City Council Meeting   8/3/2020

Ms.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Thank you.

I do have one quick thing that we need to do before we start the call to order.

In light of tonight's bad weather, it is possible that we could potentially, one or more councilors could potentially lose power or access.

And if more than one councilor loses access, we will lose our quorum.

And then I will call for an immediate recess at that time and confer with the city manager about next steps.

However, if only one counselor loses access, um, the council will still remain maintain a quorum.

I'd like to know each counselor's preference of whether they would like for us to continue the meeting if they individually lose access or if they would like for me to call an immediate recess and confer with the city's attorney at that time.

I am fine for the meeting to continue should I lose access.

So am I. Do I need to then designate somebody if I lose access to chair the meeting?

I would nominate Ms.

All right, so now that we've gotten that taken care of, I call this meeting to order.

Thomas, will you take the roll, please?

Present.

Ms.

Walker?

Absent.

Ms.

Magill?

Present.

Ms.

Next, we have announcements.

Do any counselors have any?

I'll take the vote.

That's okay.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

All right.

Vote is unanimous.

So now I will ask, are there any announcements?

All right.

I have one announcement.

We will be hearing from Sunny Saxton, the regional

EOC, which is the Emergency Communications Center.

And Ryan McKay of the Health Department will present the regional COVID scorecard and how we're doing with COVID right now.

Mr. McKay and Mr. Saxton, if you'd like to join us.

They're both on the webinar.

And I've got some slides.

Okay, thanks, Vice Mayor Magill, I appreciate that.

Brian, if you want to go ahead and bring up the slides.

And if you want to advance it to the first one, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

So the Regional Scorecard, as many of you may know, is a product that's been produced in coordination with City of Charlottesville, but also County of Albemarle, UVA, and Thomas Jefferson Health District.

It's not intended

that any one metric that we'll take a look at here in a minute would be actionable by itself.

Rather, it's a tool to be used for direct discussion.

And with that, Ryan McKay, senior policy analyst for Thomas Jefferson Health District is on the webinar with us.

Thank you and appreciate the time to present the card and give everyone an update on where we are with COVID.

The first metric we're looking at is just tracking our overall percentage of unmet measures over the course of the last couple of months when we instituted this scorecard back in May.

you can

single sign, but a good sign at least of where we're actually heading at this point.

Brian, you can advance the slide.

So here are the first three measures.

The first is percent positivity rate and test.

So what we're really looking for with this is a downward trend, the moving average.

Every day we get a seven-day average of what the positivity rate has been over the last seven days.

And there's fluctuation in that, which is why we're looking at what that average is over 14 days.

As you can see, on July 20th, we were at 6.6%.

Right now, we're still sort of flat in our positivity rate at 6.5%.

But on July 7th, we were at 7.6%.

So we've gone down a full percentage point.

We've stayed at that for the last three weeks and hoping to continue.

So while we're not continuing to drop, we're not increasing or going back up, which obviously is a good thing.

New cases, so a downward trend in the moving average over 14 days.

We've seen the number of new cases in Charlottesville and Albemarle in this moving average go down, which is a good indication that we've been able to institute some mitigation strategies on our end, identify cases, get individuals isolated, and then get some quarantine for those who are close contacts in place.

Three is a new measure, maybe instituted this week.

We had originally included a sort of a snapshot of what hospital capacity is locally at Sentara, Martha Jefferson, and at UVA.

And after presenting the scorecard at the Albemarle County Board as a revised meeting,

There were discussions about how well those were capturing what's happening within the hospitals.

And in discussions with both hospitals, it was determined by the unified command that we would remove that and have ongoing discussions about what the hospital situation looks like in terms of capacity.

because in any given moment, there's going to be fluctuation.

And we felt that looking at what the statewide capacity is, it's going to be a better reflection of what's occurring throughout the state.

And as you can see here, since July 20, we've seen increased hospitalization averages occurring, which would be an indication of some statewide increases in cases.

Brian, you can advance.

For testing capacity, we initially were just looking at

sort of internally as a health district.

Did we have our testing team in place?

Were we doing the events regularly?

Were we able to sort of meet some of the demands?

Now we're really looking more at what's the average of a daily basis of the tests that are being conducted.

So this is really the first step in what we're trying to accomplish, which is mitigation and then eventually more on the containment side.

So making sure that we're providing access to testing, that there's supplies available for the testing.

This is a better sort of indication of what's happening in action.

In addition to testing capacity, what about turnaround time of tests?

Because that seems to be what people have a lot of concern about, how long it takes us to determine the outcome of someone's test.

We don't have a metric for that, and that's something that's going to vary depending on where the tests go.

So if tests are being sent to UVA or to Senator Martha Jefferson, the turnaround time is very quick.

It could be as little as 24 hours, depending on the need.

It's the commercial labs that we've really struggled to get a good understanding on.

We know it's somewhere between seven and 10 days if it goes to lab core.

and that's been a direct correlation with the increased testing not necessarily in Virginia but in the Deep South where they've had substantial increases in cases.

So who does those private tests?

CBS, I don't know if they send it to LabCorp or some other private house.

They send it to somewhere else.

And what we did find is that it was taking upwards of 10 to 12 days for people to get results back in early to mid-July from CBS.

And honestly, CVS was one of the most frequent user places where people would go to get tested.

So it certainly created concern.

The other thing the state is looking at is to make sure that supplies are available.

So while we can make sure that we're getting people tested here at the state level, they're really looking at an understanding of the availability of supplies, things like reagents, the medium,

specimens are transported in swabs, things like that.

And we know that there's just generally been somewhat of a shortage nationwide.

I don't know that we've really seen that impact locally.

I think with some of the lab work, there was a shortage of reagent for a period of time.

And then we were able to work to get some naval swabs through our state lab.

But other than those two incidents, I haven't heard of anything locally that's been particularly challenging.

And I'm adding to that, so I will say UVA and Sentara Mother Jefferson have been great partners in providing access to testing in Charlottesville and also Albemarle County.

Sentara did weekly testing in June and July on Thursdays at Washington Park.

UVA is doing weekly tests at various locations.

I know Friendship Court, Southwood, Church of Incarnation, and they're gonna be doing that more on a regular basis.

So Tara, my understanding is that they're not gonna be doing the same community testing from here on out.

We are adding a second team that will focus solely on areas in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

VDH provided us with funding to hire a second team, so we'll bring them on board this month and they'll probably start

during community events sometime in late August or September.

Once we get the test results back for positive results, it's really important that we make contact with those individuals within 24 hours so that they can get an understanding of what they need to do to isolate.

So in this next metric, we're really looking at contact tracing, we're looking at case investigation.

So the first part is case investigation.

This is when we make that initial contact, let them know about their test result if they haven't found out already through their physician, and then walk them through what isolation means, what they need to do to protect themselves, to protect others, and for how long.

And answer any questions that they might have.

So we have a team of case investigators who will do this.

In that process we also identify individuals who were potentially exposed to the index case.

We get the contact information, we get the phone number, and then our contact tracing team

makes contact with those individuals, ideally within 24 hours.

And for the measures aren't on here, but for the current scorecard, our case investigation, we have a 96.7% success in getting in contact with individuals within 24 hours.

And then on the contact tracing side, we're at 93.4%.

and getting contact within 24 hours.

The goal is 90%.

State averages 85.8% for case investigation and 81.9% for contact tracing.

So we have a very robust team.

Right now we have boards of 40 to 41 individuals who have been hired.

A number of those are onboarding.

And this is on top of some of our day-to-day epidemiology staff who have been working COVID since April.

So those measures are met and really critical.

Once we can get a positivity rate below 5%, it makes it so much easier for the investigators and the contact tracers to really contain potential outbreaks when we do get an index case.

Next slide, please.

So PPE, the state has been tracking PPE availability for hospitals really since April.

And this is a measure that they post, I think it's on our website or the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association website.

And to our knowledge, we haven't had any issues for healthcare workers or public safety for that matter, getting access to PPE, the personal protective equipment, gloves, gowns, and 95 masks.

Where we have seen some shortages where people are unaffiliated, so maybe it's a primary care provider who isn't affiliated with either the hospitals, where they're having individual difficulty getting access to PPE.

The regional EOC had set up a donation center to really try to support the supply chain, and we had worked with them to offload some of the things that we were getting, providing access for dentists and other

local medical professionals who just didn't have great access to it.

So this is of concern, certainly for local primary care providers, and that may impact testing.

Physicians may not want to do testing in their office if they don't have the appropriate PPE.

As Sunny mentioned, this is really a tool that we use as a starting point for discussions.

And I think the positivity rate probably instigated some conversations by elected officials in the city and the county and certainly among government officials about what direction we were heading in.

While our positivity rate has gone down, I would say we're still a little bit concerned.

We want to make sure that we keep it down and then lower it.

We have community spread that has happened before UVA has reopened.

So this isn't just the potential of UVA coming back.

It's just it happened during the beginning of phase three.

And I think measures like the positivity rate and looking at the scorecard

If I could ask a question that people keep asking me as though I am supposed to know all of these things.

When I look at the daily reports from VDH, from Thomas Jefferson Health District, I have been told that the numbers from the outbreak at the Cedars are not being reflected completely in those numbers.

I think if it's fatalities specifically, yes, there's truth to that.

And the reason, there's always going to be a delay with fatalities.

First, there has to be a signed death certificate that indicates that it's related to COVID or directly caused by COVID.

Then that gets confirmed by Richmond.

and early on especially we were getting, it was really difficult to get a signed death certificate from a physician for a number of reasons.

Physician's office wasn't open.

It was difficult to get in touch with them.

And so Dr. Bonds would have to make a number of phone calls and send some emails to make that happen.

And so there is going to be a lag time.

Now, as far as the cases, my understanding is those should be up to date.

And when you look at the cases

for like for a nursing home, use Cedars as an example.

Are all of those going to be showing up as Charlottesville cases, because that's where the Cedars is located?

It'll be counted in the locality that the person currently resides in.

OK.

And so to look at hospitals, for example, I assume that anybody coming to UVA, coming through the emergency room, is counted as a city person because that portion of UVA Hospital is located in the city.

I think hospitalizations just count for district.

No, you're correct.

So hospitalizations are based around locality, I think.

I'm looking at the screen now.

Hospitalizations, yes, are broken down by locality.

or Martha Jefferson.

It's the location where they're from.

Oh, I see.

And these are cumulative over time.

