that feedback and analysis and then beginning the adoption process early next year um December January most likely planning commission um with the hopes of uh having the adoption prior to May when the moratorium would would end. So

and with that we will take your questions. Okay. I'm sure there's comments and questions all around. So, I I'll start with uh Commissioner Burton.

Yes. Thank you, Chair Lee, and thank you um Deputy County Manager um Jones and both um for this information. And what I really appreciate is we're getting a definition around what data centers are and being very clear and intentional about what the uses usages are because one of the things and I can only speak for myself is I'm a researcher. I like to read. I like to understand the issues. So when I get a bombardment of different information, you know, I'm like, "Okay, what is this? What are you talking about?" And I think it's very clear that we ha it's very important that we have to be clear about what it is that we don't want. I think we're all clear that we do not want these hyperscale AI generative um data centers in Durham County. I think we're all on that one page. I think where it gets confusing is because we're hearing so much about this blanket thing about data centers and what because we already have and I was looking at the email that um Mr. Doyle, our tax administrator, sent us, I think 14, so data centers that are already in Durham County. And let's just be clear that we use data centers. That's what we power YouTube, our email. Um, what else? Um, Tik Tok, everything, you know, we use data centers. So, I think the

question for me is is the energy usage. I would like to know how much energy and the impact it's having on our county with these data centers. How much water are they using? Um things of that nature to make sure that we are not, you know, um putting ourselves as at risk with environmental concerns. But I'm really am grateful that we're getting, okay, this is what a data center is. This is what they're used for. um getting very specific so when we write this we'll know what it is that we don't want in our community things of that nature. So um I really would be interested into knowing how much energy these data centers that we have here now the 14 that I counted how much energy that they use. vice alone.

Thank you. Uh thank you DCM Jones and uh Bo for bringing this forward. Yeah, when I brought this uh forward to the board of commissioners a few months ago, I think one of the main things that we were seeing and we're still continuing to see is across the country is this boom of AI data centers and just these hypers scale centers without even necessarily a current need for this level of construction that we're seeing, but more so happening uh because it's a profitm industry where folks are building them now because as they wait, land is going to become more and more expensive. And so for us as a local government, we have unfortunately in North Carolina very limited tools in our tool belt for regulating industries for uh land usage um regulations. But this is an opportunity for us to use the limited powers that we do have to

actually say like what we as Durham County and our residents value and prioritizing for you know infrastructure uh investment as well as we know that these AI hypers scale or these like large scale hypers scale centers are used for AI and we can't necessarily say that we want to just target specific specific industries, but what we can do is looking at how much energy are they using, what is their actual purpose, are they providing a benefit to our community? And I believe that, you know, having a more broad moratorum to actually let us go in and look at, okay, we have, as Commissioner Burn said, 14 data centers that are already here in Durham County, but as Bo mentioned, we don't have any sort of definition of what those data centers are when they applied for their um their permits that a lot of them were applied as warehouses or just any sort of like large empty spaces. And so we have those 14 that we know of, but my concern is around having like having um carveouts that won't allow us to properly use these nine months to define what a data center is, what the different levels are for Durham County and our needs, and to use this time to properly go in and look at those 14 that already exist. what were their applications, how did they apply for them? Um, with those past uh definitions in our UDO, how can we make sure moving forward that we have the proper definitions in place that yeah, as Commissioner Marin mentioned, as we heard Mr. uh Leviton mentioned like we have our research triangle park. We have IBM, Fidelity, uh lots of companies that create jobs here in Durham

that even Durham County has our own data centers, EMS, uh the hospitals. So I don't see how in nine months putting carveouts in place that will that will change the trajectory. I think that if we just keep it more broad in my opinion to make sure that we're able to have the definitions because if we allow for those carveouts I don't see how nine months is going to hurt the tech industry and these industries because we don't see necessarily that they're right now do they have expansion needs. So I think that nine months to just allow us to properly define it and in those nine months maybe we'll have those definitions and the hospital I think we already have the cities does have hospitals and those needs but like for the tech industry that we do have that creates jobs in these nine months providing those definitions that make sure that they stay within the regulations that we want to put into place of not being hypers skill having the right closed loop systems making sure they're not emitting PAS into our waterways, making sure that they're using as much renew all renewable energy if possible um for their systems and th that is one of our small tool of power that we have as a local government to regulate an industry that unfortunately our federal government and our state government is not doing its job of regulating.

Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Valentine.

Uh, yes. Thank you, Chair. Uh, I want to, uh, go back to a statement made by, uh, a young lady earlier during the comment period and, uh, I think I believe she was from the Sunshine Movement and she said that we have an opportunity and I believe Commissioner Lam also alluded to that that same sort of theme. And so I think we do have an opportunity

and we don't want to to squander it. And I had mentioned before um from this uh DAS that uh I thought that uh we all want to be on the right side of history and so opportunity gives us that ability to be thoughtful. And so I just have several questions. one. Am I correct in assuming that the only loophole that we're being a that we're being asked to consider is related to enterprise data centers?

The exemption was to um is that's proposed is square footage up to 80 to $100,000 100,000 square foot maximum. That's the exemption.

Okay, that's the exemption. Okay. I think I had to mention uh this to you. I mean, I'm having problems with that that sort of carve out. Um I think that's something that we probably would want to consider as a board that we uh handle during the the 9month period. Um I'm I'm just not comfortable with, you know, you know, having the necessary information that I need in order to feel comfortable with with any number at this particular moment. Uh are there any uh data centers of the enterprise variety that are in the queue that we might not know about?

Uh not that we've seen officially. I don't think there's been anything that's been submitted in terms of a site plan.

Is that correct?

Yes. Okay. So just want to make sure what will uh what will be the impact on any existing data centers during during this period as we contemplate the way forward.

I don't think there would be um aside from if there's an interest in expanding um that may limit their ability to do that during this ninemonth period of time. But in terms of impact on the

current um data centers, I don't believe there is one.

And lastly, um we've heard many of the uh the considerations with respect to the environment, uh energy usage and the like. And that's weighing heavy with regards to um the needs in our community on a decision that that we'll make. But as a as a decider and I'm weighing the economic development and jobs on the one hand and other environmental considerations on the other, what do you think that we should be keeping utmost in in our minds as we move forward and making a decision on what's appropriate next?

I I mean I think trying to make sure we find an appropriate balance for our community. um one to address the environmental needs and concerns and values of of Durham County, but also finding that right balance with the the needs of our uh businesses uh as well. And that's why this nine-month period of time will allow us to do that, to do the research that's necessary to uh to come back with um with a good recommendation for moving forward with an ordinance. Um but then also the community engagement part of this uh as well is going to be critical to hear from our residents and then also hear from our business community as well.

Thank you.

Sure.

Mr. Jacobs,

thank you. Um, I really appreciate this process and I appreciate all the work that uh our county attorney, our deputy county manager, planning staff that everyone um has put into this. I appreciate all the impact that we've had from our community, from RTP, also from the chamber. Um this is a very complex issue and um you know what we are facing in our country right now is is really uh

it's it's unprecedented. Um you know the impact that AI is having on our world is is just it's very hard to uh to really deal with and it's very challenging. It's very complex. So I appreciate that our board um is really trying to take a very thoughtful informed approach. Um so I have two comments and questions. One are related to the moratorum but then I also have a lot of follow-up questions for planning staff because the whole purpose of this is around developing an ordinance. Um so related to the moratorum I mean obviously our whole board is supportive of of the moratorum to because we do need to develop an ordinance around these issues. Um and I I think um and I support that us tracking the time period with the city because we can only legally justify having a moratorum. um as our county attorney has has laid out and as the draft ordinance shows um I'm sorry the draft moratorum if you read it it lays out the um rationale um because we have to have a legally defensible rationale for why we are doing a moratorum and that is for the purpose of developing an ordinance um so I just want to be clear because we can't just say we want x number of months it needs to be tied to that. So, um, and I support, um, the similar to what the city is doing, um, in part C of section 4 about exemptions and making sure that we, um, are, uh, not that the moratorum doesn't imply to the types of data centers that we

have that support all kinds of um, activity in our community. And as various commissioners have already mentioned um you know data centers are a part of our world and I think that we also have to face up to how we are personally um contributing to the need for data centers and that we they're here to stay. Um so we our challenge I think as a community um and in our world and our country is what is the ba way that we can move forward and regulate them and manage them knowing that they are not going away. Um and I also so my one of my follow-up questions is related to um the enterprise um data centers that we have and I want to highlight that the county is very different than the city in this situation because whereas the city um is really focused on a lot of residential areas and where we are more densely populated What's really unique to Durham County is we have our unincorporated area which we really want to protect the watershed and the farmland um and has no you know data centers would need access to utilities for that but we have the responsibility for very two unique um ecosystems and that is Treyburn Industrial Park and RTP. And so what the county does is going to be very it is going to be different than what the city does. And I want to really also emphasize that RTP and Trey Burn and they are the economic engines of Durham County and

also for the state of North Carolina. We punch beyond our weight in Durham. And you know, having a thriving community, having tax revenue, property tax revenue, sales tax revenue that fund everything that we care about from our schools to, you know, our first responders, that all is tied and having good paying jobs is tied to having a thriving economy in Durham. And so I appreciate the comments about how we have to look at this holistically because we can't also we can't disconnect talking about Durham County thriving and places like RTP thriving um and not talk about data centers and especially the enterprise and the smaller scale centers. So I really want to make sure we understand that. And so even related to my question to what Commissioner Lombra and what um Commissioner Valentine has raised, I would like to before we we discuss this again um or in the interim, I would like to understand from RTP related to the square footage issue for the moratorum. Do we know for sure what is happening in RTP right now? We just passed RTP 3.0. It just got going. Um, do we know about any expansions, needs, or anything that's in the pipeline related to RTP 3.0 that will possibly be negatively impacted in the next nine months? I would like to know for sure. I don't want to just guess on that. So, I I would like to have that follow-up information.

We can certainly engage with RTP about that.

Okay. So that that is my question about that. Um and then I just want to um I

don't know if now is appropriate for me to ask u follow-up questions about the ordinance or is that appropriate to ask

the ordinance or the moratorum?

