Read the report below.

Raleigh’s underground water infrastructure, mainly pipes in the ground, needs more than $7 billion in repairs, according to City Public Utilities Director John Carman. These are not immediate costs, he said, but now is when Raleigh should be planning to replace pipes that will age out during the coming decades.

Carman told the Record the current financial model for the system does not put away any money to pay for replacing pipes that have a lifespan of anywhere from 60 to 100 years.

“We have $500 million worth of pipe that was installed before World War II,” Carman said.

He said that bonds and similar big loans are a good way to pay for large projects such as a new water treatment plant. But, Carman said, pipe replacement should be paid along the way directly from water bills.

The Dempsey E. Benton Water Treatment Plant. Although water rates cover operating costs, they do not cover maintenance costs for new underground pipes.

Raleigh’s water system is what’s called an enterprise system, meaning it pays for itself. The catch is that most of the system’s costs—running treatment plans, fixing old pipes, making sure water always comes out of the tap—are fixed. And most of the system’s income goes up and down with water use.

Peter Scott, co-chair of the WUTAT and a former Progress Energy executive, told city councilors last month that residents have done well with water conservation, with per capital consumption down 40 percent since 1987. But, Scott said, revenue “must increase significantly” to cover the cost of the system.

City Councilors created the WUTAT two years ago to study the city’s water system and make recommendations on how to best manage the financial model of the utility.

The tiered rate structure the city implemented last year, which charges more per gallon the more residential customers use, has been lowering water usage across the city, and that means less income for the utility.

After questioning from councilors about how to best address the long-term revenue shortfalls, Scott said that when it comes to how much to charge water customers, “the more fixed, the better.”

That means more of the water bill should be made up with fees, not based on how many gallons a home or business uses.

Carman said after the meeting that the “current financial model does a good job of fixing infrastructure above ground,” such as pump stations, water treatment plants and the like.

“The piece that’s missing is the part fixing the below-ground infrastructure,” he said.

Councilor Thomas Crowder expressed frustration at the meeting last month with the water rates loop they find themselves in: “Raise rates, lower consumption, raise rates again, lower consumption.”

Ninety percent of Raleigh’s water costs are fixed, and about three quarters go up and down with usage, according to the WUTAT report.

Scott told councilors that the main issue with the water system’s financial model is that there are no reserves for droughts, repairs or other contingencies.

City councilors already raised sewer rates last year and Scott said that action was “moving in the right direction, where we reflect the actual costs.”

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Last year, the Raleigh City Council voted to allow City Manager Russell Allen to negotiate a contract with SADA Systems to implement Google Apps for Government as the city’s email provider. The move is expected to save the city $480,000 during the next three years.

In a Technology Committee meeting last week, the IT Department’s Chief Information Officer, Gail Roper, said negotiations with Google are ongoing, but sticking points remain.

Meanwhile, a deadline has now passed. In last week’s meeting, one city staffer said the end of January was the “go, no-go point.”

Roper said that deadline is based on a “major network upgrade that would have to happen if we don’t move the network into the clouds. [That’s] cost savings related to not having to upgrade that equipment.”

Storing items in the “cloud,” means the city would not store the data on its own local servers, but instead will upload the data through the Internet to servers they do not control.

Roper later told the Record stipulations in North Carolina law require the city to have a direct contract. That may mean the city cannot use SADA Systems, but she did not give any other details on the issue and referred the Record to the City Attorney’s office.

Attorney Tom McCormick refused to comment on the issue, saying he does not comment on ongoing negotiations. Attorney Brandon Poole said the issues are all “legal related,” but offered no further comment.

Google representatives also said they could not comment on a specific contract.

Other entities in North Carolina use Google Apps for Government, including North Carolina State University. Marc Hoit, a member of NC State’s IT department, said a university has different provisions for contracts.

“We did not run into a snag with that,” he said. “But I understand that provision … my understanding is if they can show a cost savings … then that is a way to move forward.”

Roper told the Technology Committee other North Carolina users “just signed on the dotted line,” something Raleigh cannot do.

“The variances are who they are contracting for, so it’s not a cookie-cutter solution,” Roper told the Record.

Google officials refused to confirm which North Carolina entities or municipalities are using the program.

NC State launched the program in stages starting in 2010. Hoit said it has “been phenomenally good.”

