Planning Commission Work Session   11/28/2023

All right, ladies and gentlemen.

So hopefully you guys will have lots of good questions to ask.

In between now

going back and forth between the city manager and the budget team.

So when we meet in January, we're not building the budget.

I remember one meeting my first year as chair many years ago.

We ended up leaving around 2 o'clock because we're actually building the budget.

So let's do a deep dive today.

Let's get questions back and forth between the city manager and the budget people.

And let's be pretty much ready

After, of course, we've gotten input from the public to move this thing along.

All right, sir.

Thank you.

I just want to say that I don't want to be up until 2 o'clock in the morning building anything.

So that'd be nice.

I just want to thank you all for this opportunity.

This being my first budget that I'm responsible for submitting, it's been a lot of work.

There's still a lot of work to be done.

Of course, we start with the CIP as that process, as the process begins, and then we delve deeper into making the rest of the sausage before it is presented to Council.

We have been working hard already.

This is going to be an interesting budget cycle for us.

There are a great number of priorities, as you all well know.

Council having adopted their strategic outcome areas in September, identifying nine areas and a commitment to JEDI, therefore 10.

and how to balance all those things.

That has been the charge that I've been given.

It's the charge that I've accepted.

And our goal is to make sure that this budget that is presented to Council is reflective of those 10 priorities.

The effort thus far has been to make sure that we can firm up what is in the CIP, make room for new items.

We have made significant room for new items.

We've addressed some critical things that have been floating more conceptually in years past.

We've pretty much tried to attack some of those things specifically in this five-year proposal that you have in front of you.

And then, of course, we'll do the harder work of making sure that the FY25 budget does balance because that is my obligation to bring forward a balanced budget.

Our budget director is at home ill.

She's pushing through.

So I'm going to turn it over to her, and she's going to run you through the normal, formal presentation.

And one thing we want to do, if you've got a question, go ahead and interrupt and ask the question.

I apologize for not being able to be there in person.

I also apologize for my voice, but hopefully we won't make it through.

So as we mentioned, this is a draft CIP.

It's a draft for the next five years for 25 through 29.

Next slide, please.

So tonight we're going to just do a little bit of a review from a lot of you to talk about what is the capital project, what is the capital improvement program, what is the budget, why do we do a five-year CIP, and how does the process work?

Next slide, please.

So what is a capital project?

The special characteristics of that is basically the project has to have an essential public purpose.

It usually has a long useful life, which is at least five years, typically much longer than that, usually non-recurring and non-operational, and generally speaking, more than $50,000.

Next slide, please.

So some examples from the last few capital project plans is you all are well versed with the Kindlewood development.

Last year was the first year we actually added some dedicated dollars to the CIP for our climate action plan to address those initiatives.

We added a million dollars last year and this five-year plan adds a million dollars for all five of the next year.

We also are replacing some traffic signal infrastructure in addition to replacing the CHS roof replacement.

Next slide, please.

So the capital budget is a multi-year plan.

We do a five-year plan and it forecasts spending and revenues for all anticipated capital projects.

So while we formally do a five-year plan, we have had discussions with council about actually sort of doing an informal 10-year plan to kind of pencil out some of the bigger things that we have in mind.

And we

have not done a lot of work on that yet, but we are going to be discussing that with council.

It also should build on the comprehensive plan and it should also address the repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure and the development of new facilities as well.

Next slide, please.

So what is the difference between an operating and a capital budget?

Basically, the operating budget has a shorter duration.

That's basically one year.

And then anything that's not spent is that appropriation goes away or falls to the fund balance as opposed to the capital budget where those budgets carry forward from year to year until the project is actually complete.

Additionally, the operating budget covers the day-to-day expenses, pens, pencils, personnel, things like that, whereas the capital budget includes large investments, building sidewalks, or some of the other projects that I mentioned.

Next slide, please.

So why do we do five years?

We hope that this five-year plan provides a framework that involves our citizens in defining the future of the community.

It should also reflect the priorities of council and the city overall.

It should determine the long-term cost of new growth.

And it also can help encourage regional cooperation on joint projects, such as with the county

Next slide, please.

So basically a well-planned CIP ensures that major expenditures are aligned with community expectations, the anticipated growth, all while making sure that it also remains within our financial capabilities.

So next slide, please.

So what did the process look like this year?

We heard loud and clear from our departments last year that they spent a lot of time submitting new requests to us and they either didn't make it in or they fell by the wayside.

So we were a little bit more intentional with new requests this year.

We started in August.

We had departments submit those new requests and we had them submit very high level basic information.

The result of that was the file that I sent out, I believe came out earlier yesterday or today.

And those submissions were all reviewed.

It went from to the budget team reviewed them as well as the individual, the deputy city managers reviewed them with their departments as well.

And then we evaluated those as a budget team and came up with the draft that you have before you.

So the next steps are basically through November and January.

We will present this to you all for your feedback.

The city manager will take all of that under consideration, and then that will go into what will be his formally presented proposed budget, which will be presented to council in March.

And then council will take that and do as they plan wish with it, and they will formally adopt the budget in April.

Next slide, please.

So some of the criteria that we use when we're looking at this and some of the things we ask departments to look at when they were submitting projects was, was there a legal mandate, something that we had to do that was required by law, a regulation, a court mandate or some other liability?

Was there a public health and safety issue present?

Did this project eliminate or prevent an existing hazard?

Was it something that came out of the city council or city manager strategic work plan?

Does it help further those goals?

And then finally, does this project help meet the goals of the city's current comprehensive plan?

Next slide, please.

Additionally, we looked at environmental sustainability.

You know, the things that we added last year for the climate action plan.

Does this help?

Does the particular project help further that those goals and commitments?

We looked at the infrastructure investment.

Does this help protect to preserve the city's current infrastructure?

And then finally, what is the impact on the city's operational finances and ability to generate revenue?

Will the project have a positive, neutral or negative impact on the city's finances?

Next slide, please.

Sorry, I got to take a sip of water.

So some of the areas that were given special consideration.

Did the project tie to other existing or proposed projects?

Was there demonstrated public support for the project?

Are we leveraging or have the ability to leverage other outside funding, such as grants or otherwise?

Will the project be done in partnership with one or more other organizations?

And does the project increase the level of service provided by the city?

Next slide, please.

So one of the most important things when we look at the CIP is we need to make sure that whatever we're planning on spending actually balances to the available revenues.

As you know, we have a policy that no less than 3% of our general fund budget goes to the CIP as a transfer as cash.

We also finance a lot of the projects by selling bonds.

And then we also work in partnership with the schools who have contributed money, as well as the Stribling Avenue project, which was a unique opportunity to leverage some other funding, outside funding as well.

Next slide, please.

As you know, has a AAA bond rating and every year when we talk about the budget and the CIP, we talk about our debt capacity and our ability to sell bonds.

At one point, we were a lot of the conversation was that we were bumping up against our capacity.

but in the last few years as you know we've continued to have a very strong recovery from COVID as well as a very strong real estate market which has contributed to the growth of our general fund budget making our capacity not so much the issue as affordability so even though we have the capacity to issue the bonds we still have to pay them back

and all of this hinges on our financial stability.

So with our bond rating as a AAA bond rating, the city is fortunate enough to be one of only 125 cities nationwide that maintains a AAA bond rating from both Moody's and S&P.

We're also only one of 10 Virginia cities and towns who maintain that distinction.

Next slide, please.

Bond rating every year is an independent review of really the entire city operation.