So it's not that there are 25 currently.

And is deaths done the same way where they're from?

Yes.

Thank you.

And so an employee of a nursing home facility who might live in another part of the state

But if you're a person who's staying in that nursing facility, that's your home, then it's there.

Right.

Right.

OK.

I do have one other question that is clearly you've gotten to a point where you've got 90%, 93% contact tracing in 24 hours and so on.

How is that going to change in three weeks when the university comes back?

We are.

Like I said, we're onboarding more staff.

We've submitted another request for additional contact tracers and case investigators.

And we've been working really, really closely with the university to make sure that there is a process and a system in place.

We have another call with them later this week to talk about that process.

And we feel like we're really

in a good position to move forward.

I'll be honest, it'll be a challenge, certainly.

We're going to be adding several thousand more people to the community.

It increases risk, for sure.

Good.

I don't need to know the details.

Thank you.

Are there any further questions?

Keep doing the good work.

All right.

From there, are there any recognitions or proclamations?

I have none on my list, but does anybody else have any?

Any other councilors have any?

I do not.

Excellent.

In terms of appointments at this time, we don't have any appointments to make public.

We're just scheduling interviews for some positions.

Thank you.

And does anybody want to make a comment on boards and commissions they're serving on and what's going on with those boards and commissions?

All right.

Next, we have the consent agenda.

Ms.

okay here we go um ordinance amending section 2-6 of chapter 2 administration of the code of the city of charlottesville to add june 19th as an official city holiday second reading

Ordinance, Flint Hill Planned Unit Development, PUD, consideration of a rezoning application, critical slope waiver, and right-of-way realignment.

Second reading.

Appropriation, Virginia Housing Solutions Program Supplemental COVID-19 Grant Award, $243,276.

2nd Reading, Appropriation, Emergency Food and Shelter Program, CARES Act Funding, $7,099 2nd Reading, Appropriation, Open Society Foundation, Emma Lazarus Campaign on Cities Grant

$250,000, second reading.

Appropriation, Safe Routes to School Non-Infrastructure Grant Award, $95,000, first of two readings.

Appropriation, Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus, CDBG CV Funding,

for FY20-21, $246,699, first of two readings.

Appropriation, Office of the Registrar CARES funding for the 2020 presidential election, $64,229, first of two readings.

Appropriation, BamaWorks grant for supporting aspirations, improving resiliency for vulnerable families, $6,000, first of two readings.

Thank you, Ms.

Thomas.

We will be pulling item 12, Resolution, Honorary Street Naming Request to become an action item.

at this time.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

I'll second.

Thank you.

Ms.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes.

Ms.

Hill?

Thank you.

Now, I open the consent agenda for public comments.

If a member of the public

would like to make any comments about the consent agenda.

So if you're on the webinar and you want to speak to counsel about the consent agenda, you can click the Raise Hand icon.

And Vice Mayor McGill, we do have one person.

I am interested in the name changing.

Reverend Brown, we are actually pulling that item from the consent agenda in order to move it to the further end to the agenda to speak on that.

Okay, so I have to wait.

Yes, sir.

Thank you very much.

Um, I'll call the vote.

Thank you, Ms.

Thomas.

Mr. Payne.

Yes Mr. Snook Yes Ms.

Hill Yes At this time, we will now hear from our City Manager in response to community matters from previous meetings.

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

I have two items tonight in response to our last meeting.

One pertains to the question that was asked.

for veterans and local government employment.

And I'll read that out so you have that information.

It's just basically saying that it's consistent with the requirements and obligations to protect the classes under federal or state law.

Any locality shall take into consideration or give preference to an individual status as an honorably discharged veteran of the armed forces of the United States

and its employment hiring policies and practices provided that such veteran meets all of the knowledge, skills and eligibility requirements for the available position.

Additional consideration shall also be given to veterans who have a service connected disability rating fixed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

So that provides an answer to that question that was asked at our last meeting.

So it's my understanding that the state has said that honorably discharged veterans are a preferred hire.

Correct.

Well, it's saying that we can't exclude them from the hiring process.

We can hire veterans for various positions.

So what the question was at last meeting was, if a person has military experience, can we not hire them?

But we have to based upon state code.

All right, moving on to the next item.

At our last meeting, the community-based advocates from the Equity Center, local steering committee,

the UVA President's Council on Community-University Partnerships and the network that work at PBC asked us to consider support for the Frontline Workers Fair Treatments Charter and basically all those items I outlined for all of you in terms of what we're doing.

I would say

based upon the information I provided you, you can see that we are doing something in some form or fashion.

But there was also a recognition that, which is one of the reasons that we were kind of giving pause to just being able to sign on, was about the premium compensation.

So I certainly see the reasons that they're laid out here as to kind of how we're trying to manage fiscally.

But that is something that this is asking us to support, and we are not doing that specifically.

I thought we were doing that by our hourly rate that we moved to in terms of the $15 an hour.

This is around like workers at risk getting more than a living wage.

Receiving compensation acknowledges the critical contribution they're making, you know, so it's just those people who are on the front lines having a different

Yes, that was something that we talked about as a collective group.

And the only other question I had was on number seven, pipeline support for former frontline workers.

So you addressed if people are no longer with the organization, but I have a question around if people are not willing to risk returning to a frontline position, is there other opportunities that they're able to take within the city, if that's the case, or are we just saying that this is only a situation

if there's an unemployment decision made and then they collect unemployment benefits.

Well, from this, what we thought was based upon that they're collecting unemployment benefits, will we connect them with training and resources on jobs within employer networks?

And as was mentioned,

You know, we'll do all that we can in order to try to find them some, you know, for job placement opportunities.

We'll work with them if they don't want to come back to their current position.

Yeah.

In the end, what they're doing is just basically asking us, are we in support of that?

And if we are in support of this charter, that we come back with a resolution saying that we support it.

Thank you very much for that update.

Any other questions pertaining to the frontline workers charter?

All right, thanks.

Thank you very much, Dr. Richardson.

All right, now I will be opening up to our community matters.

I'm not going to be cutting anybody off mid-sentence.

However, we do ask that in order, in the spirit of being fair and impartial, that we ask everyone to stay to the three minute timer.

I know some people might have a slightly harder time if they're calling in and not seeing the timer moving.

and try not to interrupt you mid-sentence.

But if the time has come to the end, we will let you know respectfully.

Thank you very much.

And now, Mr. Wheeler, if you would open up the community matters.

We do have eight people.

Peter Hanley, Ralph Brown, Jean Gratz, Brett Landstell, Philip Cleave, Nancy Carpenter,

Liam Spears, and Derek Bond.

And three of those I do not see on the webinar.

So if one of those people is on via telephone, please press star nine.

And we'll assume it's one of you.

Otherwise, if you want to speak during one of the other eight slots, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

And we will call on people in the order in which they raised their hands.

Council will hear from 16 people.

at this part of the meeting and then they will hear from anyone else at the end of the meeting during another public matter session.

So let me just search one more time for one of the speakers.

So I do not see Peter Hanley, but let me check with one of the phone numbers.

Hello, you're on with council.

It's Sullivan Cleve, Sullivan Cleve.

Okay, yep, you're number five and we will come back to you in just a moment, Phillip.

Thank you.

Ralph Brown, Reverend Brown, can you hear us?

He's got two sessions, so let me try his other one.

Ralph Brown, can you hear us now?

Yes, I unmuted my mic.

Yep, go ahead.

Madam Vice Mayor and Council, I have a two-part request.

My name is Ralph Brown, and I am a U.S.

Army veteran, and I live at 706 12th Street Northwest.

in a house that my dad built over 50 years ago here in Charlottesville.

There are two cross streets, Rosser Avenue and Grady Avenue, that according to Wikipedia are named after a racist gentleman of the South years ago.

So I'm petitioning the council to change the name.

Reverend Brown, can you hear us?

Your mic dropped out.

So I'm requesting a change in the names.

And my second part is,

relative to suggested names.

I want the streets to be named after my father, the late Reverend C.H.

Brown.

His information is available on Wikipedia as well under C.H.

Brown.

Because he built at least eight buildings in this neighborhood, two houses facing on Grady and a house and the historic Camp Holy Temple Church facing on Rossa Avenue.

We also built four houses on 12th Street, including the one that I live in, but at 704, 706, 708, and 705 across the street.

And then there's a house facing on Rosser as well as the church.

So I received a form earlier today about the honorary street designation, which I have not.

Okay.

What I said was that there are two cross streets, Rosser Avenue and Grady Avenue, both according to Wikipedia, are named after racist gentlemen of the South.

Thomas L. Rosser was a major general in the Confederate Army, and William W. Grady

advocated the support of white supremacy.

In fact, Grady said, and I quote, the supremacy of the white race of the South must be maintained forever, and the domination of the Negro race resisted at all points and all hazards because the white race is a superior race.

So my position is, is that

both of the streets' names should be changed, both Grady Avenue and Rosser Avenue.

And I only found it out because I was researching the name change for my father.

And I've lived here over 50 years and did not know that both of these folk were Confederate generals.

I further found out that Venable School is named after a Confederate soldier as general as well.

Thank you very much, Reverend Brown.

I truly appreciate you going back and explaining that missing piece there.

Next up is Gene Gratz.

Jean, you're on the city council.

You can unmute your microphone.

Hello.

Thank you.

I'm Jean Gratz.

I live at 1409 Cherry Avenue for 30 years.

The city code has speed limits set at 25 miles an hour and then lists exceptions.

There are four streets in the city of Charlottesville that are two-lane, undivided, and 35 miles an hour.

That's part of McIntire, Avon, Rose Hill Drive, and Cherry Avenue.

So, too many Cherry Avenue is a fast street to get to UVA.

or downtown.

But to us, it's a neighborhood.

From Bridge to 9th, it's primarily business with Tonsler Park.

From 9th to Cleveland, it's residential with a couple of schools.

It's a hilly, curvy street with a lot of cars, bikes, pedestrians, some bike lanes, some street parking.

And I think the 35 mile an hour exception is excessive.

It is

Difficult to get in and out of the business driveways, your personal driveway.

Difficult to cross the street.

Hard to access transit stops.

The curves and hills affect the sight lines.

There are insufficient sidewalks.

Crashes causing injuries, but more commonly property damage are common.

My car was totaled while parked in my driveway.

I accessed TREDS, which is the Traffic Electronic Data System, TREDS.virginia.gov.

