City Council Meeting   6/1/2020

Second.

All right.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

McGill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

All right.

Thank you.

And I call this meeting to order.

All right, Ms.

Ms.

Walker?

Present.

Ms.

Ms.

Yes, Mayor Walker.

OK.

Should I have something, or can I just go with what I think I'm?

OK.

Yes, ma'am.

Ms.

Second.

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

OK, so now we're going to have a moment of silence.

And Ms.

Thank you.

I would like to make an announcement.

Okay, are there any other announcements?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm using an old version.

I have a printed version.

OK.

So no other recognitions or announcements?

All right.

I move that council appoints.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

and thank you, that carries, five, zero in favor of appointing the board appointment.

So next we have the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent agenda, one minutes, May 13th and May 18th City Council meetings.

Two, resolution and appropriation.

Resolution adopting the budget and City Council amendments for the City of Charlottesville for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2020 and ending June 30, 2021 and providing for the annual appropriation of funds for such fiscal year.

Second reading.

Three, appropriation.

Appropriation for Department of Human Services fund balance for the Pathways Community Resource Hotline, $400,000.

Second reading.

4.

Appropriation.

Appropriation.

Appropriation.

Appropriation of CARES Act funding.

designed to provide emergency assistance for Charlottesville area transit and Jaunt.

Total funding $7,143,582, CAT receiving $5,357,686 and Jaunt $1,785,896, first of two readings.

Next, so is there anyone, yeah, well you just told me, sorry, I want to get it together.

Great, our first speaker is William Elder.

Mr. Elder, you're live with City Council.

Okay, thank you.

My name is William Elder.

I am here tonight to talk about the taxi registration window being closed at the Charlottesville Police Department.

I would like the city attorney to come up with a plan, a solution to reopening the service window at the Charlottesville Police Department so that new taxi driver registration can still take place.

Also, I would like the city attorney to come up with a plan or solution

to keep the Charlottesville Police Department's service window open if this virus is seasonal or if it becomes a way of life or if Virginia goes back on stage zero lockdown.

The taxi industry, ride share companies are on the essential business list.

The Charlottesville Police Department's service window is an essential process to my business.

That's all that I have.

Mayor Walker, next is Nancy Carpenter.

Nancy, you're live with City Council.

Oh, thank you very much.

Yes, my name is Nancy Carpenter here in Rose Hill neighborhood, and I wanted to comment on the city budget that you are adopting tonight.

There is one line item that I have recently, and I'm sorry that I'm kind of late to the game, but it has really stood out to me in light of the tremendous emotional trauma that we are dealing with

As a nation, when it comes to the $300,000 that you have appropriate or will appropriate, may appropriate for the school resource officer program, I'd like for you to hopefully pull that out as a line item.

and talk about how that $300,000 might, as a resource, might better be used for the community.

The folks that I have asked about it, about their experiences of their children, their experiences, I know that there were school resource officers back in the day when my son was in public school, not of this county or city.

And I think that they're,

the resulting budget issues with the pandemic, that there are certainly more stronger needs for that funding than for school resource officers, because they haven't been in school for a while.

and questionable, I mean, everybody talks about school opening up in the fall, but nobody has talked about how do you get kids to school in a socially distant way.

So I think that there are some severe questions that need to, or at least, if not this fiscal cycle, the next fiscal cycle about defunding that program and finding a more deeper way of

connecting with the community with that kind of funding.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, next is Chris Meyer.

Chris, you're on the city council.

Madam Mayor, Councillors and city staff, regarding the next year's fiscal budget, thank you for ensuring that the school system's operation budget for the upcoming year was protected and added upon during this fiscally challenging time.

I hope when the school reconfiguration budget discussion arises in the near future, that similar fiscal support will also be given at that time.

Former interim city manager's salary should be the first to be cut, and I would suggest doing so now.

Alternatively, you could ask his current employer, the CFA Institute, to donate his salary back to the city to make this right.

I'm speaking then as a citizen and resident of Fry Springs.

I'm speaking now as the executive director of the local Energy Alliance program, putting literally and figuratively my LEAP hat on.

Regarding the budget, LEAP is the implementer of the home energy conservation budget line item, which was cut from the capital improvement budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

LEAP still has some of the previous year's funding for use to service low income residents with home energy saving improvements.

However, I did not apply for the Vibrant Community Fund because I assumed we would be receiving that home energy conservation allocation.

Thus, I'd like to ask for that Vibrant Community Fund allocation process to be reopened to those organizations and agencies that had not previously applied and can respond to COVID-19 related challenges.

LEAP would like to serve more low-income residents being impacted by COVID-19 with the utility bill saving measures.

However, we would need access from the Vibrant Community Fund in order to do so.

Mayor Walker, next to speak is Andy Orban.

And before I bring him on, just a reminder, if you're on the webinar, you can click the raise your hand icon.

to get in line to talk about the consent agenda.

Mr. Orban, you're on the city council.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Like Nancy, I'm also commenting on the budget that's on the consent agenda and specifically the school resource officer line item that the city schools

It's coming out of their budget, this $300,000 per year.

The demands from this Saturday's No Justice, No Peace rally included ending the funding for school resource officers.

And this is something that is a choice that the city is making.

The choice is that the limited funding that the schools have is, you know,

a choice that we have to make.

Right now the schools have had to cut some staff including teachers assistants.

There's a Spanish program at Burley Moran that's been cut.

So you know there's trade-offs that are being made here and I would really like to you know consider in light of the things we're looking at with police funding that this slide item

gets a serious look.

If it doesn't happen this year, it definitely needs to be on the conversation for further years.

Alright, thank you.

My only comment I guess for now would be the

I know that a conversation came up last year about attempting to establish an MOU between the school system and the police department, and I wasn't at all the meetings, so I know there's just information that I don't have.

so that I can't comment on, but Chief Brackney was very much in favor of not having officers in the school system doing the discussions that I was a part of.