The rating agencies review everything from our financials to our plans, such as the CIP, and they take all of that into review and make a determination on our creditworthiness and also our ability to repay our debt.

So again, we've been AAA bond rated from Standard & Poor's since 1964 and Moody's since 1973.

This bond rating allows us to borrow funds at the lowest possible cost and also helps maintain by the fact that we're paying a lower interest rate, we are able to have more dollars available for projects.

it's also very attractive in attracting economic development prospects and essentially we do this writing every year we've gotten in so that we are basically selling bonds every year and every bond issue has to be separately rated so this becomes an annual review next slide please

So here's a summary of the current draft that you have before you.

As you'll note, the revenues in every year do match the anticipated expenditures.

If we were to look at just in terms of the total dollars over the five-year plan, and if we were to speak about budgeting in terms of our priorities, you would see that affordable housing is coming in first, transportation and access is coming in second,

and education is coming in third.

Next slide, please.

So we'll take just a little bit of a little deeper dive in each of these categories.

Here you will see that some of these accounts, especially in this education category, are recurring types of accounts that are in the CIP each year.

The lump sum to schools is basically money that is put in and helps address sort of the

of different parts of the building.

The priority improvements is an account that was established several years ago, and those dollars go through actually a school CIP committee process in which the schools decide

on a priority project each year.

So some of those projects have included like Clark School.

They redid a wing.

I think there was a library that was redone at one of the elementary schools.

But that's sort of a process that they go through independently.

The HVAC replacement is just exactly what it says.

The roof replacement is a rather large project that will be ongoing.

Interestingly enough, that project is being funded and will be built in such a way that we hope we will be able to secure other financing mechanisms to make that a solar roof, which would also help

Just out of curiosity on the lump sum to schools, what are we trying to get to?

I know there's possibly about $4 million in the fund right now of unspent expenditure.

Is there a goal?

I think what they would tell you is Mike Goddard, who is our project manager, who handles those projects, they have a lengthy project list that all of those dollars are allocated.

Sometimes they have to save more than another, but I think

If you ask schools and Mike, they probably tell you they could spend what they have and more.

I think there has been a delay because if you recall during COVID, we basically shut down the CIP for lack of a better word, not knowing what the impacts were going to be.

And so we suspended spending for almost a year.

And I would not anticipate that we would see that larger balance going forward Okay, thank you So, again, a separate question We talked a little bit when we met about Walker and what was happening with the money for Walker We've got a representative on this school board with us And he'd probably be interested in understanding what happened to the money

This was the money for Walker, the $17 million.

So the $17 million was the grant that we received.

We had applied for $7 million.

That was part of the arrangement that Council had approved in setting up Beaufort for the reconfiguration.

We were successful in getting $17 million.

That $17 million has not been allocated in the CIP because Council still has a decision to make in regards to how those funds are to be used.

Since they came in in excess of what we approved the Beaufort project to move forward on, there's some reconciliation of that particular matter.

There has been indication from the school that they would like us to use that money for Walker, but that is also the conversation that needs to happen with council.

Is there more needed for Buford?

Not that we have heard.

Or not for Buford.

Yeah, not that we have heard and hopefully not.

91 is a lot.

I think currently it's like 25 to 27, but I think that's a very rough estimate because there's no official design or anything.

And by the time we would determine a project year, you're going to add escalation for a couple years at least.

Any more questions on this slide?

I will say one other point here is that you'll see there are several roof replacements as you are all aware our school buildings are older buildings and we this was an attempt to start to build in a program for roof replacements so that we can get those replaced as they are all are aging and are at that point so

You do see several roof replacements here.

And if nobody has any questions, we can move on to the next slide.

So facilities, capital projects, again, some of these are things you see every year.

The lump sum to facilities is very similar to the lump sum to schools.

Again, they have sort of a multi-year layout plan of things they're going to spend that on.

the city and school solar PV program you'll see there's no funding in the out years and that is because we are hoping that we will be able to secure other funding through tax credits or some of the other performance agreements if those don't pan out those dollars may reappear in the CIP but for now we're hopeful we can find a different resource

The General District Court, a couple things here, as you know, we are sharing that project with the county.

We've already made the big city contribution to that.

However, the county did come back and there were some changes, I believe, that an additional hearing room was required.

And so that this $410,000 is for that hearing room.

And then the original cost estimate did not include

Furniture and fixtures that may be needed and that's basically what that 201 N26 is intended to address.

again the Ravana Solid Waste Authority, Baylor and Bailing Facility that is simply the city's contribution to that project that is actually a Ravana Solid Waste project and then the HVAC contingency fund as we know a lot of our HVAC systems are aging and there is a large parts delay and also just timing for replacement

I'm sorry, I passed over that.

What is it?

So that was something that we started last year.

Originally last year, we put in a million dollars.

At the time, we thought we were applying for a grant that would require a half a million dollar grant match.

Unfortunately, we weren't successful with that grant.

However,

There are multiple initiatives and a work plan that Ms.

Riddervold has put together for those dollars.

Yeah, so I don't have the specific action initiatives, but that work plan is the document that they're required to produce on an annual basis.

We do have an active work plan that is posted on the website on their page.

Those are the projects that they're working on, working on work plans across the entire organization at this moment.

So we're going to make sure that their work plan follows the fiscal year going forward.

So they'll be doing a new work plan for effective July 1, which this money would be a part of.

There's still some work to be done in this space of making sure that we identify clearly what are the things that we're tackling versus what are the things that people outside of the organization, city organization are tackling.

The million dollars is just intended to be available for that work as well as grants match because they are trying to go after as many grants as possible.

Yeah, that's why it's labeled climate action initiatives, so that it's not to earmark it specifically to restrict their use.

It'll be up to them.

They have to, I'll just say that is the climate team led by Crystal Ritterbold.

At the last council meeting, I also announced that forming an office of sustainability, pulling them out of public works, that is to elevate the priority that climate action is for this city and this organization.

so that they then will be responsible for reporting directly to me.

Well, they'll be both.

They'll be a combination of things.

It'll be grant match.

It'll be bondable because some of the projects will be for our buildings and school buildings.

So what happens if we end up net spending?

Does that just kind of roll into the next year?

It does roll.

Yeah, it does roll.

I would say with that, I mean, you've seen before that even though these accounts roll over, we do look at that.

And even though in many years, like sidewalks and other things, people have said, oh, you've reduced your funding.

Why aren't you funding this?

It's because we do go back and look at the available budgets.

and decide, hey, do we really need this million or are we still sitting on enough to make it through this year?

So we do look at that.

Let me also add that one of my priorities with the CIP specifically is to work the CIP.

We haven't really done a great job of working what is there.

We have all this money allocated for all these years, and when some money rolls over, there should be a reason why it's rolling over.

It should not be rolling over just because we didn't spend it.

And I would like to make sure that in our process we're trying to figure out why is it that it's not, if we're holding it because we need this $300,000 to go with next year's $700,000, that's different.

I can accept that.

I can understand that.

Anything else on this slide?

So public safety.

A couple of things on here, replacement of fire and EMS apparatus.

Let me just say there are a lot of things on this page that some of the criteria we discussed earlier maybe don't necessarily meet strictly those definitions.

meaning that there are several things on here that you could look at and one would say number one these look like operating expenses they're also recurring and some of them are less than fifty thousand dollars what's going on here so a couple things the fire trucks and the ambulances are very expensive and we do bond those so that is why they end up in the CIP and that's based on a replacement schedule

the bypass fire station again much like the the circuit court we added some additional money here for furniture and fixtures when that's done and then also the fire department will be repurposing the existing bypass fire station and so there's a hundred thousand dollars and twenty six that you see that will be used for that

the everything from the police mobile data terminals all the way down to the end of the list through the turnout gear all of these things are essentially recurring types of things in many cases such as the breathing apparatus and the turnout gear those are new items this year but they're also very expensive

capital layout.