In 2018, there were 12 crashes on Cherry Avenue.

In 2019, there were 14 crashes on Cherry Avenue.

In comparison, Park Street had two and four crashes.

It is important to note that

that these crashes were not clustered around a particular intersection, nor did they occur at a particular time of day or night.

During these years, both years, two crashes, only two had speed or alcohol related.

What this tells me is that people are driving on Cherry Avenue, unimpaired, within the legal speed limit and still crashing.

I can find no logical reason for these 35 mile an hour exceptions.

In fact, the crash data shows that 35 miles an hour to be unsafe, and I feel unfair to the residents.

To be consistent within the city, I believe all two lane, undivided streets in the city should have the same speed limit.

25 miles an hour, no exceptions.

Thank you.

All right, our next speaker is Brett Lansdale.

And when people join the webinar, if you could tell us your place of residence.

We can.

Thank you.

Good evening and thank you, Vice Mayor Magill and members of City Council.

My name is Staff Sergeant Brett Lansdale.

I'm from actually Ashburn, Virginia.

And first off, I guess I'm glad that you're proudly considering veterans for employment opportunities.

So thank you for that first part that we heard this evening.

As one of the magic eight speakers tonight, I know my timer is precious.

So let me first say thank you for providing this free speech platform for me and others to state our strong opposition to any further gun control legislation in Charlottesville.

My marine brothers and sisters, we often travel down to Charlottesville to actually get away from the craziness and the pace of up here in Northern Virginia.

So this legislation is very important to me and very important to us.

And yes, every time we come to enjoy everything that Charlottesville has to offer, I and others, we're also carrying our handguns appropriately concealed.

For most of us on this issue, we just want to be safe.

We want to protect ourselves and proudly follow our Second Amendment rights.

And so let me be clear, the proposed legislation, which sadly mirrors the legislation passed in Alexandria and Arlington, will serve to do nothing except keep the good guys, us, from having our defensive weapons.

You're only giving more destructive space to those that don't even listen to the rules in the first place.

And I know Charlottesville knows better than many about the tragedy of providing destructive space for those willing to do harm.

So if we wanted to look at our common ground on this issue,

We, the concealed carry holders of Virginia, have the same mindset of those that are proposing this ordinance.

We fear that someone somewhere might do something horrific.

The difference on the issue is we have concerns about the person.

This ordinance improperly fears the weapon.

The weapon itself is not the problem.

The problem is those that seek to do harm with them.

And this proposed ordinance does nothing to address that issue and only makes Charlottesville unsafe.

And this ordinance takes away my rights to defend myself, my family, and all of you.

As a proud Marine, believe me, I would run into danger for you.

But if this ordinance passes as written, it leaves me and others no choice but to walk away.

So today I implore you, even myself being a card-carrying Democrat, don't let your fears or maybe a lack of understanding concerning the Virginia concealed carry process and our respectful lifestyle, or the belief that some form of moral code outweighs the will of your people.

Many Virginia locales are adopting and supporting the no local gun control resolution drafted by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, and I urge you to do the same and at least have a discussion on that proposal this evening.

We, the good people of Virginia, if this bill goes forward in this legislation, we will have to take our families and our money to safer locations in the Commonwealth, and I don't think either of us want that.

Next, Vice Mayor Magill, we have Philip Cleave.

Yeah, it's Philip Van Cleave.

Yeah.

All right.

Oh, OK.

Thank you.

I'm the president of the Virginia Citizens' Defense League.

You probably remember the massive rally in Richmond that we had on January 20th.

It was national news and even some degree worldwide.

50,000 people showing up in support of the right to keep and bear arms and self-defense.

Totally peaceful, no arrests, and Richmond was cleaner when we left than it was when we arrived.

So, you know, the kind of people that make up this organization are your concealed handgun permit holders and other gun owners that all are lawful citizens.

The vast majority of gun owners in this state are all law-abiding.

to take away their rights with this proposed ordinance that you're looking at is wrong.

It's just totally wrong.

People need to be able to protect themselves.

That is something that's protected by not only the federal Constitution under the Second Amendment, by the Virginia Constitution is even clearer in the defense of that right, Article I, Section 13.

You want to punish criminals.

You want to punish the bad actors.

That's the way America is supposed to work.

You don't punish everybody.

You don't take away the driver's license of a person because his neighbor drives drunk.

But that's the equivalent of what's done if you pass a law that tells me, as you say, the Virginia concealed handgun permit holders, they can't carry in all these locations you're looking at.

So that's punishing

the good driver for the deeds of the bad driver.

It's much better to pull the drunk driver's license and put him in jail and leave the good people alone.

It only seems like it's guns where we make this exception.

Somehow we throw logic out the window and a motion comes in and I ask you please don't do that.

Let's look at this logically and with reason and let's protect that right.

We're looking for ways

to capture the bad people and get them off our streets.

What happened in Charlottesville was an automobile that killed somebody and some idiot from another state that fired a gun into the dirt.

That's it.

And for that, you really don't want to take away the rights of 635,000 permit holders and two and a half million law abiding gun owners in this state.

So I, again, I am an employer sitting council.

Let's not do this.

The vast majority of the state, probably about 95%, is not going to be making any changes.

Let's keep the state consistent so that the gun laws are the same as you travel around the state.

Northern Virginia is breaking that mold, and that's a horrible mistake.

Now suddenly we have an area where we've got different gun laws.

Everything is all messed up.

You can't carry here in one place, can't carry in another.

Let's not do that.

Let's stand, just stand with the gun owners and tell them in this crazy world that we're looking at, Charlottesville stands with the law-abiding, peaceful citizens that choose to own firearms for self-defense.

All right, next up is Nancy Carpenter.

Nancy, you're on the City Council.

Dr. King, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I am a local resident living in Charlottesville and have a comment to say tonight.

I was going to talk about housing, but I really decided it's late to talk about a more important topic, and I want to remind you that I'm speaking as an individual and not as a spokesperson for any organization.

I do have a question for you all tonight, and that is how much do you really support the PCRB?

I'm not talking about the individuals, but a PCRB, because really your actions belong to any support you may publicly state that you have.

You have unilaterally watered down the enabling legislation and attendant bylaws.

It has been in excess of 30 days since Mr. Blair was tasked by Dr. Richardson to provide the board with a written explanation of why these changes were made.

This was our request and it was your timeline to give us an explanation.

We're still waiting.

Subsequently, you have decided to table a very important vote taken by the PCRB using an excuse that the General Assembly Special Session may adopt some form of police reform.

The board is supposed to collaborate with City Hall and the police department on issues impacting marginalized and over-policed communities.

You are having a listening session Tuesday regarding topical matter that is most definitely in the wheelhouse of the PCRB.

yet not one invitation was forwarded for a PCRB rep to be a part of the panel.

And when an inquiry was made from the board chair to the mayor about having a rep, the reply was, no, this was not a joint session.

Case closed.

You have shut us down when we wanted more frequent meetings.

You have shut us down to end meetings when we weren't finished.

You have interrupted the conversation of two black female members addressing the board colleagues.

Mr. George Floyd has been dead for 70 days, yet the board has to wait 75 days to get responses back from CPD on several recent complaint referrals.

You know, really, city council can pass any necessary laws they want to to defund, abolish, or whatever with the police force.

So what do you need a PCRB for?

I don't want to be part of a dog and pony show to be really honest.

I have been willing to give my personal unpaid time to city government to change the structure of what has been an organization that has oppressed so many people for far too long in many, many different ways.

And do I have to rethink that based on your interactions with us?

And I'm not really looking for any type of comment.

I just want you all to kind of sit with that and think about that.

And hopefully on the 13th, my colleagues and I will be able to have a conversation about this.

All right, we have two additional speakers from the original list, Liam Spears and then Derek Bond.

If you're on the webinar and you want to speak to counsel,

You can click the raise hand icon.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

Hello.

You're on the city council.

All right, dear Vice Mayor Magill, city councilors, and government officials, thank you for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Liam Spears, and I reside at 2021 Ivy Road, just inside the border of the city limits, next to Albemarle County.

I'm addressing you today as a Charlottesville city resident to express my disapproval of the proposed amendment to City Code Chapter 33 regarding firearms.

My understanding is that this ordinance would completely prohibit the possession of firearms, ammunition, etc., on city properties and city buildings, as well as within city parks and streets during special events.

In effect, it is a firearm ban that would make government property in our city into a gun-free zone, and I'm urging City Council to reject this proposed ordinance for two reasons.

One, it is an unconstitutional restriction on personal freedom, and two, it's dangerous to the safety of city residents and city employees.

Article 1 of the Virginia State Constitution says that, quote, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, close quote.

This ordinance is a clear infringement on the right of the people of this city to bear arms on city property in a peaceful and responsible manner.

It is unconstitutional, wrong, and accomplishes the opposite of our government's function.

Instead of securing and protecting the rights of the people, this ordinance will diminish and restrict the rights of the people.

and secondly, rather than ensuring the safety of the citizens, I think this ordinance will cause city residents and especially city employees to be vulnerable to criminal activity.

Even if there is an exception made to this ordinance for CRHA housing, as was discussed at the previous council meeting, city employees will be unable to bear arms for self-defense while they're at their place of work.

So this makes city employees less safe and advertises them as targets

for Criminal Activity, and ironically this will directly affect you all.

If you are working late into the night at a council meeting and you're assaulted on your way back to your car, you will be unable to protect yourself in that moment.

You may be able to call the police, but you won't be able to pull out a concealed weapon and defend yourself.

So out of concern for constitutional government and the protection of human life, I strongly plead with you to reject this amendment to the city code.

Please continue to allow Charlottesville residents to exercise their freedoms in a responsible and peaceful manner.

And next up is Derek Bond.

And

I no longer see Derek on the webinar.

And I want to just repeat the first name that was on the sign up sheet.

Peter Hanley.

Excellent.

All right.

Then we'll start taking additional hands that have been raised.

We have one, two, three, four, five hands up at the moment.

Ton Gathers, you're on the city council.

Can you hear us?

Mr. Gathers will be the seventh speaker.

Hello?

Hello.

OK.

Go ahead.

OK, thank you very much for the opportunity.

Good evening, everyone.

My request to speak this evening was twofold.

First of all, I won't belabor the point or the issue, but I would urge you to please uphold the amendment restricting the use of firearms in government buildings.

Most employees don't have the opportunity to carry weaponry on to work on their jobs.

Certainly would think that government employees should be under those same restrictions.

