City Council Special Meeting   4/12/2022

It was yesterday, but thank you.

I'm asking that people go to City of Promise and make a contribution there to fund basically entrance fees for people in the neighborhood to go to Washington Park Pool for the summer.

So my chance to give a free plug.

Yes.

Okay, so it looks like we're all here, Mr. Rogers, everybody you need here?

Yes, sir.

We're all here.

Okay, and of course, right now, my printer just decided it was going to start printing something, so you'll be hearing that in the background.

I'll call this special meeting of City Council to order.

We have a, actually, the first thing we have to do is take a roll call.

Ms.

She's here.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Councillor Payne.

Did folks see the email?

I move the agenda.

Right.

So I'm happy to do that.

I move to amend the agenda for this special meeting to include a first reading of a proposed ordinance to increase the meals tax from six cents to six and one-half cents.

This increase was advertised publicly

And all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Now, I guess having moved to amend the agenda, we should now adopt the amended agenda.

I'll second that.

Second, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right, so action items.

The first action item is the ordinance to enact a budget and tax levy for fiscal year 2023.

Before getting started on this, I just wanted to make one statement of my own.

that my wife is actually a retiree of the city of Charlottesville, having been deputy city attorney for eight years.

back in the 1980s as a consequence of which she gets a small pension.

The increase in the pension that is being suggested this year would mean about $6 a month more to us.

And I am told by Ms.

Robertson that that is not something that disqualifies me from voting, but that is recommended we disclose it.

It should amount to about a $75 increase for the entire year.

So having made that disclosure,

I'm ready to go.

We have spent, it's been a long budget season.

We've had a series of meetings.

We've listened as staff to your various proposals and desires to address issues in our community.

We have worked together to come to a budget that

meets all of your requirements or at least most of them within a balanced basis and increases our 2022 budget by I think it was $212 million over 192 from 2022 and all the big important things have been covered and

Lisa and Chrissy have worked on the ordinance that was sent to you.

I hope you've had an opportunity to review it.

I'll defer to Chrissy.

I'll just say that in general, a budget approval and appropriation ordinance is primarily focused on approving the

expenditures for the upcoming year, and the revenues are included just to verify that City Council is not adopting more in the way of expenditures that it believes it will have income to fund during the course of the fiscal year.

And then a lot of language in the appropriation ordinance is sort of technical language to accommodate a number of accounting issues that we have throughout the year.

Thank you, Lisa.

Yes, so the budget ordinance reflects all of the information that was in the proposed budget that we presented to you, the amendments that are reflective of our meeting that we had last week, and those are also itemized in the memo that accompanies the ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Hamill.

Thank you.

I note in the packet that we received earlier today that there are two motions

listed on page seven, and then there's also a motion listed on page 25 for the personal property tax relief percentage.

Actually, it's already in there as two.

I see.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

I don't know why I didn't look down to paragraph two.

Okay.

So is there any discussion?

We've obviously all had a lot of discussion over the last few months of these issues.

And I think we had a very productive meeting last Thursday where we focused on the issues that were

to some extent in debate, and I thought we did a very good job of working through those with, I hope, sufficient clarity so that the staff was able to get it all down.

I will confess that I have not gone over every number in the document that was prepared for us today, but I have confidence that it's all correct.

I'm happy to do so, Mr. Mayor.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

If not, Ms.

Councillor McGill?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Wade?

I move the ordinance to establish the annual tax levy for the city of Charlottesville for tax year 2022.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

I will note

simply that I disagree with the levy of raising the real estate tax by one cent, but given the fact that we just passed a budget that now has to be funded, I'll be voting yes.

Doesn't change my underlying feeling, but we do have to balance the budget.

Any other discussion?

Ms.

Councilor Madill?

Yes.

Councilor Payne?

Then let's see, we've got the next item on the agenda is to establish the tax year tax relief percentage.

Mr. Divers, I noticed you're on the call.

Yeah, sure.

Briefly, I think as most of you know, every locality gets a certain amount of a grant from the state to go towards tax relief on personal property.

This is a vestige of a

Governor Gilmour has promised to do away with the car tax that the Commonwealth tried to do for a while and found that he couldn't afford it.

And so then it capped the relief.

And so we get a certain amount of money from the state every year.

That money has to be allocated across all eligible vehicles.

Anything valued less at $1,000 or less, it's 100% relief.

And then all other vehicles

get relief according to that percentage up to the first $20,000 of value, excuse me.

And so we have to do this calculation every year.

And we're putting it at 32% this year, which is last year was 42.

But as you know, the valuation has gone up considerably.

So, you know, that's a pretty big drop for one year, but it is what it is.

Thank you.

Yes, I move the resolution establishing the personal property tax relief percentage for tax year 2022.

That the.

Tax year 2022, but fiscal year 2023.

Okay.

I want to make sure we weren't inadvertently doing something wrong.

All right.

You're good.

So we have a motion.

Was it seconded?

Okay, good.

All right.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Councillor McGill?

Yes.

Yes That passes 5-0 also Then the last item which we just added is to have a first reading on the proposed change to the meals tax from 6% to 6.5% is a first reading Does anybody want to have a discussion of it at this time?