City Council Meeting   12/7/2020

Good evening.

I call this meeting to order.

Thank you.

Ms.

Vice Mayor Magill?

Here.

All right, Ms.

Councillor Snook?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Magill?

Yes.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

No announcements from councilors?

Okay.

One quick announcement, we'll be accepting applications for boards and commissions through December 11th.

Please visit the city's website to apply.

And we appreciate your willingness to apply and spend your time serving on boards and commissions.

And if there are no other announcements, next up we have Dr. Bonds,

Good evening, everyone.

Thumbs up if you can hear me.

All right, beautiful.

Come back.

All right, so welcome to the December 7th update about COVID.

It's a busy one right now for us.

So as you can see, we are having a rapid rise.

In our cases, not so great in the locality, but pretty significant across the district.

Our total cases right now in the district are 5,800.

In Charlottesville, it's 1,940.

I've put the numbers in parentheses of our cases, hospitalizations, and fatalities from the last time that I gave an update so that you can see the change in the

Total hospital lift are 294.

For Charlottesville, 58.

That's an increase of 20 overall.

And total fatalities for the district, 82.

And for Charlottesville, we remain at 31.

We continue to see a disproportionality of hospitalizations and fatalities by race and ethnicity with larger increases in the Black and Latino groups.

I do want to point out that we have had hospitalizations, if you go all the way over here to this far right-hand side, in all age groups.

So I think there's a little bit of

mythology out there that younger age groups are not impacted adversely by this condition and while generally they do tend to do better and we see lower rates of hospitalizations and we fortunately have not had any fatality we have seen at least one hospitalization in every age group in our district so it really does impact everyone.

Our testing continues.

We've done just over 150,000 PCR tests in our district.

That's a pretty substantial number and puts us in the top probably four or five districts across the state.

Current seven-day positivity rate is rising to 4.8.

We are certainly seeing more positive cases, and we've had over 100 positive cases or close to 100 for the past three or four days.

And when we do our community testing,

We are seeing increase in the percentage of those individuals who come to the community test that test positive.

But it is also being driven by the fact that we have a much lower denominator now.

As you can see back here, we were doing a lot of testing.

We weren't.

UVA was doing a lot of testing of students in dormitories and that gave a really large number of negative tests which kept our positivity rate very low.

Now that they're home for winter break and they're doing that testing, we're seeing much smaller numbers of tests PCR done and we're seeing that rise in positivity because of that.

Our early Sentinel warnings, looking at COVID-like illnesses, as you recall, this is where we essentially scrape electronic medical records, anonymously looking for individuals that come into either the emergency room or the urgent care with signs and symptoms that are very similar to COVID-like illness.

And you can see both for the state and for our district, we've had pretty dramatic increases in the numbers in the last month or so in the emergency room and also in our urgent centers.

And that's really reflected in large increase in numbers that we've seen in our area.

And most of the state is in a rising activity level increasing, which is quite worrisome since we're really just heading into the winter season.

And you can see again down here, high burden, increasing trend, substantial activity in all areas of the state at this point in time.

I showed the cases and the percent for the city of Charlottesville here.

The daily case incident rate, we did have kind of a big surge here a couple of weeks ago, leveled out a little bit, and now we're beginning to have another increase here on the side.

And then our percent positivity for the city of Charlottesville, as opposed to the district, which was the previous slide, is holding right around 3.5% or so, has been increasing a small amount, although it's hard to see that on this slide.

When we look at outbreaks, I'm showing you just a picture of where were there to be any K-12 schools in Charlottesville.

They would be reported, but so far we have not had any outbreaks within the Charlottesville City Schools, so that's a good plus.

Public school system of course is still virtual and private schools in the city have so far not had any outbreaks and I think that really speaks to the schools abiding by all of the recommended mitigation measures, having kids wear universal masking when they are in school,

and keeping that distance.

So we have had two outbreaks in the Charlottesville City and long-term care facilities.

The Cedars should be closing here shortly.

We close after two incubation periods of no cases.

And Rosewood is still in progress, but they've been working hard with both UVA and with our team at the Health Department to really keep that under control.

There's been a couple of changes in the last week to our quarantine rules.

And you may hear about these in the news.

Previously, up until the change last week, we were recommending a 14-day quarantine period.

And I want to emphasize that staying home, if you have been in contact with someone who is positive for that full 14 days, is still best.

And it is what we will continue to recommend for health care workers.

However, the CDC and VDH has adopted these, have said if an individual is asymptomatic at day 10, their quarantine can end.

So they have to have no symptoms from their exposure until 10 days after that exposure.

A second option is if an individual is asymptomatic and has had a negative COVID test at day five or later of their quarantine period, then the quarantine can end at day seven.

Now, these don't come without risks.

There is still a chance that an individual can develop infectious COVID after that day 10 or day 7.

There's about a 1% risk after the 10-day quarantine period, and the 7-day plus a negative COVID test will result in a 5% risk.

So that's why if people can do it, we are recommending that still they quarantine for 14 days.

But this change was put into effect because it is

a relatively small risk, and the thought I think at CDC and others is that people were really having difficulty doing that full 14 days.

And as I said, we're still recommending for healthcare workers that they use the 14-day rule since they are interacting potentially with vulnerable individuals.

COVID vaccine.

This is the big news.

The FDA is having hearings this week and next week to determine if the vaccines will be granted emergency use authorization.

Pfizer is happening on the 10th and Moderna is happening on the 17th.

If those are approved, they will start shipping those to the state health agency and the Virginia Department of Health is slated to receive just under 500,000 doses in a combination of Pfizer and Moderna.

There has been a prioritization developed by the CDC, which VBH has adopted.

The first priority for these will be health care workers and individuals living or working in long-term care facilities.

Health care workers will be done primarily by the health care system with the public health picking up

those groups that aren't captured by the healthcare system.

Long-term care facility residents and staff for the most part will be done by pharmacies.

The federal government has established a system to have two of the major pharmacy chains come in and do the vaccination of those.

For the most part, facilities in our district have agreed to that plan.

So by the end of December, we should be well underway with this first priority group in vaccinating.