“It saved us a very large amount of expenditures, which was good because the budget was cut last year,” he said.

The full City Council will discuss the issue at a technology retreat Monday.

If the city makes the switch, Gmail will provide the city’s email system, but all email addresses will still have the same ending. Employees who are unfamiliar with Gmail will still be able to use Microsoft Outlook to maintain their email, contacts and calendars.Similar Posts:

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Transcript
Record: Welcome to Oak City Voices. I’m Will Huntsberry and today we are talking to Superintendent Tony Tata. Thanks for talking to us.

Tata: Great to be here, Will.

Record:  Today is your one-year anniversary on the job and when you came in here last year this school system was a pretty different place. There had been a split vote to hire you. There had been lots of trouble with the student assignment plan. What was your mindset coming in?

Tata: My mindset coming in was just to do the very best job I could leading the school district and helping the board become a unified governance team that inspires confidence in all stackholders. If you take a look at the AdvancEd report that has recently been released it says we sort of did that so far. We’re making good progress. I look forward to another year of making that kind of progress.

Record: Like you mentioned the AdvancEd report really backs up the fact that you’ve come in here and this administration has calmed the waters in a lot of ways and has the high schools back on track to be accredited. What was your strategy in doing that?

Tata: The high schools have always been accredited. We went from warned to advised status, which is an improvement in the oversight from AdvancEd, whom we pay to provide this oversight. And the strategy was to take the initial report back in March very seriously to cull through a lot of the language there that upset some people and then take a hard look at the seven required actions. We took each required action and said “what do we need to do to accomplish required action 1, 2, 3, all the way to seven. We had several required sub-actions that we then developed and we began working on them. We tasked them out. We closed the loop. We made sure that people were executing. What they came back with is that five of them were already completed and “two you’re working on.” One is the strategic plan, which is going to take another six, seven months to finish. I think, because you want it to be a community collaboration event. I feel like we’re on a good azimuth here.

Record: You mentioned checking off those boxes one-by-one and really getting in there. You also mentioned the language. What was the take away from how you could change the language that was being used?

Tata: I think, the language and the hyperbole and the passion that was being discussed over a year ago, we tried to funnel that into productive areas where we can actually take all that great energy that the parents and community advocates have and focus that on student achievement and on having a good assignment plan and make sure that we are moving in the direction that Wake County parents and students want us to go.

Record:  Looking back over the past year, what’s your proudest moment so far?

Tata: My proudest moment is any time I’m in a school and I’m talking with teachers or students or principals and I just see what a fantastic job they are doing. There has been hundreds of those moments and I give all the credit to the principals and teachers for doing such a fantastic job.

Record: If getting down and meeting these people on a personal level has been the best thing, what has been the most challenging part?

Tata: I think, the challenging part is trying to make sure that everyday central office and myself, we are doing justice to the schools that are working so hard to provide the education everyday. Are we squeezing out every last ounce of our energy and getting the resources into the schools? That’s a daily challenge, because it is a resource-constrained environment.

Record: The new school board has been very impassioned in looking at this new choice assignment plan and there’s been some pretty lively debate at times. What has it been like working with the board specifically?

Tata: This is a good board and the last board was a good board. All nine board members come to the table representing their district. I enjoy working with the board. We have passionate discussions because we all care very deeply about the system. As long as they are respectful we’re in a good place, because those are the kind of discussions that school boards and superintendents and the public are supposed to have.

Record: Is there any disconnect then between what see on TV a lot, that really impassioned, lively discussion on the school board, versus what you see as superintendent going into schools and talking to people face-to-face. Can you bridge the gap between those two worlds for me a little bit?

Tata: Yea, sure. Part of my job is to shelter and buffer the 165 schools we have so that the principal and the staff can focus on teaching and learning and by doing that we are able to contain our discussions or at least the goal is to contain these discussions at the board and superintendent, leadership team level so they have no to minimal impact on schools.

Record: A long, distinguished military background in your career Superintendent Tata- and I know that you were with D.C. schools before you were here- but talk to me a little bit about what that transition has been like?