They have extended useful life.

I don't recall exactly, but I think one is like seven or nine years and one is like 10 years.

And so they're due to be replaced.

So for example, the turnout gear, that's why you see the bigger number in 25 because we do need to replace a big batch.

And then the annual amount that's here will help them get on a cycle so that

They're able to replace them in smaller batches so that we're not having to put out big dollars every year for that.

Are you there?

Can you hear us?

Can you hear us?

Yeah, McIntyre, the fire station by McIntyre.

It's 350.

No, we're not.

We changed our lives.

We already have that.

It was in last year's CF, the last two CIPs.

A question on looking at the Budget Explorer, there was about $1.6 million for radio system upgrades.

Is that separate from having radio replacements?

What is that money for?

Yeah, so that was a joint city project.

Joint project with the county and UVA, and those dollars were budgeted as our share of the project.

The project has, I believe, come to an end, but I have not actually seen a final closeout, but that is one that we probably, not probably, we need to do some due diligence and that's probably ready to be closed out Okay, so that is spent, it's not unspent

If it's available budget, it's not spent, but we have been paying our share.

It's been a multi-year project.

I'm going to say at least five years.

Any other questions here?

Yep.

So transportation and access, a lot of recurring projects that you've seen before here.

A few things to note, the traffic signal infrastructure is a larger item.

that's basically for the stoplights and those big large maps that are at the intersection that are expensive to replace and long overdue and so we do have a replacement schedule and we are beginning as we had an assessment done and many of those were beginning to fail and so

So, question on that.

I remember, you know, this time a year ago, I guess, you guys had just finished that assessment and like three of them were absolutely critical and like an interview replaced immediately and we budgeted like $4 million for this fiscal year for those.

and I look at the spend and there's no spend.

So are those traffic lights about to fail?

So maybe Stephen or Sam have some more detail.

I believe it's a supply issue.

I think we're ready to do the work.

We just can't get the equipment, I think.

But I might be wrong about that.

Good evening, Planning Commission members.

I'm Stephen Hicks.

I'm the interim deputy city manager for operations.

It is still a supply chain issue as well as contractors getting them on board, but they are being focused on their prioritizing how we go about doing it, but you'll see

Most of these projects that have been in the queue because of supply chain, we're going to be catching up here.

So hopefully by this time next year, I know it's difficult to say that, a lot of these questions will no longer be around.

But we're having a hard time, a real hard time.

And if you know any contractors out there that want to do work with the city, we're open for that soon.

But we'll give more information to you.

Oh, I got lots of questions on this slide.

That was just for that line item.

Come hang out with me.

So walking into this meeting,

with Lyle, he raised the point that it feels like every year we ask the exact same questions.

New sidewalks, they're $100,000 a year now.

It was interesting reading the request because it said we put $100,000 a year in almost by tradition, and that's not enough to meaningly fund new sidewalks.

Actually, when I first got on the commission,

We funded new sidewalks at $400,000 a year.

And then, you know, we were told, oh, well, there's so much money in the account that, you know, we can't spend it all, and so we're reducing the funding rate.

And, you know, I also know in their request, they say all the money that's in the account is tied to projects that are happening and that are tied to grant money or whatever.

Well, the funding issues I will share with you all.

We can throw as much money as we want at these sidewalk projects, but the economy and just the supply chain can't keep up with it.

I just want everyone to know that.

We have one concrete company that works for us because it's hard to get anyone else to work for us.

Second, there have been proposals for us to establish a concrete crew that would do it.

Currently, we have 20 vacancies in the utility department just for labor, equipment operator workers, skilled trade workers, and just as much in public work.

So we can't even hire employees to do the work, much less contractors.

So the issue is not the funding, and we're doing a great job funding.

The issue is there's just not capacity

both internally to be able to do it and contractors.

I mean, it's still, so what we're doing, to answer your question, we're trying to group all of the projects we possibly can to make an attractive package and put it out there.

Now with that, and these are going to be more of the larger contractors, it's probably going to cost about 20 or 30% more

too with that call.

But I will share with you based on my assessment and work with staff, you could throw $2 million in this budget and I can't guarantee if we're going to spend it.

I mean, we just can't, we're just,

It's hard to find people to work in general.

And what I'll add is if you remember, that's exactly what I said to you last year.

That's what's hard about this for me because that doesn't feel like a good enough answer.

But it's the facts.

We're still working through what can we do internally, what can we do differently internally.

so we had part of one of the concerns was about procurement could we package these projects because they're all small projects could we package them all together and since Stephen's been here he's been trying to figure that out I think it is my expectation that we will have a better answer for you next time but this is just to show you that we are still working on it and I knew that you would have this question I told him to be ready for this question because I knew that that was going to be something that we really don't have a better answer for

I said to you last year, don't give me more money because I can't spend it.

So it makes me feel any better.

Your four predecessors also told me the exact same thing.

I'll say the thing I say every year, which is that, you know, I'm relying on you guys to fix the problem, the backlog and get, you know, the ball moving again.

But at the end of the day, at some point, we will have caught up, hopefully, and we will have either been putting money into that pot, and you can say, oh, well, great, we have all this money that we can now spend on a whole new batch of sidewalk projects, or we will have not been putting money into the pot, and we will have an empty pot and have to come back and say, well, we've only been putting $100,000 a year in.

Are we supposed to change that now?

And so my recommendation, as always, is to just put money in the pot, right?

It's bondable.

We're not issuing the bonds until we need it.

Right.

And I just want to share that.

I think all of us, especially our employees, would love to do as much work as we can for the community members.

I just don't want anyone to get disappointed or have false expectations that because we have this money that we should be able to be doing something.

The environment we're in, it's just not going to happen as much.

And we're just not the only locality.

And we have some of the brightest folks working for us to figure it out.

It's just we can't get contractors.

We can't even hire them for a good skilled laborer anymore.

So we're going to do our best.

Sure.

The Stribbling project, it is we hired a consultant firm, an engineer firm.

They're coming up with multiple options to find out which is the most practical and feasible solution.

And we're given the options based on just a very basic safety improvement, providing sidewalks or the Cadillac that ultimately is like a typical subdivision design road.

that has all the curb and gutter, the sidewalks, and all the other amenities.

So where on the road does the work begin and where does it end once it's tripled?

Yeah, it's the entire stretch.

But we're going to share the ultimate one way, but it's going to, not, I mean, on one side, but ultimately it's going to cost a lot more.

You'll be able to see it.

Yes.

So we made a presentation to the Fry Springs neighborhood at Oktoberfest and shared that vision for them to understand it since they're very keenly aware of the problem that is there.

They're excited about the idea of seeing options.

And of course, yes.

But in this whole setting expectations, that's a real priority for us.

Steven made it clear that to get the version that we know that everybody will most enjoy is going to be more than what we have there.

It's going to be very expensive and that's one sidewalk project that we're talking about that could be upwards of $10 million.

Just so people also know, just the cost of money, just the consultant to come up with concepts, and this concept design is going to cost around $400,000.

It comes out of the number.

Well, this is just content, not even the engineering per se.

