City Council Meeting   10/5/2020

1. Closed session as provided by Sections 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code (Legal consultation)

2. Regular Meeting

• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:00:01
    All right, Councilor Hill, would you read us out of closed session, please?

3. MOMENT OF SILENCE

• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:00:05
    Yes, ma'am.
  • 00:00:06
    I move this council certified by recorded vote 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 in the motion convening the closed session or heard discussed or considered in the closed session.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 00:00:21
    I second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:24
    I second.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:00:26
    All right, Ms.
  • 00:00:28
    Thomas.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:00:36
    Mr. Payne?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 00:00:37
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:00:38
    Mr. Snook?

4. ROLL CALL

• • SPEAKER_27
  • 00:00:39
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:00:40
    Ms.
  • 00:00:40
    Walker?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 00:00:41
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:00:42
    Ms.
  • 00:00:42
    Magill?
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 00:00:43
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:00:44
    Ms.

5. AGENDA APPROVAL

• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:00:44
    Hill?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:00:46
    Yes.
  • 00:00:47
    Thank you.
  • 00:00:49
    So I call the regular meeting to order.
  • 00:00:53
    We'll start with a moment of silence.
  • 00:01:24
    All right, thank you.
  • 00:01:25
    Ms.
  • 00:01:25
    Thomas, roll call, please.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:01:31
    Mr. Payne?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:01:32
    Here.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:01:33
    Mr. Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:01:34
    Here.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:01:35
    Ms.
  • 00:01:35
    Walker?
  • 00:01:36
    Present.
  • 00:01:38
    Ms.
  • 00:01:38
    McGill?
  • 00:01:39
    Present.
  • 00:01:40
    Ms.
  • 00:01:40
    Hill?
  • 00:01:41
    Here.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:01:41
    All right, thank you.
  • 00:01:47
    Next, is there a motion to approve the agenda?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:01:52
    I move to approve the agenda as presented.
  • 00:01:55
    Second.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:02:02
    Ms.
  • 00:02:02
    Thomas.
  • 00:02:04
    Mr. Payne.
• • 00:02:09
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:02:10
    Mr. Snook.
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 00:02:11
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:02:12
    Ms.
  • 00:02:12
    Walker.
  • 00:02:13
    Yes.
  • 00:02:15
    Ms.
  • 00:02:15
    McNeil.
  • 00:02:16
    Yes.
  • 00:02:17
    Ms.
  • 00:02:17
    Hill.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:02:18
    Yes.

6. ANNOUNCEMENTS

• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:02:20
    OK.
  • 00:02:22
    and announcements.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:02:26
    First- Madam Mayor, if I might.
  • 00:02:31
    Many people are aware, but probably not everybody, that former city councilor John Conover died yesterday.
  • 00:02:38
    John was a city councilor from 1980 to 1984.
  • 00:02:45
    My strongest memory of John as a councilor was of him saying,
  • 00:02:49
    This is an issue I'm willing to lose an election over.
  • 00:02:53
    And that notion has always stuck with me that every good politician must always have some issue that he or she is willing to lose an election over.
  • 00:03:01
    And I don't mean an already popular position, like, you know, motherhood or apple pie, but John took principled stands and defended them.
  • 00:03:10
    And frankly, that's one of the reasons why he actually lost for the election in 1984.
  • 00:03:17
    One position that he took that is still a challenge for us, in about 1982 or 1983, we needed to replace the Ridge Street bridge.
  • 00:03:25
    And the VDOT would pay for the replacement because of the importance of the McIntire Ridge Street connection, but only if we built the bridge five lanes wide.
  • 00:03:34
    We didn't have to use five lanes on it, but we had to build it that wide.
  • 00:03:38
    To John, it was important that the portion of Ridge Street between the bridge and the four lane divided part south of Cherry Avenue not be four lanes because that would bisect and essentially destroy what remained of the Ridge Street neighborhood.
  • 00:03:55
    He noted that we already had a history of running four lane roads through black neighborhoods like Preston Avenue, Ridge McIntyre, 5th Street extended.
  • 00:04:03
    And we should not do it again, even if only for a few blocks because he did not want Ridge McIntyre, 5th Street extended to be shown on maps as a four lane cut through to get from US 29 to I-64.
  • 00:04:15
    That's just an example of foresight on his part and concern on his part, in particular concern for the community and particularly for the poor.
  • 00:04:30
    He was a creative and a quirky, sometimes, thinker about important topics.
  • 00:04:35
    I didn't always agree with him, but I always listened to him.
  • 00:04:38
    His was a full life, a life of service to the community and to the poor.
  • 00:04:43
    And we remember him, his wife, Virginia Doherty, and their daughter, Joey Conover, and Send Them Our Love.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:04:55
    And thank you for that.
  • 00:04:56
    and Stend condolences to the family.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:05:04
    I should also note that he died on his running mate, Bets Gleason's 96th birthday.
  • 00:05:09
    Bets is still doing fine and just interesting, you know, history sometimes rhymes.
  • 00:05:17
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 00:05:24
    I have an announcement to make as well.
  • 00:05:32
    RFP notice for the 2020 CDBG CV3 funding and 2021 CDBG and home funding.
  • 00:05:42
    The city of Charlottesville will be accepting proposals for 2020 CDBG, CV3 and 2021 CDBG and home
  • 00:05:53
    beginning October 1, 2020, and ending at 4 p.m.
  • 00:05:58
    Eastern Standard Time on October 16, 2020.
  • 00:06:02
    Projects will support a viable urban community through the provision of decent housing, a suitable living environment, an economic opportunity for low and moderate income citizens, and activities that will prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.
  • 00:06:18
    The RFP and related documents can be found on the city's website under housing and redevelopment.
  • 00:06:25
    Online application submission is required.
  • 00:06:29
    The city will require all applicants to schedule and attend a 30 minute mandatory Zoom technical assistance session with the grants coordinator.
  • 00:06:37
    The meeting must be held between October 1st, 2020 and October 15th, 2020 and prior to proposal submission.
  • 00:06:46
    To schedule a technical assistance session or for questions concerning the RFP, contact Erin Attak, Grants Coordinator at ATAKE at Charlottesville.gov or 434-970-3093.
  • 00:07:00
    All right, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:07:11
    Next up, we'll have an update, a COVID-19 update from Dr. Bonds.
  • 00:07:17
    Thank you for joining us, Dr. Bonds.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:07:19
    Thank you for having me.
  • 00:07:21
    If I can share my screen, please, that would be great.
  • 00:07:33
    All right, hopefully you all are seeing some slides here.
  • 00:07:42
    So tonight I'm going to just present to you some of the latest data and then I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
  • 00:07:52
    So right now across the district, we have just under 4,000 cases of COVID-19.
  • 00:08:00
    And I just remind everybody that these are not all active cases.
  • 00:08:03
    This is a total number of cases that have been reported to us since the start of the pandemic.
  • 00:08:09
    Charlottesville has 1380.
  • 00:08:12
    192 people have been hospitalized in the district and in Charlottesville, that was 31 citizens.
  • 00:08:21
    And then we've had an unfortunate 71 fatalities in our district and 29 of those were residents of Charlottesville.
  • 00:08:29
    The graph to the right of the screen show the daily case count and the cumulative cases.
  • 00:08:37
    Then you can see that in the month of July, we had an uptick in cases.
  • 00:08:42
    And I just remind everybody that that was when phase three of the governor's executive order went into effect, which allowed a larger gathering sizes of up to 250 individuals.
  • 00:08:56
    So it was also peak of summer holiday season as well.
  • 00:09:00
    And so we saw more cases than we had seen in the previous months.
  • 00:09:05
    At the beginning of August, City Council and the County of Albemarle put their restrictions into effect, which included more restrictive gathering sizes and universal mask-wearage, and that appeared to have a positive effect with the downturn of cases.
  • 00:09:24
    And then in September, as you can see, we've seen a pretty significant rise in cases.
  • 00:09:31
    and I will show you just another graph in a minute that I think explains a lot of it.
  • 00:09:36
    And you can see the same thing at the bottom here under cumulative case counts.
  • 00:09:44
    So I had our data analyst here pull all of the data for college days, kids 18 to 24.
  • 00:09:50
    And as you can see, starting in the middle of August, up until today, we've had a pretty dramatic rise in the number of cases
  • 00:10:01
    and that corresponds to when UVA students came back to the grounds and then back to the dormitories.
  • 00:10:10
    And when we look at where our cases report, either where they're living or their affiliation, and we do see a large number of cases from UVA students that supports this data here with the age groups.
  • 00:10:28
    I do want to make it clear it's not exclusively UVA students.
  • 00:10:31
    We also see outbreaks in other businesses across our district, as well as other scattered individuals, and we continue to see intermittent outbreaks at long-term care facilities.
  • 00:10:43
    So certainly by no means only UVA students, but we are seeing a dramatic increase because of UVA students.
  • 00:10:54
    We continue to do significant amounts of testing.
  • 00:10:57
    In fact, we just had a regional call earlier today that I've participated on.
  • 00:11:01
    And you can see that here in Thomas Jefferson, we've done 71,000 PCR tests across the district.
  • 00:11:10
    That is significantly more than any of the other health districts in our region, even those that have a larger population than we do.
  • 00:11:18
    Our positivity rate is at 5.2 right now for the district.
  • 00:11:24
    I do want to spend just a minute talking about that because you would expect with this large numbers here that we should be seeing a greater positivity rate.
  • 00:11:35
    And I would just remind everybody that this has two parts.
  • 00:11:38
    It's the number of positive tests, which are certainly high right now, but it is also the total number of tests that are being done.
  • 00:11:47
    And as you can see, looking at this,
  • 00:11:50
    We've had a dramatic increase in the number of tests.
  • 00:11:55
    And I can just tell you, talking to the individuals over at UVA, they're testing a significant number of people, many of whom have negative tests, which is good.
  • 00:12:06
    So UVA is doing what are called point prevalence surveys on many of their dormitories.
  • 00:12:12
    And so that's going to drive the number of tests up.
  • 00:12:15
    They're also doing some routine testing of individuals
  • 00:12:19
    And then, of course, we do a considerable amount of community testing in this area as well, most of which brings back negative results.
  • 00:12:28
    So although we are having large numbers in our community, a positive test, a much larger number, our seven day positivity rate remains relatively low.
  • 00:12:44
    And if you look at the COVID-like illnesses in both the emergency department here and in the urgent care, you can see that Virginia is running at about six to 7%.
  • 00:12:58
    And here in the district, we tend to be a percentage point or so below that, with some occasional blips up here in the middle of September, corresponding to when we saw a large number of
  • 00:13:12
    positive individuals, we did see an increase here above the state average.
  • 00:13:18
    But again, just to remind everybody that this is surveillance data when we scrape off the symptoms that are in electronic medical record in either the emergency departments or in the urgent cares and look for a constellation of symptoms that would correspond with COVID.
  • 00:13:36
    So kind of an early warning system, as it were.
  • 00:13:43
    When we look at the pandemic metric map, which is now available to the public, and I can send this out to the clerk so she can release it to all of you, but it's now a public dashboard.
  • 00:13:59
    I just remind everybody that Charlottesville is in this Northwest region here.
  • 00:14:04
    We have moderate transmission going on in our region, but it's very fluctuating.
  • 00:14:10
    And I would say moderate because, again, we have a large number of cases here in the Charlottesville Albemarle area and then in central Shenandoah, which is the health district here to the west of us.
  • 00:14:23
    They're also seeing a fairly large number because of primarily the student population there.
  • 00:14:29
    So moderate fluctuating at this point in time.
  • 00:14:36
    When you look at the locality metrics, and I've shown this to you I think the last time I was here, these are for the city of Charlottesville.
  • 00:14:46
    This is not yet public, but we're happy to provide this to you at any time.
  • 00:14:52
    So this is the daily incident rate per 100,000.
  • 00:14:57
    We are, for Charlottesville, up here in this higher rate.
  • 00:15:03
    greater than 10.
  • 00:15:04
    These are set by primarily CDC guidance.
  • 00:15:08
    And again, you've seen a very steady increase over time.
  • 00:15:11
    It has been fluctuating a little bit, but if you were to draw a line, the trend would be up.
  • 00:15:18
    And again, as I said before, the point prevalence is pretty low for the city of Charlottesville.
  • 00:15:23
    It's actually even lower than for the district.
  • 00:15:25
    It's 3.9.
  • 00:15:27
    But again, I would just remind you that a lot of that is driven by the large number of tests that are happening in our district.
  • 00:15:35
    The other two parts to the locality page for the pandemic metric are outbreaks.
  • 00:15:41
    We do not have any outbreaks going on right now in the city of Charlottesville, so that's good.
  • 00:15:48
    And we don't really have much of an impact on the health care workers of the city.
  • 00:15:53
    So again, that's also a positive sign.
  • 00:15:58
    So a bit of an increase and we're about to enter a colder season where people are going to spend less time outdoors and more time indoors.
  • 00:16:08
    That's going to put people at a higher risk.
  • 00:16:11
    So I just remind everybody that there are a few things that you can do to lower your risk.
  • 00:16:16
    The first is I would encourage people who have a smartphone to download COVIDWISE.
  • 00:16:21
    This is an app that was developed for the state of Virginia that if you leave your Bluetooth on essentially sort of keeps track of other phones around you that meet the close contact guidelines that is within six feet roughly and for the 15 minute timeframe.
  • 00:16:42
    And then if one of those other individuals, even if it's someone that you don't know, ends up testing positive, they can download a number on their phone, which will then go out and send a message to your phone letting you know that you were potentially in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID.
  • 00:17:00
    So it's a really great way to
  • 00:17:04
    Get an early warning if you've been exposed to somebody who is positive for COVID-19.
  • 00:17:11
    The app's free.
  • 00:17:12
    It's available for both Apple and Samsung type of phones.
  • 00:17:19
    So you can download it at covidwise.org or your favorite app store.
  • 00:17:25
    I put this
  • 00:17:27
    Picture here, this is from a great video that shows why we've really gone to encouraging everyone to wear masks pretty much every time you're outdoors.
  • 00:17:39
    So they're using high speed camera capturing aerosol droplets.
  • 00:17:44
    And this is one of the ways that we believe COVID-19 is spread is through aerosol droplets.
  • 00:17:50
    So here's what happens when you sneeze and you don't have a mask on.
  • 00:17:54
    You have aerosol droplets that spread out
  • 00:17:57
    a large area in front of you.
  • 00:18:00
    Here is the change in that aerosol droplets if you've got a one-layer cloth mask.
  • 00:18:07
    And here's what happens if you have a two-layer cloth mask, which is most of the cloth masks that we're wearing these days.
  • 00:18:13
    And you can see there's scattered light here, but in comparison to these two, it's really significantly less.
  • 00:18:20
    And here's the surgical mask.
  • 00:18:22
    You get a little bit of outflow at the bottom, but really hardly any droplets at all.
  • 00:18:27
    So I think this really nicely demonstrates why we've gone to this guidance of encouraging everyone to wear masks when you're out.
  • 00:18:36
    I like to encourage people to wear them regardless of how far they're going to be apart.
  • 00:18:39
    Six feet is a good rule of thumb, but it's not perfect.
  • 00:18:43
    We do know that these aerosol droplets do spread and can spread farther than six feet.
  • 00:18:48
    Certainly if you're outdoors, that's best.
  • 00:18:51
    And so to the degree that it is possible, we encourage people who are going to be out to spend as much time outdoors.
  • 00:18:58
    The air currents disperse these aerosolized droplets and make it less likely that you're going to get an infected load of virus.
  • 00:19:05
    So three easy ways.
  • 00:19:07
    In addition, I didn't put a graphic up here about washing your hands, but of course, washing your hands frequently is a great way to keep yourself from getting infected.
  • 00:19:19
    Testing is still widely available in the area.
  • 00:19:22
    I've listed some testing events here every Monday at the Church of Incarnation, every Tuesday at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church.
  • 00:19:31
    Both of those are hosted by UVA.
  • 00:19:33
    There will be testing at the health department here on Rose Hill Drive on October 7th from 5 to 7 p.m.
  • 00:19:40
    That's hosted by the health district.
  • 00:19:42
    And then UVA will be doing some testing at Mountain View Elementary School on Thursday, October 8 in the evening.
  • 00:19:49
    So two standing testing events every Monday and Tuesday.
  • 00:19:52
    Walk up or drive up.
  • 00:19:54
    You don't need an appointment.
  • 00:19:55
    and then we have scheduled events going on both in the Charlottesville and Albemarle area and throughout the district and if you just go to tjhd.org there are more events that you can find there.
  • 00:20:10
    Additionally, it's really important particularly this year for everyone to get a flu shot.
  • 00:20:15
    The symptoms of flu and COVID overlap significantly and we really need everyone to be protected against the flu
  • 00:20:23
    It's a very effective way of either preventing yourself from getting the flu or certainly reducing your flu symptoms.
  • 00:20:31
    The health department is going to be offering three flu shots at Buford Middle School.
  • 00:20:35
    I didn't put the date on here.
  • 00:20:37
    I'm sorry, from 4 to 7 p.m.
  • 00:20:39
    I think it is October 13th, but I will pull that up real quick during questions.
  • 00:20:48
    It's available to three plus.
  • 00:20:50
    and then of course our hotline number 9726261 can provide you with all sorts of information about testing events, free flu shots and can answer any of your COVID related questions.
  • 00:21:03
    So with that, I will stop sharing and I'll look up when that flu clinic is real quick and be happy to answer any questions.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:21:16
    Well, thank you for joining us this evening.
  • 00:21:20
    Counselors, do you have any questions at this time?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:21:24
    Dr. Bonds, one question I have is, do you have any sense of how much or to what extent the university students are basically infecting themselves or whether they're infecting folks out in the community or how's that working?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:21:42
    Yeah, and I would say that for the most part what we see are students infecting other students.
  • 00:21:48
    We have not seen a large number of cases amongst community members that we've been able to link back to students.
  • 00:22:00
    Now that being said, we are seeing more cases amongst individuals who work at UVA, either as faculty or
  • 00:22:09
    over in the hospital and so they are our community members really but they're also affiliated with UVA and so I think there might be a little bit of cross-infectivity there.
  • 00:22:25
    You know it's really hard to say without viral typing and looking at the DNA of the virus and following that out, it's difficult to say with a hundred percent certainty
  • 00:22:37
    where any one person got their illness at.
  • 00:22:41
    And sometimes we have an obvious exposure.
  • 00:22:43
    It's a family member that you spend a lot of time with and we know.
  • 00:22:46
    But sometimes we see cases in a workplace.
  • 00:22:51
    Did they get it from a coworker?
  • 00:22:53
    Did they get it from someone who came into the workplace?
  • 00:22:55
    Those are a little hard.
  • 00:22:56
    So I don't want to say that there's no cross spread between UVA and the community.
  • 00:23:04
    But in general, what we see are
  • 00:23:08
    Cases that are UVA will be able to link it back to other UVA cases, and community cases are frequently linked to other community cases.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:23:19
    I think I saw in the paper over the weekend that something like two-thirds of the cases recently have been in the 10 to 19 and 20 to 29 cohorts?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:23:28
    That's correct.
  • 00:23:29
    We're seeing a really large number, and that's one of the reasons I wanted to show you that 18 to 24 range, because it's not kids.
  • 00:23:36
    like 10 year olds that we're seeing.
  • 00:23:39
    Unfortunately, when they made those state cutoffs of 10 to 19, it includes the first year of college.
  • 00:23:48
    And so we had to go to a different data source to pull the 18 to 24 so we could show you that graph that shows the really significant uptake at this point.
  • 00:24:02
    So, you know, if I go back to
  • 00:24:07
    sharing this screen and show you these slides.
  • 00:24:16
    I mean, you see here, it's all summer long, certainly from the start of the pandemic, all through the summer, we saw very little in the 18 to 24 year old in Charlottesville.
  • 00:24:28
    And really, it was that mid August where we began to see an uptick and
  • 00:24:33
    Since we've had the students come back to our community, we've certainly seen an increase in the number of cases.
  • 00:24:42
    Now, UVA, to their credit, has been very transparent.
  • 00:24:48
    They have a COVID tracker, which, if I can get my screen, so the UVA COVID tracker is up, and they've adjusted it, and it's got
  • 00:24:59
    their total number of new cases, the student cases, looking at the daily average number of cases, and looking at it, giving a week by week comparison.
  • 00:25:15
    I think, and they have done a lot of work.
  • 00:25:17
    You know, we meet with them on a daily basis.
  • 00:25:21
    I talk to them frequently.
  • 00:25:22
    They've really put in place some pretty significant restrictions on the students to try and reduce the number of cases.
  • 00:25:31
    They're trying to provide activities that's going to reduce the students, keep the students kind of closer to home and on campus and
  • 00:25:42
    and they are beginning to think about the cold weather and what that's going to do to where their students go and hang out so I think they're trying to be very proactive about it but this is not the only university town and it's not the only university town seeing an increase in cases amongst university students so
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:26:06
    Are you seeing much in the way of cases that are attributable to like elementary and high school kids?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:26:17
    No, but remember most of our students are at home right now.
• • SPEAKER_51
  • 00:26:21
    Right.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:26:22
    So we have had outbreaks in our K through 12, and I can pull that up.
  • 00:26:33
    And I am told that the state is going to begin releasing the names of the K-12 and childcare.
  • 00:26:43
    So here we're not reporting any outbreaks in the district.
  • 00:26:46
    This is for the district for K-12.
  • 00:26:49
    We have had a couple in childcare settings, daycares and things.
  • 00:26:56
    but none here.
  • 00:26:58
    But we also, in the district, we have two schools that are in a hybrid model right now, Louisa and Green, and everyone else is pretty much mostly virtual.
  • 00:27:08
    They have scattered students in their classroom.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:27:10
    Thank you.
  • 00:27:13
    Question.
  • 00:27:17
    Do you know the extent to which the contact tracing capacity has scaled up since
  • 00:27:25
    you know, obviously the very start of the pandemic, but even just over the past few months.
  • 00:27:29
    And is that still being ramped up or does the health department feel that they're in a space where the contact tracing capacity is able to adequately, you know, trace every case or potential outbreak?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:27:44
    Yeah, we continue to hire.
  • 00:27:46
    I don't know how many we've hired.
  • 00:27:50
    It seems like every week there's another five investigators and or contact tracers starting.
  • 00:27:55
    They're all virtual.
  • 00:27:56
    We just don't have the physical space to have that many people here.
  • 00:28:00
    And this is a work that lends itself well to being virtual.
  • 00:28:05
    We are well within the metrics that VDH has set up.
  • 00:28:11
    Easily 95 plus percent of our cases are contacted within 24 hours of us hearing about them.
  • 00:28:19
    And similarly for contacts now,
  • 00:28:22
    and just remind everybody that we don't get that result until it's uploaded into our electronic system.
  • 00:28:30
    That's done automatically for almost all laboratory facilities.
  • 00:28:34
    There are a few that are not and those get sent to us manually.
  • 00:28:40
    Additionally, we're seeing more point of care tests.
  • 00:28:43
    Those would be like if you go into a doctor's office and they take a little sample of blood or a swab
  • 00:28:50
    and run it right there in the office.
  • 00:28:51
    Those are not uploaded to us automatically.
  • 00:28:54
    The doctor has to call us or go to the online system at VDH.
  • 00:28:59
    And not so much in this district, but the other district that I'm covering, we do see a backlog in those.
  • 00:29:09
    I anticipate that that's going to be a little bit of a problem because it's way more burden on the physician's office than the automatic upload.
  • 00:29:16
    So we have plenty of contact investigators.
  • 00:29:19
    Our case investigators and contact tracers will continue to hire because we do see a little bit of turnover associated with it.
  • 00:29:26
    People get in and get trained and get going on this job and then realize that it's not really the right position for them.
  • 00:29:34
    So we'll continue to hire.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:29:40
    And I'll just
  • 00:29:42
    Really, I don't think I'm asking a question.
  • 00:29:44
    I don't want to put you on the spot either.
  • 00:29:45
    But if we, if you all, since you have that picture of the transmission, the aerosol transmission, that I guess it was a video, but it's a picture on the screen.
  • 00:29:59
    Those are the type of things that I was thinking about.
  • 00:30:02
    I got, we've been getting a lot of email messages because I posted a Facebook post about indoor dining.
  • 00:30:10
    And in indoor dining, you are removing a mask, you're sitting down to eat and then proximity to other people.
  • 00:30:16
    And I've been thinking about that since very early on when I think one of the first cases that came out of China, they thought that maybe the spread had been due to a restaurant setting.
  • 00:30:27
    And again,
  • 00:30:31
    What I'm just asking is that everyone just take those things into consideration of how we can still support our local businesses.
  • 00:30:39
    But if we don't have to be physically in the restaurant, I mean, I think, of course, on even local, state and federal level, there needs to be, you know, better public health related ordinances and
  • 00:30:57
    legislation.
  • 00:30:57
    But since we're not there, I think it's up to each and every one of us to make sure that people have the best information possible.
  • 00:31:04
    And since we don't have a lot of the facts that we would like to have surrounding whether if you're sitting in a dining room at a restaurant, how safe you are, it's just better, in my opinion, based on the information that I choose to share to the public, just better to be safer than sorry.
  • 00:31:24
    And so that is why
  • 00:31:27
    I have been sharing those type of posts.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:31:34
    I think you bring up a really great point, Mayor Walker.
  • 00:31:37
    A recent CDC study found that a very large number of the people who tested positive did report eating indoors in a restaurant.
  • 00:31:48
    Now that's not causal.
  • 00:31:49
    We don't know for sure that it was because they ate indoors, but it was certainly a high correlation.
  • 00:31:57
    Outdoors is safest.
  • 00:31:58
    It is safer.
  • 00:32:00
    But of course, we want all of our businesses to succeed.
  • 00:32:03
    One of the reasons that Charlottesville is such a lovely place to live in is because there's such a vibrancy and there's so many great places to go out and eat.
  • 00:32:13
    So to the degree that you can
  • 00:32:15
    support businesses but eat outdoors.
  • 00:32:18
    I think a lot of the businesses have now set up restaurants, areas that you can eat outdoors, and I think that's a really safe way to do it.
  • 00:32:27
    In my household, we have takeout night.
  • 00:32:29
    One night a week, I order takeout and bring it home, and we support all of our favorite restaurants that way to really continue to contribute to the community, support those businesses, but do it in a safe manner.
  • 00:32:44
    I think the other thing that we need to be aware is it's getting colder and so that's going to require a little more thought on how we support those businesses.
  • 00:32:54
    But we also are coming into the holiday season and that's a time that people want to gather together and we need to remember that some of our family members are going to be in really high risk groups.
  • 00:33:08
    And that's something that we're beginning to think about at my household is how can we do a Thanksgiving dinner that's going to be safe for family members that are in those high-risk groups?
  • 00:33:20
    And can we do it outdoors?
  • 00:33:22
    Is that going to be possible with the weather?
  • 00:33:26
    You know, there's nothing nicer than a really nice crisp fall day, but sometimes it can be pretty cold in Thanksgiving time.
  • 00:33:34
    So
  • 00:33:35
    We're starting to put some guidance out.
  • 00:33:36
    We certainly have put some guidance out about Halloween, which is coming out.
  • 00:33:40
    And we'll put more as we get closer to that holiday season.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:33:44
    Yeah.
  • 00:33:44
    And I think that's important, too.
  • 00:33:47
    As of this moment, my family, we're going to usual, I usually cook or my mom usually cooks all the food.
  • 00:33:56
    So we'll probably still be stuck with that task, but
  • 00:34:01
    then do like a video conferencing with the family after they pick up the food to take back, you know, to their homes.
  • 00:34:09
    And so, yeah, it's better to start thinking about that now instead of last minute and that adding to the stress of the holidays to try to, you know, families can get the plan in place.
  • 00:34:23
    The other comment I just would like to make is in terms of UVA students.
  • 00:34:27
    A message that I sent this morning to J.J.
  • 00:34:32
    Davis was just asking about one of the interviews that were done over the weekend by, you know, life in quarantine of a UVA student.
  • 00:34:43
    I think it was on NBC.
  • 00:34:45
    but they mentioned just being transported to the hotel in a cab.
  • 00:34:51
    So my immediate thought was, what does the cab driver know about this transport and how are we protecting them?
  • 00:35:01
    So I just think in those conversations with the university, if we're just making sure that we're covering everybody who's involved in that situation,
  • 00:35:11
    That would be helpful because I'm sure we're talking about, if we're talking about the drivers, people in pretty high risk situations also.
  • 00:35:19
    So after watching that, that was my first thought.
  • 00:35:21
    And that was the question that I sent through email.
  • 00:35:25
    And so that's a very close contact to a committee member.
  • 00:35:30
    And just making sure that that's been a part of the conversation.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:35:37
    That's a great point.
  • 00:35:38
    And I will also follow up with the UVA to see how they're doing that.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:35:43
    Thank you.
  • 00:35:45
    Counselors, are there any other questions?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:35:49
    No.
  • 00:35:49
    Thank you, Dr. Bonds.
  • 00:35:51
    Thank you, Dr. Bonds.
  • 00:35:51
    Thank you.