Based on some of the concerns that came up, there was a lot more conversations that needed to occur.

That is correct.

You know, Chief did say that she, you know, would be able to pull the officers out of the schools if needed.

But we still have a long way to go in terms of really finalizing what we're going to do in terms of our relationship with the schools and the SROs.

Yeah, that is correct.

As Mr. Blair stated, what we do is just provide that transfer.

We do have communication with them in terms of the capital dollars, but that's still mostly in terms of their discretion, what they want to spend.

But we do have those conversations with them to talk about the overall expenditures for that given fiscal year.

But other than that,

So do I understand that as a practical matter, if we were to decide we're going to stop the CSO program, it would have no net effect on our present budget.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

But they're still... Am I on?

Yes, you're on.

Okay.

Yeah, they're still our employees.

All right.

So are there any other comments?

OK, so is there a motion for the consent agenda?

Nobody else on the consent agenda.

Okay.

I'll second.

All right.

Ms.

Thomas, would you take both please?

Alright.

Did we lose her?

Councillor Magill?

Aye.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

And a yes for me, so that carries, the consent agenda carries 5-0.

All right, next we have the city manager's response to community matters from the previous, the May 18th council meeting.

Yeah, okay, I'm here, I'm sorry.

Real fast, the only item that I have for discussion tonight

is the question that Mr. Heinecke had pertaining to do we subsidize parking for businesses in the parking lot and the answer is no we don't.

I think part of sort of implicit in his question it seems to me is

is whether the city is basically charging people who park there an amount that fairly reimburses the city for the expenses associated with the operation of the parking garage.

And a secondary question to that is, how are we factoring in replacement costs?

My understanding is that we've got a net

positive return every year that is supposed to be adding to a fund that would, in theory, allow us to build new parking.

You're correct, but I'll start off by also saying that we, you know, as I mentioned before, we don't subsidize the cost of, you know, the businesses.

They pay the same amount that everybody else pays, and then that goes basically into our

and in terms of being able to look at down the road and being able to look at being able to expense it from that fund, that enterprise fund dealing with parking.

That's the overall goal.

Council, this is Brian Wheeler.

All right.

Thank you, Brian.

Blairs coming back on and he'll be with us shortly.

Okay.

All right, so I'll call this meeting back to order.

And we are, so next up we have the community matters.

I'd like to raise your hand to speak during community matters.

Click the raise your hand icon in the Zoom.

On the telephone, you can press star nine to speak during community matters.

And we will call on folks in order.

First up is Tanisha Hudson.

Ms.

Hudson, you're on with council.

First off, Brian, you're kind of low.

So is it your volume or is it not?

Yes, we can hear you, Janeshia.

Brian is down low.

I just want to touch on a few things because if this George Floyd situation taught us anything, I think that as a community, Charlottesville needs to understand that we can't keep jumping in and out of this race conversation or this systemic racism conversation or these systemic issues when it's convenient for the city.

We have a serious race issue here in Charlottesville.

had this issue for a very long time.

I mean, Lloyd, you just literally tried to answer a question that Dr. Richardson was answering literally right behind him.

And I don't think you know how, like, you trying to tell somebody how to do their job, basically.

but a lot of you on council have an issue with telling people how to do their job but it's okay for y'all to sit up and ask a million questions on if you got a vote or if you need a motion or when it's time to move so I'm just saying like y'all don't understand how y'all perpetuate race like race racism in general here in this city being white

Y'all don't understand it.

When things don't go your way, y'all get mad.

When you lose your help and your power inside the city, you get mad.

When things don't go the way that you anticipate for it to go, you get mad.

The news been writing articles about two black people not getting along downtown.

Now all y'all friends.

I wonder who leaked that information.

Because last week Nolan wrote that all y'all was friends, y'all was mending y'all hearts, holding hands, being friends.

So we got a new Mike Signer on council.

We all know who it is.

She knows who she is.

We got another Kathy Galvin on council.

She knows who she is.

Not gonna say no names, because y'all gonna cut me off.

But yo, we have our own issues right here at home.

We have a police department that aggressively polices certain neighborhoods, and they ain't in none of y'all neighborhoods, if y'all white.

It's right on this TV right now.

But y'all fail to address this type of stuff.

You fail to address this type of stuff.

Stop trying to tell other people how to do their job, and y'all learn how to do y'all job.

Because I mean, John Blair, the city attorney, and he a quality, he a QA person too.

Because he showed we're giving a lot of questions and answers back to questions that come to him.

So can we just let people do their job?

I don't understand what the problem is.

We gave y'all opportunity to do y'all job.

We give y'all opportunity to do what y'all need to do.

The three minutes expired and I did not hear her continuing.

No, you can go ahead.

Roy, you're on the City Council.

Thanks, Brian, and thanks, council.

I just wanted to address a couple of quick points here.

One is I know I'm late for the budget.

You already voted on it.

But I've been noticing that there's some pretty significant differences in the police budget between the original proposal and the adjustment, where most things were decreased, but police support services were significantly increased.

And I'm wondering what the details of that were.

And in general, if we can open up, voluntarily open up that police budget beyond the five line items and really give more detail into what's happening there for transparency for the public.

And to address Dr. Richardson mentioning Walt Heinecky's point from last time, I think Walt's point, as Councilor Snook said, is exactly that all of the spots are subsidized.

They're $135 a month now.

We have an independent appraisal from 2016 saying that they're worth at least $165 a spot, up to $200 for the reserved ones, multiplied by 1,000 spots is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

And the people who were leasing those spots are predominantly

downtown residents and businesses who have the means to pay more.

And in fact, we know that we're underpricing them and subsidizing them because there's been a wait list for years.

We have an amount of spots to sell, and we voluntarily price too low so that too many people want to buy them.

And so in doing so, we're giving up hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in revenue.

I hope you consider that.

We're not subsidizing any of the spaces.