So Fontaine-StreetScape, is that new money that had not previously been projected that we'd need to fill a budget shortfall?

No, that's $750.

If you remember last year in my presentation to you as well, I'll share with you the challenges that we've had with BDOT managing our portfolio.

One of the items that came out of that was VDOT pushback on what we had allowed that project to balloon to, and they basically handed us $750,000 in expenses and said, we're not covering that, you have to.

Which ones are still active?

We did, yeah, we reorganized.

We have to get you that list.

It's probably good.

I didn't realize it was that one.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, we have East Eye Fontaine, Emmett, Phase 1-2, Barracks Emmett, Cherry Ridge.

The goal was to try to get it where we could manage it and to be able to get them to move forward.

There were some that we even combined because it didn't necessarily make sense that what VDOT said to us didn't necessarily make sense for you to have two separate projects on the same street.

So we were able to work that out with them as well because then that changes the timeline and gives us the ability to not stress over one and not be thinking about the other.

Well, I know that that 750 is related to retaining wall improvements that exceeded VDOT's preferences.

This might be my last one, maybe.

New neighborhood transportation improvements.

I understand that to be like our quick build program, which it seems to me has been actually quite highly successful since we hired a transportation planner and safe route to school and were kind of forced to by the lack of bus drivers.

Are we feeling that is all we can spend there?

Because I'm starting to get the sense from that program that it could do more with more money.

That's a good question.

We'll have to look into that.

Not a specific answer to that one.

It was a good question.

Ben's in trouble.

That's not the answer.

Seems to me when your transportation planner's wife is getting hit by a car in a crosswalk, you could give the transportation planner a freer reign to do what needs to be done.

No, safe routes of school was money that we allocated.

Yeah, it's correct.

We are currently spending out of Safe Routes to School funds for the neighborhood transportation improvements.

Well, the spend down on how the Safe Routes to School projects are going.

Last year we did about 80 projects and we spent $100,000 out of the $500,000 that were proportioned to us.

We have about 160 projects on our list this year.

I don't know that we'll get through all of them just because of manpower constraints.

I would expect that we'd probably be able to spend another $100,000 given that we spent some of the funding on the East High sidewalk.

It's a little bit more expensive than what we usually spend for a neighborhood transportation improvement project.

Usually they're more

So to add on that, again, the point is critical projects are supposed to be cheap, right?

Give us more time to continue to build that out.

Thank you.

Again next year.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I think the goal of quick builds is to be quick and cheap and then to be hardened when they're successful, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, we actually do have some projects programmed in our Safe Routes to School list that we'll be doing that gardening that you're talking about.

We had some very successful projects last year that were Safe Routes to School projects that we put in as paint bollards, and we're going to be looking to use some of that Safe Routes to School funding

to harden some of those projects.

Great.

Sorry, I have one more on this.

So I have been hearing from our city manager that there are a lot of ADA needs that we're currently identifying and will be coming up and will likely be a big spend.

I'm not really seeing that in this CIP.

Well, I wouldn't say that we're not planning for it now because we are, we have money set aside as you're describing.

These are funds that also can go that new sidewalks can also be responsive to the ADA transition plan.

What I would say to you is at this moment, I have not prioritized dropping in any big buckets of money at this time until we get that report, until we get that document and see what it really says and what it prioritizes for us.

I am optimistic that this version of it is probably going to be more direct and in your face than the last version that we had, meaning that it's going to sound a bigger alarm and tell us we have to get some things done, and I think we just have to prioritize at that moment and get to work.

As a tradition, SIA immediate implementation, increasingly non-immediate.

Been some time since we did the SIA.

Yes, yes and yes.

So the SIA implementation is really, it's a specific earmark for the strategic investment area, which was a specialized small area plan.

it came with its own implementation dollars after the fact some funds have been used not much there have been internal conversations that I've been a part of where I question why are we letting this money just continue to sit if we're not going to prioritize projects that says implementation that means we should be doing something

I've also had conversation with James about the idea that as we begin to do more small area plans, which we have earmarked for money to be available for, how do we then implement for those?

We don't have a separate implementation plan set up for them.

So one of the desires is to actually consider revising that and making it an SAP implementation bucket.

So then it's available for any small area plan that we have on the shelf, not really on the shelf, because we don't like to put plans on the shelf.

But any active SAP that we have, we would then be able to pull from that bucket and begin to use it.

No, we're going to call it small area plan implementation.

We're going to get it right.

I just had a question on, I remember seeing a sidewalk priority list a while ago.

I've seen a variety of lists I believe because I've asked that question myself I get referred to the streets that work plan which is where it came from and then the bike pad master plan so I'm not sure do you know one

Well, what I was going to say is that what Commissioner is probably referring to is last year we presented a prioritization process that we had been working with under state funding to put together.

And that has continued forward.

I mean, if you're interested in more, Ben can talk about that.

Oh, I agree.

I think there's multiple lists.

The question is, which is the accurate list?

You know, which is the reliable list?

And Mr. Sanders has asked that I take the lead on working with the main people involved in the list and really identifying what projects are we talking about and how we prioritize it in the calls instead of just having general projects out there in the list.

Well, yeah, we'll be completing it definitely for the FY26 budget, though.

Right now we're getting through the FY25 budget, and the whole CIP in itself will revamp, but

will have the list, and if there are priorities, obviously if there's some priorities on there that we already have funding available, we'll start that.

But I think this list will give us a holistic approach of the true cost moving forward.

So the list itself, hopefully it'll be done within three or four months, but the funding of the plan, there's a lot of moving parts.

I'll say that part of the concern that I have, and I'm right there with you because I know exactly what you're feeling in that week, we should be able to say what projects we're working on and which ones we're going to get done this fiscal year, which ones we're going to get done next fiscal year.

So that's been a source of frustration for me as well.

I think part of what I've been questioning Steven on is he has been the technician that's gone into the shop because I had oversight of the shop and I was trying to figure out everything, but he knows more than me.

I can acknowledge that.

so part of what we need to figure out though is how many of these lists do we really have and then we're going to probably have to do some prioritization ourselves which then means that we're going to anger some members of our public who then see that we're working a different list and they think we should be working because I've heard about streets that work that that's the order that we should be putting things in the ground and then I've had others tell me no it's the bike master plan that you should be working and they are not the same I went and confirmed that for myself

So that's a problem.

But one of the things that I feel like I am willing to own is when he brings me the list, then I will finalize what that list will be.

Well I mean that was the intent was that we had access to this new system that we were going to be able to score and one of the positives for me was that we had the ability to then determine how do you add an equity component to it since we have that as our overarching priority.

That work still has to be concluded.

So that is what we're referring to is what the next few months are going to require us to do to finish.

All right, so there are multiple things here.

Most of these were in the CIP last year.

Two new items.

You'll see the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial.

That foundation was awarded some state grant dollars that are basically passed through from the city to the foundation, and you'll note that there's a $600,000 revenue item for that as well.

and then the lower Meadow Creek Trail which is from Holmes to Locust Avenue is an additional add here as well.

Well, yeah, a couple questions.

One, I represent us on the Parks and Rec board, so we are very happy that you're now fully funding the invasive species piece, so thank you for that.

The one thing that's missing that gives us a little bit of heartburn are the refurbishing of the restrooms.

We've got an island in Tunzler, McIntyre, Washington Park, Belmont, and Forest.

They are, the doors are coming.

coming off the hinges.

And it's so bad that we have homeless folks standing there overnight.