Well, relate because Bo is here and this I think it's important that while he's here

we have time. We have time.

Yeah. Should should I can I ask that now? Okay.

So, could you give us right now an update on where things are at with the ordinance related to all the issues, uh, electrical usage, noise, square footage, setbacks, you know, um, air emissions, uh, water usage, all of those issues. that they those are all the issues that are going to need to be addressed and I would like to know for our board where where you all at with those issues.

Yeah, I would I would say that right now we're still you know researching what those impacts are look you know reading and obviously has been has been uh discussed uh significantly this morning. um you know researching what we legally can do. uh obviously looking at other jurisdictions. Um in addition uh engaging with the community members uh just in the last couple days we've released a survey um out to the community and I'll be posting that online. Um you know trying to hear uh residents concerns, right? So we're really early on in terms of uh you know scoping out we haven't begun uh drafting that that ordinance that that's later in um the process. Um, so, um, in terms of the actual details of what that ordinance will look like, we're not quite there yet.

Okay. When do you think you will have at least a progress report or

So, we anticipate

Yeah, we anticipate bringing uh some of this research to the joint city county planning committee as we do with uh all of our text amendments in September uh for an update. uh and then later on in

the year we'll be bringing forward uh draft language

or ordinance language.

Okay. I mean I I really believe that we have the opportunity to lead on this issue. Um and you know in a conversation with Commissioner Valentine he mentioned us also I'm glad you're working with Central Pines and having a regional approach. Um I think stakeholder engagement uh is going to be really important. Um and but Commissioner Valentine had mentioned even working with the Nicholas School um on this um because there you know there are state-of-the-art progressive approaches to all these issues that we could really lead and RTP with that. um and you know also in Treyburn. So I I hope that we will do that. Um and also we um were just at a national conference and I know Commissioner Burton and I sat in on the session on data centers um and I've shared uh Lowden County, Virginia, which is has the most data centers per square footage of anywhere in the world. um we can learn from from those counties and one of the commissioners their supervisor had put out u 15 best practices which I know I've shared with you all but there are some really detailed um recommendations um in there the 15 best practices that we we definitely want to make sure we look at and also um no is going to come out with a draft ordinance next month and they also gave us um recommendations for things that counties should look at related to land use and zoning governance and economic impacts, infrastructure capacity that um I think

are really really helpful. Thank you. Okay, that's um well, thank you all for this. This um super important here. This is obviously the the hot topic. Um I heard a couple things tonight that was actually really interesting to me. And I I'm going start with um well, not tonight, this morning. I'm sorry. My back is to the windows, you know. Um the moratorum, the time length Um, if the ordinance isn't complete, we'd have to continue it. Um, would there be a possibility of creating the moratorum at a length until the ordinance is complete? You know, it or do we have to put a timeline? I think there's I think there's language in there that will that says that if um it's nine months or until an ordinance is before you all and approved. So at that point it doesn't have to go nine months. Um it just we we chose nine months to align it with the city's

I just wanted to make sure if it goes past a nine month we would be able it would still be in place. It's not necessarily before. Well, want to I'd want to talk I'd want to get some advice from the county attorney.

That's just something to consider. I'm not saying we need to make a decision today.

Right. Well, I also just want to note that the statute requires justification if we were to extend it beyond whatever time limit you put on there. So, um we can't just extend it just to extend it. So, we would have to have that justification in there.

Okay. And there are some other requirements in the statute as well, but that's that's the biggest part.

Okay. And um um and I too would like to

understand what's what's here. And I would love to have the the uh data centers that are currently in Durham classified under what our registrations are now. So if they were uh they were put here without like a fully understanding I'd like to classify them are they really enterprise are they what and what measurements do we consider enterprise versus small versus uh hypers scale because the size is one thing right but if that size if they if it's a large size but it only using 25 megawws right? Is that considered hypers scale? And I know we can't legislate energy usage, but I want to understand like what's what's the actual usage and so forth. Um, I've I've made my um my position clear that um my concern is what impacts it would have for smaller companies. And I'm not talking about hypers scale and I have a statement that I'm going to read in just a little bit. But um the companies that we have here that are not AI, that are not generative AI, that have server rooms or hospitals like Durham public schools, Durham County, I want to make sure that this doesn't handicap them and don't and handicap us and what we're trying to do as far as regular business and I I think I'm a I think I I wrote a statement. I I usually talk off the top of my head, but I think it was really

important to kind of write a statement about this because there's there's a little bit more going on here than just a conversation about data centers. Okay. And so, um are there any other comments because I want this to be the last word and we move on. Go ahead.

Sorry. Uh I did have one question for Bo um also. So with that carve out related to the square footage. I also want to know related and uh chair Lee and I talked about this yesterday of the fact that we have a joint city county planning department. How because I prefer that we pass the same one, the same moratorum that the city has put forward because functionally it also makes sense of what city county planning staff have to deal with and wondering what impact do you all see of having two different moratoriums uh and how it would it impact our planning staff if things were to come forward?

Yeah, that's a I appreciate the question. Um, so I think that staff obviously we work at the will of you know each count city council and county commissioners. So if the ordinance or the moratorum were different you know we would just enforce those separately and and have that documented. So it is manageable to do that. I I will say that obviously it you know may be more complicated you know at the staff level answering questions and uh but it certainly it could be done if if that's what you all decided. Sorry.

I can say that I personally support the language. I know we have some areas we need clarification of but the general language of our moratorum I think is a lot clearer legally. Um it lays out very clearly um the rationale. But also the um the definition of what is not included

in terms of the secondary systems is much more detailed in ours than the cities because we theirs is more focused on just instit like educational institutions, hospitals. Ours is actually includes related to economic development and our industries. Um, so I I personally support the county's wording. I just want to be clear on that because it's something I I looked at both of them side by side. Um I also wanted to just to your point chair Lee about it's very confusing because the three data centers that we know about um uh one is one is in Treyurn, one in RTP, one at the Tar Point I guess two in RTP. Um there is no the correlation between the square footage of the building the actual data center sides the number of acreage and then the megawatts is it doesn't track. So for instance, the um Tarpoint Compass data center is only on 12 acres. Basically the building size is the biggest that we know about 60 is about 65,000 square ft. The data center size is 34,000 square feet and the power capacity is only 3.6 megawws. So it is really confusing and of course we can't even control electricity anyway when it comes to our ordinance the future ordinance but I think to your point um

that was my point. There's Yeah,

Commissioner Long Vice and I want to just also remind us and I

hear you, Commissioner Jacobs. I think it's also important to recognize that this moratorum is a temporary pause. The whole point of the moratorum and this conversation is what the UDO changes and the UDO language that we're going to put into place. And so I hear you on the expanded um definitions and I think for me the reason that I support the cities is functionally about what happens within the planning city county planning staff to be able to make their jobs easier and also for us to work in unison with community stakeholders because there is a lot of confusion. I think there is a lot of unknowns because these data centers that exist did not have any definitions when they applied for their applications. and having this nine months to work with community partners to have these conversations about what data centers exist in Durham County to your point about the sizing and the square footage and the megawatt usage and also what functional will benefit some of them provide to Durham County in relation to the jobs that are created and our Durham County residents who are able, you know, to work in Research Triangle Park. Um, but I think it's important to have those conversations jointly with the community because to ease their concerns and their um and to just build this general understanding amongst all of us at the same time moving forward. I think before uh chair Lee um you provide your comments wondering what are our next steps for this process because I know for me I would like us to move forward but also maybe hearing from each of us of where we're at so that staff has an idea of like where a majority of the board is leaning so that we can figure out when are we having the public hearing, when are we having the vote, what is the language that a majority of the board is leaning toward. words.

Well, the public hearing is on the 24th. The the public hearing is on the 24th, I think. Right.

So, the intent was to hear board discussion and to to determine if the desire was to proceed with the public hearing on the 24th. And sort of based on conversations, it sounds as though um there is consensus to move forward in that direction. if and so that was the earliest that the public hearing could occur.

But with which language then because I like with the conversation of only like me and Commissioner Jacobs for example, I think we're both on different we may not be on the same page. So maybe if we [clears throat] hear from everyone I'd like to hear from Commissioner Burton, Commissioner Valentine, I know Chair Lee is going to share where he's at. So for for me with regards to the moratorum is how do we take this time to write a clear ordinance around data centers and be very precise as to what we want and don't want in Durham County. All right. So how do how do does the planning staff us whatever how do we get the precise language okay with regards to what we can put in there I don't know megawattage size they're just enterprise how do we take this time nine months to write this ordinance so we have this regulation and one of the things that I got from Nico when we were in that room we were in a room with over 500 00 over 500 county commissioners from across the country because it was such a hot button topic and the concern is there's just no regulation like around this issue. So

how do we regulate it? What do we put in there in the ordinance? I personally would like to just say okay like there's really no let's not put any loopholes leave that for the ordinance like what is it that we will see in Durham County what we don't want to see and making that clear in the ordinance and taking no you know not taking the extended time to do it because I do understand the impact on the economics of our county and I want to just say this is that I think there are people who think that well one we have data centers already. We this is the society that we live in right but I also want our residents to understand that Durham County is one of the five economic engines in this state. So we cannot say we don't want business right we don't want that but yet we want all these things we want great schools we want great communities we want this but we don't want this we don't want business we have the research triangle park we have Treyburn those are two big economic engines for not only Durham County but for the triangle and for the state right that's what we have but I also recognize that there are concern concerns around the issues with the usage, the water, the electricity, and our residents have concerns about that, but also our residents understanding what data centers are and how they are utilized in our community. So, I'm for the open the um public comment on the 24 so we can hear our residents. But so let's take this nine months and write a clear ordinance.

