City Council Meeting (closed meeting beginning 5:30 p.m.)   5/18/2020

so okay I'll just read us out of closed session first.

Second.

All right.

Ms.

Thomas, could you do roll call, please?

Aye.

Ms.

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Aye.

Ms.

Hill?

All right.

So thank you.

So I call the regular council meeting to order.

I don't have much of that.

And next we have a moment of silence that will replace the Pledge of Allegiance doing this while we're in the virtual world.

Thank you.

Do you want her to do roll call?

Oh, yes.

That's it.

OK, Mr. Payne?

Here.

I'm here.

Hey, Ms.

Walker?

Present.

Ms.

Magill?

Present.

Ms.

Hill?

All right.

Mayor Walker, I would like to make a motion to add something to the agenda.

Okay.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker.

Yes.

Ms.

Magill.

Yes.

Ms.

Hill.

OK, and so now we need a motion to approve.

Yes, ma'am.

I move to approve the agenda with the amendment Councillor Hill suggested.

I'll second.

Ms.

Walker.

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

Yes.

Okay.

And next we have, are there any announcements?

None?

okay next we have um recognitions i don't have any okay and the um i guess the only one that i'll um you know add at this time is that we have um

Dr. Richardson has been with us for a year now.

And so we are at that point.

So a year later, so just wanted to say, just acknowledge that you're a year in here and we look forward to moving forward with the city and making sure that

the time to come that the city is in the best position possible.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the council and to the public.

It was almost a week.

All right, and so any other recognitions?

All right, Ms.

Yes.

Consent agenda one minutes, May 4, 2020, City Council close in regular meeting.

May 6, 2020, budget work session.

2.

All right.

Yes, Madam Mayor.

OK.

So first, let's just get to the public.

Mayor Walker, let me check.

I'm gonna ask our attendees to lower their hands right now for the community matters.

If you'd like to speak during this time on the consent agenda, please raise your hand.

Okay.

I move to

Okay.

Um, any comments or questions from council?

Right.

And the only thing I would add, um, we doing for the homeowners tax relief for the remaining funds that were, um,

left from last calendar year.

We do have a proposal for those funds that'll be on our June 1st agenda.

And so at the end, during other business, I'll talk about that tonight, but didn't, just wanted to keep the two separate instead of bringing it up with this, for this calendar year approval.

So I'll just share that and any other questions or comments.

All right.

Ms.

Mr. Payne?

Yes.

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

OK.

All right, once again, good evening, Madam Mayor, city council, and the public.

I just want to say on May 4th, we had a number of items that we had to bring back to the public in terms of answering some of the questions

But they did ask.

But the things that came out of that meeting, I don't have anything to report.

I do want to say thank you to the public for helping us throughout the weekend.

And as we move forward, as we deal with COVID-19, I think we did a pretty good job this weekend in terms of the opening of the businesses and different things like that, and working together to ensure that everyone is safe throughout this unprecedented time.

OK, thank you.

All right, so next, we'll have the community matters.

There were no pre-registered speakers, and we still have that option, as you could do in the past.

If you're on the webinar, you can click the Raise Your Hand icon to get in line to speak to counsel.

Mayor Walker, the first to speak tonight is Tanisha Hudson.

Ms.

So I want to speak on a couple different things because it was brought to my attention from someone in the community with a lot of power who's rich, probably friends with quite a few people on Council.

There's been a movement spearheaded

by one of the council members who's trying to then in turn, I guess, side with the mayor, perhaps, in removing the city manager from his position.

Now, listen, I don't care what y'all do down there.

Y'all can kill each other for all I care.

My only issue is this.

In 2017, we was kicking and screaming for change.

Y'all did not have the best candidates apply for that job.

Don't nobody want to come here.

This place is a mess, number one.

Number two, y'all just did a review on him in December and you offered him a $10,000 raise.

So now you're doing another annual review, which is cool because most jobs do screen, you know, do a little appraisal after you get your little yearly appraisal or whatever in a year.

That's fine.

But y'all sent it out to all employees.

Now from my research, y'all never done that before, but I see why y'all had to do it because y'all got to cover up y'all tracks now.

You gave them a review in December and now you got to do it again in a year.

So to not make yourselves look so foolish,

You include everybody in the city.

Now before you did it and you did send it to other leads or directors or whoever, but you didn't send it to every employee.

Now it takes more than a year on any job.

to really fully understand your role and what you need to do.

And this with any job, we all been on jobs before.

Been on my job more than a year, I learn something new every day.

Y'all been council members, some of y'all, for more than a year, and y'all still have to ask questions on whether a motion is needed or if you need to vote.

So the fact that people are running around here, and then they call me, and I tried to call people to have this discussion with them personally that I know that I talk to,

Never got through.

But to have this information come to me, it's a disgrace.

Because, see, this is personal.

This ain't business.

And this city already a mess.

So for you all to involve employees when you know the inside of the city has already been a mess, even when Maurice was here the eight years that he served, and then the year or however many months Mike Murphy was there, up until Terron got hired.

It's just messy, period.

And if you intend to have a political career, this is not the type of things that you need to do where we're protecting some individuals on the inside and we're trying to slaughter other individuals on the inside.

That's just not fair.

Now, I don't know if y'all need to lock yourself in a room.

Lay out personal issues or whatever, but y'all need to work that type of stuff out.

It's other work that should be more important.

I kept asking about the CAV vouchers, nobody had an answer.

Then once I get the answer, everybody said they didn't know the vouchers was extended.

Now, how did y'all know that the vouchers were extended and the people with the vouchers didn't even know that the vouchers were extended?

Then you have people talking to different people on the inside mad because their friend's not there no more.

Heather, I'm talking to you.

I wish the video was on you right now so I could see your face.

But you mad that your friend's not on the inside no more.

And there's more so the heat coming with your name in it than anybody's.

So you may be unhappy that your friend's not there no more.

I get that part.

Mike Murphy left, Leslie left, whoever left.

Okay, I get that.

But yo, those people been there and nothing has changed.

And you know that.

You know that.

But don't try to pawn black people to do your dirty work if you not happy.

And for the black people in the community in City Hall or whoever that's fallen victim to it, you know better.

Shame on you.

If your employees are not happy, they weren't happy three years ago.

If your employees aren't happy, they weren't happy 10 years ago.

You have always had issues in this city.

If you didn't get your funding in 2020 with this budget for fiscal year 2020, 2021, whatever, you didn't get it when Maurice was here.

We have deeply rooted issues of race in this city.

and it will never change with this type of stuff happening.

So y'all can fire whoever you choose to.

Y'all claim you could go back and pull the news article.

Y'all claim y'all wanted change.

Y'all claim y'all wanted to break down the old systems.

Y'all claim y'all wanted to do all of this and all of that and people complaining about who doing what that's more equitable for who.

I tried to do things that were equitable for the community and people voted against it.

Other people tried to do things.

Other people brought stuff to the forefront about the police sheet.

People got mad about that.

All right.

Thank you, Ms.

Hudson.

So I'm going to respond to that.

So the community members since

People are getting updates, misinformed updates per usual, and I've shared my thoughts about that.

We had luncheons back in 2018 where we gave staff the opportunity to provide feedback on the organization.

Two other questions asked on that broader survey is what, if you were a counselor, us, what would you do differently?

And if you were the city manager, what would you do differently?

I shared with everyone, because it was my idea, that it is important for me in any role that I'm in, and you can talk to my kids, to hear from people about what's going on.

So I do that personally, and it is something that I brought into this world professionally.

And so the first survey was administered in 2018 during luncheons.

One of the first, Heather and I did most of them together, one of the first comments that was made in the first one by an employee from IT

said that, who's not here, but she said it publicly, was that nobody in 30 years had ever asked her how she felt.

So it was important not only to do them without anybody saying that, but to understand that someone had worked for the city for decades who felt like nobody had ever asked them, or that they could feel safe with people telling them.

So that's how the surveys came about.

It was something that once I got elected that I had planned to do and with being authentic to my mission and statement and the platform I ran on.

Moving forward to December 2019, since you have all the facts, Ms.

Hudson,

but let me help you in a public setting.

Dr. Richardson was given an evaluation then which shouldn't have happened until June 2020 to influence July 21 cycle for any employee raises and feedback.

So that's one.

We at that point did it because you had three outgoing counselors who had hired Dr. Richardson.

That's why we made that decision.

And Dr. Richardson knew at that time, based on discussions during the evaluation, that the annual cycle was June and that he would have another evaluation in June.

We did not do the citywide surveys in 2019 because

We were just getting started with the new city manager and we fully understood that there was no real opportunity to make the changes from the feedback we received in 2018 during the luncheons in 2019.

and so this was not sprung on anyone.

We talked about a full 360 evaluation where community members, staff, regional partners could participate and we decided because the accounting or UVA being regional partners, they do not ask us to participate in their evaluation of their leadership so we opted out of using anyone other than city staff.

and with the feedback as we shared with staff, there's a broader survey sent out to leaders of the organization and there is a shorter survey similar to the one we did during the luncheons in 2018 where all staff can share their input and I'll just say for my final comment,

Council got some pretty harsh reviews in the last surveys and it was welcome because that's how you grow by welcoming, giving people a platform where they can speak freely and that you fully understand that the people that

You have been elected to help lead that they, one, believe in you and that they also trust and respect the decisions.