Secondly, in regards to the street naming, the proposed street naming, which was presented as Black Lives Matter Boulevard, the section that was requested was on Market Street from First Street down to Ninth.

That was to incorporate and encompass Market Street Park,

as well as the Market Street Parking Garage, as well as City Hall, the Courts Building and the Police Department.

I cannot express how urgently I feel that this would be the most appropriate thing that we can do here in the city now in regards to all that happened to us back in the summer of 17, as well as the most recent events that are occurring around the country.

As Ms.

Carpenter said, it is now 70 days since George Floyd was murdered.

It's also 143 days since Breonna Taylor was murdered, and her murderers still have not been brought to justice.

I think that while this is a symbolic gesture, it truly is a powerful measure and powerful gesture that we can send forth not only to the residents, but to

those living here in various communities around the Commonwealth, as well as our brothers and sisters across the country.

And I certainly would urge you to consider the request as it was placed and not to look anywhere else in the city, not to look anywhere else that has less visibility in the city, not to go off of Market Street.

If you want to make it a more visible area, then you can look to Main Street.

But I think that that stretch of the city would be most important and most relative and viable to the request and to what we're facing right now as a nation.

And the next four speakers are Elizabeth Stark, Dorinda Johnson, Harold Foley, Gloria Beard, then Sarah Burke.

Elizabeth, you're on the City Council.

Hi there.

We can.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Stark.

I'm with Charlottesville DSA and the People's Coalition.

I live on Fairway Avenue in the Woollen Mills neighborhood.

First, I want to bring to your attention that there are seven evictions on the city general district court docket.

Tomorrow, there are nine evictions coming up on August 11th.

We need to take all possible action to halt these evictions

to keep people in their houses.

I know there are some resources available, but unfortunately what happens is the people that most need help don't show up to court and they get ruled against and the eviction starts happening to them.

I'm aware that Mayor Stoney and the president of the Richmond City Council

requested the general district judge to enact a local moratorium in Richmond.

I'm also aware that Governor Northam has requested that the Supreme Court of Virginia enact a moratorium, but it would only be good through early September.

These measures are important.

I'd like to see some movement from city council at least trying to get these enacted.

We need help.

People need to stay in their houses.

and the most vulnerable people are the ones that don't show up to court.

They don't learn about their rights or resources.

They just get caught up in the system.

The second thing I want to say is that I suck at what Nancy said.

I'm very frustrated about what's happened with the PCRB.

I'm frustrated that y'all haven't taken more action to be supportive of it.

I see them.

trying to enact strong bylaws and the original ordinance.

And I see you thwarting them.

And it's really frustrating and it's really disappointing.

And with this conversation that's coming up tomorrow about policing, the thing that you can do right now

to help policing in Charlottesville be less biased, less racist, is to take action and support the Civilian Review Board right now.

I want to say that it's just getting to be a lot.

And in some ways, I don't feel this is the council that I voted for, and I'm really looking to see action from you all.

Vice Mayor Magill, next up is Dorinda Johnson.

Thanks a lot for allowing me to speak this evening.

And I am speaking as a resident.

I live Orange Dale Prospect Avenue, have been in this area for 51, lived on this street and in this area for 51 years.

I am speaking, I'm coming to y'all as a resident of this community, not speaking on behalf of any organization or commission or board.

I am extremely disappointed and very frustrated with how you guys are treating the PCRB.

I am not getting the feeling that you are in support of that board at all.

I found out, when I found out about this listening session that you're having and that no one from that board could partake in that, that's causing a division right there.

And that to me, it appears to me that you're undermining

the PCRB.

Why would you do that?

Why would you set that up without consulting or talking with the PCRB?

That to me was something that the PCRB should have been doing.

If the PCRB and City Council cannot work together and if this division that you have caused

Continue, nothing will be accomplished.

The city has very little faith in the city council and in the Charlottesville Police Department.

Early on, it was said, don't create these boards and these commissions as band-aids to shut people up.

If you are not sincere about making a true difference within this community,

For these people of this community that elected you in those seats that you are upholding, you shouldn't be there.

This has got to stop.

We need a change.

We need this fixed.

And we need you guys to work together with the PCRB the way that you're supposed to.

This is absolutely horrible what you are doing.

Horrible.

and it's just no excuse.

I am so speechless.

I was speechless when I found out about this listening session.

A listening session?

Really?

A listening session?

Enough is enough.

Our tenth speaker will be Harold Foley.

Harold, you're on the City Council.

Can you hear us?

I can hear you clear.

So once again, with the PCRB, it feels like Groundhog Day.

City Council is undermining everything about the PCRB that we do not understand why.

We thought City Council was going to have the courage to push for something that's new and innovative.

Let me start over again.

I'm Harold Foley.

I live at 1407 Miller Street, and I'm representing the People's Coalition.

And the People's Coalition have been fighting tooth and nail for two, three years to get this PCRB up and running and having some meaningful teeth to it.

Of course, the previous council watered it down, and we thought the new councils would come in and had the courage to say, let's look at this and make it better.

But of course, like I said, we are in the same situation.

And so we are in Groundhog Day.

Can we get out of that?

Can we get city council to have the courage to fight for the people that need to be, just need to be fighting for?

You know, it just amazed me.

You know, one of the things somebody asked me is like, hey, Charlottesville got a civilian review board.

And I tell them,

That don't mean anything, because we've got to continue to fight for the board to be strong, the board to have the necessary things they need, the board to have the data, the board to have the information.

And it just bothers me that, like Dorinda said, you folks on the council passed something just to pass something.

All right, our next speakers in order will be Gloria Beard, then Sarah Burke, then Walt Heinecky, then Tanisha Hudson, then Katrina Turner.

Ms.

Beard, you're on the City Council.

Can you hear us?

Hear me?

That's good.

Wonderful.

Well, I got two things and I'm Gloria Beard and I live at 1116 Page Street, Charlottesville, Virginia.

I'm speaking as part of the People's Coalition and one of the original people that helped, you know, form this board.

And my question, because when we were writing the bylaws, I was thinking that we were going to sit down with the

you know the one the board that's chosen now you know all these people but look like to me it's taking so long because nobody's really has really said I don't know what's going on with this board and we did this for the people the community I'm part of the community as well

I like to be involved with my community, but I'm also a citizen.

So we want this board, you all, and we would like to sit down with the board that you all have chosen now whenever there is something going to get started.

I don't know.

What's the holdup?

Can anybody answer that?

Why hasn't anything been started?

We told the public a year ago that we was going to, we was all for them.

and people come to me and say, when can we make a complaint?

I said, well, you can make a complaint, but I don't know how you go about it now because I don't know anything since we have already did, you know, the bylaws, but I don't even know how to answer to people.

I don't even know for myself what's going on.

I just don't look like we had a standstill and we worked hard, you all.

Y'all got to give us credit for that.

We worked hard.

It wasn't just putting something down on paper.

So my next question is, the early part of spring, I call the traffic, I don't know, what's the guy's name that do the traffic, that's in charge of traffic?

You know, just the traffic lights.

Well anyway, there's two lights installed in the sphere.

that I really know about because I have been involved.

You know, because I volunteered until we had to shut down with Habitat, the one across from Hamilton Inn and Habitat's office up on Main Street.

That lights, I mean, I'm older and got, you know, problems with my limbs.

So I can't walk real fast and I definitely can't run across that street.

The light, it changes.

As soon as you start walking, it changes.

Even the younger people, you know, say the same thing, but they can run.

And then the light up there across from Legal Aid going towards Washington Park, that cross way is the same way.

I've had some young people tell me they have to run across that street.

I think somebody needs to go around and check out these lights because they don't give people time to cross and these people, some of them would be speeding and that's because I cannot run when I'm crossing up at you know up that Hamilton Inn I could easily get hit so I mean I'm thinking about other people as well older people I guess they didn't think older people would be crossing the street What streets are they in again?

Hamilton and Cross come across to the Habitat office.

I guess it's Preston Avenue Legal Aid in Washington Park.

Is it the crossway?

Is it the one by the Martin's Hardware ma'am or is it the one?

Yeah, it's further up, up there where Legal Aid is.

It's right in front of Legal Aid.

OK, so more on the Grady section then.

Where's Grady?

No, no, no.

And I called the gentleman that's in charge and he hadn't checked it as well you know it was in the spring so I don't know what's going on now because Habitat shut down and I volunteer for Habitat but we shut down till future you know because of this

I have a check with Brennan Duncan.

That's who you're talking about.

Thank you, Ms.

Our 12th speaker is Sarah Burke.

Sarah, you're on the City Council.

I can.

Hi, Sarah Burke.

I'm a resident of Charlottesville and a former civilian review board member.

I just want to thank Nancy and Dorinda for speaking up today, which is what made me raise my hand.

I want to express my support to both of them and the others.

They're in a really challenging position.

The city has said that it supports a CRB, but what you've created is actually a pretty ineffective body.

And as we told you last year in our report, an ineffective police oversight body is actually likely to be more harmful to the community than helpful.

If it just gives the illusion of oversight but has no authority,

to make meaningful findings that side with the people who complain about police misconduct, then what is it doing?

Or if you can't access the data and documents and policies that you need to make meaningful public reports about the ways the police are policing your community, what is that doing?

If you rely on the police department's cooperation to give you access to the documents and evidence you need, and you don't have any more meaningful memorandum of understanding,

It's your job to oversee that same police department and you're relying on them to give you whatever documents and data that you want.

It just further erodes trust.

So much of actual meaningful oversight.

It's not just about overseeing complaints and reviewing complaints.

And we've said that a million times and I'll say it a million more times.

It's about opening the black box of policing and information and data that has been kept from the public eye for too long has to come to light.

One of the mechanisms of a good oversight body is that it can change as needs change.

And so digging into how police departments make their money, how much is privately funded, how much is relying on asset seizures, how much we're actually paying and what other agencies or what other grant funds are paying for policing in our community, that could be a critical oversight mechanism.

You can also understand, an oversight body can help understand how police spends the money, whether that reflects the values of the community.

If anyone in power, including city council or the city manager, is actually challenging the need for these resources, why are our teachers buying their own markers and reading supplies while taxpayer dollars are shelling out millions for militarized equipment, whether you want to call it that or not?

How is overtime pay affecting the ways your police department is reacting to protests

and demonstrations.

So these are all things that a meaningful oversight body should and can review, and you all have winnowed it down to just a pretty basic and ineffective kind of 1990s version of oversight.