And we ask that we take another look at getting those fixed because it's a safety issue with homeless folks standing there overnight.

And it's just an eyesore and something that is a disincentive for folks.

We, being the advisory board, I would ask that you guys consider funding that.

Most of the work we think we can do, but we've got some other vendors lined up to help us with it.

Ms.

Sure.

So the irrigation system that is currently at the golf course is outside its useful life.

It needs to be replaced.

So the plan here is that we have added this to the CIP.

It will be a bondable project.

However, there will be a line item in the golf fund

It gets me closer.

Would this be something that we would possibly push back?

$2 million is a significant spend.

I think if you ask the folks at the golf course, they would say we've pushed it back to the point where it's almost not functioning.

But we could certainly follow up and provide you some more information on that.

We don't get a lot of feedback on this, and this is something that the public has been asking for.

It's my understanding that this is basically a loan almost that they pay back for.

It doesn't free up $2 million for anything else.

And I would also just like to bring the attention to the Dogwood item.

Chrissy mentioned that the $600,000 is there.

This is money that Senator Deeds was successful in getting through the General Assembly.

So those funds are to be received by the city and then we will hold them.

There will be a CIP item that will continue to appear.

That $600,000 will be there.

The foundation will continue to do its fundraising work and they will make a determination on whether or not they will manage their pot of money or add to this and eventually this is to build the crossing over the parkway in the parking lot

and we're, I'm sorry, we're a tri-party member to this agreement.

And just so you know, I think we, the whole, you may have mentioned it, the whole thing is going to cost about a million bucks.

But it looks like the veterans think that they can go out and raise the balance to get the million bucks to do the project.

And a million is generous.

Great.

That's right.

We're just the holders.

A bunch of random questions.

I don't know why it's Parks and Rec has got me asking all these now, but like urban tree planting.

So we have 100,000 for each year.

Do we know, like, how many trees is, I guess?

I think that's what the... I have 175 in my head, too.

Maybe it's 175.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think it's still there.

My colleague Brian Ray designed a program.

And the invasive plant removal, what does 75,000 get us?

I can't remember if my laptop ran out of battery, but I'm trying to remember my notes from last meeting.

We reclaimed about 12 acres or so this year.

Okay.

I want you to say that we probably do know how many because this has been a long-standing concern and then we're prioritizing how many to take based on what the fear is of them failing.

Yeah, and I think I asked this last year, and I don't remember, but, like, you would think at some point the ash tree removal thing ends because all the ash trees are dead and we've removed them, right?

But as I recall, there were also, like, we were treating some ash trees to save them, right?

And is that out of the operational budget?

There is.

That's a good question.

There is horticulture.

We can find that out.

To Rory's question, this $100,000 eventually is going to go away?

That's a good question.

will follow up.

So basically what we'll do is all your questions, compile them all in a document, and we'll send it out.

And then on the trail stuff,

So, I guess, is there a list of, like, future trail projects out there?

Because these were both new to me.

And, I mean, they're exciting.

I always wonder why, like, for the Lower Meadow Creek one, why we do stone dust instead of paved, where it might be more useful for transportation, just, like, pavement, asphalt.

So it could be useful for transportation as well as recreation.

And I...

That was the answer.

Chris typically presents it to

And if you go on the website now, you can find the major project status of the trails.

It is a very lovely color-coded map.

co-pilot, maybe, that needs visuals.

But part of, I think, the continuous addition also sometimes of the trails is that sometimes to put trail ending A with trailhead B, we need to buy that sliver of land.

And I know that there's one in particular that the purchase of the land has taken quite a bit of time.

So you will see these new asks, and if you notice, they're proposed one year in the CIP often.

It is sometimes because we have finally been able to procure that portion of land to be able to connect the trails for their usefulness.

His ultimate goal would be to connect as many trails to provide those.

I'm from a community that calls them greenways.

In the city of Runoff, you can walk from the city of Runoff to the city of Salem on a greenway safely.

So you'll be able to see on that if you go on the website, it is on the

right hand sidebar but he has where you will be able to see active developing and proposed trails so that also will give you all some concept of what may be coming down the pike either once the particular part of land is able to be acquired or once we have the capacity to continue moving forward in in that goal but his ultimate goal is that we will have trails that will be safe for a 12 year old to make it to their friend's house or to school safe for

one of our residents who may have some differing abilities to be able to traverse.

He's got some great ideas, but Chris's trails and trails are Chris.

Yeah.

And that's...

These are all awesome projects, and I am sometimes amazed at how Chris manages to keep these trails getting built while we can't build any sidewalks.

I'm not sure if he sleeps.

Absolutely.

Anything else?

Yeah, it seems like we're zeroing out major capital spends on parks out of FY25.

And there will be probably different things.

Right.

So there is no ongoing need for projected funding because it will be completed.

Same with, for example, the Penn Park bathroom ADA renovation.

Once that is completed, it's completed and members of our community will have access to a restroom that will be made for families.

I know it was super expensive and we... Yeah, it was, it was a nightmare for me, but it was, I don't remember where it is.

It is, it's moving.

Do you know?

I know that it is moving.

There was considerable issues with utility connection, water connection.

That was the main objection for a while, but we got past that.

We'll have to find out where it is.

I haven't asked that question.

Now you're going to bring it back up for me.

Right, looks like we are ready for affordable housing.

This is going to be fun.

I was going to say, just let me jump in real quick.

Oh, shoot.

Affordable housing is what we do.

The worry is these guys are architects and they do a lot of work in the arena.

I don't know that I can speak to this, but I mean, are you speaking as generally as architects being concerned about working on one of these projects?

I'm doing multiple ones on this.

I am consulting now for that office and working on MACA.

But I mean, we're not voting on anything tonight.

No, you're not.

We're down the road, yeah.

But we'll have an answer for you, for sure.

But for now, I mean, we're not, you're not voting on anything.

And I'd like me to get more.

One, West Haven has been added.

That was a request we heard loud and clear.

So, maybe you guys remember, but I don't remember, Jerry, that's mixed income, right?

Very cool.

So, I guess, and I probably say this every year,

It's not that I don't want to fund 501 Cherry, but, like, we have been trying to make more of a formal process for reviewing applications and kind of, like, prioritizing various requests against each other.

And my understanding is that that request for applications for big light tech projects is still open, right?

Even for this year's?

For this year.

We only had a very abbreviated one for them for this last year before it was even 100% affordable.

So, I guess, and, you know, the affordable housing kind of calls for more of this stuff to go through, like, the CAF committee review.

And when we're, you know, making these commitments, you know, years in advance without having, like, fully, you know, looked at these applications or, you know, seen them, I mean, you guys are sure have seen them internally, but we haven't seen them or, you know, the public or council.

It gives me a little bit heartburn because we lock ourselves into it before we really are able to weigh it against potentially other applications or other affordable housing priorities.

No, let me react to that.

So they did apply.

They applied through the capital investment process last year.

That is the newly formed process that we really want to cement.

So we now issue, and I mean, that's why he's here, but I'm just speaking to what I made happen before he got here, and then I'll let him add whatever details right into him.

But ultimately, we formalized the NOFA so that we published that in advance.

There's a successive round of RFPs.

One of the RFP rounds is a capital investment opportunity.

No money allocated, so we're not making a commitment.

Everyone applies.

But what we intend for that to do is to inform the city of what are the sizable projects that may be LIHTC oriented.

They don't have to be exclusively LIHTC.

but they may very well be LIHTC oriented to more or less give us pre-notice that there could be a future ask.