They don't agree always, but I hope that for city staff

that the message is loud and clear that you can submit your feedback and that it will be taken into account and it should be respected by every level because if the people that you are leading cannot give you feedback about the decisions you're making, your style, then there's an issue.

And so that is why the surveys are being done.

and before Dr. Richardson even knew that there was going to be a job to apply for in Charlottesville, Virginia, that discussion was had.

So whoever has given you your information and you've been misinformed and for other people, I hope that answers any questions that you have about the process.

Nope, okay.

We're in Community Matters.

If you'd like to speak to Council, click the Raise Your Hand icon in the webinar.

Mayor Walker, next up is Vicki Bravo.

Hi, I'm here representing IMPACT, and I'm also a resident of Charlottesville.

We've spoken to most of you about our advocacy for affordable housing, and we know that all of you

are dedicated advocates for affordable housing.

Our plan for this year was to press for $3 million for the CAF.

We understand that the pandemic has greatly affected the budget.

We also understand that the pandemic has made the housing problem that much worse.

And we're asking, we're pressing you

to remember that affordable housing is an important part of the recovery and food and housing are like two of the most basic needs that people need a lot more of now.

So at the least,

We're asking that you put one and a half million in the same as we asked you last year, the same amount that's just needed to keep things going as they have been going.

And hopefully soon there will be more funding to put more into it so that we can address the worst and problem of affordable housing.

Thanks very much.

Mayor Walker, next up is Elizabeth Carpenter.

Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Carpenter.

I'm a resident of the city and a nurse and just here to speak for impact as well.

I was a community health nurse for a long time and now I work with the refugee population

and the housing issues are only becoming more acute.

I just want to add briefly, at this point, $1.37 million in the CAF, this budget cycle, as well as $900,000 for housing vouchers.

Mayor Walker, next up is Nancy Carpenter.

Nancy, you're on the council.

Good evening, everyone on City Council, Madam Mayor, Dr. Richardson, and the public.

Thank you for allowing me these few minutes to address you on a couple of issues.

One issue that I'm concerned about, I guess it'll be brought up a little bit later when you talk about staff time.

on boards and commissions is that the Police Civilian Review Board has yet to meet.

I have not been contacted recently after your work session about boards and commissions from anyone from the city in reference to the Police Civilian Review Board.

I'm very interested in getting that work done.

I'm very concerned about the city this year.

We won't have a whole lot of outlets for folks to,

you know work off any tensions or whatever.

We have a lot of newbies on the force who you know may be out on the streets wanting to make a name for themselves or what have you.

This is a board that germinated from the tragedy and out of August 2017 it was certainly born of that minute there and I hope that you can certainly find staff time

to be able to have that board start meeting and do the important work that it needs to do.

Secondly, I know that there will be a discussion about the CDBG monies, and I hope that there will be a good discussion about, well, I wouldn't call it irregularity, but there was a couple of task force members that did not have complete applications,

at the time for one particular nonprofit.

And I hope that you will look at that and consider that nonprofit for some funding, whether it's 100% or not.

Mayor Walker, next up is Don Gathers.

Don, you're on with the council.

Good evening, everyone.

I want to, well, I've got a few things to speak on.

First, I want to echo many of the sentiments of Ms.

Hudson.

I realize that everyone needs to be evaluated, but I caution you all to temper those evaluations of the city manager and Dr. Richardson and the job that he's done in light of the situation and circumstances that he stepped into, in light of the

what this last year, especially this last four months, if you will, have presented as you begin that evaluation process.

And also bear in mind, and this is not a slight towards anyone, but the fact that as you go through that evaluation process that none of you all have ever actually served in the capacity of a city manager.

I realize that some things,

Some conversations may sometimes get out of hand, but we've all got to figure out how to work together for the good of the city.

So I ask that as you move forward that all that is thought through.

I encourage, as Ms.

Carpenter just said, to please get the boards and commissions up and running, specifically the Civilian Review Board, the HAC, and please keep that intact, the Planning Commission, the Human Rights Commission,

if at all possible.

Let's get these people back up and doing the work that they were appointed to do as quickly as possible.

And please, along those lines, find and keep the money in that was requested for affordable housing and for the calf.

I pray that that is indeed still in the forefront of the budget items and the budget cycle.

And if not, that some serious consideration be given tonight

to make sure that that is placed back.

All right.

Thank you all very much and God bless you.

This is the community matters item.

If you'd like to address council, click the raise your hand icon in the webinar.

Mayor Walker, next up is Walt Heineke.

Walt, you're on with council.

Can you hear me?

Madam Mayor and Members of Council, thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I know you have a full plate and a lot to think about right now.

I have some comments to make about affordable housing and the budget, but I'll wait until the public hearing on that.

I did want to reiterate some things that have been said about getting the boards and commissions up and running, especially the PCRB.

I do understand, I listened to portions of the work session and I do understand Mayor Walker's issues about equity in revving up the boards.

I think perhaps maybe the resolution to that problem is to ask those board members if they do have access to

the equipment and the time and the sort of emotional and psychological space to participate right now.

If they say yes, we can move on.

If they say no, maybe we can give them some breathing room as they move forward.

And I especially

I think that's important for boards and commissions like the Planning Commission, the Police Civilian Review Board, and the Human Rights Commission that are all right now heavily involved in equity issues in town.

and I think a crisis oftentimes exacerbates the impacts on low-income folks and equity in a community and I think it's really important for us to get those things moving and helping to make sure that we create the most equitable city possible.

If we're gonna hold off on the PCRB, getting the final appointment and getting them moving in terms of meeting, I would ask you to take this time to really examine the difference between the bylaws and ordinances that were passed by council and the original bylaws and ordinance that were approved by the initial PCRB.

I think those were stronger than the ones that we have in the current ordinance and bylaws, and I think we could go back to those with not too much effort before we even start this initiative so that we get it right from the beginning.

You've heard me say this before.

I think we watered down the Human Rights Commission when it was initiated, and we've spent many years digging out and trying to make it engage in its original intentions.

And I don't want to see that happen again with the PCRB.

I do think three of you going into being elected were pretty solid on those original bylaws and the original ordinance, so I'd like for you to think about those campaign statements and campaign comments and about where you are now.

and moving forward to make a stronger PCRB as we move forward.

The last thing and maybe I could ask the city manager to respond to this specifically.

I've brought this up a number of times and I just want to make sure that I'm absolutely accurate and that there's nothing there and if there's nothing there, I'm happy to stand down.

And that is that I've heard from several people who are on boards and commissions that we have been subsidizing public

I want to make sure we are not subsidizing

I'm talking about monthly parking rates in those two garages.

So with that, I'll say thank you for your hard work moving forward.

And during public comment on the budget, I'll make some comments about affordable housing.

Mayor Walker, next up is Sheila Herlihy.

Sheila, you're on with council.

Hello, thank you.

Yes, I am a representative of IMPACT and also a city resident, and I would like to also speak in favor of funding affordable housing through the Affordable Housing Fund in this year's budget and CIP.

I do know there is some funding left over from last year's funding cycle that has not yet been allocated.

However, this problem is huge and continues to grow and will

continue to get bigger throughout this pandemic.

Affordable housing trust funds allow us to multiply the impact of each dollar that is invested and that's why they're considered a best practice nationwide and I would like to see the city of Charlottesville invest more.

In fact, Impact's original ask for city council was to invest three million through the CIP in this funding cycle and in each upcoming year of the CIP.

Recognizing the challenges of the coronavirus and decreased revenue projections, we're only asking for one and a half million, but I still think that that is a reasonable number to invest this year to make sure that the people in our community have access to safe, decent, and affordable housing and that more can be built.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, next up is Carrie Elwood.

Carrie, you're on with council.

Good evening.

I'm Carrie.

I'm a city employee and I wanted to let you know that I greatly appreciated the survey that was sent out.

It not only asked for feedback on the city manager, but it also asked for feedback on the city councilors and city management as a whole.

I believe that employees having a platform is very important and many of my coworkers were also glad to have a means to communicate their needs and to give feedback.

Okay.

How many speakers?

Got distracted the first couple.

All right.

No, I appreciate the comments that you made just to explain the process that we're taking.

I also hope that we continue an eternity yearly staff evaluations period to find out how people are feeling throughout the city and as employees.

All right.

I want to add also that

I was not part of the decision that involved either the hiring of Dr. Richardson or of the setting out of the timetable for his review, but I've been involved in a number of other organizations where this sort of what they call a 360 degree look at somebody is entirely normal.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so it's 7-12 so we'll continue.

Thank you Madam Mayor once again just to talk about the budget and where we were and we thought we were moving forward on March 2nd to go ahead and adopt the budget but that wasn't the case and we had to make some adjustments in terms of what we were dealing with today with COVID-19 as we talked about before with the general fund we had originally proposed a budget of about $196 million

and after doing our due diligence with the revenue team as well as the budget team and then conversations with various departments as well as other directors who help us when we're developing the budget to talk about our overall revenue stream, look at ways that we could reduce our overall expenditures when we came down to 191 million for the revised budget.

But as a

was mentioned throughout our various conversations was the positive impact that the zero-based budgeting had on developing that revised proposal because we were already looking at our overall expenditures, working with different departments and talking about how we can look at overall reductions and reducing things and then pushing things out into later years, but actually identifying the overall expenditures and what your plan has been within that fiscal year.

rather than doing a percentage escalator each year.

