Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that the Downtown Alliance completed the 2017 tree plan that was referenced by Molly Arnold during the public budget hearing.
Residents came out in droves Tuesday to speak at a public hearing for the city of Fayetteville’s proposed fiscal year 2024-25 budget. The 15 speakers at the city council’s meeting touched on a number of overlapping concerns, but many of those allotted three minutes for remarks focused on one thing: increased funding for the proposed Office of Community Safety (OCS) and more discretion in determining what belonged in the office’s budget.
Another major ask was related to the Cool Spring Downtown District (CSDD), whose members raised concerns over a proposed tax increase on the district and the elimination of general fund dollars for the central business district.
Here are two key takeaways from the evening:
There’s a lot of support for the Office of Community Safety
Most of the 15 people who spoke used their time during the public hearing to call for additional funding for the city’s OCS and alternative response programs.
Assistant City Manager Jeffrey Yates explained the city’s approach to the OCS before the public hearing.
“The Office of Community Safety funding is built around four pillars: Mental health response and diversion, violence prevention and interruption, homelessness, risk reduction and youth opportunities,” Yates said. “The idea behind this is that it’s directly reporting to the manager. And as we build it out, we will focus on first the mental health response and diversion and prioritization of violence prevention and risk reduction.”
According to the city’s proposed budget, the OCS would receive $1.5 million in new funding from the general fund, in addition to one-time allocations from grants and American Rescue Plan Act money. The total recommended budget for the new office would be just under $4 million.
While city management did not present a version of the OCS’ funding at Tuesday’s meeting, the first version presented with the recommended budget included this funding breakdown:
- Mental health response and diversion
- Mental health liaison — $103,374
- Law Enforcement Assistance Diversion program — $100,000
- Violence prevention and interruption
- PROOVE Project/CVIPI — $220,000
- Phoenix Center — $121,173
- SoundThinking Detection System (ShotSpotter) — $197,000
- Homelessness risk reduction
- Homeless Coordinator — $89,560
- Homeless Encampment Impact Reduction Program — $140,000
- Day Resource Center Operations — $300,000
- Victim Advocate — $150,000
- Non-Profit Partners — $223,000
- Re-Entry Program — $10,000
- Youth opportunities
- Police Activity League — $29,693
- Educating Kids on Gun Violence — $71,000
- Non-Profit Partners — $703,000
Prior to the hearing, grassroots community organizing group Fayetteville Freedom for All held a press conference to broadcast its demands for the OCS — namely, the inclusion of an alternative response and 911 call diversion program in line with Durham’s Heart model. The goal of this program would be to address the mental health crisis and other non-violent situations that the police currently respond to, but which may be better suited to social workers or trained mental health professionals.
The group and its supporters also asked to remove items currently under the police department’s budget to remain there, instead of being included as part of the OCS’ budget. These included things like ShotSpotter, the city’s gunshot detection technology, the Police Activity League and the Law Enforcement Assistance Diversion program.
Group members also requested police accountability measures be included in the OCS’ purview.
Addressing about 10 people gathered outside of the city hall before Tuesday’s council meeting, Freedom for All members expressed cautious optimism at the evening’s turnout, while urging the need to put pressure on the council to meet their demands.
“There have been years where we’ve gone into this building at this time of year, and there’s been very few community voices, very few citizen and resident voices to stand up and say, ‘This is how we want our taxpayer dollars allocated,’” activist Shaun McMillan said. “It means a lot that for the second year in a row, we have a number of people who care enough to come out and say, ‘This is how we want our dollars spent. We want it spent in a way that saves lives, in a way that protects communities.’”
Harmony Granderson, one of the public speakers, said she believes police presence can escalate situations where a trained professional could help. She recalled being forcibly hospitalized and then taken into police custody as a teenager when her mother was concerned about her mental health.
“I didn’t know that I was going to have to go to a children’s mental hospital involuntarily, according to the law,” Granderson said. “I remember my mother’s tears that she didn’t want me to go, but she had no choice.”
Granderson said an alternative response team could help people experiencing mental health crises, but who avoid contacting police over fear of it escalating.
“Some people don’t get to live to tell their story, or they’re too afraid to get the mental health assistance they need due to their fear of law enforcement wrongfully killing them in a time of crisis, so they end up ending their own story or someone else’s while going through their trauma,” Granderson said. “Alternative response teams have demonstrated effectiveness in connecting people to mental health evaluations and substance use treatments, facilitate hospitalization if needed, and increased access to economic support, like access to housing that can improve safety.”
There are lots of questions about the downtown business tax
The proposed budget nearly doubles the ad valorem tax rate for the downtown Municipal Service District (MSD), a tax applied to property owners of for-profit businesses downtown. Under the recommended budget, the tax would increase from 10 cents to 21 cents per $100 valuation.
Yates said the increase covers the costs of five services, totaling $324,044. Those costs cover:
- Utilities — $16,229
- Stormwater fees — $7,776
- Credit card fees and miscellaneous items — $5,141
- Downtown Ambassador program — $60,000
- MSD management contract — $234,898
The MSD is not being allocated any monies through the general fund, as in years past, Yates said. This change, he explained, is intended to make the downtown district “self-sufficient for the additional services that are provided there.”
Two speakers representing the Cool Spring Downtown District — the nonprofit that supports arts, entertainment and economic development downtown and is funded in part by the city’s MSD funds — voiced opposition to the tax increase, which they say places an unfair burden on less than half of downtown property owners who the tax applies to.
The speakers also criticized the lack of general fund support, which they said will tighten the CSDD’s budget and ability to pay for events and city beautification projects as they will only receive city support from the MSD tax.
Michael Pennink, the vice chair of the CSDD board, said the board held an “emergency meeting” last week to discuss concerns over the proposed tax increase. He urged the council to consider adding money for CSDD into the general fund, and consider a “less drastic increase” to the tax — which he said only applies to 41% of downtown property owners.
“Cool Springs does a lot for downtown and downtown does a lot for Fayetteville at large,” Pennick told the council. “We think that, and we hope that as you adjust this budget just a little bit, that you would consider using some of the general operating funds to support the Cool Springs budget.”
Molly Arnold, the owner of the Rude Awakening Coffee House and a board member of the CSDD, also said the tax only applies to 41% of property owners, with exemptions granted to government-owned property, churches and nonprofits, and temporary exemptions granted to large projects.
“So 41% of us pay the tax,” she said. “Initially, the tax went to finance the brick sidewalks and the nice light poles and the planters. They were very tangible items. And while we still have some side streets that could use some of that, we have changed the course of our direction to use the money to fund the Cool Spring Downtown District to manage things.”
Arnold raised additional concerns about the city’s allocation of $50,000 for downtown tree replacement, comparing it to a 2017 tree plan completed by the Downtown Alliance.
“It was really focused on making those trees healthier and keeping them — not en masse cutting them to the ground and replacing them with little saplings that none of us will live long enough to see become those big, beautiful trees,” Arnold said of the 2017 plan.
According to the city’s budget, the tree replacement is intended to replace the trees that have matured.
“Downtown Fayetteville has many mature trees that are in need of replacement along city streets,” the budget states. “Funding from the City’s established Tree Fund provided support for this project.”
What’s next
Following the hearing, the council opted to vote on the budget at the next city council meeting. The vote will be a consensus vote, intended to gauge the council’s support for the recommended budget and go over any changes. That meeting, a work session, will take place at 2 p.m. on June 3 at City Hall, 433 Hay St.
A final vote to adopt the budget is set to take place at the next regular city council meeting on June 10. To listen to previous budget work sessions and this week’s hearings, visit the city’s Youtube channel.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
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