Chair, I think I spoke uh during my my comments about feeling uncomfortable

with the language around the square footage. Um I'm not comfortable presently with making a determination regarding that. So to the extent that that would be one of uh the loopholes that are under consideration, I would be in favor of removing that. However, I do recognize that um dorm I mean that the board of county commissioners has u a different set of equities than the city. And so I'm very mindful of uh any actions that we make that would potentially uh impact on uh Trey Burn or or the park. And so um I'm going to take some additional time. I'm fine with the 24th and moving forward, but I need to take some additional time um to to scrub through the language that already been created in this draft to feel comfortable um by the 24th. I I [clears throat] think I've already said it, but um I um I think the only areas of questioning as um Commissioner Valentine mentioned I think is in section 4 about the exemptions. Um section C is similar to [clears throat] what the city has but is also more inclusive of what would be reflected in both Treyburn and RTP. We are not the same as the city. As I said, that's why it's important that our ordinance has slightly different language. Um, and uh, we have different land uses in the county. Uh, it's very, very different. And so, um, I also think I just want to pull out our staff because I think that our moratorium language is very clear um, the way it's laid out. each of the sections. Um, I want to thank the staff, our attorney for your work on that and making sure that we are very clear in how it's

worded, following the statutes. Um, and so I support again our version and also and I think again I think I understand people's concerns about the square footage and that's why I asked for follow-up information, but everything else I support um with the ordinance. I just would like clarity on that.

Okay. Well, I would I would support the the a demarcation line of 100,000 simply because 100 thousand thousand square feet simply because in a nine-month period anything that you can't build something like that in a in a ninemonth period. You may plan may be able to plan for it, but you may you may be in the process of planning for it. But back when I was a developer, there was a thing called an internet year. Internet year was three months because the amount of work that a normal job would have that could complete in a year when you were a developer, when you were online, you had to do that in three months. That time scale has compressed. So if we have companies here who are innovating, they may not have the ability to wait right for a small server room and some and a blanket moratorum can sweep up server rooms. They could sweep up small needs. We we have American Underground right here. We have startups. It could sweep all of that up. And that's the challenge that I'm having. And so like there has to be some sort of demaration line. You can say uh 75,000. I I don't care. But I just want to make sure that we're not handicapping those who have to move quickly. And most startups are not AI startups.

There are people writing software. There are people building things. And each one of those things needs data stored in normal data centers. Not not AI data centers. A AI data center hypers scale data center can't fit in a 100,000 square foot facility. It can't like physically it can't. So yeah, I think it I think offline conversations, individuals, 2 by twos, whatever it is going to be important to make sure we have the language. But I think we need to make a vote. We need to have our public meeting by the end of this month and decide so that the staff feels comfortable with understanding with the guide rails of what we move forward. Yes.

I just want to say is because I know I'm visual. I would like to just see some data centers and what they look like when you say 100,000 square feet or 75,000 square feet that I know that would help me

so I can have a better understanding that

yeah we could certainly pull together some information

like that

and again I know we've got um Travis here the planner from RTP and our our uh director of the foundation but I think we need to understand as RTP 3.0 is being laid is being implemented right now, it's really critical. We have lost thousands of jobs in RTP as a result of policies of our federal government and changes in our economy. And so to your point, Cher Lee, I that's why I asked that question. I really want to understand we have 400 companies in RTP. A lot of them are really small. they don't have their own data centers but they may you know buy you know all participate in a data center that serves

them together. So um that's why I think if staff could follow up and as well with Treyburn to understand what what does nine months mean to your point um chairly what does that actually mean

and also to that question sorry um

from my understanding and this is a question for Bo the moratorum is more so it's not that I mean to your comments uh chairly that you know in the nine months no one's going going to construct a facility. But the moratorum is not about the overall construction of the project, but it's e it's about just the permit application and whether they're even able to begin the process. Correct?

That's correct.

Because if somebody's already applied for a uh a permit before this moratorium goes into place, that is not that will not be halted.

Yeah. It wouldn't stop construction on an existing and approved which is why I say there needs to be a line um a level for us to consider. Um all right. So I want to take a moment and uh a personal privilege and I'm hoping our my commissioners will allow me in manager and attorney u to speak on it speak just for a moment. So this is this is a first for me. Yeah, I'm in my 10th year as an elected official here in Durham and this is the first time I've been attacked while standing on the same side of an issue as the people attacking me and the first time someone has flatly lied about my position. We'll hold a public hearing on the 24th on data on the data center moratorum. Before we get there, I'm going to state my position once clearly and on the record because one individual, a leader,

a lead organizer of this moratorium campaign has chosen to purposely and maliciously misrepresent me, my career, and where I stand on data centers. Unfortunately, many people left who I wanted to hear this, so I'm hoping that they'll see the recording. Um, I'm not going to say their name tonight. They know exactly who they are. And everyone following this issue knows exactly who they are. And I will not give their name the place in this record because it's never supposed to be about personalities. It is about a lie. And I intend to end that right now. Here's my position. From the very first conversation I've said I've said that I support not just a moratorium on hypers scale data centers but an outright ban full stop. I've said it on our Zoom calls. I've said it every single email exchange and that entire written record exists and is available for everyone who wants to see it. And I'm saying it again in public on the record. I support banning hypers scale centers in Durham and I intend to act on that when when it comes before us. No one gets to claim confusion about where I stand anymore. So what exactly happened? I asked a question in every conversation, every communication, I asked a simple necessary question. How are we defining a data center? Because not every data center is hypers scale and most have nothing at all to do with AI. Durham and RTP are home of hundreds are the home of hundreds of companies that depend on smaller scale facilities every single day to store transactions, customer records, support tickets, testing environments. Every every company operating today in technology or out of it has to store

retrieve data to survive including the companies that people in this room work for. A blanket moratorium written loosely could sweep in the server room of nearly any business in the city. Asking how we avoid this is not opposition. It's the job of a county commissioner. And understand we're understand what we're actually talking about. When you check your balance of the bank, when the pharmacy pulls your prescription, when a doctor at Duke opens your your chart, when a 911 dispatcher roots an an ambulance to your street, when this county runs payroll for its teachers, well DPS runs payroll for his teachers. Every one of these things happen because data is stored and retrieved from a data facility somewhere. This is not big tech. This is your daily life and a carelessly written moratorum puts all of all of it in its blast radiance radius. Apparently asking the question was my sin because I would not rubber stamp a blanket moratorium on all data centers without due diligence. this community elected me to do. The response was not a better argument. It was a campaign, a campaign to force me to recuse myself from this issue simply because I work at a technology company and a manufactured story that I support AI data centers and that somehow I profit from data centers. That is false. It has always been false. and the person and persons spreading that they know it's false. Since my career has been made the accusation, let me address it directly. Yes, I've spent 30 years in technology hard a hardfought career in which I was often the only person who looked like me in the room as far as I could see.

I've been a programmer. I've led database administrators. I've run project, program, product management, renewals, customer success, and much more. I've done rack and stack work in collocated data centers because the one thing every role had in common was the reliance on them. I'm not ashamed of a single line of that resume. Not the awards, not the recognition, not the promotions. That career is what let lets me provide a stable, decent life for my family. The family I chose to raise right here. I didn't have a home base growing up. Durham is home. Is the home I've built. It is why I ran for office and in the in the first place to build a Durham my children can keep calling home. I've invested every as I'm invested in every aspect of this community. And while I'm correct in the record, let me let me deal with one more narrative making rounds that I don't care about this community. Let me tell you what caring looks like in my life. I have a full-time job. I'm the chair of this board, the board of county commissioners. And still, every single school morning, I'm up before dawn driving a school bus, serving three schools of DPS. When the school day ends, you'll find me on the field at Northern High School as the head coach of Junior varsity soccer team and assistant coach for varsity, which is why I was late this morning because we had practice this morning. Nobody assigns me these those things. I do them because this is my home and those are our kids. So, if anyone wants to question my my commitment to Durham and our community,

they're welcome to come ride the bus with me at 5:30 in the mornings during school. 30 years of understanding exactly how this industry works is not a conflict of interest. It is precisely the expertise this board needs when the industry comes knocking. You do not silence the one person at the table who can read the fine print. a black man with more expertise in this industry than any elected official in this county and maybe even the state. And let me be just let me be just clear about the tactics, the lies, the coordinated attacks, the AI hearts poed on my picture to intimidate me and to pressure other members of the board. I will not be bullied. Not on this issue, not on any issue. As elected officials, we don't have the luxury of making decisions without understanding their consequences across Durham. In 10 years of elected service, I have led with integrity and pragmatism. I do the homework before I vote on anything that will shape the this community, my community, my family's community for the long term. And that's not going to change because someone finds it inconvenient. So, I'll close with this. Durham is different or supposed to be. We do not lie and manufacture narratives to get our way. If your position is strong, you should never need to lie about mine. When we disagree in this community, we do it with honesty and integrity. Anyone who has to smear a colleague who agrees with them on the goal, who insinuates corruption, they know to be false, is telling you everything you need to know about their leadership and deser Durham deserves better. On the 24th, I look forward to seeing the final proposed moratorum based on the facts in the open the way

this community deserves. And that will be our last word. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is an update on the capital improvement plan. Good morning, commissioners. Um this morning we would um like for some of our budget staff and individuals in our engineering um department to give the board an update on our capital improvement plan refresh. This builds on a discussion we brought to the board this past spring um when we talked about our ongoing capital needs. And um the challenge for all the jurisdictions facing capital construction um challenges and opportunities is the rising cost of um goods and services um tariffs that have occurred and lots of other inflationary pressures that have um changed often the projected cost. Um today's conversation will be kicked off by Mr. Keith Lane, our budget and management services director, and Perry Mans will um share some highlights about um the projects that are in the pipeline. This is the first conversation of many, so we don't plan to go into a lot of details and usual style. We we start off with some recap. So many of the slides may be familiar. So, I'll pass it off to Keith and Perry who will um share collectively between the two of them for about 20 plus minutes and allow the board to to engage from that point. Keith,

thank you. Manager Hager, I will be

quick and this will be an overview of sort of the conceptually why we do a CIP and sort of an overview of the steps we take in developing a capital improvement plan. Then I'll hand it over to Perry to go over some highlights, some key projects that are in action. Now, it does feel like I was just up here a few months ago talking about one side of our of of the dollar work that you all do, which is the annual budget. This is the second side of things. The other side of that coin, this is high dollar uh estimates where we look out 10 years. We try to estimate the capital needs for the county. Capital needs include new buildings, building renovations, equipment we purchase, and a whole host of other things. Uh, and that will be uh dealt with and delved into later in the process and and over the next several months. Um, but we're looking at a a capital improvement plan that's hovered around $1.5 billion to$2 billion over 10 years. That's not chump change. That's real money. And so, it's an important part of the process. you all have to understand and then vote on. So, we're going to go over real quick u the CIP planning update. The key next steps is or of this particular presentation going to be the CIP process overview, sort of some key steps involved with capital planning. Basically explaining why we do it, key update, key upcoming dates, and then ultimately board discussion you'll have after or questions you may have after Perry and I show a few things. Some of the main capital planning elements that we have that make up a CIP and why we do it are it it's essential that we look out up to 10 years. Uh CIP largely focuses on the first five years, four to five years because we can see that a lot more clearly than we can 7 8 9 10 years out. But we like to put things on the radar screen. So we'll ask departments look 10 years out and give us an estimate of what you think the needs are. And then we work with engineering in those departments to estimate key cost. How do we prioritize projects?