That is something that I felt like we did not have clarity on before.

As I asked the question of the team, no one could tell me exactly where we were going.

They said that it's a matter of whenever their project is ready, they'll bring it to us and then we'll consider an application and send it to the committee to consider.

That didn't work for me.

That did seem like we were planning as we should.

So this 501 Cherry Avenue project was submitted last year.

We didn't bring any of those projects forward last year.

501 Cherry at that moment wasn't ready enough.

It wasn't baked enough, in my opinion, for us to have brought it forward.

we consider it to be baked enough now one because you all approve what they work on so we took that as a sign it's 100% affordable so it checks the biggest box of the affordable housing plan and we of course appreciated the model of the community engagement approach that they use and that there was nothing controversial about the project

and because the conversation occurred with PHA about Friendship Court Phase II not being needed because they secured other funds, it seemed like a reasonable swap because it doesn't cost us anymore.

It's just a reallocation, redistribution of the money that's already available.

the intent going forward and why the round that's open right now that round that's open right now is not intended for this new fiscal year because of the timing we can't get the timing right for an LITEC application that's about to go in to fall in line with our budget cycle so we're going to always now be a year behind but that is again why I want to know as early as possible how many projects could possibly be coming so that I can talk to Council about that in advance if I need to

The plan for how this round will close, and we haven't had this conversation yet, so I'm breaking news with you.

The intention is that I want to figure out, I haven't figured it out yet, so that's why he's going to figure it out, is that when we close this round, it would be my desire that council gets to see what that list is of what came in in the form of requests as a notification to them of these are potential future assets you're going to get.

I mean, to that point, I mean, in prior years, what we've had almost every year is at least one mad scramble, and more often two, to get counsel to bless and, you know, produce a memo of understanding or an intent.

So I guess what you're telling us is that you're trying to stretch that so that we've got plenty of lead time and

And I guess, I mean, is it one year slower?

Well, not once we're rolling.

It's continuous.

Right.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Absolutely.

The goal is to eliminate the scrambling.

There should be no scramble for anybody.

I think we would be asking for the updated information just so that we know.

So this 26 figures for the 501 is a little notional at this point.

I saw that the distribution differed from what the Office of Community Solutions initially put forward as to how they split it in exactly one.

Okay.

Yep.

And the big items get reviewed just internally but with like some notification to council.

Okay.

We just have to figure out what that is.

Yep, okay.

What are you referring to?

No.

I learned about this the hard way.

There is a LIHTC committee.

I don't know that I've heard this.

Right.

That is supposed to meet to consider LIHTC requests, and it grows out of NTS, and it's an advisory board.

The way I learned about this is we needed, when I was on the hack, we needed somebody

on the LIHTC side of things noted that we had said we had such a thing and wanted to know where that result was.

And so that LIHTC review committee was generated, created out of HACC numbers in about 45 seconds, and then we sort of went through them.

So the question is, there is on the books a formal policy, there's a LIHTC

There's a LIHTC review committee to consist of three people.

So I will say, has it been murdered?

No.

No.

Because I didn't know it existed.

Do I think it needs to be murdered?

I don't know yet.

I need to find that and read that.

But I think that's something for us to follow up on.

That's what I'm getting at of what we've got to figure out.

I didn't know that that existed.

I learned about it 15 minutes before I became the chairman of it.

I guess the question for you guys to think about that is like is there value in having a sort of separate committee in process or should the CAF committee just kind of that may be what we come back with I think that's the question

and in effect sometimes like at least two of these projects end up in front of the CAF committee because they submit there as well there as well so okay um yeah i mean i guess also one note on something you said like i feel like just because we we vote for zoning approval for something doesn't necessarily mean that it's you know a good uh you know funding opportunity which is not to say that 501 cherry is a bad funding opportunity but like

you know if someone's saying we're gonna do you know 100 units at 10% of AMI and like it's gonna and there's gonna be a you know a grocery store and a trampoline park like I'm gonna be like great of course that should be legal to build then they come and ask for a million dollars a unit well I don't want to fund it right but like those are two pretty separate questions but one last question in last year's round of applications I think it's actually the only one from not PHA

or CRHA.

The Mews on Little High, the 11th Street apartments, they asked for $900,000 for rehabilitation, and I'm curious why that never happened.

Yeah, made any progress.

I think it was in the pile of COPS applications, and it wasn't a CAF application.

It was in the LIHTC.

I don't entirely remember how I got all these documents, to be totally honest, but I uploaded eight of these applications to Sevilpedia, and they're all PHA.

Yeah, it was not CAF, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

I can send it to you.

We can take a look.

I mean, more than likely, that means if it was in the LIHTC, it's on that list of projects that were not moved forward, and that's a question that we need to talk to Mr. Icafuna, who's on vacation, as to why it's there and not moved anywhere else.

Cool.

I see 8.9 million.

Is that 10?

No, the commitment is not 10 million in the CIP.

Commitment is 10 million for the whole year composite for what the city does.

We are exceeding our number.

We've also got hops out of the operations side and nits and nats.

And we don't also identify a staff component to that, which in the affordable housing plan, it is identified as a contributor to the $10 million.

I think the response to that was, let's not consider staff salaries.

I would have argued against that if I were here at the time.

I did not spend time worrying about it because I think we know that we have a considerable staff allocation for housing because it's not just the Community Solutions office that's dealing with it and in my mind that doesn't mean we're trying to exclude putting the money out on the street.

More more.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So I do have a question on that.

Yeah, I'm almost certain it's, yeah, a little over two.

Yeah, I don't remember exactly, but it's $2 million or a little less.

That's for rental assistance.

Also, the Charlottesville affordable housing grant that people can apply for.

So it's also rent assistance for the elderly and disabled.

It's in the general fund operating budget.

Okay, so to go back to CRHA's administrative, the CISRAP, we're at 900 year in, year out, and maybe this is a John Zales question.

He has a certain limitation by HUD for how many vouchers he can manage.

But we're not married to that.

They've been... Well, yeah, that was the original idea behind SISRAP in the first place is that they've got this capacity authorized by HUD.

Let's use it.

Let's give them money to use it in that sort of that notional idea.

So the reason I'm asking is rent it and going down.

And 900 was what we started with in 2018.

We're just getting close to doing that.

Prior years we've had a surplus and we've been able to use that surplus.

Harris Harris right which actually brings me to another question which is they've got a NOAA program that they're playing with it like that Montrose and some other opportunities it looks like Office of Community Solutions was interested in having their own funding source on that originally

That was on the original asks.

I think Brenda Kelly put it forward.

For prompt acquisition.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, for 500,000.

My question is, and it's not here, which is fine, but my question is, I mean, we should be all singing from the same hymnal there, right?

I mean, is that the sort of thing where you could just use contingency funds to do?

Yeah, the problem is you need to, I mean, you can't wait around for anybody to, any elected official to make a decision about whether you're buying the property or not because that's too long.

You've got to buy the property.

So, I mean, I hate to use the term slush fund, but I'm going to use it.

The reality is if it were a line item in the CIP, which is what the request was for half a million dollars a year to make it a recurring, it would be the same as if it were in the CIP contingency.

It still has to be approved because it's property acquisition.

And that's going to be a process no matter what.

The only way for it to be a simplified process

is for us to have put the money into the hands of another external party.

So that's why I was asking, I mean, should we perhaps decide we want to know a program and that CRHA is... And I would say that's a consideration because he's sitting right there and he has reminded me repeatedly that he's looking for a program related to acquisition because we made multiple purchases last year.