It's too small-minded, and the current CRB has asked you to think bigger, but you've put it off again.

And the General Assembly may explicitly permit localities to create CRBs in August.

We already have one of those.

They won't change that.

So the General Assembly may give subpoena power.

The city manager has subpoena power.

And the ordinance says that the CRB can ask the city manager to use his subpoena power.

If he supports the CRB in the mission, he will use it to support them.

So in that way, the CRB already has the sort of quasi subpoena power through the city manager.

So what are you actually waiting for?

And even if it does pass, it likely isn't going to be law until January 2021.

And then all it does is put the power back in locality's hands.

So then it's back in your hands to decide whether you strengthen your own board or not.

Are you going to let the CRB into that conversation?

Is it going to be like last year?

I sure hope not.

The state's not going to tell you how to do this, so you all have to have the political and social gumption to create something meaningful.

I'm not trying to say that I think CRBs will answer all policing

problems, not by any stretch of the imagination.

But this is one major step, and you all are not even taking this step.

You're doing sort of a side shuffle.

So I ask you to take some time to talk to the original board members who are experts in this field.

We've been consulting with people around the state and the country on these issues.

It'd be great if you all would also listen to us.

The current board also would love to have more interaction with you, it sounds like.

They're very frustrated.

Please don't alienate them like you did us.

And talk to the people who are experiencing policing in this community.

This is a major issue of the time.

I'm sorry, my time is up.

We've got three additional speakers, Walt Heineke, Tanisha Hudson, Ang Khan, and Katrina Turner.

I thought you had your hand up.

I might have clicked a button that lowered your hand.

There it is.

OK.

Just want to make sure I didn't lose you.

All right, Walt Heineke, you're on with city council.

Thank you very much and thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I think what you're hearing tonight about the CRB is basically people in the community feel like we've been engaged in a bait and switch game.

If you go back and look at the original resolution that was passed and replay the city council meeting in which that resolution was announced and formulated, you'll see a lot of passion and desire and direction to create the strongest PCRB possible.

your initial PCRB did that and now you're rejecting it and now you've watered it down.

And let me just remind you that I've seen these kind of games go on before with the dialogue on race steering committee when we brought the Human Rights Commission

a proposal to the Dialogue on Race Steering Committee.

They tried to undermine it and water it down.

And there were five or six Dialogue on Race Steering Committees who immediately resigned once they saw those games that were being played.

and I think you're basically watching a slow train wreck start to unfold right now as you see the possibility and you hear in the comments today that you may have mass resignations.

Do you want that mess again?

Is that what you're heading for?

You've created something and you're undermining it and it's going to lead to a public mess and undermine the public confidence in the council once again.

We heard from Nancy today that Mr. Blair was asked to provide the reasons why the original ordinance was changed and it hasn't been delivered.

We speculate, and I'll assert, that most of those reasons have nothing to do with state oversight or state law.

They have to do with other political issues that some members of council are promoting to undermine the PCRB.

And that's unacceptable.

It's unacceptable.

Three of you during the campaign said that you were fine with the original bylaws and that they were okay in terms of state regulation and state issues, and yet now we don't have a vote.

to promote that.

And I guess what I want to end on is thinking about what if the legislature does not come through?

What are you going to do then?

And I think your choice is going to be stick with the watered-down version, which will not have community confidence and will turn out to be a train wreck.

or you can take the risk and stop paying attention to your risk managers and take the moral position that we need to go back to the original bylaws and take the risk and vote it in and see what happens.

You can always back off if you get sued.

Vice Mayor Magill, next up is Tanisha Hudson.

Yes, go ahead.

Tanisha Hudson, you know, it's really upsetting me that I feel like you guys are really playing with the CRB.

Like Walt said, I just want to touch on what Walt said.

He said it before I could speak.

Like the boards and commissions that you guys set up here in the city really just don't work.

Like, let's be real.

Some people on council have said it in the past.

They don't work.

It's a waste of time at the end of the day.

So why are y'all trying to waste these people's time?

We either want to face the issues that we have here with the community versus the police department, or we don't.

However, you guys are still making it more clear that you're really all about protecting certain friends and colleagues, period.

I mean, you can't paint a better picture.

Since we've had discussions about the CRB, since the original board, the Civilian Review Board that got together to create the bylaws, a couple of them had issues with Chief Bragney.

Ever since then, this has been an issue with making sure that things get passed, for this to be a successful Civilian Review Board.

I mean, I can't paint this picture anymore for y'all.

A lot of stuff downtown is just personal.

And y'all can roll your eyes.

You ain't gotta like me.

I don't care.

But like, y'all prove my point every time.

So much stuff downtown is just personal at this point.

It's almost like y'all don't want to be successful.

But then at every council meeting, one of y'all on council try to tell somebody else from a different department either how to do they job, what they doing wrong, what they not doing right, and y'all can't even do y'all.

It's like we trying to win a championship with a rookie starting five that don't even know how to play basketball.

Seriously.

I mean, and I hope that that analogy sit with the public, because election time is definitely coming up.

It's coming up for a few of y'all.

And like at this point, I mean, I just don't feel like any of y'all really want to make Charlottesville a better place.

Y'all want to put people in positions, or you want to act like that you're really about to change, just so you cannot feel bad about sitting on the wrong side of doing things.

That's really what it's all about at this point.

I ain't gonna yell at y'all tonight.

I ain't gonna do none of that tonight.

Like, it's really about some of y'all just making these quick decisions, because you don't want to feel like you really displaying your white privilege.

That's what it's all about.

You want to act like you're sitting on the right side when you really still on the wrong side in reality.

So think about that.

because when you were campaigning, you were putting on this front like you were really on the right side and wanting to really change things.

But y'all not doing anything to change things.

So you either want to work with the community to make Charlottesville a better place and y'all can sit y'all personal differences to the side or you dumb.

Will y'all make a solid decision to do that?

We have two more speakers.

Next up is Anj Khan.

Yep.

Hold on.

Go ahead.

Can you mute me?

I just want to have a little fight.

And all we could do, we could go to the next speaker, Katrina Turner.

Katrina, you're on the city council.

You've got three minutes.

Yes, I can.

Yeah, go ahead.

Katrina Turner, Charlottesville.

First, I want to say thank you, Tanisha, for pointing out that this has all been personal about this CRB.

and I, myself, I'm one of the initial civilian review board members and I'm one of the members that has had everything thrown at her, you know, down from the chief of police to the former commonwealth attorney and whoever else wanted to try to come at me, okay?

But the amount of time that you all gave the CRB for a meeting and rushed the CRB off that night,

and then you all stayed on until, what, 2.30 in the morning but only gave the CRB a little bit, a couple of hours, you know, and rushed them off because, you know, people had to go to sleep and they had kids and this and that.

I think the CRB needs more time also

to conduct their meetings because they have people who need to speak to them about what's going on in this community.

And if the city council can stay till 2.30 in the morning, I think you can give the CRB just a little bit more time to conduct their meetings.

That's one.

and then I'm going to talk real quick about the meeting tomorrow.

When people get online and we start talking and we start telling you all what's going on in this community and we're telling you about the police officers that are out here that need to be off of these streets, are you going to listen to us?

We've been complaining for years on top of years, you know, and as Tanisha says, the chief of police has a problem with me personally, not just the chief of police.

The mayor has a problem with me.

and this is why this CRB is not going the way it's going.

So they need to, like Ms.

Dorinda said at the last meeting, they need to put on their big girl underwears and they need to conduct business in the way that it should be conducted because we need this CRB.

And if you all are not gonna listen to the community tomorrow when we complain

What good is this meeting going to do?

You all have to listen.

If you're going to have a listening session, this is really what you have to do.

Once you listen, you have to take charge and do what needs to be done for the community.

I'm not going to discuss my views about ACRB because they differ from everyone that has commented.

and also there's political reasons why.

But I do want to say since this is the topic that I really am disappointed about this policing panel that's taking place tomorrow.

As many of those who expressed before me the PCRB was not consulted nor invited to the discussion.

I would like an answer as to why they weren't invited.

or consulted prior to that and I would like that answer tonight.

I would also like it just seems to me that council isn't being transparent and you know as politics go I know that to be true and also as far as the police department I also know that to be true as well.

It seems as though this is a propaganda forum, only one sided, that you're just doing it as a, you know, a bandaid to the issues that are going on in the community.

And, you know, what type of change do you expect to come out of this?

Especially when you have a panel with politicians and police.

It's not even a community forum.

it's just a community possible call in if those people are able to even call in, right?

It's really quite disturbing considering the majority of you agreed to the need of having a CRB and that you all ran on that.

And so I find it very disappointing that all of a sudden, like, oh, you're not even gonna consult them?

Like, it's just,

It's just ridiculous.

It's like a game.

But this game has people's lives at risk.

And you need to take that into consideration when you're making these panels and making these decisions.

I would just like to speak as to, I guess, quickly why

This forum is coming about because we all recognize that we needed to hear from the community as to what the community wants and where the problems are being identified, that five people can't figure this problem out.

And we needed to start somewhere.

It has nothing to do with trying to hold

to keep the PCRB away out of this.

All it is is honestly a chance for council to hear from the community, the whole community, because we're hearing from different people, different things, and it's just a starting point.

There's a lot of big issues, and they have their tendrils that spread

throughout so many different things that there are no clear-cut answers.

So the only way that we can even begin to come about answers is by bringing the community in and listening to the community and taking – I mean, we're not even speaking tomorrow.

All this is is about listening.

Then once we get a series of questions in one place that we can actually start looking at, what does the community care the most about?

Where should we start looking at first?

It's such a huge problem that it's too big without some direction.

And we need to know from the community

where to even start to begin.

That's all this is.

And it's also a way to try to be transparent, because we don't want to be having these discussions behind closed doors.

So all of this is about the fastest we could do was to get it on the books

tomorrow and to start.

Regretfully, the reasons we have limited amounts of time for various meetings is because we simply don't have the capacity right now to have all the meetings with the Freedom of Information Act, with our public meetings acts, to make them happen legally with their staff capacity.

There's nothing else behind it.

I was just going to echo the point that really tomorrow is just a first step.

Obviously, these are conversations that are happening across the nation and how do we look at policing in each of our communities and every community is going to look at it differently, but we certainly are just looking at opportunity just to hear

from the community on that.

