Before getting down to business Monday night, Mayor Bill Bell and City Council members honored outgoing Councilman Farad Ali.

Bell remarked on Ali's sense of humor and "booming voice" that "added levity to the council at very important times." To which Ali (right) responded,

"Can I leave now?"

Ali, after serving one four-year term, opted not to run for re-election this year. Just-elected Councilman Steve Schewel took over Ali's accustomed seat between Councilwoman Diane Catotti and City Attorney Patrick Baker.

For his part, Ali remarked on his council colleagues' qualities and quirks: Cora Cole-McFadden's concern for children; Catotti's thorough preparation; Mike Woodard's seeming omnipresence; Eugene Brown for "always showing me there's an argument to an argument."

Howard Clement, whom Ali called the council's "dean" – having held his seat since 1983 – missed the meeting. As for Bell, Ali said, "We didn't always know where he was coming from because we always thought he was playing poker."

Wrapping up, he said, "God bless America, God bless Durham and God bless you, Steve Schewel!"

At the end of Monday night's City Council meeting, Councilman Farad Ali stood and shouted:

"Hallelujah! Halleluja! Hallelujah!"

Monday was Ali's last full council meeting. His term expires when the council members elected Nov. 8 are sworn in Dec. 5 and Ali, elected in 2007, did not run for re-election.

Monday night, spotting incoming Councilman Steve Schewel in the audience, Ali called:

"Mr. Steve Schewel! Come forward! The seat is warm!"

Schewel called back, "I've changed my mind!"

First-term city Councilman Farad Ali (right) said Sunday that he does plan to seek re-election in this fall's municipal election.

Three Durham City Council members were appointed or reappointed to committees of the National League of Cities this week.

• Councilman Farad Ali, appointed to the Community and Economic Development Policy and Advocacy Steering Committee. The committee deals with community and economic development, financial institutions, international trade, housing, land use, and recreation.
• Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden, reappointed to the Human Development Steering Committee. The committee is concerned with employment and job training, child development, aid to needy families, unemployment support, immigration, health, education and equal opportunity..
• Councilman Mike Woodard, reappointed to the Transportation Infrastructure and Services Policy and Advocacy Steering Committee. The committee works in public transit, streets and highways, aviation, and passenger and freight rail.

The National League of Cities is a resource and lobbying organization representing 19,000 municipalities. Its committees decide policies for the league on various public concerns.
 

Thirty women and people of color start learning to develop and sell real estate Friday, and build some social capital on the side.

"This is going to be really positive," said Farad Ali, project director with the N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development and a member of Durham's City Council.

"Executive Minority Program in Real Estate" ("EMPIRE") is a three-month course in appraising, finance, law, design, sales and public incentives. The Institute of Minority Economic Development is a sponsor along with the Self-Help Credit Union and Durham Chamber of Commerce.

Whether he realized it at the time or not, when City Council member Howard Clement moved last night to put off a decision on $175,000 for the Mok'e Jazz Cultural Center for two weeks, he was setting it at a critical time.

Oct. 5: Election Eve.

Clement and council member Cora Cole-McFadden are both up for re-election and both face multiple opponents in the Oct. 6 primary.

Both Clement and Cole-McFadden had previously expressed support for the grant, requested by Mozella McLaughlin and her three children to help renovate and expand the building she owns at 2520 Fayetteville Street for a community center with live jazz, a restaurant, rooftop garden and other amenities.

But they hedged their support at last night's council meeting, where one of Cole-McFadden's challengers and two of Clement's stated their positions on the grant and more than 20 speakers urged the council to help keep the Know Book Store -- McLaughlin's current tenant -- in business.

Cole-McFadden and Clement said they wanted a compromise that would aid both sides, and supported a delay to allow time for more negotiation between tenant and landlord, after Clement challenger Darius Little and Cole-McFadden challenger Donald Hughes spoke for the grant as community revitalization; and Clement challenger Matt Drew spoke against it as an overly risky investment of taxpayers' money.

Bookstore owner Bruce Bridges, who also runs a restaurant and holds weekly Jazz Nights at the building, has claimed McLaughlin's project could put him out of business. McLaughlin has offered Bridges a place in the Mok'e Center, but Bridges has said the increased rent he would have to pay for less space, plus giving up the restaurant operation to McLaughlin, would likely cripple his store.

Monday night, Bridges tossed a new issue into the dispute by asking the council to grant money for his business if it approved the McLaughlin grant.

Mayor Bill Bell also tossed in a new issue, wanting to know why the financial analysis that the city economic-development department for McLaughlin's grant application had not taken into account the cost of state and federal taxes her Center would have to pay as a for-profit enterprise.

Postponing a decision, Bell said, should be for the purpose of re-analyzing the Mok'e Center's reasonable cash flow and not for dealing with the Know Book Store, which he considered an issue separate from the grant, involving landlord and tenant.

But Bridges, and other speakers, made a connection in objecting to a public subsidy for one business that would jeopardize another.

Councilman Eugene Brown, who has said the Mok'e Center is not financially viable in opposing the city grant, passionately repeated that point during the council deliberation.

Councilman Farad Ali was equally passionate in supporting the grant, saying, "This is project that has life," and maintaining that the council had unfairly subjected the McLaughlin application to terms and scrutiny it had not applied to other grants under the city's Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization program.

City Council member Farad Ali on this afternoon's work session:

"We have an economy that's going to hell and we're talking about chickens."