City Council Meeting   8/7/2023

So, should we call the August 7, 2023 City Council meeting to order?

Ms.

Councillor Puryear?

Here.

Mayor Snook?

Here.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say no.

Okay, the motion passes to adopt the meeting agenda.

First is a work session to hear and discuss a report that does not require a council vote.

That usually takes us up to around 5.30, though you don't have to feel as though you are obligated to fill that entire time if you don't want to.

So our item for the four o'clock agenda is a report on the regional transit governance study that TJPDC is doing.

And we have folks by video.

Okay, there's our video.

Okay, there's Lucinda Shannon.

And Dr. Stephanie Yankson, is she with us also?

Okay.

Sandy's going to do an introduction and then Stephanie is on.

All right.

Well, good afternoon, everyone.

It's a pleasure to be with you all this afternoon.

Thank you for having us, Mayor Snook, members of Council, and Mr. Sanders.

I've had the pleasure of working with most of you, but for those of you who don't know me, my name is Sandy Shackelford, and I'm the Director of Planning and Transportation for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

I also want to acknowledge that Lucinda Shannon, who is the TJPDC's Project Manager for this project, and Christine Jacobs, the TJPDC's Executive Director, joining us virtually.

even though they were unable to be here in person.

This afternoon we will be discussing the regional transit governance study with you all.

This governance study was initiated as a follow-up to the regional transit vision plan that the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission completed in late 2022.

The transit vision plan established a unified long-term vision of transit service throughout the region.

This governance study was initiated to support the achievement of the regional transit priorities identified in the vision plan by identifying governance options for regional transit and increasing transportation investments.

The study is funded by the Department of Rail and Public Transportation, ULLS, the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

We appreciate your financial support and engagement on this important topic.

The work is being undertaken by a team of consultants from AECOM and Jarrett Walker and Associates, many of whom also worked to develop the transit vision plan initially.

So tonight, the presentation is going to be conducted by Dr. Stephanie Amonin-Yankson, who is the project manager from AECOM.

Ms.

Amonin-Yankson was the task lead for the Central Virginia Transportation Authority's Regional Transit Governance Study, and she has extensive experience conducting transit governance and funding studies.

She should be able to present.

Sure, I can start us off.

I'm going to share my screen.

Sorry, I have to open the PowerPoint first, right?

And then share it.

So the Regional Transit Governance Study, as Sandy said, is a follow-up to the Regional Transit Vision Plan, and the purpose of it is to find additional funding to enable us to enact the services that were part of the Vision Plan.

The project team is on the TJPD side, myself, Christine, and Sandy.

and then on the AECOM side, Peter Voorhees, Stephanie Emung in Yankston and Scott Baker.

Peter worked on the vision plan with us and Stephanie worked on the governance study for Richmond's new transit authority, the Central Virginia Transit Authority or Transportation Authority.

So in this presentation, we're going to go over the study background and the goals and some preliminary outcomes that we have and then the next steps and then discussion.

We had planned on presenting to you at the very end of the project and giving you recommendations.

However, we're

in the middle of the project and this was the only time that we were able to get on your agenda.

So we're going to give you some of the outcomes and then talk about next steps that we will be taking and we'll be talking with some of you more throughout this project.

So the transit vision plan, which is what started this off, created a clear long-term vision for efficient, equitable, and effective transit service for the region.

We had extensive outreach with stakeholders and the community and came up with two networks or service networks that

would meet the goals and objectives of the community for public transit.

And we had a constrained network and an unconstrained network.

The unconstrained network was if money was no object.

And this would have the, it's based on the services that we already have.

We worked with the transit providers to make the network

and so that it works with them and it would have CATS updated routes that they're planning on.

It would have the buses running seven days a week with much more frequency.

A lot of them would be about 10 minutes between buses instead of half an hour and an hour.

The constrained network would be similar, but it would have less

like less span between, so you might wait 20 minutes for the buses and 10 minutes, there would be not as many routes and less microtransit service.

The unconstrained network has microtransit service in the rural urbanized areas, well, in the rural areas, and then it would have an hourly bus from the rural area to this urbanized area to Charlottesville.

That would be every hour and that would run seven days a week.

A lot of what we saw was people who live out in the rural area because housing is cheaper, but then they can't get to work and they're working a service job and sometimes they get off before the bus, after the bus stops running.

So this would address a lot of those needs.

So the study goals are to identify strategies for dedicated transit funding to augment the current jurisdictional costs for transit.

So we're looking at generating more revenue and then adding that dedicated for transit and then identifying a governance structure that can manage and account for the additional transit funds.

This would better capture and allocate the full cost of service and ensure transparency.

The region like a regional transit authority or entity can serve as a funding agency to manage and provide accountability for any additional transit revenues generated.

So we had a couple of questions and I guess we have time I can go through these.

So we wanted to look at how.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have the old slides.

Okay.

I can go ahead and share my screen.

Thank you.

Oh, okay.

I'll stop sharing.

All right.

Stephanie Moiney- Please for joining a few minutes late because I had issues with joining the Zoom link, but I'll go ahead and share screen now.

Stephanie Moiney- I'll do a brief introduction.

My name is Stephanie Moiney-Yangson.

I'm with AECOM, the consultant supporting TJPDC on this study, and we thank you very much for your time.

for giving us to listen to where we are.

And we hope that this time will be a time of discussion and feedback to also get your impression on the study.

As part of your agenda packet, we included an initial, a three page or four page summary of this study.

Okay.

Thank you again.

Sorry, I was muted.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Your committees.

We can see you, we can't see your screen.

Okay, now we've got your screen.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you.

And thank you for bearing with me during this time.

But I'll go ahead and continue, pick up from where you started, you ended up.

So Lucinda was able to go through the goals, the study goals with you all.

And really when we talk about a transit authority,

what we are looking for is one to be able to find some options for dedicated transit revenue and two to be able to get options of creating an entity and this could be an authority that can govern that body that can govern and manage that funding source and so those are the two key things identifying dedicated transit options and then two what could be a potential structure for

managing this funding source to achieve the objectives that we identified in the transit vision plan.

And so to achieve this, what we did was we are undertaking a five-phase project.

So the first part was looking at the existing conditions.

We did some reviews of the current transit service.

We spoke with

with Johns, with CAT, and even with UTS.

We also spoke with some of the different, we had a group meeting, stakeholder meeting with representatives from the different jurisdictions.

The second portion of this was doing a peer study looking at peer regions.

So regions across the country that also have a regional structure for transit.

And what we did was we interviewed them and we asked them questions about what are the main funding sources and also tried to

Get strategies that we could implement here in the Charlottesville area, looking at what their

governance structure also looks like.

And phase three, which is what we are currently, the phase that we are in right now in the study is looking at what our potential revenue sources, discussing them with stakeholders and evaluating them.

So right now we've gone through over the last few months, two to three months, we've been doing extensive stakeholder engagement.

We've spoken with

all the different localities, elected officials and staff members from the different localities.

And this is our time to speak to you.

But I think we also have something else scheduled at the end of the month.

And so once we are through with this phase, we'll have a list of potential revenue sources that

potential yields and a discussion of the feasibility of some of these sources.

Once we are done with that, Phase 4 now looks at what are different governance structures that we could propose to

to manage this funding, this potential funding.

And what that would look like is who is going to participate in said regional entity and what would that look like in terms of board representation and membership, et cetera.

Once we are done with all of that, we'll look at, we'll summarize our recommendations and present them.

And our final report is due in December as well.

So this chart you're looking at here just shows you the stakeholder engagement that we've planned and already done and what we have in the future.

Our steering committee has been representatives from the different jurisdictions.

We have meetings with the RTP, which also includes the transit operators.

We've had some one-on-one meetings with the localities.

and some presentations with the MPU and the TJPDC Commission as well to make sure that everyone is engaged on this.

And so I'll go straight into our key findings right now for the governance portion.

In looking at doing some research on what a potential entity could look like in the Charlottesville region, there's already legislative provisions for an authority.

and it's labeled as a Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

Now the essential boundaries of this authority are Charlottesville and all portions of Albemarle County.

Now we know Albemarle County has some portions that may be very rural or may not be able to be included in this entity and so

It's the main portion, Charlottesville, Albemarle with a provision for the other jurisdictions such as Fluvena, Luisa, Green, and Nelson to participate if they wish to.

The main issue with this current funding is it has many of the authorities that we need to run, but the main issue is that it doesn't make a provision for funding.

And so with the lack of funding, there's really little that can be done in terms of pushing forward the transit objectives that we have for the region.

So that's one of the first things.

The second one is looking at our peer review, looking at the various agencies we interviewed and spoke with.

There are different other governance structures that we could potentially look at.

They don't all have to be the authority structure.

So we saw in

Blacksburg, they have, it's similar to CAD, it's a town department run by the locality, the local government, but majority of their funding comes from the university.

In Bloomington, they have what is called a public transportation corporation.

Now, this is very similar to John's structure, which is also a public transportation corporation.

However, in Bloomington is funded by property and income tax.

That's how they fund their services.

For CATA, it's a joint municipal authority, meaning that it's a joint agreement by the member jurisdictions and how it's funded is through contributions that are agreed upon by the member municipalities.

This in in the Ithaca area, they have their system is a 501c nonprofit.

They are also funded through a combination of contributions from the city, from the county and from the university.

This is where Cornell University is located.

and in Ann Arbor in Michigan, theirs is a typical transportation authority that has the powers to levy a tax.

So it's funded by a local property tax.

And so considering some of the strategies that they are implementing and what we see currently in the Virginia, in the Commonwealth that has been already done with some of the authorities we have,

We came up with these three courses of action that we will proceed with.

So the first option is either we establish a new authority.

So something similar to Stevie T or HR tech.

So that will be a new legislation with that is designed in a way that meets all the needs that we have, particularly with the option of

providing that dedicated transit funding source.

A second option is taking the existing CARTA legislation that we have, which is the Charlottesville Albemarle Transit Authority.

The benefit to that is it's already an existing authority, but it would have to have a few different amendments to allow it to have that funding source that we need.

And the third is to determine some other framework so we could look at what would a joint municipal agreement look like or a JPA, what would it look like to have

a different structure other than what we've looked at.

And so these are some of the questions and discussions we'll be having in phase four to come up with those alternatives that can be discussed by the jurisdictions.

Now I'll say here that we understand that the Charlottesville region is very diverse.

There's the heavily

Urbanized areas, but then there's also very rural areas and there are options that exist to ensure that there's some this equitable distribution of the resources that are collected.

We know that Charlottesville's priorities might be slightly different from, for example, Albemarle's priorities or from Louisa County's priorities.

And so through this discussion, this is where we can define who wants to be, who wants to participate, who is interested and what would that look like in having that sort of entity.

That is for the governance portion.

Now, moving on to the transit funding portion, Lucinda already did a great job at describing what the options that we are looking at for improved transit service is.

She talked about the constrained and the unconstrained

networks that we are looking at improving to different degrees.

But I will say that both options, even the constrained option, has a significant improvement to the current service.

And these two options require a substantial increase in the local revenue.

Generally, transit is funded through a combination of federal

State, local, and internally generated.

Now internally generated funds represent any funding that is generated by

the transit and authority or agency itself.