So with that said, this is the revised budget at 191 million, which is a difference of 5.4 million, which we were actually proposing in the original FY21 budget.

So here we are today at this point of doing our first reading of the revised budget for FY21.

And I'll stop there.

And if you have any questions before we move forward, we can.

But we'll answer those.

But as we mentioned before, the rapid onset of COVID, this was truly a challenging fiscal year.

in terms of creating one budget where you think you're going to be able to do.

Then you come back and you have to do a revised budget.

And then before we get done, I mean, actually, as soon as we get done with this one, we'll actually start jumping into the FY22 budget.

So it's going to be a lot of work as we move forward.

And as we talked about before, as we move into the next fiscal year, we'll be talking about budget amendments and those things as we move forward, as well as having those discussions with the council

If our overall revenues start to dwindle or they start to increase about what we need to do, and then on top of that, as we discussed, was looking at the

The various departments in the various budgets that they do have look at areas where there are cost savings or where expenditures aren't going to be used as planned.

We'll be able to move those around the various departments that need those additional funding dollars to be able to move us forward within fiscal year 21.

We're all hoping and praying that when we start the FY22 budget that things will start to shape up a little bit, but we still aren't out of fiscal year 20.

We're still waiting on our end of the year numbers to be able to see where we're at and see if our adjustments in terms of

Thank you.

I have a question.

It's related to like the bondable projects.

I know we've gotten a lot of questions specifically around the Belmont Bridge.

There's been some questions around some of the schools' bondable projects.

I understand that there was a hold of like 30 to 60 days where we were just kind of in a pause trying to reassess.

But if we are going to go back out into the bond market, what is the status of those bondable projects actually getting funding to move forward?

So I can address that for you.

Basically, what we're trying to do is, to your point, we did put a pause on the bondable projects for a couple of reasons.

One, as you mentioned, the bond market was very iffy at the time.

There weren't buyers.

And so people tried to do bond sales.

They were pulling them back.

There are a few bond sales that are entering the market.

There were a couple last week.

and so things are starting to move again and to shape up.

So we will be looking to do a bond sale probably in the next month or two or, you know, August, September, July, August, September, somewhere in there.

In terms of the bondable projects, we've been meeting on a regular basis to look at those projects on an individual basis to

address things on a project by project basis.

Is it critical?

Can it wait?

Is it out for bid?

Are there other revenue sources?

And so as we work through that, bondable projects will, as you know, are a priority in terms of the CIP that we're putting forward for the proposed budget.

A question is because I got a couple questions from the public about it just to be sure.

I think on page 14 under the capital projects, there's $2.4 million for affordable housing.

That's correct.

And actually, just while we were on this call, I did notice in the narrative, there was an edit that I missed because it does list that there was $500,000 for rehab.

And because that is a cash funded project, that was removed.

And

I'll just reiterate again, as we have previous work sessions, I think as a council we just need to have deeper conversations and think deeper about what is needed to ensure that our stated priorities two, three, four years from now in the CIP budget are actually able to come to fruition, particularly with the size of the school reconfiguration.

I'm not sure we've been serious enough about what we need to do to ensure

Okay, any other comments?

All right, let me get back to my

screen.

So we're just moving this to the consent agenda for June.

We have done a public hearing.

I just saw our page two.

Thank you.

So now we'll open up the public hearing for the budget.

We have people raising their hands.

Mayor Walker, if you're on the webinar, please click the raise your hand icon and you can speak during this public hearing on the budget.

Mayor Walker, first up is Walt Heinecke.

Walt, you're on with council again.

Oh, thanks a lot.

I haven't had a chance to take a real in-depth look at the budget, but I just wanted to remind everyone of a couple of things.

One, after 2017, the nation was looking to us on how we were going to deal with equity issues.

And now that we're under the COVID pandemic context, I think the country is really going to start to ask questions about what did Charlottesville do during the pandemic, and how was it different than what other municipalities were doing?

And I think what we do with affordable housing in the budget is a real indicator of our commitment to equity.

So before all this started, we were all clear from the housing study from the HAC.

that there was, we had about $150 million goal to over 15 years to basically stop displacement and gentrification in this town.

That equated to about $10 million a year.

Last year we got $10 million in.

which I think everybody was really proud of our city council for doing that and moving ahead with certain projects, both capital projects and other projects that are related.

And I just want to reinforce the idea that when we move forward, I know you're going to be under significant pressure to make a lot of cuts when you lose $5 million in a budget, that we come up with a way to prioritize the way we make those cuts using certain values and commitments to things like equity.

So I'm hoping that as we move forward, when you look at the CIP budget, when you look at the other more fungible funds that are available for affordable housing, that we're prioritizing things in a way that puts ourselves in the shoes of people who are at 50% area median income and below.

So I'm hoping that the CAF gets fully funded so that we have a significant amount of funds for CSRAP and rental abatement and rental support because we're gonna have a huge, that's gonna have a huge impact, a pandemic's gonna have a huge impact on that.

And then for mortgage relief.

as well for low-income folks.

So I'm hoping that we can figure out a way to prioritize the cuts in a way that maximizes on equity and maximizes on a narrative that we need to be able to tell to the rest of the country about how we stood up and reacted and responded to white supremacy and racism in our country and in our community.

So I'm hoping that we move forward with that.

I'm also very curious to know what the HAC policy subgroup thinks about the budget in terms of affordable housing and where we can maximize our strategy and our approach and trying to figure out

how much relief we might be getting from the federal government sometime in August and how that plays into thinking about our strategy for how much to put into affordable housing going forward at this point.

Maybe we don't make

a lot of significant cuts until we absolutely have to.

And if we get federal support or state support, maybe that will lessen or mitigate the impact on our decisions going forward.

So I'm hoping that we can really buckle down and put ourselves in the shoes of folks that are at 50% AMI and below and get as much of that $10 million commitment

as possible into this next year's budget so that we can keep up our trajectory to stemming displacement, which I think this COVID pandemic is going to have a huge impact on displacement in our community and on gentrification.

So I'm hoping that we can keep that in mind as we move forward with the mechanics of the budget.

Mayor Walker, we have about 40 attendees on the webinar right now.

We have one additional hand raised at this point.

If you want to speak to Council on this public hearing, click the raise your hand icon.

Next up is Peter Krebs.

Peter, you're on with Council.

Good evening, everybody.

I'd really like to just give a humble thanks to you all for working on a

incredibly difficult challenge.

Not only is there a gigantic shortfall, your job was hard before COVID-19 and now there's the shortfall and in addition, there's a lot of unknowns, right?

So this is not easy at all and I just think it's important that the community recognize how hard this whole thing is and I wanted to let you know that I'm glad you're out there working on it.

I think you're going to find good answers.

I simply wanted to talk about a few broad things.

Number one is that the shortfall is going to require a lot of creative solutions.

So I please ask going forward that you really encourage staff to be creative and flexible and try new things.

Secondly,

I would like to remind you all, and this council will be fine this way, but it needs to be said, let's don't internalize the mentality of austerity, right?

Things are hard now, but Charlottesville is about doing hard things, and let's always keep a positive, optimistic mindset.

Be ready to jump on stimulus funds.

We may have an answer to whether that's forthcoming or not before this budget's done.

So just that's one of the flexibility things I was talking about.

Be ready to jump on stimulus availability.

Also just a reminder about the bondable projects that this could be a good time to do bondable work because interest rates will be historically low and also

Those so-called shovel-ready projects bring money into the economy, which is going to be desperately needed.

So that's all.

All right.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, there are no other hands raised at this point.

Janta James, you're next up with council, go ahead.

Okay, hi, good evening, everyone.

This is Jay James.

I'm on my wife's computer, but I wanted to say good evening to Madam Mayor and also Dr. Richardson, distinguished members of council.

I just wanna thank you for the opportunity.

My name's Jay James.

I live at 169 Brookwood Drive in the city.

and I'm just chiming in in this public hearing as far as the budget is concerned once again as the assistant director of a substance abuse and reentry program called the Bridge Ministry and simply won't take a lot of time tonight.

You guys have all of our information.

I think the Chair is still there.

and out of that jail when the asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 is a powerful thing and to get them out of an enclosed space.

So just want to let you know we're working hard every day to do that with our legal officials.

We have 40 bed spaces reserved and we're going to accept everybody who wants to come to the program that our legal officials will permit to do so.

We're doing that.

And then lastly, we are so grateful for the opportunity that you all put out for nonprofits to apply through the community fund with COVID-19 specifically.

So we're working hard on that opportunity too.

So again, not to take a lot of time.

We know there are young men in that jail who need a place to go, who would be dealing with residence instability and some of the things that you're even talking about in the affordable housing discussion.

So we can help with all of that.

Make sure that they leave our program with a guaranteed employment and that they become productive citizens with this unique opportunity because of what's happening with the virus.

So just thank you all for considering us and for giving this opportunity to apply in certain areas.

We're just hopeful that as you consider that there's a potential for us to work together to change these lives.

So thank you so much for your service to our community.

And I look forward to talking with each of you in discussions and covering what happens in this as well.

So again, just grateful.

Hope you all have a wonderful evening.

If there's anyone else that would like to address council during the public hearing, click the raise your hand icon.

Okay.

All right, so we'll close the public hearing.

Mr. James also spoke at the last on the 4th.

You went out a little bit there, so if people wanted to hear the full message that you said, just wanted to let them know that you talked a little bit about

the bridge ministry and its efforts to doing this time at the last meeting so that they could hear it there too.