After that, we will hopefully continue to receive weekly shipments of vaccine, which will allow us to work down the other priority groups.

Essential Workers is right now the tentative next group.

What that means is still to be decided.

And then those individuals over the age of 65 or with high-risk conditions is currently the third proposed priority group.

So more to come on that, I'm sure.

But very good news overall and should really help us through this winter season.

We do continue to do testing for COVID-19.

In fact, most of our testing events are really filling up right now because we have such higher case numbers and people are being exposed to individuals who are positive.

So just to remind everybody, UVA does testing every Monday from 6 to 7.30 PM at the Church of Incarnation and every Tuesday from 5.30 to 7.30 at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church.

The health department routinely does testing on Friday evenings at our health department on Rose Hill Drive and you can call our hotline number to register.

There are other testing events scattered throughout the district throughout the month and those can be found on our website.

Holidays and Hanukkah and other religious holidays are coming and we are sending out the message to everybody to stay home with your household group if you can.

We really are seeing a third in the cases and we believe some of this is due to the Thanksgiving holiday and a lot of people going home and meeting with family that they hadn't seen for a while.

and these sort of small groups where people let down their guard can really spread the COVID disease.

If you must travel, if you really must go see family or friends, the safest practice is to quarantine for 14 days prior to travel and then get a COVID test a few days before you leave.

When you return back, you should again quarantine for 14 days to make sure that you didn't contract it somewhere in your travels.

If you are going to gather, gather outside.

In groups, try and keep it fewer than 10 people to minimize potential exposure and be sure and keep that six feet of distance.

If you do have to gather indoors, it's really helpful if you can open up a window and turn on a fan because that will help ventilate and remove some of the aerosols that you exhale.

Be sure to wear your mask when you're around others, even if you're outdoors.

That really does help, really does reduce the spread of this disease.

And of course, frequent hand washing and the use of hand sanitizer.

So really good practices, and we'll be sharing these again and again over the next weeks.

And then finally, although we do have a vaccine that should be arriving in the next few weeks, it's still really, really critical

and others that we know work.

If you don't have COVID-wise on your phone, please put it on your phone, turn your Bluetooth on.

This will allow you to get notification if you've been having somebody of potential contact to someone who had COVID.

This is especially important right now because as our case numbers increase, we are having to minimize the amount of time that we spend with

particular low risk individuals and so this might be the only way that you find out that you were next to someone who was positive.

Again, I'll just point out there's a great video if you're not a believer or if you have a family member or friend who doesn't really believe in you.

It's great to go and watch this video.

There's a New York Times article that walks through how it works.

And then, of course, you stay the six feet distance and wash your hands frequently.

All right, thank you, Dr. Bonds.

It's a great question.

You know, these decisions are made by the governor at the highest levels.

He certainly consults with the health commissioner and other public health, but not necessarily with the local health director.

I will just add, Leah, if you can really work with your constituents to really implement these mitigation measures, we are having to triage cases that we investigate.

We just do not have the staff.

to really do a full investigation into every single case.

So we're working on those that are really the highest-risk exposures.

And some cases are being asked to do their own contact notification.

As you can imagine, this is not an ideal scenario, but we just don't have the staff to appropriately investigate over 100 cases every single day.

We continue to hire, we continue to try and bring on staff, but there is a learning curve associated with this.

Although a vaccine is on the immediate horizon,

I was just saying that I've been having some of these conversations because there are some people who think that once the vaccine, you know, people start receiving the vaccine that we won't have, that we'll immediately be able to stop doing the physical distancing and wearing masks.

And that's been, um, I'm not sure if, you know, however that messaging is going to come out.

I think the sooner, the better.

Yeah, and we are developing messaging about the vaccine and to help people understand that the mitigation measures have to stay in place.

It's going to take months.

There just isn't a big enough supply of vaccine, even if we had all of the staff to vaccinate everyone in our district immediately.

So it's going to take some time to get the vaccine.

And the other thing that I've been having several Facebook conversations just about some of the fears and concerns around the vaccine.

So some local messaging to help people just kind of understand what the process has been and

some of the information that's coming out of these higher level discussions, breaking them down so that people can just start processing concerns that they may have.

And you are very aware of black and other low income communities.

A lot of Hispanic families, they are going to really be questioning

this.

Yeah, that's a really great point.

And we will be holding some outreach sessions and town halls, which will give people an opportunity to ask all of those questions.

And so we understand that education, this process certainly looks different than many other vaccine

that people get on a regular basis.

And so I think it's really important that they understand that it was a safe process, that there was appropriate review, and that it is okay to take this vaccine, to get this vaccine.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Dr. Bonds.

Mayor Walker, there's just one more announcement that slipped by us if you don't mind.

Okay.

Vote for your favorite Imagine a Day Without Water art contest entry.

Each year the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County Service Authority, and the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority ask the community to Imagine a Day Without Water as part of a national effort to bring attention to the value of water and water infrastructure.

To bring attention to this message of saving water, we hold a regional youth in art contest and participants are asked to artistically convey what water means to them.

This year's contest adapted to COVID-19, the new digital submission option, and we were very pleased with the strong participation from the community with 120 art submissions.

We now need your help to select this year's Imagine a Day Without Water fan favorite.

Voting for the fan favorite is open now through December 11th.

All Imagine a Day Without Water Art Contest winners will be announced via City Press release on December 18th.

For your favorite art entry and look, sorry.

For your favorite art entry and learn about the Imagine a Day Without Water Art Contest and vote, visit charlottesville.gov forward slash art contest.

Thank you.

All right, next up, we have the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent agenda, minutes.

October 5th, closed and regular meetings.

October 6th, work session on boards and commissions.

October 19th, closed and regular meetings.

Yeah, if you're in the audience and you'd like to speak about those three items on the consent agenda, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

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

Emily Dreyfus, did you have a question on the consent agenda?

I'm thinking she may have raised her hand early.

No problem.

All right, thank you.

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

All right, Ms.

Vice Mayor Magill?

Yes.

Yes.

Good evening Mayor Walker and Councillors.

At the previous meeting there was an inquiry from Miss Alberston about a garden plot mowed down by VDOT.

Staff did follow up.