Largely by the importance of those projects and their essentiality and long-term need. Uh a potentially new or renovated uh jail or detention center over the street might take priority over an open space project if we have to make those hard choices. I'm not making that as some sort of actual comment. I'm just giving you example between choices because we have to pay for all of these things. There's always a strong emphasis on the timing of projects. The more expensive the project and the more urgent it needs to be done that can push out some other projects to outy years because we can't do everything at the same moment and we can't afford to pay for everything at the same time. So we kind of have to part of the puzzle is as we get project requests in fit them in a way in terms of their importance and need to be done versus how much money we can afford to pay in any given year to make all of that happen. We blend different types of funding to pay for all of these things we talked about earlier briefly today pay as you go dollars. That's essentially county cash for a project. You have choices when you buy a car. You can pay cash for a car. You can take out a loan. You can do it in several different ways to pay for it. We do the same thing with capital projects. We decide what projects we're paying cash for, what projects we're going to do general obligation bonds for, what projects we're going to do lobs financing for. All of those have ramifications in terms of interest rates paid. Some are harder to get. GEO bonds need voter approval. So, we mix and match all of those things as well. And then the key part of this is we try to target improvements in operating efficiencies and service deliveries when we're considering capital projects. What needs to be done sooner rather than later because it costs less to do it and provides better services for the departments. Youth home is an example, animal control facility or animal shelter facility, things like that about how are we doing in with the current uh capital item that we have and how can we improve on that in a number of ways. So

part of how we do a CIP that's important and different than other people is that we separate operating and capital resources in our CIP. As part of our CIP process, we will ask departments to say not only are you asked to tell us how much you think it's going to cost to do a project three years from now, how much is it going to cost in operating increases. We have a fleet facility that Perry may discuss briefly that we're going to build out in Junction Road that isn't built in a vacuum. It will have utility costs that will then be incurred by the county year after year after year. May have security costs. It may have sort of infrastructure costs that become part of the operating budget you approve every year. These things don't happen in a vacuum when we increase the size and scope of facil facility. We take on a new facility. We do something different. All of those things may have operating costs. And what we try to do as part of the CIP is include those operating costs in the CIP. So you're aware 3 years from now when you see the operating budget part of the process increase we will say yes that is related to a capital project you chose to take on as part of a CIP. Then finally, as we're doing the capital financing side of all this, we have to do some debt affordability modeling. And that is where we work with our financial advisor and we work within our to figure out how much we can pay for in any given year to do all of these projects. And that is important because we our AAA bond rating is related to how much debt, how quickly we take on debt and our ability to pay for that debt. their confidence that you have done the modeling our be the county up in New York. They're confident that we have done that correctly and that you all are willing to raise the tax rate if necessary to to take on some of this debt or that you've proven you have other financial ways of paying for this. So we use that comprehensive debt model as a mean of managing the constant change in the CIP. What I mean by that, there's projects and we're going to list

those projects by uh in terms of how important they are to get done earlier, but we also then have to overlay that as I said earlier, how we can afford to pay for all of these things. So even if you have five projects that you really want done in the next two years, if it's $500 million to do those projects or $700 million to do those project projects in the next two years, you may not be able to do that because you can't do them have a comprehensive debt model that allows you to keep your AAA bond rating to do those projects in two years. So you may have to take even if they're high priority and move them out two or three years. That's the tough decisions we have to make. So steps involved with capital planning. We talk about facility needs assessment. This is where we work with engineering department and other departments to assess uh um assess what they need. In fact, I think the uh library will be coming to you soon uh to get a facility master plan funding so they can look at the library needs for the regional libraries and what we may need in that area. It's one example. Then we do the project prioritization and sequency. I just explained that what projects are most important and where can they be sequenced in a 10-year CIP. Then we take all those numbers and translate it down into a detailed cash flow projections. If we take on this purchase of a a new building or we give the Durham public schools $300 million in GEO bonds, how do we digest the cost of paying for that over 20 years? And then we add another project the next year and another project the next year. We evaluate that overall sense of financing of all these projects in terms of affordability. It would be tough politically and it would be tough on citizens to raise tax rate 7 cents in one year to do all these capital projects in one or two years. That's what we mean by affordability. That may not be the best way to do it. So we may stretch out projects in terms of our 10ear CIP to keep it affordable for citizens who are ultimately paying for this. Ultimately, we will present that plan andor some variations of that

to the board for your approval as a new updated 10-year capital improvement plan. Phases, we talked about this and kind of already gone over this. Phase one is project request and project priorization. That's starting just now. We've been talking with departments and like I said, Perry's going to show you some existing projects that are already updated. But within the next month, I'm going to be sending out to departments a request for new up new projects andor updated projects. Then we'll come phase two after I gather all those project requests. We'll then complete the cash flow projections. Then in phase three, I'll take those two things, our office will ours with the manager in engineering and we'll evaluate affordability along with talking with Doug Carter and associates our financial advisor and then phase four is the program adopt. What are the time frame on this? March through September. We're continually updating the CIP with new information related to CIP. Much like the animal shelter project, we finally have an updated price on that. So that number's changed from what we had in existing CIP and we will continue that through September formally when I go and ask departments for new information. After that in September to October, we're going to assess the shovel readiness of capital projects and determine the approach of project financing. Project financing is the affordability issue. I will emphasize the shovel readiness of capital projects is so important. You'll hear manager Hager say that term a million times and get mildly frustrated with all of us when we say you said this project was going to be ready to be done this year but here we are a year and a half later and you haven't started on it. The problem with that is it messes up our financial plan and it also generally increases the cost of projects. So we try to be very diligent with departments when their requests when you come to us and say you need this project done a year and a half or two years from now or to get started that you are actually

prepared to start it a year and a half or two years from now. I don't think we have as much of a problem inhouse and that problem's too strong a word. Perry and his group does a great job but other outside agencies we need to make sure that when they say they're ready to move on something they're ready to move on that.

Thank you so much Keith. Uh that is such a great segue to some of the remarks I was going to make about the whole shovel readiness. Uh in this market especially, it's most important to understand when a project is ready to move forward. Um we've had examples in the past. I'll talk about one many years ago. we put it on the referendum and then it was twice as much as we thought it was going to be based on um the plans at that time. And we've done a lot to change how we've um evaluated project readiness and made funds available to scope out um design work etc. So on both sides, the county and our partner organizations are working collectively to help make sure we understand what those projected costs will be. Now more than ever, it's important. The other challenge um right now that we face is uh just the pentup needs. And so, uh, as we look at identifying what we support, uh, to become shovel readiness, uh, that will require some compromise and and for the county as well as partner organizations and Keith will talk about that a little bit later as far as, you know, what does this look like when you have needs at the county, needs at Durham Technical Community College, at public schools, how do we balance all those needs with the already robust capital improvement plan. And so, collectively, we will um make some

choices, but also take small bites looking at prioritization of West Most Pressing um for various reasons. So, I'll I'll stop right there.

Thank you, manager Hager. Last but not least, in October and November, we'll be finalizing the financing strategy and then coming to the board in uh November and December to approve the capital improvement plan. Just some important reminders. A balanced and affordable CIP supports political priorities, reinforces the county's AAA bond rating, and that is super important. Limits property tax pressures on Durham County residents and promotes realistic project implementation and com uh completion. That key realistic project implementation and completion is related to shovel readiness. Management and the board will need to determine how these priorities fit together to shape an approved CIP. That's your job is to look at the end after management recommends the CIP and you have some questions, we move some things around. Just as a note, the county's AAA bond rating was reaffirmed by Moody's and Standards report the spring of 2026 when we went to issue some 22 GEO bonds. So, we're happy to say that's been reapproved. Again, a key metric. Uh once a recommended CIP is finalized, it will be reviewed by our financial consultant to confirm the county's financial capacity and stewardship as reflected in its bond ratings while also monitoring regional economic and political factors that could affect the willingness and ability to support annual cap capital debt service. So to pay for property uh to pay for capital improvement plan and these improvements, we use property tax revenue. You all have dedicated article 40 and 42 sales tax revenue, but that's economically viable and and changeable. A good economy is great. A bad economy and that number could slow down, which would then turn around and put pressure on the property tax amount of money to go fund that. Uh so that I think that's part of why we note what's the economies in this area for the near term and a little bit out into the future to make sure we can continue to afford to pay