So, for example, in the case of CATS, that would be any contract revenues or revenues from fair revenues from selling fair passes or which now we understand is not really a source, but that's what internally generated revenues or even advertising, concessions, anything that is generated by the agency itself.

The local revenue is the local portion.

that is used to match the state and the federal funds.

We've been in a lot of discussion with DRPT, one of our core project study partners, and we've been discussing with them what these options would look like in terms of potential increases in state assistance if the service were to substantially increase.

And they gave us some estimates as well that we've taken into consideration.

However, in our analysis, we are assuming that the federal assistance will not significantly change because of the way it's distributed, not based on the amount of service, but by the population and because of the formula is based on population.

And so we also looked at other Commonwealth authorities that

are used to fund transit to identify what are our options if we want to increase the local portion.

The list you are looking at here is just a summary of some of the sources we identified from three entities, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, the Hampton Roads Accountability Commission, and the Central Virginia Transportation Authority.

With HRTAC, we actually spoke to the director, Kevin Page as well, who gave us some really good insights.

And so the list here from sales tax, grantors, field taxes,

all the way to the interstate enhancement program are some of the sources of funding for these three large authorities we have in the state.

Now, some of these are more feasible than others based on different criteria that we looked at, including the potential yield

the ease of implementation, what the potential public acceptability would be, and some even equity considerations.

For example, in the case of the fuel tax, through extensive research and a lot of stakeholder engagement, we realized that right now it's not an impossible source, but it's still a likely source that would require

more to implement because of changes that happen in the legislature in 2020.

The three entities I have listed here have a portion of the sales, sorry, fuel taxes that goes to fund transit for them.

But after that, it was made so that all other sales taxes directed to VDOT for the district grant program.

And so that would have to be changed at a legislative level.

to make that source also available to Charlottesville.

What you need to understand is that this additional or supplemental fuel tax is collected statewide.

And so it is already collected in the Charlottesville area, but it's all directed toward the district grant program.

And so some legislation would need to be changed or amended to allow it to fund transit.

And similar with the recordation taxes as well.

But in our interviews and our discussions, we came to the conclusion that some other options were more feasible than others.

So we looked at a sales and use tax, a lodging tax or transient occupancy tax, property tax or real estate tax.

The table you're looking at here is it shows the initial cost estimates for the two networks that we are looking at.

One is the constrained and the unconstrained.

You should note that these costs do not include

the cost for ADA, paratransit, or capital investments.

But taking into account the potential funding we'll receive from the state and from the federal aid, there's still some

a portion that would have to be covered by local funding or some sort of internally generated funding.

And this is between about 19,000 and 55,000.

Again, the funding to be raised can also be anywhere in between, just depending on what kind of network we wish to build.

And so

We did some analyses on these potential estimates that can be, sorry, revenue that can be generated.

The tables you are looking at here show the estimates for sales and use tax and property tax for Albemarle, Charlottesville, and then a combination of the rural counties, which would be Luisa, Green, Fugana,

and Nelson, Nelson County.

We also looked at a lodging tax and for real estate tax for one of the rural jurisdictions.

They don't have a lodging tax right now.

So we used Louisa counties as a proxy.

We also learned that in Charlottesville, there's already, you may already be at your peak in terms of, I think it's 8% and it's the same for Albemarle.

And so maybe some more

work or implementation for that source would need some more direction from you and how to proceed.

But looking at that, we see that on average for just a sales and use tax alone, we could generate approximately $37 million per year for operating the transit service outside of

capital for the personal property, about 13 million.

about $1 million for lodging tax and for the real estate tax is the highest about $260.

The assumptions for the percentage increases are not set in stone.

They were just used as a proxy to get the conversation started.

So for all three, except for the sales tax, we estimated an additional 0.5% and for the sales tax 0.7%.

But only because for the sales tax, we saw that in the other

cases such as CVTA, HR tag, and NVTA, they all have a 0.7% sales tax addition.

And so that was the basis for that assumption.

And so looking at these two, we see that if we were to go with even only the sales and use tax, that gets us about halfway in our income.

in the estimates for the two different types of networks, which is still a significant improvement to the current service level.

Even if we were to meet just the constrained network, that was still a significant improvement.

So even with only the sales and use tax, that is something that we could pursue and discuss more in terms of what the potential feasibility would look like and what the appetite for the

the customers would be or for the localities would be.

Our next steps, I know that I've gone a little bit over time, but our next steps would be to, like I mentioned, go to phase four, which is now discussing this a little bit more to reach some sort of consensus on

governance structure.

So here, by the end of that, we want to understand which localities would want to participate in such an entity.

What would that look like?

We want to make sure that there's as much transparency as possible to managing the added revenue.

The additional benefit to having such an authority compared to the existing system we have is that

The entity would better be able to allocate, first capture the full cost of providing service and be able to allocate those costs better.

So even if it's with contracting service to outer jurisdictions, you are better able to capture what the full costs are and allocate it in the most equitable way possible.

But I would like to now turn it over to you all to discuss, to have just a brief time of discussion, depending on how much time you'll give us on what are your thoughts for this study for transit service in the city of Charlottesville and in the region.

What are your thoughts on potential barriers that you think need to be addressed before we can move forward?

What are some concerns you may have about equity, whether it's for the city on its own or even for different groups of people in the region?

And any other concerns you think that we need to address for you as a council to support the next steps for this study?

So I'll turn it over to you.

And let me kick it off a little bit by saying that we have some additional time today.

Ordinarily, we're looking at sort of a half hour, 45 minutes.

for a presentation, but you are the only thing on the agenda for the 4 o'clock meeting, and so we can go to 5.30 if we need to.

The second thing I wanted to mention is that there are increasingly ominous weather reports coming.

and I'm guessing as I'm looking at the weather.com maps and so on and what they're predicting that somewhere around 515 to 530 we may suddenly have a storm upon us.

If it's only rain, that's not a problem, we're indoors.

If we lose power, obviously that

that poses some problems.

My experience with power downtown has been that if it's not coming back on in a half an hour, it may be four hours or more.

We're not in City Hall, City Hall has some preferences but my law office is half a block away from here and I can tell you that when we lose power it's typically for either 15 minutes or five minutes or a whole lot longer than that.

So my overall thought, we've got folks, the city manager is in contact with emergency service people who can give us more accurate information but if we lose power we would hold on for a while and see how it all shakes out.

Yeah, I have some questions, comments, and these are just things that, you know, I'm not expecting a response today, just to kind of give you something to think about, and that is, you know, the authority for some of those revenue sources, and I don't know them all, that if we have to get authority from the General Assembly, we've found that that is

Yeah.

I'd like to know that, I mean, this has been 15 years or so since I worked on these type of things in my role as a transportation planner for the county, but...

Back in those days, whenever we would propose, because the state only has a set pool of money for transportation, and if someone else created authority or new transit system, that was great, but that means all other localities got less money, and I just want to make sure how that fits into all this, and in particular if it's going to have any impact on Jaunt.

because if it does then it's likely they're going to be coming to the localities for funds to reach their service I just want to know the impact on that and I'm glad that you all have had discussions with them I heard that and for me one of the bigger issue is just the whole authority thing because as the speakers said this is a very diverse community and Charlottesville and Albemarle is really different from

some of the rural counties that we have and if you know

we just need to make sure that you know everyone needs will be met and no locality can prevent the experiment or the palatine or the expansion or reduction or whatever in somewhere else but you know it should be discussion but it can't be like we don't want those that city or that county or whatever to

be able to do that without money type of thing.

So that would definitely come up at some point in time and I wasn't real clear on what that would look like with the proposal.

Politics sometimes gets in the way of some good decisions sometimes and I recall down in Richmond, this was way back and probably changed then, that

I believe Chesterville and Henrico kind of bought into the regional transit system to prevent it from coming into their locality.

And I think that's opening up now.

I know that there's a lot of expansion now, but that really hampered that growth for many years.

So I just want to prevent all those things, at least go into it knowing those things and try to address it the best we can.

So those are the initial thoughts that I came up with.

I may have some more.

We actually can respond to some of those, to some of that feedback at this point.

And maybe, so I think I heard that there's, you want there to be consideration or there's concern that there's consideration that everybody who participates in that has their individual needs met through this process.

That there is a question about what could potentially be the unintended circumstances on the transit agencies and the existing operators.

and some questions about better understanding the authority for revenue sources and what kind of potential process we would need to go through with the General Assembly.

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

Thank you.

So with looking at, in the Commonwealth, what we understand is that for any taxes to be passed, they would still need

at the state level approval.

And so with the options we've looked at for the sales, the lodging, the real estate and for the personal property, especially the sales tax would need the general assembly

Sheffield, Ph.D.

: Approval.

They would have to pass it at the state level because it would be collected at the state level and then brought back down.

The lodging tax is going to be a local one, but still needs approval.

And so it's generally the way in which it's

these authorities or funding revenue sources that passed for transit at the state level is that any funding would need to go through the General Assembly, just period.

Yeah, just quickly, I can't get this to come back home.

We tried to get it approved for...

Yes, I think it could be challenging, but I think once we have strong support at whoever carries such a bill for the local levels, we can get that support that Richmond was able to get as long as we present the case for how beneficial that funding would be for the region.

I'll also reiterate, I'm imagining what Ms.

Jacobs would say if she was here, but I also want to emphasize that we are aware that there are some challenging political dynamics in place, and we want to make sure that we are being thoughtful about how and when to proceed with any of these next steps, and so this is not necessarily something that we anticipate is going to move forward quickly, but we want to make sure that we are moving forward

I have a few, I get more thoughts than questions, but I guess, as best I can understand it, we all know we want and need to move towards a bus system that has more frequent routes, is more reliable.

The only way we're gonna do that is with a regional transit authority that's bringing together CAT, Albemarle, Jaunt, UVA.

So I'm 100% on board in that we as Charlottesville need to be on board and support this.

then the challenge of how do you fund it it sounds like we can create a regional transit authority but we just don't have authorization to fund it and I think with the sales tax saga for schools I think that whole time we had a split general assembly of one house Republican one Democratic so just speaking for myself individually I think depending on the outcome of this upcoming election I could see it being something that could be very feasible in the next couple years and

I don't know that we have a specific timeline.

I think we want to make sure that no matter what we're doing, though, we are consistently taking steps to be moving towards those goals.

So like I said, we want to be aware of what the political sort of feasibility and viability of this is going to be so that we are aware that when the time is right, we are already positioned well.

So part of what's going to happen when we wrap up this study is that we are going to be thinking about what is the next step?

We already have the authority to operate.

and Charlottesville, Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

So what might that look like?

And you talked through some of the pros and cons of different funding mechanisms.

When it comes to the fuel tax, is that one that seems, you know, a step beyond even harder than the General Assembly authorizing, say, like a new sales tax that would just go to a transit authority?

Yeah, so potentially, potentially because

Before 2020, when CVTA, which there's happened in 2020, but CVTA, HRTAC, MVTA that have the option for the sales tax, they're, let's say they're

That option was provided before the omnibus bill that changed the way fuel taxes are allocated throughout the state.

So what it did was this supplemental tax was now spread throughout the state.

So now it's collected everywhere, not only in those regions, but then for everywhere that is not stated specifically in the legislation, their funding goes straight to the district grant program to fund transportation.

throughout the state.