That actually occurred in the county portion of the Willoughby subdivision.

Staff, also Mr. Wheeler followed up with her and shed some additional concerns that will be forwarded to Mr. Duncan, the city's traffic engineer.

I also just wanted to let the public know that on Friday, December 11th at 11 a.m.

the Historic Resources Committee will be reviewing the honorary street naming policy and I know that's an issue of deep concern in the community and just wanted to let that date and time offer that for this segment of the council.

Next up, we have Community Matters.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

We had three people sign up in advance.

They were Tanisha Hudson, Talisha Ivory, and Roy Van Doren.

We'll go to them first, and then we have other spots.

Council will hear from up to 16 people at this point in the meeting.

Each person will get three minutes each.

We would ask, when you introduce yourself, if you would tell us your place of residence.

And let me pull up those speakers.

So first up is Tanisha Hudson.

And she was having connection issues.

Let me just give her a moment to see if she can respond.

OK, it looks like she's dropped off.

She said she would come back later in the meeting.

Next up is Talisha Ivory.

And please tell me if I mispronounced your name.

Yes.

Yes.

Hi.

Hello, council.

My name is Talisha Ivory.

It's pronounced Talisha.

I am a resident of the city of Charlottesville.

I'm born and raised here in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I work for UVA, Aramark specifically.

I've been there for about 14 years.

And I just wanted to.

really speak about the matters that has been going on in our communities lately, especially with the wake of the shootings that have been going on in our communities.

I just wanted to present and ask you all, I have been really seeking to go in our communities and touch base with our youth to actually work with our community centers.

actually seeking council's approval for some type of funding to aid with some arts development, computer aid, and actually resources that we could actually go into our communities with so that we could help our at-risk teen and young adults.

Currently, I'm actually seeking or developing a program, which is actually called WUWOC, which is Waking Up With a Purpose.

And it's actually seeking to go into our underdeveloped communities three nights a week, specifically on days where we see more violence that erupts Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings.

that we could actually work in those community centers with our youth and our young adults to develop their skills and their skills and the talents that they do have so that we can keep them out of the streets.

And I don't have a specific proposal amount or anything, but I was just seeing that what we could do with council that we work to move forward to actually have active footwork in the communities and in these underdeveloped

areas so that we can begin to try to pull them out of the streets so that we can, I guess, attempt to lessen the violence that we have.

And then just basically, it's just been on my heart.

I had never really been to a council, you know, as a council or anything, so, but I do, I have been raised, well, I wasn't raised, I was raised on North Street, so we were in a house.

But I kind of developed going to these communities often.

So I was raised or born in Prospect Avenue.

I had a grandmother always that lived in Prospect for years.

I am aware of the First Street community, Garrett Square, Sixth Street, and Hardy Drive.

And as I began to develop for the past few weeks, I've been speaking to these young adults.

And a lot of them really are hopeless in their areas.

And I know that they have funds and gifts,

So that's pretty much all I had to, you know, present.

I thank you all for just hearing me out.

I guess my proposal would be to begin to develop the WOOP program, the Waking Up with a Purpose program, and actually take in many of our city volunteers that are willing to help with the youth and that will be willing to help me as we aid to move forward in helping them.

All right, thank you for sharing.

and coming on today.

I'm definitely, if you want to email

counsel at Charlottesville.gov, or you can email me.

I'm interested in talking to you more about this at nwalker at Charlottesville.gov.

The rec centers, like I'm talking about, like Harvard, those centers, but, and we are not the ones who determine what occurs at the,

CRHA properties or Over in Prospect or Friendship or those local managements are the ones that make those determinations.

But we can, if you email me your information, then I'll give you a call tomorrow to just talk about just maybe something that we can do.

I've been having several of those conversations over

the past couple of months and especially this month.

Thank you.

And Mr. Williams, right before you start, I didn't hear the bell that time.

Did we go over?

Okay.

All right.

We can.

Okay.

I'm Roy Vandorn and I live on Rugby Avenue.

I emailed each of you with an overview of the new Downtown Business Association gift card.

Most of the details of the program are on our site, downtowncharlesville.com, so I won't repeat them tonight.

What I do want to say is the concept is very important now and in the future.

There are a few ways in our community that can effectively support an entire region and downtown business in particular.

This is one that is substantial, impactful, and consequential today, next month, and next year.

It's important, too, for city government.

With all the damage that the virus has done economically to the downtown community, helping downtown stay vibrant is critical now more than ever.

This gift card program requires a lot of infrastructure work.

something our volunteer organization is committed to, but it requires a heavy lift, especially when most everyone is working longer hours with less staff.

I want to say on behalf of DBIC, we appreciate Chris and Jason at the Economic Development Department for their support.

Frankly, we could use a little bit more investment, as more funding now would help all of us get there faster.

perhaps a portion of the remaining CARES contingency.

Most of the assistance we're asking for is for marketing.

We need to communicate to business and the community.

After reviewing kind of where we're at, we're kind of looking at an ask for $10,000.

This would be used in the next two weeks exclusively to market support for local business in our community.

Long term, we hope that other city business districts can adopt their own gift card program and use our success as a mentor to help rebuild their neighborhoods.

I want to thank you guys for all your support.

It's a great program.

We've been working on this for two years.

And I can only tell you that we're really scrambling as a downtown.

to keep our head above water.

Okay, now we can open it up to anyone else who'd like to speak to council.

Just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

And did we check back in with Ms.

Next up is Jojo Robertson, who will be followed by Robin Hoffman and then Harold Foley.

Jojo, you're on with the council.

Hi, thank you.

So my question

with the boards, the openings with the boards and commissions.

I thought there was an opening on the CRB board, but I didn't see that listed.

That's one of my questions.

The other question is, it's confusing about the parks.

You know, they have a movie theater opening on the downtown mall, which is kind of wow, because they've all been closed for a while.

And also with the city schools, come January, they are requesting that students go back, from what I understand.

So that's really confusing.

to me, especially with the fact that there's only a certain amount of kids that are allowed at the park with the skate park being noted by city council.

So that's the only thing.

What other opportunities are there for kids?

You know, there's

There is a lot of stuff going on.

Ms.