They could be much higher, but as we talked about before, we do have people in the community who work at the different businesses downtown

who were trying to make it reasonable for them to be able to afford parking in our parking deck as well as employees who pay to be able to park in the parking deck.

community, I could not hear the timer in council chambers.

I do have my phone with the timer on it now.

And I never stopped people right at three minutes, which I know was problematic.

But I do want to at least let people know that we are about to cut them off and that we will, and just give them that, you know, notice.

Mayor Walker, next up is Hannah Hennessy.

Hannah, you're on with City Council?

Sorry about that, can you hear me?

Okay, I am representing Carlita Thompson, a community member, and I'm going to read a letter that she and I drafted to the police department.

If you'll just give me a minute to pull it up.

First and foremost, we want to say that the community

and ourselves are praying for the safety of all Charlottesville area police officers and we appreciate the service and work that they do every day that often goes unnoticed.

The last few weeks and most recent days have really thrown the whole nation for a loop.

Recently a statement was released from the police department regarding the outrage and disappointment in the recent events that took place with Mr. George Floyd.

While Chief Brackney's statement is absolutely appreciated, we feel the department can identify and conduct itself as expressly anti-racist

We hope the police department responds internally to the crisis of racism by engaging in meaningful training.

Meanwhile, the average citizen needs reassurance that CPD is on our side.

So we have a proposal, and the proposal is in the coming days, the Charlottesville police would be allowed to wear or display some sort of visual message of we hear you, we see you, or simply Black Lives Matter during their patrol or surveillance.

This visual representation could be a shirt, a headband, an armband poster, or something, anything that could be small but infinitely meaningful.

A team of volunteers from the Charlottesville community is ready to supply the department with materials, and we understand that the police department collaborates with a designer to work on designs for such a thing.

We truly believe this small gesture could change the entire atmosphere and Charlottesville could be an example to other cities that this is not a people versus police issue, but we're all in this together.

A problem for one is a problem for all.

This is the message being spread and being supported so far by the police departments in Atlanta and Cincinnati.

I hope you join us.

So thanks for listening to our proposal.

Just one quick, is Myra Anderson one?

I do not see her in the webinar at the moment.

Now, it's possible.

No, I don't know.

Yep.

Myra, if you are listening on the telephone, you can press star nine.

and I'll know it's you and we'll bring you into the meeting.

Mayor Walker, next up is Jennifer Koch.

Thanks, Brian.

Great, thank you.

I am Jennifer Koch, and I'm here representing Seville Plans Together.

This is an effort led by the Department of Neighborhood Development Services along with a consultant team, and I'm representing the consultant team tonight.

As part of this update to the comprehensive plan, we're investigating how equity and affordability can be better addressed in this long-term planning document.

And that includes a couple of things I wanted to mention.

One is a specific look at strategies related to housing affordability, as well as acknowledging the history of planning and zoning in the city and in the nation, which includes a discussion around the fact that planning and zoning have historically been used in Charlottesville and many other places to create and maintain racial segregation.

We want to be inclusive and welcoming and hear from everyone, especially those who have been marginalized or generally might not usually participate in city planning processes.

And so there's more information on the project website, which is SeavillePlansTogether.com.

But I want to give a brief update here as far as what's going on right now.

We're in this first series of conversations for this project through the end of June.

And we're trying to engage with people.

It's happening differently than it happened than we planned originally due to COVID.

We had planned a kickoff in late March and into April with a lot of small discussions in the community, meeting people face to face.

and answering questions.

So we've had to move to our virtual environment for now, as we have in many places such as this meeting.

And I won't go into the different opportunities, but we have had webinars which were recorded and are available online.

And we have small group discussions going on that people can register for.

And I want to make sure to mention there is a survey available on our website.

It's available through June 24.

And it's available in English and Spanish.

There's also a toll-free number people can call.

It's 833-752-6428.

You can get a brief project overview in English or Spanish and let us know if you have questions.

Lastly, there's also a steering committee meeting tomorrow night that anyone can register to attend.

So this is just the first step in the process, and I would welcome any of you or any community members listening to please get involved.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, next up is Chris Meyer.

Thank you.

Banana Mayor, councilors, and city staff again.

First, I wanna say to my neighbors of color, please accept my acknowledgement that we have systemic racism that needs to be addressed, and my hope that we can rid ourselves of it in the near future.

City Councilors, many of your constituents and lower income constituents work for UVA directly or through contractors such as Aramark and were recently laid off and furloughed while dozens of UVA's executives continue to earn salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I do not know the exact percentages, but it's probably probable that many of those laid off and furloughed were disproportionately African American, especially the Aramark employees.

Additionally, I learned at the Housing Advisory Committee meeting last week that it appears UVA did not respond to a request by the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless to help with the housing of 30 high-risk homeless people by using some of the dozens, if not hundreds, of empty dorm rooms on its campuses.

Meanwhile, and at the same time, sorry, scarce city emergency response money has been helping pay for these 30 homeless people to be lodged in a local hotel at a cost of $70,000 a month.

While UVA's health systems medical capabilities is an asset to this community during COVID-19, in many other areas, UVA is not being a good neighbor to your city residents and constituents.

I hope you counselors and city staff can engage UVA more actively to secure the systemic changes necessary for them to be a better neighbor in the future.

Mayor Walker, next up is Angela and Angela, I'm usually not calling on you, so I'm sorry, I don't know how to pronounce your last name, but Angela with the Legal Aid Justice Center.

Thank you, Brian.

This is Angela Cholfi with the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I'm here to speak to the Vibrant Communities Fund allocation, though I just want to say that I appreciate all the speakers who have lifted up the cause of racial equity in their comments.

Turning to the Vibrant Communities Fund, we greatly appreciate having the opportunity to provide council and staff an update on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting both our operations and the need for our services.

So thank you.

Of course, we appreciate that over the last week the environment in which you are being asked to make decisions has changed, yet again as communities all over the country express their pain and outrage and demand liberation from racist oppression.

As you make decisions tonight and over the next few weeks about how to allocate nonprofit funding, I implore you to recognize that the original process for funding did not effectively account for racial equity.

