City Council Work Session with Virginia Institute of Government - Pt1   4/1/2022

And Mr. Hartgrove is in charge.

And I'll start with you.

You're welcome.

So it's not one place, it's a neighborhood that's probably 10th and Page.

Thank you.

No wrongness.

I know, it's just, it's hard because there's some, there's, I mean, I've been here for so long, it's hard, and I don't leave my house much these days, so my backyard has been one of my favorite places.

There's a lot of books, yeah.

So it's just, you know, there's every place that has good memories.

The basement of City Hall.

Very nice.

So, all right.

Other folks?

Because I want to be reasonable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So that's probably going to be doing most of the next two days.

So one of the comments I heard from you guys, and obviously I just know because of my experience formerly being in town and city management, budget time.

So turn it back to you.

And so I was gratified to see that was covered in this past budget in terms of total increases in support.

Okay.

Let's use them, but that takes more staff time than just going ahead and doing it yourself.

I did note in a couple of the comments I received back from you guys that harnessing the knowledge and the feedback from the community on a lot of these big issues was a concern, making sure that there's an effective process, there's a staff to help manage that, and make sure to get all that information, so I appreciate that.

It's been a lot of creative energy in the last month.

At least by immediate within the next 90 days?

Just how can we and will we be positioned to be able to make those commitments in the coming years?

Are we thinking four or five years from now, thinking now about the funds we need for work we want to do four or five years?

So there's potentially, there's not a zero possibility for it, but we haven't incorporated that or fully planned for how we'll get there.

You can't get these big picture items done.

doesn't as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.

So when you say you're going to look through things through that lens of equity or looking through the lens of acknowledging climate change, what does that mean in these big picture issues that are going to be in front of council?

And maybe some things it doesn't, but at least we're starting to consciously think with every chance we get that these are just as impactful as our budget is.

So what does that look like from you guys to them?

And that would fall on staff, on us and all the agency heads to articulate that in the

Is there a consensus in most council that you want these sort of dynamics reviewed in these major agenda items when they come to you through that lens in the staff reports, or is that something that you're looking for?

And in some cases the how may not be immediately apparent

But that's not where we are now.

Let's hear from some other members of council here.

I mean, I got more information on progressive taxes than I think I can.

Education.

Yeah.

Got it.

And so those are two things that you try to navigate and there's a cost to navigate when you're providing services to a diverse population.

But maybe with a new strategic plan, that might change.

Is that what you said?

on our agenda packet, it says, this is no budget impact.

Oh, or, you know, at the bottom where it says, how does this impact the budget, and it says how it does, and said, also have a box that says, how does this impact equity, how does this impact climate?

And they're playing people in the community who've given us input on those things and we can't do everything.

That's where I want to get to, that our goals for this is clear and that it permeates to staff.

Is that the filter that you want?

But that was just an example.

Things you've not addressed yet.

And, you know, I think that maybe over the next few years, as this money is available, we may have to do some consulting or bring in some extra help or something just to help us maybe review plans or to help write grants or whatever.

Any insight that you think would be appropriate or applicable here?

Ashley, raise your hand.

So just some thoughts for me.

It's important for us to have that because it then pushes all the way down through the organization.

So that's an area where as any God-fearing city manager has to support the finance people, right?

additional revenue we'd be bringing in, I think would far offset that.

Got to know the data.

whether that is the local racial wealth gap, homeownership rates, achievement gap, you know, I don't know all the metrics that would go into it.

Is that fair, Kathleen?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

I've never seen that be an issue before.

It is a delightful part of my day.

some scenarios or options.

Do we have a definition?

So it says where we should put money.

There's a two paragraph.

Yeah.

It depends on where you are.

So maybe we can talk a little bit about that for a bit.

So operational definitions?

Yeah, so I don't need you guys to get down in the, you know, go ahead, man.

This might be a good breaking point for...

Thank you.

All right.

What did you find we have to pay a fellow?

So still quite a fair salary for being recent MPA, MPP graduates.

Sam, Chrissy, any other thoughts you have in terms of the analytical capacity?

I was just kind of thinking about that as maybe there's a way to convene them and see how do we turn that into that example, maybe to see if there's a different outcome that comes with.

And Christy, there are some budget analysts and some departments throughout.

But yes, there are those titles.

A lot of various functions morphed out.

So that person's job ended up getting morphed out of data analysis and into more hands-on work with the community.

Councilor McGill had a question.

I mean, I know it means, you know, analyzing the budget, but in what way are we analyzing the budget?

Budget analyst position.

So just something to keep in mind as you work through this process.