Chief, as the other speaker noted, I think it's important that we have opportunities for kids and outlets.

But yeah, the CRB, that was the one that I didn't see listed.

Just quick.

Counselor Hill, she's talking about online on the website.

The application for the CRB?

Yeah.

I thought that we had suspended making that appointment until we got more clarity from the state level.

Okay.

And for the public interested in the boards and commissions openings, they can go to Charlottesville.gov slash boards and click that link.

Next up is Robin Hoffman.

Hi everybody, I hope you're having a good evening.

I wanted to talk about the possibility of, maybe Mr. Blair could answer the question, if they're gonna open up any buildings or schools, have they found the HVAC systems that actually take the particulate matter

circulated and are they actually upgrading?

And maybe you can tell us next time if that's possible because I'm hearing different things on the news or wherever I'm getting the information from, I don't know, but that people do have air quality systems and they're working to eliminate the particulate matter that lingers in the air.

but I don't know what they are.

So just if somebody could look into that because you know every time we open something we have to close it because you know somebody gets COVID.

Okay and then also I was getting gas at the Shell station on 250 and I was alarmed at the customer service person saying to me that in fact the shootings might be a result of

the defunding of the police.

But that's not the first time I heard that from somebody.

It's misinformation about what defunding the police means.

But I just wonder if it has anything to do with the rise of people feeling sort of being a vigilante type thing where they're shooting.

I don't even know.

But I thought at that point, if this is so rampant, maybe the FBI can look into it.

And then lastly, I want to thank anybody who was trying to do a neighborhood

engagement.

I did try to bring my neighbors to a bus and then like, you know, a few at a time or whatever, but people are very nervous about it.

So if you know people that are, you know, able to do it, maybe form a committee or something in their neighborhood or whatever, I would definitely think that's going to be helpful.

I just wasn't able to

People were too nervous to engage.

And that's about it.

And real, because I slipped my mind that fast after Ms.

Robertson, but it's, I think it's important to note that we, the schools, the school board and the administration there makes the decision regarding opening for schools and

in terms of businesses, those individuals would make it regarding businesses.

There is a lot of confusion and we all have to just acknowledge that.

I think one of the best posts that I saw were two signs sitting side by side and one says open for business and the other one says stay home and stay alive.

And that's been pretty consistent throughout this pandemic with attempting to

try to figure out the public health response and the economic impact and also the need for individuals to be around other individuals just by the nature of being social beings.

So I understand that it is a challenge to get different messages from different people within the same locality.

I just wanted to acknowledge that I just forgot it.

Mayor Walker, next up is Harold Foley.

Harold, you're on with council.

Hey, good afternoon everyone.

I hope everybody's okay.

I hope they enjoy your Thanksgiving.

So I am here representing the People's Coalition and I want to say that

The PCRB, the Police Civilian Review Board, does have an opening and I think it needs to be filled as soon as possible because the folks are working on putting together what they need to do before July 1st.

I mean, one applicant that I looked over twice, and I really didn't understand why, was Roselle Parker.

And if that's a problem, I think this should be acknowledged why I don't want to put her on the PCRB.

And as I see you, and this is rarely directed to you, because I be getting phone calls from folks saying that they want to make sure that the PCRB is fully

operated and so they can have what they need.

So this is a plea from the People's Coalition to please fill that empty space that's there and hopefully fill it with Roselle Parker.

Mayor Walker, next up is Jeanine Carver.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor and council members, thank you for letting me speak.

I have conflicts of interest in that I am a pediatric ICU physician, but I am also the mother of a 15-year-old daughter who is an avid skateboarder.

And my understanding is there's some concern about what's happening there and maybe consideration of closing it.

And first I'd like to say that I very much appreciate that the city has built this world-class skate park in Charlottesville.

There are professionals coming there from apparently all over the country and the sport is growing very rapidly.

I'm also very happy that it is a public space for kids from all backgrounds to come together and be outside in this time when they can't do much of anything else and school is out.

I also thought a lot about COVID and I think the big concern is the transmission of COVID.

Since most of the kids there at any time that I've been there are less than 12 years old, probably half of them, a lot of them are teenagers and there are some adults

But it is an outdoor sport, and it is an individual sport, not a contact sport.

Children contract COVID significantly less frequently than adults.

They're sick and quiet significantly less often, and they don't really transmit it to other people the way adults do.

In that vein, I feel like it might be maybe short-sighted.

And I worry that some of these kids will then end up skateboarding on the streets, on the downtown mall, at the corner.

and you end up monitoring them in an entirely different way.

Now that winter is coming, I think it's gonna get colder, a lot of the kids are not gonna be there.

I think that it's also gonna get dark early and I was hoping that for the physical and mental health of a lot of the children that go there, that maybe we could consider some measures that may be less extreme than closing it, perhaps better signage.

I don't know, I think when

people stopped by from Parks and Rec or the police department.

I think everybody is going to be more likely to be compliant.

Those are my comments and I appreciate the time.

Thank you.

Counselors?

I would just offer that you know obviously we did have a release last week that the city manager and the team put out just to raise awareness around just the need for people to be following

guidelines of maintaining social distancing, wearing masks.

I went by the skate park twice over this weekend compared to like the weekend before and there certainly was a lot more compliance, but it really is going to be the onus of the skate community to ensure that they're following the rules and there is a lot more signage there.

I think some of that signage might have been fabricated by folks who really want to encourage everyone in their peer set to follow the rules so that they can continue to be open.

For me personally, I certainly think it's

the community's interest to try to keep these outdoor spaces open as much as possible.

Next up is Kerry Heilman, who will be followed by Don Gathers and then Gloria Beard.

Go ahead.

Hi, I'm Carrie Heilman.

I'm a lifelong resident of the Charlottesville community and I currently live in Crozet.

This is timely, I guess, because I also was interested in speaking about the Charlottesville Skate Park remaining open.

I have four children and two of which frequent the Charlottesville Skate Park regularly.

and like literally every single day.

And I just would like to piggyback on the former person who is speaking that this is such an imperative thing for our children to be able to continue to skate.

And certainly, as you were saying, there has been some increased signage.