Tata: It’s been a great transition, because when you look at it the Army is one of the great teaching and learning institutions in the country and the structures are very, very similar. You have remote Army bases all around the country or all around the world and you have the pentagon, which is like central office, and then you pump out different curriculum that you have to train soldiers on. You take this standardized curriculum and you train people to teach that and there are people that are qualified teachers or trainers and they train our soldiers. It’s very similar to having central office, having 165 schools and making sure that every principal and all teaching staff are getting the curriculum they need and the support they need. It’s quite frankly all about leadership and understanding in a very tactile way- which is why I’ve been at 165 schools now- what this library or media center needs or understand what the teachers in Rolesville Elementary, where we are now, need. I take that back and I go back and I talk to my leadership team and we try to get the resources forward to the folks. There’s no difference than this or when I was in Afghanistan with 91 forward operating bases continuously doing battlefield circulation, as we called it, and making sure that the troops had what they needed to carry out their mission. Here,  I’m just making sure that my principals and teachers have what they need to carry out their mission.

Record: How long could you see yourself staying in Wake County then Superintendent Tata?

Tata: I want to be here as long as long as the parents and students and citizens of Wake County want to keep me here.

Record:  You’ve been watching Oak City Voices and thanks for talking to us Superintendent.

Tata; Thanks for having me, Will.Similar Posts:

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The approval of the Coleman Street Apartments, an apartment complex that will create 18 new apartment units on Coleman Street near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, is the city’s latest effort to meet the growing demand for affordable housing.

But the gap is widening between the number of low-income residents and the availability of affordable housing in the city.

According to Raleigh’s Comprehensive Plan, “Assisted affordable housing units totals nearly 11,150 units in the city, less than 5 percent of Raleigh’s total housing supply.”

The 2010 Census revealed that, of the city’s 404,000 residents, 56,000 are living in poverty. And housing is a key element in combating poverty.

As the Comprehensive Plan states, “Affordable housing provides stability for families, improves opportunities for education and career advancement and reduces the risk of homelessness … (it) is a key factor for community vitality and continued economic growth.”

Since Raleigh’s Comprehensive Plan was completed in 2009, the disparity between the number of low-income residents and low-income housing has only grown, said Raleigh’s Deputy Planning Director Ken Bowers.

“Since we last looked at this, the recession has hit,” he said. “It’s a challenge to keep up with this demand.”

The growing need for affordable housing in Raleigh is compounded in the face of government budget cuts, said Raleigh Housing Authority Spokeswoman Allison Hapgood.

“We’re seeing people stay in public housing longer now. Expenses haven’t dropped, but available jobs and pay rates have gone down,” she said. “So, it’s harder for people to get a leg up. Rather than staying three to five years, people are staying as long as seven years.”

The City of Raleigh secures loans and housing bonds to continue building up its inventory of low-income housing. Likewise, RHA has largely depended on federal dollars to supply the city’s growing housing demand. The RHA has a 98 percent occupancy rate for its public housing and the section 8 program is 100 percent utilized. According to the website, there is a wait list for both programs.

With little public funding to create new housing, many people in search of low-income housing are left in limbo until someone else vacates, she said.

“With the federal budget what it is now, you can’t get help new people with these programs until someone leaves,” Hapgood said.

Raleigh’s affordable housing programs are staying busy, she added, “and, something the city should be proud of is that Raleigh is using 100 percent of the resources it has to provide what it can.”

Raleigh leaders know there is more ground to cover. Aside from adding more affordable housing options, city planners are pushing to more evenly disperse it throughout the city.

The city offers few affordable housing developments around North Raleigh, particularly Northwest Raleigh, said Shawn McNamara, program manager for Raleigh’s Community Development Department.

Many affordable housing units are in South and East Raleigh, leaving those residents clustered in one section of the city. While Raleigh planners are working to change that, the issue is a matter of cost, McNamara said.

“Northwest Raleigh has the greatest need for these kinds of projects. But, the land is more expensive there … that’s the kind of tug of war we deal with when we’re trying to establish more low-income projects,” he said. “We tell developers to give us your best shot when seeking new affordable housing projects and, when looking at overall costs, properties in these areas are a better deal. But we’re trying to nudge it in other directions.”

That nudge comes in the form of Raleigh’s scattered housing policy, which gives preference to approving proposed projects where there aren’t any.

In the end, construction is up to developers. On that front, Hapgood said the down economy may be providing one upside.

“Because the private [real estate] market has cooled, more developers are taking another look at affordable housing projects,” she said.