It's on the list to do.

But ideally that is the intent is that I will have a program that we can bring forward that council can consider approving and how it works is still one of the mechanics that we have to work on.

Because it was like all the COVID vouchers He's close.

He's not there yet.

I think previously they were averaging 72, somewhere around that number.

One thing to remember about CISRAP and John and I have had this conversation is that there is, while it's appreciated that it exists and that we have used it, there's always a looming threat because that's $900,000 that appears in a five-year CIP

and we're putting people into housing and they're not gonna be in that housing for just five years.

Yeah, when we originally put that together, there was a lot of math on how to put together, at least on paper, a sufficient off-ramp for everybody.

At the time, that made sense.

I will tell you the way the funding formula worked was one of those things that we all sat around the table and talked about it, and everyone understood it for about 15 seconds, and we wrote furiously to make sure it worked.

I don't think that works in the current environment because there's just no error.

Right.

The reality is that that also speaks to why we probably should not stress over trying to spend the 900k.

So something we've talked about for a few years is bondable versus non-bondable in affordable housing.

And it's been sort of an operational challenge because most of what we do in affordable housing is not bondable, so we're not using that amazing interest rate.

Not as relevant these days since we're a little bit tapped out on bonding, but it'll come back.

We'll get back to that.

My understanding is that in property transactions, that could be bondable.

Though I understand there are operational challenges to making that happen.

So we've always gone through PHA to make that happen.

We wouldn't pass bond proceeds that way.

I guess that would be the challenge.

Frankly, I mean, it doesn't have to be a large amount of money.

The example is the Dogwood portfolio, we purchased that with CRAJ.

We didn't give them the money to purchase it like we did with Coleman, Montrose, and Harris.

But in those transactions, we did request half interest in those properties.

But the Dogwood portfolio is co-owned by the city.

Which is why we're open to having that conversation.

So that constraint is true even if it's CRHA doing the purchase because we can bond the general funds we give to CRHA like West Haven, right?

So the general rule by city charter

tax legislation is we are able to provide funds and sell by the use of bonds for governmental type agencies.

So CRHA is considered a governmental agency, whereas PHA is not a governmental agency.

They are a 501c3.

non-profit.

So generally that's why we are cash funding Friendship Accord or Kendall Wood as opposed to CRHA projects where one, as Sam noted, we're either maintaining some form of ownership or CRHA as a governmental agency is providing, will be maintaining the ownership.

Okay.

So it just gives us that filter that we need to try to consider.

And that's something that we could probably begin a better plan for.

All right.

That's a pretty small category.

It's basically funded by what are called public pay fees.

We lost you.

We lost you.

Give us a minute.

Can you hear us, Betsy?

I can hear you.

You're back.

No, we just lost you for a second.

Oh, sorry.

It was basically put in place because as technology opportunities represented themselves, smaller departmental budgets did not have an opportunity to monopolize on those.

And so this was meant to be a pot of funds where we could take advantage of that.

In recent years, especially this came in handy during COVID, when we had to go to a fully remote posture, we used some money for that, and also we had gotten behind on some of our computer replacement and other things, so we used the funds for things such that.

Okay, no worries, just a thorough.

So again, we've talked about the revenues, the fact that the revenues need to match the expenditures.

So you see that in this for 25, we are proposing a little over $21 million in bonds, a little more than 7.6 million.

in general fund dollars.

And then the schools are also contributing some money.

Some of these gains share funds were dollars that they had put forth as part of the plan to help pay for the additional add-ons to get us to the 90 million for the Beaufort project.

in addition because we did not spend the cash dollars in 21 that we set aside for COVID they were put back in the CIP contingency and so we've been drawing those down to help balance the CIP and so you'll see that in several years this current year in 24 we drew down a larger amount and that was primarily for the Beaufort School project as well

And so all that to say that over the next five years in this plan, we plan to spend about $85 million in bonds and a little over $41 million in cash from the general fund, 2.8 in year-end surplus.

The schools will be providing about 5.5 million in transfers from their year-end surpluses and gain shares.

So in 23 the bonds we just sold in the spring we were a little over three percent in prior years we were around one percent

So those interest rates have continued to climb.

I don't know what the current bond market is looking like, but I can, again, we can add that to your responses as well.

All right, thanks.

All right.

So I think you mentioned earlier that conventionally we have a cap on how much general fund money we move to the CIP to kind of keep it running.

This is a very special year where we're a little bit tighter than normal.

Looser meaning?

More money.

Well, I think our goal is to honor the policy that we have in place that would require discipline.

That's the word that I like to use.

So that would be what I ultimately will propose.

I can tell you that now.

That when we have that number and we present that to Council, then that would be the request that I would make is that we would make the transfer.

That is the right thing to do because that's the policy that we studied, developed and set on and then you take the actions from there to spend the money.

That is the minimum.

Rating agencies love cash projects, cash funded projects.

Obviously, it lowers your debt load.

And so they love, the more you can pay for cash, the better.

They love our year-end policy and our 3% policy.

Kind of a small issue, but I think the mall vendor fees have been budgeted at $78,000 I think every year since I've been here.

I understand that we have a lot fewer mall vendors than we used to, and now Raquel's opening a restaurant, so even fewer.

Are we still actually getting $78,000?

So again, this was just meant to be a list for you all to glance at.

This is just a list of all the new projects that were added to this five-year plan over last year.

No, that's the amount that we felt that they would ask the city to contribute.

$40 million is the number that has started to float, but it's going to be more than that.

And the they is, who is they?

Potentially, yeah.

With philanthropy?

It's probably a $100 million project.

Yeah.

They haven't designed it, so there's still so much more.

That's the reason why there's multiple iterations of what it could be.

The 15 was the number that I had the conversation with John about, what is it that you're likely to ask us for?

Great.

So I'll take that one just to save Chrissy.

She's talked a lot.

The challenge, of course, with budgeting is balancing.

And when there are many priorities, that means balancing is a really hard task.

You all know that homelessness has been an interesting topic for me this past few months.

there is a desire to figure out more that we might be able to do in this space so that has not been factored into this CIP proposal at this time.

Walker has not been as well as what I mentioned to you previously that we're not sure so that's the conversation that council and school board will need to have.

They are planning to have an earlier conversation this budget round

We anticipate that that is part of what it's for, but with other issues that have now popped up at the high school, then we know that there are other things that is gonna also be a part of that priority.

So we'll have to figure out where Walker falls and ultimately it's where it falls, not if it falls, it's just when, that's really probably the question.

Additional climate action initiatives because there's just a question as you identified in your question before what does that mean climate action initiatives the specificity behind that is what I'm seeking and that is a conversation that we have scheduled so Crystal will come to meet with the budget team in the next couple of weeks and we will spend a little time specifically on climate action as a topic

and the goal will be to look at the funds that they have been allocated, what has happened with those funds, what is likely to be expended before this fiscal year is up, and then to confirm that that million dollars is the right number.

It could be that through this conversation we cut back on a little bit and use that in other places, or we may increase later for there's another few things that may come down the pike, it's just not gonna happen now, it'll happen later.

There's a number of matters that have to be reconciled with our internal staff because a number of the initiatives are about our internal improvements that we need to make on some of our buildings.

The question is, do we have the capacity, as we've discussed, capacity is an ongoing concern.

Can we deliver those items on the proposed schedule of the million dollars each year?

so there's some movement there so I'm saying that to you to not be surprised that if the five million dollars is still there it may not be a million a year it could be different it just depends on what information we get from that conversation

And then we have the regional projects.

