City Council Meeting   9/6/2022

Yeah, sure.

That was fast.

Yeah, it's nice.

Ready to go?

Yes.

Mr. Rogers, ready to go over there?

Yes.

All right.

So let's call this meeting of the September 6, 2022 City Council meeting to come to order.

Ms.

Councillor McGill?

All right.

Here.

Is there a motion to approve or to amend the agenda?

Move for approval.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Okay.

Motion passes.

So this meeting will be divided into three main sections.

First is a work session to hear and discuss presentations that do not require a council vote.

Second, we will have a closed meeting, which will just be just us.

Then the city council business meeting, which will begin around 6.30.

There is seating available here in council chambers for up to 23 preregistered attendees and media.

Others are able to join electronically by Zoom.

I will note that Councillor McGill is joining us by Zoom today and we can hear her, we can see her, she is legally permitted to do this by state law and so we're glad that you can be with us in any way, fashion or form.

The first is our Airport Authority Update with Melinda Crawford, CHO Airport CEO, to present.

Ms.

Thank you very much for having me here today.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Thank you, Member of Council.

It's always a pleasure to share the great things that are going on at your airport, at our airport.

and today I'm going to be presenting a PowerPoint presentation, Checking In Would Show as of September 2022.

I'm going to move forward through this presentation and I basically, whenever I do a presentation, I get to share with individuals how we are formed, what type of operations we have, an organization that we have so that

members that may not or individuals that may not know about the airport have a little bit better understanding after this presentation of how we operate here at the airport.

Hold on just in my place.

We've got it as part of our packet.

and that's the presentation PowerPoint

Let's see.

Yes, I'm here.

All right.

Not a problem.

Absolutely.

Before you begin this presentation, I think I'll give a little bit of background about myself as your airport director.

Your airport was created in 1955.

I wasn't here in 55, but I did come on board in 2013.

And basically, I've had the privilege of operating or overseeing this airport since 2013.

Prior to coming here,

I was the airport director at the Pensacola International Airport, Pensacola, Florida.

And I've been in the industry about 25 years.

Apologies for the delay.

I'm attempting to actually retrieve it at the moment.

Aha, there we are.

Thank you so much.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

And David, I'll just ask you to move the slide forward, okay?

Again, who writes this story of this airport?

As most of you are aware that we are operated by a board, an airport authority board, which is basically Mr. Rogers right now as the city manager, Mr. Jeff Richardson as the county administrator, and also one member from our joint airport commission.

currently that member that sits on our board is Mr. Don Long the city and the county both have ordinances that mirror each other about the appointment of joint airport commissioners and basically each time they appoint you have three from the city and three from the county your current three members from the city are Mr. Roy Van Durham Mr. Brian Johnson and Mr. Matthew Murray

and these individuals provide they provide advisory service and they also review all items that are taken to the board before they go to the board and they allow for public input into our items that we present to our board our airport authority board is responsible for the policies and procedures and the oversight of the airport and they hired myself as the CEO to operate the day-to-day operations of the airport

Would you advance it, please?

In 2019 was our banner year.

We actually served nearly three quarters of a million passengers, over three quarters of a million passengers.

And going into FY20, we are on a physical year that ends on June 30th, just as the city and the county.

But going into

We were actually up about 4% year to date before the pandemic struck here at the airport and we were well on our way to ending our year up to probably about 780,000, 790,000 total passengers and that's passengers that are coming in and out of the airport.

You'll see on this map that indicates about where do we get our passengers from.

Most of our passengers do originate from the city and the county but we do also pull from about 10 surrounding counties for passenger traffic and would you advance the slide please

But you know, if you were to look at a hotel, you would understand that the hotel can only grow by the number of beds it has.

Well, an airport can only grow by the number of seats it has available to its passengers.

And pre-pandemic, we were serving about 25 flights a day inbound and outbound.

And we were serving about 2,300 to 2,500 passengers a day.

When the pandemic hit in about April was our worst month, April of 2020, there were days that we only had about 22 outbound passengers.

But we were still operating a great deal of flights.

In June, the airlines adjusted their flight schedule of June of 20, and we went down to about five flights a day.

They were focusing on their hub airports, which were Charlotte, Atlanta, and Dulles.

Mid pandemic, June 21, we saw growth.

We were coming back.

We had come back from 291 seats in June of 20 to about 777 seats a day outbound that were for flights that were also, and they had brought back Philadelphia and some, a small presence of Chicago flights were available.

If you'll advance the slide please.

But in this slide sort of gives you a snapshot of where we were pre-pandemic to where we are about today.

This slide indicates June 27, 2022.

Our seats and our flights fluctuate daily now.

and they have been historically we we have more flights on a Monday than we would on a Tuesday and so on an average day right now you'll probably seem to in 12 and 15 flights a day so we haven't recovered completely pre-pandemic but we are recovering and we're seeing more leisure market come through more leisure traffic come through our airport now than we had in the past

Would you advance the slide please?

This is a snapshot that just shows you where we were with total passengers in 2018, 19, 20 and 21, 22.

The dark bluish black line which is 2020 shows you the story that we were

well above our 19 numbers and then all of a sudden the bottom dropped out in April of 2020 we started recovering in May of 2020 and we've gradually been recovering every month since then would you advance it please while our flights have been fluctuating our operations also began to fluctuate and

When we were in the FY 2021 budgets, we realized that we were going to have to do something very drastic in order to make sure that we were financially viable at the airport.

And again, I will remind everyone that while we carry the name Charlottesville-Almont Airport, we do not use local tax dollars.

We're not a burden on the local tax system.

All of the money that it takes to operate this airport is generated at this airport.

and with the exception of some of the federal grants that we've received typically before the pandemic our federal grants were just for capital projects but during the pandemic as all airports across the country we were able to get funding from the CARES initiative from the CARES Act

and so we've been very fortunate in having that funding coming to us to us from federal sources we in 2021 we actually did some very drastic budget maneuvers what we looked at is we would not fill any non-essential or non-absolute required position if it became vacant we made the decision that we were going to try to keep all of our employees employed

here at the airport authority and that we would go through and examine each and every expense and expenses that weren't absolutely necessary were not moved forward.

The biggest hit for our budget in 2021, 2022 was that we did not have a lot of money in our budget for promotions, marketing and things of that nature.

Then when you move into the 2023 budget, you see that it has increased.

Before the pandemic, our budget was about $8,600,000, $8,700,000 a year.

And then this year, it's about $9,386,000.

And the biggest change in there is that we're fully funding our advertising, our airline incentive program, and also some repairs to our parking lot

which we cannot get any federal or state funding to assist with those projects.

We have to fund those internally.

Would you advance the side please?

When you look at the budget and you'll say okay what

what generates that budget there's about 50 full-time part-time employees here at the airport but there's a lot of other people that work at the airport we have a restaurant food and beverage concessionaire we also have what we call a fixed based operator which is basically the service provider to the general aviation which are private owned aircraft that's signature flight support but there are other individual companies that are out here the rental car companies

the airlines and then also we have some general aviation companies that are out here, Clear Sky, Monticell Flying Club, Charlottesville Flight Center and the Meridian Air Group.

These individuals all pay to operate at this airport.

Would you move the slide forward please?

The airport serves as the front door to your community and has served as the front door to your community since 1955.

But it is also an economic driver for your community.

The Virginia Department of Aviation, which is a very good partner of the airport, they actually did studies in 2014 and 2017 that talked about what was the regional impact to our airport.

2017 studies showed that there was 2,239 jobs associated with the airport, about $110 million in wages annually, and about $310 million overall economic activity at your airport.

I believe they did not, the Virginia Department of Aviation did not do a study during the pandemic

basically because they realized that the numbers would be skewed so badly.

I think that they've been indicating that we're working on an update to this economic impact and when it is we'll share it with our board members who will certainly probably share it with their members of council and their members of the board of supervisors.

Could you advance the place?

You know, one of the biggest things that your airport does is that not only do we plan and take care of our passengers today, but we have to plan and take care of our passengers of the future.

When the pandemic hit, we were having about 11 aircraft that were parking on our ramp every night in order to go out early in the morning to actually join up with the hubs

at our other airports, Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia.

We had no more room to accept overnight aircraft.

So when about 2018, we started working 2017-18 timeframe, we started working on an air carrier apron expansion.

That's the concrete pavement in the back of our terminal that our aircraft park on, our commercial aircraft park on.

We actually were able to expand our apron to accommodate

for more aircraft, and it did cost about $9.7 million to do that, mainly due to the change in the topography around the airport.

There's very little flat land here.

We received most of that funding for that project, that $9.7 million from the FAA, but we were also able to use our Virginia Department of Aviation funding too.

One of the things that came about with that project was that we had to relocate taxiway echo.

A taxiway is the pavement that allows the aircraft to move from the ramp to the runway.

And in this case, when we built the expanded apron, it required us to relocate the taxiway because the FAA does not allow unfettered access to the taxiway from the ramp to the runway.

It requires now that the aircraft would have to leave the ramp, go to Taxiway Alpha and then go to Taxiway Echo.

That was done at a cost of about $2.6 million and that was funded during the CARES and the recovery federal dollars and 100% of that project was funded $2.6 million through the FAA.

Could you advance the slide?

But some of the biggest projects that we have are the ones that are ongoing now.

This is a rendering of what your parking lot will look like.

We currently have one elevator and two sets of stairs at the center location of this parking lot.

It's called the long-term lot.

It's directly in front of the terminal.

And we have two sets of stairs, one at the north and one at the south.

but that elevator had reached the end of its useful life and also because it was only one elevator and there was no redundancy we had to put in a two elevator system in order to be able to locate handicapped parking in that long-term lot would you advance the slide please

This is a very big project.

These are pictures that shows the progression of that project.

We had to come in and portion off a part of our long-term lot and build two elevator systems with covered walkways that will take you from the long-term lot to the canopy in front of the terminal.

Would you advance the slide?

This is later versions as of July.

It's actually progressed a little bit more since then.

We're hopeful that this project will be completed in about October, November timeframe.

It was funded at a cost of about $4.7 million and FAA funding and also the airport's own discretionary funds were used for this project.

Can you advance it please?

One of the hardest projects we've had to do, this terminal building has great bones.

It was built in 1991, opened in 1991, but there were two escalators, two sets of escalators that went up to the gate five area.

That first picture on the left shows you how when you come out of TSA screening and you look to your right, you would see that set of escalators and also a set of stairs.

The other set is on the other side of gate five as you go down to the ramp.

So 60% of our passengers with American Airlines who represent 60% of our passengers were going up those escalators, upstairs, and then they would go down the other set of escalators.

Well, as these escalators age, we weren't able to get equipment to fix them when they malfunctioned.

And so it became a true burden with our maintenance.

we ended up putting up a construction wall but when we put up the construction wall the next slide will show you exactly what it looks like behind that wall we had to come in and completely take out that escalator system both sets of it going up and then the two sets going the set going out to the ramp it was a two million dollar project just for the equipment of the escalator but the problem that we ran into is

Where do you put 60% of your passengers when you're basically shutting down their ingress and egress to that area?