A lot of the parents, such as myself, this weekend in hearing that it might close, we were walking around and reminding kiddos to put their masks on, keep their masks on.

You probably did notice that there was more compliance this week.

And I can say that these young folks

I mean, unfortunately, I think sometimes they need a little bit of a scare in order to be compliant.

Unfortunately, you know how young people are.

But I can tell you that it's a lifeline for my children and the lack of

Skate Ruled!

Okay, skating rules is what what my eight-year-old just said but I can assure you that as a parent who is there every day just about that I believe that we will be seeing more compliance and specifically with the mask wearing it does get a little bit difficult for them to skate in masks just as when people are exercising you know they get hot they're breathing hard and such

However, they're willing to do it if they can continue to skate and have an outlet.

So that's all and I appreciate your time.

Mayor Walker, next up is Don Gathers.

Good evening, everyone.

Just wanted to really piggyback off of what Mr. Harold Foley said, and that I think it's imperative that as quickly and expeditiously as possible we get that seat filled on the CRB.

We shouldn't, I don't see the necessity in waiting to see what goes on with legislation in Richmond to do that.

The bylaws call for a certain number of individuals to be on the board, so regardless of what happens in Richmond, that spot needs to be filled anyway.

So I think that just as quickly as possible, we need to go ahead and get that done.

Strong and huge concern from the community on the spate of shootings that are going on and would like to know what plan, if any, that the city has to try to address that.

And also where we stand as far as a community on COVID.

If there's any plans to move one way or the other, a phase up, a phase down,

because the numbers are definitely going in the wrong direction.

A lot of concern from the Thanksgiving holidays and the recent spike that is going on, and the same concern exists with the Christmas holidays and New Year's coming ahead.

I just think that we need to put some guidelines and some measures in place.

If the plan's already there, then God bless you.

I'm anxiously awake to see what that is, but we certainly need some

some strong measures in place at least in my humble opinion.

So thank you all for what you do and again as quickly and as expeditiously and as smoothly as possible.

No offense Mr. Blair at all I appreciate what you're trying to do but we certainly need to get a strong city manager in that position just as quickly as we possibly can realizing that we are still very much in the midst of a pandemic

and we just need that person there leading the city.

Mayor Walker, next up is Gloria Beard.

Wow, that is wonderful.

Well, I recently sent Mayor Walker a request and I was confused because I wanted, we have this committee thanks to Jojo, to Katrina, Rosia, myself and others that volunteer to give up money.

And so we've been doing that and we just gave 130

bags for the homeless, you know, blessing bags.

So when I, she sent me a message back saying, was this a 501C3?

I don't even know what that is.

What is this 501C3 organization?

I mean, well, let me finish, because my three minutes will be gone.

Y'all can answer afterwards.

Anyway, we wanted to do something this time for the seniors in Charlottesville, because I'm a senior.

And we feel very neglected.

There's so much negativity going on.

We're hearing so much stuff going on in City Hall.

and it's really making us feel so uneasy it's like is anybody for us I mean not just the seniors but the community I know it's the pandemic and everybody on edge god knows I'm definitely on edge because I got health issues and wearing a mask don't make it for me either but I put it on faithfully when I go to the stores or the doctors

but I need to know you know something gotta give y'all we got to work together as a community now if y'all can't give the money to us our little organization can't y'all get involved and do something for some of these seniors we were thinking about Midway Manor

and the one downtown, you know, across from Gary and those people, those people feel so neglected.

And we got to do something.

I like to help people.

That was my calling.

I worked in nursing all my life until I retired.

and helping people is my thing.

So come on, y'all.

I know it's an equity fund or something for the community.

Let's do something nice for these people.

They're scared.

I'm scared.

The pandemic might get us.

We might not even be here next year.

Let's show them that we love them and care about them because most of those seniors are the ones who work their tail off like I did all my life.

Now, I don't want to thank my last years and sit in a house and nobody care about me.

I done had some incidents since I retired.

Thank God for my community that came to see about me.

So come on y'all, let's do something.

I know there's gotta be something y'all can do.

Y'all got the power, please use it.

and stop being so negative all the time.

It's getting out in the community.

I don't like to hear that my, my government of the city is fussing and babbling and carrying on downtown at the city hall.

We can't see y'all anymore, but I can see you now today.

So tell me now, and now I think I'm finished, but please, please, you all think about us.

We still matter.

Okay.

So thank you, Miss Beard.

I was asking you about the organization because the organizations that we give money to, they have that tax exemption status.

So, and that's how we're able to do that.

I hadn't heard of the organization, so I was trying to get more clarity about the organization and exactly what it was that you all needed help with.

So that was my question.

I saw your email stating that you did not understand what I was asking and I haven't had time.

Mayor Walker, we have three other hands raised right now.

First, we'll go to Nancy Carpenter, followed by Skippy Norton and then Alice Christian,

Nancy, you're on with council.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you for the time this evening, council, to share with you some concerns I have regarding the end of this month.

That is when the CDC moratorium on evictions because of a public health crisis expires, and we know that there are millions and millions of households that will be facing

potential loss of housing in the middle

And we know that there are asks out there.

We know that there are potentially between $35 billion and $70 billion nationwide in past due rents, although the current talking point is about $25 billion.

I know that they are talking about $160 billion going to aid to local, state and local governments, and then another broader national eviction moratorium.

I'm hoping that you can look at, you know, as you're looking at the budget, you can look at some of those maybe capital improvement programs that or structures that may not be needed immediately.

And I'm thinking, you know, looking at the Market Street garage that you all been talking about, the monies that are going to go to that, the monies that are going to the west.

Main Street, Streetscape Project, that some of those things may have, their natural life may have expired.

The need for them may have expired because we are in a different type of relationship with people.

We are in a different type of relationship with our environment and with each other.

And so I'm hoping that

You know, I know that the Pathways Fund has been doing an excellent job of helping people.

The RMRP for the state has been doing an excellent job of helping people.

But those programs also need, I think, the strength of our local resources to make sure those who are at the lowest end of the income scale, those who have the hardest time

We'll be able to be part of ongoing discussions about how we keep people in housing and I also want to thank Harold Foley for mentioning that we do need that extra person on the PCRB and I was sorry that I was looking through my emails and I did not see

I don't see anything from our council liaison about the discussion that was being had regarding boards and commissions in that position would not be necessarily appointed anytime soon.