And so that social worker, it seems, needs to be added to the budget so that that can be accomplished.

In other words,

That's what it's built to do.

And I'd be interested in seeing that in one place so I could understand what five years ago perhaps was sort of the plan.

which speaks more to the council level of what your initiatives and goals are and it actually drills down to specific measures.

Do the departments use it?

Okay.

you get one done and you make some headway and then things kind of go into stasis.

I remember the City of Promise was a measurement on one area because when we did this in 2020 we looked a lot of we looked at some of the ClearPoint stuff that we had some printouts that we had.

So just food for thought.

That would be helpful to me.

And so it's kind of better if it can come from the top, like council, here's where we are, here's what's important to us, and then let us come to you.

So that would be helpful to me personally.

So as you guys enter into the strategic planning update process, what are the things that you're looking for to make those decisions so you can coalesce as a group?

reported out and sometimes it, you know, it would take some supervisors or something contacting people in Richmond or Corpep or something like that because we found out where the hiccup was in that project and I just think that and maybe we do that but maybe I'm just too early in the process but I just saw there's a lot of projects that we have that I'm not sure if we ever ever going to do.

Yes, there's no understanding, but these are not going to be funded immediately.

Long-term investments.

And even if, you know, if we say this project had moved because we don't have enough project managers, we ought to be able to tell you that.

rather than the situation we're seeing now, some of the things on the AB&I list we're recognizing realistically aren't going to get built.

So a quarterly, you know, update on set of year, whatever it is, but, you know, trying to give you guys some consistency to that.

I think it probably at least conveys the impression that they know what they're doing.

It gives you a chance to also better inform your budget process because you're not just pushing everything into that one conversation.

So I think I get that.

The point is that's the time to be having those discussions, not in February and March.

So, yeah, I like that idea.

And so it's fair to you all that.

I thought that was new stuff.

You almost got me confused.

It's just maybe it's also that this is also eventually put up online with the others and as to why the importance of each project is because that's important.

Absolutely.

I will hopefully begin to see a glimpse of it next week, and then we are actually going to be having a work session with VDOT later this month, and I will be coming to you to relook at all of the prior commitments, and we will be retooling and right-sizing.

So Sam and Ashley, they're just cleaning up stuff that did, you know, in the background.

And all of this was just even in coming in and asking the questions of, well, tell me about it, and it's not just readily available, is why all this is happening at this moment.

So this really is an interesting point where something as basic as managing your CIP, your project list has real world equity impacts.

Sidewalks, very much like public transportation, yes, absolutely.

Yeah, and they're not glamorous and they're not like, you know, they're important.

Madam?

I forgot what we were talking about.

I saw your face.

I make notes when all the different pieces come together and then coalesce and then I make a note to email Sam later.

Strategic impacts.

integrated or long-term strategy about, well, we're making this investment right now so we can achieve this in three years.

I think having that sort of drawn out and follow-on for you there is very important.

feel honored and valued.

All right.

Let me.

Please.

in terms of the number, but I think establishing the practice of getting back to the practice of doing an employee survey every two years is a best practice and something we should be doing, but I think it'll go a long way.

And it kicks off later this month.

And I'm hoping that we can be doing various things to be mending that.

Councilor Payne, Councilor Pinkston, anything else from you two folks?

And when I walked in.

We were worried before you walked in too, Brian.

But I think any more work we can do, we should.

and I don't know how that needs to, I mean, I can envision how it could work, but I don't know, I don't have the city manager experience, the city manager staff presumably can think about that some, but we need to be a better incubator of ideas.

Absolutely true.

You can start anywhere.

Most of our tenure has been about COVID.

That's everybody.

And are we putting all these ideas together?

So it sort of goes back to that capacity we talked about earlier of actually being able to have enough civic engagement for you guys to have enough input to make a good decision.

you know 10, 10, 11 o'clock or so, but they could, you know, yeah, but they could stay, they could call in because they were up, but not necessarily be out, but I just wanted to offer one thing.

And there's a lot of support with that.

I will visit that one.

One problem with the utility bill, though, is more and more people are going to the electronic utility bills.

We just don't deploy it for sending out bills.

The point is you don't open the bill.

I pay the same a month every month.

What do I need to do?

PSAs.

response, which is a good survey, that gives us some viable information.

Modern Day, you know, how to get to people with these things and still get a statistically valid sample.

The budget survey definitely went out in the utility bills as an insert.

Yeah.

But yeah.

That's why I was thinking that we'd do it ourselves and turn it over.