So we worked with the airlines and our staff worked very diligently to figure out a plan.

And what the plan, the solution ended up being was that we bought a modular building with the help of the Virginia Department of Aviation.

We retrofitted the building to allow for handicap access to ingress and egress from the building, IT for the building, also HVAC and such as that.

That building is located directly behind the restaurant and the bar area of our terminal.

And all of the American airline passengers are going through that modular gate system that we have.

while our contractor, Cambridge Construction Company, is working behind the scenes to get this area completed.

But we're not going to let this opportunity slip.

If there are no passengers up there at Gate 5, we took the opportunity now to do some work that needed to be done in that area.

We painted the entire gate area.

We worked on the carpet.

We're redoing the terrazzo.

We've also worked on renovating the observation deck and looking at just making sure that any improvements that we can make while we're closed down in that area are performed so that when we open back up in the September timeframe that our passengers are welcomed by a new clean modernized airport, especially in that section at gate five.

Would you please advance it?

There's a couple of other ongoing projects.

One of them is a terminal area plan.

When we had reached the three quarters of a million passengers in 2019, we were pretty much

at maximum capacity in this terminal building.

And so we started working with a contract, engineering firm, Parish and Partners to develop a terminal area plan that help us explain how we should expand our building.

Also how we should look at planning for parking, rental cars and other projects of that nature.

we're just about to wrap up that project all indications are that the terminal area plan for future development expansion will go to the north where that green dot is located on this picture when we get to that project the terminal expansion project we're going to be looking at trying to use the bipartisan infrastructure funding that recently was released by congress and we're also going to be looking at our

terminal entitlements from the FAA and our money that we receive from the Virginia Department of Aviation to fund this project.

One of the things that we're looking at as a sustainability project is to redo all of our taxiway and runway lights and all of our signage on our airfield.

That's an LED upgrade and it's going to be about 4.4 million and it's being funded primarily by the FAA and the Virginia Department of Aviation, 90% coming from the

FAA the main future project that we have that will be needed when our numbers return is a parking expansion project and we've been working and looking at this type project for quite a while you'll see the blue dot which is on our loop road which is adjacent to our long-term line we're looking at a design for a multi-level parking structure in that area

Parking is one of the only type projects that the FAA and the Virginia Department of Aviation will not help us fund.

We'll be working with our rental car companies to help find a portion of that project because we plan on moving the rental cars into one of the levels of that parking structure eventually, but also we'll be looking at debt financing.

and this timing of this project works out very well for the airport.

I mentioned a while ago that our terminal opened in 91 and then also we've had parking projects since then that we've had to use debt financing through the Virginia Resource Authority.

So when we're looking at this we're looking at going back out for debt financing but most of our existing debt or other debt has been retired.

and then there's also a general aviation improvements you know we have a lot of activity with private owned aircraft corporate aircraft and things of that nature and so we'll be doing some improvements to that area working in conjunction with signature flight support to help fund those improvements but the Virginia Department of Aviation will also be helping us do that next slide please

This is my favorite slide.

This picture actually is what our ramp looked like before the pandemic.

Every night on our ramp you would see about 11 aircraft, but the saying for this picture, Texas picture, really tells a story.

You can go a mile of highway and take you a mile, but a mile of runway will take you anywhere you want to go in the world.

Thank you Ms.

Crawford.

The airport master plan was done, the last update was done in 2004.

When we went into a runway expansion in 2008, a lot of work was done on that runway extension.

There was environmental assessments and environmental impact studies done.

There was a lot of work done as far as looking at our future development on the airfield.

When we came into looking at what we should be doing with the terminal that's why we narrowed it down to a terminal area update and when we move back in to update our entire master plan that terminal area update will be incorporated in the update I believe that our plans to update it

So maybe if you can help inform me in the public, because I get a lot of questions on this, is that the flights, the daily flights to Chicago, they were very successful, but apparently United or whoever, they just, you know, I guess a shortage of pilots or whatever, they just discontinued that, and that was very fruitful for the airport.

Professor, you're not completely wrong.

That was a very beneficial flight.

Before the pandemic, we had two airlines actually serving the Chicago market, which is pretty unusual for an airport of our size.

We had American Airlines and we also had a United Airlines.

Both of those airlines

when they suffered greatly during the pandemic and there were funding that was provided to them to keep them operational again I told you I indicated that during April of 20 there were 22 passengers going through our airport that day that was the way the picture of most airports across the nation and they took the opportunity to look and decide where did they want to focus their service and they want to focus their service back through their hubs

there's also the issue that this airport has been primarily a business market we've had some leisure market associated with the universities and things of that nature but mostly our business was our aircraft our air service was business

When the pandemic started to, when portions of the country started to recover from the pandemic and people wanted to get out travel, they were traveling to areas that were located around the coast, near water, near the beaches or out around Hawaii, Florida, along the coast of the Eastern coast.

But they were also traveling to Montana, Colorado and Wyoming, which is basically

in order to be able to enjoy the great outdoors for a while.

So a lot of the airlines started focusing their travel on making sure they could meet the demands of those areas.

And so they shifted.

And then on top of that came the pilot shortage.

And so that truly caused them to go back and look.

We've been in communications with our airlines consistently through this whole

effort and they've talked about it and they understand that this market is a very good market.

Before the pandemic, this airport had grown over 100% in passenger traffic in about 89 years before the pandemic.

We were a fast growing market, one of the fastest smaller airports growing in the country.

Thank you.

I just have one question.

I remember hearing a while ago at this point, but sort of just brainstorming about the possibility of the airport hosting some sort of small solar facility that could be part of a community solar program potentially.

Is that an idea that went anywhere?

Yes sir it is an idea that we would explore we've talked to we're trying to move to projects that are for sustainability and solar would certainly be one of those as we build any expansion to the terminal or parking deck we'll be looking at the opportunity for solar on those structures but and we were in discussions a an organization had come to us about a solar array on the airport but because the master plan had not been updated

it was very difficult to move forward with that because we weren't sure if we would put that in a location that might future impact the development of this airport so the timing was not right for that so if and when we're able to go back out for a solar array we'll be going out through competitive negotiations so that we would put it out for a bid and organizations would be allowed to come in the

So in other words, in terms of process, if that were to ever move forward, you would argue you need to update your master plan first, which was last updated in 2004.

I believe you'll be seeing your master plan updated within the five-year timeframe.

But again, we've made a commitment that if we expand our buildings,

Thank you.

I'm just curious.

Your numbers indicate

that you lost something like $3.5 million over the last couple of years and looking to lose another million this year.

Are there reserves?

Is this coming out of some federal pot of money?

We had some reserves, sir, but most of these funds are coming through the federal CARES, the Coronavirus Relief Act, and some other federal recovery

Loss.

They've had, we've had, and I'm sorry, I use acronyms, it's CARES, CRYS, and Recovery.

We know the CARES Act well.

That's an acronym we're familiar with.

Yes.

We did.

Unfortunately, we weren't successful this time, but we're going to continue to do it because our building was built in 91.

And has the airport considered doing a shuttle service at any point?

Shuttle service to where, ma'am?

The airport itself is not, the money we earn on the airport stays on the airport.

We would go out for a third party

organization to assist us with that.

And we've had that in the past.

We've had a single provider for cabs.

We also right now currently have a lot of shuttles coming in from the hotels area.

We've had conversation with CAT.

When pandemic is not here, 50% of our budget comes from parking.

And that helps us to be self-sufficient, financially self-sufficient.

So we've worked very diligently with organizations allowing shuttles to come on.

And if it's a private company, we've also worked with them and we've allowed them to even advertise in our airport to promote their services.

Do we charge for advertising in the airport?

Good.

Thank you.

That's all.

And I appreciate your comments on how you're looking at more sustainable plans.

So thank you very much, Ms.

Crawford.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

The last question, I'm sorry.

Ms.

Crawford, I had sent an email.

Who received that?

I did, and I had some sent in on your conference call.

Excellent.

Okay.

So the next item is a report from Youth JEDI and Climate Justice Ambassadors, and I gather we have some here present.

I will tell folks, I had the occasion probably six weeks or so ago to speak with the Youth JEDI team, their Climate Justice Ambassadors, and this is a group, I assume you will explain yourselves for the benefit of the audience,

This is a group that I was very impressed with in terms of the insight and their questions and I'm glad that they are energetically involved in trying to work through some of these issues for us.

So who's going to speak?

What's the plan here?

Hello?

Hello?

You guys can hear me?

Okay.

Yes.

Hello, my name is Tamana Kaidari.

I'm in eighth grade at Buford Middle School, and I'm a part of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Youth Ambassadors program, also known as JEDI Youth Ambassadors.

This came out of a partnership with Piedmont Housing Alliance and Community Climate Collaborative to promote youth advocacy around climate and social justice issues.

Sure.

This is a multi-page thing.

So you get two pages.

We can share, saving the environment.

There you go.

For the past few weeks, we have been collecting data from Charlottesville residents about how the public transfer issues have impacted most people in our community.

We, JEDI Youth Ambassadors, have spoken with Charlottesville residents during the Back to School Bash on the downtown mall in the pavilion, at Friendship Court, and also at our school communities.

In total, there are 50 responses with the vast majority of them being Charlottesville residents.

40% have identified as African American and 50% were 18 years old or younger.

To our surprise, more than 30% of respondents say that they never ride CAT buses even though they are city residents.

Most were under 18 and some have two or few vehicles in their homes.

Hello, my name is Azor Zahid and as you guys heard we're the Jedi Youth Ambassadors and I'm originally from Afghanistan and currently I'm in 11th grade at Charlottesville High School as a junior.

As we surveyed people around the city and gathered info from them, we learned that half of the respondents don't use public transportation, either because a stop is not close to them or that the system is generally confusing to them.

Number one was that the bus stops as it wasn't close to them they learned that we learned that they struggled to get their daily life go to work go to stores school and other places easily so this was caused due to the simple but long-term issue caused by the public transportation

For example, if a bus wasn't at a particular place of interest that many people would like to go, like as the respondents said, like stores, the supermarket, work, church, and currently schools, as you all might know that the transportation for school systems is not looking that great as they have to, as many of them would have to walk now since the walking zone is expanded and parents during the same time would ride cars.

making it dangerous for students to walk especially and other than having to walk, carpool or use the city buses which majorly impact a lot of their educational time to walking from school and going to home this takes time for students to for their number one for their safety and number two for their whole education

The next thing was that timing for those specific buses around the city and their stops, generally the time efficiency was one of the problems that many of the residents here faced since they didn't know due to their

unknown and generally confusing times of arrival of buses with old and misdated charts so they couldn't set a proper accurate and more constant timing for those places to go to since they would have to worry of gearing either earlier or later

and wasting unnecessary time in trying to get from location A and B which for many of them could be done walking and more dangerously but taking more walking time to get to that location as they didn't have any other option since the bus system was usually too much or just unable to get there at all.

and also due to that same issue, 70% of the respondents, they used car or they carpool, walk or use bicycles and other methods of transportation to get from places to places.

The use of online app, we learned that it was a big step towards public transportation, but it was executed in a manner that didn't serve the community well enough for them to actually adapt to it.