And so technically, if Charlottesville were, if Charlottesville were to get a portion of that money back or even the portion generated within the Charlottesville region, it would technically reduce the overall pool, but it does not mean, I don't see that as being unfair or it would make it more difficult because it means it's a smaller pool for the district grant program, but a case can still be made.

But that's just to say it's not as impossible as another source such as the recordation tax, which is really just a $20 million line that was just taken off the top of all the taxes collected throughout the state and handed over to HRTAC.

It's very different.

That is almost impossible to do now because even as we spoke to Laura Farmer, who is from BDOT, she mentioned how there's been various bills that have been presented at the state level to try to repeal that $20 million that they received, but it didn't pass.

So that's going to be much more harder.

So those are some of the things that we can consider.

Can I follow up on some of Michael's questions, because I'm curious, if we were permitted to do something with the gas tax, because I got this sort of fixed in my mind, because I think that there are, do I understand that there are some places that do fund their transit authorities with fuel tax surcharge, how much

We haven't done that analysis yet so we'd have to look into what an increase in the local gas tax would look like.

Well, I mean, it would seem to me that if somebody, surely there is some database someplace where you click on a number and it pops up with the number of gallons of gas sold in Charlottesville and Albemarle, and you can quickly figure that out.

I'm just curious, and it may be simply a matter of

We're trying to understand history as opposed to something we can move forward with.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that didn't seem possible until somebody did them.

One of them was the notion of taking all of the recordation taxes and sending them to Hampton Roads.

I mean, nobody would have thought of that until somebody from Hampton Roads with sufficient either gumption or

or some other less charitable way to characterize it made it happen.

So I'd be curious to know what some of these possibilities are.

Well, frankly, what I'm thinking of is three phone calls and somebody sends you an Excel spreadsheet.

So also the gas tax eventually with fuel efficiency and electric cars coming up is going to be reducing and getting smaller too.

Well, I'm really thinking about half an hour tops.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that you had put up there a figure for raising the real estate tax and you had this nice benign looking 0.5% until you realized that right now our taxes, our real estate taxes are 0.96% and that a 0.5% increase is actually a more than 50% increase

in the taxes that fund virtually everything that we do.

Yeah, so that, the way we have it in our, again, it's a very, it's a simple spreadsheet that we can adjust the percentages, but that was just a conversation starter to look at.

If 0.5 is, that's way, that's too huge.

What is acceptable?

Is it maybe 0.5?

0.1, a quarter, 0.025, like what would that look like?

Well, to me it's not a conversation starter, it's a conversation ender.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

A couple of things just trying to sort out.

So if I go, well it's page

I guess four of our packet where you list the three options of what you could do with the current, I guess we'll call it CARTA, the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

So as I understand it, we have a CARTA, we can do a lot of things with it except raise money as an entity, is that right?

Right, yes.

That's correct?

Yes, the provision is there in the legislation, but it hasn't been activated.

There is no funding.

Well, does it specifically exclude?

I haven't read it.

I've seen it at one point.

Because for the legislation needs to specifically give authority and state what kind of tax it is, how much it will be raised.

Correct.

Yes.

Okay, so then the next question I have, going back to the taxes, which we're not supposed to talk about, but going back to the list of taxes that you had on that, say we come up with some random smattering of those

The one thing that was not included that I could see was any sort of contribution by the university.

So the university would be one funding stream that would need to be layered into this.

But what if we came up with a quasi-authority, and I'm just spitballing here, where we said Charlottesville Albemarle, the university, so that's a quarter, anyway.

We all sign a memorandum of understanding, say we want to have the constrained network, this is what it will take to fund it, we get signatures and agreements, and then we just go do it.

We figure out how much money we need from the city, how much money we need from the county, how much money we need from the university, and take this in a sort of

Exactly.

So I was actually internally discussing the potential for a joint venture agreement that wouldn't require any legislative action, but would be an agreement between the municipalities on how they would fund it.

And it would be funded, like you said, from contributions by the members.

We've done some discussion with the university at the beginning, and

We actually haven't talked about the option of Charlottesville, Albemarle, and just the university, so thank you for that.

We talked about Charlottesville potentially doing more on the university property, on the university grounds, and we looked at the contributions from the university.

Right now it's about, I believe, about $350,000 per year.

and about 250 or so for Johns and about 350 for Kach right now.

And so that is not a significant amount.

But then if it is feasible, the appetite is there with the university, we could open up this discussion of potentially increasing what those contributions would look like.

So we can talk a lot more about that.

So thank you for that option of like Charlottesville, Albemarle and the university.

look into that more.

But yes, a JPA or a joint venture agreement as a first step where you contribute and then try to implement some transit improvements in the short term while we wait on

If you go back to the spreadsheet where you had sort of the cost for the let's just assume we go with constrained because that is all that's reasonable to expect right now and you deduct the federal and the state what was the number that you came up with at the bottom 13 million no it's about 19 okay 19 million so

To me that then becomes a question of, you know, people's priorities in terms of, you know, what they want to spend money, their local tax dollars on becomes a budget issue.

It still comes down to priority, but I still don't see how, thinking a couple years from now, it's impossible to envision we could be granted authority by the General Assembly for

Transit Authority to raise funds.

And one way that could be defined is a sales tax that goes directly to transportation.

I think a one cent in both Charlottesville and Albemarle would be more than enough to cover that cost.

And I don't see that as either fiscally or politically impossible if there is agreement that having a much more robust public transit system is a top priority.

So I just don't see how that is

Yeah, I don't think it's impossible.

I'm just thinking about a tiered approach.

Sure.

You know, maybe we assume five years from now that that political, the stars will align and in the meantime we start working towards that with this JVA or whatever.

Yes, and I wanted us to talk a little bit more about some of the questions you raised, the other ones.

You talked about the impact on Johns, the impact on the other localities on the air transportation funds as well.

So, for example, with the impact on Johns, if we were to go with the idea of a joint venture agreement, we would want to, what are your thoughts of

bringing Jaunt also as part of that agreement as one of the operators in the region.

If we want to have them on board for

how services are run in the region if we wanted to open it up to not only Charlottesville, Albemarle, the university but even include some of the rural areas what would be your thoughts on that and your thoughts on including John since a CAP would be already included in a way since it's a town department

Remember, there's two steps to this.

There's looking at it as the authority as a funding agency or looking at how the operations are also provided currently.

So right now, if

What we are thinking of is a funding entity that is able to manage where or what the funds should be used for with the operating agencies providing.

If we were to look at the CVTA model where GRTC provides a plan, a detailed plan on what they are going to use the funding for and the monitoring mechanisms are in place to ensure that they actually use the funding

for what the regional plan is, we could do something like that for the Charlottesville region as well because we have this system where we have the separate operators.

That's something we also need to think about.

So yeah, I think that definitely John needs to be part of that discussion because right now they are essentially the public transportation system in the rural areas and they have

a high level of trust with some of the boards, the supervisors, and certainly the public and the nonprofits in the community.

So I just think that they need to probably maybe be a bigger part of discussion now instead of looping them in on the end.

Yeah, I think ideally you would want something where Albemarle, CAT, UVA, and Jaunt are all together.

And so one of the questions that I was getting at about the dynamics of this community is like, what if we wanted to provide

increase frequency of service for the entire region, but only one or two localities decide to increase their sales tax or whatever for it.

And those are the type of things that I think that we just need to kind of think through in anticipation for those obstacles, even though we can say, okay, I think things will be fine in the future.

Yes, I think if we look at the estimates from the sales tax, looking at just Albemarle and Charlottesville combined together is about 26 million, just an estimate.

And that is enough to fund the

operation portions for the constrained network.

And so even if we had a situation where the rural jurisdictions were not interested in participating or it differed so much that we can't have a blanket tax or a blanket authority, it could still be Albemarle and Charlottesville carrying the authority and then offering purchase service contracts to

the rural localities where they pay the full cost of providing those services in their jurisdictions if something like that were to come.

So that's still that option of if they don't feel they're not ready to participate, they could still purchase service in some way if Johns was to become part of as the operator, as a service provider, sorry.

Thank you.

One thought that I had had that sort of concerns me whether we can figure out a way to do this.

I'm thinking of folks in, let's say, Louisa County and Fluvanna County

for whom the Zion's Crossroads area is the easiest link to Charlottesville.

But taking Louisa as an example, I suspect that people who live in the eastern part of Louisa County, say in Mineral, may be more interested in getting to Richmond than they are in getting to Charlottesville.

Is there some way that we could say, if we were to try to make things of interest to the people in those rural jurisdictions, to say, we recognize that part of your jurisdiction may have no interest whatsoever in what we're talking about, but could we say, suggest something where, just, you know,

Let's say we're using the sales tax as our main way of getting additional funds to say, Louisa, supposing you all impose the same, or Louisa Fulvana, that you impose the same percentage increase in your Zion Crossroads shopping centers as Charlottesville and Albemarle will be doing jurisdiction wide.

I know just from the conversations we've had on the regional transit partnership that some of the rural jurisdictions are really sitting there saying, why do we want to put in that kind of money into something that may benefit only some of our people

but not very many of them.

But what it does for us, of course, what we're seeing in Charlottesville is that increasingly our idea of a bedroom community of Charlottesville is Zion's Crossroads, it's Louisa County, it's areas that are not within Charlottesville and Albemarle.

We've made specific arrangements in Buckingham and Waynesboro and so on.

And one of the things that we had talked about in some of these other regional options was having a greater link between whatever is happening internal to Louisa County

and coming into Charlottesville.

If we're looking at Charlottesville's long-term development as a less car-dependent place, it would obviously be beneficial to us to have as many different ways for folks to get into Charlottesville on buses or some other alternative mode of transportation.

I think, and I'm not saying this with 100% certainty, but I think there should be a way of having parts of a county just because for the Carta legislation, like I said, it makes allowance for all parts of Albemarle County.

And so the assumption being that if another county were to want to participate, that should also be an option to have all parts of that county participate.

and I think we would have to discuss what that would look like and what that means in terms of how it's divided.

Other counselors have questions?

Ms.

Puryear, you've been relatively silent.

I've heard what all of you have said around the table and one of the things that I'm hearing that you're going to go back and talk to the other regional municipalities because there are a lot of people that rely on jaunt both in Charlottesville and Albemarle but in outlying counties

and whatever we do we don't want to make it cost prohibitive for people that rely on that service when we're looking at taxes and you're talking about fuel taxes all of us buy fuel but as you say more people may ultimately have electric cars but for people that rely on fuel we want the tax

to be something that is affordable regardless of your socioeconomic status.

We've got to stay away from that property tax business.

That's an accident waiting to happen.

But I recently have seen the little, I think it's called the Afton connector or the Afton Express.

I think that's another way of having people come across the mountain because

if I am not mistaken Charlottesville is one of the largest employers in Central Virginia so because of the University of Virginia so I agree with Mr. Pinkston UVA is going to have to factor into this

venture in some shape, form or fashion and I think that's imperative because their employees use our services and if you remember the

the experiment or the ability for people at UVA to catch the trolley to come downtown to Charlottesville for various and sundry things at no cost to them was a benefit and a lot of people utilized that service.

I think in the peer study we looked at, we saw university participation to a very large extent, with some of them providing as much as their contributions being as much as a million dollars for their calendar year.

But that also meant that the operators provided more service on campus, and not only it,

in the locality or in the city.

And so with UVA operations and UTS operations and CAT operations, I think that's some other point that we have to discuss a little bit more.