7. RECOGNITIONS/PROCLAMATIONS

• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:35:53
    Thank you, everybody.
  • 00:35:55
    Have a good evening.
  • 00:35:59
    OK.
  • 00:36:00
    And next, just a quick announcement that tomorrow we'll be having a work session.
  • 00:36:06
    at 4 to 7.
  • 00:36:08
    So that's October 6, 4 to 7 to discuss boards and commissions.
  • 00:36:13
    And we'll be discussing the meeting schedule, but also digging a little deeper about
  • 00:36:23
    you know, whether the boards and commissions are serving the current needs of the city best.
  • 00:36:29
    So it'll be a very hopefully vibrant discussion and members of the public who have interest in current boards and commissions and meeting schedules make sure that you join us to comment during the public comment time or send emails in advance.
  • 00:36:48
    All right, thank you.
  • 00:36:53
    Next we have, oh, I'm sorry, any other announcements?
  • 00:36:58
    Okay.
  • 00:37:02
    All right, next we have recognitions and proclamations.
  • 00:37:12
    And our first
  • 00:37:16
    Recognition and I'll just speak to the end of this but on September the 3rd at 10 a.m.
  • 00:37:23
    there were two deputies in the 700 block of Prospect Avenue who courageous actions led to seven individuals being saved
  • 00:37:43
    from a burning building.
  • 00:37:46
    And so today we just wanna honor them and give Sheriff Brown an opportunity to say a few words about the deputies.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 00:37:59
    Yes, thank you.
  • 00:38:01
    Also, Emily is here.
  • 00:38:02
    Emily Polikla is here from the fire department.
  • 00:38:06
    They did the investigation on the fire and she was able to speak with them first as they were
  • 00:38:13
    I guess being treated with some issues of smoke inhalation.
  • 00:38:17
    So I was going to have Emily just go ahead and briefly explain what was going on with the fire first.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:38:24
    Thanks, Sheriff Brown.
  • 00:38:25
    Thanks, Mayor Walker and all council.
  • 00:38:28
    Thank you for the opportunity to get to honor these gentlemen.
  • 00:38:32
    One thing I just want to emphasize is that fire,
  • 00:38:37
    The difference between how fires used to burn 20 years ago and how they burn today is so dramatically different that minutes make huge differences.
  • 00:38:45
    And we really, if we don't get to a fire within eight minutes, we're playing catch up.
  • 00:38:50
    That first eight minutes is really critical.
  • 00:38:53
    Lots of studies have been done on the new materials that furniture is made out of and our home furnishings and building construction.
  • 00:39:00
    And so early notification is the key to success with any fire.
  • 00:39:05
    and in this case, Deputies O'Malley and Neal were driving by and if I understand correctly, Neal was, it was his second or third day on the job and they were, he was being trained by O'Malley and as they were driving by, Neal saw smoke coming from the building and alerted O'Malley who pulled over and then instructed him to call 911 and give them the information while he went in to start
  • 00:39:33
    pulling people out and making notifications.
  • 00:39:36
    He effectively rescued and notified everybody on the first floor of that building at Greenstone on 5th.
  • 00:39:44
    It was one of the structures there.
  • 00:39:46
    And he essentially went door to door and knocked and sometimes had to knock pretty loud.
  • 00:39:53
    There's some good stories there he can tell you.
  • 00:39:55
    But he basically got all of those rooms and all those apartments on the first floor evacuated.
  • 00:40:00
    When he tried to go back into the second floor,
  • 00:40:02
    By that point, the smoke was already so strong that he couldn't really get to the top, but that's when our folks arrived.
  • 00:40:08
    So he bought us that time and made the rescues on that first floor so that we didn't have to spend the time doing the first floor and could get to the second floor, which is where that smoke was starting to really penetrate and get at people.
  • 00:40:23
    He did get smoke inhalation and put himself in some pretty serious danger, but
  • 00:40:30
    I'm sure he didn't think anything of it.
  • 00:40:33
    And I know he's, like most public safety says, he would have done it any other day.
  • 00:40:40
    So thank you to them.
  • 00:40:43
    Thank you from the community.
  • 00:40:44
    Thank you from the fire department for making this, the outcome of this such a big difference.
  • 00:40:50
    And thank you for the moment.
  • 00:40:55
    Sheriff Brown.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 00:40:57
    All right.
  • 00:40:59
    Yeah, I'm sorry, my screen's kind of changed up on me here.
  • 00:41:03
    Yeah, it's one of the things that when we look at people that are first responders and we all try to work together and we try to do what we can to help each other out.
  • 00:41:12
    And often with law enforcement, when we respond to a fire, the fire department is already there.
  • 00:41:17
    So we show up and are often trying to help direct traffic or reroute traffic so that the fire department has
  • 00:41:25
    you know, a safe space to work in without vehicles and all going by.
  • 00:41:29
    So it was a rare thing for the, you know, for people from law enforcement with the Sheriff's office to actually be the first people there.
  • 00:41:37
    And it's a fortunate thing they were, because again, Deputy O'Malley, you know, going in and out to get people out and Deputy Neal joining him, it was a very, a work thing that they both did.
  • 00:41:51
    So we're glad that they were there.
  • 00:41:55
    We're glad everyone was safe, residents that were in the building.
  • 00:41:59
    I'm glad that everyone was able to get out and go on with their lives.
  • 00:42:03
    So we're grateful for that.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 00:42:06
    And five of those individuals were small children.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:42:09
    Well, thank you both for sharing that.
  • 00:42:16
    Deputy O'Malley, would you like to share a few words?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:42:20
    I just want to say thank you.
  • 00:42:24
    Been kind of tough since then.
  • 00:42:25
    That day, it was kind of a spur of the moment to go in.
  • 00:42:33
    I'll tell you a story from just about a week ago.
  • 00:42:37
    I went over, and I was driving in Prospect Street.
  • 00:42:40
    When I got out, I looked at that apartment.
  • 00:42:42
    There was a woman outside sitting on the stairs.
  • 00:42:46
    The woman looked at me, and she took a second glance at me, and she says, you're the deputy from the fire, aren't you?
  • 00:42:53
    And I said, yes, ma'am.
  • 00:42:55
    At that point, she just said thank you.
  • 00:43:00
    As being in law enforcement for just about 30 years, that's probably the biggest compliment you can get is when you get a citizen that says thank you for something you did for them.
  • 00:43:11
    And I just want to thank you all for recognizing me and Deputy Neal for something that we were doing.
  • 00:43:18
    We're in the right place at the right time.
  • 00:43:20
    So I just want to say thank you and I'm honored.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:43:23
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:43:26
    Yes, thank you.
  • 00:43:28
    And so, you know, first, I'll just like to say, you know, you know, Sheriff Brown, you know, this is there have been a couple of times where you and your team and I'm glad that we were able to highlight
  • 00:43:43
    your deputies today, but also to share with you, I think people forget even going back to August, 2017, that while there were many questions about law enforcement not taking action, your team was out there taking action and keeping people, trying to keep people safe and protected.
  • 00:44:06
    And so this is another one of those,
  • 00:44:11
    times where the office is not usually highlighted, but we clearly see today the importance of your office.
  • 00:44:24
    And I know you all know that from the work that you do every day, but I'm so glad that the citizens of the community that they can hear it highlighted here today.
  • 00:44:36
    And so Ms.
  • 00:44:37
    Thomas is gonna hold up
  • 00:44:39
    the plaques that we have for you.
  • 00:44:46
    And so on behalf of the city of Charlottesville, we would like to present these two plaques to Deputy O'Malley and Deputy Neal.

8. Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2020

DomesticViolenceAwareness2020-1
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:44:57
    And the plaque on them is written, because of you, seven lives continue to flourish.
  • 00:45:04
    Thank you for your selfless action on September 3, 2020.
  • 00:45:07
    We honor your sacrifices and appreciate your dedication to the city of Charlottesville.
  • 00:45:14
    And we appreciate the work that you all do.
  • 00:45:21
    And again, just want to say thank you.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 00:45:24
    You're welcome and thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:45:29
    Thank you.
  • 00:45:29
    All right.
  • 00:45:33
    And you all have a good evening.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 00:45:35
    Thank you.
  • 00:45:35
    Thanks.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:45:36
    Thank you.
  • 00:45:37
    Okay.
  • 00:45:44
    And next up, we have a proclamation, Domestic Balance Awareness Month 2020.
  • 00:45:50
    All right.
  • 00:45:57
    So whereas the problems of domestic violence are not confined to any group or groups of people, but across all economic, racial, societal barriers, and are supported by societal indifference, and whereas the crime of domestic violence violates an individual's privacy, dignity, security, and humanity,
  • 00:46:17
    due to the systemic use of physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, and economic control and or abuse with the impacts of this crime being wide ranging.
  • 00:46:28
    and whereas no one person, organization, agency or community can eliminate domestic violence on their own, we must work together to educate our entire population about what can be done to prevent such violence, support victims and survivors and their families and increase support for agencies providing services to those community members.
  • 00:46:53
    And whereas the shelter for health and emergency has led the way,
  • 00:46:59
    and the City of Charlottesville in addressing domestic violence by providing 24-hour hotline service to victims, survivors and their families, offering support and information and empowering survivors to chart their own course for healing and whereas the Shelter for Health and Emergency commemorates its 41st year
  • 00:47:23
    of providing unparalleled services to women, children, and men who have been victimized by domestic violence.
  • 00:47:30
    Now, therefore, be it resolved in recognition of the important work being done by the Shelter for Health and Emergency that I, Nikuyah Walker, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, on behalf of City of Charlottesville City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of October 2020 as Domestic Balance Awareness Month.

9. CONSENT AGENDA*

• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:47:50
    and urge all citizens to actively participate in the scheduled activities that are social distancing, physical distancing measures, just add that, and programs sponsored by the shelter for health and emergencies and to work towards the elimination of personal and institutional balance against women, children, and men.
  • 00:48:13
    Sign and seal this day, the fifth day of October, 2020.
  • 00:48:19
    and is there anyone here that would like to speak on behalf of this proclamation?
  • 00:48:30
    No.
  • 00:48:33
    Mr. Wheeler, no hands up.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:48:37
    No, Mayor Walker.
  • 00:48:38
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:48:39
    All right.
  • 00:48:40
    So we'll get that delivered or mailed to
  • 00:48:49
    The Shelter for Help in Emergencies.
  • 00:48:52
    All right.
  • 00:48:54
    Counselors, are there any other recognitions?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:49:01
    No?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:49:02
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:49:03
    There's this one item that you had asked about before.
  • 00:49:04
    Is that going to be done during the response from the previous meetings for the questions that came that Mr. Platania is here for?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:49:14
    Yes, he's going to do that during the city manager's.
  • 00:49:17
    OK.
  • 00:49:22
    Okay, and so next we have the consent agenda.
  • 00:49:28
    Ms.
  • 00:49:28
    Thomas, would you read the consent agenda, please?
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:49:33
    Agenda.
  • 00:49:34
    Appropriation.
  • 00:49:34
    Fiscal year 2021.
  • 00:49:35
    Fire programs.
  • 00:49:36
    Aid to locality fund.
  • 00:49:36
    Fire fund.
• • 00:49:37
    $165,628.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:49:37
    Second reading.
  • 00:49:37
    Appropriation.
  • 00:49:38
    Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant Award.
• • 00:49:40
    $40,000.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:49:40
    Second reading.
  • 00:49:53
    Appropriation, urban and community forestry grant, $20,000, second reading.
  • 00:50:00
    Appropriation, housing opportunities for people with AIDS, HIV, HOPWA, $288,172, second reading.
  • 00:50:06
    Appropriation, battalion chief vehicle insurance reimbursement, $36,649.68, first of two readings.
  • 00:50:10
    Appropriation,
  • 00:50:22
    Red Light Management Funds for Home to Hope Reentry Services Programming, $20,000, first of two readings.
  • 00:50:31
    Appropriation, Virginia Department of Social Services, Temporary Aid to Needy Families Grants, $257,479.76, first of two readings.
  • 00:50:38
    Appropriation, Virginia Juvenile Community Crime Control Act Grant,
  • 00:50:50
    $452,704, first of two readings.
  • 00:50:52
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:50:53
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 00:50:59
    Thomas.
  • 00:51:01
    Mr. Willer, is there anyone who would like to speak on an item that's on the consent agenda?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:51:08
    We do have some hands coming up.
  • 00:51:10
    If you'd like to speak to counsel about the consent agenda, again, this is not community matters.
  • 00:51:16
    If you want to speak about the consent agenda, click the Raise Hand icon.
  • 00:51:20
    If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine to get in line.
  • 00:51:25
    First up, we have Peter Krebs.
  • 00:51:28
    Peter, you're on the city council.
  • 00:51:29
    You have three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:51:31
    Good evening, council.
  • 00:51:32
    I'm Peter Krebs.
  • 00:51:33
    I live at 1022 Tustin Avenue.
  • 00:51:36
    I'd like to comment on item number five, the urban and community forest grounds.
  • 00:51:42
    Trees have innumerable benefits, including stormwater absorption,
  • 00:51:47
    air and noise pollution control, prevention of heat islands, significant stress reduction, and even traffic safety.
  • 00:51:56
    Most fundamentally, they make the oxygen we breathe.
  • 00:52:00
    If we are to be a healthy community, worthy of our children and our elders, it is essential that we have the most complete tree coverage possible.
  • 00:52:10
    In spite of what some of the signs say, we're not doing as well as we'd like or that we ought to.
  • 00:52:17
    Not only are there neighborhoods that lack tree cover, and not only are insufficiently many new trees being planted, but the composition of the tree canopy is actually changing before our eyes.
  • 00:52:31
    For example, my neighbor just lost a gigantic ash tree that was visible from like half a mile away.
  • 00:52:38
    It was healthy, except that it was infected by the emerald ash borer beetle, so
  • 00:52:46
    There's a lot of work to do.
  • 00:52:48
    It's essential that we have good data and that it be in a form that can be cross referenced with the other things that we're deeply concerned about, such as unequal health outcomes, stormwater issues, equity and the like.
  • 00:53:02
    Unfortunately, smart people put this together and they're also smart allies like the tree stewards and the tree commissions that will help assure that the city gets the maximum value from this work.
  • 00:53:16
    I salute the staff, you, and those who helped to win this grant.
  • 00:53:22
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 00:53:25
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:53:28
    Mayor Walker, there are no other hands raised.