And, that’s what she’s counting on in the hopes that the city’s list of people waiting to find an affordable home will be met with new opportunities.

“The private sector has to step up and be the net for the folks that are falling behind,” she said.

Raleigh also provides information and counseling to people interested in buying or renting homes through the city’s Fair Housing program.

To help educate people on fair housing practices, Raleigh’s Fair Housing Board will host a fair housing conference April 27 at the Double Tree by Hilton hotel in Raleigh.

Tedesco is in his first term as member of the school board. If he wins the run for State Superintendent, his seat will have nearly a year left off on it and will have to be filled by appointment. If he loses, he’ll keep his seat on the Board of Education. Two of his fellow Republican board members, Debra Goldman and Chris Malone, have also expressed interest in running for higher office in 2012.

Record reporter Will Huntsberry talks to Tedesco about his decision to run as well as his controversial history on the school board.

Transcript of Conversation with John Tedesco

Record: Mr. Tedesco. Today has been a big day of political decisions. The governor decided not to run. Representative Brad Miller decided not to run. You, yourself have decided to run for State Superintendent against June Atkinson. Tell me a little bit about that.

JT: Quite frankly part of my decision making process is that I was vey disappointed in the previous administration—Governor Easley and now Gov. Perdue. June Atkinson is now seeking a third term … And the results in education we’ve had in this state. Ms. Atkinson announced that she was running last week and when she did she said, “we’re in the third quarter and we’re winning, so why would we quit now.” And quite frankly I just have very different views on that. I don’t think a state where 30 percent of our kids are not graduating every year, where 50 percent of our minority kids are not reading on grade level, where we rank 4th in the nation in suspensions with a serious school to prison pipeline. I don’t consider that winning. I think we have some serious challenges.

Quite frankly over the past several years, not just the past year as some of the partisans would try to make it seem with a change in the general assembly, but over the past several years Gov. Perdue with a Democratic assembly at her side watched thousands of teachers in North Carolina los their jobs. And there was nobody there to champion the reforms we needed that would’ve been able to protect teachers, like we did in Wake County. We streamlined operations. We reduced the bureaucracy. We cut ineffective programs. We kept our dollars in the face of limited resources and critical times aimed at the classroom. We protected every teacher. We have 18,000 employees here in Wake County. We protected every teacher. We put $32 million more into instructional services at the same time we doubled our fund balance … That took a lot of hard work and looking at things a little differently. We haven’t had that kind of champion for our kids and I’m willing to stand up and be that voice even if it means rolling up my sleeves and putting up a fight.

Record: We’ve seen the school board in the media be portrayed as very politicized and I think that’s accurate to some extent. We had these recent school board elections and people had to roll up their sleeves in that battle. There was a lot of mud being thrown either way, associating Republicans with the Tea Party, stuff like that. How do you see that playing out on a statewide level? Do you think that’s going to be a problem?

JT: No. What I’ve learned over the past several years is that there are some who love me and some who don’t. But the ones who don’t – I’ve earned their respect, because I stand by the courage of my convictions. I am a man who does what I say. I put it out there, who I am. I roll up my sleeves. I do the hard work for what I believe in. Quite frankly, I think across North Carolina, they’re looking for that type of leadership. I don’t think what you saw on our board or how it was portrayed in political actions is reflective of the type of leadership we’ve actually brought to the table or that I’ve been able to deliver. I’ve been a champion. You can see in the News & Observer they’ve called me a tireless voice for underprivileged children. Whether it was fighting for discipline policy reforms, making our schools safer, reducing our drop-our rates, impacting our school-to-prison pipeline, I’ve been that voice at the table. I think citizens across North Carolina are going to like to have somebody at the table talking those issues. I’ve been a champion for children to have real equal opportunities in our schools. I think we’ve seen that. When I talk about minority kids not getting placement in some of our advanced tracks, fought for math curriculum alignment opportunities that put thousands more minority children into advanced tracks and gave them real opportunities, where I might add they succeeded! I can’t imagine that those types of things are things that citizens across North Carolina are going to see as partisan on one side or the other. I think they are things that people are going to see and say “wow, we need someone to do that for us from the mountains to the coast, from the urban centers to the rural pockets, whose going to fight for all of our children.”