And that's a concern because we do have a rather large project coming up in conjunction with you and the CPD when it comes to reorganizing our ordinance to more reflect what has recently been passed by the General Assembly.

Thank you for your time this evening very much.

Mayor Walker, next up is Skippy Norden.

Hi, I'm Skippy Norton.

I'm 12 years old and I'm seventh grade and I'm going to talk about the skate park.

And so I am a skater and I really like to skate.

and I understand why people are considering closing it and things like that but I think that there are some ways we could keep it open COVID safe like

I think that me and a lot of my friends who go to the skate park, we're really trying to get our friends and other people to wear masks and things like that.

And I also think that the skate park helps a lot of people, lots of kids active.

I can say that for me, if I'm having a hard day, I can go to the skate park and I'll know I'll be happy.

and I've been progressing a lot with my skating and

I really like to skate, and I think it means a lot to a lot of kids, and I love to see.

It's such a nice skate park.

It's so nice, it's amazing, and I love to see so many kids using it and learning how to skate.

I think that's a really awesome thing.

And I think that, again, like I was saying, there are

Some ways we can keep it safe definitely.

I think we should really try to crack down on masks because I will admit when if I wasn't a skater and I wasn't there when I when people drive by the

When I drive by, I see this large gathering of people, not a lot of masks, and I definitely see where you guys are coming from.

I think that there is a way that we could have it open safely and it's not going to be super easy, but I really think that we should work on it.

And I would really hope that you guys could consider keeping it open.

Next up is Alice Christian.

Alice, you're on the city council.

Hi, so I'm Alice Christian.

I am 12 years old and I'm in sixth grade and I go to the skate park almost every day and me and

A bunch of people at the park have been just reminding everybody to wear a mask and to just like social distance and be more cautious with COVID.

And I've noticed that

Skating helps a lot with mental health and can, like Skippy said, if you're having a really bad day, just skating, even if you're not skating very hard, it can just put you in a much better mindset.

And the skate park is a place where many people can

connect with being cautious, but many people can connect and can meet new people that can change a lot of stuff.

I've met many people at the park who have

just, I don't know, made my life a little bit more happy.

And I know a lot of people who have met other people and just put them in a much happier mindset.

And yeah, I understand that COVID is

a very big thing right now.

And there are many ways that we can keep the park open, but still be very cautious and not have as many cases or just be a lot more safe at the park, but still have it open.

Mayor Walker, next up is Afreen Amir.

Afreen, you're on the City Council.

Hi, my name's Afreen, obviously, and I'm a junior at Monticello High School.

I'm 16 and

I just wanted to advocate for the skate park because you guys have every right to have suspicions and there's a considerable amount of reason to worry and to, you know,

you know consider closing the park but at the same time there are like an overwhelming amount of reasons to also like counteract that and I think there's definitely a way to be completely safe at the park and continue normal activity while also being really safe.

The park is an outdoor environment and if you know as long as there are only 25 people there at a time as there it's a very like spaced out

I think in terms of the pandemic, there aren't a lot

A lot of outlets for kids to, you know, go to places where they can really have a lot of physical activity with peers around them.

And I think not having that has really affected people's mental health tremendously.

And I think the park is like one of the only escapes that kids my age and younger and older have to express themselves to, you know, have fun.

And I think

If it came down to taking the park away, I don't think that would be necessary in order to keep people safe.

I think there's definitely a compromise and there's definitely so much stuff that we can do to improve the situation while also letting kids have that kind of safe place.

to do what they do.

And for a lot of kids, they really do depend on it for physical education.

And it's a social atmosphere for sure.

And there are quite a bit of people there, but they are all distanced out.

and most of the time when I go there I always keep my mask on and I don't go super close to people and I make sure to just stay and keep moving and you know I don't touch people and you know I like limit myself and I think everyone should give themselves those same boundaries and I think as long as people can do that and rules are set in place I think the measure to close down the whole park will not

be necessary because I certainly don't think closing the park will, you know, necessitate a difference if people are taking safety precautions when they go to the park.

Mayor Walker, next up is Melissa Collier.

Melissa, you're on the City Council.

Hi, good evening, everyone.

I am going to piggyback off of all these supporters that you've heard for the Charlottesville State Park.

I'm a mother, a parent of a frequent scooter and skater at the skate park.

And while I understand the concerns for COVID, I think we're all aware of the dangers out there.

But I'm just asking the city council to consider

just giving the skate park a chance.

I think obviously you're hearing a lot of support.

Nobody wants to see it closed.

It is a huge benefit to the community, to the kids, to everyone.

I'm a parent of a kid with special needs.

This is a tremendous outlet for him and

You know, considering the mental health impacts of COVID on our kids and the community, I just would hate to see for this to go away.

So I hope you'll take that into consideration.

And I think we as a community at the skate park will do whatever we need to do to make sure everyone's safe.

We can go around and create committees, making sure people are wearing masks, being socially distanced.

But most kids are aware and they're very, very

Once you tell them what they need to do, they're willing to do it because they don't want to lose their skate park.

So thank you.

Mayor Walker, that was our 14th speaker.

I'll try one more time with Tanisha Hudson.

If anyone else would like to raise their hand, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

Tanisha, you're on the city council.

Can you guys hear me?

We can.

Okay, I just want to speak on the state of the city.

While we know that the inside of the city is chaotic, I mean the outside of the city is chaotic obviously from all the shootings, we also know that the inside of the city is just as chaotic.

I know that we have quite a few employees who are probably one foot out of the door.

And while a lot of the community members don't speak up the way I do about the state of the city, I just want to say, because the mayor and I had a little back and forth on Facebook, I just want to say that she stated in her speech when she won the election

that I'm going to read it and I quote because I don't want to be wrong when I read this.

I want to read it correctly.

I'm elected, but I can't change the culture we have in this city without a team.

And we all have to show up and figure out how to do that differently and need to stay engaged.

That's what she said in her victory speech.