I guess

I don't know how much there is to discuss amongst ourselves, but just for the public, I mean, I know just the scale of the revenue loss is around $8 million in fiscal year 20 and 21 combined.

Not quite, but... I was on the call with them.

Just for our locality around potentially 15 plus million.

Again, that may be worst case scenario, but just an idea of what we have to prepare for should the situation change with things like UVA not returning, students not returning in the fall, in the level of additional revenue loss that there could be, and how tight of a crunch that creates.

and just to be aware of that and as well as we haven't yet made allocations within the CAF or Vibrant Community Fund, but the funding is still there.

It's just not made with specific allocations yet, but that's something that we'll be working on and trying to work closely with the community to figure out the most effective way to allocate those monies.

in the context of crises that COVID-19 was created.

But I just want to highlight again, I know we've gotten a lot of input tonight about affordable housing funding in the CAF.

The CAF is still funded.

Vibrant Communities Fund is still funded.

Can I weigh in on the first cities?

numbers.

That was put together by a fellow named Jim Riggenbaugh.

He does a lot of presentations for First Cities and BACO and VML.

Not to dismiss it or to say that our numbers do any better because we're all sort of guessing here.

But these are a little bit old and they're pretty high level broad stroke

estimates.

So I wouldn't get too wrapped up on the fact that his don't necessarily agree with ours.

We've tried to be as granular as we can by looking at the actual revenues and what we've seen.

And then we've got some other areas that he doesn't take into account.

We're expecting

You know, we had the reassessment in real estate, which increased the value that his numbers don't really speak to.

Same thing with personal property.

So just a cautionary tale, but you're absolutely right.

Yeah, you guys don't have a lot of room to play with.

And so I'm going to reiterate and stress again to leave that reserve alone if you can.

And I think that, you know, as long as we fully understand that, you know, that we'll have to amend we've had that discussion and look at, you know, the budget based on the circumstances that are presented as the, you know, fiscal year starts and, you know, based on whatever

climate that we are faced with.

I'll throw out one concern I've had about more long-term stuff with affordable housing is just the potential that

With the COVID situation, low-income housing tax credits may be less attractive for investors and just that that combined with construction costs could make some of our affordable housing projects we're planning for in future years.

or the funding gap will only grow.

Madam Mayor, the one thing that I wanted to point out, which I know members of the council fully understand, but really for the benefit of folks in the public.

The first thing is that this particular iteration of the budget is a little bit unlike

Maybe the very first iteration of the budget in that we have, in that the city manager has prepared it, although it feels very much like the March 2nd budget, just minus $5 million, it is in fact the product of a great deal of public input and a great deal of input from council.

and so he was not writing on a blank slate when he came up with that budget and a lot of what we've discussed has found its way in there.

But the real issue is still going to be we don't know what the shortfall in fiscal year 2021 is going to be.

The budget as it was a couple of weeks ago provided for

about an $8 million cushion by not funding most of the non-bondable capital projects, largely by reducing our contribution to the capital improvement program.

And then we decided we were going to increase school funding by $1.3 million.

I remember very distinctly Mr. Diver saying,

OK, if you're going to go that far, that's fine.

But don't go any further.

We just don't know what's going to happen next fiscal year.

And the $8 million that they had had in reserve that is now more like $6.6 million, that was what they thought they were really, they thought that was a pretty good number.

My concern, and I will say this to all of the people who have, I know during the campaign we talked a lot about affordable housing and we talked a lot about a lot of things that we hoped we would be able to do and things that we had frankly expected to be able to do in the budget that we saw on March 2nd.

But between March 2nd and March 16th,

The COVID virus really just knocked everybody for a loop.

It was either the 16th or the 17th that the governor locked us all down to varying degrees.

All the work we had done in January and February and early March was now essentially meaningless.

But we have not forgotten what you all said to us back then.

And this budget, I think, reflects the priorities that we set forth

with about as much as we can do at this point, given all the rest of the uncertainties.

Any other comments?

All right, so there's no vote here, but does anyone disagree with moving this to the consent agenda for the June 1st meeting?

Okay, so we'll have it on the June 1st consent agenda as a second reading.

So we had the

Two amendments to the budget.

Are those just to be handled on June 1st or do they need to be, is something need to be done with those today?

I'll second the motion, but I have one question.

That is, Mr. Davidson talked about 875.

And I can't remember now because of the way the schools and the city account differently for the $468,000 that had been the appropriation for the gifted teachers and so on.

Is that 468?

So as long as we get to the $1.3 million that we talked about at the last meeting, we'll solve the terminology differences along the way.

Ms.

Thomas, could you do a roll call for vote?

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Okay.

and so now the budget will be on the June 1st agenda.

All right, thank you all and thank you budget team and staff for all the work, everybody that's participated, all the directors, everybody.

Ms.

Shelton, all of the work that you all have done

this budget and dealing with our back and forth and all the questions and comments and two to ones and really navigating it, doing this virtual world that we're in.

Yeah, I just want to echo that.

I know we know this has been like a marathon budget cycle and we're just going to have to just go right into another one.

So just really appreciate all the effort that this team has put in.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay, next we have the appropriations for the approval appropriation of CDBG and home budget allocations for fiscal year 2021.

And it's the second reading.

And Ms.

Attack is going to, is she?

here to present.

And I'll just apologize in advance that my world's been a little crazy that I haven't been able to get in contact and ask some questions about what was even brought up during the evaluation process.

So just as a refresher, this is the CDBG and home

attached to the fiscal year 2020-2021 action plan that was just submitted to HUD on May 15th.

And we do have one item as a reappropriation to the CDBG budget this year.

I'm trying to get back to the pages.

It's hard to navigate.

I was talking earlier about that I'm going to have to get another device.

So for all of the citizens who think I may be wasteful, I just want to share that.

It's just hard to go back and forth and run the meeting with just one.

So I did reach out to all the task force members and ask them if they wanted to reconsider grading the applications again.

And that were those four not including the two who received an incomplete?

Yes.

Well, you said four of nine responded, so five didn't respond.

No, you're correct.

And two of the four were the two who received the incomplete application.

OK.

I thought I understood it to be four responded saying they were fine with it.

The two who did not respond, who had not received supposedly the complete application, they did not respond.

Okay, okay.

All right, so

And I can't find that page.

I mean, I was able to talk with one of the individuals who didn't receive a complete application.

I wasn't able to talk to Ms.

Carpenter directly about it and have had

Some conversation with FAR or one person with FAR and just an acknowledgement that the CDBG process, I think, overall is pretty frustrating and it's very difficult to navigate in a number of ways.

And I know there were new commission members on the CDBG task force this year.

And I think that continues to be an important area to try to improve

civic engagement and navigate that process which I think is very hard not just for communities but non-profits in all the requirements that HUD has in terms of what you have to do and the timelines you have to follow.

So I just want to recognize you know some of the frustrations are in that process and I think

I've advocated for FAR to get funding in the Vibrant Communities Fund.

I really hope that we can find a way to give them funding for their Section 3 work and some of their work with residents to be part of the redevelopment process.

But at least how I'm looking at these pots of money, there's certain pots of money that have to go in certain areas.

I just wouldn't feel comfortable reallocating money that is going to go to homelessness services at this point because all the money that's there is going towards specific housing and economic crisis needs.

And the way I read it, moving around any money in the allocation will require removing money from TJAC and their homelessness services.

And I just don't feel like I'm in a position to want to do that.

So that's my thinking on it, while also, for me, it highlights I hope that we can find the Vibrant Communities Fund or other areas

provide support to FAR, especially granted the whole Vibrant Communities Fund is upended at this point.

But before COVID, I know they had received funding last year that was lost.

And that continues to be a priority to try to get the funding there.

But again, I think moving around anything requires taking away money from nonprofits who are doing direct work, meeting emergency community needs.

I hope that we can also use this to kind of look at the process of the CDBG and see where the hiccups came into place so that we can make this a little bit easier for other

other entities who aren't necessarily used to applying for CDBG to open up the doors a little bit.

I think that part of this would, you know, to your

I think that's a good point, Vice Mayor Magill.

We wouldn't necessarily know that this round because if the

Individuals who did the evaluating are saying to continue, then there isn't much to go on there.

But I think the process, where funds end up, how much funds have ended up in those same spaces over the years, and that we cannot evaluate how effective they are or are not, which I've shared before.

That is why I'm not voting for

This allocation I didn't vote last year either.

I think we definitely need to change the process.

And if we end up in a cycle, the same cycles that we've been in, where we think the same organization, just because they can apply, should get funding that we need to make sure that it at least alternates.

So if you receive funding one year, maybe you can't receive

you know funding the next year and that opens it up to other organizations.

These organizations are able to spend a lot of money on the application process and grant writing and they receive a lot of funds through from us and throughout the community so I just think we need to take that

So procedurally, Mr. Blair, we'll just make motions on each appropriation and vote on them individually.

Yes, ma'am.

OK.

So I'll start with the first one.

Oh, go ahead.

I guess a question is what's the timeline for when, I know this was answered last council meeting but I just can't remember, the timeline for when the unallocated priority neighborhood money

So for the Ridge Street Priority Neighborhood Task Force, we're just waiting on the remaining applicants to be appointed in to have a more rounded committee.

Once we do have those final appointments, then we can go ahead and get the process started.