10. CITY MANAGER RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY MATTERS (FROM PREVIOUS MEETINGS)

• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:53:30
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:53:36
    Is there any questions, comments, council?
  • 00:53:43
    All right, is there a motion?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:53:46
    I move we adopt the consent agenda as presented.
  • 00:53:50
    Second.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:53:53
    Alright Ms.
  • 00:53:53
    Thomas.
  • 00:53:55
    Mr. Payne?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 00:53:56
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:53:57
    Mr. Snook?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 00:53:59
    Yes.
• • Kyna Thomas
  • 00:54:00
    Ms.
  • 00:54:00
    Walker?
  • 00:54:02
    Yes.
  • 00:54:03
    Ms.
  • 00:54:03
    Magill?
  • 00:54:04
    Yes.
  • 00:54:05
    Ms.
  • 00:54:06
    Hill?
• • SPEAKER_51
  • 00:54:07
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 00:54:13
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:54:15
    Next up, we have a response from interim city manager, Mr. Blair, in response to community matters from the September 21st meeting.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:54:30
    Thank you, Mayor Walker and councilors.
  • 00:54:33
    Very briefly, at the last meeting, there was an inquiry about the city's climate action plan.
  • 00:54:42
    and just wanted to let the council and public know that we will be having an item about the city's climate action plan at the council's October 19th meeting.
  • 00:54:54
    I also believe that Albemarle County is going to be discussing an aspect of their climate action plan this Wednesday.
  • 00:55:02
    Speaking of this Wednesday, just to let the public know,
  • 00:55:07
    There will be a public session to discuss the Pressman Commons site plan and that is at 10 a.m.
  • 00:55:14
    and you can register via webinar if you would like to be a part of that conference.
  • 00:55:21
    Also at the last meeting there was an inquiry about the election and the
  • 00:55:30
    inauguration and just to let folks know our critical incident management team are, it is, I'm sorry, it is monitoring the election and just like every other locality in America, obviously there's election day and there's the aftermath, but we are monitoring those events and trying to be prepared for any contingency that occurs either on election day or
  • 00:56:00
    Finally, there were questions at the last consent agenda about the drug court program and both the commonwealth's attorney and the public defender for the city of Charlottesville graciously volunteered to come tonight and to offer some answers and also a presentation for some of the questions presented last week
  • 00:56:29
    So I will turn this over to Mr. Platania and Ms.
  • 00:56:34
    Murtaugh and let them address some of the things that were discussed at the last consent agenda item on the September 21st agenda.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:56:47
    Good evening.
  • 00:56:48
    So I'm Liz Murtaugh.
  • 00:56:49
    I'm the public defender for the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
  • 00:56:52
    And I want to thank you all for having Mr. Platania and I here this evening.
  • 00:56:57
    We're both very proud of our drug court, as you should be.
  • 00:57:02
    The program has been around for over 20 years.
  • 00:57:07
    It started with an idea by some of the local community leaders to when they 25 years ago, really to when they saw a change in the way drugs were affecting the community and how it was interfacing with the criminal justice system.
  • 00:57:26
    and those stakeholders, which included prosecutors.
  • 00:57:29
    It had defense attorneys involved.
  • 00:57:32
    My office wasn't here yet when it started.
  • 00:57:34
    It was before the Public Defender Office.
  • 00:57:36
    Law enforcement, community members were part of it.
  • 00:57:41
    Also, Region 10 and OAR was involved early on, was to try to figure out a way to meet people's needs who are really having been struggling with addiction.
  • 00:57:53
    because they got in the same sort of cycle that if they ended up committing crimes, they were sent to jail or punishment or something else other than looking at treatment.
  • 00:58:04
    So the drug treatment court really was born as a result of that.
  • 00:58:09
    And our drug treatment court is a model from across the state.
  • 00:58:14
    We're the second drug treatment court that started in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
  • 00:58:19
    And we've had 400 graduates of our program.
  • 00:58:23
    We've had more than that participate, but not everybody who starts graduates.
  • 00:58:27
    But almost every single person who has participated that I've talked to have always found something that was helpful or something that they learned either about themselves, about addiction, about their families and how they fit into their family.
  • 00:58:42
    So it was really a worthwhile
  • 00:58:44
    process for them to participate and to be a part of that.
  • 00:58:48
    And the program though, when it was designed 25 years ago, or just almost 25 years ago, it's still the same core program.
  • 00:58:57
    The same core value still exists, but what's happened is we've, times have changed.
  • 00:59:01
    We've got, you know, new models of how to deal with treatment and how to help people that we've had to incorporate.
  • 00:59:08
    We've expanded the program itself from,
  • 00:59:10
    I mean, initially it was just drug charges that went in.
  • 00:59:13
    Now we have people who are charged with probation violations and also larcenies that can be admitted into the program.
  • 00:59:20
    So it's become a bigger, fuller, more robust program.
  • 00:59:24
    And I just thought it was helpful for you to get a little bit of some of that background.
  • 00:59:30
    Joe, do you wanna talk about some of the details specifics about the programming?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:59:36
    I do.
  • 00:59:37
    Mayor Walker, members of City Council, Mr. Blair, good evening.
  • 00:59:41
    Thank you for having Ms.
  • 00:59:43
    Murtaugh and for having me.
  • 00:59:45
    We were introduced as the public defender and the Commonwealth's Attorney for the City of Charlottesville, but we're also here as drug court board members.
  • 00:59:54
    and are speaking for the drug court board.
  • 00:59:56
    The board is made up of many different individuals, treatment, defense, prosecution, probation, clinicians.
  • 01:00:05
    Judge Moore, our drug court judge, oftentimes sits in.
  • 01:00:08
    So it's the it's a variety of folks that
  • 01:00:11
    comprise the board and I think we have a good representative group and try to get it right.
  • 01:00:17
    I wanna just briefly touch on the timeline.
  • 01:00:19
    I was not able to attend the last city council meeting.
  • 01:00:23
    I'm not completely conversant on some of the complaints raised, but we are a small community and I've heard some of the things that were said.
  • 01:00:30
    I'd like to address those before Ms.
  • 01:00:33
    Murtaugh and I turn it over to council for questions.
  • 01:00:36
    So sometime in January of this year, Jody Jackson, who is the drug court coordinator, spoke to the CABBA lunch association, the Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association.
  • 01:00:48
    And Ms.
  • 01:00:48
    Jackson was attempting to, as the new coordinator, go out and spread information about the program.
  • 01:00:54
    talked to attorneys that might have clients facing addiction issues or criminal charges and really to sort of get out and promote the program and let people practicing law in our community know what was out there is a resource from the treatment perspective.
  • 01:01:08
    My understanding is Mr. Fogel approached Ms.
  • 01:01:11
    Jackson at that luncheon meeting and had some questions about why the docket was a post plea, meaning you had to enter a guilty plea to enter the program.
  • 01:01:20
    Why was it a post plea instead of a pre plea treatment docket?
  • 01:01:25
    Ms.
  • 01:01:25
    Jackson.
  • 01:01:26
    And Mr. Fogel, I'm pretty sure communicated his questions about that to me also directly.
  • 01:01:31
    I'm pretty sure about that.
  • 01:01:33
    So Ms.
  • 01:01:34
    Jackson brought it to me.
  • 01:01:35
    I am currently serving as the president of the Drug Court Advisory Board.
  • 01:01:39
    And she said, you know, Mr. Fogel's asking these questions, why are we opposed plea docket?
  • 01:01:44
    And quite candidly, I didn't know.
  • 01:01:46
    I didn't have an answer.
  • 01:01:47
    It was how it was formed in 1998.
  • 01:01:48
    I was
  • 01:01:52
    not even in town back when it was formed.
  • 01:01:54
    But I said, and I believe I said this to Mr. Fogel, I said, well, why don't we take a look at why we are a post plea docket?
  • 01:02:02
    And we put it on the advisory board's agenda in February and in March.
  • 01:02:07
    And we try in our local justice system, we try to be evidence based and we try and employ evidence based decision making strategies.
  • 01:02:15
    And what that means is we try and follow the science and we try and follow best practices.
  • 01:02:19
    We don't make it up or we don't do what one person wants.
  • 01:02:22
    We try and study national trends and national data and again, sort of
  • 01:02:27
    adjust to what's going to be most helpful and healing to the community.
  • 01:02:31
    And Ms.
  • 01:02:31
    Murtaugh said times change.
  • 01:02:32
    And let me give you an example of what I mean by us being evidence-based.
  • 01:02:37
    There's something called medically assisted treatment, and we had never had that as a local drug court treatment program.
  • 01:02:44
    We just always thought providing medical alternatives to people that struggled with
  • 01:02:50
    opiate addiction.
  • 01:02:51
    We just said, no, we go with the sobriety complete abstinence model.
  • 01:02:55
    But then we started as a board and as clinicians reading studies and looking at information and decided, you know, medically assisted treatment is what's best and it is evidence based and it is a best practice.
  • 01:03:05
    And so the board was fully supportive in changing that.
  • 01:03:10
    So when Mr. Fogel brought this up and said, why is it a post plea docket?
  • 01:03:13
    We said, well, let's take a look at it and let's see what the answer to that question is.
  • 01:03:18
    Maybe we shouldn't be post plea.
  • 01:03:19
    Maybe that's not the best way to do this.
  • 01:03:22
    So we started looking at it as a board in February and March.
  • 01:03:25
    And I think everyone knows what happened to the country and certainly locally in March.
  • 01:03:31
    COVID hit.
  • 01:03:32
    and we transitioned pretty quickly into triage mode to make sure that our participants who were struggling with really severe addiction issues were being kept safe.
  • 01:03:44
    So we transitioned to that in March and it was not really dealt with as a board quite candidly.
  • 01:03:51
    There were other issues we were dealing with and that Ms.
  • 01:03:53
    Jackson is the drug court coordinator was dealing with.
  • 01:03:57
    She did, however, follow up, and we got some information in July, and the people that Ms.
  • 01:04:02
    Jackson reached out to and got information from were two individuals, Carolyn Hardin, who's the chief of research and training with the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, and then Anna Powers, who's with the Virginia Supreme Court.
  • 01:04:16
    And what we learned and what Jody reported out to the board is that we are very intentional in our treatment court in serving high-risk, high-need individuals.
  • 01:04:27
    I don't want to get into the weeds on this.
  • 01:04:29
    If you want to ask questions, I'm happy to answer them.
  • 01:04:31
    But if you commingle low risk, low need with high risk, high need, you're going to damage the low risk, low need folks.
  • 01:04:37
    So our program actually scores you on a matrix.
  • 01:04:40
    And if you're not high risk, high need when you're evaluated for drug court, we try and find some other diversion or some other alternative because the program is very intentionally tailored to high risk, high need individuals.
  • 01:04:52
    And locally, what we found, there's not really any great empirical study saying one way is better than another way.
  • 01:04:58
    However, Ms.
  • 01:04:59
    Harden, again, the chief research and training chief of research and training with the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, 80 percent of drug courts and treatment courts in this country, 80 percent are post plea.
  • 01:05:11
    So we knew we were consistent with best practices and what most of the country was doing.
  • 01:05:15
    And we found locally
  • 01:05:17
    That with the post plea docket, there's the acceptance of responsibility and a desire for intensive treatment very quickly.
  • 01:05:24
    We try and get folks in within 14 days.
  • 01:05:27
    We've anecdotally found that that is a component that sort of
  • 01:05:33
    leads to more success.
  • 01:05:35
    We also, I think there's been some concerns raised.
  • 01:05:38
    Well, geez, you just have to go plead guilty.
  • 01:05:40
    You don't get any discovery.
  • 01:05:41
    You don't get a trial.
  • 01:05:42
    You don't get to file motions.
  • 01:05:44
    We give Ms.
  • 01:05:45
    Murtaugh and any defense attorney, and I don't speak for Jim Hingely and Albemarle County, but I know they're the same.
  • 01:05:51
    We give full discovery.
  • 01:05:52
    We give open file.
  • 01:05:53
    We don't say, look, you can't see the evidence.
  • 01:05:55
    You've got to plead.
  • 01:05:56
    So they're able to, and Liz can follow up, I'm about to wrap up my comments, but attorneys are able to give full advice and counsel to their clients and see all the commonwealth's evidence in deciding what to do.
  • 01:06:08
    Also, if you do want to contest the case and you want to trial or you want to file motions to suppress or complain about constitutional violations,
  • 01:06:15
    The Code of Virginia in 18.2-251 does have a mechanism whereby you can plead not guilty in certain circumstances and have trials and contest things and still, you know, have the benefit of a dismissal under certain circumstances.
  • 01:06:30
    So we always and I thank Mr. Fogel and City Council for raising this.
  • 01:06:35
    We always want to be looking at ways we can do things better and challenge ourselves to, if we're not doing that, make sure that we're making sure we can answer those questions.
  • 01:06:46
    And Liz, I don't know if you have anything to add, but I think that covers most of what I heard was raised last time and some of the concerns.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:06:57
    I don't have anything to add.
  • 01:06:58
    Well, I said that I have not heard any
  • 01:07:02
    any defense attorneys that felt like they were not getting their voices heard or their clients were not getting an opportunity to raise issues if there was a problem with the stop or a problem with the search or something of that nature, that those can be handled by bringing those concerns to the prosecutor ahead of time.
  • 01:07:25
    And sometimes there's choices not to go forward with cases because there's problems.
  • 01:07:29
    So there's
  • 01:07:32
    that doesn't keep you from going into drug court.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:07:40
    So you're saying if they, you're not, are you saying if they don't plead guilty, that doesn't prevent you from not?
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:07:46
    No, no, what I meant is that just because you have a, if you have a suppression issue, a fourth amendment issue that you want to raise, you can do that, you can still,
  • 01:07:58
    go forward and have the motion of suppress, you can try and test the evidence.
  • 01:08:06
    Or you can choose to not do that if you want to get into treatment early.
  • 01:08:13
    But if you want to go and treatment through the drug court, but you can still raise all of those issues and go to trial.
  • 01:08:19
    And as Mr. Pataney was saying, under 18.2, 251, you can do a pre-conviction program
  • 01:08:28
    or have the matter taken under advisement and still preserve your right to argue whether or not there was some illegality on the search.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:08:42
    And I'm not a clinician, and I want to be real careful to not speak for clinicians.
  • 01:08:48
    But I did pull up the first step in the 12 of AA, and it said, I am powerless over my addiction, and my life has become unmanageable.
  • 01:08:58
    And for these high-risk, tiny people, after they look at the evidence against them and talk to very experienced attorneys, many at the public defender's office, they are crying out for help.
  • 01:09:07
    and they want to get it as quickly as they can.
  • 01:09:10
    And those are the folks that we're targeting and those are the folks we're trying to serve.
  • 01:09:15
    If there's a bad stop or there's a suppression issue, I would like to think that the local prosecutors sit down with defense attorneys and say, all right, let's take a look at it.
  • 01:09:23
    Let's get discovery.
  • 01:09:25
    You don't want to ram through some guilty plea because someone's got a horrible addiction issue.
  • 01:09:30
    But there's certainly creative ways that I think we all try and collaboratively look at to say,
  • 01:09:35
    We're not going to punish you and withhold treatment because you have a legal defense.
  • 01:09:38
    That's just not how we do things.
  • 01:09:41
    And maybe I'm missing a case that I haven't heard of.
  • 01:09:43
    I don't know.
  • 01:09:44
    I'm not saying we get it perfect all the time.
  • 01:09:47
    But I think with over 400 graduates and participants that do well even when they don't graduate,
  • 01:09:56
    I think we're doing pretty good.
  • 01:09:58
    And a lot of other drug courts that are starting up, I can think of two or three recently that were starting up, they come to Charlottesville to sort of see how we're doing things.
  • 01:10:07
    And I'd encourage all of you to come to a drug court graduation or a drug court session.
  • 01:10:11
    I know Ms.
  • 01:10:12
    Hill was at one recently, but I think you can sort of get a feel for
  • 01:10:17
    The energy of the program and the way in which a judge interacts with folks, then it's meant to be a non-traditional interaction in the court system that we don't normally see.
  • 01:10:27
    It trusts to remove the adversarial nature of it with assigned drug court prosecutors and assigned drug court judges that have the motivation to really use it as a treatment tool and a treatment experience as opposed to a prosecution of an individual.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:10:48
    And so I would be, and we discussed this, you know, we had a conversation about both of our thoughts surrounding this, Joe and I did after I think the initial conversation at council.
  • 01:11:03
    I think just some things that I would ask to, you know, just keep in mind while you all exploring is very rarely would
  • 01:11:15
    individuals who know probably their only other option, because even if defense can do all of those other things that you mentioned, look at full discovery, open file, attorneys are able to give advice.
  • 01:11:29
    Most people have had experience where those encounters have not been positive.
  • 01:11:33
    So it's not something that they would say, oh, this would work out into my favor.
  • 01:11:38
    So then they have a program like drug court that's saying instead of jail time,
  • 01:11:43
    where they ultimately are always assuming that I am going to go to jail or I'm going to do drug court.
  • 01:11:50
    It's not usually that they are thinking that my attorney will be able to fight this and win under any usual circumstance.
  • 01:12:01
    And so if there are, in situations like this, attempting to get the feedback from the individuals who participate in a program like drug court,
  • 01:12:13
    which in and of itself would be challenging because again, they wouldn't necessarily always believe that they would have the voice to control how this program looks.
  • 01:12:26
    But that feedback and also if there are 20% of drug courts are pre-planned,
  • 01:12:38
    Then what would that look like for Charlottesville to change course and I think that some of the
  • 01:12:56
    questions that you know we would probably have to be open to really exploring because we don't unless we change course we will really not have anything to compare it to whether that would be successful to and meet the needs in terms of people accepting responsibility
  • 01:13:17
    you know for their actions because in the end they would have to do the same thing.
  • 01:13:21
    They would have to go through the program and be successful and if they were not you would still be able to bring those charges back forth.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:13:35
    Well let me let me push back against that a little bit.
  • 01:13:37
    The first thing is
  • 01:13:40
    Just the fact that the questions are being asked and the discussions are occurring is extremely positive.
  • 01:13:47
    And none of us should pretend like we've got it all figured out or there's not room for improvement or we shouldn't change.
  • 01:13:53
    That's the first thing I want to lead with.
  • 01:13:55
    But the second thing is, again,
  • 01:13:59
    It helped me with maybe some specifics about why changing it to something else would be better than what we're doing.
  • 01:14:06
    But there's a group of people that are in drug court and they're in drug court because we expanded it to cover larceny offenses.
  • 01:14:14
    So as a prosecutor, I'm calling victims and saying, look, I know this person stole from you.
  • 01:14:19
    I know that they took your property.
  • 01:14:20
    I know that they took from your business.
  • 01:14:22
    I know that you're owed money and restitution to make you whole.
  • 01:14:25
    But they have a horrible addiction issue and they want to enter drug court and accept responsibility for what they did and get into treatment.
  • 01:14:31
    And as part of that, pay you the restitution that you're owed.
  • 01:14:34
    That would be a very different conversation if we called them and said, you know, it's a pre plea system on property offenses.
  • 01:14:41
    So I don't really know when this will be over.
  • 01:14:43
    It could be three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months.
  • 01:14:46
    We might have to start over.
  • 01:14:48
    and you're not going to get paid your restitution, that's just a much different conversation.
  • 01:14:52
    And I just want to make sure we're being honest about what those conversations look like.
  • 01:14:56
    Just like probation violations, that is what's driving our jail population.
  • 01:15:00
    And what we're trying to do is target high-risk, high-need probation violators who have letters of continued drug use, missing treatment, not keeping appointments, absconding from supervision.
  • 01:15:12
    If we say to those folks, you don't really have to accept that you haven't done what a circuit court judge told you,
  • 01:15:17
    Again, it's a different dynamic when they interact with the judge and they come in and said, you know, we do accept responsibility for the choices we've made, but we want help.
  • 01:15:26
    Again, having said that, I'll close with what I started with.
  • 01:15:29
    We should always be looking at making sure we're doing what's best in evidence-based and the best practice and not pretend we've got it all figured out and there's no room for improvement.
  • 01:15:39
    Don't mistake me in saying that.
  • 01:15:40
    I don't want to suggest that.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:15:43
    So I think it's, you know, this is a very probably small piece of this much larger conversation we're having as a community.
  • 01:15:51
    I know I had clients who couldn't wait until
  • 01:15:55
    the graduation drug court to use again.
  • 01:15:59
    And then there were clients who left that day thinking that they would never use again.
  • 01:16:05
    There were people who were thankful that they were able to have a healthy pregnancy by being in drug court, but they didn't know what their long-term outcome would be.
  • 01:16:14
    because that was just too much to think about, you know, because it's a day by day thought process versus a what will you think your life will be like in five or ten years from now.
  • 01:16:26
    So the accepting responsibility for individuals who are in those situations for a variety of reasons
  • 01:16:35
    and they don't walk in the door even after those guilty pleas saying that I want to change my life and I'm thankful hopefully through the care that is shown to them throughout and the relationships they build through those treatment
  • 01:16:51
    you're able to day by day get them to believe that something they didn't even believe in after they pleaded guilty and decided that they would try drug court over what for most of them would be jail.
  • 01:17:05
    So even that day in court where they say I want to participate in this program or it happens before court but you know when they're talking to
  • 01:17:18
    You know, the case managers, the probation officers, the police officers involved when all of that stuff is happening.
  • 01:17:25
    At that point, the only thing people usually know
  • 01:17:28
    at that time is that they don't want to go back into jail, which they know does not serve them well either.
  • 01:17:36
    So that would just be my pushback there is that even in that moment of accepting responsibility, most people haven't come to the terms that we hope they arrive to at some point throughout drug court is that I can change my life.
  • 01:17:52
    There are people who support me with changing my life.
  • 01:17:55
    and that if I do this day by day thing, hopefully at some point, I will get to a point where there I can see a future without substances.
  • 01:18:05
    And so I would just ask again to look at that.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:18:09
    No, that is a phenomenal point.
  • 01:18:12
    And the number of people at their graduation that say Judge Moore for the first six months, I hated you.
  • 01:18:18
    I didn't want to listen to you.
  • 01:18:20
    I didn't like my case manager.
  • 01:18:22
    I didn't want to do what they said.
  • 01:18:24
    You nailed it.
  • 01:18:25
    There's a lot of that going on for three, six, nine months.
  • 01:18:30
    sometimes goes off and sometimes not.
  • 01:18:32
    The other thing that's surprising, and Liz can weigh in on this, the number of people that say, I'd rather just go do a couple months in jail than go do drug court, because drug court's way harder than just going to do a couple months.
  • 01:18:43
    We lose a lot of people because it's a very difficult program.
  • 01:18:46
    It is, and so.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:18:47
    Yeah, and I appreciate, Mayor, what you said too.
  • 01:18:52
    And even the people who don't actually graduate
  • 01:18:58
    They've learned something about themselves.
  • 01:19:00
    They've learned about their family.
  • 01:19:03
    They've learned, you know, things that they can do that they didn't know that they were able to do.
  • 01:19:08
    And how wonderful that someone had a successful pregnancy and there was a child born healthy and it wasn't addicted to drugs at birth.
  • 01:19:15
    I mean, that's a great thing.
  • 01:19:16
    And that's a good thing that our community needs to do.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:19:18
    I have a couple of quick questions.
  • 01:19:24
    I guess part of the difficulty for myself and thinking about it, which I'm sure is the case for everyone, is just the fact that the system itself is broken in so many ways.
  • 01:19:33
    And so it seems like this is better than not being there, but it's still part of that broken system in terms of 95% of cases in plea bargains overall.
  • 01:19:42
    I think a quarter of people with addiction have any access to any kind of treatment.
  • 01:19:48
    and so I guess as part of that, you know, like what percentage of people who enter the program fail and is there data on of that population, how many are receiving longer sentences than they would have if they had not entered the drug court program?
  • 01:20:06
    And again, I think, you know, it's clearly better that this exists than if it didn't exist, that if the system was the exact same way it was.
  • 01:20:14
    But the question around please, I think is,
  • 01:20:17
    Obviously, how much real leverage exists for someone to say no to a plea bargain given how the system operates, especially with how jury sentencing works in Virginia.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:20:33
    That's a lot to unpackage.
  • 01:20:36
    Great questions.
  • 01:20:38
    Jury sentencing in Virginia on simple possession, they could impose a $1 fine.
  • 01:20:42
    So a simple possession carries up to 12 months in jail, a fine of up to $2,500 or one to 10 years in prison.
  • 01:20:53
    And there's also a bill that I think is going to pass out of the special session that might remove jury sentencing at the defendant's request.
  • 01:21:01
    Some of the questions, though, are really good ones about there are people that serve more time on sanctions by participating in drug court than if they had not done it.
  • 01:21:12
    That is true.
  • 01:21:13
    And that's sort of hard to make sense, except when you go to a graduation and the person's clean and sober and healthy and rejoined with family members and they've got an apartment and they've got a job and they just look different.
  • 01:21:24
    I mean, they just physically look different.
  • 01:21:28
    I can't say trading liberty for that sobriety.
  • 01:21:31
    I can't really go into that cost-benefit analysis.
  • 01:21:34
    It seems to be that people are happy to make it.
  • 01:21:38
    In some of the data on recidivism, I think that we – would you repeat that question once more?
  • 01:21:44
    You were talking about people that fail.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:21:47
    Yeah, so really the two questions were one, what percentage of people who enter the program fail?
  • 01:21:52
    And then two, of that population who aren't successful, is there any data on how many of them receive longer sentences than they would have if they had not entered the program?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:22:04
    Liz, can I answer this and then turn it over to you?
  • 01:22:08
    I don't have, you know, Ms.
  • 01:22:10
    Jackson could get you the data on the graduation rates.
  • 01:22:12
    I think what we, I think what we try and look at for success is recidivism, and we define that, I believe, as arrest within two years of graduation.
  • 01:22:23
    The one thing I'll say, and Mr. Payne, this is totally anecdotal, unfortunately, but we see people that don't graduate, and Ms.
  • 01:22:30
    Murtaugh probably has more personal interactions with folks that say this,
  • 01:22:34
    But when they don't graduate from drug court and they're removed from the program, usually they still get a pretty good benefit because the drug court judge has gotten to know them and seen some of the progress.
  • 01:22:44
    And so it usually ends up being a good thing.
  • 01:22:46
    And the judge always asks, he said, do you want someone else to sentence you?
  • 01:22:50
    And they're almost always like, no, no, Judge, I want you.
  • 01:22:52
    Judge Mora, you know me.
  • 01:22:53
    You know what's going on with me.
  • 01:22:54
    I want you.
  • 01:22:55
    But we see time and time again people that say, I didn't graduate, but I was given some tools for my toolbox.
  • 01:23:02
    and I learned and I grew and I'm doing better.
  • 01:23:05
    And the program just wasn't quite for me, but I really did get some good stuff.
  • 01:23:09
    It turned me around.
  • 01:23:11
    I'm doing well.
  • 01:23:12
    And as a prosecutor, I count that as a win for the defendant and for the community.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:23:21
    I agree with everything you said, Joe, that that's what
  • 01:23:24
    what the feedback I get from clients and family members, too, that really recognize the change, even though they weren't successful.
  • 01:23:34
    Well, they were successful.
  • 01:23:35
    They may not have graduated, but they are still successful.
  • 01:23:38
    I think that's the difference.
  • 01:23:40
    I have gone to jail when people have been locked, when they first get locked up to go interview them and talk to them about whether they are interested in maybe going to drug court when I've gotten the warrant and I've seen what the charge is.
  • 01:23:53
    They're still going through withdrawal at the jail.
  • 01:23:57
    And it's the most horrible thing I've ever seen, how people really suffer with that.
  • 01:24:05
    And I got to go see a client of mine graduate not long ago, who I saw her in that circumstance.
  • 01:24:12
    And I'm so proud of her and all the changes she made in her life.
  • 01:24:17
    she will still have challenges.
  • 01:24:19
    You're an addict, you're an addict, you're always an addict.
  • 01:24:22
    So you have to always stay diligent.
  • 01:24:25
    But those are some of the tools that Joe was talking about that even if you don't graduate, you can learn.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:24:30
    And the final question is, my understanding is there's no drug courts in Virginia that are pre-plea, 20% of the country are pre-plea.
  • 01:24:45
    with the understanding that you're not saying definitively if it's the right or wrong direction, but what would you perceive as being potential impacts of if you moved from post plea to pre plea?
  • 01:25:02
    Would it be extending the process, an expectation that there may be fewer people who participate in the program?
  • 01:25:12
    Just what is,
  • 01:25:14
    What would be the potential drawback to pre-deal versus post-play?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:25:23
    That's an excellent question.
  • 01:25:25
    I don't, as a prosecutor, have any sort of philosophical or substantive objections like, oh, I'd have to put my case together down the road again.
  • 01:25:34
    I think it'd be a harder conversation to have with victims in larceny type cases that the person, it's a real selling point with most of the victims we deal with, that they're accepting responsibility, they're going to pay restitution as part of their
  • 01:25:50
    is part of their participation and they're an addict.
  • 01:25:52
    That usually is an easier conversation to have with victims.
  • 01:25:56
    But that's anecdotal, Mr. Payne.
  • 01:25:57
    I don't know that they would be like, oh, no, forget it.
  • 01:26:00
    The other thing that I don't know that I feel like a clinician would have to answer, and Ms.
  • 01:26:04
    Murtaugh and I are not clinicians, is the value in someone that's, again, we're talking about a high-risk high-need population.
  • 01:26:13
    So is there value for high-risk, high-need individuals sort of not coming in front of a judge being like, well, I'm going to go to group.
  • 01:26:21
    But you know what?
  • 01:26:21
    In group tonight, I'm going to be like, I'm not even guilty of this.
  • 01:26:24
    I didn't do it.
  • 01:26:24
    I haven't pled to anything.
  • 01:26:26
    I don't know if it would impact the ability of clinicians.
  • 01:26:28
    And maybe Mayor Walker would know this.
  • 01:26:30
    I don't know if it would impact it clinically.
  • 01:26:33
    Again, the data that we got from Ms.
  • 01:26:35
    Harden, who does the national drug court professionals, the chief of research and training,
  • 01:26:42
    I think she said four communities that they studied pre and post plea, and there's no definitive data that one or the other is better.
  • 01:26:49
    But she talked about that if we did have it pre plea, we'd probably have to commingle low risk, low need with a high risk, high need because they'd want to be in that treatment.
  • 01:26:58
    And then you have to create separate tracks and different groups and resource allocation.
  • 01:27:02
    It'd be a lot we'd have to unpackage and figure out.
  • 01:27:05
    It'd be a different business model than we have, so to speak.
  • 01:27:08
    But I don't know the answer to that.
  • 01:27:10
    I can't sit here and say there's something that's just, you know, it's a game stopper.
  • 01:27:16
    We can't do it.
  • 01:27:17
    I wouldn't say that.
  • 01:27:18
    And maybe as a board, we continue to study it and see if there's more of a national movement away from the post plea model.
  • 01:27:26
    Sorry, that's the best I can do.
  • 01:27:27
    I don't know if it totally answered your question.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:27:31
    No, I appreciate it.
  • 01:27:32
    And just finally, just comment real quick, because you brought that legislation to the General Assembly.
  • 01:27:36
    I do just want to highlight that.
  • 01:27:37
    It's a little tangential, but I think it's connected to this issue of how plea bargains operate in our system.
  • 01:27:43
    And that's Senate Bill 5007 that would reform jury sentencing in Virginia and make it
  • 01:27:50
    easier to not need a plea bargain and remove some of that leverage to force a plea bargain.
  • 01:27:54
    There's a reenactment clause on that in the House that is effectively going to kill it in session.
  • 01:27:59
    So I would just encourage everyone interested in this issue to reach out to the House of Delegates and our representatives to let them know they would like to see that reenactment clause removed and see that passed this session.
  • 01:28:12
    I know Delegate Sally Hudson already supports that action, but I think as much awareness and pressure on that I think could have a big impact on this issue of plea bargains.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:28:21
    And I don't have much to add in terms of that question because you know you really have to look at
  • 01:28:34
    each individual case when you're talking about what people will get in groups and say.
  • 01:28:39
    But ideally, you don't spend a lot of time in groups discussing, because that's not what drug court is supposed to be about, discussing necessarily whatever the crime was supposed to be.
  • 01:28:53
    You're focusing on those behavioral changes that are needed to propel them into hopefully a different future.
  • 01:29:01
    and addressing what they need long term to be able to stay free of substances and how you may assist with that.
  • 01:29:10
    And so I don't, I mean, there are people who even when they have been in drug court,
  • 01:29:17
    haven't always necessarily felt.
  • 01:29:19
    And we talked about it in the past, and I won't bring those up here, where drug court was, you know, may have been misused in the past from professionals.
  • 01:29:31
    And so there were people who didn't necessarily feel like they really had a choice all the time.
  • 01:29:36
    And so even those individuals didn't spend a significant amount of time in treatment
  • 01:29:43
    talking about in terms of, because the clinician, the therapist, they are guiding the discussions in those groups to more towards healing than any acknowledgement of, and when you are talking about acknowledgement of past or wrongdoings, it's usually associated with what they've done to themselves or family members, people who are really significant.
  • 01:30:08
    And in this case, we weren't talking about
  • 01:30:10
    when I was there, larceny cases, you know, or things of that nature.