They didn't have any way of, first of all, finding the app.

I didn't know of the app either.

All right.

Y'all hear me good?

Yes.

All right.

Hello.

My name is Logan Martin.

I'm a Jedi Youth Ambassador.

I'm in 11th grade at CHS.

My passion is game development.

I like tea.

And I'm learning two languages, Chinese and Nepali.

We, the Jedi Youth Ambassadors, have gone into the community.

And although we are young, we should be taken seriously.

I'll be sharing a more personal take on things rather than statistics and things like that.

I've used the bus many times over the years.

I'm 16.

I'm not ancient or decades old.

But whether it be by myself nowadays or with my family when I was younger, I'd use the buses, the cat buses specifically.

I can't remember much about when I was younger, but I remember how long it took to get from point A to point B.

Same now, sadly.

Going grocery shopping, back to school shopping, just going out in general.

It would be a whole day trip to do really anything.

I remember standing at the now run down Fashion Square Mall with my mom and my family.

My mom must have gone through a lot in that time, the heat, two kids in a stroller, two kids on foot, carrying groceries, waiting for a bus, trying to use the app that barely seems to work at all.

I could go on, but we don't got all day, so yeah.

We need an app that makes sense.

take language into account, age, et cetera.

UX or user experience should be at the forefront.

It took me a while to even find the app, let alone use it effectively.

Maybe I'm just missing something.

Maybe I'm slow.

But I've found that others are having the same issues as me.

We need a standard bus stop in all locations.

Nobody wants to get rained on while waiting on the bus.

Not everyone has a cell phone.

There are little pieces of paper with a schedule on some bus stops, and those are very outdated, like 2019 schedule.

So those really need to be updated for people who don't have phones.

Speaking of waiting, we need shorter wait times.

Who's going to use the buses to get to work if it's not reliable?

That was a common complaint we got from our responses.

What about the workers to provide all this?

There's a massive issue, the worker issue, the worker shortage.

What's going on there?

Why are we having a worker shortage?

And what about climate change?

Can we switch to electric buses?

slowing it down, not asking tons of theoretical questions.

I think we can all agree that Charlottesville is a steadily growing city.

I'm going to loosely quote the mayor on this.

A town with city issues.

That's what he told us.

As the city grows we need to ensure Charlottesville residents can actually utilize the opportunities their city provides.

If you take anything away from this things need to change and people need to know that there are things that are changing and be included in that change.

Thank you.

Are there others who would like to speak?

in connection with this.

Got a bunch of adults here.

Yeah.

So I have a question for you.

So if you had a magic wand and you could, you know, address, and by the way,

from what I've heard is kind of what I'm hearing just generally from the public as they speak to me.

So kind of a gut check.

I think you all have done a fabulous job.

So kudos to you all for your work.

Thank you.

Other questions, comments?

Yeah, just one question.

I would echo what Vice Mayor Wade said.

Your research really echoes a lot of what we continue to hear about what we need to change in the transportation system.

I'm curious, one of the things you brought up that we hear but we haven't heard as much that I think is really important is the app.

I've tried to search for it myself.

I've

I'd say there's a big language barrier.

That's one of them.

More languages should be supported.

I'd say app stores themselves.

The app itself wasn't called Charlottesville City Transit or something.

It's called Spot, which, yeah.

It took a bit.

There's been multiple apps from my understanding over the years, them updating it or something.

There's also a website.

So I had to go through the grapevine on the internet just to be able to find it.

My mom has an app, but it's completely different from the one I have, which was pretty interesting to find that out.

Another age.

Older people had a very hard time understanding the app compared to younger people and just the user experience in general.

Isn't that great?

There's like a little messages tab at the bottom right corner, but it seems that it's not updated in a timely manner.

One time the bus was down and I didn't know that.

And I was trying to get to UVA for a summer camp.

And I wasn't told on the app itself that that bus was down.

And so I manually walked to the station itself to find that information out.

Yeah.

No, thank you.

And just one other question.

You made a lot of specific

policy recommendations to us.

Do you have any plans to keep following us?

And if we haven't implemented them, let us know, hey, you know you need to do this.

I mean, hopefully, yes.

There's a lot of things going on in other people's lives.

My life, school is a thing.

So I mean, any opportunity we have, when we're available, we hope to.

Sometimes we need a little reminding.

Yeah.

Yeah, no comment or question, but just wanted to thank you for the work that you've done.

This is very informative.

Now, the one thing I wanted to add, I know that you all have been working with folks from Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Climate Collaborative.

I see Susan over there.

Yeah, I'd say Piedmont Housing Alliance, C3, there's also Cultivate Seaville, we've worked with them, our neighborhood, the back to school bash thing, just a lot of people in general that we've been trying to collaborate with and get feedback.

Yeah.

One thing I would add to what Councillor Payne mentioned is that there are always opportunities for folks who want to get involved in political campaigns.

There will be another political campaign for City Council next year.

and three seats will be up and one of the issues that we talked a lot about three years ago was climate change and I particularly talked a lot about transit.

So those issues will continue to be important and I would encourage you to get involved when you can.

Two things real quick.

I would love it if y'all would be able to put down in writing your policy recommendations and your findings, even if it's in a short blurb, it's very helpful to have that in a more concrete format.

And the second thing I would really like to applaud y'all for coming up here and speaking.

I personally have a hard time with public speaking.

I know how nerve wracking it can be.

And I really appreciate you coming forward and speaking in front of council like this.

I will note that when I spoke to them a few weeks ago, they said, well, how can we make sure that people are listening to us?

And I said, well, one way is to come to city council meetings at four o'clock on the first and third weeks of the year, or weeks of the month, and come speak to us.

And about two weeks later, I got this call, this email from somebody saying, we want to come.

and so here you are and we appreciate you coming.

We appreciate your thoughts.

I just want to just to sort of echo what the kids have said, I just want to put it back to you all as well, not just say you come to us and bring us things, but

These are kids who have been hustling.

They have showed up at events.

They took surveys of their peers during lunch at school.

These are kids you should be coming to to get feedback.

You should be reaching out to this community because they understand the issues.

They are talking to their neighbors.

They're talking to their peers.

And I just want to encourage you as leaders of the city to see them as the future leaders that they are.

It goes both ways.

So that's my only comment.

Any other comments from?

I've been working with these kids for weeks, and I know they put a lot of work into these presentations, and I'm so proud of them.

And tell us who you are, please.

Oh, I'm sorry.

My name is Tori Carter-Johnston.

I'm the JEDI manager at Piedmont Housing Alliance.

So I got to spend a lot of time with these kids.

I watched them serve.

They made the survey that you all see, and they made everything.

So I really appreciate you guys also honoring and respecting their bravery and their time, because

I know you guys are busy people but I know they were also maybe a little nervous and also excited so I'm just glad that they got good feedback and you guys appreciate it and Mayor Snook I know I emailed you about them coming so I can definitely email you all of their data and stuff that's great thank you but yes I'll pass it along and this is our first time doing it this summer so I know even today they were like should we go back to City Council in a year and update them on the survey and stuff like that and

So the next item on our agenda is a report on the jail, an update on the regional jail.

Colonel Coomer, is he?

Hey, Mayor.

Go for it.

I'll be sharing my screen here.

How's everyone doing tonight?

Great.

This is David Dolehunt.

I'm having sort of an issue on mine, too.

I think the Zoom

crashed and started a new one.

I will try to leave it again.

Okay.

I'm here.

Is it just me or is everyone getting kicked off?

Okay.

All right.

I thought it might be me.

Okay.

Mayor, if we're ready, let me know.

Go ahead.

All right.

All yours.

All right.

Well, good evening, everyone.

I am going to share my screen here.

Yes.

Colonel Coomer, if you would, please, if you could click the down arrow next to display settings on your terminal and swap the displays.

All right.

How's that?

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

I presented the same presentation back in the spring to City Council, so this is kind of a refresher for you to kind of get us in line with the resolution.

It's, I believe, on the 630 agenda.

As some of you know, we are looking to do a renovation and expansion of the facility.

The current facility opened in 1975.

It's almost 50 years old.

The current rate of capacity is 329 and I will make it clear that at no time during the renovation or expansion will that capacity increase.

We are not going to add one additional bed to the expansion and renovation.

The average daily population has been as high as 600 over the years.

The population as of this minute, there are 270 people inside of the jail and 40 people are currently on home electronic incarceration.

This is the lowest population inside of the jail in the over a quarter century that I've been working here.

We currently have 161 authorized staffing, 161 employees.

We currently have 127 employees on staff.

The renovation and expansion area is approximately 50,000 square feet, but it will be contained within the footprint of the original jail, which is 152,000 square feet.

How did we get here?

We didn't just decide two years ago we wanted to expand and renovate the jail.

In September of 2019, I went to the board with some major

issues that were being presented at the time.

The total cost of those two projects was $1.25 million.

At that time, the board said, well, hey, you know, before we start investing all this money into the jail to renovate some issues that we have, let's do a facility condition assessment.

We did that, came back, there were a lot more issues that needed to be addressed at that time.

It was then decided, well, if we're going to go this far, let's look at the overall needs of the facility, are we meeting the community's needs, staffing needs, inmate needs, and not just the infrastructure.

We hired Mosley Architects to perform a community-based corrections plan study.

We held several public engagements to get feedback from the community and stakeholders.

Mosley presented the community-based corrections plan to the board at the December 2021 meeting.

The community-based corrections plan does two things.

One, it looks at how many beds will you need 15 years from now?

And the other part is what does the facility need to meet its current needs and obligations to its employees, its staff, and current trends in corrections?

So we presented at the board meeting in December.

The board indicated at that time that if this was something we were going to do, that we would seek 25% reimbursement from the state for all eligible renovation costs.

And that's where we are now in the process.

And that's what the resolution will be about at 630.

So the board adopted a resolution directing Mosley to submit the community-based corrections plan to the Department of Corrections as part of the process.

The CBCP was submitted on December 31st

2021.

As I mentioned earlier, it was an FCA, facility condition assessment.

That's where you look at the infrastructure, your electrical, your plumbing, your HVAC, the windows, the roof, all that stuff.

They'll indicate there are several major systems that need to be replaced or repaired over the next several years.

But the CBCP is what really kind of brought this whole renovation and expansion home.

This comes in and looks, one, do we need more beds to meet the future needs?

The answer to that is no.

So we will not be adding any beds whatsoever to this facility.

And that is unique when a CBCP has done.

It is rare that you come into a jail and you look 15 years in the future that you don't need to add new beds.

We're not adding new beds because of the work for the local prosecutors or local courts or defense counsel

Region 10, offender restoration, probation, parole, all of our community partners are doing a fantastic job to divert all those individuals who can safely and effectively be served in the community rather than placed in jail.

That is one of the things that's keeping our population low.

Community-based corrections plan study findings, additional toilets and showers to comply with ADA new building codes.

We are grandfathered in.

If this were a new facility built the way it is today, it would not meet a lot of the building codes, but because it is almost 50 years old, a lot of these things are grandfathered in.

But we still need, for our inmates' sake, for our staff, we still need to comply with ADA and new building codes.