And as Vice Mayor Magill stated, our intention is not to have a discussion at that point.

It literally is to have a listening session and for council to be present.

And there will be many more discussions that will be certainly more engaging.

And we'll be driving more decision making.

But this, again, is just a first step.

And we have to start somewhere.

And this is where we are.

And it wasn't intended to ever exclude anyone.

It's a public meeting.

Anyone, obviously, is

was a lot of the defund the police kind of argumentation.

And I had said when people raised the defund issue back during the budget season, May, June, let's start talking about that in August.

So it's really impossible, given the logistics of things, to have a meaningful policy discussion like that during the budget season.

But the time to start that is in August.

And I really felt that this was to be the beginning of that discussion, as hopefully we can begin to figure out what defund the police might mean.

To some people, it means completely abolish the police department.

Now we're being told it means no cut 60% of the budget.

to other people, it means, well, I'll just kind of reprogram some things.

That's the kind of discussion that I'd like to hear tomorrow.

And then we will begin to figure out on our own terms kind of how we're going to deal with that with the chief of police, with the city manager, and how we move forward with that.

I don't really know what the next step is.

speak to the comments about the Civilian Police Review Board.

Obviously, it's come up many times before.

I've said this before.

I'll say it again.

My perspective on the situation, at least when it comes to the bylaws, is the previous council, I wasn't on council at the time, passed bylaws.

I thought the process they used to do it was rushed.

I didn't think it was well thought out.

I thought there were decisions made on the dais.

that did not have a clear reasoning behind them.

That's what I thought at the time.

That's what I've continued to say.

And I think the best process to try and move to a better place where there's more trust between the two sides would be to have the Civilian Police Review Board, city council or counselors and staff together go through those original bylaws from the original PCRB together, go through it,

Hear the concerns, if any, and I know there are, from the city attorney and city staff about what may be gray areas under state law, what are things that are concerns that aren't allowed, and to go through that process to just get on that same page of information.

and then from being on that same page of information, being able to try and get as much as possible, maybe wholly, I don't know if it's wholly or not, back to what the original bylaws envisioned for the Civilian Police Review Board was from that original board that did the work.

There's not three votes to do that.

I'm one person.

I don't have the ability to change reality.

And so there's not three votes to do that.

And so how do we move forward given that reality?

Quite frankly, right now, I don't know.

I mean, because I think the challenge is that there's a huge breakdown of trust on both sides.

And there's no way around it that a lot of that lack of trust is warranted on the part of the CRB in terms of the amount of public criticism and problems that there have been with this process.

And I think that's flared up again.

I don't know what it will take, but I think we're going to have to, as a council, try to get to a place

where we're rebuilding that trust and re-examining this process in some way because the organization, if there's no trust and there's no buy-in from the community, we might as well not do it.

It's not going to function in any way.

We already have the board members saying they're looking at resigning.

I don't know exactly what it takes, but we're going to need to reexamine this if we actually want it to have any level of buy-in that will allow it to be successful.

That's what I've said before.

It's what I continue to say.

The listening session?

I don't think it was a very deeply formal, thought out thing.

As Lloyd mentioned, I think it sprung up less from the CRB and more from the conversations in Charlottesville and across the country around defunding police, re-examining policing, and trying to think through and hear from the community.

What in specifics does that mean?

What does it mean to think about what is a next steps in concrete policy changes that can get us there?

And as a very

You know, basic entry point to try to begin that community conversation around these topics.

Does it make sense to have the CRB included in policing conversations?

I think absolutely.

If we're serious about it being an institution within local government, it's having some connection to these policies and practices.

But because there's that lack of trust, I think there have been legitimate concerns.

There have been things that have been undermined.

But because there's such a lack of trust, I think it makes it hard.

Everything is interpreted.

through that lens of this is purely a way to undermine the board and undermine the community.

I don't think that's always the case, but when there's that lack of trust, I think that's where we're going to stay at, and we've got to do something to change it.

And I think more broadly beyond policing, things came up with evictions and things like that, but I think it ties into policing.

You know, obviously there are enormous crises in our country right now, an economic crisis, a pandemic, social unrest, issues with policing.

We're seeing political and economic institutions at the federal level which are unable to respond to these things.

This is a country in deep crises, and we're going to feel these things locally.

And the reality is, is that as a locality, we're under such limitations in terms of our city budget, state law, the Dillon Rule.

As a locality and a council, we don't have the power to solve these crises.

And we can do with our limited resources and power what we can to try and make things a little bit better and try and support the community, but we're not going to get all the way there because the crises are so deep.

And I know for me, I think that's the context for so much of this.

And we're going to take heat.

We're going to take criticism.

We're here to take that.

And there's definitely things we could always improve on and do.

But I think for me, the hardest part of this position is repeatedly facing just the brutal realities of we don't have the resources or legal authority to solve the full extent of crises in our community.

And that's broader than just policing, but I think it ties in in some ways.

But I think these are the conversations we need to start having and be open about and be able to have a dialogue.

I hope to some limited extent we can do that a little bit tomorrow, but it's going to have to move far beyond that, and I think we all recognize that.

But it is going to require a very deep conversation as a community that we're not having yet.

And I'm not putting that on anyone.

That's us as a council too.

That's me individually.

At this point, unless anybody else has anything they would like to say on council, I'm going to call a 15-minute recess.

and which means we will be back at 8.32.

Okay, counting my fingers.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we're at 15 minutes.

Call us back into session.

All right, reconvene this meeting, starting with action item number 13, rezoning

Property of 909 Landonia Circle from B1 Business Commercial to B2 Business Commercial, first of two readings.

Invite Joey Winter, City Planner, NDS to present.

Yes.

Okay, I'll go ahead and get started.

My name is Joey Winter.

I'm a city planner with the Department of Neighborhood Development Services and this item is a rezoning petition for 909 Landonia Circle.

An application for a zoning map amendment has been submitted

which proposes a zoning change from B1 business to B2 business.

The general land use plan calls for low density residential development at this location, but the subject property is in a commercial zoning district and has been since 1991.

The previous use of the subject property was also commercial in nature.

The owner of the car wash adjacent to this property purchased the parcel in 2019 and intends to expand their car wash onto this parcel.

Expansion of the car wash onto 909 Landonia Circle requires a zoning map amendments and car washes are not permitted in the B-1 zoning district.

The existing carwash currently lies on two parcels which front the 250 bypass.

They contain a self-serve carwash with vacuuming, an automated carwash, and a propane refilling kiosk.

And those uses would remain the same on the expanded carwash.

There is no site plan proper with this application, but the applicant did include a proper statement.

which would prohibit some of the more intense uses allowed in the B2 zoning district.

And the applicant has consistently indicated to staff that they intend to develop this property as part of an expanded car wash.

In terms of community engagement, this application was received in December.

So all community engagement occurred prior to the pandemic.

The applicant held a community meeting as required on February 13th at Burnley Moran Elementary School.

Two members of the public attended that meeting and generally were supportive of the applicant's plans.

And staff received no written feedback in favor of or opposed to this application.

Staff recommends approval of this rezoning application, and Planning Commission also recommended approval of this rezoning at their July 14 regular meeting, which many of you on council attended.

So just in conclusion, Mr. Aaron Revere is on the Zoom call on behalf of the applicant if you'd like to hear from him, and I'm available to answer any questions you may have.

I think all four of us actually were in the planning commission meeting, the four of us that are here tonight.

So I feel comfortable that I know, I'm very familiar with the project and what was presented previously.

The only question that I had was what, after we take the proffer, which takes out a lot of the more intense uses, are there any B2 uses that are in fact going to be permitted?

as a consequence, obviously a car wash.

Yes.

So there are different uses from B1 to B2.

And those are actually in the staff report that was sent to Planning Commission.

And there's a link to that within your packet.

There's quite a few.

And Planning Commission did look at it.

Staff looked at it as well.

And there is a difference.

And I think the two, I don't want to speak for the Planning Commission, but the two dissenting votes from Planning Commission were generally supportive of this application, but had reservations about in the future if one of these other uses took place.

Was there anything in particular that seemed sort of egregiously inappropriate?

There was discussion that came up.

I don't want to speak for anybody and say what would be agreed to and what wouldn't be agreed to.

Well, let me say I was at the meeting.

I remember having looked at it with some care and gone out to the site and traipsed around and had the rough diagram in front of me to figure out what I thought about it all.

Well, I did.

I'm trying to go through that use matrix now.

And I was at that Planning Commission meeting as well.

And if I'm remembering correctly, I think one of them was a buy-write use for hotel motel.

I've got it up, but I'm trying to go look through it.

to me, as well as restaurants for fast food full service.

I would say for me, the biggest concern I have relates around that buy right use of Motel Hotel.

I'm trying to go see if there's anything others, not because I think

The applicant – I don't think there's any risk that the applicant and this developer is going to switch things up and do that.

It's just once we rezone it, that use is going to be allowed by 10, 15 years in perpetuity, and especially given the economic climate.

for whatever reason, the project isn't able to come together or it's sold either, you know, short term or midterm.

And some of those uses I don't think would be very good for, you know, the kind of land use we're looking at in that area, particularly, I mean, the motels and hotels come to mind because I just know we've seen that happen in the past.

That's my only reservation.

I think, I don't think there's an intention on the part of the developer to do that in any way.

And I think the rezoning,

Application for the proposed development in front of us would be an improvement on the site and make sense in that site.

That was certainly the concern of those two planning commissioners as well.

Given that it's a permanent, and I also understand that concern.

I guess for me, it's just the size of these parcels.

Yeah, so the- Go ahead in here.

The parcel that is under consideration is 0.67, so about 0.68 acres, about two thirds of an acre.

The front parcels, and I don't have it in front of me, it's roughly the same size, maybe a little smaller if I were, I think it's a little bit smaller, the two parcels in the front.

Now, if those parcels

So I think about uses and what might go there.

I also weigh in like what what can really

come to fruition there.

Vice mayor is it appropriate for me to weigh in now as the applicant?

I'm glad you brought up the point of the acreage, Councillor Hill.

We have some other properties that we're looking to develop where a hotel is a proposed use and two acres is typically the minimum footprint that they're

looking for.

So even if we were to want to go that direction, it's unrealistic and I appreciate Mr Payne's comments about not

you know, suspecting that we're going to do something different, but just to make everybody rest at ease.

It's owned by Tiger Fuel Company.

Any other clarifying questions?

And this will be moved to?

The August 17th agenda?