11. COMMUNITY MATTERS

• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:30:24
    Are there any other questions or comments?
  • 01:30:31
    No?
  • 01:30:32
    Okay.
  • 01:30:33
    Well, thank you both for joining us and
  • 01:30:37
    I'm sure we'll probably get some comments during the public comment section that will give us further points to ponder.
  • 01:30:51
    So thank you all again.
  • 01:30:53
    And if we need to reach out for any other clarification, we'll do that.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:31:00
    Thank you.
  • 01:31:01
    Thank you all for having us.
  • 01:31:02
    Have a good evening.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:31:03
    Thank you very much for coming.
  • 01:31:05
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:31:09
    All right.
  • 01:31:13
    And Mr. Blair, that was the end, your final.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:31:17
    Yes, Mayor Walker.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:31:18
    All right, thank you.
  • 01:31:19
    All right, next up, we have Community Matters.
  • 01:31:23
    And we are at the targeted break.
  • 01:31:26
    But we'll move into Community Matters.
  • 01:31:29
    So Mr. Wheeler, you take over from here.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:31:35
    Thank you, Mayor Walker.
  • 01:31:36
    We had four people sign up in advance.
  • 01:31:39
    I'll call on them first.
  • 01:31:40
    You'll each get three minutes to address council.
  • 01:31:44
    Others who would like to get in line, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.
  • 01:31:48
    If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine to get in line.
  • 01:31:53
    During this part of the meeting, council will hear up to 16 people providing comments.
  • 01:31:59
    First up is Michelle Ant, and she'll be followed by Kay Slaughter, then Roy Van Dorn.
  • 01:32:13
    Michelle, you're on the City Council.
  • 01:32:14
    Can you hear us?
• • SPEAKER_55
  • 01:32:16
    I can.
  • 01:32:17
    Can you hear me?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:32:17
    We can.
  • 01:32:18
    Go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_55
  • 01:32:19
    Wonderful.
  • 01:32:20
    Good evening, Mayor Walker and Councillors.
  • 01:32:22
    My name is Michelle Ampt.
  • 01:32:24
    I live at 214 Camelia Drive here in Charlottesville.
  • 01:32:28
    I've been a member of the community for the past 20 years.
  • 01:32:31
    I come before you tonight to ask the city to follow through on its commitment to develop an inclusive, equity-focused climate action plan.
  • 01:32:39
    In addition, I urge the city to make climate action a cornerstone of the comprehensive plan and the city's strategic plan, both currently under development.
  • 01:32:49
    As director of sustainability for VMDO Architects, I've experienced firsthand the powers of cities to fight climate change.
  • 01:32:56
    Cities do not just have the power over the climate impacts of their own facilities and programs.
  • 01:33:01
    Cities have the power to establish and enforce climate policies, incentives and regulations that affect how and where we all build.
  • 01:33:09
    They can encourage owners of existing buildings to invest in energy upgrades and clean power.
  • 01:33:14
    They can create infrastructures to get people out of their cars, to protect neighborhoods from flooding and to increase green space.
  • 01:33:21
    They can educate the wider community about why climate action matters and how to reduce their impacts.
  • 01:33:27
    Last but not least, they can inspire other cities to do it too.
  • 01:33:31
    My firm builds zero energy public schools right here in Virginia.
  • 01:33:35
    One night over dinner a few weeks ago, I was talking about a presentation I was about to give on how Arlington County had gone from having no zero energy buildings to requiring all zero energy public buildings in just five years.
  • 01:33:48
    My kids asked me, well, why aren't we doing that here in Charlottesville?
  • 01:33:51
    And that wasn't an easy question for me to answer.
  • 01:33:54
    I was proud of their awareness and concerned about their future.
  • 01:33:56
    I wish there was a good excuse.
  • 01:33:58
    The simple answer is we can.
  • 01:34:00
    We just haven't made it a priority yet.
  • 01:34:03
    Right now, Charlottesville does not have a climate action plan.
  • 01:34:06
    Having no plan is a plan, one that ignores the changes in heat, rainfall, and biodiversity that we're already starting to experience, and one that continues the same policies that got us where we are today.
  • 01:34:18
    While I understand that the timeline for the development of the Climate Action Plan was impacted by the pandemic, the urgency of finalizing implementing of the plan, of tracking and reducing our emissions biannually, and of prioritizing climate action in the city's strategic plan and the comprehensive plan cannot be overstated.
  • 01:34:36
    The decisions we make or don't make today will be felt for generations and especially by those most vulnerable in our community.
  • 01:34:44
    I look forward to hearing the update on the City's Climate Action Plan progress during the October 19th meeting.
  • 01:34:49
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 01:34:53
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:34:57
    Next up is Kay Slaughter.
  • 01:35:00
    Kay, you're on the City Council.
  • 01:35:01
    Can you hear us?
  • 01:35:06
    Can we hear you?
  • 01:35:07
    Can you unmute your microphone?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 01:35:10
    I just did.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:35:11
    There you go.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 01:35:13
    Good evening, Mayor Walker and members of council.
  • 01:35:17
    I commend your goal of meeting the 45% carbon reduction by 2030, but that is less than 10 years away.
  • 01:35:25
    Thus, I suggest three specifics to help you reach that goal.
  • 01:35:30
    First, the development of a climate action plan by next March, 2021.
  • 01:35:36
    Second, the integration of climate change goals into our comprehensive plan currently underway.
  • 01:35:41
    And finally, inclusion of climate change goals and actions into your strategic plan.
  • 01:35:47
    with recognition that these goals intersect with critical issues of racial equity and affordable housing.
  • 01:35:54
    A recent New York Times article reported that many cities contain heat islands, often located in minority communities.
  • 01:36:02
    Richmond, Virginia was one example, emphasizing greater heat related illnesses.
  • 01:36:09
    In Charlottesville, maximum building within a site often leads to removal of trees,
  • 01:36:15
    thus increasing this heat island, as happened most recently along Garrett Street behind ACAC to accommodate headquarters for, ironically, APEX, whose product is carbon-free solar energy.
  • 01:36:30
    Mature street trees, which absorb carbon dioxide, reduce heat and therefore
  • 01:36:35
    reduce heat illnesses, should be protected as part of the city's climate action plan.
  • 01:36:41
    Down the street from Apex is Friendship Court, which could lose its street trees to bike lanes and underground utilities and redevelopment plants.
  • 01:36:51
    In addition to carbon absorption, mature trees provide families at Friendship Court with the comfort of shade and beauty in three seasons.
  • 01:36:59
    Families who live in affordable housing should be able to experience such beauty and comfort
  • 01:37:05
    and be free from heat related illnesses.
  • 01:37:08
    We need to preserve existing trees and redevelopment and add trees within our city.
  • 01:37:14
    However, the 2021 capital budget has wiped out funding for street trees this year.
  • 01:37:22
    So in addition to restoration of tree
  • 01:37:24
    funding climate change plan should also include use of public buildings for installation of solar panels.
  • 01:37:31
    This was proposed more than a decade ago for the Water Street and Market Street garages by Mayor David Norris's Committee on Sustainability on which I served.
  • 01:37:42
    To summarize, please develop a climate action plan, including a Citizens Advisory Committee by March 2021.
  • 01:37:51
    request that climate change goals be integrated into the comprehensive plan and make climate change goals part of your strategic planning process.
  • 01:38:01
    Thank you.
  • 01:38:02
    And I will send along a copy of the New York Times article to you, a link to it, because I think you might want to look at it before your October 19th meeting.
  • 01:38:12
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 01:38:15
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:38:18
    Next up will be Roy Van Dorn, who will be followed by Cale Jaffe.
  • 01:38:26
    Roy, you're on the city council.
  • 01:38:28
    Can you hear us?
• • SPEAKER_50
  • 01:38:28
    Can you hear me fine?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:38:30
    We can.
  • 01:38:30
    Go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_50
  • 01:38:32
    Okay.
  • 01:38:32
    Thank you, council and mayor.
  • 01:38:34
    I'm Roy Van Dorn and I live on Rugby Avenue.
  • 01:38:38
    This year, I serve as the elected chairman of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association, the Charlottesville chapter.
  • 01:38:46
    Today the mayor has suggested that all restaurant close indoor dining for an indefinite period.
  • 01:38:54
    Such action would effectively shatter and destroy the table service restaurants in the city as we know it.
  • 01:39:01
    Today under current rules, almost every table service restaurant is losing money.
  • 01:39:07
    That is due to the fact that most have limited options for outdoor dining and with a 50% cap on inside capacity,
  • 01:39:16
    there are simply not enough patron throughput to operate in the black.
  • 01:39:22
    A 50% capacity cap in actuality is more 35% since not every four top can be filled with four people.
  • 01:39:32
    We urge the city council to work with industry to address concerns about health and safety issues before attempting to shutter our industry and remove a significant portion of the tax revenue for the city.
  • 01:39:46
    With regards to CARES, the consensus of our industry leadership is that more federal relief will not be forthcoming this year.
  • 01:39:57
    So what the city has now will have to be spent very productively.
  • 01:40:03
    The hospitality industry is an ecosystem.
  • 01:40:07
    There are investors, landlords, suppliers, bakers, staff, farmers, and support companies that invest and play a role.
  • 01:40:15
    When a business fails, it closes due to debt.
  • 01:40:19
    And that debt most times falls on the shoulders of the entire ecosystem too.
  • 01:40:26
    Of particular concern is downtown in the corner.
  • 01:40:30
    Over the years, downtown has transitioned into an entertainment destination, along with new high tech businesses occupying the offices.
  • 01:40:39
    Those offices are now empty with workers at home,
  • 01:40:43
    and we all know that when the weather changes, restaurants will be forced to operate primarily indoors until March.
  • 01:40:50
    That action will accelerate the red ink.
  • 01:40:53
    Without restaurants as the primary driver for traffic and vitality, downtown on the corner will continue to leak other businesses and at a certain point, reach a tipping point where it is no longer considered a primary destination for visitors or the community.
  • 01:41:11
    It's kind of like Fashion Square.
  • 01:41:13
    Why go there if most of the facility is empty and depressing?
  • 01:41:18
    Our suggestions for the second CARE funding.
  • 01:41:21
    During the first round of funding, there were more qualified applicants than it was funding.
  • 01:41:28
    For those who did apply and were qualified, they should go to the front of the line with this round of funding.
  • 01:41:34
    Second, Albemarle County in the last round dedicated 50% of their CARES funding to support businesses in stress.
  • 01:41:42
    The industry urges a strong round of targeted support for the hardest hit industry, the hospitality industry, and those who are part of their ecosystem.
  • 01:41:52
    We urge the city to adopt a plan of 50% for this round to assist hardworking, taxpaying businesses that may be one bad weekend away from bankruptcy.
  • 01:42:03
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:42:10
    I did reference this through earlier, but I had a Facebook post and if people would read the article versus just the, and it's in quotes.
  • 01:42:22
    So that means that I was quoting the article, which is what I typically do.
  • 01:42:32
    It says we need to ban outdoor dining immediately.
  • 01:42:35
    We need some other restrictions as well.
  • 01:42:38
    for a few weeks.
  • 01:42:39
    If we don't, our R, which is the reproductive rate of COVID-19, could skyrocket and a full shutdown may become necessary.
  • 01:42:48
    And this was an article that was quoting, I took a screenshot of the picture,
  • 01:42:58
    but I think it was maybe Minnesota where the doctor that was quoted in that article and as we had the discussion during COVID and I replied to some of the emails that we were receiving earlier today, part of our job is to look at the whole and to share information accordingly and for me,
  • 01:43:22
    Since before many people were taking this pandemic seriously because of my public health background and things that I already did on a day-to-day basis before the pandemic, I knew where we might end up here.
  • 01:43:38
    And so I've been sharing information with individuals so that
  • 01:43:42
    They can protect themselves because truly, locally, state level and federally, we haven't been making the best decisions.
  • 01:43:52
    Dr. Bonds was talking earlier about some of the information that she's been receiving.
  • 01:43:57
    And if you just Google CDC or World Health Organization, you will see a lot of feedback for them.
  • 01:44:08
    about what information they're deciding to share, what has been scientifically proven.
  • 01:44:16
    So that means if we're talking about something like COVID-19, people have to get ill, they have to pass away before we have the data to back that up.
  • 01:44:27
    And so I've been more on the introducing the community through Facebook,
  • 01:44:36
    more preventative measures so that they won't have those unnecessary and dire consequences that our state and federal officials will only apologize for, but they won't be able to bring you or your loved ones back to life.
  • 01:44:53
    So that was just one of the articles of many that I've been sharing since March to just help people
  • 01:45:04
    understand how to better care for themselves.
  • 01:45:06
    I also understand the dilemma that the restaurant industry finds itself in.
  • 01:45:13
    I know a lot of people who've picked up employment, driving for like DoorDash and things like that.
  • 01:45:21
    So they are really busy.
  • 01:45:22
    So people are buying food.
  • 01:45:25
    And we've asked for, or at least I've asked for some of those numbers on how restaurants are doing in the area that it is important
  • 01:45:34
    But I will always, my foundation will always be public health and anything else we can fix.
  • 01:45:42
    And people, even if businesses fail, they can start another business, which I know is not the goal of anybody who put their life.
  • 01:45:49
    I have family members who own small businesses, but what we cannot do is bring somebody back to life if they die.
  • 01:45:56
    and so my concern will always be to try to prevent that because we don't know once this virus is introduced to someone how it will affect them and I sent the email just stating that I've encouraged people to pick up, you know, have their food delivered to them.
  • 01:46:17
    I have said tip well because if you're not sitting and, you know, getting good service and able to
  • 01:46:26
    you know, tip at the end of that, that you still understand during these times if you have the means to tip that you should do it.
  • 01:46:33
    So I've been encouraging all those things as well.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:46:39
    Mayor Walker, I think the article that you're referring to, at least the one that was forwarded to me is from Massachusetts, from Boston.
  • 01:46:49
    The doctor who was writing it was talking specifically about the problem in Boston and in Massachusetts.
  • 01:46:56
    where the rate of transmission is about 1.20 or 1.21 today versus in Charlottesville and Albemarle and Virginia as a whole where it's about 0.9 or so.
  • 01:47:07
    But it was a very specific argument for very specifically Massachusetts and Boston's experience.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:47:15
    Yeah, but Lloyd, if you've been following suit that this virus and how it transmits, just like all of those students who came from around the globe,
  • 01:47:25
    It doesn't matter if we're talking about numbers in a certain area.
  • 01:47:30
    You can Google an article where over 239 scientists from across the globe sent a letter to the World Health Organization telling them that they were downplaying very important information that could keep people alive.
  • 01:47:48
    We know what's been happening at a federal level from the CDC, and this is not about location, this is about science, and the science is gonna be good everywhere.
  • 01:48:01
    and I don't even know if our doctors would speak up locally.
  • 01:48:06
    I know there was a change.org and I'll see if I can find that before the end of this meeting.
  • 01:48:14
    I'm going around where some of them signed on too.
  • 01:48:17
    So I'll see if I can find that before I share any information.
  • 01:48:21
    But how we, we're not talking about just locally here, we're talking about
  • 01:48:28
    Indoor dining, you can go to the World Health Organization.
  • 01:48:34
    You can Google it in a New York Times article related to COVID.
  • 01:48:39
    Dr. Bonge just mentioned it.
  • 01:48:42
    The transmission rate is higher than if you're outside.
  • 01:48:48
    The more people that are in a room together, the more likely there is for the virus to be transmitted.
  • 01:48:56
    You've been hearing things like super spreader events.
  • 01:49:00
    And so I did not remember the exact location, couldn't pull that up, but that is almost, it's irrelevant for this conversation.
  • 01:49:10
    It's that people will stay healthier.
  • 01:49:14
    If they stay within the unit, family unit, the individuals they live with, once they step outside their door, we have less control over whether they remain healthy at this point, and we need to make decisions accordingly.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:49:38
    Mayor Walker, our next speaker is Cale Jaffe.
  • 01:49:43
    And he'll be the fourth speaker who signed up in advance.
  • 01:49:46
    Then we'll go on to another up to 12 speakers from the audience.
  • 01:49:50
    Cale, you're on the city council, go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:49:53
    Thank you all very much.
  • 01:49:56
    Mayor Walker, Vice Mayor McGill, and city councilors, thank you for providing us with this opportunity to speak.
  • 01:50:04
    My name is Cale Jaffe.
  • 01:50:05
    I'm a Charlottesville resident, live on Edgewood Lane.
  • 01:50:07
    I'm an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia, where I direct the Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic.
  • 01:50:16
    And I'm speaking tonight, as others have, to encourage city council to move forward with essential next steps on the city's climate action plan.
  • 01:50:26
    and my wife and I are raising three children here in this community, one of whom is here sitting with me to speak tonight and I'll let her introduce herself.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:50:35
    My name is Caroline Jaffe and I am in 11th grade at Charlottesville High School and I'm also on the Charlottesville Youth Council.
  • 01:50:43
    I was born in Charlottesville and have lived here my whole life.
  • 01:50:46
    This is a community I care a lot about and I'm concerned about the impact of climate change on my hometown.
  • 01:50:54
    Scientists warn of increasingly frequent extreme storms, devastating droughts, and higher temperatures.
  • 01:51:01
    While the greenhouse gas pollution that contributes to climate change is obviously a global problem, we cannot rely on outside leaders alone to take action.
  • 01:51:12
    Charlottesville City needs to lead on addressing climate change and reducing our own carbon footprint.
  • 01:51:17
    If we invest in electric vehicles, neighborhood solar energy projects,
  • 01:51:22
    and improvements in energy efficiency, then we take away the excuses for those in Richmond and Washington who say it can't be done.
  • 01:51:32
    The good news is that Charlottesville already did adopt a greenhouse gas reduction target in July 2019.
  • 01:51:39
    We committed to a 45% reduction in carbon pollution by 2030 and 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:51:48
    The bad news is that we have not yet adopted a climate action plan to help us achieve those targets.
  • 01:51:55
    And the city made a promise in 2019.
  • 01:51:59
    In 2020, we need to keep that promise.
  • 01:52:02
    And the way we do that is develop and implement a climate action plan before the end of this year.
  • 01:52:09
    The city had planned to begin the process of developing a plan this past spring and summer, but that was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
  • 01:52:19
    Of course, the pandemic is still here, but so are extreme fires out west, a record number of named storms in the Atlantic Ocean, and an ice sheet over Greenland that scientists tell us is now melting faster than at any time in the last 12,000 years.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:52:38
    We cannot wait any longer.
  • 01:52:40
    it is essential that we convene the community engagement process on a climate action plan and get to it.
  • 01:52:46
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 01:52:50
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:52:55
    Our next speaker will be Tanisha Hudson who will be followed by Sarah Santa Cruz.
  • 01:53:00
    If you're listening via Facebook or Twitter or one of our other sites and you want to participate tonight,
  • 01:53:06
    You can register for the Zoom webinar at Charlottesville.gov slash Zoom.
  • 01:53:13
    Tanisha, you're on the city council.
  • 01:53:15
    You've got three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 01:53:17
    Good evening, Tanisha Hudson.
  • 01:53:19
    I want to say that I do agree with the late John Conover and one thing that Lloyd said that he stood for.
  • 01:53:27
    And first and foremost, may he rest in peace.
  • 01:53:30
    But certain things are not worth losing an election for, and personal issues and self-serving agendas.
  • 01:53:35
    It's definitely not worth losing an election for.
  • 01:53:38
    But we all know that this city was built on folks amassing power and utilizing connection, which involves a lot of conflict of interest and breach of contracts.
  • 01:53:48
    The battle between legal and illegal right and wrong is never ending down there with this particular council.
  • 01:53:54
    Every last one of you on council allows certain individuals to constantly speak up, defend themselves, or valet people personal rights.
  • 01:54:05
    with that being said, or constitutional rights, I should say.
  • 01:54:09
    With that being said, we just witnessed that.
  • 01:54:12
    Lloyd came back on the article about dining and restaurants, and once again, the mayor just said that the article, him pointing out the difference in the percentage rates between Charlottesville and Massachusetts was irrelevant.
  • 01:54:28
    So I don't know what to say about y'all sitting up on council, but it's like y'all all are just completely soft,
  • 01:54:35
    You don't step up when you need to.
  • 01:54:38
    That is not leadership.
  • 01:54:41
    That is not leadership.
  • 01:54:43
    Listen, I have an issue with you guys picking and choosing who you're going to allow to defend themselves and who you're not going to allow to defend themselves.
  • 01:54:52
    Y'all was calling, texting, putting information out all through the town about certain situations that went down city hall.
  • 01:55:03
    Talk about everything that y'all talk about with them, whether y'all know it or not.
  • 01:55:07
    People talk about this stuff.
  • 01:55:08
    But yet and still, y'all still decide that you gonna send threats via text messages, send threats, like nobody can put this information out there.
  • 01:55:22
    If you're not gonna do your job fair and impartial, then get off council.
  • 01:55:26
    because the bullying that Nikuyah doing and the power trip that she's on, we lit Mike Signer's ass up for doing that.
  • 01:55:34
    We lit him up for doing the same thing.
  • 01:55:36
    So if y'all wanted a puppet city manager, you should have been transparent about that when y'all was interviewing back in 2018, 2019.
  • 01:55:45
    Poor Mr. Blair.
  • 01:55:46
    That's the nicest man ever, but I can already see y'all going to run over top of him.
  • 01:55:52
    Y'all gonna run over top of him.
  • 01:55:53
    I mean, it doesn't make sense the type of stuff y'all do.
  • 01:55:56
    And then when people publicly lie or make somebody out to be a Unabomber and do all types of stuff, know her police officers are parking where they shouldn't be parking, y'all don't do nothing about that type of stuff.
  • 01:56:09
    And let's talk about this increase or this hazard pay.
  • 01:56:13
    That was done wrong just like the pay increase was done wrong.
  • 01:56:16
    But when people point out you can't
  • 01:56:18
    Can't do stuff like that.
  • 01:56:20
    Everybody want to sit back and not let this type of stuff leak out.
  • 01:56:24
    It's no different than when the Home to Hope people, when it came out, they was making $18 an hour and the city raised was only $15 an hour.
  • 01:56:32
    And that was a big argument downtown.
  • 01:56:35
    Y'all just sweep certain stuff under the rug.
  • 01:56:37
    Stop it.
  • 01:56:39
    It's too personal down there.
  • 01:56:40
    And y'all all pushing self-serving agendas at this point.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 01:56:43
    Thank you, Ms.
• • SPEAKER_37
  • 01:56:44
    Hudson.
  • 01:56:45
    You let the other man go over three minutes.
  • 01:56:47
    I'm not done.
  • 01:56:48
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 01:56:49
    Hudson.
  • 01:56:50
    He went over three minutes and I'm not done.
  • 01:56:52
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 01:56:53
    Hudson.
  • 01:56:53
    Thank you, because you know I'm coming for you, Nikuyah.
  • 01:56:56
    Grow the fuck up.
  • 01:56:57
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 01:56:58
    Hudson.
  • 01:56:59
    Grow up.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 01:57:00
    Thank you.
  • 01:57:01
    Mr. Wheeler, you can go to the next speaker.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:57:05
    Mayor Walker, next up will be Sarah Santa Cruz, who will be followed by Catherine Lofton.
  • 01:57:12
    Sarah, you're on the city council.
  • 01:57:13
    You've got three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_41
  • 01:57:16
    Good evening.
  • 01:57:16
    Thanks for having me.
  • 01:57:18
    I am here representing the Charlottesville Food Justice Network and the International Rescue Committee.
  • 01:57:25
    And I work with IRC as the farm and garden specialist, primarily with refugees and food access and urban agriculture here in the city limit.
  • 01:57:35
    I'm here because I have seen firsthand the benefits that urban agriculture offers to our refugee community and to all community members who are engaged.
  • 01:57:45
    These benefits include things like psychosocial benefits, connection to a place, especially for our refugee community, food security, an opportunity to steward the landscape and an opportunity to build community.
  • 01:58:00
    According to the latest 2020 production,
  • 01:58:02
    projections for Charlottesville, 17% or one in six residents for food insecure.
  • 01:58:08
    And these measurements were taken prior to where we are now with COVID and with rising unemployment.
  • 01:58:18
    In fiscal year 2020, the food equity initiative was initially approved by city council and appropriated funding through fiscal year 2021 with the adopted budget for fiscal year 2021.
  • 01:58:30
    The food equity initiative was highlighted as a priority area under the strategic plan goal 1.5 and goal one aims for an inclusive community of self-sufficient residents and goal 1.5 aims to intentionally address issues of race and equity.
  • 01:58:46
    However, none of the objectives in the strategic plan explicitly mentioned equitable food access.
  • 01:58:53
    We have a few additions that we would like to be included.
  • 01:58:57
    Under goal one, an inclusive community of self-sufficient residents, we would like to add an intermediate measure for the number of residents receiving emergency food assistance or charitable food support in order to properly gauge financial health of residents in terms of food.
  • 01:59:12
    As it stands, 71% of our families receive SNAP assistance, and that leaves 29% to rely on other charitable food sources like food banks and churches.
  • 01:59:26
    We also would like to address goal two, a healthy and safe city.
  • 01:59:31
    Goal 2.1 to reduce adverse impacts from sudden injury and illness and the effects of chronic disease.
  • 01:59:36
    We would like to add an intermediate measure for the number of people affected by diet related chronic disease in the city with the goal of decreasing that number.
  • 01:59:44
    For 2.3, we would like to add an intermediate measure for the number of resources available to support with food access needs with the goal of increasing the amount as needed.
  • 01:59:56
    and goal three, a beautiful and sustainable natural and built environment.
  • 02:00:00
    We would like to engage more with the comprehensive plan process to integrate food justice and food access into the overall planning process to ensure food equity, food justice, climate justice, and social justice for all of our residents in Charlottesville.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:00:15
    Thank you.
  • 02:00:18
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:00:21
    Next up is Catherine Laughlin, followed by Chantelle Bingham.
  • 02:00:26
    Catherine, you're on the city council.
  • 02:00:27
    You've got three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 02:00:30
    Hi, my name is Catherine Lon.
  • 02:00:33
    I live in the city of Charlottesville and I am a human rights commissioner.
  • 02:00:38
    Although I am speaking for myself and not on behalf of the commission right now, I just wanted to express my frustration at
  • 02:00:46
    the delay in appointing new members to city council.
  • 02:00:49
    We had some excellent applications.
  • 02:00:52
    Those individuals have not heard back from the city.
  • 02:00:55
    And as far as I know, the commission has not heard back from the city and we did not have any commissioners appointed.
  • 02:01:04
    at your last meeting.
  • 02:01:05
    So I would like to encourage you to perhaps use your work session on commissions to appoint if that's possible or to appoint at your next most earliest possibility.
  • 02:01:17
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:01:22
    Thank you.
  • 02:01:24
    Oh, and just probably address that quickly.
  • 02:01:27
    And I spoke with Chantelle about
  • 02:01:33
    But the council just decided that for now that we were not going to be making additional appointments to the Human Rights Commission and the conversation with the board chair centered around that, how the board, the commission would like those appointments to happen.
  • 02:01:58
    at this point, but explaining that council as a body had made that decision and would be having that along with the larger discussion around what's next for the human rights, the Office of Human Rights and the commission once the deputy city manager and that whole process.
  • 02:02:27
    So we've received some feedback and I know at least I've had a conversation and I think Vice Mayor Magill has had the conversation too.
  • 02:02:38
    So if that information didn't get relayed to you all, then our apologies there, but that was the decision that we made.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:02:53
    Catherine, I'm sorry, I mispronounced your last name.
  • 02:02:56
    Next up is Chantelle Bingham, who will be followed by Peter Krebs.
  • 02:03:00
    Chantelle, you're on with the council.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:03:01
    Hi, good evening everybody.
  • 02:03:05
    I'm here to speak on behalf of the Food Justice Network in support of the Public Health Association of Residents.
  • 02:03:14
    I think they just submitted a request for CARES funding that you guys will discuss a little bit later today.
  • 02:03:20
    And I just wanted to let y'all know that the Food Justice Network has been partnering with FAR even before the onset of COVID.
  • 02:03:30
    So with the food equity initiative, for example FAR has worked in collaboration with us last year for the local food, local places.
  • 02:03:41
    Award for Technical Assistance where we had gotten federal and state agents invited to our city to really just explore, you know, what would it be like if we tackled redesigning access and prosperity within our food
  • 02:04:00
    system, our local food system.
  • 02:04:02
    And so that's really been an incredible opportunity for FAR and the Food Justice Network members to just dig in on what does it look like to redesign from the community members perspective.
  • 02:04:15
    FAR has also taken initiative to go and tour co-op grocery stores and last October