Because you'd like to be able to take that data, that rich data you get from your citizens and your businesses and actually be able to analyze that with whoever your peers, whoever you want to compare to, right?

We've got all this data and all this information, but what do I want to do with it?

That's right.

And so I think that should be part of the survey is saying, this is what we are planning on doing with the information you give us.

Sure, sure.

And then you're able to report through employee newsletters that you said this, this is what we're doing, this is the result, et cetera, get that dialogue back and forth.

This is good, right?

But it would just take simply, you know, walk in the neighborhood and get in talking, you know, people and they'll have to get to know you, you know, the people, but, you know, that won't take long.

and some communities that have an at-large system like you guys do, they will occasionally plan out, you know, obviously I understand with technology and transparency and requirements and everything else, you've got to have your meetings and report everything else, but there's a lot of communities that have done work sessions of council in a specific neighborhood, in a community center or in some of the place that's outside of city hall, that way that neighborhood feels like they came to us, you know, they heard us.

Does anyone know?

Town Hall meetings.

I'd be very interested in that, maybe once a quarter.

with the emails and staff report, and then I kind of feel like I'm getting a full picture of what's going on.

When you're at the grocery store and restaurants, people will be glad to walk up to you and tell you what they think.

look at how soon we can get back to that.

I'd love seeing something in Tonsillar Park, I mean Tonsillar Park or Washington Park.

Tonsillar was an example that I was given as I was talking about what are we thinking about doing to expand the facility.

Well, I was meaning to say Washington and I was looking at you and I said Tonsillar, so I must have been like reading your mind, Sam.

Yeah, it's important.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's the right way, it's just how it is.

Hamill said about the VDOT, you know, that makes sense now.

And it's, again, I'm not trying to say that we were doing things wrong before, that our people were doing things wrong, it's just sometimes we relook at things as times change and everything, we're like, huh, maybe that isn't quite the best way we can be doing this.

So we need to build in more time.

Yes, of course, that's what we're going to do, but it's an overarching theme in everything that you're doing for transparency's sake, for honesty's sake, all those good things.

But I also know that takes that takes staff power that takes computer power that takes and you also got to do it in a way that it isn't just overwhelming with information so that the amount of information becomes non transparent because you're shifting through so much.

Council, staff, community, if any of those things.

Operational definitions for equity, climate change, and affordable housing.

As an overarching lens for decision-making of council and staff, or just to clarify what we're talking about, so everyone's on the same page, what are you looking for?

We all know what we mean by that.

I think that we, you know, as elected officials will have to agree on that, but I don't think that it's just.

Maybe because to your point, I mean, depending on someone's position, like affordable housing for them could mean 10 different things that are all legitimate.

It's a different problem, but we use the same words, and at some point that gets in the way.

Some of your friends in Northern Virginia and the New River Valley are featured there prominently.

I just want us to be on the same page when we're talking about something and that we are actually talking about apples if we want to push like an apple pie and we're not talking about peaches instead.

I just want to have a little bit of better understanding so staff can go back and go, okay, we can try to sort of do some research on this and help them.

And then whether you go back and create a new plan for something that we created a plan for 10 years ago that was never ever.

We don't have that person.

Right.

Well, we don't have a plan for them to work on.

And that's what we want them to do is to hold our feet to the fire.

If that's the approach that you feel like is the more productive way of doing it, I'm with you.

Sure.

Someone with the subject matter expertise.

We didn't acknowledge that.

Maybe it's too broad to be useful, but that would help me as well to have someone who's a subject matter expert on the topic saying this is what I think we should do and putting it to us.

I know she wants you to define equity because we talked about it.

So if you come to me and say, this is what HUD has to say, these are options for what Charlottesville could say, then I could do something with that.

We got a lot to do on Monday night.

But my definition of equity may not match up with you all as representatives of the constituents in this community, if that makes sense.

In other words, I hear what you're saying that you need us to sort of give you direction, but what I need is at least sort of a menu or curation.

You need something foundational to work with.

I'm just being honest about.

to get to a position that they all can support, but have something before you that you can work with and discuss.

Does that make sense, Ashley?

And you do the rest of the work, but here's the big space we want you to plan.

for your community, and then staff can take that, and that might help the deficit manager then maybe create something that does sort of reflect that pulse that she's looking for that she may not bring to the table initially.

Yeah, and it's a starting point, and we are hearing from plenty of people, and they may disagree, but, you know, I'm relying on y'all's expertise on a number of these things, and I'll parse it with what I hear from members of the community, but I have a lot of respect from what y'all know, so.