And this is something that you have recognized in previous meetings.

As a result, certain programs for whom racial equity is an explicit goal did not receive enough consideration in the process.

The Legal Aid Justice Center would like to lift up

The proposals of organizations that promote racial equity, such as CINVADERAS, the FAR Intern Program, and the Community Investment Collaborative.

We, using the language of the rubric, we hope you will agree that these programs are essential to the struggle for racial equity in the city of Charlottesville.

And of course, we also want to lift up our own racial equity proposal.

We continue to posit that the support that LAJC provides to low-income residents' efforts to advocate for racial equity is both exemplary in quality and at least important to the success of those efforts.

that we put those essential programs that I listed, Simbereras, FAR, and CIC ahead of our own.

Strengthening nonprofits that seek to build power and wealth in communities of color and explicitly embrace racial equity as an animating feature of their work should be a top priority for council at any time, but particularly at this time.

Thank you for your consideration.

Mayor Walker, next up is Nancy Carpenter.

Nancy, you're on the city council.

Thank you.

I'm Nancy Carpenter, city resident.

Trying to keep my thoughts together here.

I need to recognize that I stand on the ground where I am that has stolen Monacan land and I live in a country that was built on the backs of enslaved black people.

I also want to say that I, too, as a community resident, along with Chris Meyer, am disappointed at UVA's stance when it comes to being a good player in our community.

I don't understand that a university that was so closely aligned with the eugenics movement, that was so closely aligned with stealing black bodies out of the grave,

to do experiments or to do whatever they did that took so long to even acknowledge their connection to the deep confederacy would not think that it would be a good idea to utilize a few dorm rooms because we know

or at least in my opinion, we know that some of those students are not going to be back in the fall immediately.

And it's not going to be a long-term thing.

I think this was supposed to be maybe a way of getting them off the street and especially out of harm's way should we face any of the repercussions for police brutality and especially tonight in light of what that moron who is squatting at 1600

Penn Ave just did and said we got by Saturday with a good organizational infrastructure.

I don't know if that organizational infrastructure will ever be able to hold back if our military decides to do a Kent State and fire on unarmed peaceful protesters.

So I'm really disappointed that we couldn't take the time to look at those who are most vulnerable, who represent the minority race in this community, but they are the majority who seem to be suffering the ravages of the challenge of homelessness and also our carceral system.

So I'm really disappointed.

I'm sure that some of you worked really hard if you were at the table trying to convince them

to do that, but I think it's another dark stain on UVA's legacy in this community.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, next up is Walt Heineke.

Walt, you're on with council.

Thanks, Brian.

Members of City Council, Dr. Richardson, and Mr. Blair, thanks for the opportunity to speak with you tonight.

I first wanted to say, as a citizen, I really, really appreciated the mayor's statement about justice for George Floyd, justice for Breonna Taylor, and justice for Ahmaud Arbery.

those words were very impactful and very meaningful and I think mean a lot to us as citizens in terms of the direction that we're going, especially when other leaders are not making such strong statements about the need for justice, racial justice in the country and in this community.

So I just wanted to say, I wanted to thank you very much, Madam Mayor, for your strong words.

and I appreciated them very much.

I think our task now is to figure out how to translate that sentiment into policies and change in Charlottesville.

There's a lot of people in Charlottesville who have lost faith in the police department.

There's a lot of talk about abolishing the police department.

And I think in those sentiments are some really clear messages about making some pretty significant changes and reforms in policing.

What we can do now and what you could do now I think is really important and I'd like to urge you since the circumstances have changed very radically to rethink your decision in November about the bylaws and the ordinance for the Charlottesville Civilian Review Board, Police Review Board.

I think it's time for us to go back to the August submission and rethink about how to give that PCRB stronger

More teeth and stronger authority and community oversight.

I think that was delivered to you in August.

Three of you in your campaigns during the campaign season discussed your commitment to those original bylaws, and I'd like you to rethink that and recommit to that.

So I think it's important for us to think about what we can do.

Secondly, I think we could take another look at the DMC report and ask some questions about whether or not the police department really delivered and shared data so that we know what's going on in the police department's part of the disproportionate minority contact with the judicial system.

I think there are some unanswered questions there and some problems.

Third, I think you could take a really good hard look at the police budget.

I personally don't want my tax money going to the police department to buying military equipment, more surveillance equipment, and increasing their ability to surveil, especially people of color in this community.

So I think there are things that we can do to turn those

intentions that we're all talking about now for racial equity in policing into actual policies and actual action in this community in an attempt to make sure that we don't lose further trust of the community with the police.

On another topic.

Okay.

On another topic, just quickly.

Well, that's your time.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

and I'll just and that was from when I started to press the button that was three minutes and 38 seconds so I just want to share that and I'll cry and I used to watch the clock in council chambers I hadn't been doing it here and and it's presenting to be a challenge even today so I'll say that but I'll figure figure that part out but what I'll say about the statement is that

You know, Chief Brackney had prepared a statement and was going to issue it.

Council got that notification around, I think it was 504 p.m.

Friday.

and I responded to the statement that I thought it needed to be more than Chief Brackney.

Again, it's Friday, it was late.

I told Dr. Richardson that I thought that we should join the statement.

So Dr. Richardson and I even joining on her statement

It wasn't something that was planned, it was something that was last minute and it took me a while even to get my thoughts together and figure out exactly what I wanted to say and so they waited on me for quite a while to even and that's how I ended up being posted so late.

and so that is how that statement came to be and council didn't, we didn't have notification, I just happened to be on the computer when that came through so I was able to respond to it.

The other councilors have stated their support and have even asked if they needed to sign on to those statements or issue

their own, Counselor Snook sent that email the next morning after thanking us for issuing the statement.

So there was broad support for the message that went out.

If I could just comment briefly on the CRB piece of it.

I know this is something that's continued to come up.