  • 02:04:22
    the Food Justice Network and FAR ended up touring a co-op in Harrisonburg.
  • 02:04:29
    In terms of like a formal partnership agreement with FAR that doesn't currently exist if folks wanting to know about that but the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority is a formal partner of the Food Justice Network.
  • 02:04:44
    So this past year, for example, CRHA and the Food Justice Network received that Vibrant Communities Initiative grant from the state of Virginia for $2 million, and we had worked together on that.
  • 02:04:57
    Currently, not only are we doing work on long-term advocacy and thinking about policies there and how do we redesign our city for housing justice and food justice, but we're also
  • 02:05:09
    They're pivoting just like every other nonprofit is pivoting and wanting to really support their residents in a time of need with COVID.
  • 02:05:17
    And I believe that their request really does define the work that we've done more recently with partnering and working together to support residents.
  • 02:05:29
    I do apologize.
  • 02:05:31
    I know that Kaki Demick is our person and so she's probably giving y'all some updates on the work that the Food Justice Network organizations have done.
  • 02:05:39
    But as I said before, since there's not a formal partnership with FAR, though we do collaborate a lot,
  • 02:05:45
    They may not have been in those updates that you guys have heard about and different food access organizations doing stuff right now.
  • 02:05:52
    So this is more just for me to let y'all know that we've been working together and we do continue to work together.
  • 02:05:59
    So, you know, please support that application when you get to it.
  • 02:06:05
    Thank you.
  • 02:06:07
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:06:11
    Mayor Walker, next up will be Peter Krebs, who will be followed by
  • 02:06:15
    Nancy Carpenter, and then Daniel Kaufman.
  • 02:06:18
    Peter, you're on with council.
  • 02:06:19
    Go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:06:20
    Thank you.
  • 02:06:21
    Good evening.
  • 02:06:22
    My name is Peter Krebs and I live at 1022 Tufton in the city.
  • 02:06:26
    I'd like to thank city staff for listening to residents and beginning a healthy streets trial on the Belmont Bridge.
  • 02:06:34
    This is a temporary arrangement which costs almost nothing.
  • 02:06:38
    Bike creates additional sidewalk space so people may pass one another safely without having to choose between proper social distance and risk injury or death by being hit by a car.
  • 02:06:51
    As someone who walks there regularly, I can assure you that this is a major improvement.
  • 02:06:57
    I'd like to also salute the city leadership for allowing your frontline staff the latitude to try new things.
  • 02:07:04
    In my experience, they only do so after much thought and listening.
  • 02:07:08
    And I think this is an example of that.
  • 02:07:11
    I've been talking for a long time about the relationship between walkability and physical safety and long-term health.
  • 02:07:18
    Proper sidewalks have implication for the prevention of traumatic injury and chronic disease.
  • 02:07:25
    And now in the era of COVID-19, infectious disease as well.
  • 02:07:30
    The Belmont Bridge is a logical place to start the trial because it meets several criteria.
  • 02:07:37
    It's an important connection.
  • 02:07:39
    There's a real safety issue with insufficient infrastructure.
  • 02:07:43
    Staff can do this with minimal disruption and they've done it there before.
  • 02:07:49
    And it's part of extensive community dialogue and a larger planning effort, in this case, the bridge replacement.
  • 02:07:58
    I hope the pilot will be extended and expanded.
  • 02:08:01
    Some other corridors I've heard about that also meet the criteria include West Main, Preston, Franklin, Stribling, South First, as well as Broadway and Commonwealth in the county.
  • 02:08:16
    If you do choose to extend the program, and I hope you will, please know there is significant community backing and volunteers ready to help with maintenance
  • 02:08:25
    as well as a good opportunity to engage with people who walk, bike, and run those streets.
  • 02:08:32
    Brenda and Amanda, Brendan and Amanda know where to find us.
  • 02:08:38
    And thank you again for your service during these trying times.
  • 02:08:42
    Have a good evening.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:08:47
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:08:49
    Mayor Walker, next up is Nancy Carpenter, who will be followed by Daniel Kaufman and then Anj Khan.
  • 02:08:56
    Nancy, you're on the City Council.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:09:00
    Very good.
  • 02:09:01
    Thank you, Brian, for this opportunity.
  • 02:09:04
    And good evening, council members and Mayor Walker.
  • 02:09:06
    I know that you'll be having a report later on in your agenda about the Home to Hope program.
  • 02:09:11
    And I wanted to provide a little bit of my experience that I've had with working with the peer facilitators as well as their clients.
  • 02:09:23
    It's been, I think, a very good experience.
  • 02:09:27
    being able to collaborate in my focus only, which is housing justice.
  • 02:09:33
    I know that there's a whole spectrum of services that Home to Hope has provided, and it's been rewarding.
  • 02:09:43
    You know, it was kind of an idea that kind of made the eyebrow go up probably a year ago amongst some people, not me, but I want to see it continue.
  • 02:09:52
    I certainly support, you know, additional funding for this very, very important initiative because, you know, I hate to pick on one of the council members that used the word failure a few minutes ago, but and I appreciate the step back and changing
  • 02:10:12
    the verbiage but it's a lot of folks that have you know been in the system for a long time even back and you know as little kids with IEPs and in-school suspensions and maybe being in shelters themselves or you know
  • 02:10:30
    All that kind of instability, adverse childhood experiences and things like that.
  • 02:10:35
    So I hope that you will continue to fund it.
  • 02:10:37
    And I really would like to make a suggestion that if we're going to move forward as a community and look at ways to reallocate police sources, resources,
  • 02:10:46
    that we look and figure out how we monetize these kinds of things that Home to Hope does that may be duplicative of some of the things that maybe the CPD does in social services construct.
  • 02:11:02
    and reallocate those funds to that program.
  • 02:11:06
    I'd like to see it, you know, eventually in the future become a rapid response team, you know, where you not only have home to hope people, but you have every system represented that a person touches down.
  • 02:11:18
    The other thing I want to say is that I'm really upset that I'm hearing potential fair housing issues in this community when people who are finally get their vouchers, they've waited for so long.
  • 02:11:30
    They are now being told by a lot of these landlords that you need to have three times the rental amount as monthly income.
  • 02:11:38
    And we know for a fact that if you qualify for a voucher, you don't have three times the income.
  • 02:11:43
    So you're in effect
  • 02:11:46
    are targeted out.
  • 02:11:49
    of certain apartment communities
  • 02:12:23
    Thank you.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:12:25
    Just very briefly, that issue of source of income discrimination of vouchers I think is an important issue.
  • 02:12:34
    For the first time beginning this July, the General Assembly passed legislation what would actually for the first time makes that not allowed on the part of landlords.
  • 02:12:42
    And I know I've had very, very, very informal conversations with Councilor Magill about the possibility of the Office of Human Rights or some capacity in the city looking at being able to enforce housing discrimination now that we have more power to do it.
  • 02:12:55
    And again, those conversations have been very preliminary and informal, but it's definitely something that I and I think other councilors want to explore.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:13:06
    I also want to make sure people know that when calculating somebody's income who has a Section 8 voucher, the voucher itself can be counted towards that type of housing income.
  • 02:13:20
    And it's supposed to be counted as income just for that.
  • 02:13:26
    So when people are going to apply, that voucher counts towards being rental income.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:13:41
    And it's also important to remember the conversations, most of the conversations we've had in council chambers, the past, you know, since I've been at least on council.
  • 02:13:53
    And I know former Councillor Bellamy were having those same type of discussions with, you know, developers about lowering their AMI past the 80% mark and
  • 02:14:09
    it's really the intention most of the time to hopefully meet people just at that 80%, 80% mark.
  • 02:14:15
    So I think one thing that this time would have potentially done if we had utilized it as landlords who only rent
  • 02:14:36
    to students and individuals who are contracted through like the university for a 12-month period or one school year or whatever, that they would have had to broaden that.
  • 02:14:50
    And that's something that because things did open back up the way they have, that wasn't, again, like it is year after year, not a consideration.
  • 02:15:02
    So we're in,
  • 02:15:04
    you know a difficult situation even the cost of housing outside the city limits and that a lot of the money that we're putting to these initiatives are going to housing that's in surrounding counties and that it's a major, it's a major issue.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:15:23
    Mayor Walker, next up is Daniel Kaufman who will be followed by Ang Khan
  • 02:15:34
    and then Jeanette Abenator.
  • 02:15:36
    Daniel, go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_49
  • 02:15:38
    Mayor Walker, council members, I want to thank you for your time today and allowing us a voice to speak on some topics.
  • 02:15:49
    I am the owner of Public Fish and Oyster at 513 West Main Street, as well as Pronto on the UVA Corner 2 restaurants in Charlottesville.
  • 02:15:57
    I opened public in 2014 with a very small inheritance following the death of my mother
  • 02:16:05
    and it was able to put together a lifelong dream of owning my own restaurant.
  • 02:16:08
    I had worked in restaurants my entire life from washing dishes to waiting tables to bartending to management and all along it was my dream to own my own restaurant and I was able to do so due to an unfortunate event and in the six years we've been in existence I'm really proud to say we've become a staple of the Charlottesville community, a community that have really grown to love
  • 02:16:34
    over the last few years.
  • 02:16:39
    I've never felt more anxiety in my life than when I read Mayor Walker's Facebook post this morning after it was sent to me by one of my peers.
  • 02:16:47
    It was quite frankly terrifying, and it was déjà vu, but worse this time.
  • 02:16:53
    Already had to shut down the restaurant once, really took the life out of me at the time.
  • 02:16:59
    really put me and a lot of my peers in a tough spot, had to lay off all my staff.
  • 02:17:03
    Staff would work for me for years.
  • 02:17:06
    And we were able to get through it.
  • 02:17:09
    We were able to live through it through help of the Paycheck Protection Program, which was not perfect in any way, but it was enough to get us through our takeout only scenario.
  • 02:17:23
    I was able to bring staff back once dine-in was permitted and went from a staff of three remaining to a staff of 15.
  • 02:17:31
    I rebuilt an entire staff of 15 at Public Fish and Oyster Pronto.
  • 02:17:35
    We were down for months and months and finally got reopened when UVA came back.
  • 02:17:41
    I and a lot of my peers are not going to be able to keep those people employed.
  • 02:17:46
    If we lose dine-in going into the winter, takeout is not enough.
  • 02:17:51
    DoorDash and Grubhub, all those services that just take every penny out of you.
  • 02:17:57
    Any bit of profit you can expect is gone with those services.
  • 02:18:01
    They keep inventory moving, but they certainly don't pay the bills.
  • 02:18:05
    We are terrified and we cannot deal with this.
  • 02:18:08
    We cannot survive this.
  • 02:18:10
    And Charlottesville's personality is based so much in its dining scene.
  • 02:18:14
    It really is a defining aspect of our community, the community that all of us really, really love.
  • 02:18:20
    And it's terrifying to think of what's going to happen.
  • 02:18:23
    We've lost so many good restaurants already, and we're not going to have many left at the end of this.
  • 02:18:29
    And I implore you,
  • 02:18:33
    Please reconsider.
  • 02:18:34
    A quick little anecdote.
  • 02:18:36
    I was out of town this week with my family.
  • 02:18:38
    We went to a more rural area of Tennessee for a few days and entered a number of restaurants and ended up leaving immediately.
  • 02:18:47
    It was appalling the steps they were taking.
  • 02:18:50
    Thank you.
  • 02:18:53
    Okay.
  • 02:18:55
    I just want to summarize.
  • 02:18:57
    Thank you.
  • 02:18:57
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:18:58
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:19:04
    And to anyone who wants to speak again, we do have a second comment period at the end of the meeting.
  • 02:19:16
    And again, council hasn't taken any action tonight on whether businesses remain, where their indoor dining remains open.
  • 02:19:31
    Again, I shared that information on a Facebook post for individuals to be able to make decisions about how to best care for themselves because a lot of the decisions that we're making at a local, state, and federal level are based on economics and not on a public health platform or a public health foundation.
  • 02:19:54
    And so again, I don't think that, and I've been sharing these type of posts
  • 02:20:02
    since March.
  • 02:20:04
    And so I think it's just important if people want to go back and look, again, we have to arm people with information for them to be able to make the best decision for their lives.
  • 02:20:16
    And it was not anything based on a decision that council will be voting on this evening.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:20:27
    Next up is Ang Khan, who will be followed by Jeanette Abenator, followed by Chris Meyer.
  • 02:20:34
    Ang, you can unmute your microphone and you're on the city council.
• • SPEAKER_26
  • 02:20:40
    Awesome.
  • 02:20:41
    Thank you, Ang Khan, resident of Charlottesville.
  • 02:20:46
    I have a question regarding drug court.
  • 02:20:51
    In the presentation, one of the presenters
  • 02:20:57
    said that there were 400 successful cases.
  • 02:21:02
    And I want to know if that was over the 25 years.
  • 02:21:07
    Is there someone that could speak to that?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:21:09
    I don't think that they are still on here based on the
  • 02:21:22
    way that people enter drug court and the fact that it's a year-long program and that some people take longer than that year to complete, I would say that the answer to your question would be probably over the duration of the, but I don't know the exact, you know.
• • SPEAKER_26
  • 02:21:43
    Okay, thank you.
  • 02:21:45
    So that would mean that there are approximately 16 cases
  • 02:21:50
    quote unquote successful cases per year over a 25 year period.
  • 02:21:56
    That doesn't seem to be a successful program to me, but rather a program that is successful in railroading those who need support rather than a threat of jail time.
  • 02:22:09
    It just seems like it's a revolving door into the system.
  • 02:22:15
    And that's my comment.
  • 02:22:17
    So whatever you're considering regarding
  • 02:22:20
    I would take that into consideration because that does not seem successful and it just railroads our most vulnerable once again into an unjust system.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:22:39
    Just to answer the specific question, I just googled it and I'm almost certain that's over the entire length of the program.
  • 02:22:47
    There's a couple articles in 2020 about their 400th graduate overall.
  • 02:22:52
    So I think that is accurate that it's, that's over the entire lifetime of the drug court.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:23:01
    Mayor Walker, Ansh Khan has raised her hand again.
  • 02:23:03
    She had a little bit of time left.
• • SPEAKER_26
  • 02:23:04
    That's fine.
  • 02:23:05
    Thank you.
  • 02:23:07
    So then to that I would say it doesn't seem very successful once again.
  • 02:23:12
    And then what you want to look at are those who have not completed the program and the reason why they didn't complete the program and what the result of that was after they were
  • 02:23:31
    removed from the program.
  • 02:23:33
    And then also, what was the time that was given?
  • 02:23:37
    This program just seems so unjust to me.
  • 02:23:41
    And that's my time, I think.
  • 02:23:43
    Or maybe I have a few more seconds.
  • 02:23:44
    But yeah, it doesn't seem fair to subject those that have substance use disease.
  • 02:23:55
    It's criminalizing them, is what it's doing, rather than supporting them.
  • 02:24:00
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:24:02
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:24:02
    Mayor Walker, next up is Chris Meyer.
  • 02:24:07
    We'll be followed by Don Gathers.
  • 02:24:10
    Chris, you're on the city council.
• • SPEAKER_54
  • 02:24:13
    Thank you, and good evening, councillors.
  • 02:24:15
    This evening, I'm speaking as the executive director of the local energy alliance program, LEAP.
  • 02:24:22
    LEAP delivers energy efficiency and weatherization programs to low-income and market-rate residents in the city of Charlottesville.
  • 02:24:28
    The majority of the program funding LEAP receives from the city, your taxpayer money that you are allocating, is serving low income residents below the 80% AMI.
  • 02:24:38
    LEAP delivers a coordinated and incoherent set of programs on behalf of the city's housing and redevelopment office, climate protection program,
  • 02:24:45
    and Charlottesville Gas Utility.
  • 02:24:47
    I sent this report up earlier and you might have it in your emails.
  • 02:24:52
    Through the above mentioned programs, we've provided services to 291 households in the last fiscal year, including West Haven.
  • 02:25:02
    For the housing redevelopment assisted home performance program, we assisted 35 households.
  • 02:25:07
    For the climate protection programs, home energy checkups and retrofit assistance, 163 households, including one city councilor.
  • 02:25:15
    The Charlottesville Gas Energy Efficiency Program was 41 households plus West Haven, which was another 52 units.
  • 02:25:23
    35 low-income households received HVAC, water heating, and other energy efficiency measures from what was called the System Home Performance Program.
  • 02:25:32
    These residents will save an average of $565 a year on their utility bills going forward.
  • 02:25:38
    This popular program, unfortunately, though, will see its funding exhausted in the coming months.
  • 02:25:44
    Average project costs for the assistant home performance was around $4,500 a household.
  • 02:25:50
    Specifically, and kind of entertainingly, Mr. Gathers is speaking right after me, but we assisted him in his home last year.
  • 02:25:59
    And his home is nearly 100 years old and located in the 10th and Page neighborhood.
  • 02:26:05
    In his house's case, LEAP added insulation in an attic, connected in the air duct that was disconnected, leaking hot air, cool air into the attic, sealed the attic floor, installed LED light bulbs throughout the house, and removed hazardous knob and tube wiring that was still in the attic.
  • 02:26:20
    The house's energy bills were lowered, house comfort improved, and threat of fire decreased.
  • 02:26:25
    So while delivering all these services to the local residents using city funding, LEAP has simultaneously leveraged an additional $114,000 for city residents from Dominion Virginia Power's income and age qualifying weatherization programs.
  • 02:26:40
    So we're trying to and finding opportunities to leverage outside money to make the best use of your city taxpayer money.
  • 02:26:48
    In closing here, I just want to say we do have an interesting pilot program the local foundation is helping us with to electrify homes, moving them away from fuel oil, propane, and natural gas.
  • 02:27:01
    And we're also recently happy to say we had a very great experience with home to home programming and a recent hire who's also living in the basement of our, in an apartment basement of our office.
  • 02:27:15
    So that was just an update I wanted to give you.
  • 02:27:18
    Again, you have our full report in your email.
  • 02:27:20
    Thank you very much.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:27:21
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:27:24
    Next up will be Don Gathers.
  • 02:27:26
    Jeanette, Abby Nader, I did see your hand up earlier and
  • 02:27:29
    You dropped off, but now you're back and we'll have you speak after Don Gathers.
  • 02:27:36
    Don, you're on the city council.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:27:39
    Good evening, everyone.
  • 02:27:44
    Good evening, city manager Blair.
  • 02:27:47
    Just want to wish you good luck in your most recent endeavor, sir.
  • 02:27:56
    As Chris just said, yes, we did receive services here and are quite pleased with them.
  • 02:28:00
    So the LEAP program is a wonderful program and I urge any and all who can take advantage of it to please do so.
  • 02:28:09
    Wanted to speak also in regards to the CARES funding that's going to come up and urge you to request the request from FARC, Public Housing Association of Residents, for that funding.
  • 02:28:21
    As Ms.
  • 02:28:21
    Bingham spoke earlier, as far as
  • 02:28:25
    in a partnership somewhat with Food Justice Network.
  • 02:28:29
    And they are doing an incredible amount of work that is very beneficial to our residents of public housing.
  • 02:28:37
    They also work and do a lot of, put forth a lot of efforts in the low income housing areas of the city.
  • 02:28:45
    So I would just urge that you certainly do vote to appropriate that funding for FAR that has been laid out from the
  • 02:28:56
    Excuse me, from the CARES Act.
  • 02:28:58
    Thank you very much.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:29:01
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:29:01
    Our 15th speaker will be Jeanette Happynader, followed by somebody who's calling in via the telephone.
  • 02:29:12
    Jeanette, you're on the city council.
  • 02:29:14
    Go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_34
  • 02:29:16
    Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, Mayor Walker, city manager, council members.
  • 02:29:20
    This is Jeanette Abbey Nader.
  • 02:29:21
    I live on Brandywine Drive, and I'm the executive director at Cultivate Charlottesville, which includes the work of City School Yard Garden, the Urban Agricultural Collective, and the Food Justice Network.
  • 02:29:31
    Thank you for the opportunity to speak and for the breadth and commitment of your work.
  • 02:29:36
    Today marks the first day of the City of Charlottesville Farm to School and Healthy Schools Week.
  • 02:29:41
    This week was established by council in the fall of 2017 by a proclamation
  • 02:29:46
    and celebrates building healthy school foods and building the economies and connections to local farms.
  • 02:29:52
    Since 2017, we've engaged over 300 community members and over 2,000 Charlottesville City School students to develop a five-year healthy school foods plan.
  • 02:30:01
    This has all been in partnership with the Charlottesville City Schools nutrition department.
  • 02:30:05
    And we are currently receiving funding to implement this plan at both the local, state, and federal levels.
  • 02:30:13
    It includes five core strategies, equity through access, which employs increasing student participation in the meal program, staff and equipment capacity upgrades.
  • 02:30:24
    For example, we'll be purchasing a new oven for the Johnson School, as well as this summer we purchased coolers for
  • 02:30:31
    You know, delivery of foods, increasing fresh and scratch local food in the meals, student voice and choice, ensuring that the program is supported by youth and then youth nutrition education.
  • 02:30:43
    Of course, this year we've had to modify our actions in response to COVID, but we're excited to have the ability to continue to move forward.
  • 02:30:50
    And so we have a lot of events going on this week.
  • 02:30:52
    We've launched videos just today that tour each of the schoolyard and urban farm gardens.
  • 02:30:57
    On Thursday, all Charlottesville City School students meals will include fresh collards for the harvest of the month.
  • 02:31:04
    And we're working with the Charlottesville City Nutrition Department to have a from scratch meal on Friday that will be delivered to students that will include local foods.
  • 02:31:13
    And then we're also hosting animals in the garden, chickens in the garden with the after school clubs that we're doing with our partners at Mickey Drive and Friendship Court.
  • 02:31:24
    So just wanted to celebrate Farm to School.
  • 02:31:26
    Thank you all for supporting that initiative.
  • 02:31:29
    I'll add a second comment that in addition to celebrating Farm to School, I wanted to echo support.
  • 02:31:35
    For FAR's request for the CARES funding as we will continue to coordinate on building food equity practices at the intersection of affordable housing and food justice.
  • 02:31:45
    And I wanted to add that in spite of the flush of emergency food support, there are not enough food opportunities.
  • 02:31:50
    to actually meet the needs.
  • 02:31:51
    And FAR is filling an important role because their model different from many others is self-determined.
  • 02:31:57
    So residents get to pick the meals and use the cards.
  • 02:32:00
    And so that's really important.
  • 02:32:02
    So thank you so much for the breadth of your work and for giving me an opportunity to share my opinions.
  • 02:32:08
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:32:08
    And Mayor Walker, our last speaker is joining us via telephone.
  • 02:32:17
    If you can hear us, please tell us your name and your place of residence.
• • SPEAKER_52
  • 02:32:25
    Good evening.
  • 02:32:27
    Can you hear me?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:32:28
    We can.
  • 02:32:28
    You've got three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_52
  • 02:32:30
    Thank you.
  • 02:32:31
    Good evening, City Council.
  • 02:32:32
    This is Carol Thorpe.
  • 02:32:33
    Thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening.
  • 02:32:37
    I'm calling with regards to the recent settlement by the City of Charlottesville to Tanisha Hudson.
  • 02:32:44
    It was reported widely in the media that an official apology was issued to her.
  • 02:32:51
    This was in regards to a Zoom meeting that she attended wherein she was not permitted to speak.
  • 02:32:57
    I won't go into the details of that situation because that was widely reported.
  • 02:33:02
    However, in addition, with that settlement to the public apology, it turns out that apparently a cash settlement was also involved and awarded to Ms.
  • 02:33:13
    Hudson.
  • 02:33:14
    As a taxpayer, I'm conflicted because on the one hand, obviously I don't like to see the money go out for that sort of purpose.
  • 02:33:23
    But I also recognize that when our rights are violated, as I believe they were in Ms.
  • 02:33:28
    Hudson's situation, that she has the right to seek compensation for such.
  • 02:33:36
    And so, kudos to her for getting satisfaction.
  • 02:33:41
    On the other hand, the most disturbing portion of this and the reason for my call is that while the written apology was widely reported, nowhere was it reported in local media that in addition as part of that settlement that she received this cash payout.
  • 02:34:03
    The only reason it came to the fore that I'm aware of is because her attorney had released that information in a press release
  • 02:34:11
    He had written that the initial request, along with the written apology, was a request for $400,000.
  • 02:34:18
    And while in that press release he said that they did not receive that full amount, he did state that they were, quote, very, very satisfied with the settlement.
  • 02:34:29
    So we're left to wonder how much money Ms.
  • 02:34:31
    Hudson received.
  • 02:34:32
    And I'm not calling to request that amount, certainly, because I'm sure that was part of the confidential settlement.
  • 02:34:37
    But what disturbs me is that unless he had written that in the press release, this taxpayers of the city of Charlottesville and also Albemarle County who pay into the city of Charlottesville by the revenue sharing agreement would have never known about this settlement, would have never known that their taxpayer dollars went out to Ms.
  • 02:34:59
    Hudson for this purpose.
  • 02:35:01
    And so why is it that you felt, because I can think there's only reason why you wouldn't say so,
  • 02:35:08
    that you could get away with not mentioning that in addition to this written public apology that no money was paid out.
  • 02:35:17
    And that's disturbing.
  • 02:35:19
    I thought that we were going to be, Mayor Walker, unmasking the illusion of city government that you were going to be bringing a more transparent government to the city of Charlottesville.
  • 02:35:29
    And I believe that the taxpayers and the citizens of Charlottesville should know, even though it would leave a little egg on your face,
  • 02:35:37
    that this payment would have gone out with the written apology.
  • 02:35:40
    I ask that you please do better.
  • 02:35:43
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:35:46
    And so, Ms.
  • 02:35:47
    Roberson, if you have any questions, any statements related to that, if you don't, then that's fine.
  • 02:35:53
    I mean, I'll just again speak on my end.
  • 02:35:56
    Since I have been on council, I have allowed anyone to speak for as long as sometimes criticized for the amount of time that people are able to speak.
  • 02:36:09
    I haven't in any situation ever violated anyone's First Amendment right.
  • 02:36:14
    I don't plan on doing it and as I've stated initially while I am not one to have to apologize here because I didn't do anything I do feel like when we make mistakes we do have to own it and move forward moving forward not do it again.
  • 02:36:36
    I have been
  • 02:36:39
    a member of the black community in Charlottesville and I've had my voice censored and silenced for a lot of years and it is not something that I would ever condone and I have made that statement so there is nothing about this situation that would leave me with egg on my face in situations when we are wrong and we need to make amends for that wrong and I'm using we very loosely in this case
  • 02:37:07
    because even when there were people in council chambers that other people didn't think should have the ability to speak that I made sure that they received their time.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 02:37:18
    I'd like to also add, Mayor Walker, that
  • 02:37:29
    Sometimes it can be difficult for members of the public to sort of know how things work.
  • 02:37:38
    And sometimes when someone asserts a claim against the city, the city's insurer will
  • 02:37:51
    handled that claim.
  • 02:37:53
    So one thing that should be noted is that the city's press release accurately described the actions taken by the city in relation to that particular incident.
  • 02:38:10
    But if
  • 02:38:13
    There was some monetary compensation that was something that's between Ms.
  • 02:38:19
    Hudson and her legal counsel and the insurance company.
  • 02:38:23
    And so the only actions that were required or performed by the city were disclosed within the press release accurately.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:38:34
    All right.
  • 02:38:39
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:38:43
    That concludes Community Matters.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:38:45
    All right.
  • 02:38:47
    So it's 9 10, and we will take a 15 minute break.
  • 02:38:51
    So we'll return at 9 25.
  • 02:38:53
    Thank you all.
• • SPEAKER_43
  • 02:51:18
    What football team won?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:51:19
    Are you referring to yesterday?
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:51:34
    Yes.
  • 02:51:35
    Did your son's team win?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:51:39
    They did not, in fact.
• • SPEAKER_51
  • 02:51:41
    I'm sorry.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:51:44
    For whatever reason, mom and dad aren't fans, but he likes the Cowboys.
• • SPEAKER_43
  • 02:51:52
    So did my daughter.
  • 02:51:53
    I don't know where she got it from.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:51:55
    I mean, I always say I'll watch the Super Bowl when the Detroit Tigers are playing in it.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:52:05
    It's Tigers-Oriel Super Bowls.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:52:12
    See, at least you go with it.
  • 02:52:14
    You do not know how many people said, well, Sena, you know that the Detroit Tigers are a baseball team.
  • 02:52:19
    I was like, yeah, that's my point.

12. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act Funding, second allocation - $4,123,776 (2nd reading)

PH-APP_CARES Act Appropriation - 2nd Round - 10-5-2020 - 2nd Reading
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:52:20
    I'm quite aware.
  • 02:52:26
    No, for some reason, my daughter is also a Cowboys fan.
  • 02:52:32
    I don't even, we don't watch football in the house.
  • 02:52:37
    I don't know how that happened.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:52:41
    So instead of, how about those cowboys?
  • 02:52:45
    How about those counselors?
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:52:48
    But I'll bump.
  • 02:52:51
    Let me do a 20 yard pass.
  • 02:52:54
    I don't know what that is.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:52:55
    Maybe we could have a flag football team.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 02:53:03
    I'm one of the people who just tackles people then.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:53:05
    I mean, they've got a congressional baseball game, so.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:53:13
    All right.
  • 02:53:14
    This is a very interesting conversation.
  • 02:53:17
    I know how to play rugby.
  • 02:53:20
    All right.
  • 02:53:24
    And what do we have up next?
  • 02:53:28
    Next up, we have the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security CARES Act funding, second reading.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:53:40
    Thank you, Mayor Walker.
  • 02:53:43
    As you know, last Tuesday, the council had its first reading of this appropriation.
  • 02:53:51
    Just to recap, there were three criteria that I went over then and I will go over now for the public concerning CARES Act dollars in this second allocation of 4.1 million and that is that the
  • 02:54:07
    Expenses must be related to COVID mitigation.
  • 02:54:13
    The expenses could not have been budgeted for in the localities budget that was effective for March 27 of 2020.
  • 02:54:23
    And also that the funds have to be expended between March 1 of 2020 and December 31 of 2020.
  • 02:54:28
    As you may recall, there were
  • 02:54:36
    Some questions that Mayor Walker posed at the end of that reading on last Tuesday.
  • 02:54:45
    Mr. Cullinan has some of those answers.
  • 02:54:50
    Ms.
  • 02:54:50
    Shelton also has some answers about the employee support component of Mayor Walker's questions.
  • 02:54:59
    It's also
  • 02:55:02
    Mr. Cullinan and Ms.
  • 02:55:03
    Demick have worked on something based on a request from Mayor Walker that I think they will address tonight.
  • 02:55:12
    And it's also worth noting, I know that during Community Matters, there was a lot of
  • 02:55:21
    Comments about forest requests and obviously the council's received that so we are prepared obviously to look at amending any of the appropriation tonight if that's the council's desire and the funds are available.
  • 02:55:37
    So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Cullinan and then Ms.
  • 02:55:44
    Shelton, so thank you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:55:47
    Thank you, Mr. Blair.
  • 02:55:48
    Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council.
  • 02:55:51
    I just want to follow up on, as Mr. Blair mentioned, a few of the questions arising from our last time we met.
  • 02:55:58
    One question was the amount of the outstanding balances from round one.
  • 02:56:05
    Overall, as of the end of September, we had allocated out about 90% of the first allocation.
  • 02:56:15
    Most of that remaining balance is in the technology category.
  • 02:56:22
    Mr. Sunny Wang, our IT director and our staff lead on that funding category is on the call, I believe.
  • 02:56:29
    If you have any specific questions about that, but in my discussions with Mr. Wang, they expect to spend those funds here in the next few weeks.
  • 02:56:42
    Obviously, there are some
  • 02:56:44
    Supply chain challenges for certain items and then just the, I think, the nature of some of the projects they're looking at.
  • 02:56:51
    It takes some time to make sure we're procuring exactly what we need to meet the city's technology needs related to COVID.
  • 02:57:04
    Madam Mayor also has a question about individual assistance, whether that was an allowable expense, and it is under the guidance provided by the U.S.
  • 02:57:15
    Treasury.
  • 02:57:15
    I won't go into it word for word at this point unless a more specific question or concern comes up.
  • 02:57:23
    And then as Mr. Blair mentioned, Ms.
  • 02:57:25
    Dimmick and I have
  • 02:57:28
    received a couple of different requests for us to look at from both a policy perspective, a COVID response perspective, as well as eligibility for CARES.
  • 02:57:39
    I will defer on that for the time being.
  • 02:57:43
    We'll probably get to a point where we'll have the opportunity for some possible amendments to the appropriation when we can sort of click through those at that point during our time together this evening.
  • 02:57:54
    And unless there are any questions, that sort of concludes a couple of the other items I was asked to look into.
  • 02:57:59
    I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 02:58:01
    So just one clarifying question.
  • 02:58:05
    For me, the 10% that's remaining, is that all tech or is that tech and then
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:58:11
    It's mostly tech, so the dollar amount, just to give you some perspective, there's about $416,000 overall from the first allocation.
  • 02:58:21
    The technology piece is approximately $269,000 of that.
  • 02:58:27
    There's a little bit of money and sort of spread around some of the other funding categories, but in total, it's about 90% allocated at this point.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 02:58:38
    Thank you.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:58:43
    Two questions.
  • 02:58:44
    One, of the unallocated money from the first round, is any of that from the contingency fund or is that just from the... That does include the contingency.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:58:54
    There's about $56,000 unallocated from the contingency at this point.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:59:00
    And a second question is, we had a lot of public
  • 02:59:04
    will comment tonight about FAR's request.
  • 02:59:07
    But via email, we also did get a second separate request from CRHA about, I think the request was $80,000 for rent support and paying off past due rent.
  • 02:59:26
    And I know that request came in, at least first we saw it was emailed today.
  • 02:59:30
    So I know that's not much time to be able to evaluate it.
  • 02:59:35
    So with that in mind, is there any idea or context known at this point about whether that qualifies under the requirements of the CARES Act?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:59:45
    The FAR request does, as that's related to nutrition support to enable compliance with COVID-19 public health precautions.
  • 02:59:55
    And we've done some other nutrition support through other agencies in the first
  • 03:00:00
    Round of funding.
  • 03:00:02
    The CRHA request could potentially be a little more complicated.
  • 03:00:11
    And you're right, I haven't had a chance to really dig into it.
  • 03:00:13
    And what makes it potentially a little bit complicated, Ms.
  • 03:00:16
    Dimmick and I had a chance to speak briefly about it is housing assistance itself is an allowable use.
  • 03:00:24
    Where it could potentially get a little tricky and we just want to make sure we do our homework is anytime you might have multiple pots of federal money involved, there could be some restrictions on that.
  • 03:00:36
    And quite frankly, I just haven't really read
  • 03:00:39
    through all the guidance with an eye on that.
  • 03:00:42
    And so the use itself in terms of housing support, economic support is allowable.
  • 03:00:50
    I would just wanna make sure, make clear that there isn't a catch as it might potentially relate to public housing.
  • 03:00:58
    So if we get to a point this evening where we wanna discuss that a little further, I think we've got a strategy to help deal with that should the council choose to.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:01:13
    Thank you.
  • 03:01:13
    So good evening, Madam Mayor, City Council.
  • 03:01:16
    I was tasked with looking at the allocation for the employee support.
  • 03:01:26
    When we originally spoke, I mentioned that we only did public safety for the CARES funds, which was fire police in the Sheriff's Office.
  • 03:01:36
    Mayor Walker brought to our attention that we could also
  • 03:01:39
    and social services and human services to that.
  • 03:01:43
    And so Brian, can I share my screen?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:01:48
    Yes, just a moment.
  • 03:01:54
    Go ahead, Michelle.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:01:57
    Can you see that?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:01:59
    Should be coming up shortly.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:02:05
    I do want to verify that
  • 03:02:08
    This would be a secondary bonus, correct?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:02:14
    I'm not sure.
  • 03:02:16
    What do you mean by a secondary bonus?
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:02:18
    We already gave out.
  • 03:02:19
    We're giving out a bonus already.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:02:23
    OK, so can you see my screen now?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:02:26
    We cannot.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:02:27
    No?
  • 03:02:28
    I can't share screen.
  • 03:02:30
    I'm doing something wrong here.
  • 03:02:32
    Let's see.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:02:40
    Yeah.
  • 03:02:41
    Now it's coming.
  • 03:02:42
    Yep.
  • 03:02:42
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:02:44
    So the first three lines, city sheriff, fire department, police admin is what I had originally said we would use the $400,000 that we had allocated for employee support.
  • 03:02:57
    And then there was a lot of discussion on human services and social services.
  • 03:03:01
    So to that, to that total for public safety, I added those in, which brought us to a total of 407,725.
  • 03:03:11
    which took us a little over the 400,000 that we had previously allocated for the support services.
  • 03:03:20
    There's been more discussion about the frontline workers for human services and social services.
  • 03:03:24
    So I had conversations with the directors, Khaki and Diane to get a listing of those who served on the frontline for them during the time period that we're allocating this bonus for.
  • 03:03:40
    and that came up to the 12,379 for Human Services and 13,994 for Social Services.
  • 03:03:44
    And added to the first total, the full seven is gonna bring us to 434, $99.51, which is basically saying that now we're a little over the 400,000 we allocated and we can get that from the contingency funds that's left.
  • 03:04:11
    but I have addressed it, Mayor Walker's concern about the frontline workers for human services and social services.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:04:21
    So what would round two funding be going for?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:04:24
    So since that changed my original proposal of 381, I'm asking now that we increased that to at least 500,000 for round two.
  • 03:04:40
    to make sure all of those categories are covered.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:04:46
    I had thought I had understood the question to be, so what's the 381 or the 500 to be spent for?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:04:54
    So the 381 was my original proposal and that was just to include the sheriff, fire, police and social services.
  • 03:05:03
    That was what the 381 was originally for.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:05:06
    In the same amount as had been scheduled for the first time?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:05:13
    In the same amount that has been scheduled for the first time, yes.
  • 03:05:16
    Based on the first payout.
  • 03:05:19
    Before the bottom piece.
  • 03:05:21
    The bottom piece is when we were talking about increasing the pay of the human service and social service workers who got $750 to $1,250.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:05:36
    And in terms of the, based on what the CARES dollars could be used for, then these are the only departments within the city that can utilize this funding, okay.
  • 03:05:54
    Correct.
  • 03:05:55
    Then if we started talking about other departments, that would be a general fund allocation?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:06:01
    Yes.
  • 03:06:03
    So I took a look at utilities as well, because we talked about them.
  • 03:06:07
    The impact for utilities would be an additional $33,909 would go to their frontline workers.
  • 03:06:20
    And if you're looking at utilities, we would also have to look at CAT.
  • 03:06:24
    Well, CAT has their own CARES funding, but we would have to include them as well, putting them at the $1,250 total.
  • 03:06:32
    That will be an additional $61,360 for them.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:06:37
    $61,000 just for CAT or CAT and utility?
  • 03:06:41
    Just for CAT.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:06:44
    As you said, I thought that they already are having funding that we're accomplishing that need.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:06:51
    CAT does have funding.
  • 03:06:53
    But because of the structure we had, we had CAT at the 750 pretty much for their employees, because most of those
  • 03:07:01
    employees are temporary workers.
  • 03:07:04
    And so what attempts were, I'm sorry, most of our workers are regular attempts, but we did not include them as frontline workers on the first round.
  • 03:07:16
    But if we're going back now to do human services, social service and utilities, we need to include CAT because they were really out on the frontline, transporting our citizens all over the city.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:07:28
    Yeah, I think we, you know, the comments I brought up, you know, I've made in the past was we have to look at, I think, Kat, we have to look at the park side of Parks and Recreation.
  • 03:07:40
    We have to look at our janitorial staff.
  • 03:07:47
    And so I don't know if you all talk, you know, since we are,
  • 03:07:53
    I guess changing whatever the how the request came in initially but it would be just you know for us I guess to have those numbers of how many employees we're talking about across the board because I can see like now we can say increase in human social services because we can include that in CARES but if we start adding the utility CAD
  • 03:08:22
    the janitorial staff that was on duty, the parks part of Parks and Rec, then if we do one or, you know, a couple and not everyone, then people, you know, as parks people are passing utilities in the city, they're going to say, well, we were out just like they were, you know, those type of conversations.
  • 03:08:42
    It's just good for us to just know if
  • 03:08:49
    They were actually out and working and in their groups and not home and safe and what that amount would be for everyone.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:09:04
    So are you asking me to put everybody at the 1250 mark?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:09:08
    No, I don't know where people go.
  • 03:09:11
    I'm just saying I think the conversation around is just like the point you made just with Kat and where they
  • 03:09:20
    you know, where they have been.
  • 03:09:23
    Then I know that, you know, we talked before about utilities working.
  • 03:09:29
    The parks crews have been out and they've had some exposures, you know, within, so they've had to have been kind of frontline.
  • 03:09:39
    The individuals who've been cleaning the buildings to make sure that the people, other people who came in the buildings were safe.
  • 03:09:46
    I just think it's a lot more broad than just the emergency personnel that were included initially.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:09:55
    It is a lot more broad, but the broader you keep opening this, the more it's going to cost the city.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:10:01
    I understand, but we also, whatever decisions that we make surrounding this, we have to ask, we have to be able to just have a open discussion and tell
  • 03:10:16
    you know, the employees, how we arrived at these decisions and who was included and why and what it meant.
• • SPEAKER_51
  • 03:10:31
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:10:37
    I'm still going back to the 381 and what that is for.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:10:42
    So the 381 again was
  • 03:10:44
    based on who could use the CARES Act.
  • 03:10:46
    And so after we had done the first allocation, it came up social services should also be included.
  • 03:10:54
    So the 381876 is actually the allocation.
  • 03:10:59
    If you go over back to the allocation by date 9-30-2020, if you add the 15609, the 114647, the 165248, and the 82,000, you should come back to that 381.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:11:18
    So this plus the $400,000 is to give sheriff, fire department, police, human services, and social services the full bonus of being frontline workers, one time.
  • 03:11:35
    One time, yes.
  • 03:11:36
    Okay.
  • 03:11:37
    I'm just, again, I wasn't sure if this was, you know, that we, as we hit round two, that meant we were going to send out a second bonus, which I wasn't against.
  • 03:11:46
    I just wanted to understand.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:11:49
    So I think in the allocations that we saw last week, there is employee support in there.
  • 03:11:56
    And I guess that is to be determined what that is to be used for.
  • 03:12:00
    But it was, Lord, I don't have that,
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:12:03
    Right, it's the 381 that was lowered.
  • 03:12:06
    I had lowered that based on where the actual expense came out for the first round.
  • 03:12:12
    So again, that was just based on the actual dollars that we spent this first go around.
  • 03:12:17
    But it did not include human services and social services.
  • 03:12:22
    It only included the first, the public safety, basically.
  • 03:12:36
    So since we're adding all of that in now, I'm asking that we increase the second round to at least cover what we paid out for the first allocation, the 434.
  • 03:12:51
    That is an actual number.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:12:55
    Wish we had the 400,000 already allocated from round one.
  • 03:13:00
    There's a $35,000 difference, 34,000.
  • 03:13:01
    Right.
  • 03:13:05
    So no matter what, that's going to come out.
  • 03:13:07
    And then the balance of that will be distributed to these roles with the money that remains that's allocated to employee support.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:13:18
    And so the $56,000 that's remaining, possibly, in the one.
  • 03:13:25
    Right.
  • 03:13:26
    We would use that to cover that $34,000.
  • 03:13:27
    $34,000, OK.
  • 03:13:27
    Yes, ma'am.
  • 03:13:35
    And then in terms of what the dollar amount would be for other that we would have to cover in another way, when would we have that information?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:13:55
    OK, so.
  • 03:13:59
    If we looked at the total payroll for this current one, the total payroll was 831,000, which 434,000 of that we're gonna pay through CARES.
  • 03:14:08
    And then you have to subtract out CATS portion, which is the 60, they roughly had 67,000.
  • 03:14:12
    So about
  • 03:14:26
    350, I'm just roughing this now, about 350,000 is what we need to find to pay the other staff.
  • 03:14:40
    Which might be a little higher now because you're asking me now to identify key folks in other areas, such as the custodians, parks and recs, and whatever other departments who might have had folks on the front line.
  • 03:14:56
    or still have folks on the front line.
  • 03:14:57
    And it's, yeah.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:15:02
    And then the parks part and Parks and Recs, it should primarily be the parks component of Parks and Rec and not the registration side.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:15:11
    Correct.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:15:20
    For tonight's discussion, excuse me, on the CARES funding,
  • 03:15:25
    we are saying that you're asking for 500,000.
  • 03:15:27
    So it's basically there's 381 programmed here and out of the 625 that we have in contingency reserve trying to draw from that to get to the, it's a 500.
  • 03:15:40
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:15:40
    Is it 500 or the 434?
  • 03:15:42
    It's up to you.
  • 03:15:45
    I'll take whatever you give me.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:15:51
    I would probably suggest
  • 03:15:56
    Something like just another hundred which puts it at 481.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:16:02
    And let's make it a round even number the 500,000.
  • 03:16:05
    So another 119.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:16:19
    So as I'm looking at the document that was provided to us where it says 381876 for employee support, if we raise that to $500,000, we've got to take 119 out of something else, or are you just proposing that we take it out of the contingency reserve at the bottom?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:16:40
    We would take it out of the contingency fund at the bottom.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:16:44
    Okay.
  • 03:16:44
    So instead of a 15% contingency, we'd have roughly a 12% or 13, 12 and a half percent.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:16:50
    But if we're looking at the FAR, that's a hundred and I mean, we've got the FAR request, the CRHA request.
  • 03:17:01
    If that fits in, that's almost a hundred thousand.
  • 03:17:05
    and then we also have, you know, I don't see anything specifically for housing assistance, for housing loss assistance or anything like that.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:17:18
    The community support, and I think one, you know, because we
  • 03:17:27
    With these all flowing in, we may need to maybe get all of the requests that we received and look at them as a whole and then make that decision maybe the next meeting versus trying to do that tonight and piece it because even some of the things that were included
  • 03:17:48
    Initially, we don't have all the feedback that we got even for some of the things that we received today.
  • 03:17:57
    So is that a possibility or no?
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:18:02
    We would like for you guys to approve the CARES Act allocation and we can always come back and amend it, the line items as needed.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:18:12
    Yeah, I was specifically talking about if we just,
  • 03:18:18
    allocated the amount to the, I don't have it pulled up in front of me, but the community supports, if we allocated the amount that's in there to it but didn't specify where it was going and then looked at all the requests we got to date and then made that decision after that.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:18:38
    Well, the document talks about $639,000 set aside for community support.
  • 03:18:47
    Just with the general definition of nutrition support through Java and Cinbereras, housing services, PPE, operational support for West Haven residents, and emergency resource hotline.
  • 03:19:00
    So I noticed three different proposals here.
  • 03:19:03
    One was from FAR, one was from CRHA, and the other was from the Conscious Capitalist Foundation.
  • 03:19:10
    And if you add all those together, you've got $130,000, $240,000.
  • 03:19:14
    So if we were thinking about funding them, and I, I agree that one of the problems I have with all of this is the student mentoring proposal.
  • 03:19:24
    We just got in, Mayor Walker, when you sent it to us at 2 39 PM this afternoon.
  • 03:19:31
    And I don't know whether it's been looked at by the staff and whether they're in a position to comment as to whether it's eligible or not.
  • 03:19:37
    But if we're talking about $240,000 basically coming out of $639,000, I don't know what other demands Ms.
  • 03:19:47
    Demick or others may think that they've got against the $639,000.
  • 03:19:51
    It seems like they've got some fairly specific ideas in mind.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:19:54
    Yeah.
  • 03:19:56
    I think this would be pulled out of the contingency fund.
  • 03:20:00
    I agree.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:20:04
    So just to clarify, the 639 that you see in community support does reflect specific requests from the organizations that were mentioned.
  • 03:20:17
    Ms.
  • 03:20:17
    Dimity-Tale, if you'd like that, but that 639 is actually structured around specific requests from those organizations.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:20:27
    The specific request, including the FAR request, including the CRHA request.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:20:32
    No, those are separate.
  • 03:20:35
    Those are new.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:20:36
    Yes.
  • 03:20:37
    Okay.
  • 03:20:38
    So the 639, I don't, I don't want to be overly firm about it, but you have a pretty good idea of what you want to do with that 639.
  • 03:20:45
    Right.
  • 03:20:45
    Okay.
  • 03:20:48
    So if we do take this again, just assuming for argument's sake, all $240,000 of these requests, additional requests, we decide to fund out of the contingency.
  • 03:20:59
    Now we're down to a contingency fund of about $260,000.
  • 03:21:02
    That would be correct.
• • SPEAKER_38
  • 03:21:07
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:21:08
    Which at this point is looking more like 7%.
  • 03:21:10
    Yes, sir.
  • 03:21:11
    Yeah.
  • 03:21:17
    Now, I guess the other question related to that is, do we have any thought that business support, any of these other categories are gonna need more money?
  • 03:21:32
    The largest category there is operational modifications.
  • 03:21:36
    How firm are those estimates that come to $1,275,000?
• • SPEAKER_53
  • 03:21:46
    Marty Sillman with Public Works.
  • 03:21:48
    I can probably help answer that question a little bit.
  • 03:21:50
    The majority of dollar amount for operational expenses are geared towards the schools and outfitting the schools to be ready for students to come back whenever that may be.
  • 03:22:00
    Those numbers are pretty firm.
  • 03:22:02
    There are probably about $200,000 in there that is a little bit of a swag for modifications such as plexiglass installations.
  • 03:22:11
    But beyond that, the rest of that $1 million is pretty firm based on HVAC upgrades, upgrading the air filtration systems, UV lights, pop-polarization, things like that.
  • 03:22:21
    And those numbers are
  • 03:22:23
    are pretty equitable.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:22:24
    I guess what I'm really kind of coming down to is if a $250,000 or whatever that we came up with finally, the $250,000 contingency fund is enough because the other larger quantities, the other larger known quantities are fairly well known and fairly well developed.