And similarly, you're going to have a process you're following for these COVID funds that have come through for the regular CBD task force.

Yes.

So the applicants for the COVID funding did meet with me prior to submitting an application.

And we went over the HUD requirements, application requirements, and what the task force looks for when they're grading the application.

And we went over the rubric itself.

So I did receive all the applications for the COVID funding today and will begin

I'm just curious, how many applicants did you receive?

And I just wanted to highlight Brandon Collins with FAR just commented in the chat.

The errors weren't from the applicants.

Yes.

So what I was talking more about as far as like trying for training and putting together, it's not just, I mean, people who have been applying for CDBG money for years know what CDBG is looking for and the correct language to use and kind of how

the flow of it and helping people who have never done it before to help learn that language and might be a good, just helpful tool to have to open the field up for others.

And just so I'm clear, so this 13,

So it goes towards the priority neighborhood pot of funding.

The $13,324.

But there will be a Red Street task force that will vote on where those dollars go.

That's just what I'm trying to do.

All right.

All right.

Yes, I move the appropriation of funds for the City of Charlottesville's 2020-2021 Community Development Block Grant in the amounts of $419,367.

Second.

Okay.

Are there any additional comments?

And I agree with a couple of these.

And I think that those organizations have displayed that they are doing great work.

And I think if we had a solution and measurements person in place that would be evaluating the effectiveness that it would show and some of the others, I don't agree so much.

So that's why I'll be voting no for this and just want to comment there.

So there was a second.

Ms.

Thomas, could you do roll call?

Ms.

Walker?

No.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

I move we appropriate funds for the City of Charlottesville's 2020-2021 home funds in the amount of $127,210.56 as presented.

I second.

Ms.

Thomas, roll call.

Mr. Payne?

Yes.

Mr. Snook?

Yes.

Ms.

Walker?

No.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

Okay, and C. I move we appropriate the amendment to the community development block grant account reprogramming funds for fiscal year 2021 in the amount of $13,324 as presented.

I second the motion.

Any comments?

And I'll get last council meeting.

I think this area was the most contentious discussion about in the past this priority neighborhood money being used for sidewalks or infrastructure rather than issues related to immediate community human needs.

And so for those who had concerns about how that had been allocated in the past, I think it'll be particularly important to pay attention and get involved in that.

task force that will allocate this money because at this point it is unallocated.

It's not going to sidewalks.

We don't know what it's going for.

And so that's what I'm hoping, that this will just help that be more strategic in what that funding goes for.

And hopefully the public, since they can participate in, we can figure out a way to get feedback, even if you were not appointed to the task force.

June, the June meeting, one of them, we will be appointing the final two members to the task force.

And so I hope that every task force member encourage other individuals to participate too, because that's the only way for some of the changes that people have expressed for them to really happen is through participation to make sure that you are being heard.

All right, so there was a second.

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker.

Yes.

Ms.

Magill.

Yes.

Ms.

Hill.

Yes.

All right.

So thank you.

And we will, do we then vote on with the task force recommendations?

Yes, right.

We'll see those.

Yes, okay.

Look at us.

Oh, I still have one more action item.

I was just happy for where we are.

But it is 8, so we'll take a break and come back.

So we'll come back at 8, 18?

Just 15 minutes.

OK.

All right.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Ms.

Yeah, my analog technology is what got me in trouble with the video.

Mayor Walker I think based on Ms.

Good evening Mayor Walker and Councillors.

As we all know the COVID-19 health pandemic has caused a lot of moving parts at a lot of different levels of government including Governor Northam issuing Executive Order 61

which, in effect, did quote unquote reopen certain parts of commercial activity in most of the state.

Within Executive Order 61, there were activities that typically businesses perform indoors.

A few businesses are now permitted to perform those activities outdoors.

Probably the most high profile is that restaurants are now permitted to have al fresco dining options at 50% of their indoor capacity as long as certain social distancing guidelines are adhered to.

In response to this,

The Department of Neighborhood Development Services has received a couple of requests from restaurants concerning on-site parking requirements in the city code and asking if they can get some ability to use some on-site parking spaces for the alfresco dining options.

Speaking with Mr. Ika Funa, who's on the call, as well as the Zoning Administrator, Reid Broadhead, based on those

request and the inquiries about the Alfresco dining, I composed a very brief ordinance which states that the on-site parking requirements for restaurants, gyms, and farmers markets, which are the three activities in Executive Order 61, which are now permitted outdoors but not indoors,

These activities, the on-site parking requirements which are found in 34-984 of the city code will temporarily be suspended for the duration of Executive Order 61 or until it's amended concerning those activities.

As stated I did speak with Mr. Ika Funa and the zoning administrator Mr. Broadhead and it's worth noting that all other parking requirements in the code would still need to be adhered to and also other federal and state regulations such as the ADA but this would in fact

And just to clarify, this is just for private property.

This doesn't apply to any parking that's in the public right away.

It's all within their own required parking zone.

OK.

So I guess it's a blanket for

just all local restaurants businesses.

And it just means they don't need to maintain a certain number of parking spaces.

Yes, sir.

And Alex, I don't know if you're on the line, but if you have anything you'd like to add.

Thanks, John.

Good evening, councilors.

Yeah, essentially what Mr. Blair is proposing, it's in keeping with what the governor noted as part of the opening process.

And it essentially provides restaurants and related businesses the opportunity to reopen

and then get going with their businesses.

On a related note, they still have to provide ADA access and separation of vehicular movement and pedestrian movement.

They still have to take care of those requirements.

But by Council approving this, essentially Council is assisting

I have no other comments.

And my comment is just I understand why this may be needed.

I have still concerns about from a safety aspect and that I

know that businesses, it's in their best interest to keep their staff and their consumers safe or they won't have them, staff to serve people.

members of the public to purchase stuff, but I am still concerned about this reopening, what it means at this time, and in the future if we have to move back to a different phase.

So I'm still there, but I do understand the importance of if you're open.

And I guess I'm a little torn.

Well, you know, obviously I'm no fan of parking, but I'm a little torn because

Just the balance of, I don't like it, but reopening is happening and businesses are already open and they're going to be open.

I don't necessarily think that's a good thing that's happening, and just the balance of whether

This will make it safer for businesses that are already open no matter what because they're able to have that open-air environment, which is much safer than being indoors, that weighed against whether it's actively encouraging

more people to go out and patron businesses.

I think I lean towards supporting it because on balance it may help public health from the perspective of people aren't going to be in that less safe environment of indoors since businesses and restaurants are opening no matter what already.

But I do worry that these and other actions just

Yeah.

Yeah.

And emotional events like that, it's really hard.

I've had to have those conversations quite frequently with my family, who would like probably to duct tape my mouth also.

But it is important.

It's hard for people to remain kind of firm in their commitment when any kind of emotions come up.

and, you know, so limiting settings where they are expressed.

I mean, I saw some, you know, concerns with our own high school graduation and how, what the pictures look like, which it meant that physical distancing was not happening.

And so anytime you put people in those settings, it's a real challenge and you just have to,

Yeah and again I mean I think I think I lean towards supporting it just because unfortunately a lot of people I think especially a lot of younger people are already going out and are going to go out no matter what in the hope that this opens up safer

Yeah, no.

What I've been saying is take out and tip well if you're able to, right?

And so that's how I have been sharing and ending a call that takes care of the wait staff and you're still

patronizing the business.

And I guess that's the only thing that I've been sharing with people.

And we know as the weather changed and we've had a hard winter in terms of just the level of stress and you have beautiful days and people want to be

you know out and the sun you know they are feeling better because of that but you just don't want to end up in a situation where you're paying for it later and I just think as long as we can keep having

and talking to people around those points, lines, when we have communications on social media, phone calls and stuff, and at least we're still getting that message out.

Yeah.

beyond this, but I definitely continue to worry about the situation with all the employees at businesses that are reopening, which realistically many employers are just not going to follow those guidelines of providing enough PPE or guaranteeing that employees are able to maintain proper social distance, have time to wash hands, et cetera.

Let me just say I'm in favor of this, although I think it's, frankly, one of the reasons perhaps to be in favor of it might be because it probably doesn't do a lot of good.

It probably doesn't do very much, but it's something.

And I think we have to do, we have to, there are a couple of points.

One is I firmly believe that an awful lot of people at the national level and probably even at the state level are underestimating the amount of

of pain we still have to go through here.

On the other hand, there are some activities that I think we can say with some confidence are probably not unsafe.

And dining in this way, subject to these other rules, is probably one of them.

And if there are ways that we can provide opportunities for people to get out and enjoy the world and enjoy the city, that's great.

spend money, that's great.

Pay taxes, that's great.

Tip their servers, that's great.

All of these things are great.

There may not be very many places where we can find little things to do like that that might

that might help somebody get by in the next couple of months better.

So I think if we can identify, and I think we have here, identify a way that we can allow people to stretch their legs a little bit and to do so safely, I think we should look for those opportunities.

OK.

All right, is there a motion?

Ms.

Thomas.

Ms.

Walker.

Yes.

Ms.

Magill.

Yes.

Ms.

Hill.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I guess just the way this is, I missed something, the report and boards and commissions discussion.

No, I think Mr. Blair said we had to do this first because it was action, right?

I guess the next one's action.

All right.

Well, we're there now.

We're here now.

All right ready to roll with that.