Record: You mentioned a lot of core issues there that I think many North Carolinians believe in but at the same time I know you do often distance yourself from your Democrat counterparts and how you operate and do things. Do you think the label for conservative would be right in your case?

JT: I certainly feel that I’m a conservative in my views on a lot of issues- in how we manage finances. I think that has proven to be productive. It has saved thousands of teachers their jobs. We streamlined bureaucracy. I think we differ because a lot of my Democratic colleagues on the board in the past, have supported, sort of, what I call “business as usual.” They’ve been status quo educ-rats, bureaucrats, who’ve been part of the system for 30 years and helped create the problems but are not positioned to help create the solutions. While I respect some of those colleagues, I’ve said that boldly, publicly and I’m not shying away from it now. Quite frankly, I think when you’re in bed with the problem for 30 years of your career, it’s difficult to see things differently. I have no problem calling out what I see as challenges to the education system.

I’m conservative when it comes to the position of family values in North Carolina and education. I believe in parental choice, which is why we’ve launched the largest parental choice assignment plan in the nation now. I think that’s a positive impact. I think, it helps apply free market priniciples to schools that bring about innovation and accountability. Ultimately, that competition among our schools will help create better schools. I think those are conservative values. But I think they are conservative values that are producing positive results.

Record: It was neck and neck in these last [school board] elections, but we do now have a Democratic-lead school board.

JT: Three hundred sixty votes in Mr. Margiotta’s district and nothing would’ve changed and half a million dollars in a school board race.

Record: How do you think your Democratic colleagues are doing leading the school board? I know [their leadership] is just getting started, but at the same time a lot has gone on already.

JT: I think one of the things we’ve been able to do in a short amount of time—and I think some of that is very critically aligned with some of the work that Superintendent Tata is doing- but one the things we’ve been able to do is work together on the issues that we’ve been working on. I said very clearly to our new chairman Mr. Hill, I said very clearly, “If we’re going to work to move forward, I’m going to help you. I’m going to be part of this team. If you’re going to work to rehash all the old issues, you’re going to go and look at the fact that we hired a general for superintendent and trying an oust the guy, I’m going to fight you every step of the way. If you’re going to go and take away our new assignment plan that gives parents stability and choice, then I’m going to fight you every step of the way.”

What you’ve seen – just in the first couple months – is that they’ve delivered on keeping true to the promises that we’ve already delivered on. The assignment plan hasn’t changed yet. We’re still delivering that. The superintendent is still in charge. We haven’t gotten rid of him like the former superintendent. In fact, you’ve even seen recently with the former protestors, we’re still moving forward with the way the former board decided it. The current board is not deciding it in the same like manner.

Record: Was it surprising to you at all – I think it was to some onlookers – that the Democrats decided not to change anything [about the assignment plan] and they decided to not to have mediation for those protestors [you mentioned]?

JT: I think when the heat of politics came out of the debate, when half a million dollar and thousands of political troops, using Wake County for a political foothold in the upcoming 2012 elections, was gone, people actually looked at the issues. They said, “you know what, whether you like them or not, I think these guys were right.”

Our former assignment model wasn’t providing the stability families needed. It wasn’t providing the flexibility families needed, like when this county had things like mandatory year round and constant reassignment. This [new assignment plan] is a way to move forward. Are there concerns with any new plan? That you would have to watch and monitor and be willing to modify? Yes. We’re all open to that. I think that’s what they’re saying is, “Hey, all the politics are out of the air now.” You have to go from campaigning to governing. When you go to governing and you look at the solutions we’ve delivered on—they’re the right solutions.

Record: I think you could almost describe the plan accurately as somewhat of a compromise plan from the get-go because it wasn’t purely neighborhood schools. Would you say that is true? And do you feel like you did your part for all those people who elected you for neighborhood schools?

JT: Certainly. And I would say that because I would say that I introduced that plan. As chairman of the student assignment committee, that we had as a board, I brought Dr. Michael Alves into that board room. I went and met with him with the Raleigh city chamber and we ended up getting the Raleigh Chamber to support and fund some of that early planning. And the early plan we proposed, while it was zone based- basically it just drew the lines around the same choices we have now, we have feeder patterns, which if you look at them it’s almost the same as the zone based plan- but while it was zone-based it was clustering schools together in a choice, so it wasn’t a tight, strict little neighborhood, because you can’t do a strict, little neighborhood plan in a county that’s growing. So, we had to have some flexibility. But we also had to have some common sense. There’s no reason to bus a kid an hour each-way. Maybe he can’t go to his closest school, if it’s packed. But, the one that’s .3 miles past that should be a viable option. I think delivering on that to families has made them happy. I think, ultimately, stability as well as choice will provide families what they need in Wake County.