I've said it before at previous council meetings, I've said it in meetings with several people.

I do think we could benefit from trying to go back to the original bylaws and working through what isn't allowed under state law and restrictions, what's not, and getting to a place of consensus there.

you know we've had this conversation as a council many times that's not where the majority of council is at so I understand their perspective and we just have to move forward and right now in this budget there is still funding to hire that first staff position for the CRB the board after tonight's meeting the board is finalized and we'll be able to begin meeting and then the plan that the majority of council has consensus on is for

Once that board begins to come together, then that initial board can begin to examine as they begin to operate what resources they need.

I think it's more accurate to say that they have the ability to ask us to modify their bylaws rather than they have the ability to modify their own bylaws.

Yes.

And that's where I still am.

I think that it's very important for us to have the CRB.

I think it's even more important that the community hasn't come on board with, that even a CRB is a very reactive organization looking at something related to equity.

and the equity office that I've asked for, that is a more proactive measure.

Even with that said, I fully support the CRB.

And what we've said all along is that the new board members can tell us how they function best.

once they meet.

We appointed the final board member where we were that was on the next council agenda.

We did that during our closed session today and we intend to authorize for the PCRB to begin to meet so that they can start having these conversations and

and work with Dr. Richardson and his team to get an executive director for that department up and running.

So it is our intention to hear from them what they say they need.

In terms of the second position, I still feel like we need to have

One, wait for them to hear, wait to hear from them about what they believe their needs are and then have that conversation also with Dr. Richardson on how closely maybe the positions that's already in the police department mirror that and then what's the next step.

Yes, Mayor Walker.

Our ninth speaker is Tim Wallace.

Tim, you're live with the council.

Hello.

Great.

I also wanted to address the CRB, and I'll try to do so very quickly because I realize we've talked about it quite a bit in the last few minutes.

I wanted to point out that there's a missed opportunity in how the city is funding the

the Civilian Review Board and I think it's an easy thing to fix and I hope that if the members of the new Civilian Review Board request this that the city takes it seriously.

And what I want to do is I want to lift up one of the original requests that the People's Coalition and members of the initial Civilian Review Board requested, which is the initial request for funding was $190,000 and that number wasn't

wasn't random, it was tied to the police department's budget.

They asked for 1% of the police department's budget, and that that be a benchmark for what funding the civilian review board should get going forward.

And y'all were so close.

You had $150,000.

And I'm really thrilled that there was a serious amount of money for the CRB.

But I really think that not tying the CRB's funding to the police department's budget is a missed opportunity.

there is power in making the decision to tie the amount of funding to the police budget because it's an opportunity to recognize that the more power you give to the police, the greater the need for oversight of how that power is used.

You're so close to 1%, $40,000 more and a non-binding guidance to tie future funding for the CRB to 1% of the police budget would be a powerful statement, especially right now.

All right, and I have to think about that last statement.

But I also think how just trying to process the, again, need to ensure that we are looking at the big picture and that we are funding

you know change agents that we're funding, initiatives that can truly impact what hundreds of years of oppression has done to the community and to know that every dollar that you put one place that you're taking a dollar from another place and it shouldn't be that way but at this point the way that things are working out that's the way it is.

So we have to have a conversation about the entire city budget, where money is allocated, what's its funding, whether it's funding equity-related initiatives, whether we're funding stuff in the way we are funding it, and it's not just one department.

It's overall.

And how do we look at that?

And I think sometimes we get hung up on just this one thing, that it's a really big thing, but we don't look at what are all the things around that is going to make this community whole.

And so that's what I've been doing in these conversations even as I got a lot of heat last year for people assuming that it wasn't support when there's nothing anyone can ever say to me that I'm not working to make sure that people's lives

are enhanced during my time serving on council in a great way in every room I'm in having that conversation about what does justice really look like.

So I think it's important just to look at the whole picture and that's what we are attempting to do here.

Mayor Walker, could I make a comment on

I apologize my network seemed to cut out during the consent agenda but there was a comment about accepting taxi cab driver applications and right now Dr. Richardson is in charge of city facilities and he's issued his order about the closure of this building and that does affect the police department and

Yeah, that would be part of our phased approach in terms of us reopening when we get to that point.

But we still have a ways to go.

One thing that we did and that was with tonight is had the first reading of that particular amendment to that ordinance to be able to allow taxi drivers to be able to get

and a licensor that they need throughout the year up until that cutoff date of December 30th.

Yes, we did.

Tonight the first reading now permits a kind of a rolling basis during the year.

You don't have to meet a certain cutoff date.

The previous ordinance before we did this amendment was very confusing for everyone.

And, you know, after speaking to Mr Elder, we wanted to try to come back and do something that would help him with the issue that he was having in terms of getting

that licensure.

And Mayor Walker, that's William Elder who spoke about the taxi issue earlier.

Mr. Elder, you're back on.

Okay, thank you.

I was listening to the comment that was just made about the taxi window being open for registration and the update in the code.

The code reads that

All previous drivers must register from or before March 1.

That is what the code reads.

That is for drivers that had registered that previous year.

So if we're talking about 2019 and 2020,

That is speaking to drivers that registered in 2019 that would need to have registered before March 1.

You have a period of time from January 1 to March 1 to register and renew as a previous driver.

And if you go further in the code, it says that for anyone else they would have to come

and Register with the Chief of Police, which is the taxi registration at that window.

So the code is in place.

That is how the registration process has been taking place for the last 12 years.

And so that is the concern of the council tonight.

but that isn't the ultimate goal of myself.

Where did he go?

Okay.

Well, let's just let him finish.

Well, I mean, you know, we were, we were kind of, you know, having a conversation, so I'm, I'm finished for now, but yeah, of course there's more to say because that window is not open.

and the window should have been open, you know, weeks after the pandemic happened.

They should have had a solution to it and instead the solution was to say no.

The window has been open for business the last 12 years

for new taxi driver registration from the beginning of January to the end of December.

