City Council Meeting   10/16/2023

Well...

Thomas, call the roll.

Councillor Payne?

Here.

Councillor Pinkston?

Here.

Mayor Snook?

Here.

Vice Mayor Wade?

And so, we're four strong.

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

Mr. Mayor, I move that City Council approve the agenda as presented with the addition of an item to consider possible amendments to Council's policies and procedures to be conducted immediately following the moment of silence at the business session of the meeting.

Then the City Council Business Meeting which will begin around 6.30.

So first item up is a budget presentation on human needs and

Mr. Sanders do you want to introduce the topic or just start in with the first scheduled speaker?

I'll just simply say that this is the continuation of this new additional step in the budget process so as FY25 has kicked off we have grouped different members of our team so this is the human needs section and then we'll have Misty Graves with Human Services kick it off.

And now that I'm up here, I can barely.

Yes, they will load momentarily.

And that's it.

Thank you.

It's for you all to ask questions if you have any.

Do you engage with CASA at all?

Yes.

Is it parallel or...

By the nature of our CAF program, many of the youth, if not all, are appointed a CASA volunteer, and then they coordinate with the Department of Social Services and our CAF staff as part of the team that works with the children.

Okay.

Okay.

It is something that's constituted by statute, or is it like its own?

It's not something that I'm aware of what they're, you know.

It's court-appointed, though, and I think that this jurisdiction, we have it, and they're expanding, I understand, so a couple other counties, but, yeah.

Thank you.

It is not statutorily required, however.

So that person would support you, I guess?

Support the city of Charlottesville, by nature, working very closely with me, yes.

How long has that position been unfilled?

Two years.

A while.

Thank you.

Any others?

Questions?

No?

Did I hear that correctly?

I'm planning on submitting an ABRT application that's due on the 30th so that will be where that goes.

County high school students or middle school students you would likely need more staff I assume to accommodate that and I know usually I think you get college students and things to help out in the summertime but you know.

you know increase those but yes in our in our budget for those programs we include staff cost

Is that in effect if people are, you're distributing it and it's needed type of thing?

We are spending down at a rate that I feel comfortable with as far as there's no red flags that says at anywhere that we're going to like run out of funds.

Okay.

and other resources like that.

Can you just spend a moment talking about the mentoring aspect of, you know, is that Daniel Farrelly or is that something different?

There's some going to get ice cream and playing basketball as we know that that's good for relationship building but it's not the sole mentoring.

And that's something that you contract out or you have the capacity for staff to do that?

We currently have staff in place to have that but like I said in order for us to accept a referral they would have to be able to tap into the existing funding streams that I have.

I didn't realize that you did that as well.

But I will say that based on feedback is that folks feel more heard, valued and that this is a department that can help them become more of their authentic selves in the workplace.

Thank you.

Is there a sense yet of the scale of kind of what you would anticipate the continued request may be versus what the amount of funding available currently in FY25 could be?

remaining funds from FY25 that would be reallocated, I mean, FY24 that would be reallocated?

If any money going over or if there's a gap between kind of like if the requests from FY24 were the same in FY25, kind of what is that gap of funding in pathways?

The other thing that we, like I said, we've considered is offering some additional services or programs so that folks when they fall on hard times they have other additional resources that they can utilize in addition to what Pathways can offer.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I was going to say.

related to what they're calling unwinding.

Is the 700 that you've now closed, is that, does that reflect perhaps there had been 7,429 cases and now you're down 700 or do we subtract 700 from 6729 or get a sense of the magnitude of that change?

Any questions you have?

Questions, counsel?

If you could give me just an example of how your relationship and connection with Department of Human Services, you know, you don't have to use names, I'm just trying to get an idea like what a typical, in a typical day, like, you know, would you call Misty or Misty would call you, you know, the staff type of thing, yeah.

A prevention worker maybe wants a family, maybe they're working with a teenager to join the KIT program, so we might be referring for services that way as well.

prepared the folks in the city are and how the city care of foster relationships is just better than what she sees in any other jurisdiction around here.

Thank you.

Good job, folks.

Thank you.

Just beginning.

Yeah.

Any sense of how long it will go on?

So it's definitely a process.

And next, Community Solutions.

I'm the Director of Office of Community Solutions and this afternoon we'll be briefing the City Council on the activities of Community Solutions for the past year and potentially what we are expecting in terms of initiatives for the next program year.