Record: Thanks very much for talking to us today, Mr. Tedesco.

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If approved, the ordinance would compel homeowners of single-family dwellings to use a non-erodible surface for driveways and limit the amount of space that can be used for parking.

Instead of applying the ordinance citywide, committee members said the rule will only become law in overlay districts. That means only it will only apply to people living where a parking overlay district is created.

The committee said they could create an overlay district wherever front-yard parking is a problem. For now, one such area surrounds N.C. State University.

The battle to create an ordinance has been going on since before 2009. Residents, mostly near N.C. State, have long complained of too many people parking in front yards, which they argue detracts from quality of life and home value.

The challenge the city now faces is drawing a boundary for the district and generating standards and criteria to justify where the boundary is drawn.

“Any time you draw a line and you’re asked to draw it in court, you need to articulate why the line is drawn here and not there,” said City Attorney Thomas McCormick.

In the case ofSouthwest Raleigh, “students and density perhaps become part of the criteria,” he added. “I would go out and test the notion that if there are a lot of students, there is a lot of front-yard parking. From that we can start drawing some boundaries.”

“It’s going to need some more staff work,” said Councilor Randy Stagner. “Student density around N.C. State and front-yard parking at single family dwellings … If we’re going to make this defensible we’ll need to see a map that illustrates those two elements.”

However, N.C. State isn’t the only part of the city where people would like to see an overlay district created. Charles Rodman lives inSoutheast Raleighand says front-yard parking has been a problem there for a long time, particularly with renters.

“I try to talk to the owners [rather than renters] to see if they can make improvements. It helps sometimes,” Rodman said.

But what he’d really like to see is a policy change.

“Let’s make some policies and have the people come into compliance with them,” he said. “Once you do that, enforcement can be an important factor. Enforcement would change things. We [as homeowners] can’t change it.”

An “economic out,” as Planning and Zoning Manager Greg Hallam put it, is written into the plan for people who don’t have the resources to comply.

If a homeowner can’t afford to recoat his or her driveway with a non-erodible surface, the family can still park there. Under the current version of the ordinance, they must park in a single file line and back into the street. Turning around in the front yard is not allowed.

Several councilors and staff members raised safety concerns about this provision, especially where it might apply cars backing into busy thoroughfares, such asWade AvenueorBuck Jones Road.

Staff members said the only way to police such violations will be for neighbors to take a picture and send it to the city. The city can then issue a warning or a violation.

Moving forward, other details of the plan could change, such as requiring shrubbery along lot lines where a driveway or parking area touches another property line. The amount of additional parking space allowed and the amount of time property owners have to comply also could change.

Currently, homeowners would have one year to comply, but staff raised the possibility of extending that time limit to three years.

Before the ordinance can be approved for an overlay district, the City Council must hold a public hearing. Members of the planning committee hope to have the hearing in April.

The Technology and Communications Committee, a new group of city councilors created late last year, approved the Open Source Government resolution Tuesday night. It will go to the full council next week.

The resolution has two parts. First, it proposes to create a new page on the City of Raleigh website to share city data, such as computer processable budget information, map data, or public art data.

Councilor Bonner Gaylord, who chairs the Technology Committee, said the purpose of the new site for city data is that it would “give citizens the opportunity to take that information to use as they see fit.”

“It’s their data; they bought it and paid for it,” Gaylord said.

The second part of the resolution headed to council will make it easier for open source software companies to bid on city projects. After the meeting, Gaylord said he hopes that the resolution will give the city’s IT staff the ability to use open source as an additional metric in weighing bids on city software contracts.

Open source software means that the actual source code used to create the software is open and free for anyone to use and tweak.

For example, the Linux operating system is the open source answer to running Windows or the Mac operating system. Red Hat, which recently made a splash by promising to move from Centennial Campus at N.C. State University to downtown, makes open source Linux operating systems for business and personal use.