for the CIP. Once the CIP passes this financial review, it will be uh passed on to the board for further review. Now, real quick, I just wanted to give you an indication of where the current CIP stands right now. And we haven't really had significant updates from departments like the library going to do their facility master plan. There's some I'm sure some other departments have some ideas. All I'm showing you here is the debt load increase from 2025. It's the tiny little down there at the fiscal year to fiscal year 2030 which is the next one. There's existing debt. That blue debt is going down. Those are things we've already been paying for. uh think of it as amateurization on a house you've had for 10 years. You have less and less debt you owe as you pay down on it, but you're also buying new houses metaphorically. You're you're paying for a new animal shelter. You're paying for the 22 geo bonds, the money that we've already spent and just issued. What I'm pointing out in that green area is we're taking on a lot of new debt already in the current CIP. That's a pretty steep hill. Just letting you know these are some of the things that are already in place right now that we're going to have to consider on the financial side of things. Just wanted to say we don't have an empty CIP waiting to be filled up with a bunch of new project. We've got a current CIP that's pretty heavy. It's a pretty heavy lift for the county already. And that's all I wanted to show. This is another way of showing that. What I wanted to show you are the circles on the side. The key takeaway here is as our debt amount grows, so does our pressure on the property tax rate to fund it. Sales tax growth can only grow at a certain amount unless we get an entirely new sales tax. Three, four, 5% a year if we're doing good, and we haven't done that good over the last couple of years with sales tax. So, where are we going to find the money to pay for all that debt service you just saw growing at such a steep rate is the property tax rate. What does that mean with the current CIP right now? If you want to change a thing in the CIP that we have right now, none of the updates I'm

getting ready to talk about, you will probably need a 4 cent tax rate increase over the next three years. We're currently at 7.57 cents of the current tax rate dedicated for capital improvement plan. Next year, I might need 1 cent. That's before you even consider a tax rate increase for the operating budget. I'm probably going to need our office, the county, you all are going to need at least 1 cent to pay for increased debt service next year, then another 1 cent the next year, and then another couple of cents for the year after that. That's with no updated CIP, excuse me, change that we may be taking on. So, just showing you the pressures that are already there that will have to play into what we consider new projects or increased costs for existing projects. This is just the environment we are in. It's not terrible. This has been noted before to the board, but just letting you know what's coming and some of the pressures we have. And I think that may end it for my side. Reminder, August through September, continued capital project evaluation and evaluating shovel readiness and affordability. November, uh, we will have a CIP overview at the joint BOCC board of education meeting. That will be interesting. uh early indications and board of education have noted $2 billion dollar worth of inventory updates that they need. That's a generous uh application of their view of their stuff, which is fine, but we're going to have to com have conversations. If our total CIP is 1.8 8 billion and they've identified DPS needs of two billion of their own. Those two things are not compatible with affordability as we understand that word. But we'll have to have hard choices and discussions between those two groups. November and December 2026 BOCC work session and a CF CFP which is the capital financing side of the plan uh update and then hopefully approvals

of the CIP after that. Are there any questions on my side in that overview? Okay, we do have questions. So, let's Did uh Commissioner Burton, did you have one?

No, I just really had a comment. I wanted to thank you for this presentation about the schools and where that fit in, but you already answered it. $2 billion and yeah, that's going to have some tough decisions are going to have to be made.

That's not necessarily what they will come to us as an ask for. They are cognizant that we have we have severe limitations on what they have just recognized amongst themselves $2 billion worth of potential needs. I have no idea what they will come to us with, but it will be significant, I'm sure.

Vice, so I know we're talking about how uh excuse me, wondering when are we having our next conversation about school bonds?

So, the school bond conversation would have to occur for the next cycle, which would be for 2028. we cannot do it for 2026. The school had not finished. The schools were in process of um evaluating their capital needs and they were targeting a time frame of October in the fall when they would complete um some work. Um so it would have to be for 2028. However, as we've always shared,

there are other right um it has to be an election where all citizens can vote and so it was 26 and then the next one is 28.

It can't be an off-year election.

Oh, because

it all Yeah, it has to be everyone.

Okay.

Um but we have worked through those issues in the past. We we have other financing um options, limited obligation

bonds, which we've used more frequently with the schools. And so from where we sit and we've done it well in my opinion, uh we as we identify well fleshed out affordable needs, um staff will come back and say, well, this is how we can can um move forward with them. Uh ideally we would have um cycles that there are referendums every four years or um a a period. So for planning we can do some catchup. Um, but I do feel that um we're we're better than where we used to be from a cycle perspective. And then this and Dorm public schools are also spending at a level that more closely aligns with funds allocated, which is also positive because one of the areas communities have to um sort of cross when they vet these bonds is the rigor at least for North Carolina with the local government commission as well as rating agencies. Will you be able to spend all those dollars in the time frame that's allowed? And we're we're doing a much better job with that with our bonds.

Great question. Thank you. And then also wondering on another piece is the Museum of History. Uh that conversation and the funding um where those I know um Commissioner Burton is our representative for that board. where the conversations are with the city um on us supporting the city and the county putting forward funds for their new building.

That is one that we will uh have to discuss at a a joint meeting. Um I know there's been forward movement. Um there are many different approaches that can occur for financing and so um the design work for this space I believe should be

happening soon and and that's a a major first step to determine cost to then determine well what's the financing um approach and shared responsibility with the city and the county. So that is in process. And then my last question, um, it's Mr. Perry's favorite question that I ask of mine and I see Tobin is in the back also wondering I know I had asked this a while ago and I think Tobin came and presented at our meeting but I was absent during that when I was sick of looking into solar bond uh campaigns of that infrastructure of investing in more solar and getting our you know all of our county facilities and buildings DPS facilities to be on renewable energy. Has that been something that as a county we've been able to look at what would that potential expense look like and how it could be on a bond?

So, uh, good morning, Commissioner. Perry Mans, deputy director for county engineering. Um, Tobin has, uh, mentioned in the past, you know, we have the, uh, comprehensive renewable energy plan implementation. Um that is a project that the county specifically uh will be pursuing to take 12 facilities um just some of our I guess higher end users of energy, water, just whatever um utility consumption uh and focus on those. But we are um in conversations with the with DPS to get a better understanding of how we can work collectively with them um to to sort of meet that objective. And so we'll have more conversation on that in in the future. So yes, ma'am,

that'd be great if you could send us like the list of like which properties you guys are looking at for Durham County. Um perfect. Uh

we can send those to you. we have the um

plan that's already fleshed out and we can refresh the board's memory on that. And I I know part of your question may have been too about an isolated bond just for um those sustainability efforts. It's um and we've talked with our financial advisor on that and many different jurisdictions may use different approaches. Their recommendation is in your development of your CIP when those projects are bundled as a part of your overall um plan whether it's county projects that are funded with limited obligation bonds or for instance with Durham public schools they did have some um sustainability type projects in their last bond for solar panels and some other kinds of things and so that has been the approach that's been recommended and uh and so we whether the financing of those bonds are cheaper I would say your general obligation bonds will always be the cheapest and so um from their perspective the approach we're doing is sort of the best return on the investment at the moment um but we definitely can come back and give more information on that

thank you sorry One final question on that. Um, and this is more so like legislatively. So, we have like um the tax of like the transit tax. Wondering what other uses or does the state legislature allow local governments to implement taxes like that that are for specific uses like transit that could Durham County look at a specific tax? tax. I know we would have to go to the state to get it approved and I'm think but like a specific tax for funding school projects, a specific tax for funding renewable energy sustainability projects.

I will have Keith help me with this, but I will say this. I am hopeful that the general assembly um shifts its position and supports a bond referendum for our public schools. um that has not happened in some time and it's caused more pressure on local governments who don't have as many options. And so um I I will say that's important and as um individuals try to figure out a path forward as a as a state um and looking at um that economic upward mobility for our next generation. That's real important. Uh there are limited options counties have from a taxing authority perspective. We do use some of our sales tax dollars to dedicate for to support our debt service that was established back in the late 80s and has been the foundation of how we um support our our our debt. And I'll have Keith weigh in further.

Our article 40 and 42 sales tax that we collect, you as a board currently allocate that as part of board policy, all of it to pay for Durham public school related debt and county related debt, but Durham public school debt dominates it. There's some state law in those article 4042 like 60% of one and 30% of the other has to be for school related debt to encourage counties to support long-term capital planning for schools. We do that plus we allocate even more. Article 46 sales tax I think which is what was for transportation. That is the state law. Voters had to vote on it to approve it. Article 43 sales tax maybe article 43 is oh my goodness I'm forgetting it's the transportation one article 46 you all voter voters approved

is supports specifically Durham public schools that's an additional several million dollars a year for what you're asking to happen the the the board would have to get enough legislators at the state level in the house and the senate which would be interesting to see if that's possible to say hey give Durham county another sales tax. It is possible Meckllinburgg County has had their own special sales tax, but has to be approved by the whole state legislature to have that happen. I am not confident that the legislature as currently set up would be willing to give Durham County another one, but I don't there's no reason you couldn't try to say we would love a dedicated tax for sustainability options. I will say you're in an environment where the state is actually looking to take money away from sales tax related to potential Medicaid or SNAP benefit um uh error rate issues and we're estimated to lose $1.7 million potentially of sales tax depending on error rates of the current sales tax we collect that the state's taken back. So they're kind of going in the opposite direction of being magnanimous and giving us choices. They're taking money away. But it is always a possibility if you can get that many people in the legislature to agree to a new sales tax.

A girl can dream.

Well, I will say that counties across the state, jurisdictions across the state are facing the same challenge. So, you never know.

There a shift could occur. If if the state follows through with a some sort of constitutional amendment on property tax limitation, I don't know that there's going to be significant pressure for the state to then turn around and give counties and or cities the option to find revenue in other ways, which would might be a looser or easier application of increased sales tax. That would be the only other choice. So, it'll be an interesting environment over the next five years to see that.

Commissioner Valentine.

Yes. Thank you, Director Lane. Thank you. So, [clears throat] a moment ago or several moments ago, you had mentioned that uh you'll be coming to us and asked for a 1 cent increase u for the next four years.

More like a a 4centent increase over the next three years.

4ent over the next right over the next uh four years. And and that's based on current projections or forecasts consistent with sales tax revenues and is that subject to to to change based on uh trends. How are we looking?

Yes sir. It's always subject to when I look out our office looks out three to five years. We based on some very uh basic trends 3 to 5% growth but I have no idea if the economies were to tank at the national level the state level and particularly at the local level then I would have to revise that and the amount of property tax needed would have to go up to to support the CIP or you choose to put off a key project or projects.