I do have another question on the sources that we've talked about.

So we mentioned the property tax we said is not

Not a good option, but what are your thoughts on the lodging or the real estate taxes as well?

Well, at least this, I'll speak for myself, we distinguish between property tax and real estate tax.

That would not be realistic.

But it might be realistic to raise some money from real estate revenues if we had to.

So I don't,

This one, I don't know about other people, but I don't want to take that source of revenue completely off the table

Yeah, and clearly we wouldn't want to raise $236 million or whatever, but I think we could do some.

So anyway, I see it as a mix of funding that we're going to have to come up with.

And I would say it's all, you know, we face these questions every year when we're in budget season about what's the appropriate amount of

to ask for a certain source of revenue.

Yeah.

And as far as the larger tax, I think that, as I said, on the Tourism Committee board, I know that we're woefully under

Staffed to comparable cities like Asheville and places like that.

It has a much bigger budget and staff that we just need to look at that if that's

All of them, in my mind, are on the table as potentially being part of some kind of mix of funding it.

I would definitely agree with others.

If you're talking about solely funding it with lodging or real estate, then that's very likely a non-starter and doesn't make sense.

But I think there's a way to do it that will not have too many negative impacts.

I mean, it's a big new expense.

It will transform our bus system, having 15, 20 minute routes that go further, and there's no way to do that without some trade-offs, but I think we can find the trade-offs that are worth it.

You're a stakeholder on the long-range transportation plan.

Yeah, it maybe is not directly connected, but just to give a very high level and thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about the long range transportation plan while I'm here tonight.

Some of the transit vision plan and the constrained and unconstrained network are really focusing on the services of the transit system.

That said, there are some assumptions about needed transportation infrastructure improvements that might be needed to

in order to support some of the services specifically when you're talking about things like bus rapid transit.

So the long range transportation plan is really focusing on the capital infrastructure aspect, not the capital, but the infrastructure improvements.

And I guess I will wrap it up by just simply saying that we've had a lot of internal conversation already.

The team at CAT is involved in this conversation.

I've met with Christine a few times to stay up on what's going on with this study and what the next steps will look like in addition to having maintained ongoing conversations with the county

as you know we're working with them on the micro transit pilot so that has allowed us to really get a good understanding of what their priorities are for transportation I'll just echo that I heard what you all said and that you are willing to be disciplined in this process because there will be trade-offs it's a very expensive proposition to be able to do this it will require regionalism

at its best, I would imagine, to pull this off.

Council, anything else from our end?

All right.

Thank you for the time tonight and for your engagement with us as a partner in this work.

Absolutely.

We appreciate the work that is being done and will continue to be done.

This has been an important priority for a number of us on council for the last three or four years and hope we can move the ball forward.

And with that, Council, I don't know that we've got anything else on our agenda for the moment.

Oh, my gosh.

We will recess until 6.30, and we'll come back at 6.30 for the regular business meeting at that point.

Anybody following on Zoom, I suspect it's a different Zoom link, so you're going to have to start from scratch again.

So talk to people again at 6.30.

We'll start the business meeting with a moment of silence, please.

Thank you.

First item on our agenda is announcements.

The Soul of Seville seeks to reclaim the narrative surrounding some of the Charlottesville's darkest days by showcasing and elevating black voices, art, entrepreneurship, music, food, and more.

whereas the Soda Charlottesville is a collaborative effort with Frank X, X Park, X Art Park and various black owned businesses that seek to amplify the voices of local artists, performances and

and community members.

Now, therefore, the City of Charlottesville Council commemorates the Soul of Seville Festival and encourages the community members to participate in the wide range of festivals activities beginning the evening of August 11th.

and ending the afternoon of August the 13th, signed and sealed the seventh day of August 2023 by J. Lloyd Snook, the third mayor of Charlottesville.

Good evening and I first want to thank the community of the city of Charlottesville as well as Albemarle County.

My name is Kalilah Jones and I am one of the original co-organizers of the Soul of Seaville and the creative director for some of the programming.

I wanted to say that I really do appreciate this city council for recognizing that there are some very fine people on both sides of the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County and they happen to live in the black community

And there's one other item of recognition that's not on our agenda, but Friday afternoon we got the news that Daniel Fairley has been named to the Obama Foundation Leadership Program, one of 100 people nationwide.

Daniel is the Youth Opportunity Coordinator focused on black male achievement with the city of Charlottesville.

It's a fascinating program, Obama Foundation Leadership Program.

Consent Agenda Two, Minutes, June 20th, Regular Meeting, July 5th, Joint Council Planning Commission Meeting, July 11th, Joint Council Planning Commission Public Hearing.

Three, Resolution Appropriating City Traffic Assets Insurance Reimbursement.

$56,316.53, second reading.

Four, Resolution Appropriating Funds for the Virginia Department of Education Special Nutrition Program Summer Food Service Program, $100,000.

Second reading.

Five, resolution reallocating $33,827.85 of American Rescue Plan funds to the Department of Human Services from funds previously appropriated to City of Promise.

Second reading.

Six, ordinance approving a right-of-way encroachment agreement for 1117 Preston Avenue.

Second reading.

Seven, resolution.

appropriating VDOT grant funds for Washington Park to Madison Avenue Trail, $285,665.

Second reading.

So we'll now take public comment regarding the items on the consent agenda just read by the clerk.

each speaker will have up to three minutes if you're on the zoom webinar you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue if you've joined by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda you may press star nine we'll alternate in person and virtual speakers and this is only to talk about those few items we just read off those of you who have pre-signed up

Your moment will come in a few minutes, but for right now we just need to get through the consent agenda.

Is there anyone in the room who would like to speak on a consent agenda item?

All right, so we will close the public hearing aspect of the consent agenda item consideration.

Is there a second?

Okay, Ms.

Payne.

Any further questions or comments from Council?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say no.

Yes sir, Mr. Mayor, I have a number of things to run through.

In place of our normal written report that's usually held, provided in the first packet of the month, since we did a big report in July, there being only one meeting, save the staff the stress of trying to pull that together again in short notice to be able to get another packet.

I do have a variety of things to run through.

I'm going to start with Council having indicated to me that there were a couple of community matters that had risen to your attention.

You wanted me to find out what more I could in regards to what was going on with those issues.

The first issue being some concern about an HVAC ongoing issue with residents and habitat properties in the city.

I did reach out to Dan Rosenzweig and Richard Trimley had a meeting with them and had a conversation in regards to what's going on in that situation and what it is that they have proposed to do at this moment.

They are proposing to offer a $2,500 stipend to affected homeowners basically concluding their ongoing support of what's happening in this situation.

and I would advise that I would take a look at anything else that they wanted to provide just to give the perspective of what they've been doing and what some of the comments and concerns have been from residents.

I received a couple of letters from residents that are affected, expressed the concern that was there, we've agreed to meet further and have that conversation and then officially bring back to you if there's any role for the city to play in an intervention of any kind.

I don't know that there appears to be one at this moment but if there is then I will bring that back to you with the recommendation on what you might be willing or able to consider but I just wanted to let you know that I did check into that particular situation

The other and I know we'll hear more about this one this evening is in regards to the proposed expansion of Dairy Central.

I watched the video and became concerned myself and as I've shared with you in the most recent weeks as I've taken on this responsibility the matters of the community are important matters to me and as I watched the meeting I became alarmed so I'll share that with you all that are here to speak in this particular matter there were a number of things that did not sit well with me as well

and I did reach out to Mr. Henry and had a meeting with him as well.

I expressed those concerns, shared a lot of what I felt were fair criticisms that were directed to him for what had been presented that evening, how it was presented that evening,

as well as what was being proposed so I did share with him that I would definitely like to continue a conversation with him as he has indicated he would continue to engage with the residents and I look forward to hearing that the residents are feeling as though that that line of communication remains open and as he decides to move forward on his project I stress to him that I do believe it is important for a community benefits agreement to be considered

as something that would show that he can demonstrate that he is willing to hear the residents concerns and express ways that he can address some of those various concerns.

And again, I'll have further conversation with him and bring that back to you as well, looking for ways that the city can engage in that particular situation.

Also wanted to provide you an update on public transportation since school is about to start.

Everyone is a little concerned about how many buses will roll and whether or not their kids will have a seat on the bus.

CAT is still in crisis mode.

We labeled it that a couple years ago.

It is still real.

It is a situation that is a national crisis.

There are bus systems all over the country having the same crunch.

Today we are planning for 14 routes that's the same as last school year.

There are 12 drivers today with two relief drivers in place.

We hope to be able to secure additional drivers having extended offers to six drivers just recently.

They are all in the background stage so we hope that they will be coming out of that stage any day now and then we might be able to add to the number of drivers that we have.

and then we're working on the pipeline and continue to work on the pipeline and that's the project that we have set up with Network to Work at PVCC.

We have eight individuals in that program and they're all in the background stage at this time so we're optimistic that we could have all 20 seats filled sometime in the month of September.

and while I'm talking about transit I just want to take a moment to thank Juwan Lee he is leaving the city taking a job in DC he's been with us for quite some time and just want to acknowledge his contributions his last day will be the 18th of this month

And on to other good news.

I have good news to share with you all.

Really, it's more about me.

It's good news for me.

I have selected an interim deputy city manager for operations, so I'm very excited about this particular matter.

Steven Hicks, the gentleman sitting there in the front row, has been asked to join the city manager staff filling my seat.

Steven has been serving as a senior project manager in our engineering division of public works.

But more importantly, Steven has over 30 years of experience in state and local government, including time with VDOT, so he'll spend a great deal of energy working on all the many things that I used to come and talk to you about, but he'll have better answers, I'll tell you that now.

Steven previously served as a town administrator in Front Royal, Virginia, as well as a town manager of Selma, North Carolina.

and despite his taking a break in local government leadership he accepted my offer to join us on Wednesday so I'm very excited about him coming this week to take a load off of this platter that I have been carrying for the past few days and I'd spared him a moment of he doesn't need to speak to you tonight he'll join Ashley at the next meeting and he'll have a lot to say at that time and in other good news I earlier today I appointed Michael Thomas our permanent fire chief for the Charlottesville Fire Department

So Chief Thomas has served in the interim role since October.

He's been a stabilizing force for the department.

And I did ask the chief if he would say a few words.

Mayor Snook, members of council, Mr. Sanders and city staff, good evening and I'll keep my comments brief.

I'm humbled and excited about the opportunity to continue to lead the Charlottesville Fire Department as the fire chief.

I've learned a lot over the last 10 months in the interim role and I'm committed to the community and equally committed to the department members.

I appreciate the confidence of the city manager's office and the city manager for entrusting me to lead the department in its forward movement to success.

I wanted to commend the members of the Charlottesville Fire Department for their dedication to service and their support.

Thank you.

I heard that a few times.

So the last item for me is I just want to express what a great time I had at West Haven Days this past Saturday.

Ms.

Joy Ballin told me to the food tent so I got to serve fried fish for about an hour or so.

It was an enjoyable experience.

It took me back to my roots of community building and working in neighborhoods so I really enjoyed that moment.

Congratulations Chief and Mr. Hicks.

Thank you Mr. Sanders and good evening council and members of the public.

I want to make sure that we congratulate not only Mr. Farley for his Obama Foundation Fellowship but also our local teens who completed the KIP program during the 2022-2023 school year and the summer.