Redesign the inmate housing areas to create an environment that encourages mental and physical well-being, a dedicated mental health and segregation unit that is conducive to improving an inmate's mental health,

Replace major mechanical systems serving the original facility to improve climate control and air quality.

This is one thing we learned during the pandemic that our air quality is not as robust as it should be, especially during pandemic.

Additionally, you make classroom and programming space.

Additional office space for staff, a larger public visitation area that will meet the needs of the public and professional visitors.

Additional security measures for staff and inmates.

Renovation and expansion will meet the identified goals.

Create a space conducive to inmate rehabilitation that reduces recidivism.

The community is doing what they can to keep inmates from coming in here.

We need to increase our ability to reduce recidivism for those that do wind up here.

Part of that will be using trauma informed design such as sound dead materials, stress reducing colors, natural sunlight throughout the renovation and the expansion.

Add classrooms and programming space.

In the original structure, there was never a classroom space that was designed.

All classrooms in the original structure we have created over the years.

Integrate technology into the classrooms and housing areas.

Replace existing HVAC units with effective and efficient units.

Install air filtration system effective against virus and bacteria.

Again, this is a lesson we learned during the pandemic.

Increase fresh air ventilation.

Conservation of resources, use efficient water conserving toilets, shower heads, faucets, and use of natural daylight.

For the inmates, increase square footage per inmate in housing areas.

Apply trauma-informed design in housing areas.

Renovate inmate housing areas to create more privacy and security.

Create an additional outdoor recreation area.

Currently, we do not have a dedicated true outdoor recreation area in this facility.

Improve quality of social interaction with family, technology-based, and in-person visitation.

For our community and stakeholders, new customer service area for family and professional visitors to improve service quality, professional visitation area with integrated technology, and for our employees, incorporate improved safety and security measures, provide efficient workflow, apply trauma-informed design to staff work areas, create a work environment for staff's morale, mental, and physical well-being.

What you're looking at on this slide is the schedule for the project planning, design, and construction.

So these are all based on assumptions.

So we're assuming that the state approves the plans, that they approve our 25% reimbursement, that the city, Albemarle County, and Nelson County approve the project, approve the funding for the project.

So making all those assumptions and that we stay on schedule

June 2023 we would look for an architect and engineer to design the actual final building final plans the Virginia Department of Corrections value engineering on design would happen in November 2023 once we submit those permanent plans we would complete the construction documents secure the authorities design approvals make sure it's what they envisioned as well

That would be in March of 2024, May of 2024 we'd advertise for construction bids, find that contractor to build this building negotiate a contract and then construction would begin roughly August of 2024 and if all goes well construction would end sometime around November of 2025.

This is a cost overview here

Demolition renovation would cost about $21 million.

New construction, $17 million.

Other costs, $7 million.

Total project cost, $49 million.

If we are approved for the reimbursement, 25% of that would be just over $12 million.

The total cost of localities is $36,766,000 as of today.

What you'll see here is a share of debt for the city of Charlottesville.

Again, this is assumed that the total cost of taxpayers is $36 million.

You'll see here that in FY23, operational is what the city pays the jail in order for me to run it, does not increase.

FY24, we do start to see some debt service associated with architectural and engineering fees.

FY25 is when the majority of the city's debt payment will start to accrue, same as FY26, and then the full debt service would occur in FY27 at a cost of $1,112,309.

And that's based on a 20-year bond at 4%, and it would be based on a percentage of the inmates that you have in the jail.

So that cost will

The more inmates you have, the more debt service you will have.

So that's based on current population of inmates for the city of Charlottesville.

Now, key decision points.

When do decisions have to be made in order to get this project through?

So in December, 2021, already said we've submitted our CBCP planning needs study to the Department of Corrections.

The jail board authority approved the resolution that we will formally seek 25% reimbursement from the state.

Member jurisdictions, we presented to the member jurisdictions of renovation.

May 2022, the resolutions and the current CBCP was submitted to the board of local regional jails.

June through August of 2022,

Once the Board of Local and Regional Jails approves the project so far, at that point we'll begin making an application to the Treasury Board for bonds for reimbursement.

That has not happened yet because the Board of Local and Regional Jails has not approved the 25% reimbursement yet.

They are behind on their approvals.

August through September of 2022, I will be going to each of the member jurisdictions, like I am doing tonight, to discuss the resolution from each of the member jurisdictions regarding 25% reimbursement.

uh in September of 2022 the Department of Planning and Budget will meet to discuss our plans and if approved and the General Assembly approves the Governor will approve for the funding of the inclusion of the budget bill for the 25% reimbursement if that gets approved by the Governor and the General Assembly in February 2023 I will be coming back to the member jurisdictions to ask them to formally approve the project and the funding for the project

No, I appreciate this.

I had the opportunity to tour the site, the jail, I guess back in the winter and I was very impressed with the staff and the way it was run but could certainly see the needs for this work, not only for the inmates to have a more humane

Place, but also for staff who spend most of their days there.

So, yeah, thank you for the update.

I guess we get these emails sometimes and I'm wondering what the sort of origin of them are, but you've stated, and it's my recollection from our conversations, that there are no new beds.

There's no net add new beds.

For some reason, we're getting emails saying that they're talking about adding 40 new

mental health spaces there and people are talking about Region 10 needing to be.

Can you help?

Sure.

When I talk about the renovation and expansion, the expansion part, we are adding more square footage but no new beds.

So when we tear down the portion of the building where the expansion will go,

There are approximately 40 beds in that area.

So those 40 beds will be demolished and will re-add those same 40 beds right back into the expansion on the second floor.

Okay.

So I certainly understand the community's confusion because it does seem like we're adding 40 beds.

What we're adding is the adding part is the designation of those beds.

and those are it's flex space which is new to design it you know in correction was probably been around for 20 years you know back in the 70s when they built a cell block it could not be adjusted it could not be changed I mean it was solid piece of concrete with bars and that was it this space that the second floor we're talking about with the with the 40 beds not 40 additional beds 40 beds designated

for mental health, it's flex-based, which means if we only have five people here with mental health needs, the other 35 beds can be used for general population inmates.

If for some reason we have 35 people here with mental health needs, the other five beds can be used for general population.

So I know we're getting a loss, there's a lot of attention focused on the 40 beds being designated for mental health.

They're designed, trauma-informed design, and in such a way that if we need

to use those beds from individuals' mental illness, they won't deteriorate.

They'll actually help improve or at least keep them from deteriorating their mental health.

But if the community somehow, someway is able to divert those individuals from the jail, which by all means, I absolutely support as long as it can be safe when effectively done so, I am all for that.

But if they wind up in our facility, we will be able to take care of them.

But again, let's say that

They are all diverted, and another person with a mental illness never walks back into this jail.

Those 40 beds will be used for general housing individuals.

Or a small portion could be for segregation.

Individuals that cannot be in general population for one reason or another, they can be housed there.

Understood.

Yeah, that's very helpful.

And I think that that explains the confusion that some may have.

Good question.

Yes, that is flex space, but that means in the designation of who can be housed there.

But it is only for housing purposes.

Thank you.

So, Brian asked my question about, you know, what we're getting a lot of emails on the last couple of days, in particular today, and so I wasn't completely clear on it, but I can say that I know that you give tours, not only certainly to elected officials, but to anyone in the community, and I encourage them, if you're still hoping to doing that, for them to

take you up on your opportunity so you can see the type of changes that you are trying to make with the inmates and so that their time there could be, I mean, it's really closed in, you're right, not a lot of good clean air circulation and things there.

Absolutely.

And if I can plug, yes, sir, we are still doing tours.

I'll do them.

whatever meets the community schedule.

One idea that has come forward from some community members is the idea that as this is being designed, it is intentionally designed to be able that hopefully as our inmate population goes down to be able to be utilized for something else.

Has any thought, have we been able to

Well that's a good question I think I've seen some emails on that too from from the public

I would hope that someday at this place that we no longer need a jail in this community and, you know, by all means, I work myself out of a job.

That'd be the best day of my life.

However, I don't think that will happen.

So there will always be individuals housed in this facility as long as there's no new jail mill.

So the fact that there will always be people housed in this facility, I don't think it can be repurposed to suit the community's other needs.

In addition, the state would not pay 25% reimbursement if we designed a facility with the intent of using it for another purpose in the future.

They wouldn't pay for these design changes, such as perhaps a housing homeless shelter.

The state most likely would not pay for something like that if we designed it with that purpose.

So most likely not, not to mention the architectural design that would have to be made in order to use for a future project, but most likely not meet the needs of the jail's current needs.

So I don't think it's possible to do both.

Now, if that day comes and we no longer need this facility, fantastic.

Someone could come in and demolish, you know, parts of it, renovate parts to meet their needs, but we could design that for them.

I was just thinking maybe as we are designing this while it's primarily going to be designed as a jail if there could be some thought that might be able to that in 20 years maybe this potentially

Gotcha.

And that's another thing too, you know, in 20 years from now, what would the public want this to be?

You know, and can we anticipate that need into a design that would make it easier to meet that need?

There's just so many unknown variables.

And again, with funding, I don't think the state wouldn't, you know, authorize funding for that purpose, I'm sure.

Mr. Kumar, will you be with us at the regular City Council meeting for that agenda item?

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

In the interest of time, I'll just save my questions for then.

We're one minute away from our closed session.

Okay.

Yes.

Is there a second?

Okay.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, the motion passes.

We will now go into closed session.

We will come back to a different link for the open meeting.

And I guess my question is whether Councillor McGill is going to be able to join us.

Does she have a link specially for that?

Okay.

All right.

So we're adjourned.

We're in recess at the moment.

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

Mr. Rogers, are we ready to go from your end?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Is there a second?

Second.

Ms.

Councillor McGill?

Yes.

Mayor Smook?

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes.

We'll begin the 630 business meeting with a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Next on our agenda, recognitions and proclamations.

First recognition is of Cindy Richardson.

Oh, that's yours.

So it's my pleasure just for the community to be aware that Ms.

Cindy Richardson, a peer support specialist at On Our Own, was recently awarded the Dr. Fred Feast Crisis Intervention Team on People and Mental Health Illness Lived Experience of the Year Award by CIT International.

This award, which is named in honor of the late CIT International board member Dr. Fred Feast,

Fred Fries, recognizes a person who lives with mental illness or co-occurring substance with disorder and who actively involves with CIT as a community program.

Ms.

Richardson has lived in the Charlottesville area for many years and is well known and is highly respected in the community.

For those

For those still suffering with mental health challenges and substance use disorder, Cindy knows how to approach them without judgment, encourage them to discover the benefits of the CIT program.

for themselves, their friends, and family members.

Cindy believes that it was CIT that first showed her the possibility of a new freedom.

CIT program is a community partnership of law enforcement, mental health, addiction professionals, individuals who live with mental illness,

and or addiction disorders to families and other advocates.

For more information, you can go to citinternational.org.

So I don't think Ms.

Richardson is here, but I think that when we have individuals like this in our community that's received recognition, not only on a

local, not even at state level, but this is a national level, international level, we want to bring it to everyone's attention.