Oh, you're right.

I'm sorry.

There's not a vote on this.

Okay.

I was thinking this one was a single reading and the next one was a double reading.

I'm fine on the consent.

Again, as I've already stated, you know, I want this project to move forward but

So would you like to put this on as a further discussion next time?

I guess a question for the applicant.

Are there any further proffers in terms of buy right uses that you would be open to?

Good evening.

I'm not sure if I'm unmuted or not.

I'm happy to speak to that a little bit and hopefully Joey can weigh in with me here.

We actually tried to keep the other uses listed on that matrix that I believe you're looking at there down to an SUP level instead of just by right but that was not

recommended or acceptable to staff and so we're kind of stuck in this little circular loop here.

We were prepared to discuss more about the hotel if that was one issue that gave you significant grief but I think Gordon kindly just spoke to the low probability

Gross nature of the square footage here.

So I think we're at a point where we're ready to submit a site plan on this if we can get approval at the consent next hearing.

We've actually already begun discussions internally about staffing, equipment ordering, and everything in anticipation of a positive outcome for us here.

So we've operated it for nearly three decades.

They intend to operate it for a very long time.

It's a successful location.

But I'm not sure we can fully address all of your what-if scenarios to your concern here.

But we're trying our very best.

Yeah, and I hear that.

I think in the planning commission's discussion, if I'm remembering correctly, I do think it was the hotel use that was the biggest concern.

And I think that's the concern.

The biggest concern there is of some of the residences around there.

I know there's a lot of other uses.

I agree.

I don't want to get into trying litigating every single buy or write use that can be allowed or not.

I hear that about the acreage.

I don't know nearly enough about the world of developing hotels to know what is ideal versus what's feasible versus what just can't work.

But that is really the only thing that gives me a little bit of concern.

I think it would make me a little bit more comfortable to know it's ruled out.

But I also, to be clear, I don't want to hold up this project.

Or Mr. Winter could we add as a proffer hotels?

We cannot we cannot do that.

I mean just to be clear.

Thank you.

Yes so the the proffer comes from the applicant so it's the applicant's project to proffer out whatever they want.

The applicant did come to staff and they've been great working with staff about they had some an idea to proffer things down from the

by right use of a hotel, which it would be if it goes to B2, to a special use permit for a hotel if this parcel is rezoned to B2.

So instead of having by right, which it normally would be, it would be a special use permit.

Staff, that's not something staff would support based on

how SUPs work in our zoning code, the logistics and really just the criteria that we use for SUP, it's not something we would support.

That would be if it goes

In B1 currently, there could be a hotel with up to 100 rooms if this parcel is not rezoned subject to a special use permit.

So to the question I think that was asked, and I'm not sure.

I don't think we change our process here if we add one line item to proffer out this 100 room hotel to say not allowed.

I think that was the question that was asked, and I wasn't sure if that was answered.

That's a very good question.

I will say that the city code says that if there's a modification to the final proffer statement at this stage of the process, the city council has three possibilities.

It can decline to consider the modification.

It can continue the application to a subsequent meeting date, in which case the council

will conduct an additional public hearing on the application which would include this proffer or it can refer it back to the Planning Commission for review and recommendation.

But then it would

I guess prohibit it from just moving on to the consent agenda.

Correct.

So the simplest form would be for us just to on our next meeting would be a public hearing with this additional proper that we would host and then

the next meeting, as Michael said, we would be done.

Well, I do want to caution you.

I'm doubtful we can get the advertising in the paper for August the 17th.

It'd probably be the first meeting in September for the public hearing due to the advertising requirements.

but I don't see any reason unless the council chose to based on the city ordinance that if you held the public hearing in that first meeting in September you don't have to wait till the second meeting in September to have a vote because the city code section that applies does carve out for land use applications you don't have to wait three days before an ordinance is introduced.

before you can vote on it.

So that's a long-winded way of saying if you wanted to have this proffer modified, we'd get the ad in the paper.

Well, I mean, I guess ultimately it comes down to what

If that would go as he just laid out, that would work for us.

We were trying to avoid duplication and redundancy in the process.

So it seems like that is the best solution that would appease the concerns about this wind use, as well as help us stay on track with the project.

And we'd be willing to do that.

So we would amend our proper table to add an additional use, hotels slash motels, up to 100 guest rooms to be not allowed, upon reason.

I'm sorry, Mr. Winter, you were- Yeah, I just had, sorry to interrupt, but I just had one,

Clarification, I'm showing that under 100 rooms would now be not allowed.

Now, in B2, above 100 rooms would still be allowed by a special use permit.

Yeah, and I don't know if you can consolidate the line items, hotels,

It could be up to and over 100.

If that's a line item that could just be added as singular, then we'd do that, because clearly we're not going to do one bigger than that.

We can work on the language, but that clarifies.

And again, that makes me more comfortable.

I know I'm being extra cautious, but again, just trying to think about the long-term implications of any land use.

But I certainly, again, I want it to move forward and feel fully comfortable in that.

Thank you.

I believe we can move on.

Thank you very much.

My meeting, during our break I was unmuted and I said a cuss word at one point during that time and I am officially apologizing to everybody as it has been brought to my attention that others heard this.

I thought I was on mute.

Somehow it got unmuted.

And all I can say is I'm a human being like everybody else.

It was not out of disrespect, but just out of getting out my emotions so I could be prepared for the next part of our meeting.

So I just didn't want that to go any further.

I'm sure it's on a recording someplace since I've received two emails about it.

Now, to item number 14, our appropriation for the Belmont Bridge replacement project, $15,260—wait a second—$15,000,000—sorry, I wish it was $15,000—$15,263,257.41, first of two readings.

I'm inviting Jeanette Genasek.

Please forgive me if I have butchered your name.

Yes, good evening everyone.

Hope you all can hear me.

I'm having actually a hard time hearing you.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

Good evening everyone.

I'm here for the Belmont Bridge appropriation.

I'm looking at

appropriating $3,163,920 in federal funds and $12,999,337 in state funds.

That would bring the grand total of the budget to $31,100,043.

So with these federal and state dollars, we would be appropriating them.

We will hopefully be bidding the project in fall of this year.

And as the reimbursable expenses as those are paid out, we will then seek for reimbursement from the federal and state government.

As I said, we're planning to bid out in fall of this year.

We still have a few activities left to do.

We are finalizing the plans with the Federal Highway Administration as well as the Virginia Department of Transportation.

I'm working on updating the Board of Architectural Review based on their certificate of appropriateness that we received last year.

We have completed right of way acquisition.

We're finalizing the railroad agreement, which Mr. Blair has.

And by the way, Mr. Blair, we have one little edition or edit that we'll be making about the right of entry that I'll be getting you.

And private utility companies working on the final

I just have some general project questions around, can you just lay out for the public just the rough timeline?

So we're going out to bid in fall.

What does that even mean for when the things that are really tangible can be recognized?

No problem.

So advertised in the fall, that would take about two months for us to receive the bids back.

It will take us a couple of months to verify the bids, make sure it's the lowest competitive competent bidder, making sure that VDOT audits

And then we could award the contract.

We're talking about the beginning of next year.

So you would start to see activities in, I would say, February, March, where people are mobilizing.

I was on the steering committee for my council colleagues who aren't aware, but where I was ever on council was my Belmont Bridge Steering Committee.

And I was pregnant and that kid is really big right now.

I do not.

At this point, I need to open this up to a public hearing.

OK.

I take it back.

Sean Tubbs, you're on the city council.

Can you hear us?

Yes, you've got three minutes.

Just real quick, to Councilor Hill's point a second ago, I also didn't think this was a public hearing.

That's the only comment I'm making.

Thank you.

Well, to address that, the state code does require

We have another hand up Vice Mayor Magill.

I can, thanks Council, seeing as how it's a public hearing, I was under the impression that the Belmont Bridge project because of certain pieces of the funding of it is going to be subject to section 3

um hiring and requirements and I would encourage the city to be aggressive in promoting the kinds of work that Charlottesville residents, low-income residents can get on that project so I hope

There's quite a lot to say about the project and its history.

I do hope that city manager economic development will proceed with

We had looked at that with economic development.

Section 3 does not apply due to the funding because it's transportation.

It's not CBD DG or whatever that's called.

We can recommend and request that they voluntarily participate.

We've had some

luck with that.

We've also looked at whether we could in some way restrict or highlight being a resident of the local area and we are unfortunately unable to do that again due to the federal funding.

They will not let us restrict or

to cause undue benefit for our locality.

So we have looked at that and there is one thing that we can do which is on the job training and that is another item that VDOT will give us a goal on.

The only thing that I would caution on that is that for whoever is the lowest bidder on the job training is for current employees of that firm

and it's a way for them to step up.

So maybe they're a general worker and they could get more skilled labor.

So again, it would be for that contracting firm, whether they're local or out of state.

Thank you very much for addressing that.

So if there's no more discussion or questions at this point, then I will

Yeah, I have no opposition to that.

Same with me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now we are on to general business, where we – I'm going to –

Good evening.

I'll try to make this quick just knowing that you've had a long evening already.

So Mr. Wheeler has a presentation that I intend to provide to you.

So John's going to be endeavoring into launching a kind of evolution of services that it already provides.

It's kind of called on-demand services.

So what I'd like to do is give you an overview of what we're working on.

If you go to the next slide, Brian, essentially give you a sense of how this on-demand compares to what John already provides.

Look at how this is an innovative approach compared to a typical transit approach that you might see in other communities.

Talk about some of the flexibility and opportunities that it offers up and then just some of those guiding principles that we're kind of working off of.

This is all to kind of give you a sense of what's happening and as things come before you and transits being discussed

It gives you just another piece of that puzzle to consider when you're thinking about what can be done in addition to what we're already performing.

So in addition to presenting to the city council, we're definitely looking at talking to the planning commission for the city.

We are talking with the planning commission and some other groups with the county as well, trying to get the word out, trying to drum up the information and the feedback that we would need to kind of hone in and how we can take advantage of this new approach.

You might ask, why doesn't Jaunt already provide something like on-demand?

When you're looking at what we already provide and you consider this on demand, think about it in the context of we're focusing on how we can be flexible with the fare structure and the schedules that are available.

and how we can respond to more of the immediate needs of the community.

Instead of publishing some sort of set schedule or publishing some sort of set fare structure, we can be more nimble in what is needed to be put into place to better respond.