  • 03:22:47
    then I'm a little less concerned about it.
  • 03:22:49
    Although I also will recall that when we had the same size contingency reserve fund from the first swot of money $363,000, I think it was wound up getting taken out of that without frankly, without I don't think anybody on council being aware of it at the time.
  • 03:23:10
    So we had, while we may not, whether we argue or not about how that money was spent
  • 03:23:17
    It kind of makes us wonder what the contingency, you know, who's in charge of the contingency fund?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:23:24
    Well, to answer that question, it's written into the appropriation that the city manager or his designee has the ability to move funds amongst the different funding categories, including the contingency reserve.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:23:40
    And there was another, um,
  • 03:23:43
    And I guess Kaki was going to come on and present.
  • 03:23:47
    But one of the things that I felt that we had missing here, and I'll talk about two of the proposals if we are moving forward contemplating these decisions tonight.
  • 03:24:01
    But just real quickly, before Kaki comes on, in terms of the Conscious Capitalist group,
  • 03:24:11
    That's a nonprofit that's already formed.
  • 03:24:15
    Based on the information that they sent in, you can see that they do quite a bit of work with other nonprofits in the area.
  • 03:24:25
    But the conversations that I've been having is how do we ensure that this virtual learning experience that we're in, that youth who are having a challenging time,
  • 03:24:39
    with that experience and who probably had a challenging time during regular class that would put them at higher risk during this virtual learning that we met their needs in some way.
  • 03:24:53
    So I've been having these conversations with community members
  • 03:24:58
    over the, since sometime in August, asking different individuals just what their thoughts were and what maybe their capacity was.
  • 03:25:09
    Out of all of those conversations, these two individuals
  • 03:25:17
    Rush, and Mr. Gray, they are the ones who submitted a proposal based on those conversations.
  • 03:25:23
    I have communicated with Dr. Atkins.
  • 03:25:26
    There are more than 10 youth, but that is what they, at this time, feel like they have the capacity to meet.
  • 03:25:36
    But 10 youth from the Buford School Division, who there are some challenges with getting
  • 03:25:46
    you know, them to participate virtually.
  • 03:25:50
    And so this is a, would be a collaborative model with the school system, with the administrators at the school, the teachers, the parents, and attempts in a safe of an environment.
  • 03:26:05
    I have stressed this is virtual for a reason and that while, you know,
  • 03:26:12
    In that rate that they presented, they do expect to maybe, you know, go to a student's house and drop lunch off.
  • 03:26:20
    But then the next communication with that student and parents should be a virtual communication.
  • 03:26:26
    And they
  • 03:26:30
    We don't know whether this is something that will work.
  • 03:26:34
    We just know that the need is out there and that they would have to do that relationship building.
  • 03:26:43
    I'm sure that it will turn into more than a
  • 03:26:52
    They will have to have daily interactions and I'm sure if anybody has done this work, they know that that relationship building happens and once you start depending on you will happen probably daily.
  • 03:27:05
    So I will be keeping, if this is something that they are able to move forward with as a collaboration with the city of Charlottesville, the school division and this, I will be keeping up with both the individuals
  • 03:27:25
    Mr. Rush and Mr. Gray and the school system to make sure that this is, you know, successful and it's working and that it's something that we need to continue, you know, funding or looking at the longer the virtual learning experience goes on.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:27:43
    The proposal that you shared, I thought there was different groups that would be targeted and it went beyond just 10 students at Buford.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:27:52
    No, in that case, I think what you are probably referencing is that they just highlighted some other work that they've done.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:27:58
    Oh, so that amount that was being requested was for 10 students?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:28:03
    For the year, yes.
  • 03:28:04
    And that can be broken down into like a first and second semester, nine weeks, and then moved
  • 03:28:15
    move forward.
  • 03:28:16
    So it was a $50,000 request for the year, which turns out to about $5,000 per student.
  • 03:28:22
    And out of that, they would be any immediate needs that they can meet other students.
  • 03:28:30
    If they decide to take the students like a breakfast or a lunch, just as like a hay, which they are only giving that student and then leaving or whatever those, all of that will come out of that funding.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:28:42
    So do we know if that, I mean, this is all very new to staff.
  • 03:28:46
    Do we know that this would qualify for funding?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:28:48
    I have a chance to take a look at it and I do believe it would under the allowance for facilitating distance learning, which is also the rationale for the eligibility for the request by the Y and the Boys and Girls Club.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:29:07
    And how many students did the
  • 03:29:12
    YMCA and Boys and Girls Club Serve.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:29:18
    I don't recall off the top of my head.
  • 03:29:19
    Ms.
  • 03:29:21
    Demick, do you recall?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:29:22
    I'm going to quick look at my email that I sent about this very issue.
  • 03:29:30
    And
  • 03:29:41
    There we go.
  • 03:29:43
    163 students at the Y with 76 at Walker and 87 at Brooks.
  • 03:29:49
    They have the capacity to provide more and they're right now hiring so that they can meet the requirements for the number of students to staff.
  • 03:29:59
    There are 53 students at the Cherry Avenue Boys and Girls with a total of 74 spaces available.
  • 03:30:06
    They can also expand.
  • 03:30:09
    if they need to or if they get enough staff.
  • 03:30:12
    They're moving quite slowly to make sure that both programs are moving quite slowly to make sure that they meet the safety requirements for both students and staff.
  • 03:30:22
    But those are the numbers that they have right now.
  • 03:30:27
    It is a full day program for both of those places.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:30:34
    Yeah, I mean, I just,
  • 03:30:38
    sort of an obvious point everyone is aware of, but something I'm thinking about and sort of struggling to figure out is just the fact obviously we have a set amount of money.
  • 03:30:47
    We're obviously in a situation where there are no solutions, only trade-offs in just trying to evaluate
  • 03:30:56
    In any decision we make, both the number of people served and the kind of intervention that's being made, because we're obviously at a point where any request we get, you can make a case for why it's needed and legitimate, but just trying to figure out, you know, whether it be employee support or something else, is that at the expense of money to prevent evictions and homelessness, the resource hotline, et cetera?
  • 03:31:24
    So yeah.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:31:27
    And I guess the other question, Miss Demick, is when other requests have come in that have kind of led us to the allocation suggestion that are in front of council, what does that process look like?
  • 03:31:38
    Because we did get like a flood of requests just today.
  • 03:31:41
    And so I'm just trying to figure out how do we look at these equitably across other requests that have come in through your office and otherwise.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:31:49
    So we did take a very targeted approach to the use of the CARES Act, both the first round and this round.
  • 03:31:57
    The first round we focused for at least community support on basic needs.
  • 03:32:03
    So food and shelter being our primary focus.
  • 03:32:07
    We're very concerned, remain concerned about evictions and what the cost to that for both individuals and the community will be long-term.
  • 03:32:15
    We know that the economic impact of the pandemic will last long after.
  • 03:32:19
    we are sort of resume whatever might be our normal functioning as a community.
  • 03:32:24
    And so we needed to focus on that pretty strongly at the beginning.
  • 03:32:30
    And then as we moved to this phase, we started to think about the impact of families who had been with kids at home for this period of time struggling and were about to go into virtual work and virtual school and trying to create as many supports as possible for families
  • 03:32:48
    while not chirping our responsibility for basic needs.
  • 03:32:51
    And so that's loosely based on the assessments around needs for our community that have been generated out of the EEOC at the beginning of the pandemic.
  • 03:33:01
    And so that has been the sort of test for us.
  • 03:33:05
    I think that the amount of need in the community is great.
  • 03:33:08
    And so there's hardly an idea that we would hear that wouldn't be a good one.
  • 03:33:12
    And so the issue really is, as Mr. Payne suggests, how do we prioritize
  • 03:33:18
    what we're going to focus on this time.
  • 03:33:20
    We can all hope that there's a third round in January or a fourth round in February, but we can't be sure of that.
  • 03:33:26
    And so right now I'm most concerned about basic needs for people who live and have lived very close to the edge in our community.
  • 03:33:37
    And I'm interested and concerned about families who are reaching their thresholds for stress management.
  • 03:33:44
    in there sort of managing what it means to be virtual all the way around.
  • 03:33:47
    So those are the sort of two areas at least that I'm focused on.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:33:52
    So is it possible for us to approve the allocation knowing that we have this chunk of contingency and then allow staff to kind of work through some of the requests that we're seeing and make a recommendation to council on that?
  • 03:34:05
    I'm just trying to figure out I don't I don't know that we're all prepared to make a final decision on some of these things tonight that came in today.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:34:14
    I would say I don't feel ready.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:34:18
    And the only thing I would ask before we even go have this part of the conversation is to allow Kaki to present some of the work done over the past week, week and a half or so to address some of the mental health needs that we are seeing and will continue to arise during this time.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:34:43
    And we do have a public hearing, right?
  • 03:34:45
    We do.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:34:53
    Should we hear from the public now then?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:34:56
    Why didn't we?
  • 03:34:58
    Kaki, did you want to go over?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:35:01
    Sure.
  • 03:35:02
    I'd love to present one of the concerns that was raised
  • 03:35:06
    after the last conversation around CARES is whether CARES Act money could be used to support mental health concerns and wellness concerns in the community and it has been a subject of great deal of conversation in the community around the compounded historic stress and trauma
  • 03:35:28
    that the Black community members face in our community, which impacts their capacity to protect themselves from disease, build individual resilience, and manage their mental health needs, and otherwise provide mutual aid and support to each other.
  • 03:35:42
    The Black community is tremendously resilient and, like the rest of us, needs a little support from the community.
  • 03:35:50
    And so one of the
  • 03:35:53
    Ideas that's been floating around the community with a collaboration, a loose, not formal collaboration among many people who are seasoned providers in our community is to create a pop-up Black community wellness center and use this opportunity to use some CARES money to provide formal and informal supports for Black community members including crisis interventions, support groups, wellness classes like meditation and yoga,
  • 03:36:18
    community health education, maternal health support, access to referrals to culturally responsive support care, health and wellness campaign.
  • 03:36:27
    We would hope that these would be both virtual and in person, knowing that there are people who need access to both kinds of modes, formal and drop in.
  • 03:36:35
    And then it might also include some community and cultural events.
  • 03:36:40
    It's important to note that there have been
  • 03:36:42
    Many people in the community who have been planning this and considering such a center and they're absolutely ready to jump into action.
  • 03:36:49
    And this could be an opportunity for the city to support this idea as a critical service that's needed right now in our community and support it for several months.
  • 03:36:58
    We provide practical access and support to community members who need it and also to test out the model as a potentially permanent service delivery model.
  • 03:37:07
    So
  • 03:37:10
    I think it's important that I recognize that this is not my idea.
  • 03:37:13
    This is a genius idea that has been identified by many other community members.
  • 03:37:17
    I'm simply speaking it into the world.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:37:21
    And what kind of funding amounts are we talking of for that initiative?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:37:26
    The sort of placeholder amount that I was thinking about was 200,000.
  • 03:37:30
    I'm not sure if I could justify that completely.
  • 03:37:34
    It could be more, it could be less, just to be perfectly frank, but that was the placeholder amount.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:37:42
    And was that amount considered in any respect in the document that we've already been given?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:37:49
    No, this was outside of that cycle.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:37:52
    I gotcha.
  • 03:37:53
    OK.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:37:55
    So just to clarify, we have what's been proposed in the allocations with $625,000 in the reserve.
  • 03:38:02
    Of that, we're looking at about $120,000 that may go towards additional employee support.
  • 03:38:08
    We have three requests that have come from community organizations today.
  • 03:38:12
    And then we have this $200,000 or more or less proposal around the Wellness Center that you just described.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:38:19
    So I've had the opportunity to tally these.
  • 03:38:23
    Thank you.
  • 03:38:25
    Just to give us all, so the mental health services which Ms.
  • 03:38:29
    Demick just described, FARS requests, the conscientious capital foundation, CRAHA and the additional employee support is roughly $558,000.
  • 03:38:43
    of the 625, so that would leave you approximately $67,000 in contingency reserve if you were to fund all of those requests in the requested amounts.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:38:56
    Which is about one and a half percent.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:39:00
    Yeah, that sounds about right.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:39:07
    And, Kaki, the howling services that's in the community support
  • 03:39:13
    What's that encompass at this time?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:39:17
    So it's $350,000, I believe, for the emergency hotline, which continues to provide primarily rental assistance and emergency occasional sort of mortgage assistance.
  • 03:39:31
    But the focus is almost solely on housing.
  • 03:39:33
    So that's continued to provide that.
  • 03:39:37
    Sorry.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:39:39
    Sorry.
  • 03:39:40
    I do just want to bring up
  • 03:39:42
    Last week on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission we got an update on the regional rent relief and one of the things they highlighted is
  • 03:39:52
    They've been able to be more effective in Charlottesville with that money because we have a community support hotline that is able to supplement what they're doing and they've been able to get more money out here and touch more households than in the surrounding counties which don't have that.
  • 03:40:06
    So I just bring that up when we're thinking about these trade-offs and some decisions we might want to make that I think there is some synergy there to
  • 03:40:14
    touch even more households here in Charlottesville in terms of facing eviction or other things that come with being behind on rent or mortgage payments.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:40:24
    Right now both Charlottesville and Albemarle have a couple of different methods for providing rental assistance and so if you don't meet the threshold qualifications for one it's very likely that we can roll you into the a different pool where you will meet the eligibility requirements and get some
  • 03:40:41
    relief.
  • 03:40:41
    And so it's very rare that we have to say no to anyone now based on this.
  • 03:40:45
    It's really great.
  • 03:40:47
    Sorry, I interrupted somebody.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:40:49
    Oh, no.
  • 03:40:49
    And it's very important.
  • 03:40:52
    And I know that we had a conversation last week in hopes, and I hope that it's working out.
  • 03:40:57
    I haven't received that update, but we do have potentially
  • 03:41:03
    some staff that could support the workload that the hotline is taking on.
  • 03:41:11
    And that's something that I'm hoping will work out in the future for the city as a whole.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:41:22
    Well, again, I bring it up because with that money,
  • 03:41:31
    TJ PDC has access to is competitive statewide in terms of if you get the money out quicker, you have access to more money.
  • 03:41:41
    And we have the potential to access more of that pool of money if we're making decisions that accelerate the amount of money we're putting out and the speed of it.
  • 03:41:53
    If we can make decisions that accelerate that, that opens up more money to us that we wouldn't otherwise have.
  • 03:42:01
    So I just bring it up because it's a potential area of synergy that could increase the pool of money that we're increasing on people we're able to support.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:42:10
    And the hope is that that money will actually continue to flow after January 1, which is unique in consideration of the CARES money.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:42:19
    Okay.
  • 03:42:24
    All right, so we'll open the public hearing at this time.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:42:27
    I can't hear Brian.
  • 03:42:41
    Sorry, Brian.
  • 03:42:45
    No.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 03:42:58
    Well, I couldn't hear Brian either, but can you guys hear me?
  • 03:43:03
    Yes.
  • 03:43:05
    It's Brian Collins.
  • 03:43:07
    I am a lifelong resident of Charlottesville.
  • 03:43:10
    My whole life I have three children who've lived here their whole lives.
  • 03:43:15
    I care a lot about this community.
  • 03:43:17
    I know you all do too.
  • 03:43:18
    I know this is a frustrating decision that you all have to work through.
  • 03:43:23
    I will say, you know, you've done a pretty good job with your first round of CARES Act funding.
  • 03:43:29
    and I know that y'all are taking this seriously.
  • 03:43:33
    The community is in crisis and there's a lot of need like Ms.
  • 03:43:37
    Demick says and I think you're gonna see an increasing need.
  • 03:43:43
    I just wanna throw out there what I said about the first round which is I think that you place too much on the economic, the business support piece and I wonder if that's a place where you might look at to
  • 03:43:59
    to peel off some funding to meet human needs, of which there are many and of which you've got new applications for things that I think for the most part are things that will help the city.
  • 03:44:12
    So I work for FAR, the Resident Council for Public Housing in Charlottesville.
  • 03:44:17
    We got a grant from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
  • 03:44:21
    The funds are about to run out.
  • 03:44:23
    That's allowed us to run a couple of things, but primarily,
  • 03:44:28
    getting food to public housing residents.
  • 03:44:31
    And the main goal of this is to make it so people can remain safe in their home instead of interacting so that they are safe from the virus.
  • 03:44:40
    And so the recipients of this program are primarily folks who are vulnerable to the virus and we've had a lot of success with it.
  • 03:44:50
    There's a lot of great side benefits to the work we've been doing.
  • 03:44:55
    We're not a service organization.
  • 03:44:56
    We're an organizing organization.
  • 03:44:59
    But, you know, we get to talk to people a whole lot more.
  • 03:45:02
    We find out their other needs and we find other ways to help them.
  • 03:45:04
    And it's been a really great success.
  • 03:45:07
    And I think it's much needed.
  • 03:45:12
    As for, I haven't seen much of CRHA's application.
  • 03:45:16
    But I do think what they're proposing will alleviate some of the stress off of the city's rent relief.
  • 03:45:24
    It'll be a tiny little bit.
  • 03:45:26
    But right now, public housing residents can access what they're getting through the relief that Ms.
  • 03:45:32
    Demick's providing.
  • 03:45:35
    So a little bit of that stress is going to be relieved through CRHA's efforts.
  • 03:45:40
    And it'll be a nice fell swoop to be able to deal with that.
  • 03:45:43
    And I think that will be hugely impactful.
  • 03:45:46
    I really do think this is a hard decision.
  • 03:45:48
    There is a lot of great need.
  • 03:45:49
    And I just really hope you can prioritize the community over business needs.
  • 03:45:54
    And when you're looking at business, please think about health and businesses that are making sure that people are, that they're not making the health situation worse.
  • 03:46:07
    So thank you.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 03:46:07
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:46:13
    Can you hear me now?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:46:15
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:46:16
    Excellent.
  • 03:46:17
    As I was saying, if you'd like to speak to council, click the raise hand icon, or you can press star nine if you're on via telephone.
  • 03:46:26
    Our next hand up is Don Gathers.
  • 03:46:29
    Don, you're on with council.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 03:46:30
    Good evening.
  • 03:46:33
    Excuse me once again, council.
  • 03:46:35
    Good evening.
  • 03:46:35
    Excuse me.
  • 03:46:39
    As Brandon just said, in working for FAR, we certainly are doing all that we can to help the
  • 03:46:46
    the residents of our public housing community, recognizing that, as you said so eloquently, there's a vast amount of need and of trauma and despair in the community.
  • 03:47:00
    Just please recognize that housing is one of those greatest needs.
  • 03:47:04
    And our coupling with the Food Justice Network and also in cooperation and partnering with, if you will,
  • 03:47:16
    with the Housing Authority, we are trying to address some of the systemic issues that are going on in the community as it relates to housing.
  • 03:47:26
    So while we are gearing up to try to take care of as many folks as we possibly can, please remember our residents in public housing and low income housing who were facing needs long before the
  • 03:47:45
    the pandemic ever hit.
  • 03:47:48
    So please take that into consideration.
  • 03:47:50
    Look at the, with some very stern interest, the requests coming to you from FAR, as well as those requests coming to you from CRHA.
  • 03:47:59
    Thank you all very much.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 03:48:01
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:48:06
    And Mayor Walker, there are no other hands raised.
  • 03:48:09
    Yup, we have one.
  • 03:48:12
    Jay James, you're on the city council.
  • 03:48:15
    You've got three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_46
  • 03:48:17
    All right, thank you, Brian.
  • 03:48:19
    Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of City Council.
  • 03:48:23
    Just watching the meeting tonight, I certainly can appreciate all of the hard work and just very grateful for this opportunity.
  • 03:48:29
    Just want to follow up on some of the comments that
  • 03:48:31
    I was able to share with you and we've sent you some written information as well.
  • 03:48:35
    My name is Jay James, 169 Brookwood Drive in the city.
  • 03:48:38
    I'm the assistant director of the Bridge Ministry substance abuse and reentry program on behalf of our executive director, William Washington and our team.
  • 03:48:46
    Again, grateful for the opportunity to just share a few things.
  • 03:48:49
    You know, drug court was discussed a little bit earlier in the meeting and I was able to sit back and listen to some of that.
  • 03:48:55
    And I would just offer to you, as I said before, it's a good program.
  • 03:48:58
    And I believe the Bridge Ministry Program is something that can work in partnership with drug court.
  • 03:49:03
    For example, if people are not successful in it, rather than sending them to jail, as the mayor and some of you alluded to, if they're not successful, they could come to our inpatient program.
  • 03:49:14
    which is 18 months in duration and we have an 86% success rate and offer vocational training.
  • 03:49:21
    We have a partnership with Piedmont Virginia Community College that offers HVAC, electrical training, welding, heavy equipment, and the opportunity to attain a career.
  • 03:49:31
    of $12 to $24 an hour.
  • 03:49:33
    So we have a great relationship with the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.
  • 03:49:36
    We're committed to getting people out of the jail so they can escape the threat of the virus because we already know the statistics about those enclosed spaces.
  • 03:49:44
    This is all information that you all have and concern over the public interest.
  • 03:49:48
    And when there was a recent outbreak, we were an integral part of that communication process under Colonel Coomer's leadership that kept that facility safe during that point.
  • 03:50:00
    During the first wave of people who were released on home electronic monitoring, some of those individuals were not successful, just like we were talking about if they were sanctioned in drug court or they were released in the community in their old environment and just needed to do something different.
  • 03:50:16
    The re-offendant went back into the facility, while some of those individuals are in our program,
  • 03:50:21
    and doing extremely well, passing their certification classes.
  • 03:50:25