And that is how the code reads.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

And I'll let Chief Brackney, I mean, I spoke with Mr. Elder, too.

And I'll just say that in terms of what we're thinking about, I know the issue came up here because apparently there were more drivers who they needed more drivers based on, I guess, the demand at that time.

But Dr. Richardson, I hope that you will all continue to weigh the request against also the safety and well-being of the employees.

You know, too, when we're trying to figure that out.

And that's exactly what we've been trying to do is to make sure, well, most importantly, ensure that our employees are safe.

And like I said, once we get back to

looking at phasing in different departments to come back to that and look at that again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council.

Actually, this ordinance was brought before you as part of a resolution to attempt to assist Mr. Elder.

In fact, the ordinance was extremely confusing and limited opportunities for individuals to renew licensing after or before a certain date.

And then also, too, although it may have been a practice,

it actually we're codifying what was possibly a practice that may have been a practice that was in violation of the code.

So what we've done when I spoke to Mr. Blair is what was the opportunity to increase applications throughout the entire year so that if an individual wanted to get a license they could get one, but also to remove a barrier from an individual who may not have had the opportunity to renew

under the previous codes by the March 31st deadline.

Also too, I can appreciate Mr. Elder wants our services to be open but services throughout the entire city are restricted based on the

the COVID-19 pandemic.

And he is correct.

Things may have been done for the past 12 years differently.

But we've never had to deal with a pandemic at this point.

OK.

Thank you.

All right.

OK.

So Mr. Elder, it's just one time we have a Matters by the Public at the end of the meeting, and you're welcome to come back on at the end of the meeting to speak.

All right.

Music

you

you

you

Is Councilor Payne on?

I'll call this meeting back to order.

Next up we have an ordinance.

It's one reading and it requires a four-fifth vote.

It's appropriation for the remaining 250

from the fiscal year 20 real estate tax relief for the elderly and or disabled and the Charlottesville Housing Affordability Program to fund a one-time COVID-19 real estate tax relief grant.

and Mr. Vandiver, if he'll turn his mic back on.

And our treasurer.

Well, I mean, yeah, I can't really add much to what the mayor just said.

There's $250,000 give or take left over from FY20 Real Estate Tax Relief and CHAP.

There had been some discussion about trying to apply that.

to some low-income housing needs and so we were asked to come up with a proposal and this is it.

You know it's we would essentially use the population of applicants that we've already got sort of in the can from the CHAP program and the real estate tax relief program and this would give them a sort of a shot in the arm on the first half

you know, sort of to get through a little bit here, there'd be two levels of grants, $250 and $500.

So basically it's, you know, it's in y'all's court.

If you want to go ahead and do this for this purpose, or did you want to hold onto that $250,000 for the end of the fiscal year?

Jason, you got anything you want to

And I'll just say that everyone knows that this is something that I've been really passionate about expanding and figuring out how to make this as progressive as a program as we can under some of our restrictions under the state law.

And this is one of the ways that we can ensure that

Homeowners who income at this point is under $55,000 that they receive some relief.

We started out the year having discussions about expanding the program and because of the pandemic and the financial climate that we're in, it was advised that we consider not expanding the program this year.

And so this would provide the homeowners a little bit more relief in the categories of $25,001 and up than they would have received.

And this is not new funding.

This is funding that was allocated for this purpose last year and that was remaining.

And so I just want to make that point clear also.

Not a question, I guess it's a comment.

I plan on supporting this, and I guess the only question to me is something you've mentioned, Mayor Walker, at many meetings in the past, is just how do we work towards a point where we're able to evaluate the relative impact of investments in each area?

Because again, I support this, and I think there's

Plenty of reason to think that this is one of the most impactful investments we could make.

I mean, $500 going in a grant to households under $25,000 is in some ways a kind of economic stimulus in some limited way for that population.

but just thinking you know just something I thought about in this proposal is like how do we evaluate this 200,000 going here versus another investment as well as the fact that over 60 percent of the city are renters not homeowners and you know the questions around renter relief and the pressures that they'll be there which is a much bigger issue but it was just something I'm thinking about in terms of how do we

How do we measure whether using limited money is the most impactful way?

And of course, I agree of what hopefully our measurements and solutions task force will turn into, because it's very important for us to be able to

I agree.

And that was just the statement I was going to make, was hoping that that group will be able to give us some clarity there.

So I agree, and I will support this.

Well, that group won't be able to do it for this.

Right.

And the big assist this kind of gives is, the CHAP program in particular is, they don't see that until the second half.

And we also started the discussion about merging those two programs and figuring out.

So Todd and Jason will be bringing a proposal to us at some point for consideration.

to try to streamline both of those programs and just make it a little bit easier for staff and citizens.

Thank you.

So if there's no, are there any further comments or discussion?

Yes, I am.

I had to drop off a second ago.

okay I was off for about 30 seconds okay all right so I'll make the motion Mayor Walker yes just one quick on the Q&A function that Miss Carlita Thompson's asked can you repeat the name of that program again please and

This is part of the item.

It's both, for Ms.

Thompson, is both the Charlottesville Housing Affordability Program and the Real Estate Tax Relief for the Elderly and Disabled Persons Program, both of those programs.

All right.

And just one more point before I call that I did forget.

There potentially will be about $130,000 remaining at the end of the year because the zero to $25,000, that first tier, they will get the $500,000 relief.

And right now, hopefully, that is money that we can either do something similar with, something different,

Well shouldn't we also look at maybe saving some of that since it's based on your taxes from the year before so that next year's demand might be higher as the

Yeah, so that's why I said we could do something similar, something different.

It's looking like based on the initial review that we may need some extra funding to change.

The real estate tax relief program right now is, applications are due by March 1st, and the CHAP program applications are due by September.

But like the mayor said we anticipate about $130,000 in savings in FY21 because of this.

because a lot of folks are going to be getting $500 of their CHAP grant in the first half instead of the second half.

And in that first tier, they get 100% of their taxes.