Now at the last meeting we talked about some other things that council would like for us to bring back and we do have those today with some more detailed information and one was to talk about the ADA costs in terms of providing those resources.

Two was to contact the boards and commission chairs in order for them to connect with their members to find out their needs to be able to have the virtual meetings.

Then we talked about the resource allocation to broadcast the virtual public meetings.

And then lastly, what are some of the things that the planning commission and NDS can work on together?

I have Alex and Missy on the line who can talk a little bit more about that.

But we sent you, the entire council, this information that we added on to our spreadsheet that we had in terms of the virtual meeting discussion.

as well as Brian Wheeler sent you information to talk about the resource allocation in terms of what can be broadcast, the channel that it'll be on, as well as the number of staff members that it will take to be able to provide those services.

So with that said, you have all the information before you.

Sounds like there might be one BAR member who could not participate.

I think it's the first one.

It says seven out of eight members responded.

Yeah, I was waiting for someone else.

Yeah, I'm waiting for a response.

And so Mr. Blair, just another, are we just approving like the dates that have been specified here?

Right now, you're really in effect

Authorizing staff for these dates that are before you.

And I think obviously some of this is going to be dependent on how this pandemic continues to play out.

But I think right now, tonight, it's just

The city is authorizing the staff, Mr. Wheeler and his staff and any other staff members, to staff these boards and commissions for these specific meetings.

But as stated, I guess, at the last meeting, again, if any of these boards or commissions had a COVID-19 specific need to meet,

All right, so is there any, I guess,

We can go through each one of them, or if you all know that you are going to vote for each.

OK.

So vote on each of them, or just talk about them, and then at the end?

Just talk about them.

OK.

Yeah, OK.

Yeah.

So the Board of Architectural Review,

Are there any concerns here?

Is everyone on board with their meeting?

And this was one that we need to meet along with the Planning Commission, right, on the last... That's correct.

Yeah.

Okay, so... Sorry, no concerns there.

So the Board of Equalization, any comments or concerns?

about the dates.

OK, so the CDBG Home Task Force.

This is not the Ridge Street Task Force, then.

This is the CDBG Home Task Force, because the Ridge Street Task Force hasn't been fully populated.

And this is directly related to the COVID applications.

Right.

For the funding coming in for COVID.

Extra funding coming in for COVID-19, CARES Act, whatever you get.

Just one question.

It says on one of these charts that they're projecting one meeting between May 19th and June 30th.

However, the kind of thing, I think there's someplace else where they talked about a meeting during the week of June 11th to June 19th.

If they had to have a second meeting, let's say they adjourned, whatever,

I hope that our, whatever approval we give here, would not be required, further required if they wanted to have a second meeting that week.

Right.

That's fine.

No, ma'am.

After you.

No.

Okay, I think to answer your question, Councillor Snook, it might be a good idea to clarify that, you know, if for instance a quorum didn't assemble or in some way the meeting that is scheduled, there wasn't an ability to make a decision on a timely matter, I think it probably is a good question for the council to discuss.

Would you be okay

Because that might also be necessary anyway to avoid problems under the Open Meetings Act and giving due notice of everything.

I'm good with that as long as it's made very clear that we have limited staff resources and that we have to be very careful of our communication staff resources.

CRHA.

Any questions or concerns there?

And this is one of the four meetings that were streamed online before.

And so this meeting, I'm on this board, and so it is planned for this to happen every month, the fourth Monday of the month, except this

except this meeting because it's Memorial Day next, the fourth Monday.

Mayor Walker, Brian Wheeler, I have asked our staff to reach out to the CRHA staff to ensure that we can live stream that onto Channel 10

OK.

And I asked Betsy to contact earlier to provide some insight.

Well, the one comment I would make is that they're surely going to need more than one meeting.

I mean, there's an election.

That may be the next regular meeting.

I mean, they were asked.

The question was, please confirm your next regularly scheduled meeting date and time.

Right.

And we meet, I meet with Melissa very regularly

So if she has any issues or need to make any adjustments, she'll let us know.

I'm sure.

I just don't want to accidentally end up doing something.

So do we want to place in here that any needs that they have leading up to

OK.

All right, so we'll do that.

Next, we have The Hack.

Just again, I think this is an important one to try and meet as soon as possible, just because the level of community

desire for it to weigh in on what's going on with the CAF and other issues.

I did have a question that goes beyond the HAC, but normally these meetings aren't later broadcast on channel 10, or is that incorrect?

Correct, in the past they have not.

What we heard from council at the last meeting was interest in

We will be airing more of these since we will have access to video via the webinar.

And so what we've proposed is that a few of these, the CDBG task force, the HAC, the Human Rights Commission be added as channel 10 opportunities

All right.

And I guess I just wanted to make sure that I don't know what that process looks like.

So I just want to make, I don't know if that's like a big time commitment or annoying or not, just because if it is, I don't know if we necessarily need to do it for all of them.

And the only questions that I have related to the hack was, you know, we were having conversations about what the structure of that committee would look like.

And so because this is,

I guess they want to make recommendations for housing, but part of that discussion was centered around even the role that staff played on the committee.

So that is definitely a discussion about membership and the makeup, the role the staff plays on it that we need to address.

I mean, I've been seeing it since I started council.

I know that Councillor Hill spent some time on it and she had some thoughts about moving forward too.

And I just think it's something that we should

Avery, and I think it's really always, it's really about striking the balance, recognizing that there's a lot of good knowledge around housing within this community and those

folks, we want them to participate and be engaged.

At the same time, we have to be cognizant of the fact that we're allocating funding, and we need to keep those lanes separate.

And we also need to recognize the role that our staff should be playing in these boards and commission.

And that's a much broader conversation than even just beyond HAC, but making sure that there is a voice at the table.

And so I welcome those opportunities to talk about that further.

What I think about for tonight, though, is we're just looking at what is the HAC going to do to engage in some of these more immediate decisions around

And I would also like to say, I know we have two, two ones that are being scheduled to also discuss this, but I said this when, again, since I've been on council and when Dr. Papia was in Mr. Sell's position that

we should be able to, we can read more than one presentation.

So if the staff recommendations are different from the committee's recommendation, we should be able to get both of those and no one should think that they can influence the information that comes to us.

And that has been an issue before, which is one of the reasons that I have been

really clear on the fact that I think that this board needs some changes.

And so, and especially since the staff position is a non-voting position that it's clear that the staff was hired for a reason.

and that as citizens would be able to provide input in anything else, that we should be able to get both and weigh the pros and cons of anything that's been presented.

And that it shouldn't mean that staff isn't able to share their viewpoints.

It should never mean that.

So as long as that's clear, then that's clear.

I do understand that we've received some very good feedback.

We had a very good work session with them after the housing strategy information came out from the consultants.

But at the same time, there have been some things that have not been good.

Well, that's certainly my understanding.

I mean, I've always viewed the HAC as a policy advisory board that is distinct from staff and that we've routinely received suggestions and advice from both.

And it just provides us with more information to evaluate, but is not in place of or on top of anything.

And I think that certainly

What I would like to see come from it is just to get as much information as possible, particularly from the community groups on the ground.

So I think we're all on the same page with that.

And so I'm just sharing that in the past, that has been some of the committee members viewpoint that they needed to merge whatever

that staff needed to merge into their voice.

But I would say a lot of those, because I've sat around that table for a couple of years, some of it was legal things.

There were just some things that we had to vet through our city attorney's office that meant that some things had to change from what was originally proposed, and that's where some of the tugs came in.

Mayor Walker.

This is Ms.

Thomas.

I did just want to note that staff had a concern that the PAC wanted to meet as early as this Friday, but Friday is an administrative leave day.

So they're proposing moving that to next week after the holiday.

All right, Kathy.

Then, you know, as put as it is what it is, but I just think, not just with this, but

I do think there's a lot of urgency around trying to figure out how we'll allocate with the CAF and the migrant community fund, given where unemployment levels are, the fact that rent is going to be due again on June 1st, and just how fast the economic situation is accelerating.

OK, so the meeting on the 22nd wouldn't change some of those outcomes, I don't think.

Because we still have to get the information.

I mean, as someone who advocated really strongly for staff to be able to get some time to take for themselves and to be able to take care of themselves and their family, I wouldn't want them to try to figure, squeeze this into the week.

So next week, is there agreement there?

I'm in agreement.

Are there any comments?

I'm sorry, really quick.

It looks like their next meeting for the Human Rights Committee is Thursday.

So I guess we could just go ahead and they'll be noticed.

Three days?

Well, two days from tomorrow?

Actually, you have to have three business days.

So they'll just be able to schedule a meeting with at any point that they can get three days notice.

Yes ma'am.

Okay.

All right, sounds good.

I guess maybe we did answer this, but I'm unclear about still if the intention is to have the Planning Commission resume

So it seemed like in the

Yeah, the update.

We can provide them written updates.

And then if they want to hear from the consultant, we can arrange it two to one.

And the consulting group, I think, has only had one Steering Committee meeting since the pandemic.

There's another one coming up, which I think there's planning commissions on that Steering Committee.

If not, they can certainly join it.

There is a member of planning commission on the Steering Committee.

So I think this is, um,

So if we're approving it for the June 9th meeting, then we're approving it for this public hearing that's been on hold since March, a site plan and entrance corridor application.

And that's what it says are ready to move forward for the initial discussion.

And then they would like the update on the comp plan.