The teens were celebrated at the code building with their family and friends on Friday, August 4th and the program had a 98% success rate.

Big thank you to the Department of Human Services team for including Annie Seacrest and Reggie Allen for their work to make sure teens in our community have paid internship opportunities School year K-Up signups will be open soon so please keep an eye out for that if you have a teen in your life and remember they are paid

internship programs.

Finally, also please be aware for the public that Smith Aquatics Center will be closed for annual maintenance from August 19th through September 4th.

Please know that the Aquatics Center passes will be honored at Carver Recreation Center during this time, and swim lessons and classes, recreational and lap swimming will be available at Crow Pool, which is located at Rose Hill Drive next to Walker Upper Elementary School.

And while we're talking about West Haven, a few of us wound up in the dunk tank.

I know I went in five times.

Probably about 20 times.

on a day when it was about 92 degrees going and the dunk tank was not the worst thing to be done.

So I said a quick comment to follow up, Sam, for your comments about Habitat and the HVAC system.

As you further your discussion with Habitat, it was a generous offer of $2,500, but I'm understanding from the residents that to replace the system is $6,000 to $10,000 and that

is still will be up there and it's been some pretty warm days and the system have not been able to keep up.

The one thing I also wanted to point out was Mr. Sanders having leaped into both the habitat controversy and the dairy market controversy basically as a mediator rather than as a decision maker because none of these involve issues that are directly in front of the city at this point

That means we'll have seven additional speakers on community matters.

If some of these folks do not show up, we'll fill it out until we get to 16.

But our rules specify we'll take 16 people on community matters at the beginning of the meeting.

At the end of the meeting, there will be another opportunity where there will be an unlimited number of speakers who want to speak at that point.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes.

If one of the first eight speakers is unavailable, a speaker on the wait list will move into that slot.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes.

We'll now open the floor to preregistered speakers.

Our first preregistered speaker is Deanna McDonald.

Is she here?

Or is she online?

She's coming around.

She's in the back going around.

My apologies for the confusion.

I signed up for Ms.

Gloria Beard.

I was looking for her.

Here she is.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Got to come up to the microphone.

You're welcome.

Could you pull the microphone down, Ms.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay, and my little speech is going to be about the dairy market.

Tenton Page and the surrounding neighborhoods.

My name is Gloria Beard and I live at 1116 Page Street.

I've lived in my house 29 years and have lived in Charlottesville 50 years.

My children were born here but left after they became adults because there were no future for black males that was concrete at that time, 1977 to 1982.

That's when my children were born.

Charlottesville don't pay and didn't pay decent wages.

Even I worked a full-time job plus part-time to make ends meet and now I have a lot of health issues from having to work so hard.

Now I want to know why are all of these contractors

allowed to come into Charlottesville to build these high-rise apartments and houses that cost an arm and a leg.

The one I'm most concerned about is the dairy market and the lies that were told to our neighborhood.

Chris Henry told us that at the beginning he was going to set aside

affordable apartments for people that didn't make high salaries.

Well, he set aside four, and an efficiency is $1,200, and they don't accept vouchers.

They even want to raise the church that has, they even want to rent the church that has been in the neighborhood for $500 to $800 to be used for functions after telling the neighborhood association it would be used for children, functions, or seniors.

To top this off, now he has told the Preston Plaza owners that they would have to move their business because he has purchased the plaza to be a more apartment at a high price that none of us in this neighborhood can afford.

And also our taxes went up when the first phase was completed.

So how do you think this will affect the neighborhood when this happens again?

you advertise for people to come to Charlottesville because it's such a wonderful place to live.

For whom?

We don't even have year-round shelters for the homeless and the Salvation Army stays full with no available beds for emergencies.

And I know that because I've called for people looking for somewhere to go.

I feel that it's all about money and not people.

Thank you, Ms.

Beard.

It's okay if I yield some time, correct?

Hi, my name is Anna and I'm here to talk about the upcoming special use permit application that will be for the expansion of dairy market.

I want to start off by saying that I stand opposed to the new development proposed in the 10th and Page neighborhood.

in alignment and uplifting the voices of residents of that neighborhood.

I'm here to speak out about this issue because I see the future of this city going in a direction that prioritizes incoming new residents that are wealthy white professional workers instead of marginalized community members who have been living in this town for decades.

There are many issues with this proposed development but I want to start off with the hesitance that I have for Stony Point development.

Stony Point has shown through their past actions with Dairy Market that they are not equipped to listen or fulfill the needs of community members in Charlottesville.

Why believe Chris when he's been quoted in the media as saying he's going to do one thing and then just something completely different or doesn't do it at all?

Why should we be giving an SUP to a person who has no stake in our community?

Why should we be supporting a person who's worried about not making enough profit

off this new development but can easily pay for multiple multi-million dollar homes in the area.

Tenth and Page residents were quick to point out the lack of cultural incompetence by Stony Point development.

There were no black people on the entire team, but this is indicative of a larger issue.

Rich white landowners making unilateral decisions that negatively affect the future of black community members who have been here for decades.

It would make absolutely no sense for me to make decisions that affect Tenth and Page because I do not live there.

The second issue I have is pertaining to the economic impact of the expansion of residents of Tenth and Page.

We don't know what the expansion will look like, but if it's anything like the original dairy market, there's absolutely nothing affordable in that project.

The smallest one-bedroom apartment in Dairy Market starts at $2200 a month, which is high for rent.

If it was 30% of my rent, it would be high for rent.

That would mean if I could afford it, I would be making $80,000 after taxes.

That's not affordable for someone who makes minimum wage, who makes $15.

It's not even affordable for somebody who makes $40 an hour.

If this is what the expansion looks like, how can we as a community say we're committed to affordable housing initiatives?

I'm going to yield my time to Ms.

That's all right, go ahead because you only have 45 seconds.

Oh, I'm done.

Say whatever you want to say.

Hi, my name is Bezina Howard and I'm with the Tenth and Page Neighborhood Association and Chris Henry came to us when he did the phase one and two and explained things to us which he said how he told us lies because nothing would stay the same.

All right, now with the phase now, he had an open house for us to come and see it

But the thing about it, it wasn't where we could sit around and talk.

We had to arrange that for ourselves.

But we came in.

I asked for chairs.

They said they couldn't put down chairs because the architects didn't want chairs.

They just wanted to walk around and look at it and then leave.

So that meant we didn't really get to give our opinion on anything or get to see, discuss anything until we called Chris to the side.

and had conversations with him.

So that meant that they didn't include the neighborhood with any decision making as far as developing it or how things would be at all.

So that's one thing we're protesting against.

Well, not really protesting, but not liking because they didn't include the neighborhood association in any of the plans at all.

And then they also had black mural that they was going to put on their apartments and they won't even rent to any black people.

they have really no black workers other than the ambassadors that would clean up, but yet you was gonna put black women, they call them black queens.

Thank you, Ms.

Howard.

Time's up, thank you.

My name is Abby Guskin.

I'm a Charlottesville resident.

I live on Ferris Street.

Echoing what Anna just said, I don't live in Tenth and Page communities, so I can't make decisions, but I'm opposed to the Dairy Market building.

I'm also disgusted and disgraced.

by what I've witnessed and what I've heard as far as Mr. Henry making shallow promises and promises that he hasn't kept to this community nor will he.

So I'm just expressing my concern and I feel it's more about privilege to erect these high-rise buildings for people moving into the community

and Shirley changing the complexion of the neighborhood house by house where it's already looming as you all know from West Main Street.

Now they want to block it in on Preston as well so the whole neighborhood will just be totally erased and how is that respectful to the community members in 10th and Page?

It's designed to continue to destroy the neighborhoods and suggest displacing people by raising their taxes out of their medium home incomes and not matching the hauser to further displacement of low-income families.

The insensitivity of private developers in general, like the ones particularly towards our black residents.

What will you do to ensure the taxes are not increased and these people in the community at 10th and Page are going to lose their homes?

Then where do people go?

That's already happened in the past here in Charlottesville.

The lack of thought to take away the neighborhood laundromat, well, that wasn't even in the meeting on the 25th.

They all looked at each other like, you know, the

What about the laundromat?

What about the neighborhood that's already using the laundromat?

Where are they going to be able to use its services in local shops within distance?

And that wasn't even a blip on the radar.

None of this meets the needs of those who use the services.

The dairy market, which you're well aware of, in 2003 was already rezoned.

with additional density in Charlottesville, and in 2018, which wasn't a good idea either for extra height.

Since then, the assessed value of the two phases has increased at least five times combined with assessments.

That means what's going to happen is that the taxes are just going to keep

increasing.

And once again, it was already acknowledged that the one bedroom is $2,200.

So right then and there, you already need more than $26,000 in your income just to be able to live.

Forget about parking, that's additional.

And if you have any furry creatures that are with you, that's an additional cause.

So the buzzword, once again, from this community is affordable housing, affordable to home.

It's just an easy word for people just to use when they really don't want to discuss the real issues of people already struggling and not being able to meet the needs.

Gus, your time is up.

Hi, I'm Donna Shaughnessy, Mayor Snook and members of council and city staff, and congratulations, Mr. Sanders.

I'm so excited that you're the city manager.

I'm here to change the subject for just a minute.

I live on Birdwood Road in the city, and I'm here today representing both myself and the Piedmont Group of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club.

As you might guess, I'm here to address the issue of the fuel choice for the upcoming change in the cat fleet.

I'm sure you don't need to hear any more scary stories about how dire the situation is climate-wise.

I mean, we hear stories every day about how bad things are getting.

unprecedented heat waves and flooding, and even though our area is immersively free from most of those impacts, that doesn't mean that we should ignore them and just move forward as if nothing is happening.

So other folks will be speaking to this issue later this evening, and they are going to do a

A great job on a couple of issues.

Marcia Geyer will address the significant flaws in the Kimley-Horn study, and Bob McAdams of the Center for Peace and Justice will speak to the broader issue as well as tying this description to the Climate Action Plan.

So, as many of you know, I spent my entire career in local public transit, other than the two years I worked in city planning here at the city.

And I'm well aware that communities of color depend on transit for many of their transportation needs.

As a result, the routes are designed to serve their communities more often and with additional routes.

We should all be concerned about adding more pollutants to these neighborhoods with fossil-fueled buses that pump out more carbon monoxide and other pollutants.

If you add the major subsidies for clean fuel buses and the city's commitment to net zero, the decision to go electric is an even more sensible route.

Let's ensure cleaner air for all of the city's residents, and thank you for all that you do for Charlottesville, and I'm looking forward to you all making the right decision and getting battery-powered vehicles for the fleet in the future.

Thank you, Ms.

Shaughnessy.

My name is Robert McAdams and I live at 2211 Williamsburg Road in the Albemarle County Urban Ring.

In 2019, the City Council adopted updated greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals

of 45% by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.

Now the City Council is considering an alternative fuel study for the Charlottesville area transit system that basically says buy diesel-fueled buses now and start the transition to non-fossil-fueled buses with the next fleet.

Following that advice,

will delay the transition away from fossil fuels by 15 years.

Following that advice will make reaching the city's goal of a 45% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 impossible.

Every day this summer we have seen news stories about unrelenting heat waves, ocean temperatures rapidly rising, wildfires and storms dropping a month's amount of rain in 48 hours.