So it's on the revenue side but also expenditure. So if you look at inflation and the percent of growth in this period over the last two years, it's tracked higher. Um COVID was another place where we saw lots of goods and services spike and it's never reset to precoid level areas. So it's the spender side plus the revenue side that causes the angst. um and we track it quite carefully and so when we can uh we we try to um lessen the pressure as much as we defer those um cost as much as possible. However, when we have a bond referendum and we project what amount is needed to support those expenses,

we do raise taxes to support those expenses that following year so we can start saving the dollars so that it doesn't have such a huge spike um in need. But we'll spend more time on that further.

Thank you. Um, well, thank you. I'm glad we're having this update. And I know Perry, you still have a presentation, but um, I think when, you know, when I reviewed this, what came to mind for me is the constitutional amendment that is going to be on the ballot. So when I look at this balloon, if you go back to the graph that showed the ballooning debt over the next three years, uh, peaking in 2030 and then the projected amount of increased property tax that we will need to finance. This is not just new things. This is the existing parts of our CIP. I am really worried and I think that we need to think about how do we communicate with our community and with voters to help them understand that if people vote for the constitutional amendment to limit property tax authority for local governments, we will not be able to build new things in in our community, we will not we will not be able to, you know, build new schools, you know, EMS stations, uh, animal shelters, you know, the things that we need, you know, Durham Tech, we we won't be able to do it because the way that we do it is by borrowing money and then we have to pay it back. And the way we do it, one of

the ways we finance it is through increasing our property tax. And you know, to your point, Vice Chair Alam, even thinking about a future bond in 2028, when we go out to the voters, we have to say this bond will cost this amount of property tax revenue. Well, what happens if we don't even have the ability to actually even implement that? So, I I think we our you know, this is something again was a theme at the NAGO conference at the midsize county caucus which commissioner um Burton and I were both at. This is an issue across the United States. There are ballot initiatives to limit local government's uh authority to be able to pay for things. And it's it's a national issue. And my one of my takeaways from that, it is incumbent on us at the local level. We have to figure out how to talk about this and how to tell our story. And I'm and I'm wondering and you know we have an upcoming joint city county meeting I believe next week because I think this is something we have to talk about together with the city council with Durham public schools board of education. How do we all talk about this together and educate our community about what the impact because what I one of my takeaways from that conversation is that we have to educate voters. If you vote for this constitutional amendment, this is what the impact will be and this is the choice you're going to have to make. So if you vote for this then you're also have to understand that you're voting for not having what are the things that you don't want to fund at our local government. And so again

that is going to be up to us to be able to explain that and communicate that. And so that's what I'm thinking about when I'm looking at this this conversation about our CIP because we're assuming we're going to be able to actually implement these property tax increases. What happens if we can't?

I would say right off the bat your AAA bond rating is whether you do anything else could be

jeopardized. Go ahead. Command.

I would just say this. it it what's on what's at jeopardy too is your operating side of the budget programming because just like your mortgage you must pay your mortgage but I don't have to have some of these other things that are not required so so that's also what's on the line um we will have to evaluate programming and what levels can we afford because at the end of the day we must pay our debt service. And there are some things in down the pipeline that um we're already on the hook for that may not have showed up yet, but all of those projects that we plan for in the 2022 bond referendum, we're on the hook for

part of the projects are Yeah. So part of the tax rate that we're talking about, those are for projects that are in the pipeline. Okay. And so the question then becomes on the operating side, what can absorb that if there are some limits on the taxing ability, but we'll save that for September.

Yeah.

But those are real concerns. Absolutely. Those are things that that concern us and and that's part of the reason we've been going through this deep dive in our base budget operations to look at

efficiencies to look at well what can we streamline in some other areas because there were so many hits that we're experiencing from the state and revenue cuts. But now with a potential cap in how um local governments are able to um generate revenue for services that our residents desire and for some that we're mandated to do. Um we are at a crossroads and I have some other comments related to this but I'll wait till after Perry's presentation. So, uh, good morning again, commissioners. Uh, this is going to be very brief. We wanted to take the opportunity to give you a quick overview of sort of, um, what's really coming, I guess, over the next six months to the board for for action. That's the primary focus here. Um we also abbreviated um some of this information. The last time we came to you we had a list of about 70 plus capital projects where we brought the entire team to sort of go through and give you an update on each one. Now we just want to focus on the projects that are um you know um like I said critical with with action sort of moving forward or or or wrapping up. There's a lot of projects uh that were that are not listed here that the board has previously authorized us to move forward with. As you guys know, our engineering has been on a tear in terms of uh the items that we've been bringing forward to the board for approval, whether it's design, programming, some construction, what what have you. And so, thanks

thanks to the board for allowing those prog projects to progress. But as a quick uh summary, we've sort of broken down the presentation into two pieces. We got the general fund projects and then I think Jay is online is going to be going over the enterprise fund capital project. So just as a quick overview, quick reminder, quick recap. Uh projects in construction, Lincoln Community Health Center parking lot expansion. We just finalized that last week. the actual final resurfacing of the ashalt at the intersection of Lynwood and Fedville was wrapped up. You guys are uh staying in tune to what we're doing with the 500 East Main Street affordable housing. Um that project is anticipated to be completed in June of 2027. So the contractor is uh remaining on schedule and pushing ahead with that. you know, recently approved the ILA and the um well, the ILA and the joint use agreement for the uh joint fire and EMS station 19 that's uh being managed by the city, but it's a joint partnership between the city and county. We're probably about 18 months out on that. We're hot and heavy with grading and utility infrastructure. Uh you may have noticed some of the work going on next door at DSS main with the health hazard mitigation. Simply we're just getting the asbesus out of the floor tile and mastic and removing the surplus contents, the combustible contents in the building to make it safe if a issue occurred uh in response to the fire marshall's request. The project bill renovation project uh you all know we're uh upfitting 5,000 square feet over at shops at Hope Valley. It's slated to be completed next month. um possibly occupancy October, November time frame. So, it's moving ahead. Uh Commissioner Alarm, you asked about the sheriff's training facility updates. Uh staff tried to highlight some of that

in the agenda action item for the U furniture. We're actually slated for completion, construction completion in November. And so, we'll be occupying hopefully by the end of the year uh with that one. So, that is uh moving progressively. We just mentioned that our staff is supporting uh the sheriff's office with their detention center critical infrastructure upgrades for safety and security. Um projects in design. You all know you recently approved the animal shelter design contract which we sort of outlined a schedule for that for you previously. Uh staff is also hot and heavy in design with Santi Road Park and getting ready to kick off things with the orange factory road farm campus project in collaboration with um cooperative extension. So um Triangle wastewater treatment utilities and uh EOC I'll talk about those in a minute. and Commissioner Alam asked about the comprehensive fleet maintenance, excuse me, comprehensive facilities uh energy assessment which we'll be bringing to the board uh from direction from the manager either at 22 and ones or at a upcoming work session for discussion. I also highlighted several studies that are underway um pre-development processes with DFI uh UNCC school of government's development finance initiatives for DSS main shops at Hope Valley. Uh we're also partnering with DPS on looking at what we can do with the old Lowe's school site. Um we're also working with EMS to do a long range space plan update for them. Keith mentioned that the library is also uh will be coming to you all requesting um I guess funding for a study for their uh long range service delivery for the library. We all know about the 911 consolidation and heart integration study which we hope to have wrapped up

September October. Uh we'll receive direction from management on how to present that to you all as well. Uh and then the 8080s Pedigrew uh street facility study. Uh I think we'll be coming to you all with uh two two and ones on that as well as the shops at Hope Valley Shopping Center uh simultaneously. So uh just as a quick update again I wanted to highlight just a couple of projects that will be coming to you uh over the next couple of months. The EOC and backup 911 call center. We recently went out to bid with that. bids were successful. We actually came in uh slightly under budget uh which is good news. And so we hope to bring the interlocal agreement and the uh construction manager at risk guaranteed maximum price contract to you all possibly in September. Um this is just a breakdown of the schedule and the cost share allocations. So, uh, the utilities admin building, uh, it's managed by our project managers, but the funding is will come out of the enterprise fund. So, that shows up twice in the presentation. Um, and that's really a summary of what we have for for general fund, not going into great detail in light of the fact that we came to you all in March with an update on the entire list. And so Monica, if possible, I can turn it over to Jay to to wrap this up. Okay, great.

Good afternoon, commissioners. This or good morning. I guess we're still morning. Pleasure to be with you today. Uh just a few shovel ready projects through the enterprise fund. One important thing for this morning's discussion and we're very appreciative of both your support and manager Hager and DCM Jones's support on these projects. These enterprise fund projects will help us drive more revenue through

ongoing development in the research triangle park service area. So while they will not offset this potential moratoria on property t [clears throat] pardon me property taxes they will help in some ways blunt it potentially across the long haul. To that end uh the triangle uh utilities admin building as Perry mentioned a moment ago. This one we are ready to go. We anticipate going out for bids in the next month or so uh one to two months. We expect this to leverage us towards the future to serve RTP 3.0 and the dramatic changes that we'll see coming across uh time from that. We are working with the manager, CFO and budget to finalize funding. Uh this will be retired. Uh however, it's funded from revenues related to the enterprise fund. So our rate payers and things like that uh as a direct benefit back to the utility if you will. Next slide please. Uh the chin page list stations one we have spoken with you about before. Uh we are working to get before the local government commission again with the CFO and with manager Hager so that we can release certain funding from the state revolving fund we've secured. We had also secured a grant uh through representative Fushi's office to help with some of it. This is a very critical project for us as it'll carry us 30 to 50 years into the future and leverage the stirrup iron basin which is far and away our largest sewage basin uh in in the utility system and ensure that capacity in both these basins for many for uh decades to come. Next slide please. And then finally we'll highlight the triangle wastewater treatment plant phase 4 upgrades. The last major upgrade on the plant, some of you may remember this from when you visited with us a few months ago uh out at the facilities. Our last major upgrades were about 20 years

ago. So many of those elements are now reaching end of life cycle. Uh it is a severe duty as you can imagine with things that come into the plant. Part of this uh fund right here will go for our ultraviolet system. We use ultraviolet radiation to disinfect our effluent after we've treated everything to ensure there are no pathogens in that effluent. Uh viruses, bacteria, things that could be injurious to uh Northeast Creek and the aquatic life and to to any of us. We use they basically get a really good suntan through our UV system. That system is now well beyond end of life. While we're keeping it functioning and it's functioning within parameter, it is past time to update it. So the first $15 million trunch will go to update that system and ensure that we continue performing at a very high level and managing things in an environmentally responsible manner. Now these are the projects we chose to highlight today as they are all shovel ready and if there's other questions we're we're glad to certainly entertain those. Well, commissioners, I will say we will um entertain your questions, but we will be back often. Um and so uh if you have questions beyond today, please let us know. I know there are several projects that we've been talking about for some time and it's great to see them come to fruition. I would like to thank um Perry and Jay for their leadership as we work through our robust um capital improvement program. Uh I I do feel we have such a rockstar team and um we've worked hard to meet the community's goals in a climate that is often tricky when you're talking about um a season where project costs are

going up because of labor shortages or um tariffs or just inflation. So, um I just wanted to acknowledge that because that does make for some real time issues for that that team.