Yeah, we can arrange.

If the meeting's scheduled for next week, it's not sufficient for them.

We can arrange for an update with the consultants.

We can have a two to one with them.

And so I don't know.

What are you guys talking about specifically?

What's next week?

The consultants about the comp plan housing strategy, they sent out that they would be having work for community meetings.

Oh, community webinars, yes, yes.

So I was just wondering if the planning commission, if that was sufficient for them, or are they planning to participate in those, or did they need, if they wanted this update during the planning commission meeting?

And that was just what I was asking, because I wasn't clear when I read it.

Thank you.

So question around the scope.

I think that we have to leave that up to the planning commission, working with staff to determine what is reasonable for them to take on right now.

And that was similar to like, you know, the word CRAD.

This was, this was one of the original four.

So they may, um,

I think if they would let us know what is doable along with staff input, not whether, I guess, if they want to have a July meeting, right?

They're not requesting.

I think right now,

Mayor Walker, you and Councillor Hill have been stating that right now it's a June 9th meeting and they're working on the scope, although Ms.

Creasy did send out that scope last week.

In terms of the virtual town halls, I would leave that to Mr. Ika Fooner or Ms.

Creasy about

There are updates to the Planning Commission about that.

In terms of FOIA, obviously, we would be working with them on any public notice for any of these items.

But if I could, I see Ms.

Creasy is available.

And there is an issue that one of the public here, well, the one public hearing that the Planning Commission may

Consider at its June 9th meeting, there is an issue, as you probably have seen throughout the years, there are signs that get posted in the city at the project site.

You'll see the sign.

I think I saw one just recently on a walk.

And these signs are not required per statute or ordinance.

However, the council can, if it desires and finds that the signs weren't placed, the council can always postpone and ask for the signs to be placed at the site of the rezoning.

But due to COVID-19, I think there's some questions about staff preparing the signs and getting them to the applicant.

And I see Ms.

Creasy is available, and I

Sure.

We just provided that question when we were asked to provide the data to council for your discussion this evening.

We were able to outline the additional resources that would be needed to do that since folks aren't in the office and we just wanted to post that question to you all.

If you feel the signs are needed, we will make the accommodations to make sure that those are taken care of.

There was also data, you all asked a question, I believe it was Mr. Payne at the end of the work session last week concerning planning commission spots.

on moving forward and so I submitted a listing of where they are and they're kind of all over the place with where they feel from an item standpoint but

You know, we just noted the items that are in the hopper to move forward.

So for the signs, and if we are going to have the meetings move forward, I know in the past those signs have been the only reason I've known that certain projects were gonna be happening, so I would be hesitant to not put them up.

I know signs were just over by the Sixth Street area highlighting

I don't remember which project, but that was just a few months ago.

I agree.

So would the signs be amended then with the Zoom meeting or how to get onto the Zoom meeting for the public notice?

We'll adjust the signs as appropriate.

Thank you.

Next, we have the Retirement Commission.

No challenges.

Well, skip, skip, skip.

Any?

And those will be able to be handled from the staff on that commission.

All right.

So it looks like that we are moving forward with these.

Okay.

Is there a motion?

I'll second.

Ms.

Thomas.

Ms.

Ms.

Magill.

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

Just know the other documents that we had just kind of outlined

the format and the staffing requirements, which I really appreciated.

That was really a helpful summary.

So thank you.

And if I would just want to let us know if anything becomes overwhelming and I hope that we would revisit any decision if, um, you know, the climate with, um,

COVID in terms of peaking and all of that, that even if you can do it virtually, that it just may not be in the best interest of staff and the community in terms of being able to participate, that we wouldn't just continue.

I just wanted to bring up

our monthly work session schedule that we obviously talked about before COVID hit because there certainly are topics that are of interest to people, environment, progressive tax reform.

And so I'm just trying to figure out at what point should we revisit that and then start to program out a monthly work session on those topics.

At one point, I know Ms.

Thomas sent us the list and asked us about this and I think that we just all got buried.

in addressing it.

So I apologize, Ms.

I personally would need some time before any additional meeting started.

Sorry.

I don't see an immediate need to start scheduling them and I don't think I would want to at a minimum until we start to get these boards running and get a sense of how that's going and how that feels.

I do think it's something we should think about, but I'm not ready to start planning out specific dates, but I think it is a good point because we're sort of in the

Thank you for having me.

begin thinking about it.

So even if we all are just agreeing, you know what, we're not going to really revisit this until this time frame, and then we're going to lay out a new schedule, I think just letting them know

is helpful.

And I think in terms of Rivanna, to be on the top of that list whenever we resume is the strategic planning provision.

And that's probably should be the first thing that we schedule, but that is going to be very demanding in terms of time and

attention.

And I am usually all for being all in and spending a lot of time with you all.

But at this time, it's going to be a bit of a challenge for me to dedicate the amount of time that I need to do to that.

So I hope.

I also just, this just made me think that we had canceled a meeting in July.

No, it's our vacation.

So I just wanted to double check.

That's all.

All right.

Yes.

I need to get back.

All right, so I think that was settled.

Next we have, oh, the only other item is, so Todd Divers and Jason Vandiver and I spent some time talking about the remaining funds that were left over from the CHAP program and that came in

The final number, around $250,000.

And so we had about two meetings trying to figure out a strategy since we couldn't enhance

current parameters of the CHAP program that Todd spent some time last weekend in the 11th, which I encouraged him not to do, but he did anyway, which was an off day.

But he spent some time coming up with a proposal.

And the proposal that he came up with was to, and that will be presented unless there are any,

you know concerns or different feedback from council was even though 250,000 may sound like a lot it's not for the number of people who apply for both CHAP and the real estate relief for the elderly and disabled that we have two programs and so the proposal at this time would be to give

individuals who are $25,000 and under $500 towards their June taxes, it wouldn't be an additional amount because that would be subtracted from the amount that they get in December.

which should mean that there should be about $130,000 who's estimating at this time would be remaining in that December pot.

And for individuals from $25,001 to $55,000 which is currently our max for that program and there was a lot of

suggestions about not expanding the program at this time.

So I asked if we could look at people who make up to $75,000 or whatever, and they just were really clear about the extra paperwork and stuff that they would have to do.

So those individuals with the proposal that

is in place now will receive an extra $250, which is, they still will not go over their entire, more than the amount of taxes that are due for the year.

So the June and December.

And in December, we're still working on a proposal because part of it has been that those two programs are on two different timelines.

So we want to figure out a way to merge those two programs to streamline it and

he's tossed around some ideas about that and that $130,000 that would be remaining could either be applied to families earning the $25,001 to $55,000 or it could be used to merge those programs.

And so that's what we'll be getting on the first

Not so far.

Because obviously you need to, you know,

I just said I will start the discussion tonight.

And I know they were on earlier if they needed to have any discussions during the budget or the tax presentation that was on the consent agenda.

But it'll be in the packet for the next.

I could have went to a lot of things and there were conversations about whether we just rolled it over into, you know, another

Fund or into the Viber communities or whatever.

So all of those are possibilities.

But I think this is not extra money.

It was money that was remaining.

And this program, every year we've been able to expand it a little bit to make it more favorable for homeowners who are low income.

That's another part that we discussed too is having Mr. Blair include this in our legislative agenda for next year for the General Assembly because there are several families, I'm thinking over 20, I don't have

all the information and well none of the information in front of me so hopefully I said everything correctly but there are over 20 families who keep well I think there was an additional 20 families last year so who because of their home value

changed during the assessment, no longer qualified for the program, but their income is still low.

So we would need for that to go before the General Assembly for us to be able to change that part of the program.

Yeah, and again, I have no opposition.

The question is always, I think, how to evaluate what's the most effective investments that reach the most people at the deepest levels.

But that's a much bigger conversation beyond this.

And I certainly think there is a strong case about the impact of using that money for this program versus, as you mentioned, rolling it into environment community funds or other areas.

Yeah, there probably will be more applicants and so you know that's something that we'll have to, I guess they'll update us once.

The first program, the CHAP program applications are usually out in, I think, July and back by September.

And then the rent, the real estate relief for the elderly disabled is, their applications are due in March.

So they would have just, they've done those for the June, because they get two allocations, which is something that we ran into in the discussion.

because CHAP is only one allocation, I think we may see something I brought up in the past that may be problematic that because it's not on two cycles, that the way the money is distributed, we may be challenged.

And we'll know more about that after the, whatever, June 19th property.

the real estate tax due date.

All right, so that'll be in our next packet, but it was too late for us to get it on the agenda and we wanted to make sure that we had all the documentation up and for people to be able to review it.

All right, so any other business?

Okay.

If you'd like to speak to council during the final matters by the public, please click the raise your hand icon in the webinar and we'll bring you into the conversation.

Mayor Walker, first up is Rory Stolzenberg.

Rory, you're on with council.

Great, thanks Brian.

So I just wanted to hit a couple of quick points from earlier tonight.

First off, on the subject of the parking requirements that you guys waived, that's probably my first two things.

So I went ahead into Municode

Let's actually look up what those requirements were and brush up on what that is.

Turns out it's one parking spot for every 250 square feet of dining area.

So for any restaurant that has 250 square feet of dining area, they need a parking spot that's 330 square feet on average.

And while this might not be the right time for it, I think it's a good time to start thinking about it.

Does that make sense as the requirement that we should be imposing on our restaurants?