These are the effects of global warming that scientists have predicted for decades.

For decades

Governments at all levels in developed nations have kicked the can down the road postponing the transition away from fossil fuels to some future date.

You must not do that now.

Time has run out for delays.

You must begin the transition of the bus fleet away from fossil fuels now to have any hope of meeting your goal of a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

At this time, battery electric buses are the only real alternative.

Yes, there will be practical problems to solve

Other cities have faced those problems and the city staff can learn from the experiences in those cities.

Please keep in mind the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by the year 2030 and start the transition now.

Thank you, Mr. McAdams.

Sorry.

I feel like I'm a canary in the coal mine.

I feel Charlottesville is a very special city.

It's Jefferson's town.

There are reminders of him and his time all over Charlottesville.

People come here for that.

I feel Charlottesville is beautiful.

The neighborhoods, mall, the parks, people take care of their gardens.

It's green.

There are trees everywhere.

It's lovely to take a walk here.

or sit outside under the trees for lunch or dinner.

You usually don't want to do that on West Main Street.

Those buildings are only six stories tall.

People here are kind and considerate.

Drivers stop at crosswalks even before you set foot in the street.

They screech to a halt.

People are friendly.

You say hello to strangers that you pass on the streets and they even help you like moving obstacles.

I feel safe here.

Charlottesville is full of art and music.

There are great restaurants.

The downtown mall is one of the few that's successful in this country.

The few pedestrian malls.

Charlottesville attracts retirees, artists of all kinds, and startup businesses.

Unfortunately, retirees won't be riding bicycles to get where they want to go usually, although I did see one gray hair on a bicycle this morning.

Also, most bikers have a car for inclement weather or longer distances.

It might be a good idea to pay attention to sidewalk repairs.

Yes, we have problems recovering from August 12th and building affordable housing.

You have some very smart people who live in this area.

You could tap them for ways to solve these problems.

Habitat for Humanity seems to be doing something with affordable housing and I think you need to think outside the box before you build these nine story huge buildings.

They don't even have 10% affordable housing in them, even though you say they're being built for affordable housing, and which destroy trees, create parking and traffic problems, and block sunlight from street levels, making it difficult for trees to live.

Look at between the Omni and the code building.

The shadows prevent the trees from growing.

Charlottesville streets are too narrow to support these tall buildings at least downtown I'm afraid that you are doing and the building at 218 Market Street which is nine stories tall and wants to be even a bigger building because they would increase the setback or decrease the setback at 45 feet so it would be one big block huge

I'm afraid that you're doing this to increase the tax base and that you give these projects over to developers, and that's greed.

Thank you, Ms.

Thank you.

Marsha Geyer is next.

Marsha Geyer Can you hear me?

Marsha Geyer Yes.

Marsha Geyer Good.

Hi, I'm Marsha Geyer.

I live at 420 Afton Bond, Fort Charlottesville.

I went into intensive fact-finding mode when I read Kim Lee Horn's document in the July 17th City Council agenda.

Here's an overview of four major factual pillars.

for transit bus planning and decision making, reliability, availability, climate action plan requirements, and funding.

About reliability, in 2012, the first American-made battery electric bus came on the market.

It had

Big engineering flaws that caused frequent breakdowns and eventually a total waste of investment in them.

Early adopters that trialed those buses included Richmond.

That bus must not have been eligible for federal grants based on the reports of millions of dollars lost.

Every application for a federal grant for transit buses must include at least a passing performance grade on the Federal Transit Administration's Altoona test, which rigorously simulates how well a bus stands up to the tough duty cycle of transit buses that can access and compare the eligible buses to Altoona

scores.

So the requirement for a reliable design is solved going forward.

About availability, climate action requirements, and funding, electricity is the only transit bus fuel that produces zero tailgate

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and is both available now and definitely will be for sale here in the next decade.

California is using subsidies to corner future greenhouse hydrogen fuel production out there on the other posts.

Virginia's list of open state contracts that add 16% to the federal grant funding potential, getting it to 96%, limits the selection of battery electric buses to five major manufacturers, which will somewhat simplify choices among the buses and their chargers.

Still complicated.

Among important mistakes in the non-discussed alternative fuel study document, the three graphs of changing fuel composition year by year are completely inaccurate.

The huge diesel bus expansion in the early years showed in all three scenarios could not be exchanged soon.

Mr. Scott, your time is up.

I'm sorry, your time is up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members, fellow Charlottesville residents.

I am here to speak out about the dairy market expansion very clearly.

As presented or as proposed, I oppose it.

I'm very proud to oppose it and I'm delighted to hear the thoughts of my fellow residents in the 10th and Page neighborhood.

My home is at 801 West Street and it's been there since 1905.

My grandparents bought it in 1946.

I was born here in 1956.

I've got long, deep roots in this city.

Some of the families in this room, I bet, were taught by my grandmother, who spent over 30 years teaching at Jefferson School in another tent at Venable.

I love this town.

I love my house.

I love my neighborhood.

When I got the flyer that was sent to some of us,

regarding the dairy market, I said, oh no, not again.

We've been through this.

My uncle's lost the business in Vinegar Hill.

Now, I'm not someone who's opposed to economic development.

What I'm for is smart economic development.

What I'm for is economic development which is inclusive, not divisive.

What I'm for is economic development that takes advantage and recognizes that Charlottesville is a city that depends on its diversity and not just racial diversity but economic diversity and I'm in favor of looking at all projects which come before you

understanding what they mean for the city as a whole.

And I'll give you an example.

I also received in the mail not that long ago some information I didn't know that the tree canopy in the 10th and Page neighborhood was terrible for a long time because of racial covenants, et cetera, and it's getting worse.

And it's my understanding that the city is doing something about that because there are heat islands there.

Why then would we turn around and say, oh yeah, bring in steel and concrete, seven stories of it, block out the sun and bring in more high density when what we need, obviously, are trees.

and green spaces and places for the community to grow.

What I suggest and I recommend, and one of my fellow citizens said this earlier, that we take a step back and we look at what the community needs as a whole and we think creatively, we think outside the box, and we not just succumb to another big building that's gonna block out the sun and change the neighborhood the way all of my fellow residents have said.

By the way, thanks for the opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Hunter.

So the next person who had signed up on our wait list, I guess we'll just call this the first person off the wait list is Zianna Bryant.

Ms.

I know y'all can say it back.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I'm talking to the counselors because they can't say stuff back.

Oh, I have a lot of family and friends here tonight.

I am so honored to stand here not just because I'm giving a public comment but because I'm standing on the shoulders of some real giants some amazing phenomenal black women starting with Thelma T Hagan I don't know if you know about that name but as a city councilor I would hope that you do the 10th and Page Neighborhood Association is partly named after her that's my great-grandmother

She also lived in our family's house on Anderson Street, which has now been in my family for five generations.

So when I speak with passion and when I organize my folks, it's not just for myself.

It's not just to make noise.

It's because I believe that there is power when people are organized.

And I know that I come from a lineage of people who would expect nothing less from me.

Additionally, I stand on the shoulders of my Nana, who please stand.

is the Neighborhood Association president and has been so for over 10 years.

So I grew up watching her organize the neighbors.

I grew up watching her deliver cards and fruit baskets when families went through trying times or delivering meals when new babies came to the world.

And so when we talk about neighborhoods and we talk about community building, I see that from the people who raised me.

I see that from my mom, I see that from my nana, from my aunts and from the other black women who are in my family and so I hold this space for them.

Everything that I'm going to say you guys can watch on the Facebook live stream.

Amanda was so kind to record the entire thing and there's nothing new that I need to tell you, right?

You guys know that there's a lack of diversity, there's a lack of diversity on this council, right?

We have Juan Diego Wade, we have Ms.

Preyer, lovely people.

but we don't have enough youth black voice here at these meetings or in our public elected bodies and so there's nothing that I can tell you tonight that you don't already know but what I will tell you is that when you look out there and you see hundreds of people here in various public meetings on our listserv on our social media

Know that we're not gonna be quiet and we'll see you at every meeting until you have to vote on this issue.

Ms.

Hello.

Yes.

Hello, everybody.

And first of all, I want to thank very much Ashley Marshall.

She's been amazing.

I emailed her at five o'clock in the morning because that's when I get up.

And she answered my email like in 15 minutes.

But what I want to say is we spent a long time on Friday last week talking about a grant, an ARPA grant.

that wasn't really communicated to the other artists and engaging community members.

But what Ashley did was she gave me sort of a structure for, I mean, she spent a lot of time.

Anyway, what I want to say is that I'm sorry, first of all, I did not attend the, sorry, sorry, sorry.

I did not attend the West Haven this year.

I was invited by two organizations to do caricatures.

The Botanical Garden set up a booth and also OSR, which is the Open Source Recycle.

I landed up going the next day to the 12th and Rosewood Church and learned so much

about the need for solar on the churches they need a lot of support they are supporting the neighborhoods there the people there have been doing this for generations and so I want to give them a shout out for everything they do for the communities there and I learned a lot because I helped with some food distribution

and just met a lot of people.

And so I just want to say that the farmer's market at Me Park Art Park also opened up avenues in my conversations with communities to possibly open up another farmer's market at Tonser Park Art Park.

And I felt like this could be something that the grants

would, it's supposed to be a pop-up grant, the ARPA.

So what happens is if you have like poetry reading or whatever, it could be a pop-up like TomTom.

And you could do it at the farmer's market like twice a year, you know, and that way you could get $10,000 for your pop-up.

And there are other grants too that are coming down the pike, as Ashley informed me, supposedly to enhance the city.

is coming in September.

So I hope that you could distribute that.

And then also I counted all the bus shelters in the city and I couldn't find any.

I mean, there was like five.

So when you were talking about transportation earlier, I didn't hear anything about that piece.

And I hope very much that you consider

It's about $2,000 from Amazon to get a bus shelter and $6,000 for any other, and I'm sure we could raise the money for that because the most important thing is that we get solar on the churches, solar on the buildings, and we get transportation where people can go to work because they can't afford a car.

Thank you.

this gathers good evening everyone good evening council I'm back

Mr. Sanders congratulations Chief Thomas congratulations I stand this evening in concert of opposition to the dairy market with future Governor Bryant

All of you as elected officials other than Ms.

Puryear ran on some sort of platform regarding affordable housing here in Charlottesville.

It's time for you all to uphold that commitment and that promise.

These proposed monstrosities will only go towards furthering the changing of the fabric of the neighborhood.

told you years ago when this happened that it would directly impact the taxes on the residents in the neighborhood and receive various assurances that it wouldn't happen.

It did.

This just leads to displacement, gentrification, marginalization, and the further evacuation of black folks from the city of Charlottesville.

It's an excavation that's going on for some strange reason.

Maybe someone can explain that to me.

what this is is just it's Jim Crow 2.0 and I urge you I encourage you individually when this comes before you do as Nancy Reagan said and this may be the only time you'll hear me agree with Nancy Reagan just say no

Just because millionaires come in with their pockets down to their ankles doesn't mean that we have to give a nod and a wink to them every time they come with their hand out.

We've seen how that happens.

As Brother Malcolm said, we were lied to, we were hoodwinked, we were bamboozled.

I urge you, don't let it happen again, and don't let it happen to the residents of the 10th and Page neighborhood.