Councilor Mary Ann Baldwin, who sits on the committee, said this resolution “will be the driver of everything we do from a technology standpoint.”

Gail Roper, the city’s IT director, presented a rough timeline to committee members, listed below. Roper said she hopes to tackle setting a more formal timeline when the City Council meets for its Feb. 13 technology retreat, during which they discuss these types of issues.

Timeline presented to the committee

1. Open Data Next Steps: Staff Response

• Continue to gain executive sponsorship
• Define resource requirements
• Establish governance model

2. Open Data Preparation

• Establishment of the catalog
• Policy creation for open data (how we determine what data can/will be published, prioritization, formats, internal process, business ownership, etc.)
• Catalog product selection
• Project implementation
• Engagement with Raleigh’s open data community

3. Open source

• Create the internal procurement policy for evaluation and selection criteria for open
• source software
• Create inventory of potential open source software and protocols
• Create framework for Raleigh to participate as producer of open source software
• Licensing model, code repositories, etc.

4. Community Participation – Taking it to the streets

• Citizen-led communities
• Connection between youth-development programs and open government community
• Connection entrepreneurial community and open government community
• Importance of broadband access for any of this to be useful

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Staff from the city attorney’s office presented several proposed changes to the City Council’s Budget and Economic Development Committee Tuesday. The city attorney’s office is in the process of rewriting the law to comply with a state statute passed last summer.

The state law removed violations that would result in immediate entrance into PROP, such as allowing a renter to move back into his or her unit after it was deemed unsafe or unfit by the Inspections Department. It also eliminated the requirement for PROP landlords to complete the city’s Landlord Training course.

But the new state law also means the city can make some parts of the PROP more strict — and that means more property owners will see penalty fees.

What is PROP?
Under a city ordinance approved in 2005, problem rental properties — those that are in constant violation of zoning or criminal laws — become part of PROP.

Learn more: Read our analysis of the PROP, five years after it was passed.

PROP provides renters and neighbors a place to report landlords for unsuitable living conditions, excessive garbage and loud parties. Landlords can also use PROP to rid themselves of problem tenants by including the program’s violations in leases as a reason for eviction.

A property enters PROP after it receives multiple violations, resulting in a probationary rental period for two years. Since the PROP is attached to the property, it remains in the program even if the ownership changes.

The Changes
Prior to the law change, a property entered the program if it experienced four violations within a two-year period. The state law decreased that time to only one year.

Today, there are 11 properties that are in PROP. About half of those will be coming out of the program soon, but the changes could increase the number of eligible properties tenfold. A property comes out of the PROP program if it has met all city codes during its two-year probationary period.

In addition, the current ordinance states that a property must have multiple violations of one type to be entered into PROP, but city staff recommends changing it so that any combination of multiple violations would send the property into the program.

Along with the changes to the way PROP is conducted, the city will consider an increase the penalty fees paid by violators.

“Another way to strengthen the PROP program — and this is a great way to deter landlords from entering into the PROP program — is we’ve increased the cost,” said Associate City Attorney Nicolette Fulton.

Today, there is a $200 administrative fee, a $300 permit fee for the first year and $500 for any additional year. The new law would increase the application fee to $500 and implement tiered permitting fees ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 depending on the size of the property.

Prior to the approval of the state law, the city saw almost $1 million in revenue from the program. But the new law decreased the revenue the city could see from the program to about $200,000. The increased fees would not make up for the loss of revenue, but it could help depending on how many properties enter the program.

“If this thing works like it’s supposed to, then [revenue] would not increase,” McCormick said.

A few more changes:

• In the current ordinance, some violations apply to a particular apartment or unit, while others apply to the whole property. In the new law, all violations would apply to the property as a whole.
• The changes also affect who issues PROP citations. The job has been handled by the inspections department and the Raleigh Police Department. If the changes are approved, others will have the power to cite violators, including members of the Planning Department, Zoning Department and any law enforcement agency, such as N.C. State University police officers.
• The definition of the “term owner” is also being expanded to include anyone who is ultimately responsible for the property. This includes heirs, landlords, property managers and licensed rental agencies.
• Staff has also increased the number of PROP violations, adding in failure to register a rental property, disorderly conduct, underage drinking and possession of controlled substances and drug paraphernalia.

The committee will review the proposed changes and send final recommendations to the full City Council. The city attorney’s office will also continue to revise the draft ordinance.