A team, you cannot, you have not done it by yourself.

And what's crazy is that

The fact that I have to spend all this money on a FOIA request just to get the truth.

is beyond me when you're not even paying for your own FOIA request and then you say that you're using a FOIA request for public information.

I'm using a FOIA request for public information because I want the public to know what's been happening and how the city manager was forced out of his position.

Now, if he was the problem, and I've said this numerous times, it's mighty funny that we're in jeopardy of losing multiple people in this city.

Multiple people in this city.

I've had conversations with individuals and I just think it is absolutely crazy that we are so vulnerable as a city right now.

We are about to just have no type of leadership because you and Brackney, you Mayor, you, you and Brackney are down there acting like Trump and Barr and you can say you do a good job, you can say that you

haven't compromised who you are.

Yes, you have, in more ways than one.

And you will have the little text messages every time something came up, your little plan, your little plot.

That's why you took the bullet on May 18.

It all makes sense now.

And I spent a ton of money, and nobody wanted to even say that there was an exemption when the foyers are used for public information.

This is for public information.

And I've openly shared it on Facebook.

We'll openly publish all the pages for everybody to see.

Get this city together.

We are vulnerable.

It's about to be an inauguration.

You don't know if the Proud Boys are going to come back to Charlottesville or not.

Get the city together.

Get a city manager in there.

For real, for real, y'all should just call Dr. Richardson back because y'all illegally forced him out of there anyway because you wanted him to do discriminatory hiring.

You wanted him to discriminate on who he hired, when he hired him, and then y'all wanted to be involved in the hiring process also.

It's just a mess.

It's a mess.

And we have a whole dictatorship right in Charlottesville.

So that's pretty much all I got to say.

I'm just saying y'all need to get it together.

Swallow y'all pride.

Do whatever y'all got to do.

If you keep praising Brackney like she's doing a good job, which we know she's not.

We know she's not.

All she's doing is lying.

Then you should have been praising the work that Dr. Richardson did, but you can't do that because it'll kill you to do that because you always got to be right.

But that's all I got to say.

Y'all have a good night and now I can enjoy my vacation.

And Mayor Walker, that leaves one slot.

I don't see any hands raised at the moment.

Give people one last chance.

All right, thank you.

Chair Walker, one comment I would like to make is that the response from the skate park people is exactly what I had hoped we would get when we heard a week or 10 days ago or however long ago it was that there were concerns about people not wearing masks at the skate park and the concern was expressed that perhaps we ought to be trying to close down the skate park and other recreational places

where people were not following the rules.

My hope was that if we just put the word out there that this was a problem, that the community would take it upon themselves to police themselves.

And it seems like that's the way they're headed.

that's the responsible thing for them to do.

I'm glad that they're stepping up to the plate because I think it's in everybody's best interests that we have the skate park active and open, but observant of the correct protocols.

And I think it's, I don't want to speak presumptuously, but I think it's fair to say that as long as the people who are there are using their masks and following proper protocols,

they're going to be fine and there's not going to be any danger to the skate park and the skating.

All right.

Okay.

So we are at about 7.50 and it's probably best for us to take our break now before we go into the next item.

So we'll take a break until 8.05.

and reconvene at that time.

All right, thank you.

Good evening Madam Mayor, members of the council.

My name is Chris Cullen and I'm the city's director of finance.

The agenda item tonight for your consideration is the first of two readings on our end of year adjustments for fiscal year 2020.

That's the year ending June 30th

of this year.

The audit for fiscal year has been completed.

You'll be hearing from the city's auditor a little later on this evening to provide you a report on that.

To close out the city's financial records for the year, several year-end adjustments to various accounts require city council's action.

For the year that was fiscal year 2020, the city on an operating basis, the general fund did report a decline, a loss of $1.8 million, or about 1% of the adopted budget.

And this was the result primarily due to COVID.

COVID had a tremendous impact on the city's revenues, especially our most economically sensitive ones, such as sales, meals, lodging, utilities.

And also the time of the fiscal year that it hit is very difficult.

It hit right in March and April time period, which is the end of the last quarter of the fiscal year.

And so your options in terms of revenues and expenditures certainly diminish the closer you get to the end of the fiscal year.

But as I mentioned, it was about within 1% of the adopted budget.

That loss did eat into the city's general fund fund balance.

However, once we deducted out that operating loss, as well as some of the other adjustments that we make, the general fund fund balance did end the year with a $3.9 million surplus above our 17% fund balance policy.

SAS recommendation this evening is that council follow our policy of putting the entirety of that amount towards the CIP contingency account and just offer a few thoughts on that.

In addition to being our policy, it fits with the idea that any sort of a surplus we treat as a one-time event when we put it towards a one-time use.

That's sort of the genesis behind

that policy, as well as, as we talked on numerous occasions, the importance of putting cash to the capital improvement plan.

It reduces the amount we have to borrow.

It does create some financial flexibility in terms of any unforeseen needs, be they as part of a plan project or something that comes up.

during the course of the year.

And I would also offer that, as we've talked about before in the current fiscal year, as you all know, the reserve that was created in this year's budget was primarily through putting a hold on the cash contribution from the general fund to the CIP.

And as we've reported in previous meetings, we've already eaten to about $4.6 million to this point.

So certainly, the $3.8 helps offset some of that in terms of cash applied to the CIP.

And I would just also finally offer that not too many weeks ago, we had a work session with counsel.

on CIP priorities and funding.

And there was quite a bit of discussion about different alternatives, including applying more, if not all, of our future cash, increasing our cash contribution to the CIP, be it through the regular budget process or any year-end surpluses that we might have.

And with that, I'd be happy to entertain any questions that you might have this evening.

So the operating loss is we spent $1.8 million more than we took in.

And I think what I really look to are the city's sort of the big seven revenues, the revenues that drive almost 70% of our general fund budget.

Real estate, personal property, and BPOL all produced better results than expected.

The sales, utilities, meals, and lodging underperformed their budget quite a bit.

And so when you net those seven against each other, it was about a $3 million below budget

performance are roughly 2.4%.

And so, you know, other parts of it contributed to it, other on the revenue side, on the expenditure side.