Oh, as you later this evening, I'll refer the zoning ordinance rewrite to the Planning Commission for the recommendation.

I'd like to address the community engagement statement in the staff report, which phrases the quote, well, extensive community engagement over the entire time period.

of the Seville Plans Together process.

You know, there have been many opportunities for engagement throughout the Seville Plans Together process.

Like, Director Freeze has made a heroic effort talking to neighborhood associations.

But neighborhoods without neighborhood associations, the engagement hasn't been directed to those property owners

and residents most profoundly affected.

There hasn't been any directed engagement.

In the Woolen Mills, which doesn't have a neighborhood organization, I'm thinking about the 100 modest affordable homes that have been rezoned as RB.

These blue collar workers, these residents are worthy of direct contact from the city.

A phone call, a letter,

Additionally, in the Willa Mills, the Wrights acreage, which two years ago was designated in the future land use map as neighborhood mixed use node, that property has modest houses next to it.

Now, I'm not aware that any of the people that live next to it or the owners of the Wrights property have been directly engaged by NDS or Roadside Harwell.

solicit their input, developing the new zoning.

July 5th, I think it was a work session with the Planning Commission, the mapping logic, which turned neighborhood and mixed use everywhere else in the city, the Index 3 was abandoned.

And you guys were talking about 10-story buildings on that rights property.

Oh, it's just a junkyard.

It's in a hole.

You really need to talk to people who are directly affected by the proposed zoning changes.

The owners and the residents that are going to take the brunt of this, they have not been contacted by the city.

Thank you, Mr. Emory.

Next, anybody else here in person that would like to speak?

Good evening, counselors.

My name is Elaine Poon.

I use the pronouns she, her.

I am the deputy director of advocacy at the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I understand that this is not before the council tonight, but it seems to be the topic of conversation.

I am here to answer the call from the community.

to speak out against the dairy market along Preston Avenue.

Our executive director, Angela Cholfi, was unable to make it tonight, but this statement is written by her and as well as me, and it is made on behalf of the Legal Aid Justice Center as an entity whose mission will be impacted by the proposed development along this corridor.

We also speak in full support of the neighbors, many of them who are here, those who live there now, but also those who have been forced out of their homes because of skyrocketing rents, because of turnover in ownership, because of massive tax bills that result in longstanding institutional racism in housing in this town.

In the early 2000s, the Legal Aid Justice Center, we went and looked for a home with the explicit intention to be embedded in the community that we served and to be accessible to low-income clients.

First, we fled West Main Street.

Then we fled the downtown mall to escape the rapid influx of expensive shops and restaurants that our clients could not afford.

In 2003, we found the Preston Avenue location.

It was perfect.

It's on a bus line.

It's within walking distance of 10th and Page.

It's in walking distance of Rose Hill, Grady, Venable neighborhoods.

It has parking for people who are coming from Albemarle, Fluvanna, Louisa, and Green to come for their appointments.

It was also symbolically important to be embedded among so many landmarks that are important to the history of the black community here in Charlottesville, including the CB Holt Rock House, Washington Park, Trinity Church, and others.

The dairy market's renovation has already undermined many of the reasons we moved to this location.

We have seen rapid displacement of black residents in nearby neighborhoods.

Street parking has disappeared.

We are now renting from a church down the street so that we can make sure that our clients have parking when they come for their appointments.

There are virtually no affordable lunch options for our staff within walking distance, and this expansion will make things worse.

Obviously, the biggest loss for our institution, though, is what we are realizing, what we are asking our clients to walk through, the space that they must move through, a space that was clearly not built for them.

To imagine that our clients who may be facing homelessness and eviction must now ride or walk past outdoor patios serving $30 plates, high rises charging over $2,000 for a 560 square foot apartment.

The psychological impact

of having to deal with that as you walk through and then now layer on the residents who have been growing up washing their clothings at Preston Suds, the ones who grew up going to Trinity Church on Sundays, the sense of loss that someone feels to have to walk through those kinds of new developments that just deepens the distrust that they already have

Thank you, Ms.

Boone.

Thank you.

I urge you to listen to Black Voices and longtime residents as you move through this process.

Somebody online?

We have Salithia Carr.

Ms.

Carr.

All right, you can hear me?

Hi, good day to you all.

My name is Talithia Carr.

I'm a founder and CEO of Not Me, I believe.

I'm a community organizer with FAR, and I am a member of the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition, CLIC.

My concerns for my community is seeing the continued displacement of our community families in the so-called

sensitive areas, which include a lot of black and brown residents.

For many years, there has been a decrease in African Americans here.

The expansion of dairy market looks just like a repeat of 1967.

This is unfair, and our community is being bullied.

Now, why should we be boxed in like animals?

Because that's what I'm looking at.

From Main Street to Preston Avenue, we're going to be boxed in.

This is cruelty.

The homes in our area should be preserved.

Please say no.

And I mean, no, no, no.

If this proposal comes to you, we need you to show that you all care about your community, our community and its history.

We don't need another, we don't need any more dairy markets.

They are eliminating this history of our community.

It ain't right.

And this community has been cheaply taken from many African-American families way dead.

The Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition clicked.

will be coming to you with the results of a petition that we draft last, I think it was last month before this proposal even came up.

One part of the petition says that we need your support to prevent further displacement in low-income neighborhoods.

So I've heard from a lot of people, we have heard from a lot of people,

and any so-called sensitive areas, and they don't want it.

Thank you, Ms.

Garr.

One more from here in the room.

Let's see.

Good evening, Mayor Snook, members of City Council.

My name is Sandra Avalas-Poe, 617 West Main Street.

And I wanted to share a few recommendations today on school transportation.

I also wanted to say that I 100% support the Respect Our Neighbors campaign.

I think that it's beautiful and powerful to see so many people out to support the black and brown community.

Transportation is another subject that has continued to affect the black and brown community and we are going to share a few recommendations with we have shared recommendations with school board on August 3rd and we plan to share them on our upcoming webinar in partnership with Liverpool Seville on August 10th

You can sign up for the webinar on our website charlottesvilleunited.org under the tab that is news and events.

We've developed these recommendations based on interviews with bus drivers, conversations with families and school pickup lines, focus groups with caregivers and community stakeholders, and joint exploration with the Community Solutions Clinic at UVA Law.

We're recommending the following six items as items that we would like to see happen immediately.

Number one, adjust compensation to ensure a sufficient number of bus drivers.

Number two, increase communication with bus drivers applicants while in process.

Number three, ensure CAT provides a monthly update to the city council on school bus driver numbers.

Number four, launch a monthly walk, bike, and bus to school day for city schools to engage the local community in ensuring safe transportation for our students and families.

This will also raise the visibility of the needs for safer transportation Number five, ensure transportation planning prioritizes safe routes to schools Number six, increase frequency and reliability of specific public cat bus routes that transport to and from CHS, Buford, Walker to align with school schedules And the following three items are in the medium to long term

Number one, transition ownership to school transportation to Charlottesville City Schools Number two, determine if a full-time role is needed to attract or retain bus drivers at Charlottesville City Schools Number three, conduct a long-term transportation and facilities plan to account for population growth and changes This could also include studies on smaller and or electrical buses Thank you so much for your time and attention to these recommendations We appreciate you listening to our community voices

Okay, and now we have one more from online.

All right.

Good evening, councilors, mayor and city staff.

I'll be making similar observations on unfortunate lack of school bus drivers.

I hope you're also doing very well.

While I'm heartened that we have a new higher management positions filled with excellent people, I am dismayed to learn that we once again do not have enough school bus drivers.

Kind of feels like Bill Murray's Groundhog Day every August.

I do not have a direct solution like Cube just presented on how to hire enough school bus drivers but an indirect manner might be to hold all management accountable whose school bus drivers fall under.

I wonder if all management who touched this issue could not get higher than an average performance rating on their annual reviews would solve it unless they had enough school bus drivers.

Another solution could actually be maybe no pay raises

for those management managers until the school bus driver positions are fully staffed for three months.

City management gets paid to solve these problems like this, and it's time for them to solve it.

Louisa County has done it according to a report done by UVA law students for Charlottesville United for Public Education, so we know it can be done.

I appreciate all the hard work and passion city workers bring to their jobs to make the city a great place to live.

My ask is that you sharpen their focus to solve this perennial problem so all of Charlottesville youth who need a ride to school actually get one.

Thank you, Mr. Meyer.

So that concludes our first round of community matters.

We've had 16 speakers.

If there are other folks who wish to speak, I will tell you that there are three items on the agenda between now

and the next time that we will have Community Matters, you're welcome to stick around, you're welcome to go home and phone in or Zoom in or whatever.

There is no limitation on the number of speakers who speak to us at the end.

Would it be possible or appropriate to briefly respond?

Sure.

Right now, it'll be scheduled to be coming back to you in October, but that's still to be worked out as we continue to get feedback.

Yeah.

And then just other quickly, just wanting to acknowledge, you know, the amount of people out here engaged on the topic of Dairy Central.

I know this isn't new information for a lot of people, but for the city, you know, we're going to be several months, there would be a special use permit that can come to us that we can vote on, and I think that does put us in a position where we are able to say yes or no based on if we decide if there are adverse neighborhood impacts and if there's a community benefits agreement that's legally binding that addresses those.

so that's many months away but that is a decision we can make and the other is the zoning right now they could build by right without the city four stories less density and I think it's really important that in our draft zoning rewrite this area will be CX5 and CX7 I believe which is ten to seven stories by right and that means you wouldn't need to come before the council for a yes or no vote

So this conversation couldn't even happen.

What would be different is you'd be required to have at least 10% of units affordable at 60% AMI.

But that will be a fundamentally different situation.

It will means all along Preston and our other commercial corridors like East High along West Main, by right, there will be heights up to 10 and 12 stories.

And we know that that will mean that developers will buy at multiple lots, consolidate them, and build developments like this.

Unlike now, they will be required to have at least 10% affordable, but that's a very, very important conversation happening right now, and so I think it's just really important for everyone to be engaged and let us know, is that the vision you have, or do you want something else?

Any other comments from counselors?

The first action item is referring the zoning ordinance rewrite to the Planning Commission.

Good evening, Mayor Snook, members of Council.

My name is James Fries.

I'm the Director of Neighborhood Development Services.

The item before you this evening refers the zoning rewrite project.

This is the third part of our overall Seval Plans Together effort.

Refers that to the Planning Commission for a public hearing and then a recommendation back to you.

This action tonight is a requirement of state law and our existing zoning code, which require that Council refer these items to the City Council, or I'm sorry, to the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission has 100 days to get back to you with a recommendation.

So just one question, just for the public's benefit.

Sure.

The way the process works is that the Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing.

They then need to make a recommendation.

They will need to vote on a recommendation to the City Council.

The City Council will also conduct a public hearing.

Thank you.

And when is the next draft expected?

We are really at the point of any day now.

We are expecting it this week.

Okay.

Councilors, have any other clarifying questions?

It's going to be a busy fall.

That's right.

So this is simply a resolution.

It's not a public hearing.

Any discussion?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Mayor, City Council, Matt Alfley, City Planner, Neighborhood Development Services.

Tonight you'll be voting on a SUP for 207-211 Ridge Street for the expansion of the Salvation Army for a shelter care facility and alterations to setbacks and parking requirements.

This came before Planning Commission at a joint public hearing on July 11th.