There you go.

As a matter of fact, she started this morning.

As you say, I hadn't heard of her before.

Should we join our team next month or early December?

Great.

Okay.

All right.

Hopefully, if it's adopted in December, then the Office of Community Solutions will be ready to begin implementation.

Anybody here?

That is the end of the question, the end of my presentation, and I will take the question from the city council at this time.

Councilor's questions?

Thank you.

Because I know that's going to be a pretty large change.

And we intend to be doing it every year to ensure that everybody knows what they are supposed to be doing.

as part of your work, as you're ramping up staff, is that we should be able to say that last year we, without donations, and I know that some years it's going to be money to put towards planning and things like that, not necessarily for construction, but that is part, as you're putting together your matrix and things like that, if you could have that information, it would be great.

Thank you, sir.

What's the current status?

I think that's where the last time I heard was they are retaining the assistance of another contractor to complete what has not been completed.

Is there an estimate as to when it will be completed at this point?

So I'm going to follow up on that and then I get back to the City Council.

as it relates to sort of I mean is it an oversight situation or are they liaison or how would you characterize it?

So there are several support we provide to CRHA.

Other questions?

So that concludes our presentations on the budget.

Next item is the decarbonization study project update, Lauren Hildebrand.

And I turn it over to Dr. Feng.

Thank you.

She is the project manager of this engagement.

So now I'm going to hand off Twa on our thoughts on exploring some of those technologies.

I think then we're going to be, like Lauren mentioned earlier, the objective is to really finish the report and recommendations by March of next year.

Questions, Council?

I don't know how we look on time, though.

It does take five minutes.

Would that hydrogen be transported in the same piping systems as natural gas?

recently constructed, not very old.

Okay, but you could conceivably put it in?

So you can safely blend 20% to some of the really well-managed pipeline system with really good physical conditions.

But in a house, would it work with sort of a fuel cell or would you actually combust it on site?

You can blend it.

When I say end user impact, that's what I mean.

Yeah, it's the residential customers.

My wife might have a surprise if it goes to 20%.

If you, the process requests combustion, you need to really- Well, the university does.

The university has a heat plant that would have boilers.

Yeah, so that is, you need some update to the equipment in order to burn a mixture of the hydrogen.

so I'd be interested you know what it might not be something you've had a chance to think about but you know if we're it's one thing to say we've got a system now that everyone's sort of committed to then I wonder you know are we are we just going to say okay we've drawn a line in the sand or we're not really going to extend it anymore

So I think that part of the system is that whether it makes sense, just from a legal and commercial strategy perspective, whether it's a valid approach in order to really uniformly create a ban on new gas connections, that's really still up to debate.

Is that something you'll include in your final report, some sort of discussion of that?

We are only providing a supporting role here.

Have you identified any programs, even just preliminarily, that our utility might be able to take advantage of that would advance the goal of decarbonization?

For certain other issues like community solar, we know some of them can be subject to, can be eligible for some also some credit issues and I think renewable natural gas and also subject to maybe 30% investment tax credit and then the operating credit you actually also are eligible for certain operating credit as well.

Yeah, and will you do any analysis of the kind of the quality of the carbon offsets that the utility currently purchases as well as if we're to continue that practice in the future kind of what may be the best product from an environmental standpoint to utilize?

the credits, where it comes from, what it's accounted for.

And I just wonder if that is kind of a very feasible path forward.

So what that means with offsets and what that means without offsets as far as what the cost implications are.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have a motion to go into closed session?

specifically possible acquisition of property for recreational purposes.

See you all in 40 minutes.

Are we all here?

Do we have a motion?

I move that this council certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each council member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified if the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

So let's see.

Thank you.

Counselors, any announcements?

And if anybody's interested in more information or getting involved, they can contact Martise Tolbert at mtolbert at fountainfund.org.

Okay.

Do we still, is this still a time to do that?

Okay.

So would we be voting to approve the amended procedures, is that, or are we just going into the discussion of how we're handling public comment?

Any changes council may wish to make with respect to public comment by Zoom this evening?

First.

Do we need a motion to reflect what you had just discussed?

Do we, Mr. City Attorney, do we need a motion to suspend the

I believe it would be appropriate for Council to go ahead and take a vote on that.

Somebody want to make a motion to suspend remote public comment for the time being?