And I just hope that we recognize when we get done with all of this that, yes, there's a book definition of affordable housing, but there are probably other things that are related concepts that we also want to be paying attention to.

Are we talking about resiliency?

Yeah.

Got it.

We can do it now, we can do it tomorrow, but I feel like when you talk about that a little bit more so staff can walk out of here tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow, whenever we finish and have some fairly good guidance on next steps to present to you guys and bring back some information for you.

what we want the goal to be as Charlottesville continues to grow.

You know, attraction, business retention, huge issues as we come out of this pandemic.

That's a really good question.

We don't, we're, I mean, again, Michael's just said this would, you know, we're disappearing middle class in a lot of ways.

those jobs that are between that and $100,000 a year.

Yeah, and the people who are growing up here feel like they have hope and have an actual ability to get an education and stay here.

Is there a way we could like work more with them to help sort of?

So that I think that that would be very beneficial.

Return on investment for economic development, but also showing some protection and qualifacts, making sure that it's done appropriately as you see fit.

come up, be innovative because again, we've been on our heels and so, but now we need to say, what can we do to make Charlottesville more open?

Having some strategic conversations around the business community, around folks that are making those investments and bringing people to community, hiring people, absolutely.

They want to see good things happen and they want to be thoughtful in how they do that in terms of working with us.

what the city is doing in terms of its economic development and how we're interacting with businesses and what more can we do?

But I

Some aspect of economic development.

Yeah.

As well.

Right.

And it's also not good climate because then you're taking, even though it might be dense, people are driving everywhere.

And that's a decision that's going to come to us.

Well,

I certainly agree we're in a situation where we haven't been able to do any practice planning of something interesting or structured that we'd like to see.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

No, it's all about transitioning from what you had to deal with to a disaster.

the work they were doing with the PPP loans.

Yeah, I just didn't want it to come across that we didn't feel like they were doing anything.

Yeah.

If it's too, you know, anyway, so it's not, if we want it to be for those who may be of low wealth and sometimes more proportionately high of color, then we have to provide some resources in those other areas.

And how are the buildings that we own reflecting our economic development, reflecting our priorities and how we are utilizing them?

I'm not saying that.

It's okay.

I've got to draw a line.

What I can say is,

And then the other work will come after that.

Yes, I'm digging.

I'm definitely digging.

But it does mean that I want to understand and every council after me should also understand and make a conscious choice.

And it may not have to be every year because that sounds like a lot.

It's going to be there to look at because those leases have to be re-upped every year because we cannot bind another council to a financial decision.

Oh, we can make a multi-year lease.

How is that not a financial decision?

Lisa, we can make a multi-year lease, can we not?

regulations about the length of the lease, but you are certainly allowed to make a multi-year lease.

Because that just doesn't feel, that just can be bound to like low leases, but not bound to anything.

Law doesn't always make sense, Lloyd.

Five years is a part of what I'm asking.

And so nobody ever bids when you do that.

and never again after that?

So that doesn't trigger the special procedural requirements, but it means you're going to see that lease coming back to you every five years, and it gives you a chance to decide if you want to continue or not.

So like how long is the car's lease?

Okay.

It doesn't mean that we don't want the rescue squad.

All of this exercise is to identify all of those moments.

There's more.

Yes.

Then we put the screen through it.

It was daylighted, right?

A time and place to be determined.

I'm trying to put out a lot of fires.

That's fair.

We're heading in the right direction.

We've got some more time, folks.

Excellent points.

Yeah, I said on the board.

Yeah, Workforce Development, Network to Work as part of that, PVCC as part of that.

So it's just sort of who steps in to fill their shoes.

So the connections formula you're there, but it's more about getting a new person in or... Yeah, but there's definitely a very strong foundation to maintain and grow.

Again, while an individual who had that kind of as their priority work is no longer with us, there are other individuals, I'm pointing back there because that's where they sit, sorry, who are still working very closely with that and doing a lot of good work with trying to connect our community with good paying jobs that can move them in the path they would like to move.

Excellent, thank you.

Workforce, business retention, city-owned properties and facilities, connectivity with internal external partners and community, higher ed.

Yeah, I worked with the City of Richmond's office coordinators, their staff, yep.

And I mean, they just, they do a lot of really good work.

And I'll sort of close down and we'll talk a little bit about tomorrow.

Because they're here to stay and how do we come forward to UVA and work with a mutually beneficial opportunity?

And I think those three entities, three levels can help do that.

There's definitely more dialogue going on around this whole subject, so I'm happy to hear that.

So is there anything else from council that you'd like to share with us?

Could you reiterate specifically the homework?

Hold on.