There were six members of the public who spoke, spoke in favor of the overall development, but had concerns as it related to trash and parking.

At that meeting, parking was a big conversation, especially during construction as service is going to continue as the site expands.

After the Planning Commission meeting to address this issue, the staff has recommended an additional 10th condition to add to the nine that are in the resolution that speaks to adding a construction access management plan for during the construction.

I have one question.

I think I may know the answer, but I'm not sure.

This is listed as one reading.

This is just a resolution.

Okay.

Maybe I'm remembering the conversation then from the

from the Planning Commission meeting.

I think there was just a clerical error on the second one.

All right.

So one reading.

I guess the first...

A suggestion or request is I'd like to move the adoption of this additional condition to the resolution and then we would vote on that amended resolution so I guess what I need to do and help me out here I'd like to move to amend the resolution with the conditions that are listed there in the packet and which were discussed at the Planning Commission meeting

With this additional note, this condition, the applicant will provide a construction access management plan.

At minimum, the plan will include measures to ensure safe vehicular and pedestrian access along 4th Street Southwest and Dice Street during construction.

The plan will be subject to approval by the director of NDS.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

It would be appropriate to consider Mr. Pinkston's motion to amend the resolution, and then if that motion passes, Council will consider the amended resolution.

Right.

Okay, so we have a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

I have a question.

This is, if I'm hearing it correctly, addressing the safety concerns about walking.

The neighbors came to talk about the ability to get into their residences and walk from point A to point B and adequate parking for them and or the employees.

Right.

But what I'm saying is those issues were expressed and your amendment is addressing those issues if I'm hearing you correctly.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay.

So first we are voting on amending the resolution.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No?

Okay.

So the motion passes.

Now is when the next step is to approve the special use permit as amended with the now 10th condition.

S3 is the densest barriers of our screening barriers, S1, S2, and S3.

So S3 is the most dense.

The one caveat is S3 you can, at the discretion of the director of NDS, provide a fence to be completely opaque if it's appropriate.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

Other questions, discussion?

So we have a motion.

We have a second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Next item, approving a special use permit at 218 West Market Street.

Second reading.

Hi.

Good evening again, Mayor Snook, members of Council.

Again, for the record, my name is James Freese, Director of Neighborhood Development Services.

I understand there was a presentation on this item at the last meeting, so I'm not going to repeat that.

I'm simply going to note that there is an additional condition that was proposed by the applicant in this case to limit the size of the building to the existing approved plans.

So despite the reduction in the step backs, the overall square footage of the property remained the same.

All right.

So that would foreclose about another 5,000 square feet?

Exactly right.

Yeah.

Again, the effort here was just really to achieve a better designed building, which allows

And that is responsive primarily to my suggestion that nobody could answer a couple of weeks ago, which was, are we effectively giving him X number of more square feet that he can now turn around and sell?

I have a question.

It does remain the same, yes.

My understanding is the owner did reach out to the neighbor that they had a meeting and talked through issues there.

I don't care.

Do you have anything to add on that point?

No.

So, Mr. Fries, you finished?

Yes.

Yes, sir, I am.

The resolution that we're looking at in our packet includes the revised step-back condition.

I believe we need to do, as we did in the last meeting, I believe there needs to be an action taken to add that item into the resolution.

As was done in the last item.

I apologize, not the last meeting.

Because it was not part of the discussion at the Planning Commission.

You're talking about the step back or the square footage?

The square footage.

Sorry.

The resolution as presented covers the step back.

Yes.

Okay.

But the additional condition to limit the square footage to what was approved in the prior site plan does need to be added into that resolution.

Okay.

All right.

Anybody?

We had our own meeting.

It was a lot of meetings.

For whatever it's worth, I'll just say the limitation on the square footage does not address

Yeah, I'm going to vote against the condition.

Brian, I don't understand what you just said.

You lost me.

I think that what they've done with, you know, and this is the way design works is you sort of start off with a big lump of clay and then over time you sort of massage it and then as you get further and further along, you know, you do your design development and I think that

they got to a point where they thought they were going to be at the start as they've gotten into this it's become more refined and the changes in the step backs the main reason I think they're doing it I believe them is to come up with a better project with better rooms and layout as a result they're getting 5,000 square feet I don't see and I'm

I'm open to people helping me see otherwise.

I don't see what restricting them from having that extra 5,000 square feet, what that does for the city or for anybody.

I mean, it means that there's less money that they can make on their property, which I can appreciate that, I guess.

It's also unusable space, though.

It's just a lot.

They'll use it for something.

Probably not.

All right.

And I just don't know to relitigate it, but again, my concern is the number of affordable housing and AMI level and whether that meets our community's expectations.

That's why I asked the question about the affordable units.

Well, I think that the amendment, I'm suspecting that the amendment was a response to my comment last time that

basically that they were getting an advantage, getting something in a sense for nothing, or to put it another way, I mean, I used the phrase perhaps more colorfully than accurately to talk about a bait and switch, which we have sometimes seen in other projects where it clearly has been a bait and switch.

You negotiate basically the granting of the first special use permit

is not the end of the negotiation, it's the beginning.

And I should not have used that particular phraseology here simply because I don't really have any suggestion that that's what Mr. Levine is doing, but that's what it

That's always my fear when negotiations continue after you think you've got a done deal.

So, Brian, just to make it crystal, so you're saying you don't support the amendment, which will give them the space to bring in more lighting, to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

They're still going to be able to do the design that they were suggesting.

Does that make sense, Ms.

Long?

Yeah.

Does that make sense to you, Warren?

So is there I'm not hearing any support for that particular amended or additional condition.

All right.

Is there a second?

Second.

Just I understand the particular history of this one, but I think tonight's just a clear example of we have to think outside of the box in terms of I think what many people in the community are expecting in terms of affordability and developments and how widespread the attitude is that developments like this are not trickling down to benefit everybody.

I do understand the particular history here, but I think it's something we

Ms.

all of which highlights the importance of passing a good, strong zoning ordinance.

But that's not going to enable us to go back and redo this one.

All right.

Ready to vote?

Aye.

We have two written reports, the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee semiannual report, which was, it's a written report.

It is not an oral presentation here unless there's somebody who is expecting to make a presentation on it.

And then we also have the quarterly report from the Rivanna authorities.

No questions, but I'll just note for the benefit of the public, it's very interesting that the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee used to be a meeting that was open to the public, and it's been a couple years now since that was closed to the public, and even myself as a counselor would be unable to attend.

So there is no public body which any member of our

Council or the public can attend to take part in UVA's decisions about their future land use and development, and that's quite interesting.

Hearing nothing, we are now at the final speaking opportunity for members of the public.

Speakers will be given up to three minutes again.

Join the speaker queue by selecting the raise hand option in the Zoom webinar or star nine if you're by phone or by raising your hand in council chambers.

We'll alternate between in-person and virtual speakers.

Are there any in-person speakers who wish to address us at this point?

Thank you for the opportunity.

My name is Peter Reitmeyer.

I attended the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission meeting Wednesday, July 26, chaired by Mr. Pinkston.

It was a very good presentation on how various VDOT funding mechanisms are awarded by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

One of your employees, Sandy Shackelford, did a really good job.

It was quite educational, and I'd recommend that if you haven't had a chance to see it, you take a look.

It explains, she explained in a really clear way, a very difficult process.

and I bring up this topic because this council approved the 170 unit 240 stribbling development almost 15 months ago in April of 2022.

More recently you approved the 2005 JPA project

And when you count up the vehicles that are projected to be in those two developments, you're going to add about 400 vehicles to the local JPA extended traffic area.

That's probably going to add up to about a thousand additional daily trips.

Yet when I looked at the city website on July 14th on the transportation project list it doesn't even indicate that the transportation department is studying the effect of the traffic on JPA that's coming as a result of those two developments

Now this is 15 months have gone by.

I'm just curious when they're going to actually start studying that issue.

They are studying the sidewalks on Stribbling.

I'll give you credit for that.

But there's nothing that's going to happen to the actual vehicles on JPA.

That's not good.

And so when I sort of learned how the funding is provided, smart scale, maintenance money, the rest, those projects are hard to get.

You have to apply for them, you have to be accepted, you go through several rounds of culling by the

the local district and then you compete with other districts in the state to get this funding.

And the reality is if you use something like smart scale funding, you're going to be five or six years out before you ever get any money for it.

So think about that.

I mean, if you get these big developments going in, and I'm not anti-development.

I'm just saying if you get it, let's make sure we have the infrastructure so that we're not equitably all stuck on JPA not going anywhere.

Thank you, Mr. Wright-Meyer.

Good.

Well, I'm here to join the chorus

of others who live in the 10th and Page Street area in regards to the Dairy Market project.

I have been a resident of the 10th and Page Street neighborhood for nearly 70 years.

I grew up in this neighborhood.

I've seen a lot of changes.

One of the things that many people may or may not know about this neighborhood is full of rich history.

It's full of

folks who were entrepreneurs.

I think about the Bowes, Juanita and George Bowes who owned a restaurant on West Street.

I think about Mr. Robinson who owned an upholstery shop on Anderson Street.

I think about Dr. Coles who had a dental office on A Street.

I think about Johnson Brothers Funeral Home on A Street.

I think about the teachers who lived in this community.

who so inspired me to become an educator.

Long before TikTok and Facebook and FaceTime, that was a gathering place even before I was born.

Many of the famous stars came to Washington Park to perform.

As a child growing up, that was our social time to meet with friends and socialize.

I think about the bakery, we could smell the fresh bread being baked while in the park, while in Washington Park.

We're going the next day to pay five cents for day old bread.

There's a lot of rich history.

But also fast forward in 2023, I think about those of us who are getting up in age and the elders who live in the community.

and how they are struggling to keep up with the change, the gentrification of the neighborhood.

No one speaks, no one knows each other, unlike it was as a child.

I think about those people who rent, the renters who are not really invested in the neighborhood, and they'll say to their renters, oh, my taxes are going up, so I'm going to have to go up on your rent.

Many of these people make nowhere near the money that you and I make.

and it's tragic.

And I'm hoping that when this dairy market phase come to your desk that you all will think deep and hard to vote no on this project.

And I am hoping that it will not become a tale of two neighborhoods.

Thank you, Mr. Bryant.

Okay, next, somebody here who would like to speak?

Hi.

Hello.

My name is Althea Lawn-Warrell.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I was born here at the old Martha Jefferson Hospital.

And it's honestly very upsetting to see these proposed plans for the expansion of the dairy market, especially considering that the city has continued to push out long-term, lifelong residents of the city.

This expansion will do nothing but continue this legacy of pushing out people, specifically black people and other minorities who have come to Charlottesville.

It is unfortunate that there are people like Chris Henry who feel that they are enough a part of this community that they are building onto it when really all they are doing is detracting from it and making it so that this city is unlivable for those of us who have lived here our entire lives.

I've been asked where I want to live and work after I graduate from college.

People have asked me if I wanted to come back to Charlottesville or try to teach at Charlottesville High School because that's my plan, to be a teacher However, as it stands, I will never be able to afford to live in the city where I was born I will never be able to afford to live in the place where my parents have chosen to raise their children I will never be able to continue to live in the same city that my friends reside in

This will only continue if you vote yes to these proposed changes to the dairy market.

Thank you.

Ms.

Keller.

Ms.