 Similar Posts:

• The PROP, five years later
• Understanding the UDO

Jerry Bolas began working as Raleigh's Art Director Dec. 5. Photo provided by City of Raleigh.

Arts Commission Executive Director Jerry Bolas began his new job Dec. 5, succeeding June Guralnick, who resigned in July.

“I was thrilled at the prospect of being involved here,” Bolas said. “Raleigh’s arts scene in the last few years has been just growing in terms of both the quality of the arts and the quantity of the arts. And so it’s very exciting to be able to come to a community where things are growing and active and where the arts are growing.”

Bolas has been active in the arts across the state for nearly two decades. He arrived in North Carolinain 1994 to direct the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 2006, he became an independent consultant with clients including the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, North Carolina Arts Council, Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, and Cary Visual Art.

From 2009-2011, he served as chair of the Chapel Hill Arts Commission. Most recently, his role as a consultant brought him into contact with the Raleigh Arts Commission. Now, he will be leading the organization, overseeing the expenditure of the group’s annual $2 million budget.

The Raleigh Arts Commission is comprised of 12 denizens, appointed by the City Council, who are charged with developing and guiding the policies surrounding the city’s investment in the arts. As executive director, Bolas and his staff members will work with the Arts Commission, city staff members and volunteers to distribute those dollars, manage new and existing public art and arts awards programs and help generate interest inRaleigh’s arts scene.

It’s a challenge during tough budget times. The City reduced arts funding last year per capita by 50 cents to $4 per capita.

About three-quarters of the Arts Commission budget is doled out each year to arts groups such as the Carolina Ballet, Raleigh Little Theater, Artspace, Artsplosure and others.

Bolas said more groups than ever applied last year for arts funding, including about a dozen new groups. He said it’s a sign ofRaleigh’s art expansion.

Expanding art in Raleighis one of his goals, and not even a new one. Bolas previously worked with the city to help implement the Percent for Art program. In 2009, the city approved an ordinance requiring one half of one percent of municipal construction funds to be set aside for public art.

The first site selected for integration of public art is the Buffaloe Road Aquatics Center, expected to open this spring.

He also has curated local temporary public art projects, including the inaugural Art on CityPlazaexhibition, and managed the installation of Jim Gallucci’s “Immigrant Gate II” sculpture at Millbrook Exchange Park.

Bolas comes from an academic background and once created works of visual art. Now, he saidRaleighis his campus and his art is working to make art more available to the public.

“So I think of my campus as about 140 square miles,” he said. “Think of these different arts, creative departments, arts and art venues as spread throughout that campus. The question is how we in the arts commission — our mission is to take taxpayer investment and invest it wisely in growing the arts for the benefit of our community.”

Those benefits are many, Bolas said, from the cultural and educational benefits to, yes, economic, helping attract other resources such as tourism and jobs.

“The work is part of a package that makesRaleigha destination,” he said. “Our taxes are lowered because people come and leave money behind. The arts also have a role in … making Raleigh a great place for companies to want to move because the people who are coming can visualize that they, their families and their employees’ families will enjoy living in the community.”

Raleigh’s position of growth presents an opportunity, Bolas said. He’s looking ahead, visualizing how art might impact future neighborhoods such as the one that will likely appear around Union Station.

“What is the neighborhood around that station going to look like? Many might agree that what we’d like to have is a destination so that when people are passing through Union Station, you hope they can stop inRaleighand have time to go out into a really exciting environment and experience an arts and entertainment district that they want to hang out in,” he said.

His vision is part of why Bolas was chosen for the job, said Diane Sauer, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, which oversees the arts office.

“What Jerry brings to the table is incredible experience, incredible passion and incredible passion to moveRaleigharts to the next level,” she said.

Working in the arts is a calling, Bolas said, and he’s glad he has the opportunity to guideRaleigh’s artistic future.

“It’s a great privilege to invest public money in nurturing the arts for the benefit of the community,” he said. “If you think about growing the arts inRaleigh, it’s a project that people have been working on for decades and one that’s going to continue to be worked on for decades. It’s not something that gets solved or fixed or done. And I think that from my perspective it’s fun to be part of something that’s … I would say inRaleigh’s case, I would think of it as more emerging and moving into an established as a well-known as a national venue.”