So if they receive the 100% in December, they would essentially get $500 more.

And since we can't pay them, nor do we want to more for this particular program more than their tax amount, that money would be saved.

And there was a lot of discussion about what to do up front, but it was decided that this was the best

It's just time for us.

Ms.

Okay, Mr. Payne.

Yes.

Yes, now I can.

Ms.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

And next up, we have general business.

And I feel like I'm forgetting something.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you.

Sure thing.

All right.

Thank you.

Have a good evening.

So is there any general or other business

So next we have the second matters by the public.

Mayor Walker, we do have some hands raised and if you'd like to speak under other matters by the public click the raise your hand icon.

If you're on via telephone you can press star 9.

and Mayor Walker, first up is William Elder.

Hello?

Can we come back to me, please?

Yep, we'll come back.

Next up is Tanisha Hudson.

Tanisha, you're on with council.

Hello again, everyone.

I wasn't quite finished the first time.

So I just wanted to reiterate the race issues that we have in Charlottesville, the way that you guys continue to perpetuate

White supremacy in the city government.

I don't think you all get it because we were here in 2016 before they marched.

We were here again in 2017 before they marched.

We were here in 2017 after they marched.

We were back in the same seat in 2018.

And here we are in 2020 because a national murder happened on TV by a police officer.

We're back having the same discussions about race.

And it gets uncomfortable for some of you white folks because y'all jump in and then y'all jump out of the discussion and you jump into it and you act like you want to do the right thing.

Then you give us a little bit, but then you take it back.

But then you slap us in the face with it, but then you fall right back.

to where you were.

Like we really have got to accept that we have a serious race issue, not only in Charlottesville, but in America.

You guys allow everybody else to come here and do their job except black people.

Nikuyah done been through bullshit, Wes went through bullshit, now Dr. Richardson and Latisha going through bullshit and any other black person.

I'm pretty sure the director of transportation going through it too.

But y'all don't understand the things that y'all do.

And y'all do it publicly.

So y'all can keep saying that this person talked to this person or whatever.

Y'all do it so publicly.

I just called Lloyd Snook on something he did tonight.

Y'all do it so publicly.

Brian Wheeler just shut me completely out of asking a question about cab vouchers on 360 live.

I mean, literally live.

And then made sure he cut me off tonight.

He still ain't learned his lesson.

One of the three minutes was up and out.

He still cut me off.

He didn't give me no warning sign or nothing.

I bet y'all I won't check him.

And not nay one of y'all that's on this TV screen, from the counselors to anybody in any office, city manager's office, Mr. Blair, the mayor, none of y'all, not nay one of y'all still asked me about that FOIA request.

Do y'all not care?

Do y'all not care?

Because that in itself was disturbing.

But if it was Nikuyah emailing somebody, y'all would have made sure that y'all dropped the dime for Nolan to write a story about it.

If it was Dr. Richardson responding to somebody, y'all would have made sure y'all dropped the dime for somebody to write a story about it.

if it was the tissue responded to somebody or saying something in a meeting and God forbid if we talk about money or the budget.

Y'all make sure that those topics are discussed in the newspaper.

But this FOIA request was really kept quiet.

I wonder why, because a white man said it.

Because if a black person would have talked that way, he wouldn't have a job.

And y'all know that because Maurice is gone.

If a black person failed to do their job fully and thoroughly, they get fired.

But a whole lot of y'all white people get bad with doing a little bit of nothing all the time or being disrespectful and nothing happened.

So see, we have our own race issues right here in our own backyard.

I'm sorry?

That's your time.

It's been three minutes and 46 seconds.

OK, you got it, Mayor.

Thank you.

And I'll just comment real quick again on the FOIA requests.

When FOIA requests go out, we are made aware that they are going out.

We are made aware of potential issues that could come out of the FOIA.

So I'll say that one.

That's my only comment.

I have a good comment, but I'll just reserve for later.

That's my only comment at this time.

Mayor Walker, William Elder.

Let's see if he's ready.

Yes, I'm ready.

Thank you.

Sorry for the delay.

So I just wanted to finish up that

I am not against the code being more user friendly for all taxi drivers.

I just want to encourage everyone including the Chief of Police and everybody at the council to come up with a solution to open up the taxi window, the service window at the Charlottesville Police Department.

If a sex offender can come and register

For anything at that window, I feel that we are able and we're capable of coming up with a solution to opening up that window safely, especially during stage one.

We're gonna be in stage two shortly, and there's no plan for opening up that window.

And that's all I have tonight.

Thank you.

Yes, Mayor Walker, Walt Heinecke.

We're on public comment, right?

Okay, thanks.

Just a couple things to follow up on the parking issue.

I think what I heard tonight was a matter of semantics.

If we're not charging full market rate, and we could be, and we could be charging business owners and wealthy residents a higher amount for those parking spots,

We are losing revenue that could be going to the affordable housing fund.

The answer I heard was sort of semantic.

I do understand that there are city employees that park there that do need a subsidy and they should have a subsidy or a lower rate.

But if we're not charging full freight for the business owners and the upper income homeowners in that area, then we are subsidizing parking.

So I heard semantics there.

The other thing I couldn't get to that I wanted to express concern about was the issue of affordable housing and I'm just really concerned when it comes to rental assistance that we're about to hit a huge bubble and folks are going to be having a

incredible struggle to pay their rent and I think this is going to lead to a significant amount of more of displacement in Charlottesville unless council can come up with some more creative ways to address that so I hope that you you can I know it's a struggle

I know it's difficult right now, but I hope you can give some attention to the affordable housing fund.

And then just lastly, just to reiterate on the PCRB, I feel like you're kicking the can down the road to the PCRB.

CRB members, I think you should give them the fullest, strongest version and let them come back to you and say if they want to water it down.

But you're the policymakers.

You're the ones that set the rules for the beginning of the whole thing.

We don't want to end up doing what we did with the Human Rights Commission, which is to water it down in the ordinance.