So congratulations, Cindy, and thank you for all the work that you're doing in the community.

And after the announcement was made, I sent a letter to Ms.

Richardson on behalf of all of council members

We also had a proclamation, Dr. Alvin Edwards Day, presented to Dr. Edwards on August 27th.

Yes, David Simmons presented it to him, but I was there to represent the city and for all the work that Dr. Edwards has done in his community for the last 41 years and continue to do, I was just amazed as I read the proclamation

and we pulled together all of the work that he has done in the community and continues to do that he's just one of those individuals like Ms.

Richardson do so much in his community that, you know, that this community will look and feel a lot different without individuals like that in our community.

And then the next recognition and next proclamation is the Minority Business Alliance 10-year anniversary.

Yes, yes.

So I'm getting connected with all these opportunities to have some vittles, too.

So this is on Friday night.

Yes, yes.

So this is the Minority Business Alliance of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce 10th anniversary in this state, whereas on June 3, 2012, the Minority Business Alliance was officially launched as an affinity group

of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, and whereas the Minority Business Alliance was birthed out of the City of Charlottesville dialogue on race community-wide discussion held in 2009 through 2010, whereas the Minority Business Alliance includes a diverse group of long-time emerging business professionals and leaders working collaboratively to support, promote,

and grow minority owned businesses in the greater Charlottesville and whereas the Minority Business Alliance offers members investment benefits that include professional development and training, dynamic educational sessions, networking and resource connections and competitive funding opportunity.

opportunities, and whereas since 2020, the Minority Business Alliance was awarded more than $116,000 to the minority business community, $11,000 to 10 MBA students from the MBA Endurance Fund, and almost $105,000 in grants to MBA members and other black and brown

existing and emerging business owners through the United Way of Greater Charlottesville Minority Business Enterprise Grant and whereas being known for establishing

Strategic Partnerships, MBA has leveraged more than 25 local state and national business nonprofit partnerships to expand the community wealth building, including premier partnerships with the United Way of Greater Charlottesville and Seville Weekly.

Stakeholders, Community Partners, we are so grateful for this recognition.

We appreciate every opportunity that we have to support you, support all of our colleagues and our business professionals.

We look forward to celebrating this milestone event and also rereading the proclamation.

I think our dear mayor may do that for us on Friday night.

So again, thank you so much.

We appreciate the honor.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Okay, and one last proclamation, recognizing September 15, 2022 as the International Day of Democracy.

Whereas the United Nations observes the 15th of September as the International Day of Democracy to promote the principles of democracy and to raise public awareness of universal human rights, and whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes that the will of the people expressed through universal and equal suffrage is the basis for the authority of government,

and whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that the right to participate fully and equally in the political system is crucial to the advancement of all human rights, including the rights to democratic governance, the rule of law, social inclusion and economic development.

empowerment of individuals and groups to eliminate discrimination and marginalization, peaceful assembly and association, freedom of opinion and expression, and access to information and education.

And whereas on the International Day of Democracy, we are called to review the state of our democracy to promote its principles for the protection and effective realization of human rights and to create an environment for greater citizen participation, equality, security, and development.

and whereas we recognize that in 2022 these basic principles of democracy are under attack in the United States and around the world, now therefore we the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia hereby recognize and celebrate the 15th day of September 2022 as the International Day of Democracy to remind us all of the need to work to protect the democratic principles by which the freely expressed will of the people forms the basis of our government in this great country.

Signed and sealed this 6th day of September 2022, Lloyd Snook, Mayor.

And Kirk Bowers is here to receive it, I understand.

Mr. Bowers?

If I may say a few words.

Sure.

Okay.

Okay.

That would be great.

Oops.

What's up?

There you go.

Good evening.

Honored members of the city council.

I haven't spoken here in quite some time, actually.

I'm the conservation chair for the Sierra Club.

Piedmont Group, Virginia Chapter.

We have a national campaign that we began a year ago to protect and preserve democracy.

On behalf of the following organizations who signed the request for proclamation, I want to express our sincere gratitude to City Council for recognizing September 15, 2022 as an International Day of Democracy.

The organizations signing the request include

the National Organization for Women, Charlottesville Branch, the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Indivisible Charlottesville, Piedmont Group, Virginia Chapter Sierra Club, Charlottesville Friends Meeting, Peace and Social Concerns Committee, and League of Women Voters.

Every September 15th, International Day of Democracy is commemorated around the world.

It is a United Nations Day of Observation.

On this day, the UN urges all governments to promote and uphold the principles of democracy.

This provides an opportunity to review the state of our democracy and review our support for democracy as we strive towards a more equitable

inclusive and in sustainable community.

Today, equality and democracy are under assault.

We're no longer able to take our democracy for granted.

People are promoting authoritarian leaders and they fan the claims of political violence that are a

Threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, and to the very soul of this country.

These are indeed perilous times.

Let us take a few moments on September 15th to renew our commitments and beliefs to the principles of democracy.

Again, thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Powers.

Um, I'll go first.

So I'm announcing here the 5th Annual CYM Day Observance, Close Your Mouth and Listen, is what it's entitled.

Mr. Alex Zan presents the 5th Annual CYM Day, first proclaimed by the City of Charlottesville on September 18, 2018, the third Monday in September.

The mission of this day with its character CYM stresses the importance of closing your mouth and listening, which is the key to learning and living a healthy, safe, and productive life.

CYM Day will be observed on Monday, September 19, 2022 at 10 a.m.

at the Downtown Ting Pavilion.

The program will feature guest speakers, Mayor Lloyd Snook, Delegate Sally Hudson, Dr. Tracy Downs, Professor of Urology at the University of Virginia, Eddie Howard, Executive Director of the Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries.

Highlights will also include guest vocalist James Bryant and a CYM skit from the Barrett Learning Center students.

At 1014, the Charlottesville Fire Department will be ringing their bell, and at 1015, all citizens, wherever they may be, are encouraged to take a CYM minute to relax, refresh, renew you.

Other CYM activities, posters, and stickers are available upon request.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I have an announcement.

This is to let you know that the application deadline for the Charlottesville Homeowner Assistance Program has been extended to September the 16th.

Please visit charlottesville.gov forward slash COR.

to apply online or call the Commissioner of Revenue at 434-970-3160.

A little bit of information about the qualification.

You must be the legal owner and occupant of a residential property as of January 1st of the current year.

Applicant, spouse, and co-spouses residing in the home cannot own any other real estate.

The current year assessed value

on the applicant's residential property is $420,000 or less.

Applicant household using IRS gross federal adjusted gross income for 2021 tax year is $60,000 or less.

And you must be currently enrolled in a real estate relief program for the elderly and disabled.

And so those are kind of the basic information.

You'd certainly call or go online to get additional information.

But the bottom line is that the deadline has been extended until September the 16th.

Are there other announcements?

I have a quick just trying to do this at the beginning of every meeting from the following meeting just a kind of wrap up of what was brought to our attention during public comment in the last meeting I just wanted to summarize that we had a lot of comments about collective bargaining

As you'll notice we will be looking into collective our ordinance is going to be presented tonight and we continue to want public input on this.

We heard people talk about Midway Manor and how the

They're concerned with the management company at Midway Manor.

I know the city is a little bit tied as to what it can do there, but I do know that both deputy city managers, Marshall and Sanders have great concern about this and will be keeping an eye on what they can do.

What's changed since the DMC report?

This is something we need to be definitely looking into deeper.

and charging once we get a new police chief in place to look into.

I know I've been trying to run some numbers based on what our current online data shows as far as stop and frisk data.

It does appear

to be going down, but that's just from a cursory look, not an actual study.

Somebody brought up Vancouver and how Vancouver is a city that is both bikeable walkable.

And while we are trying to do that with Charlottesville, it's a lot smaller than Vancouver and therefore it's a little bit harder to do.

We take the school bus challenge very seriously.

Every single department in the city has been working on this.

from our public works to our parks and recs to our transit and that everyone is concerned about the safety of our children.

The potholes that were brought up for Page Street and Derry and Rugby, Emmett, I guess down to Barracks had actually been brought to Mr. Sanders' attention already and he is aware of that and I know he was working on that with staff.

The idea that lived experience, that those with lived experience in homelessness should also be consulted as we prepare for the 50th anniversary of the downtown mall is something that we heard and should be honored as we have a large community, not just our business community who utilizes the downtown mall.

Again, continuing to work on what

affordability is and what affordable housing means in a more nuts and bolts operational definition than just tossing it around.

Again, this will take time, but so you know it has not been ignored.

It is being heard.

So now are we ready for the consent agenda?

Ms.

Consent agenda, number four, minutes, June 21st council meeting, August 1st council meeting, five, resolution, a refund of business license tax, $5,719.45, second reading,

Six, Resolution, Virginia Homeless Solutions Program Grant Award $539,369.

Second reading.

Seven, Resolution, Belmont Bridge Replacement Project Appropriation of $2,697,398.

Second reading.

Eight, ordinance amending city code section 30-6 to increase the threshold under which the city treasurer may issue a refund for an erroneous assessment without direction from city council.

Second reading.

Nine, resolution United Way reimbursement of community resource hotline staff costs $26,333.76.

Thank you.

We will now take public comment regarding items on the consent agenda that were just read by the clerk.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes.

In the Zoom webinar, you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue.

If you've joined by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda, you can press star nine.

We will alternate in-person and virtual speakers.

Remember, this is only on these six topics.

If you signed up ahead of time,

All right, so we'll close the public comment as to the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further questions or comments from Council?

Ms.

Any discussion?

Ms.

Rod, Ms.

Wes Bellamy.

Well, I'm sorry, who seconded?

Councillor Pinkston?

Yes.

Mayor Snook?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, that motion passes 5-0.

Mr. Mayor, Council, a couple of items I'd like to highlight.

First, we work hard on our

intergovernmental relationships, and Mr. Mayor, you and I met with the university and the county several weeks back, and the two deputy city managers met with Jeff Richardson, county executive, and his two deputies in a retreat, half-day retreat, last Friday.

And I was very productive.

We shared a lot.

We have a lot of common issues and problems that we're working on.

and it lays the foundation for good cooperation and collaboration here in Albemarle County and Charlottesville so I just wanted to highlight those.

Also, one of the big problems we've had over the last several months has been the loss of a number of public safety officers and police and fire and sheriff's office.

We've worked together to identify ways that we can create retention bonuses without adding

too much cost to the general fund budget.

We work with the police department to fund a new pay scale within their budget.

They had a tremendous amount of savings actually because of the number of vacancies that they had.

So we were able to accomplish that as you know.

Last Friday we were able to notify the fire department and the sheriff's department of retention bonuses that went out to them.

So we've been able to address a serious challenge at the loss of personnel who are really going to our neighbors, the counties around us and the university for higher pay.

So we were able to address that.

Transportation is very much on our mind.

We are working to resolve the challenges we have there by increasing the pay.

That is a little more complicated because of the federal funding involved.

But we will be coming back to you at the next council meeting with the proposed solution for our transportation challenge.

And we look forward to that discussion.

There are a number of other items that we've listed here that I won't take time to highlight.