I move that we suspend remote comments for the time being?

With that in mind, let's go on to the next item on the agenda which is the consent agenda.

Thomas, would you read the consent agenda please?

$382,352, one of two readings.

Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

I move for approval of the consent agenda.

Passes 4-0 to adopt the consent agenda.

Mr. Sanders, is there a report from the City Manager's Office?

Deputy Hicks.

I do want everyone and as well as council know we are

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Mr. City Manager that's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Sanders.

All right.

So our first speaker is Matthew Ray.

where it's fully staffed and everybody with CDL wants to work here.

Time is up.

Thank you.

Next is Susan Cruz.

Thank you.

John Hossack?

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Ebinger, soft or hard cheat?

It's Ebinger, yeah.

Ebinger.

Thanks.

Next we have Bob McAdams.

Thank you.

Next is Jonathan Baker.

With that, I'll close, and thank you guys again for serving.

Maria Duster, is she here?

She's online.

Yeah, and we're not doing online today.

You can email them to us.

The first person on the waiting list is Jock Yellett.

Thank you for your time.

Next, Emily Little.

Thank you for being here.

Yes, ma'am?

Thank you.

Good choice.

Thank you again for your service and for your time.

I'll get you next.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I forgot I said I was going to hear from you.

So if anybody has any suggestions, you can call me or I'll wait afterwards to see what else I can do to get my money back.

Have you talked to the folks at Legal Aid?

So I just want my money as a customer.

Tell you what, if you can get me name, address, phone number, there's a guy from Dominion Power who sends me an email about once a day from a PR office.

Okay.

I would love to get back to him and say solve this woman's problem.

So do you need me to give you that information?

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Parks.

Somebody over here?

I'm back.

I think you guys do a great job and I do give the city hand claps for the funding that you do give out but it's not enough and something has to change so I don't know what you can do to make anything change but I hope you can do something to make something change even for me as a person that does work and a person that works in mental health and they can't even afford to live.

Now, the first action item is an ordinance to amend the code.

Mr. Stroman will present this to us.

so that the city ordinance will be in compliance with state law, and this is an ordinance, so it will require two readings, and if the ordinance in its current form is acceptable to the council, we can bring it back to you at your first meeting in November for adoption.

Counselors, any questions for Mr. Stroman?

Take this every meeting.

So if nobody has any issues with it, shall we go ahead and pass it on to the next meeting for a second reading and put it on the consent agenda?

I'm fine with that.

Okay.

The next item is also Mr. Stroman, also an amendment to conform the code to state law.

We will bring it back to you at your first meeting in November for final adoption.

Shouldn't our ordinance also reflect that expiration date?

So we can certainly make that change, but I assure you our office will be monitoring that carefully, and if the General Assembly does not act to extend, we'll bring that back to you to rescind that provision.

That's the session.

Shall we pass it on to the next meeting?

Yes.

Those are the two action items.

We have a couple of folks here who sit on the board of the Rivanna authorities and we can take that message back to them if we wanted to.

No, I did a tour probably, I don't know, a couple of months ago, and it was really, and I've been in plan with the county for many years, and, you know, if I hadn't done it the last 15, so it was really informative about, you know, to learn about the water usage, storage of it, and so I'm looking forward to the comprehensive presentation in January.

Yeah, I guess the only thing, I know we've gotten this in bits and pieces in my email, I'm sure I've got it all, but both for myself and the public, I would only just be interested in kind of a full summary of what they're expecting in terms of requests for major new infrastructure projects in the dollar amounts, because my understanding is as a consequence of some of these things in this report, there's going to be some pretty meaningful requests coming down the line.

I think one of the things is there's a request to basically move up a time when the capacity is going to be expanded.

Yeah, I guess I thought that that was already something that was pretty well known.

Well, it is not a secret, but I'm not sure that it's well known.

The community water plan as well.

It's definitely coming.

Well, keep in mind most of these.

That's easy.

If there's no other questions or issues to raise right now with the Rivanna authorities, then are there any other business items for consideration or questions for the city manager to follow up on?

Hearing none, we have the final speaking opportunity for members of the public, Community Matters.

sure no no let's get some other people everybody will have a chance yeah okay over here good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Roscoe Boxley and I was formerly a resident at Market Street Park

So I respond like it.

Yes, ma'am.

And thank you.