So I would really urge you to engage in another discussion about changing that ordinance back to the August version and letting them have the full authority that they can have, the greatest amount of authority they can have, considering what's going on in the country right now.

How are we going to be proactive about stopping what's going on in the country from happening here in Charlottesville?

So I hope you'll re-engage in a discussion about that.

No issue.

Thank you.

I just wanted to ask relative to the CAF funding, I know that this was taken up by the HAC last week.

Can you hear me?

Okay, yeah, pretty sure it will be.

I am going to have another conversation with Mr. Sales in the morning about that and see how we can move forward.

I know that he's been having some discussions or I think he already has discussions with the council.

Okay, yeah, to get those scheduled and going.

So, yes, it shouldn't be that long.

I'm not sure if you were there or not at the HAG meeting, Walt, but if you weren't, John Sales developed a proposal for using most of the CAF for rental assistance, homeless assistance, as well as some mortgage relief.

I mean, there's no way around it, though.

I mean, that proposal has been developed and will help.

The reality is just the amount of existing need there is, particularly as courts begin and evictions begin again, is that we could dump much more money into this program, which we don't have the money to do.

But it still wouldn't meet all the need.

and I, you know, from the two, two ones that we had with Mr. Sales, what he presented, I thought he did a great job and was well thought out and it was attempting to meet the needs of all the particular, you know, particular issues that could come up this time.

And then just finally, there was $400,000 tonight that will be going into some of the city's emergency assistance fund that will also hopefully provide some ability for folks to be able to cover emergency bills that may come up that have been down to zero and that will be $400,000.

And that's, you know, really telling.

I think the partnership that we had with CACF and the resources that Albemarle County put in and the $400,000 is on top of the $80,000 that was already in there for us and the $130,000 that we allocated attempting to get that up closer to the requests that were coming in and we were still a little ways away from that.

but as Councilor Payne was talking about the need, five, six week period allocated more than I think $3.4 million.

And that was some private donations.

The first donation from the university, well, maybe not first, I don't know if there will be another, but the donation from the University of Virginia.

our contribution, the county contributions and some contributions that were for the surrounding counties.

And so that need is great.

And it's just something for us to keep in mind while we are trying to figure out how we are gonna survive this pandemic and make sure that our citizens are as strong as possible on the other end because we will pay for it one way or the other.

Mayor Walker, we have two others.

Don Gathers,

You're on with council.

Don, can you hear us?

Excuse me.

Sorry, I didn't realize I was muted on my end.

That's all right.

Go ahead.

Good evening, everyone.

As we know, we're facing really two pandemics in this country right now.

COVID-19 as well as the continued murder of black and brown people by police officers in other parts of the country.

And we're very fortunate that we have not had those issues here.

But I think that this is an extremely powerful time and an important time to go ahead and get the CRB up and off the ground and running to fully fund them, also to go ahead and

to reinstitute the original bylaws as has been asked by previous callers and previous statements have been made.

Those bylaws really had some real teeth to the committee and gave them the real opportunity and some latitude to do some real work in and for the community.

So I would urge you all to please consider that we go back to the original bylaws, the original statements, and let's just do something

Good and powerful and viable to the community.

Mayor Walker, next is Rory Stolzenberg.

Rory, you're on the council.

Thanks.

Sorry, I'm a little distracted.

I just saw all the videos that Richmond Police just tear gassed a huge open crowd way before curfew for absolutely no reason.

And obviously, across the country, we're seeing that.

And I just want to acknowledge that.

Sorry.

So, and I think it's maybe also important to acknowledge that Charlottesville police did better this weekend and didn't escalate things and I think actually did their jobs pretty well.

And I hope that means, you know, they took their first step towards

Having a more just system.

But I guess to the point I was supposed to have, I got some notes here.

For parking, if we're underpricing it and leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars in the

of Revenue on the Table, that is a subsidy.

And Dr. Richardson mentioned that it's to make it more affordable.

And I think that might make sense as a goal.

So maybe instead of kind of handing it out to everyone who has a spot, or at least is one, you make it a targeted program.

And I think

you know even if you made it available for anyone under AMI, median income and charge everyone else market rate I bet in those garages where you're paying less than

or where you're already paying $135 a month instead of going to the free parking just a few blocks away, I bet just a tiny fraction of people with those parking passes will actually use it.

And I think it's important to remember that the parking fund, when it was created, it's not just to build new parking.

It's also potentially for use for other good work, particularly things related to reducing parking demand downtown, like better infrastructure.

So people who don't have cars to rely on and need to rely on other forms of transportation can get around the city better.

So yeah, I hope we'll really think about what our goals for that fund are now.

We know it has a seven figure balance and really think about what our goals as a city are and direct the funds that we have to the places we want to spend them on.

Madam Mayor, can I make a quick comment about Rory's last comment on parking?

We've had a new parking study done about every five years.

maybe four years.

We had one done back in 2016 that resulted in the plan that got implemented very briefly in 2017 where we put in parking meters and then we took them out right after August 12th because the downtown business people were saying that it was stifling business and making downtown unfriendly.

My point is simply that there are some very complex issues of overall philosophy and economic development and all kinds of other things that go into that.

And I would note that that study said we do not have a parking space problem, only a parking management problem, and that there is no time of day, any day of week, where both the Market Street and Water Street garages are at capacity.

And in particular, the Water Street garage is very far away from capacity, even at that noontime rush hour.

But we have clearly already decided

OK.

Any other comment?

No?

All right.

Mayor Walker, if I could make a brief program announcement for those watching.

Okay.

Once council goes into a closed meeting, we will end the broadcast on channel 10 and on our live streams.

We will keep this webinar running.

So if anyone wants to tune in at the end, when council comes back and reconvenes and certifies the closed meeting, this webinar will still be running.

All right, thank you.

Are we using the link we used earlier?

All right, Ms.

Thomas, could you take the vote, please?

Ms.

Walker?

Yes.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

All right, great.

That's correct.