Yes, sir.

I will just like to say good evening, council and members of the public.

There have been a variety of comments, negative and positive, excuse me, in regards to the conversion of the four-way intersection at Rose Hill and Rugby.

So I just wanted to provide a little more detail and more or less the context as to why that change has been made.

First and foremost, pointing out that this is a temporary conversion to a four-way stop.

This is a part of a critical response to our providing safe routes to schools.

This was one of the top three priority areas for the school system in identifying for us the challenges.

with more kids walking to school.

We were able to advance this four-way stop as a temporary measure just to slow traffic down in that intersection with more people traveling on foot.

This is temporary because we will be updating the pedestrian signals as a part of a project that begins next month.

so as soon as that signalization project is complete it will convert back to a signalized intersection so this is not a permanent transition this is just temporary we did anticipate some of the challenges we had previously heard about challenges in doing this before and while I've heard a lot of negative I've also heard some positive in that individuals have identified that this was an important item in regards to the additional foot traffic in the area so I just wanted to be able to respond to that

In addition to that, we are happy to announce that we have been able to notify various customers of NDS who were basically forced to incur a third-party inspection expenditure because of our inability to perform that we will be reimbursing them of their charge.

So they will be able to submit their receipt that shows that they paid that bill and we will cover that expense for them.

is a sign of good faith on our part that we're trying to do better and get better at the management of our responsibilities.

So that letter has gone out to all the individuals who submitted in the month of June to allow for them to seek reimbursement of those expenses.

And then I just wanted to also express a sincere welcome to

Two key individuals to our team.

Emily Irvine has joined as climate action specialist.

It's a critical position for us.

The person who will be responsible for implementing our climate action plan.

You all will hear a lot more detail about next month.

And Chuck Miller started last week as our building code official.

This is a two year delay in getting this position filled.

So we are extremely excited about having Chuck join us.

And I can assure you I met with him last week and he has hit the ground running and has made an impact already.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

And again, good evening to the council and the public.

Just a few announcements.

The Office of Economic Development is pleased to announce that September is Minority Business Month in Charlottesville, and there will be a series of events celebrating business diversity in the Charlottesville community beginning with the September 9th Minority Business Alliances 10th Anniversary Gala that was discussed earlier in the meeting.

For more information on the events, the community can go to seavilleminoritybusinessprogram.org

to find out information about those opportunities.

In addition, from our financial side, there are two projects that are in process that may be of interest to members of the community.

First, the Commissioner of Revenue's office continues to work diligently to go live with an online business portal that will allow for the online filing and payment of an array of business taxes.

And the Office of Budget and Management looks forward to having the FY23 budget properly edited to ensure ADA compliance soon.

Notification of the completion of both projects will be announced both to council and the public Finally we did want to make sure that the public was aware that the city of Charlottesville is one of 29 inaugural cities and the city health dashboard put us on the map competitive challenge The challenge allowed cities to make their case for why their city should be added to the dashboard Only three Virginia cities were added and the data that the public can access includes information on health outcomes such as diabetes

social and economic factors such as credit and security index numbers, health behaviors such as smoking, physical environment such as lead exposure and clinical care such as preventative services for those 65 years of age or older.

Members of the community can go to cityhealthdashboard.com to access the city's data as well as to access any other city's data who is on that website.

Generally individual cities that are

above 50,000 are over which is why they had the competition for the 29 additions which are 50,000 residents and below.

And we'd like to extend congratulations to Chief Smith and his team at the fire department for completing the accreditation review process and being accredited as a fire department.

And that concludes our report.

One of them I

would like to just draw a little bit of attention to.

There was a mention of the fact that we have a new building code official, but we also have a new building inspector.

And for the last six, eight months, if not longer, we've had a real crisis in that area.

That's right.

All it takes is money.

Okay, so we have actually three pre-registered speakers.

We had four, but one will not be joining us in the Community Matters section.

So there are 13 spots for additional speakers in Community Matters.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak.

No comments, please, on the public hearing coming up during action items.

So we're having a public hearing on collective bargaining.

This is not the time to talk about collective bargaining.

We'll talk about that again in a few more minutes.

We will open up the floor to preregistered speakers.

Mr. Cox Hello I'm Kevin Cox I live at 311 Fairway Avenue

and I'm here to talk about traffic conditions on East High Street but before I get to that I have to disclose to you I think it is a good idea that I am a city employee now working at the intersection of Hazel and East High as a crossing guard.

Thank you for your help.

My comments here are mine alone and have nothing to do with the position or the policies or whatever of the city schools I am myself.

So, East High.

I have a long connection with East High.

For the last 50 years, I've driven, walked, run, done just about everything you can do on the street, on that street, probably more than any of you.

And in those 50 years, the street has remained unchanged.

It's terrible.

There's a light now, and there's a flashing yellow light, but otherwise, the street is just worse, actually, because the curbs have disappeared.

and I would like to start with one place in particular that really annoys me personally.

That's that muddy dirt path in front of the AT&T building which has been there forever.

Thirty years ago I was told it's on the six-year plan.

Now maybe they missed a digit and meant 60-year plan.

I don't know.

But it has not been done and it needs to be done.

It's a terrible path.

The Appalachian Trail is better.

People slip and fall.

It's just really obnoxious.

If we move up from there, then we come to something that is truly dangerous, and that is the parking lots in front of the glass shop and the restaurant.

Those parking lots are not separated by anything from the street.

There's no division.

There's no curb.

There's nothing.

And cars regularly drive through those parking lots.

I've witnessed it.

Traffic will be stacked up waiting for a vehicle to make a left turn onto Hazel and they come around the end I've seen there are a lot of videos of this actually they come around and they go real fast through the parking lots because they're trying to beat traffic because they know that it's going to get moving soon and they don't want to get stuck back where they were

It's a terrible thing.

Curbs and gutters are needed.

Then we move up a little further and we get to the intersection.

What a mess.

Pedestrians cross at three different places at that intersection.

That's where they cross.

There's one crosswalk.

The major crossing, there's nothing.

okay move up a little further Tubby's is fine we get to the auto parts store all the way to Stewart Street again just a vast expanse of asphalt with no interruptions from building to building it's just street it's totally unwelcoming for pedestrians my time's almost up so I want to say a couple of things I have a couple of questions

One, probably for the city manager, do you have a plan?

And what is it?

And I would like to see it.

What incremental improvements can you do now?

In short order, a year and a half, two years, I know the street's going to be dug up, but there are things that can be done.

Is the infrastructure work that's going to happen, is that going to include new sidewalks and curbs?

Hello.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I want to speak about the mental health beds.

We are not confused.

The 40 beds are an expansion of the jail.

It's not an expansion of the capacity, but it's an expansion of the square footage.

We don't want you to spend money on expansion.

People don't get well in a cell.

These units or these beds or these spaces are likely to be segregation, like solitary confinement.

There's an article entitled, Mental Health Units in Prison Are Solitary Confinement by Another Name.

I'll send you that article.

Number four, leaders in the past have failed us.

when inpatient units were closed over decades and there was a promise to provide community mental health services and those services have never been formed or developed or available now is the time to put resources in a site not in a site of incarceration those resources should go to community-based programs

Also, it is likely the need for these beds will decrease and the instructions for planning are to consider what will be needed in 15 to 20 years.

By that time, the market seller will be in full swing.

There will be more diversion programs and I believe there will be a law to allow mental illness information in sentencing.

So there will be fewer people who go to jail who had pre-existing mental health conditions and being in solitary confinement could make anybody mentally ill.

I do not support those 40 beds.

Thank you, Ms.

Fraley.

Next person up is Gloria Beard.

Ms.

Well, I'm piggybacking on what Kate said about, you know, mental illness.

It's called, mine's, it's called care, not cages.

And at a time when most of the beds available for people experiencing mental health crisis are being defunded, the Wellness Center ran by Region 10, 20 beds at Monster Jefferson ran by UVA,

five, uh, uh, state mental hospitals to stop taking new emissions because the staffing crisis and, uh, the charter, they closed 36 and 20, uh, 20, 100,000.

Western state had 260 beds.

Now they only have 86 and the Moore center has 10 beds.

So, Charlottesville City Council of Nelson County and Albemarle is being asked to put $49 million of taxpayers' money into renovating and construction of a jail, adding more sales and 44% of the inmates are mentally ill.

And we cage sick people at disproportionately high rates, but what is needed is community-based care that does not involve police.

You just can't get well in a cage.

If anything, being locked up create mental health issues.

I experienced this personally facing social isolation during the pandemic.

I struggled with

depression and with the connection with other seniors like myself, friends and family that brought me out of the gloom.

Instead of spending so much money renovating the jail, Charlottesville should be diverting a portion of our resources to create community-based care for people experiencing mental health crisis.

Budget reflects our values.

Disinvesting in treatment while investing millions of dollars in our jail is immoral and it is bad policy.

I feel if there's money for locking people up, there is surely money for treating those in crisis.

I'm asking our city council to fund care instead of cages.

You just can't get well in a cage and please fix our bus problem for our children.

Thank you, Ms.

Beard.

So that's our list of people who have signed up in advance.

Is there anybody?

Mr. Foley standing up?

Yes, always.

All right.

So I'm not going to give a statement, but I am going to read you the People's Coalition for folks who spoke are what People's Coalition, the People's Coalition mission statement.

The People's Coalition organized in Charlottesville and Albemarle area to oppose our unjust racial criminal justice system.

We raised our voices and community to combat a sense of criminal justice practice

through public education, public pressure, and public action.

The People's Coalition work through this mission in a number of ways.

We advocate for community-driven policy to change the city and county levels.

We put pressure on government bodies to address oppressive practices in their criminal justice process.

We push for transparency and accountability for local bodies to work on criminal justice issues.

You're going to hear a lot from the People's Coalition in terms of mental health, cops out of mental health, and not putting people in cages because putting people in cages who have mental health issues is not the right thing to do.

And so we want you to think about converting money back into programs in Charlottesville.

There's plenty of programs that is

not funded in Charlottesville.

And if you want to, you can have a conversation with the People's Coalition because we already did our investigation and we're looking for more support from City Council and the state.

So look out for that.

Thank you, Mr. Foley.

Yes, Mayor Snook.

Good evening.

I'd like to talk about the comp plan and up zoning.

Several controversial developments have moved forward with very little systematic accurate assessment of traffic and parking.

This includes MACA and the Park Street Christian Church redevelopments.

Together, these two developments have the potential to produce six years worth of affordable housing at current rate.

These rezonings went through with scarcely a speed bump.

This tells us that R1 is basically dead already.

Rezoning to higher density of moving forward quickly, at least in some neighborhoods.

Why then does the plan make a big deal out of the need to rezone and extend by right to eliminate public process?

Another rezoning, Mountain View Baptist Church, is likely to result in the fourth major rezoning redevelopment in our neighbourhood, Locust Grove, in as many years.

These recent rezonings entirely undermine the argument for the new map and plan.

It isn't necessary because seemingly the tools are in place already to do what you like whenever and wherever.

For emphasis, recent and ongoing zonings undermine the premise for the proposed upzoning with its emphasis on buy right.