In the next slides, we'll kind of go through some examples of the opportunities that we've identified.

Kind of leads it up to what we see as kind of the innovative aspect of this.

In this first one, we see sometimes in the urban area that there's some inefficient or hard to serve areas, those gaps that exist.

Sometimes we call them the first and last mile of services.

It's really hard to try to serve everybody with transit services, especially fixed route services.

And so we're able to look at implementing something like on demand that would help connect

those hard to reach areas to those backbone fixed route services.

This is something that actually Mr. Williams has talked about a good deal amount, mentioned a few times at the Regional Transit Partnership, to where it's much easier to run a backbone and then feed into it and it helps serve so much more than just trying to dip into different neighborhoods.

And then the next slide, we have another opportunity where when it comes to transit, it's really hard to just put a route out or put a service out and hope for the best.

Something like On Demand actually helps kind of build up the needs and the expectations and the type of services that they might want to see in certain parts of the community.

If you look at something like down towards Avon Street or Fifth Street, if you look at how we can

draw out people to consider getting out of their automobile and then jump into a transit type service.

Over a period of time we start building up that greater sense of the need and then we can switch over to something more fixed like a fixed route service.

Another opportunity On Demand offers

is in the next slide, it shows how we can try to work on connecting people to the jobs that are out there.

This is very similar to growing transit.

The more we can start making those connections, the more we can start to put some more defined services in place.

The city actually has gone after a TANF grant that directly relates to this type of approach to where till we tease out where those needs are, where they come from and where they're going to, it's real hard to

really serve it

We find already that there's a struggle to try to connect some of these people to the services, and it's largely because of the need to schedule ahead of time and try to make that link.

Something like Loaves & Fishes has been a challenge to where people can schedule, but if you've got a busy schedule of your own, personally, something like On Demand will allow you to have that flexibility.

Another example in the next slide is just something new to where we can start working with different employers, looking at how we can offer something that's built around those employee needs and provide those kind of incentives so that they can leave their cars at home.

This is where we can, again, build up where the more established services could better serve the greatest impact.

So in general, we see a bunch of different opportunities that exist.

And in the next slide, it kind of overviews these ones that I provided to you.

But these are just the five that we thought would apply to the urban area.

In the next slide, it's kind of a little fun on Field of Dreams.

But one of the things that I realized when I was looking into this type of platform and this type of approach was

Most transit systems define a need and then go out and find whatever technology or something that could serve that need.

When I came across this type of platform, I actually saw that there were almost like seemingly endless possibilities of how it could apply to the community.

So we're kind of a little bit flipped in that approach in that I feel like once we get something like this in place, we'll see these other partnerships and these other dynamics coming out of the woodwork and trying to

see how something like On Demand could help strengthen what they do for the community.

In the next slide, it's just the guiding principles before I wrap up for the evening.

We approached this with wanting to make sure we stayed focused on five different areas and being a transportation person, I do like my acronyms and so I kind of wrapped them around that.

We wanted to make sure whatever we're putting in place is responsive and responsive to the needs of the individuals and responsive to the community.

Of course, being John, we wanted to make sure it's inclusive and that ranges from different parts of the community to the different socio-economic to even the disabilities.

The dynamic side of this, we wanted to make sure that we could be a little nimble in what kind of partnerships we can form.

So we didn't want something that locked us into just one type of on-demand.

We wanted to be able to layer up the different opportunities that could exist.

Biggest principles for me is to shift a way of offering transit to the individuals so that they feel empowered.

One of the biggest successes of the transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft has been that it'll show you that you've got to wait 10 minutes for that car, but because you know that you see the car on a map or you're being told 10 minutes, you feel fairly empowered and you're going to still use that service.

That's where we want to shift this is that that empowerment is now in the hands of those users.

And of course one of the things that I don't believe the private sector has done well in is maintain the safety of the people that we're serving.

So those are the five guiding principles that we've put together and pretty much that's the end of my presentation.

I just wanted to provide you a sense of what we're working on and kind of tease your thoughts about what opportunities that might exist to serve the Charlottesville area and the residents.

I guess, yeah.

Thank you.

I know public transit is really vital in our community.

And I know public transit systems with COVID have had to do a lot of hard work adjusting, which I think you all and Kat have done and continue to be a vital service.

I guess I don't have too many questions.

I guess is the goal longer term to make this to transition away from the current model strictly to on demand or?

This is kind of an evolution of what is being offered, specifically by John at this time.

It's not looking to necessarily replace as much as open up other opportunities.

However, I will say that a good number of people who schedule with us and look for us to provide for their mobility, they do so sometimes to create a safety net for them.

So they'll schedule for a trip for tomorrow, and they'll schedule a week ago for that trip.

But the morning of, they may cancel because they found out that they don't actually need that trip.

Maybe it was to go to the grocery store or somewhere else.

We see enough of that that when we put our schedules together, we're creating some level of inefficiency because we don't know if they're going to cancel or not.

So if we provide some of those individuals with the ability to look at getting a trip on demand,

It'll be less likely to build in that safety net a week in advance, which then gives us more flexibility to run efficient schedules.

I think it goes back to that empowering the user.

I worked with a lot of people at Region 10 who utilized Jaunt for many years and having to do an appointment two weeks out often was very difficult to keep up with.

I really think this is a really wonderful move and the flexibility I think will serve people a lot better.

Thank you very much.

I guess it's just the process-wise.

I mean, I saw in the very beginning you had your kind of like outline of all the different folks that you're kind of updating with.

I just wanted to make sure you heard it directly from me.

We knew that

We're going to be bringing this forward.

We made that decision a couple months ago, the platform and the approach.

We actually started hearing some others come up with very similar ideas, so we wanted to make sure that we were getting this out there, people were aware.

One of the things that I think we try to avoid is that redundant ideas that start coming up in their own little silos, and then ultimately they take so much foothold that

it's harder to start merging them together.

So trying to get ahead of that early on and really to tease out the different possibilities of what this might offer for the community and how we can build from that as well.

Thank you, Mr. Sheffield.

Thank you.

So I had another snafu here.

I should have brought up resolution 12, the honorary street naming request.

No, you're fine.

Yeah.

Oh, good.

No, no snafu.

At least not this one.

All right.

So resolution, honorary street naming request, Black Lives Matter Avenue.

requested that this be pulled to speak further on because we had a combination of things coming up, both with people who had put in requests, not really liking the compromise of where, as well as more requests coming in.

that we would like, we've received a lot of honorary street namings since this item was brought up.

And so going forward, it's looking like we might want to get a little bit more input since we are getting so many people sending in street naming requests at this time.

to do this correctly and to do this with the most transparency and in some sort of way that has people's input really involved in it.

And then after which time we can have, um, a subset of council working with staff just to kind of consolidate that information and then make a recommendation to council, um, because given the sheer number,

that we're already considering, that we may anticipate considering more to make sure that we're looking at this holistically.

And so I'm in support of us.

I mean, the date, I'm fine with if we wanted to go with the end of this month.

I do think it's going to require that we do notify the public that we're doing this, and that we'll have to rely on Mr. Wheeler's team to do that and work with them to do so with our staff.

At least one thought had been expressed that we might want to designate a, you know, like one time a year or every six months or some period of time when we would consider whatever requests had come in up to that point so that it's not a

Every month we're looking at a new request kind of a thing.

I don't know how people feel about that.

Personally, I'd like to get some sort of a sense of order to it because just as an example, we've got three or four different requests right now.

that seem very much related or interrelated or, to some extent, contradictory.

And we have a process.

But I think the process, because of the number of requests that have come in, is prompting us to relook at that process.

I know we looked at this process once since I had been on council already.

I know it was minor.

I agree.

I think that there needs to be more of a rhythm to this so that the public can be better engaged.

Because right now it isn't as transparent because we receive these requests.

We talk about them perhaps briefly.

But a lot of it, like I'll be honest, the last one we did discuss that it was like the middle of the night and we were trying to just figure out how to address multiple requests that had come in in a way that was receptive to what we were hearing from the community and clearly

missed the mark in some ways.

And since that time, more requests have come in.

And I just think it's really valuable for us to look at them all comprehensively and have a process by which a subgroup of us with others involved helps to make a recommendation to the full council.

So I think at this point, I'm not comfortable making any decision on anyone renaming tonight in a formal capacity.

Mr. Iacofono, do you have a question?

Yeah, well, I mean, the other issue is we need to also look, I mean, this is a practical issue of if we already have streets honorarily named something, you know, how long does an honorary street stay named that way?

I mean, I know a staff person brought up just the whole

Logistical fact of stacking street signs on top of each other.

So we would want to have a good idea of where all the honorary streets are.

I think looking at this in a holistic way, and that's where I'm coming from on this, is making sure that we are holistically looking at things, that it's not some sort of race to who gets to the street first.

and maybe even working this into with the Historic Resources Committee or if the Blue Ribbon Commission came back online, this kind of, I mean, it seems to fit in these areas of what we want to speak to as a city.

The way I'm thinking of it is there's the sort of like one, there's some of the immediate name, honorary street name requests, you know, we've gotten over the past, you know, month or so.

And the question of how do we, that each have different locations or the phrasing is slightly different, so how do we consolidate that into just like one honorary street name and one location and how do we figure out that decision?

So there's that one thing and the second separate thing is this broader question of looking at

multiple public streets and public places and how do we elevate

local history and local people, as well as the people who live on these streets and have lived there for decades or generations and really incorporate that into that broader conversation.

I guess I worry, I just don't want us to drag out that process on the first thing too long.

I mean, I think there's value to have some community engagement to figure out exactly where it goes and exactly what we want it to be.

You know, it's too easy without it even being the intention to do it, to just drag things out for a really long time.

I do want to clarify for the one item that was being considered tonight.

Where we ended up in terms of location was based on a person's request.

There's two different zones that have been suggested and we were not going off on our own.

One of the requests was for the street that was proposed and what we were going to consider tonight.

And that's what we decided during our last meeting.

Obviously we've gotten some feedback because other requests came in that had different vision for where those would be located.

We knew there was some logistical hurdles with putting them in some of those intersections.

Yeah, which on that first point is the exact problem is we've gotten multiple street name requests, some of them the exact same wording, some of them slightly different, and all with different locations.

So just how do we, as a council, without any community engagement or conversation,

Pick, you know, which is best.

where I feel like we're not in a good position to do that well, although obviously I think the goal is to have it be prominent and not just off on the side or something like that.