Or should we let them decide what their trade-off between outdoor patio area and parking should be?

And at the very least, let them have somewhat less parking than 30% more of their dining area.

On a similar note, so with coronavirus reopening, the governor in his executive order 61 laid out several metrics that localities seeking exemptions to stay in phase zero could cite in order to request not moving to phase one.

So my question to you guys is, did you have those metrics at hand

Were they presented to you?

Did you have them available in order to make the decision of whether to send a letter or not?

And if so, can you post them publicly?

Mostly mentioning that because Floyd County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution citing several metrics in asking to reopen, but actually the resolution just had blank lines for where the actual data was supposed to be.

On another note, with 221s, so I definitely understand how in these kind of chaotic times you need the flexibility of 221s because noticing requirements are strict and make it hard to have meetings when you need to.

But there's nothing about 221s that stops you from having it be open.

So you can just make that Zoom publicly available

make the conversation open to everybody while not having it be a legal council meeting, but still allow the press and the public to see what you're doing, especially as you talk to the consultants who are putting together the comp plan.

which I think we all hope will be as public a process as it can be.

And lastly, on that note, the COMPLAN webinars put on by the consultants are starting this week.

So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week, there are different webinars and discussions that the COMPLAN consultants are putting on as their public engagement.

There will be more next week and then one the week after that.

So, you know, I really encourage you guys to make everyone as aware of those as you can.

You know, I would have loved to see an announcement earlier today, but I hope that many people will attend those, and I also hope that you'll notice them as much as you can, because the earlier sessions, despite having a lot of people in them, because they only had two members of the Planning Commission

and, you know, we're in technically a legal body, weren't noticed and kind of happened a little bit in the dark.

And I heard about it and showed up and sat in the stands and that may have been problematic for FOIA.

So sorry about that.

But it's really best, I think, if you post that publicly and let everyone know.

Thank you.

I just want to say that we don't have any two to one schedule with the consultant, so I don't know.

Did I miss something?

Oh, okay.

That wasn't a discussion.

I made the record.

I didn't, I was asking the question of whether the planning commission wanted an update.

from the consultants during the meeting or whether they were going to attend these meetings that he just laid out to get their update.

So I'm not sure, so I can't answer.

Mayor Walker, next up is Walt Heineke.

Thanks again for the opportunity to speak.

I also didn't start off with something that I mentioned in the last two times, and that is I just can't think of a council in the last several years that I had more trust and confidence in in dealing with these issues in an equitable way.

So thank you for all your extra effort and

and how you're sort of negotiating all these difficulties.

Also, thanks for getting the boards and commissions going again.

I especially wanted to just chat really briefly, and I really appreciate the fact that you're being sensitive to workload, psychological stress, you know,

Thank you for that.

give them some real strong guidance about what to be laser focused on.

And I think that there are a couple of issues that they could be focused on that are related to COVID specifically.

One specific issue has to do with employment discrimination.

Jordy Yeager just published an excellent article about unemployment and underemployment in minority communities in Charlottesville.

And this has been a problem prior to COVID, and it remains to be a problem during COVID, the unequal impacts of COVID on issues like employment and underemployment.

So I'm wondering if maybe you could sort of ask, if the Human Rights Commission is going to go forward, maybe you could ask them to specifically focus in on how to think about addressing issues of unemployment and underemployment in minority community in Charlottesville, and how

this is an opportunity at this point with all this ambiguity and sort of destruction with our economy, if we're gonna start to rebuild it going forward in the future, how might we think about addressing some of those issues of under and unemployment by race in Charlottesville?

The second possibility for the Human Rights Commission that's connected to its mission

is during COVID, I'm sure we're going to see a lot of shenanigans when it comes to rental units and landlords and folks being discriminated against in rental property.

So maybe they could

Take a hyper-vigilant focus in on housing discrimination cases that come to them and also making sure that everybody in Charlottesville understands their rights during the pandemic in terms of what can and cannot be done in terms of evictions and those kinds of things.

So those are two issues that are COVID related, I think, that you could ask the Human Rights Commission if they have the bandwidth to start thinking about and to start paying attention to as they start to get together and see how to move forward.

Thank you.

And he just brought up a point for me.

I know I've started the discussion about the CRB

during the, whenever we were talking about it before.

So I'm not sure what happened there, but I know we have to, I guess, appoint the next member in June.

When there were some other boards and commissions that we were waiting on maybe one more applicant or one more seat to fill and then we have gotten some some volunteer for that seat

I remember in March, I think we were about to move on and talk about some of these other things and then everything went haywire and maybe we ought to get back to look at repopulating or completely populating some of these committees.

When we did the outreach to the various committees, a number of them said, we're down a couple

members, we've got people who have left, we've got people who need to have their appointments renewed.

I wonder if we could get sort of an overall sense of how many places, how many people we need to be appointing and what we need to be doing to fill them, whether we've got them advertised, whether we've got applicants and so on.

I think staff has been working through that and they obviously have the applicants

that we had from March and then have been supplementing that with additional applicants that have come forward and they'll present that to us.

I also know the social services committee right now.

I've just found out we were already short one person.

Now we're losing at least two more, possibly three more whose terms are up and can, one needs to be reappointed and then two will be leaving with their terms being up at the end of June.

Hey Walker.

Thank you.

Any other

No.

We have some other comments.

Yes.

Mayor Walker, we have three additional people with their hands raised.

Next up is Brandon Collins.

Brandon, you're on with City Council.

Good evening, Council.

Hope you all are doing well.

I just wanted to chime in and maybe make some connections about coordination.

You know we were disappointed about our application for FY2021 CDBG funds and I think under other circumstances we probably would have pushed on y'all a lot harder with this major glitch but given the circumstances and the need to have certainty

and clarity about what to do with these types of funds in the middle of this crisis, it was really important.

We did not raise holy hell about this, but it still feels really yucky and it would be really great to get some acknowledgement from the city about this.

And I think, I do think there are some views from some of those committee members.

That would suggest that we would have been in line for funding, so that's disappointing.

I hope you will consider that in the future when you're looking at other funds because what we can't do as we're addressing immediate needs is dismantle all our efforts towards providing all layers of affordable housing being strengthened and effective and doing much better.

You know if we had a much better

Affordable Housing Strategy in place and had been moving forward on all this, so many people in our community wouldn't be struggling so hard right now.

So we got to do that work long term still, but we also need to meet this crisis.

Now what I unfortunately I think is happening, so if you look at the next round of CDBG-CV, the COVID-19 funding from the federal government,

What that has done is place agencies in competition and what we really most need right now is coordination to have a strategy because those CDBG-CV funds are pretty particular in their use.

and it would be a big mistake to fund something that can get funded through a different stream and then not be able to fund something else.

And that includes y'all's money but also federal money that's going to come in and that's why I think it's so

It's so important to have the HAC involved and get providers and government and policy folks together to come up with a mini housing strategy that looks at these things.

And I'm almost at the point of saying, you know, even make a recommendation to the CDBG task force about their CDBG CV.

It's really hard to coordinate people when we don't have leadership coordinating all that, and I think we really, really, really need that, and we really need to get the hack together as soon as possible.

There are funds that are coming from the federal government.

Hopefully there will be a whole lot more coming through, and we need to establish

some new stuff and strengthen the stuff that we have and make sure that the resources are put in the right places, otherwise we're going to leave something out and eventually just diminish the whole system.

So we really have to avoid that.

And so I really hope we can start looking at this less as a competitive process.

for funds and it's not just CDBG but in a lot of ways and move more towards a coordinated strategy that addresses this.

Housing is at the base of this entire crisis and if let this slip on any piece of it

it's gonna cause extreme mental health crisis, extreme economic crisis and extreme housing crisis.

And that's something I think the city of Charlottesville is uniquely able to make sure that that doesn't happen.

And so I really encourage this kind of coordination.

And I had a thought earlier, like,

before today about this.

And I mean, this is what lack of sleep for almost a month will get you.

But couldn't we, the dollars that we reprogram, couldn't we have just allocated that to FAR instead of putting it back into the task force?

I mean, for the priority neighborhood?

Like the $13,000 who couldn't,

Would it have been possible for instead of us reprogramming those funds back in two, since I think that's the correct category, that it's not the $34,000 that they requested, but it would have at least acknowledged that I don't have the scores right up in front of me, but I think their scores were like 2.73 or something like that.

It was just a little

And now I really don't know what I'm talking about.

That doesn't even make any sense.

But it was not that much different if someone can pull those up.

Well, those funds went to the economic sections.

I'm not sure if that's transferable, the rollover.

Go Utilities.

But that should have been for the CDBG, that should have been from the CDBG block grant versus the home funding, which is the different category.

So that's similar to like, I don't know, the economic development portion.

Yeah, those are within different nodes from what I see of this summary.

But I think I asked before how the breakdown happens.

And there was only, I don't know, Ms.

All right, Ms.

Aaron.

So what's the question?

So the extra $13,000 comes from, that wasn't in the original funding deliberation.

That popped up because a different organization from this funding year was not able to spend down all their required funds.

But we got it, the GO Utilities.

So usually in the past what the previous grants coordinators have done is they've taken any reprogramming related funds that shows up on the April 1st HUD deadline to spend, on April 1st you're supposed to send down at least 65% of your funds.

If that doesn't happen, then the grants coordinator usually

took that 65% and put it back into next year's priority neighborhood funding.