People who invest or are about to invest in the homes have a right to expect stability and it is your job to tell them are they wise or are they fools.

Specifically, medium intensity residential is deeply unsettling as you have no doubt heard and it would be wise to dump it in favour or modify general residential.

I'd like to also talk about Agnes and Ryle.

The county wants to build a turn left lane on Ryos Earthbound at Agnes on a narrow, twisty and steep overused street with inadequate sight lines in every direction.

The city traffic engineer says we can do nothing because it is in county land.

Really?

Are we going to go along with this?

The county considers this street an entranceway.

Really a city residential street comprising only of collector streets but now used like many others in the city as a substitute for county infrastructure to support county development.

The city should threaten to close or reduce the street to one lane or otherwise show a token level of support for city residents.

We voted for the council and pay staff salary.

Just do your job.

Represent the interests of those who report to.

Thank you, Mr. Hasek.

And you're on with Council.

Yes.

So I want to make a comment regarding the expansion.

Whether it's adding new beds or adding square footage, incarceration is incarceration no matter how the box is gift wrapped or what type of fancy bow it has.

Jails have never have never and will never be designed to rehabilitate but rather contain to disappear those who are most in need of supports instead of cages.

The designation of this flex space which is truly a mental health wing is a common trend in communities in various states.

those who are following mass incarceration trends have witnessed this for years this happens in part because localities have underfunded community resources that were designed to provide supports instead of putting and but instead putting astronomical amounts of funding into police departments jails and prisons

Incarceration and the uses of segregation has a tremendous effect on mental health, overall well-being, and how those who've been fortunate enough to exit the carceral system interact with those in the community.

It's a little Google search for those who are interested in gaining more knowledge about mass incarceration and not taking the word of those who earn a living upholding the criminalization and punishment of Black, Brown, and low wealth human beings.

Jails have never been and never will be designed to rehabilitate black and brown those of low wealth individuals who are overwhelmingly impacted by mass incarceration lack of cultural appropriate medical and mental health care and substance use disease are routinely subjected to the city council's disregard for their concerns their needs for support with their communities and their desires to live in humane conditions

You all have the opportunity to divest from the ACR jail expansion project.

You all have the opportunity to put more funding into mental health and substance abuse disease as a starting point.

I am certain there are some community-based organizations that would welcome the funding since most are running very low on funding and capacity.

Support care, not cages or cops.

Thank you, Ms.

Kahn.

Is there anybody else present here who would like to speak right now?

We should have been alternating.

I apologize.

Ms.

Parker?

Good afternoon.

Rosia Parker here.

I see how you all designated September the 15th as International Democracy Day.

It should be Democracy Day every day.

We should be able to have our rights not violated, protest is not violated, which the City Council did just that, August and September of 2020 when you denied myself and Katrina Turner's protest.

Everybody else had a protest.

We were the only ones who weren't allowed to protest.

We were threatened that if anybody showed up for us, they were going to jail.

So how is that democracy?

How is that showing the city or the community that y'all are really willing to work in democracy?

Because it seems like every time that myself or Katrina Turner says anything, it seems that the city council becomes very personal, which this has been very personal for a long time when it comes to me.

and all I'm doing is making what we pay for taxpayers people accountable for their actions and it's still not accountable.

Y'all choose to make it personal far as still there are things that still hasn't been answered to the community about the PCRB or PCOB about the removal of Bellamy Brown.

We still haven't heard anything about that.

Then y'all wanted to respond, Mr. Payne and Snook, if y'all really wanted the community engagement, y'all should have had some type of community forum, something that should have been more so in the community instead of waiting until the paperwork came out.

in the paper last week about the choosing of the police chief in a survey and how it was done.

We shouldn't have to come to y'all to tell y'all what community needs to be spoken to or one-on-one meetings.

That's y'all's job as the city council, that y'all are putting somebody in charge of our lives again, that we're still healing from the turbulence of generations

still till present day harmfulness from the police department and the city government.

There's no trust there.

So how do y'all expect us as people to trust anything that y'all say when y'all don't even want to have community engagement?

Y'all choose to make things look good, but things really aren't good.

We have to start pulling these covers back so that the community really can see what's going on because y'all really have things very much covered.

Thank you Miss Parker.

Okay.

Ms.

Good evening.

Okay.

Adrienne Dent.

I live at 104 Todd Avenue.

So I've been practicing and acting as a crossing guard for the city because there's a need with all the non-existent buses.

And I have some observations that are pretty alarming about speeds.

and I've been focusing so far on Cherry Avenue at Buford and at Johnson, but cars are not at all going close to the school speed limit.

Johnson only goes down to 25 from 35.

I'd like that to be changed, but that's a side.

They should be going 15 at Buford and I would say maybe one out of every 10 is doing that.

We've had

I've had children crossing at a crosswalk and signaled, given plenty of signal for an oncoming car to stop and the car kept on coming and I had to put my body in between, which I know is my job and I'm glad to do it.

We really need some support in speed enforcement.

I'm speaking right now to Cherry Avenue, but I also have heard from other guards that this is a citywide issue.

It's not up to the city schools or to the city crossing guards to maintain and ensure safe speeds on the streets.

so it would be really helpful to have some some enforcement and you know I have my own ambivalence about the police and the role that they've played historically and currently but but we definitely need some speed enforcement this is not a city school issue this is a municipal better and I also with the few minutes I or the minute I have left I wanted to just echo and affirm Miss Beard, Miss Fraley's

Mr. Foley's and Ms.

Kunz and the People's Coalition's comments earlier.

Thank you, Ms.

Dent.

Anybody else present who would like to speak?

Ms.

Katrina Turner.

I'm going to go with what Ms.

Parker said about democracy.

Who was that proclamation for?

Was it for all of us?

Because we don't feel equal as we should in this community as black and brown people.

So who was that proclamation for?

One reason, again, I'm going to come at you, Mr. Rogers, about this IT guy.

There are black people that works around him that don't feel comfortable because of who this man secured when he went to that insurrection.

But you're not showing this black and brown community that you're here for us.

Really, none of y'all are showing us that you are truly here for us.

You say there's no reason to fire them.

Brackney, why was Brackney fired?

For doing her job?

She was actually fired for doing her job.

But this man attended an insurrection and you feel that you can't get rid of him?

Why?

What is it about this man that you have to keep

in this city.

He could ruin so many lives.

Why keep him there?

You don't have to have a reason to fire him.

Think about the people who works around him.

Think about what the people went through when the Proud Boys came here, when InfoWars came here.

Y'all have to think about this.

I understand this man might be losing his job, but did he think about that when he attended that insurrection?

Y'all are talking about mental health.

We come to y'all about so much, but it seems like it goes in one ear and out the other.

How are we supposed to heal in this community if you will not listen to what we are truly going through?

Having this man work for the city, it may not be affecting you all, but it's affecting a lot of people in this city.

And I think you need to get rid of him just to ease some of our minds about what he could possibly be doing right now.

We just need y'all to start listening a little to us.

because we're the community.

We're the ones out here on the streets.

Thank you, Ms.

Turner.

Yes, Mayor Snook.

Rebecca Sheckman.

Hi.

Hi, I'm here to speak out against the expansion of the Albemarle County Regional Jail and against expanding the jail for mental, quote unquote, mental health beds.

People living with mental illness need treatment, not jail.

Community, not cages.

Entering the criminal justice system, the criminal legal system, excuse me, impacts people's employment, their housing, their families, and their mental health.

Exposure to violence in prisons and jails exacerbates existing mental health.

And even leads to the development of other mental health conditions like anxiety, PTSD, depression, and even suicidality.

Rather than receiving treatment, people in jail are separated from their community.

And they're subject to inhumane, unsafe conditions.

And that separates them from their community, which isolates them from what they need, which is housing, employment, support, education, and being in a loving and safe environment, which will never be jail.

People living with mental illness, especially if they're poor or homeless or use substances, find it nearly impossible to obtain help in Charlottesville.

We're at a moment when we have a choice to fund possibilities for people who are suffering from mental health issues and not jail them.

We have a chance to fund what people have already spoke about today, which is housing, education, our school buses, region 10 and more funding for other health initiatives, which will help people.

not incarcerate them.

We need to imagine a world where we can fund all those things and not spend millions and millions of dollars creating more of a jail in our community.

Thank you.

And I'll just add that I'm born and raised in Charlottesville.

Thank you.

Anybody else in the room here?

Okay, nobody else here.

Yes, Mayor Snook.

Good evening, City Council.

Hi, thank you.

Yes, my name is Carol Thorpe.

I hadn't planned on calling this evening and let me preface my comment with

I'd like to compliment the eloquent wisdom of Ms.

Turner.

I do applaud and support her statement.

Briefly, the reason I'm calling tonight was with reference to the proclamation that you read earlier with regards to the UN.

My statement might sound a little, how can I put a little,

Well, I don't know how to put it, so let me just come out right and say it.

The United States of America is not a democracy.

The United States of America is a republic, and in fact, it's a constitutional representative republic to be exact.

and I raise this tonight not merely as a persnickety matter of semantics.

It's a very important distinction.

Now while we have democratic principles woven into and in fact indeed championed by our system, the very protections that are provided to minority groups in particular by our representative form of government cannot be understated.

who once said that democracy can be boiled down to two wolves and sheep deciding what to have for dinner.

And that's very important to keep in mind because in a democracy, it would be easy for any large group of a majority to steamroll a minority.

And a minority could be anything.

It could be by the color of your skin.

It could be by your sexuality.

It could be by your class, by a financial situation, by anything.

So that's why we have an elected representative form of government

so that the smallest group of people could hopefully have equal representation under the law.

And you don't have that in a true democracy.

So whenever I hear from anyone from the president of the United States on down referred to the United States as democracy, it's not just a matter of semantics.

It's important that any time that is said that we pause to correct that to say, no, we are thankfully not a democracy.

We are a republic.

But really what that's about tonight is not about whether or not this is a democracy or a republic.

It comes down to that tonight, this was an exercise of all the leftist organizations in Charlottesville, once again gathering to request something with city council, which I had seen a number of years during my tenure with the Tea Party, but also as an observer of Charlottesville City Council.

predictably, well, this time it was for the United Nations agenda, but predictably, like councils in the past, this council has smiled obligingly and said how high when this group of people asked to jump with a ridiculous proclamation.

Sadly, this is what we can expect when we have five Democrats on the council and no voice of dissension.

Thank you, Ms.

Thorpe.

All right, then that was our final speaker for community matters.

And we'll now move to the action items portion of the agenda.

The first item, the city manager's proposed collective bargaining ordinance.

Mr. Rogers and Ms.

Burroughs from Venable, is she also going to be online?

Okay.

We spent August 15th for a good hour or so introducing the proposed collective bargaining ordinance.

That ordinance was developed with Venable LLP as the legal advisor to our group.

A group of internal directors who had considerable collective bargaining experience were a part of that process along with my two deputies and with our general counsel, our city attorney, Lisa Robertson, and our director of human resources.

We studied the Virginia law that was passed that granted the right of collective bargaining.

