Durham CAN held a successful meeting on October 28, 2014 with over 500 members attending. At least 19 elected officials representing the City, County, School, State and Federal governments also attended.
The Superintendent of Public Schools reported on the expansion of the Universal Breakfast program, the hiring of additional bilingual personnel and the revamping of the mechanism to gather input from Durham residents on the district's budget. Dr. L' Homme ratified his commitment to meet with CAN on a regular basis, and discuss ways to improve the quality of the education system.
Council member Steve Schewel reported on several changes in police enforcement demanded by CAN and recently enacted by the City government.
A large part of the action centered on affordable housing, job training and living wages around the future light rail. County and City leaders recently agreed -at the request of CAN- to identical resolutions calling for 15% of all the housing around each future transit stations to be affordable to families. Triangle Transit Authority General legal Counsel committed her agency to pay a living wages for all transit related jobs. Finally, CAN leaders called City and County elected leaders to factor affordable housing in their Station Area Infrastructure Study (S.A.S.I), which is aimed at determining infrastructure needs, cost and financing mechanisms at all transit stations.
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