Yes. Thank you for your presentation. I just had a clarifying question. The 808 East Pedigrew, that's the old John Ay Boys and Girls Club. Correct.

Yes, Commissioner. That's correct.

Thank you. Because we've been getting a lot of community um folks are very interested in that property. So, thank you.

Yep. Absolutely. So, Um thank you. Um yeah a few things I wanted to mention. One is uh related to the investments in RTP the triangle wastewater treatment plant the existing the new chimpage road lift station. I thought I think it also ties back into the conversation about data centers just again the unique position that we are in. And we've invested heavily in infrastructure in RTP because of the importance of RTP to our overall economy in Durham County. And um we continue to make those investments. So we have to be very thoughtful, careful and make well-informed decisions when it's around issues like the data centers because again it's we're we're making sign we have made and we continue to make big investments in RTP. Um so related to the the projects that are in construction and you know in design and then studies underway um and one I was going to say Perry we're also doing a stadium study.

Okay.

Um which that's being done in

partnership with the sports commission Durham next and the county. Right. So that's that's another another study to go on the list. Right. Um but I was wondering about just the realities especially when I look at a lot of those um studies underway is uh and looking at the constrained environment that we're in and then again worrying about these constitutional the constitutional amendment um just about how God bless you um what are you know how how will we be able to make decisions going forward and I was thinking about the rubric that staff helped us develop around ARPA money and thinking about that related to capital improvement projects. It seems like in the future we're going to need some type of decision-making rubric like things like what projects are related to essential mandated services, things that we absolutely have to do. um versus what are the things that you know are not essential but things that we are tied to our strategic plan or things that we really value but they're not essential. Um because we've done a lot of that you know our 300 and 500 East Main Street projects. Um and I I and then you know I was thinking about um things like what what gen what what are revenue generating CIP projects like the enterprise right versus not um what projects could um there we have the opportunity for

consolidation or other approaches. So anyway, I'm just thinking that it would be great in in the future for you all to help us with some decision-making rubric because it it seems like we're going to have some very difficult choices to make. Uh and I just want to hear your thoughts on that.

That's a great comment. Um I I a couple of years ago um we did put a framework together to help us identify areas of focus and we looked at other jurisdictions. we can dust that off, bring that back because we're at a stage now with so many factors shifting how what affordability looks like because affordability is much different now than what it looked like even last year when there are some revenues that may not be on the table at the levels that they used to be. And it's not again just the capital side, but it's also the pressures we have on the operating budget. Um looking at what's mandated, what's required. So it would be a lot of those similar types of um prioritization strategies, what's required by law, what are we mandated to do? prime example. There's lots of thoughts about the detention center, but by law, we are required to maintain a detention center. Same thing with courts. By law, we're required. If not, we can get sued. So, there are places that distinctly we can show where it's required. But then there are some that is a community priority such as our libraries. And so those are those are the balancing acts that the board will have to face. But as staff we will definitely bring forth a rubric that would help you with

that prioritization.

That sounds good. And there's, you know, the issue of what is the cost if we don't make this investment.

Oh, absolutely. And that's when you start getting especially in our

um enterprise fund spaces,

what's the opportunity cost

if you don't make those investments

return on investment.

That's exactly right. And so although meeting environmental um requirements, they also will fall in those categories of investments that we must make to meet those um thresholds from from an environmental perspective. manager and commissioner, I I I will add that um I think the question is sort of um highlights the beauty in our process because from the engineering perspective, we're charged with getting the information from the part from departments on what they need. We hire the best consultants we can possibly get through our solicitation process. They uh have done this stuff nationally, regionally. they set they know what the benchmarks are, what questions to ask our departments as to how they're operating, how they can be more efficient. And uh I always take this opportunity at every turn that I'm presenting to remind everyone that our new projects uh are primarily focused on public safety because in the past CIPs we had a strong focus on on administration needs. We addressed human services, the courthouse functions and renovated admin one, admin 2. And so now we're we're really picking up trying to bring public safety up to where it needs to be in the community. And so when you talk about uh what's needed, what's required by law, I think that's going to help us significantly when we talk about well EMS wants to meet the demand out in East Durham with all the growth out there. Um, so that's kind of the way I

see things, but uh it's a great question and certainly we will help uh help the manager get you that information in terms of what we're required to do statutoily, lawfully or whatever. So,

thank you. Al I also have one more question is it also makes me think about and I've seen us implement this over time but the strategies to help us manage our CIP like having project management um you know a whole program now that we implement and that we've helped Durham public schools with the Seymar which now we do regularly Um I remember we started implementing that um preventative maintenance and I'm just like wondering what are other strategies um I mean I think one of them and we're we're doing that with our studies is around duplication or possible partnership consolidation like the 911 center um partnering with heart things like that like we we have to be looking at when we when we're facing these challenges. So I don't do any other strategies come to mind.

Those are the the basic framework for what we we typically focus on. Um you nailed it. Um if there are others, we'll certainly uh bring it to everyone's attention, but um I I think you've got a a good grasp of uh you know what our focus is. So um yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, M. Perry.

Yes, sir.

And also uh your emphasis on uh public safety, the CIP plan moving forward. I think that's consistent with the needs in our community, particularly in light of our exponential growth.

Correct.

U so I think we're um pointing our our

asmus in the correct uh direction. But back to uh managing our CIP. I heard moments ago about stadium study. I didn't know anything about it. It's not mentioned in the presentation.

Pipeline.

I'm not a part of it. So, thus far, I think general services manage the stadium. So, that's uh that's why I didn't highlight it here.

Well, and I will say that there will be places in our CIP that we will refresh and and integrate. Um and there are places for instance like transit you don't see it on our CIP but if there are gaps in transit the pressure will be on our CIP and those are that's why it's important we have these conversations so that we can make sure that we um have a comprehensive list of what we know and then those things that may be in the stratosphere that may become a pressure and right now transcend is fine. I don't want to cause any issues, but I do recall years ago when we were talking about light rail and there were some huge gaps and that gap would have put pressure on Durham County's capital improvement plan and and so um so to your point there are lots of studies happening right now that are communityfacing um and some may have the potential of landing at the county But the board of county commissioners, if it's our debt, would have to determine if we were to in fact move forward. And the guiding principles that we put together would help determine if that's something that is appropriate and timing wise something that we could afford.

Well, transit seems to always be uh before us and so I have a lot of information on that. But to the extent there is a stadium study going ongoing,

is that consistent with Commissioner Lam's uh presentation today about the the sports commission?

No, I'm not sure. I know there you know there was a presentation made some time ago from representatives from NCCU about uh some needs related to um stadium and other areas. That's not something that is before us. Um, statutoily, counties, local governments have spaces in which we are authorized to to cover. So, whatever we do, and I used to, everybody knows I used to work for the UNCC system and so I'm very familiar who pays for what in that space. And so if it's anything the county would do, it would have to be something that is um in a space in fact that the county can statutoily support unless it was a bold voter referendum.

Well, I I just asked because both of those things seem to in my mind anyway seem to be tied together in some kind of way. But thank you for that.

Yeah.

Wonderful. Thank you so much uh Jay and Perry. for your presentation. We have a few more shorter items on the agenda, I believe. And our commissioners, colleagues, are you guys okay with us pushing through and completing these items rather than taking a break?

Yeah.

Okay. Wonderful.

Yes. Okay. And I believe the next presentation we have my agenda closed. Which one's our next is We have Miss Deborah. Yes. Miss Deborah Craig Ray to talk about our legislative priorities. Oh, no. This is about our appointing

legislative.

Yeah. Legislative priorities process. Yes. Yes. Good afternoon. It's my pleasure to be before you for this really the beginning of our legislative process for the upcoming um bienium. Thank you very much for all of your support. Um Vice Chair Long, members of the board, manager Hagar, um this is as I said the start of the 2027 legislative goals process. These items will be for statewide impact and we will be supporting NCACC's legislative process. I'll talk about that in a minute. But first, I wanted to begin my remarks with a quick update from uh Mr. Tilllet, our lobbyist, about um what's still going on in the session currently under the new resolution, which is still subject to House approval. And after adjourning um pretty soon on August 6, the general assembly will convene on the following dates. August 31st through September 2nd, September 28th through 30th, October 26th through 28th, November 16th through 19th, you'll note that's right after the election, they will be coming back. And again, uh November 30th through December 18th. Per Senate rules, Chairman Rabburn has said no votes are anticipated in the Senate until November, but of course, anything can change. The adjournment resolution limits the business that can be taken up to the following. Veto overrides, legislative and gubernatorial appointments and confirmation, legislation related to litigation challenges, legislative enactments, impeachment matters,