We talked through the issues that might come up and tried to identify a framework for collective bargaining that we would propose here.

And we settled, as we went down each section of the law,

compared what other jurisdictions in the state of Virginia had done in terms of adopting ordinances, Fairfax County, Arlington, Loudoun County, Alexandria, and the city of Richmond.

And we considered what they had done, and we applied it to this community.

Ms.

Burrows pointed out in the presentation that we settled on a walk before we run approach based on what we understand to be our capacity at this time both in terms of personnel that would carry out the collective bargaining ordinance which we have to recruit

as well as the department directors who will have their work environment changed along with the employees' work environment changed under this new collective bargaining paradigm.

A lot of training needs to be put in place.

And we proposed an approach.

We have listened to the commentary to what we proposed.

And we look forward to additional commentary tonight.

As I have said to you, Council, in our listening we will consider all that has been said and we will come back to you with a proposal that we think can meet the considerations, hopefully, of comments that are made.

May not get all the way there because at the end of the day

We have to consider what we can do, the time and of when we think we can do it, capacity, and the financial considerations.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

So tonight essentially this is the first official reading of what was sort of suggested or pointed to last time.

And we will come back to you.

And the notion is to vote on something then?

Tonight?

No.

No.

In October, we'll get the vote on.

Right.

That would be our hope.

Okay.

Okay.

So let us now open the public hearing.

Mr. Dillahunt, we're ready for the first speaker.

Okay.

I recognize the face Hello my name is Matthew Ray and I'm here again today to ask Council to amend the ordinance as it is currently written to get rid of restrictions on bargaining not just bargaining and benefits and discipline but many other working conditions we cannot bargain over other conditions that we cannot bargain over and trust the city workers to build a better transit system

It takes a little bit of trust, you know, for this to work, collective bargaining, both sides.

Second is binding arbitration to settle disputes and negotiations, without which doesn't really give workers a say in their work life.

I mean, it's really not just, if you don't have a neutral arbiter, third party arbiter, I mean,

It's not really a union to me.

Third, we'd like to include our supervisors in the bargaining process.

I heard a lot of talk about the police department and the fire department having a resource to have representation for their supervisors.

I haven't heard anything about transit.

Shouldn't transit supervisors be included in that?

I mean, they don't necessarily have to join the particular union with the folks under them, but they should have some kind of representation also.

A lot of them aren't going to come up here and speak to you.

So I'm doing it for them.

And lastly, I would like to express, impress the council that there is an opportunity here to make a change in our city that will affect workers beyond the city of Charlottesville.

And the city could set a standard for others in our region who can't ignore but have to try to emulate.

I mean, this is Charlottesville.

I was born here.

You know, Monticello visits.

This is, to me, is one of the birthplaces of democracy that we talked about tonight.

You know, I understand that we're a small city.

But, you know, this is where it started.

I don't understand why we can't have what they have in Northern Virginia, that we can't have what they have in Pennsylvania.

I like to applaud the lady that spoke earlier about the crossing guards.

I drive where she works.

I applaud all of them for volunteering to go out there and do that.

I'm sorry that they have to do that.

I'll also tell you that with a little bit of media attention, we've got six trainees, from what I count, in school bus.

Why couldn't this have started in June?

I don't understand that.

I mean, school bus is near and dear to my heart.

That's where I started.

That is a hard job.

And those folks deserve a lot more than what they get now.

I mean, I'm a transit operator.

We've always gotten a little bit more than school bus.

I don't view it that way.

They should get more than us.

Now, I know a lot of drivers wouldn't back me up on that, but, you know, school bus is a hard job.

And that's something that we really need in the city is we need our drivers back.

So, you know, I drive around every morning, and I'm telling you, it's not pretty.

The traffic's backed up.

It's not pretty.

I understand what she's saying.

I really do.

Hello, Councilors.

My name's Elizabeth Stark.

I live in the Woollen Mills neighborhood of Charlottesville.

I'm asking that you review the draft collective bargaining ordinance and make substantial changes.

I want to echo what Mr. Ray said.

We know that workers need more rights.

We know that they need more leverage.

It needs to be amended to allow workers to bargain over disciplinary procedures.

After I spoke at the last council meeting on this issue I actually had people reach out to me saying that they had experienced this at their work.

They had experienced what it's like to not have leverage over these issues at their work and that it was extremely challenging.

We know that particularly with our bus drivers, with our cat drivers like Mr. Ray and our city bus drivers, we know there's a significant issue with the city bus fleet.

We need more drivers and the way that we will get them is paying them what they're worth

and giving them more leverage over their jobs, more say in how things are decided.

This is a very conservative collective bargaining ordinance.

It would be one of the most conservative in the state.

Charlottesville has been a groundbreaking city in things like the initial

Emily Yen also has a raised hand.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Dr. Emily Yen.

I live in Charlottesville.

I live on 506 Ridge Street.

And I wanted to echo some of those same points that this ordinance is very weak for a collective bargaining ordinance.

In fact, it is far weaker than any of the ordinances that have been passed in the state of Virginia.

and I urge you to adopt the recommended changes that ATU submitted to you and requested specifically around having binding arbitration, implementing, permitting disciplinary procedures as a

topic of bargaining.

I mean, this Charlottesville school board has taken a number of steps to reduce racial disparities and unfair discipline for students in the Charlottesville public schools, especially in regards to suspensions and expulsions.

and I mean, having unfair discipline at your workplace, there's quite a bit of empirical evidence suggesting that there is racial disparities in this.

And I really hope that City Council really takes this as an issue at hand since this, I mean, being subjected to unfair discipline does have economic

I also urge you to allow workers to be able to bargain for benefits and to give them a guarantee that you are not going to unilaterally

I mean, it's really great that City Council is supportive of collective bargaining.

But if I mean, if you know, when once you get to the bargaining table on since benefits is not a topic of bargaining, one could, you know, reduce, you know, the benefits and then

can end up at a net loss.

And by permitting this as a topic of bargaining, this, you know, people, workers can bargain for these items comprehensively, so they're not going to be at a net loss.

And I really hope that you take these issues into consideration as we conduct this as you put together a final ordinance.

The income disparities between white residents and black residents is extraordinarily large.

I mean, it's over $30,000 in median income, and I hope that City Council takes steps to ameliorate this huge disparity.

Thank you.

I should ask, is there anybody else in the room here who would like to speak on this issue?

Good evening, City Council members.

My name is Daniel Summers.

I have been with the city of Charlottesville for 11 years driving with Kat in a school bus as well and quite frankly the way things are going right now things are falling apart

you know at the seams I drive cat and school bus coincide with both throughout the week it's very difficult to do what I do but I do it for the children because I know that they need that transportation to school

as well as the community members of Charlottesville they need transportation as well to go where they need to go but if something's not done soon things will fall apart and I just want y'all to know that you know whatever y'all work on and talk about action needs to be done because if not there will you know be different things that will be happening you'll have people who won't want to work

for the transit system that they don't see the connective bargaining and stuff like that taking place.

And I just want to let you know that something needs to be done sooner than later.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Summers.

Yes, Mayor Snook.

Hi city council, it's Greg Weaver in Price Spring.

I'm calling first in support of city workers and their right to have a say in their working conditions.

I believe council must pass strong CBO, not the watered down one that was presented last meeting.

Truth is I'm suspect of a city manager from a firm with anti-union history working with a consulting group with anti-union history who helped draft what he did and who said what he said this evening before public comment.

The most glaring omission in the draft is the mission of allowing workers to bargain over disciplinary procedures.

Not including such clause in this ordinance leaves workers open to retaliation and discrimination.

Further, council must grant bargaining immediately to all non-police employees instead of picking and choosing who gets to have a say in the working conditions.

Emphasis on non-police as police unionization has been historically dangerous, especially around bargaining over disciplinary procedures when it comes to racial discrimination and violence.

So I believe that they should be omitted.

Not making these adjustments at minimum would be a slap in the face of the people who keep the city running.

It would tell them that they are undervalued and that their concerns don't really matter.

I don't think you all believe that.

I honestly don't think that you believe that.

And so don't send workers that kind of message by passing something that's really watered down.

I especially want to speak in support of cat drivers unionizing over the past couple of months I along with members of the Eco Socialist Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America chapter of Charlottesville have we've been out talking with riders I'm not speaking for the committee or for Seville DSA I'll just say

personal opinions, but the majority of folks we've had conversation with rely on CAT to get to work, to stores, to recreation and get back home.

It's never been clear to us that CAT at minimum provides a critical service to working low income and unhoused individuals and families in the city.

Our bus system is on the verge of collapse, right?

There aren't enough drivers to get our kids to school.

There aren't enough drivers to run CAT routes as they currently are.

The council has shown solid support for expanding CAT as evidence in the budget y'all passed.

But if we don't have drivers, we can't meet those goals.

So to that end, I'm asking y'all to do the following in order to keep this critical system running and to set it up for success in the near future.

One, reallocate some of the money set for expanding CAD to increasing driver pay now.

Two, I'll also use that money to adjust pay scales and make sure that veteran drivers are paid fairly.

Three, pass a strong CBO.

These will help retention in the short term as well as make CAD an attractive place to work.

Granting drivers collective bargaining rights and saving their working conditions will also give them a distinct edge over other services such as UTS.

Another takeaway from our conversations with riders that I want to leave you with is that they say they love their drivers.

Two people I spoke with in the last week were especially passionate about this.

One who I'll call A says his favorite part about riding the bus is that drivers know his name.

Another who I'll call R talk passionately about how friendly drivers are and how they work so hard six days a week and they deserve more pay.

They deserve a right to have a voice in their workplace.

You won't hear writers like these voices here tonight, but they exist, and they're plentiful, and they must be considered.

They love their drivers, and there's good reason for that.

Thank you, Mr. Weaver.

Anybody else here in the room on the topic?

Okay.

Looks like we have Jen Du.

Okay.

Hi there.

This is Jen Du.

I live in Frye Spring.

I'm just also hopping on to voice my support for a much stronger collective bargaining ordinance.

I support one that grants all non-police city employees the right to collectively bargain immediately rather than granting some workers the right first while others would have to wait.

And this right, as many others have

mentioned, too, should include bargaining over disciplinary procedures.

Not including this provision really leaves workers vulnerable.

A stronger ordinance that is at least at the level of others passed in northern Virginia could meaningfully improve working conditions, which I think would help the city in attracting the workers it needs.

For example, for our public buses and school buses, like many others have spoken about, too.

You all have shown that you care about improving both of these and, you know, understanding their impact on our community members who depend on these buses and the impact on public safety and climate.

But a huge step in improving area transit is actually attracting and keeping employees.

I believe robust collective bargaining rights that help workers improve their wages and other conditions would help with our bus driver's staffing shortage and I'm sure other staffing shortages and thus improve services and conditions for those who live and work here too.

Our city workers outside of the police in my opinion literally help our city run.

They deserve to have trust and power in their workplace and a fair say in how they're treated here.

That's all.

Thank you.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I'm a lifelong resident of Charlottesville.

I have two children here and one grown child who grew up here.

And all three support every worker's right to join a union and to bargain collectively with their employer

so long as they're non-police.