    They're gonna have three to four certifications before they leave our program.
  • 03:50:29
    They're preparing for that guaranteed career opportunity I told you about, earning to be able to earn a living.
  • 03:50:36
    They'll move into our intern house and be a tax paying productive citizen.
  • 03:50:40
    And most importantly, we won't have to spend any more money to incarcerate them.
  • 03:50:44
    So over 70% of the individuals we serve are homeless, over 90% are indigent.
  • 03:50:49
    But of course, our number one concern with CARES Act funding is protecting them from the threat of the virus.
  • 03:50:55
    We test everyone for COVID-19 in our partnership with the jail before they can come to our facility so we have a clean, safe, and secure bubble environment for these people to receive addiction treatment, receive vocational training, and ultimately change their lives.
  • 03:51:12
    Our allocation or what we're requesting is $200,000 and we're grateful for the consideration of counsel.
  • 03:51:20
    I made it.
  • 03:51:24
    Thank you all so much and appreciate your work.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 03:51:32
    Mayor Walker, no other hands are raised.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:51:34
    Okay, thank you.
  • 03:51:36
    I just have one question for Mr. James in terms of
  • 03:51:41
    How many City of Charlottesville residents are they currently serving or plan, would hope to serve, I guess, with the $200,000 request?
• • SPEAKER_46
  • 03:51:53
    It's a great question, Madam Mayor, thank you.
  • 03:51:55
    What we've done, this community is where our program started 25 years ago.
  • 03:52:00
    We've allocated 30 beds to serve the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail and serve our community.
  • 03:52:06
    The criminal justice system is something that takes time.
  • 03:52:09
    So currently, at last count, we had seven city residents.
  • 03:52:12
    We have six on home electronic monitoring that are in our program.
  • 03:52:16
    And we have those 30 beds that are reserved.
  • 03:52:18
    We have others who want to enter our program.
  • 03:52:21
    But honestly, Madam Mayor, they're still in jail waiting for the opportunity to come to our program.
  • 03:52:28
    And there are several individuals who want to do that.
  • 03:52:31
    We get referrals on a regular basis from the classification staff, people asking for applications and referrals from attorneys.
  • 03:52:39
    Joe Platania has been wonderful to work with, as he has at times suggested that we just grab 20 people and put them all at one time and send them
  • 03:52:49
    But obviously, it involves the judges.
  • 03:52:50
    It involves the prosecutors.
  • 03:52:51
    It involves defense attorneys.
  • 03:52:53
    And my job as the assistant director is to work closely with all of those individuals.
  • 03:52:57
    So please, I don't mean to take you all have had a long meeting.
  • 03:53:00
    And I don't want to take too much of your time.
  • 03:53:02
    But we've reserved those 30 beds.
  • 03:53:04
    There are people trying to get into our program right now.
  • 03:53:07
    And we're just going to do everything we can.
  • 03:53:08
    I'm back at it tomorrow to try to work with these attorneys and prosecutors so that they can attain this opportunity.
• • SPEAKER_39
  • 03:53:16
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_46
  • 03:53:17
    Yes, ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:53:20
    OK.
  • 03:53:20
    All right.
  • 03:53:22
    So no other hands, then I'll close the public hearing.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:53:31
    I have a question whenever I have a chance.
  • 03:53:35
    All right.
  • 03:53:38
    So we have to spend this money by December 31st.
  • 03:53:42
    Is that correct?
  • 03:53:43
    As far as we know.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:53:45
    Yes, ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:53:49
    And it's October 5th.
  • 03:53:54
    What are we thinking a contingency fund might be used for then in the next three months?
  • 03:54:00
    I mean, what is, I mean, I understand in generally in savings, we want a contingency fund, but if we only have October, November, December, we have three months to spend this money.
  • 03:54:12
    We already saw with the tech area the first time around that sometimes
  • 03:54:17
    While we might line things up to spend, it might not be able to be spent in time, wouldn't it?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 03:54:25
    So... Well, I will let Mr. Cullen in also expound on this, but I think there are things in the operational category right now that it's conceivable that something between now and December 31st
  • 03:54:45
    might require some expenditure.
  • 03:54:47
    I'm not saying that it will, but I'd say operational modifications are probably where you would likely see something kind of pop up.
  • 03:54:58
    But also, and again, I'll turn it over to Chris.
  • 03:55:02
    I think sometimes you have to think about we're one city of 48,000 folks.
  • 03:55:07
    There
  • 03:55:14
    We're an entire nation and honestly with globalization in the entire world of supply chain issues and in this country where everybody's going to be operating so far under the premise of spending by December 31st
  • 03:55:30
    Some of these things, I mean, you just don't know the procurement process, extra charges, extra shipping, things are estimates right now.
  • 03:55:39
    But again, I'll let Chris talk more about that and any other ways that the contingency might be necessary.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:55:49
    Thank you.
  • 03:55:50
    And that was certainly a consideration we took with both the first allocation and the second allocation in terms of requests was the likelihood of successfully spending it within that time frame.
  • 03:56:07
    But that being said, as John mentioned,
  • 03:56:11
    We are running into some supply chain issues.
  • 03:56:13
    Some of the things we're trying to procure, so is the rest of the world.
  • 03:56:18
    The plan at this point is that when we get into the mid-November timeframe is to reach out to those team leads, the staff leads for each of these funding categories and do a look at where they think they are in terms of being able to
  • 03:56:39
    procure and spend those funds by the end of the calendar year.
  • 03:56:45
    We are able to reimburse ourselves for expenses related to COVID, which we do have and have been tracking since March.
  • 03:56:55
    You know, the predominant, you know, the majority of the request for allocation one, allocation two were really more prospective.
  • 03:57:03
    They were looking ahead to needs.
  • 03:57:08
    and not really addressing things that we had already spent.
  • 03:57:12
    So to me, that's the fallback strategy with whatever we can't spend is that we can reimburse ourselves for COVID related expenses to ensure that we maximize those CARES funds and don't have to write a check back to Washington.
• • SPEAKER_44
  • 03:57:37
    Do we have an estimate right now as to just an idea of how much those expenses are?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:57:43
    I haven't honestly looked at that report in a while, so I would have to do a little digging to get that number for you.
• • 03:57:49
    OK.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:57:55
    So I'm just curious if we are in a position where we've talked about ways that this contingency could be used.
• • 03:58:04
    It's 10 30.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:58:05
    I'm just trying to figure out like, what are some decision points we can do right now versus what can we have staff look at?
  • 03:58:11
    Because we just got another request just now.
  • 03:58:13
    I just think it's important that we look at these requests holistically, and then determine how we're going to allocate the contingency between internal and external needs along the same lines that Miss Demick and staff have looked at it before.
  • 03:58:29
    I think for me, it's certainly like, what are those most immediate
  • 03:58:32
    So I'd like to offer, possibly offer a strategy based on the discussion we've had so far.
  • 03:58:37
    I really haven't heard a lot of
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:59:02
    concerns or questions regarding the funding categories, with the exception of the contingency.
  • 03:59:09
    That seems to be where we spend most of our time this evening.
  • 03:59:13
    Possible path forward would be for you all to approve the appropriation as written.
  • 03:59:20
    And then staff, we can develop a comprehensive briefing document for you on what we've received so far.
  • 03:59:29
    We've actually done a fair amount of that already, but it's mostly emails and back and forth.
  • 03:59:34
    And so I think we could probably pull that together fairly quickly in the next few days.
  • 03:59:40
    Get that to you and then give you all the opportunity to review that, ask some questions, and then figure out exactly what the formal action is to allocate some of that reserve.
  • 03:59:51
    But that would be a modest suggestion at this point.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 03:59:57
    Was there somebody that had a comment?
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:00:01
    I was just going to say, I guess I was thinking, I think functionally this is probably functions the same as what you suggested was, but I was just thinking like,
  • 04:00:11
    like with the two requests from FAR and CRHA, it's about $190,000 sort of earmarking that $190,000 knowing that the ultimate goal is spending it on that community support of some kind, at least individually given the information we have so far.
  • 04:00:29
    I think those would definitely be top priorities for me, but still being able to see if we get any additional requests just to evaluate the full context
  • 04:00:40
    And I guess I think that functions similar to what you were saying, but I would definitely want to make sure that like with those, we earmark that money as a priority to spend in community support rather than other areas.
  • 04:00:52
    And at least for me, given the requests we've received so far, I think those seem to be particularly important ones.
  • 04:01:00
    But I don't know.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:01:02
    And I would just like to recommend that even that community support category as a whole,
  • 04:01:10
    that we look at all of that together.
  • 04:01:14
    And if we go back to even the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club requests, even though I know that we heard those numbers, we're still talking about a population of children, even if it's not the amount requested.
  • 04:01:32
    We're talking about youth that are not going to be reached in those two programs.
  • 04:01:37
    We still don't know while, like Kaki told us, 163 students at YMCA, in the Brooks family portion and not Walker, any student from any district can go there.
  • 04:01:51
    So we don't, we, do we have the number of even how many of our youth is that total 163 all Charlottesville City students?
  • 04:02:03
    and then even thinking of that in terms of the program at Walker School, what additional support because this request came after that program was already established.
  • 04:02:18
    So when I
  • 04:02:24
    As we move forward, I just would like us to think about the fact that Buford Middle School students, Shalsa High School students, I know it's easy to write off and looking at that amount as a year-long program when there is consideration for it, and that it's attempting to meet students and see if they can be successful.
  • 04:02:49
    who are at home where we voted, I guess where we made some decisions and the school board made some decisions about where the students should be during the pandemic.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:03:06
    And I did have one final thought, which in thinking about this,
  • 04:03:16
    I say this in the context of every request we get, there is a legitimate basis for saying why this is important and needed and a good thing.
  • 04:03:29
    And we're just, unfortunately, with the limited amount of money, every decision is evaluating trade-offs when every option has some real legitimate purpose and need and benefit and just evaluating, you know,
  • 04:03:45
    Again, just the trade-offs of each decision and in thinking about that just at this meeting when we're thinking about entering the fall and winter and the pressures that's going to create in terms of homelessness and I do think that the housing crisis is
  • 04:04:00
    hasn't really begun.
  • 04:04:01
    I think we're going to see that really accelerate once the potential for some of these state and federal supports, the timelines for those runs out in terms of moratoriums and various things.
  • 04:04:14
    And I do think when we're looking at the trade-offs, that additional $120,000 to employee support,
  • 04:04:19
    In thinking about it, I do think we're just meeting more vital needs if we're moving that into community support for like the resource hotline and things like that.
  • 04:04:28
    And so I would just throw that out thinking again, just in terms of those trade offs.
  • 04:04:34
    if that 120,000 has any potential to, rather than employee support, prevent eviction or homelessness, that that would just be the most effective impact that we could make with those dollars.
  • 04:04:46
    So I would just throw that out as well as I think we may be able to just meet more crisis, vital needs with that 120,000 moving to community support.
  • 04:04:59
    I may be alone on that, but.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:05:02
    No, I, I, I share some of that thought as well.
  • 04:05:06
    I will say I'm, I've been looking more at the, the student mentoring proposal and I'm struck, and maybe this is the wrong way for me to be looking at it.
  • 04:05:16
    And I'm happy to be told that I am wrong.
  • 04:05:18
    Uh, but if the, if the Y has a hundred and 163 kids over there,
  • 04:05:28
    And we've given them $180,000, roughly $1,000 per kid.
  • 04:05:29
    The Boys and Girls Club is getting roughly $3,500 per kid.
  • 04:05:32
    Here we're going to be doing $5,000 per kid.
  • 04:05:34
    I guess my question would be,
  • 04:05:43
    is there something distinctive about, let's say the 10 students who would be assigned to them where we would say these students are more problematic or they're a group that can't be served in some other way.
  • 04:06:04
    What would be the justification for what's such a significantly larger cost per student helped?
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:06:12
    And so I think that's something that I've been advocating for since I've been on council, just if we look at programs that we are consistent in terms of what we're spending and ensuring that we get the most efficient service for the dollars that we are spending.
  • 04:06:42
    And as I stated before, the conversation that I had with Dr. Atkins is around these are not kids who are problematic.
  • 04:06:53
    It's kids who are struggling at an age where we typically start losing students that are showing already in the first half of the first nine weeks that they are struggling with virtual learning.
  • 04:07:09
    And that rate of $25 or so an hour will include prep,
  • 04:07:20
    the actual encounters and which I think will probably exceed basically even what you know we are thinking because you're talking about ensuring for them to be successful they have to ensure that students needs are met daily that they'll check in with them throughout the day at the end of the day beginning of the day they you know they have students who are
  • 04:07:48
    signing on to virtual learning but are not participating after that sign on.
  • 04:07:53
    So part of this will be attempting to get those individuals engaged during the day and helping ensure that weekends their work is being done and that they are ready for Monday again and
  • 04:08:12
    So that's the line of thinking and it's not just a cut and dry because really they're going to have to go into the community, start meeting with the youth that they'll be serving and then figure out which each youth needs are.
  • 04:08:29
    But based on what you just said,
  • 04:08:33
    in terms of, you know, one costing 2,000 something dollars, one causing 3,500.
  • 04:08:39
    I think that's something that we should always, always, you know, look at and ensure that there's an alignment and that if there's a better use of funds somewhere else.
  • 04:08:54
    And so I wouldn't stop advocating for that now.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 04:09:01
    And I just want to get back to Mr. Cullinan's recommendation that we move forward with this appropriation that's been outlined and that we allow staff an opportunity to evaluate all the requests that are coming in through a similar lens of what is meeting the most urgent needs of the community, what's going to serve the most folks in the community.
  • 04:09:20
    And I agree that putting more towards the community support area is something that I certainly will get behind, but I also just feel like we have to look at all of these things holistically.
  • 04:09:31
    and I just don't feel like I'm in a position at this point and we have several more items on the agenda to do that right now.
  • 04:09:38
    I would like staff to weigh in on this because they've been looking at all the other allocations and how they've been considering them.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 04:09:51
    I think based on what I'm hearing and some of the numbers I cited earlier, I think we would essentially reserve the entire contingency amount at this point.
  • 04:09:58
    The five
  • 04:10:01
    request that you've already received a total of almost $559,000.
  • 04:10:06
    So I think for purposes of right now, we can just, as a staff, just know that there's at least that much in requests and interests and possibly even a little bit more at this point.
  • 04:10:24
    If it's council's choice to move this forward, again, I think it's at this point, not hearing a lot of discussion or consensus around the other funding categories, that would certainly could be a starting, you know, could certainly adopt that portion of the appropriation.
  • 04:10:40
    And again, we would keep the 625 as a contingency reserve, but we know that there's further discussion.
  • 04:10:46
    And frankly, at this point, I don't,
  • 04:10:49
    for seeing any need with the other allocations that we would actually need to tap that anytime soon.
  • 04:10:53
    So I think we would have a little bit of time for you all to have a more thoughtful conversation about that dollar amount and the various proposals that you've received.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:11:02
    We do need to remove the dollars for the employee support from the contingency.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 04:11:10
    The decision was to remove the 381 and put that down to the reserve.
  • 04:11:16
    Yes, that would be somewhat different.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:11:19
    Well, no.
  • 04:11:20
    I thought there was an additional request.
  • 04:11:22
    Was it 119?
  • 04:11:22
    Yes, ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 04:11:23
    So I think we had arrived at a total of 500,000.
  • 04:11:25
    And so the 381 is already baked in, for lack of a better term.
  • 04:11:35
    into that category and then the difference would be taken out of the contingency reserve and that total number of 559 that I gave you includes that additional approximately 118 along with the other requests that have been made so far so that that additional piece would be in the mix in terms of the contingency reserve considerations.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:11:57
    So that's what if council if that is something that you all can agree with for us to remove that additional funding for the employee support to the to add it to the 381 and then the remaining contingency reserve for us to look at that the next council meeting and vote on that based off of the recommendations that we get from staff.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 04:12:26
    I guess one question since Michael, I thought I understood Michael to be suggesting that maybe he would be more interested in putting that money towards rent relief rather than towards additional pay for staff.
  • 04:12:43
    Have I fairly summarized your thought there?
  • 04:12:45
    Michael, I don't mean to put words in your mouth.
• • Michael Payne
  • 04:12:48
    That would definitely be accurate.
  • 04:12:50
    I think where I would be at is keeping that 118 in the contingency fund
  • 04:12:55
    I mean, my preference would be for rent relief, some kind of vital community support and keeping that $118,000 in the contingency fund to evaluate in that context of every request we get.
  • 04:13:07
    Because again, Ron, just thinking about every choice we make having trade-offs, if we've got requests and the need coming in,
  • 04:13:16
    that, you know, it's going to be a zero sum game where that $118,000 goes to that additional employee support versus emergency rental relief for folks who'd be facing eviction or homelessness.
  • 04:13:27
    I just think we're making the deeper, more vital impact in that area rather than the employee support.
  • 04:13:33
    And I wouldn't feel comfortable
  • 04:13:35
    saying we're going to prioritize that additional employee support over any other requests we get in.
  • 04:13:41
    Now, if it turns out, I doubt this will be the case, but if it turns out we don't get enough requests for vital community support that would exhaust the contingency fund and there's funds left over, then I would definitely be open to adding that to additional employee support.
  • 04:13:54
    But again, just think about that trade-off.
  • 04:13:56
    I just think that's the more vital emergency need.
  • 04:14:04
    Final question for city staff is, would you know what the rough timeline would be in terms of when we would be making a fine decision as council?
  • 04:14:15
    And would that be something that requires us to take a formal vote or have as an agenda item?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 04:14:24
    Well, I think there are two ways to look at this.
  • 04:14:31
    One is,
  • 04:14:34
    The contingency and there's the language about the city manager having some authority about moving funds between categories.
  • 04:14:45
    What I would propose is the following.
  • 04:14:48
    I think you're right in terms of we probably don't want to pull that 118 out right now.
  • 04:14:57
    You probably do want to evaluate things holistically.
  • 04:15:03
    I think it is also a good suggestion.
  • 04:15:06
    We should check with the Planning District Commission to see exactly when we're talking about these housing support initiatives, how to actually maximize those dollars.
  • 04:15:23
    And like you said, I mean, ultimately, if this is a case of if the city is spending money,
  • 04:15:30
    that TJPDC's program would cover as well.
  • 04:15:33
    I think we want the planning district commission because the city has a certain allocation out of that money.
  • 04:15:39
    And like you stated, those dollars don't have to be spent by December 31st.
  • 04:15:45
    And also they get replenished.
  • 04:15:49
    So it would make no sense for us not to at least look at that issue.
  • 04:15:55
    In terms of the contingency, I would prefer we take a look at the proposals tonight and come back to you as a staff with analysis on each of the proposals we've heard tonight and present it to you at your next council meeting.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 04:16:12
    You didn't mean that staff is going to look at them tonight.
  • 04:16:15
    I think that you would.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 04:16:16
    Right.
  • 04:16:16
    The proposals presented.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 04:16:17
    You didn't say that.
  • 04:16:18
    I'm just making sure.
  • 04:16:19
    I saw a couple of reactions, and I'm like, I don't think you will.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:16:24
    And so my only concern there is that we are expanding even from the CPD-CFD Sheriff's Office.
  • 04:16:34
    This proposal for 381 includes DSS and we've already established that human services is included and that we're going to pull funding from the CARES 1
  • 04:16:51
    Um, allocations to go to that.
  • 04:16:53
    So there's really no way for us to say, and this time we're only going to go back to three or four categories.
  • 04:17:02
    Um, and then my other issue is looking at the way it's been, um, no matter what we do in the community support category.
  • 04:17:12
    Cause I think as Michael, um, counselor pain has stated.
  • 04:17:15
    that if we heard these stories, just like we do during the vibrant community time of budget season, that they are all things that we would want, hope that they are being done as presented and that we would want to fund.
  • 04:17:31
    But my main issue with this is that
  • 04:17:35
    I think every other category we, someone has voiced, you know, concerns about like, even when we talked about, you know, someone mentioned the business, you know, support fund.
  • 04:17:46
    And we know that when we're talking about stability, and we heard some of the business owners discuss this earlier,
  • 04:17:56
    that for the businesses that are struggling the most, they will need support.
  • 04:18:01
    But we have not touched whether this $1.2 million allocations twice, the largest allocation both times, whether that was the best use of funding and
  • 04:18:19
    And I know this time we've been told that this allocation will be going primarily to schools.
  • 04:18:26
    But it is something that I think that we should have questioned both times.
  • 04:18:35
    And so it's just something to think about when we're talking about trade-off.
  • 04:18:41
    I don't think that our employees should be the first category that we are willing to put on hold.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 04:18:52
    When I think about the dollars that are being allocated, I just assume there would be a reshuffling of those dollars to still be able to provide supports to all of the categories of employees that we're trying to cover.
  • 04:19:02
    But the dollar amounts may be different than what was originally forecasted so that we're still trying to work within the limits of what's been allocated for now and then revisiting it later.
  • 04:19:11
    So that's just kind of where I was thinking with that.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:19:17
    But with CARES dollars, we are not able to expand those categories.
  • 04:19:22
    So we have to.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 04:19:22
    I'm just saying that 381 was supposed to be a certain amount was assumed by Ms.
  • 04:19:27
    Shelton and whoever.
  • 04:19:29
    was going to be amount for this type of role versus this type of role.
  • 04:19:32
    The 381 is still there.
  • 04:19:33
    It's just how it gets distributed might be a little different because it might be more limiting.
  • 04:19:38
    And maybe it won't.
  • 04:19:40
    Maybe we're going to circle back here and we're going to be like, no, this is something that's still a priority.
  • 04:19:43
    I'm not saying it's not a priority.
  • 04:19:45
    I just feel like right now there's way too many balls in the air and I would like to just look at this contingency dollars holistically and also from the similar decision making that's happened to date.
  • 04:19:55
    And I just, I've said that though, so.
• • SPEAKER_40
  • 04:19:59
    All right, so is there a motion?