constitutional amendments, and any necessary conforming legislation. House and Senate organization resolutions, conference reports for bills in conference, conference votes on bills return to their chamber of origin and further adjoinment resolutions. And so um that's basically what is happening with the current legislation legislators. Um, and I would just also note that um, when several of you newer commissioners came in, um, before this legislative process, NCACCC had already started. You may recall, I'm not sure if any of you all attended the legislative goals conference when you were just um becoming commissioners, but the um issues had already been implemented. So that just kind of speaks to the timeline that is used. So, as I said, every two years as we are preparing for the long session, the county commissioners associations ask all counties to bring forward any legislative goal proposals that they um have. And of course, all of them have to be voted on by the county boards. Once those items are put together, I actually have to go into their portal and put in the information um basically in this format. um the name of the goal, describe how the proposal is applicable to all 100 counties, any additional context information, and then if there are um any supporting files, I'll have to update those. Typically, they ask us to to sort of limit our numbers, but whatever goals that we come up with are fine. Now, in this package, three departments have actually sent in

information, and we'll go through those very briefly, but this is really your chance to let me know if you have some statewide legislative goals that you want us to add to the list. Um, since I did the agenda action form, the deadline has shifted. It was the 14th, it's now the 27th. So, um, ideally I plan to bring this item back to you on the 10th for approval, but hopefully we can make that deadline, but if not, we could still come back for the second meeting because we still would have time to get it in to NCACC's um, deadline. So, um, the first item I'll just very quickly mention came from, uh, veteran services, uh, create veterans treatment courts across the state. And I don't know if anybody is here from veteran services, but it was submitted by Jonathan Krooms. And basically, um, they're looking to establish veterans treatment courts across the state. their specialized voluntary court programs designed for justice involved veterans. Instead of incarceration, they focus on rehabilitation. And by combining judicial supervision with vigorous treatment and peer mentoring, these courts will um address the underlying mental health and substance use issues linked to a veteran's military services. And so again, we're just introducing these items. If there are additional questions, I will get those answered for you before um you vote whether or not to add that to the list that you want to submit. Um the next item would be from um engineering increase allowable and permitted uses of reclaimed water for county and municipal utilities and the communities they serve. And I know Jay was on earlier and I'm not sure if he wants to um talk

about that. Is Jay still on? We're right here.

Jay Jay, I'm sorry. Can you repeat yourself? You were muted on our end.

Yeah.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. We are proposing this uh it seems very appropriate given we hopefully coming out of a base of drought right now. We obviously see how important and fragile our portable water supplies are and currently the triangle wastewater treatment plant because of the investments made by yourselves and your predecessors across time can produce almost 6 million gallons a day of reclaimed water, highly treated water. It's already used for certain things. We have a partnership with the town of Kerry where it's used to water the USA baseball complex. However, those uses really need to be expanded. And current state laws, state rules have a lot of hurdles and a lot of restrictions that are unnecessary for a water that has been so highly treated like reclaimed water has. And so we're asking that certain definitions uh be considered for amendment as part of the legislative process to broaden the uses which in turn helps leverage our scarce portable supplies further by making better use of of this valuable resource and reclaim water.

Thank you Jay. And again, it is primarily a change in statute, just adding some additional information, and we certainly would work with our um attorney to make sure we have everything in order when we submit that goal. Uh the final goal is also from um engineering, authorize counties to charge user fees for public electric

vehicle charging infrastructure. And I think Tobin is here to talk about that one.

Tobin or Haley? Yeah. [snorts] Sounds like we might get some money here.

Just hit that button. Thank [snorts] you.

Good afternoon. I'm Tobin Freed, sustainability manager for Durham County. Uh the county does own and manage several public electric vehicle charging stations. We just put in 12 dual port at our new deck at 500 uh block right next to Health and Human Services as well as at several of our libraries and at the um courthouse parking deck as well. And a few years ago, there was a law that was passed that allowed for cities to charge people who use those electric vehicle charging stations. It was uh an oversight to not include counties. Uh and so um there is currently an effort to get some legislative corrections to that language to allow counties to charge fees. Uh and so this item would just be in support of those efforts and allowing us to charge those fees would allow us to recoup some cost to uh supplying electric vehicle charging stations, especially the electricity charges. uh as well as allow us to better manage the stations where we could charge for example um after you've been there for three hours the cost goes up to encourage people to leave the space so that other users can come in.

Thank you. So again we're looking at trying to recoup some money. So again, these three items that have come from our departments would be um of statewide impact, which is what is being sought. And of course, if you have your ideas,

I'm ready to take notes.

Yes. Thank you so much. Um I'm glad that we are this is our first one that we give as new commissioners input to. So I'm I kind of have a broad one. and it's related to the schools. How do we increase school funding with a statewide bond issue that affects all 100 counties?

Um, how can we get one on the ballot? And thinking about how do we increase schoolbased worker employee wages? A lot of times we think about the classroom teachers, the instructional staff, but a lot of times the classified staff are left out. They're they tend to be lumped in with state employees, right? Because one of the issues that I'm seeing is that because the state sets the salary schedule, the pay for classified staff on the state, it's low. Yes. And so we have to people come to us as commissioners wanting those wages increased. So getting more money for all school-based employees, not just not only the class, the certified teachers, but the classified staff, the bus drivers, teacher assistants, etc. And that is a statewide issue. So thank you.

Thank you. Well, thank you. First, I want to thank our staff for the three goals that were submitted. I think they're um all really innovative and uh really good uh for in terms of addressing um issu important issues and I think would would have support at the state, you know, in terms of countywide. And that's what's really key about these NCACC

goals is we have to think be strategic and think about things that are going to be um of interest to all counties rural and urban. Um I in addition to what Commissioner Burton said, I was thinking of a legis two other legislative goals related to school funding. One is around the use of the lottery funds. this has been a sticking point for the 14 years that I have been a county commissioner is that the education lottery uh and I don't know the exact wording of this how to be strategic but actually making sure that the originally adopted approved uh percentage that was supposed to be going for capital funding for counties for schools that that is implemented because basically we are not following what we said we were going to do when the lot when we all when voters approved the lottery funds. So I think going that I think is something that I hope that we could get support on. And the other is related to the um the funding that is supposed to be saved that is supposed to be the savings from the vouch the quote unquote savings from the voucher program that was supposed to go back to all of the um public schools across the state. ensuring that that funding actually is going to um back into the public school systems. And uh I don't remember the exact amount, but um I think that that's something else that I would like for us to look at. Um and then related to

what's happening with SNAP asking that the state cover the administrative cost burden for the additional 25% uh administrative cost burden for SNAP be covered by the state legislature. That is going to have a devastating impact on rural counties. And for us, I think it's going to be several million dollars and they're going to take it out of our sales tax revenue. So, uh, and then I think, uh, you know, I'd like to see us have a goal around protecting Medicaid and Medicaid expansion. Um, and then another one, I know we're throw I'm throwing a lot out and we can't do all these, but um, [clears throat] asking the state to do a study or to come up with um proposed ways that they're going to help counties with revenue shortfalls due to um if the constitutional amendment is approved that limits our property tax revenue. How is the state going to help us fill the gap with mandated services? and whether that we're saying we want to study or whatever, I think we need to raise that issue as an association. Um and then the last is related to the cost for jail mental health and the cost of implementing arena's law at the local level is um we're going to have more and more people in our jails who are suffering from severe mental illness. And again, how is the state going to help us with the costs for more mental health treatment and facilities for people suffering from mental illness who

are justice involved?

Thank you. So, let me go just go ahead and associate myself with many of the uh proposals that have already been made particularly around Medicaid and SNAP and the revenue short revenue shortfalls that we face. Um, and also to say with respect to the three that already uh been submitted that uh I definitely support those uh specifically one dealing with uh the veteran treatment court. Mhm.

North Carolina has about half a million uh veterans in our population and 14,000 of them reside right here in Dorm County and uh we know that there's consequences to putting our men and women into harm's way and so any way that we can support them in our community and one being with the veterans treatment court I would be definitely in favor of.

Thank you. Well, thank you so much, Miss Kra. I feel like every time you come, I always give you all my pine sky ideas, which I will just say I bring forward again. You have my list of items that um from the past five years of all the things that we need our legislature to actually be doing of funding our public education, not stripping away our ability to raise revenue to fund the vital services and programs and also not eliminating corporate tax cuts uh that are going to have a detrimental impact on the working families across North Carolina

who actually make these corporations their profits um as well as not eliminating the income tax or not yeah for high wealth individuals

and ditto to everything my colleague said that um anything else you have for or

well, I will work with our attorney to try to get these in a legislative format um and um bring them back to the board for approval. And with approval, then I can move forward and put them into the NCACC's um portal so that they can be considered um by the nine committees that they have. Each one goes into a committee based on the subject matter as you know and they go through sometimes a goal that comes from one county might be merged with one from another if they're similar and once that list gets together it goes before the board of directors and the body for voting to get the final book that we will work with for the next two years.

Yeah.

Thank you. And now our final item is the appointing of a voting delegate for NCAACCC. And we have Commissioner Burton as the voting delegate and Commissioner Wendy Jacobs as the voting alternate for the NCAACCC conference. Any discussion or I'll hear a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Okay. Moved by Commissioner Raline, seconded by Do we have to actually do we need to suspend the rules first? Okay. I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules.

I move that we suspend the rules.

Moved by Commissioner Valentine to suspend the rules, seconded by Commissioner Jacobs. All in favor say I.

I.

Any opposed? Okay. The rules are suspended four to zero. Now, I'll entertain a motion to appoint the voting delegate of Commissioner Burton with alternate delegate Commissioner Jacobs. I move that uh Commissioner Burton serve

as the delegate and the al alternate Commissioner Jacobs.

Second. Moved by Commissioner Valentine. Second by Commissioner Burton. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor say I.

I.

Any opposed. Okay. The delegates are appointed four to zero. We will now move into close session. This is our final item. Uh we are moving in a general uh close session for general statute 143-318.116. Do I hear a motion to move?

So move.

Second.

Move by Commissioner Burn. Second by Commissioner Valentine. All in favor say I.

I.

I. Any opposed? We are in close session four to zero.

Dr. Lee, we're ready.

Okay. All right. We met in close session and now I'll entertain a motion to increase the salary of the DSS director by 15.7% to align with market fairness and rates.

So moved.

Second. We have a motion on the floor that's been properly moved and seconded. Any further [clears throat] discussion? All in favor say I.

I. All oppose, please use the same sign. It passes unanimously. Without any further business on our agenda, we are adjourned. Thank you.