These are parts of the conversations that I'm in and or as an example of ECC, Ashley is the representative for me in that conversation.

But the ECC has proposed, that's the Emergency Communication Center.

They have a need for a facility because they're currently on UVA facility that they need back.

so there's a desire for us to help them figure that out.

That's a multi-jurisdictional matter so we'll have to work with the county and UVA on that.

And then the central library renovation is also a shared relationship with the county.

The city, by all accounts of council, has indicated that we're ready to support a renovation of the main library.

but of course we can't do anything all by ourselves.

We need the county to make the decision that they're gonna join us in that work.

That effort has been initiated.

I met with my counterpart in the county and he's now having that conversation internally.

David at the library has made it known to all of us what needs they have.

I actually went and did my own tour just recently so I could see what was happening in the library facility.

One question on that.

The letter we got from JMRL indicated that the total cost was $15 million.

That makes our share seven and a half.

Right.

Is that in addition to that total cost, just the...

I think there's anticipation that we may not cover it all.

So that's their indication that if you pony up, then we're willing to pony up too.

We just need you to come higher than a third is what I think that's what it means.

We purchase.

I heard about that, but I don't remember hearing about that from the planning director I noticed it's here, but it didn't translate into here Yeah, well, I'll tell you that one of the issues that we do have in Fleet, and Mr. Hicks is working on this too, is we have a huge backlog on Fleet right now

The strike did not help, but we had some issues before that.

We have a vacancy in that position.

I think, well, I mean, a lease versus purchase.

I had a question.

That's part of what the conversation is with the county, is to determine when.

It probably will not be 25.

I'm almost certain that it will not be 25 because I doubt that they are ready to step forward that quickly.

It'll be a future year.

And the conversation with David and that he's been having internally is that they understand that at this moment.

And the red carpet or the premier circle project, obviously that's under homelessness strategy, but it's a little more immediate.

No, it won't be a CIP matter because it's already, technically the project is already funded.

There's just a gap that has been identified over the fact that when they planned it to when they're going to break ground.

I'm working through that right now, and that is going to be a different ask that I'll make of council directly probably next month.

Well, January.

Great.

No.

So just wanted to highlight that if you need any further information, it sounds like you all have already taken advantage, which makes me happy to hear you reference the Budget Explorer tool, also the online budget book.

Right now, the story pages that you see there are basically for projects that are currently in the five-year plan.

It is a long-range goal that we would like to make that a working resource so that any active project would also have a story page.

That will take a lot of work, but that is where we're headed.

I just want to say this is amazing and leaps and bounds better than when I first got on the Planning Commission.

Well, I think in the next slide was the Planning Commission role.

I think you're on it, and we don't need to spend a lot of time on that.

I think ultimately the questions that you posed tonight were the kinds of questions that we anticipated.

Those were the things that we were looking for.

It gives us things that we can go back as a budget team to review, reconsider some choices that might have been made at this moment, as well as bring forward the clarity for some of the things that you all have asked about.

We do, like I said, with climate action, we have a meeting schedule.

We're probably gonna have to have a transit conversation as well before the year is up that would also make a change to what is being presented to you today.

So there will probably be a little bit of a tweak.

Our goal would be that if we make any significant changes that we would get a new version of this to you ahead of that public hearing.

I don't want you to come into the public hearing and then think that, well, we did a bait and switch or anything like that.

Um, I would defer to Missy.

I'm happy for them to come to me.

Planning Commission lists.

Okay.

Tell me a little more about that transit conversation.

No, it's not about the fuel study because that's an altogether different proposition because that requires a council decision.

It's more of we know that there are investments that we need to make in transit, period, whether we were considering alternative fuels or not.

Garland has been patiently waiting for me to say that it's his turn.

So I'm prioritizing that this time around.

We were pretty close last year.

We were concerned about pushing too much through without having Beaufort more settled at the time because we went up until the last minute with Beaufort even.

Cool.

Really?

I accept it as a fair question.

Let us take that back and figure out is there a way for us to get something to you that is meaningful?

We've been reluctant to really spend time on that list because we know that our process needs work.

So I don't want to give you a list of things and then you are considering those things because some of those things we know probably need more vetting before they should even be on the list for you to consider.

It's not to say that we can't figure out a way to give you a list.

Yeah, or it could be items that we should consider that are unfunded.

Sure.

So I would consider that maybe a prioritization list of items that have not been yet funded, and maybe we can spend energy on that, because then that gives you something more tangible to consider when you look at it.

I'm in trouble now.

Is there a way to look at the unspent money?

Like, I'm looking at, I looked at the budget tool, and there's the underground utilities, $4.9 million, West Main Scenescapes had $8.6 million.

I'm not sure where that money's going, or if it's allocated to something else already.

I think that's the cleanup work that we've been talking about.

We had hopes, I had dreams that Chrissy was gonna have an additional person on her team.

Emma is great, but I thought we were gonna have two Emmas and we would actually be able to get to that.

Most of our energy has been trying to be focused on the transparency work that you all just complimented and that's almost done.

I think we can shift into doing more of what you're asking to where we'll have a better

We'll have a better managed CIP and it's no one's fault it's just what we've been doing I think there's some work that we need to do and we just have to figure out when can we find the time to really do it I've been talking about it since I got here absolutely it's just one of those things that

It's a lot of money sitting in the CIP, and I know for a fact that all of it is not truly allocated for a project to happen.

There's some money in there with no purpose, and I don't like that.

like the West Main Street streetscape.

You know, those are just budget dollars that were offset by expected federal and state dollars that now are not going to materialize.

And we have been working through this VDOT reconciliation.

And at some point there will be an action taken to council to kind of close those off the books.

so I just caution you like as you look at these accounts on the budget explorer just because there's an available budget it doesn't necessarily mean that we can say oh we're not going to spend it on this now we're going to spend it on this because it depends on what the source of dollars were so um if it was a cash project sure if it's but that all of that requires council action

Well, since I've

I was going to do this next month, but since you grinched us out of our December meeting, I'll do it now.

So it's a bit of a Christmas story.

On December 24, 1971, a 17-year-old girl named Julianne Kopecky got on a plane in Lima, Peru to fly home to this little town in the Panaguana area of

Peru, she had been born in Lima, she was a German citizen, had spent the last four years out there with her parents who were scientists, and the German authorities were getting very upset with her not going to the German preparatory school, so she came back and took a bunch of tests to graduate from high school.

Her mother wanted her to come back on the 20th, but she really wanted to go to the graduation ceremony on the 23rd.

So the 24th, she gets on the plane, and about 40 minutes into the flight, the plane fell apart, and bits and pieces of it fell into the Amazon jungle from a height of 11,000 feet.

When the wreckage was eventually found on January 12th, several of the passengers were still strapped into the seats they fell in.

Julianne wasn't there.

The reason Julianne wasn't there is that when her chunk of plane smashed into the jungle, she unbuckled her seat belt, bound up her broken right arm and collarbone, staunched the bleeding on her right eye, and spent 11 days walking through the jungle downstream to eventually find a fisherman's camp,

which was not occupied.

She did some emergency first aid on herself which included pouring gasoline that she found there onto a wound in her arm to kill the maggots.

And then the fishermen came back to the camp and took her home.

She's still alive today.

She's a bat specialist.

She's a mammalian biologist.

She's a bat specialist.

She's still in Peru.

Why am I telling the story to the planning commission as we adjourn?