As I mentioned, the point where it hit in the fiscal year made it tough to have many options available to us on the expenditure side.

City management did institute cost control efforts in terms of filling vacancies.

in terms of discretionary spending.

Today was the last day for real estate taxes.

So our revenue and economic monitoring team, we meet on every other week basis.

We met last week.

The city treasurer, we broached that very subject.

At that time, he felt that

the major mortgage companies had paid that several of these larger taxpayers had paid but he did say that he'd been getting more questions than usual regarding extension plans or delays to collection those sorts of things so

How that all nets out, I'm not sure.

But we have been monitoring that and keeping a close eye on that.

Because obviously, real estate taxes is the general fund's number one resource by far.

Any other?

So I just I have just questions about being more intentional about where we put the surplus, even though it's a one time and we have that conversation annually.

We're about to have the housing strategy completed, and they are talking about the council for that to matter, making a $10 million commitment if that money is not

strategically, if we're not strategic about funds like this, then I have questions for council about where are we gonna get this commitment from.

And if we don't start making the investments into it and being really clear about, okay, for fiscal year 22, this is how we're gonna start making that commitment, then that's something that's gonna be put out.

We have the emergency fund,

and without knowing what would be the next CARES Act allocation.

We don't know what that looks like and what will be needed there.

I know that we could go in and it says here that before any allocations are made, this will be brought back before council, but we are seeing

Staff make these recommendations and when they are making them

They are pretty final at this point and I just want to make sure that we're not leaving these items out without knowing long term because we haven't received that information yet about how staff may be impacted since we already had this discussion about

Staffing in the past with the temp employees.

We have a surplus now and we lay people off.

How do we make sure even if it's to stay afloat and make sure people

I know most of the temporary employees are no longer with the organizations, but because we haven't received a lot of feedback about process, I would want some dollars to be allocated to make sure that if this came up to even full time staff who could be impacted by furloughs, layoffs, that we had some type of resources there to

assist them and we just heard and hopefully moving forward if we received additional CARES funding we would be able to allocate more of those dollars to the business community and the operational modifications that took the largest chunk.

of dollars in the past would not need those dollars because those changes hopefully would have been made.

But without knowing that, we

have a request now.

I'm sure there will be additional requests about how to jumpstart businesses that employ people.

So that's a question we heard earlier when Nancy was talking about evictions.

And as we sent the letter out early on in the pandemic, landlords asked.

So this is, again, how I

You know, how I live, my livelihood is based on me renting these places and we had nothing to help, you know, cover that.

Yes, we do.

But there was still the

Oh.

So we can't vote on it before the public hearing, correct?

So we, but normally we have the hearing, right?

The first reading to give

to be able to take into consideration any feedback we get.

If we have a public hearing and vote on it the next meeting, then we won't be able to, unless we do it all in that setting.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you'd like to comment to council on the fiscal year 2020 year-end adjustments, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

As a reminder, if you're watching on Facebook, you can go to Charlottesville.gov slash Zoom, register for the webinar and participate in public hearings like this, except this is not a public hearing.

Okay, all right.

It was my understanding that

As you alluded to, no final allocations are going to be made at this time, but this is essentially a placeholder.

It allows us to have some more time to kind of see how some other things are going to play out before we actually determine where this funding may go and if it's just going to continue to reside in the CIP.

That's my understanding of what the staff recommendation is.

This just allows us to have it in a location that we can then revisit down the road with more information than we have right now and obviously with COVID in full thrust right now and almost looking maybe worse from a financial perspective for the municipality than maybe we thought even a couple months ago.

I would agree with that and I would also say that

As far as I can recall, the decision we made in January to put some of the money from some of this excess receipts from the prior fiscal year to put it into something other than capital expenditures was basically the first time that I can remember that we had ever done that when we allocated some portion of the money for the emergency fund.

I think right now we're what we're looking at just to refresh folks recollection we had a we're planning on putting about nine or ten million dollars at one point into the capital improvement program we decided that the way that we were going to balance the budget in light of COVID was to not put that capital expense did not put that capital

After a few other things got deducted, we wound up at about $6.6 million that was unallocated but still just being held largely as a protection against what we were expecting was continued bad news on the economic front, particularly the tax revenue front.

We have now, as a result of the projections from the first few months, we've already laid claim to about $4.7 million of that $6.6 million, which means that we have in effect a cushion in the present budget of about $1.9 million.

And we're looking at probably the next seven months or so during which things are going to get worse before they get better.

So I just think that if we add the $3.9 million to the $6.6 million, that gives us roughly a $10 million cushion.

Again, we've already spent, or is more accurate to say, we have already likely incurred offsets against that of about $5 million.

So I just think it would be the height of wisdom at this point to do nothing to restrain those funds, to save them as long as we can, and just see where we come out.

If we come out to where it begins to look like things are going to be better in March than I suspect right now they are.

We might decide we've got more money available to do other things with, but unless we're ready to start also doing the contingency planning of figuring out where we're going to cut the budget between now and the end of June.

I don't mean next year's budget, I mean this year's budget.

Council, I just wanted to bring two points to your attention as you think about this.

We actually have two financial policies related to the CIP.

One is the 3% PAYGO policy, which is where we transfer money from the general fund to the CIP.

on an annual basis in the amount of 3%, which is the transfer that Counselor Snook was referring to.

We also have a second policy which talks about at year end that anything over the 17% gets transferred to the CIP as additional pay go.

So one of the reasons why staff is making the recommendation to go ahead and transfer this money to the CIP contingency is to one, keep with the policy.

Because from a financial standpoint, we have already held back on one of those policies by keeping 3% in the general fund as a reserve due to COVID.

If you transfer this money to the CIP at this point, one, you're keeping with your policy, which is a good indicator to the rating agencies that you are sticking to your financial policies.

Additionally, no money can be spent out of that contingency fund unless council approves that transfer.

So if we put it there, it sits there.

It still has to come back to you before it can be spent.

And if at a later date, you decide that we need it for the fund as an offset for COVID, or if you want to allocate it to other projects, you still have that ability.

But it puts forth the best effort that you're following your own policies.

Thank you.

And I think in terms of, and I'll look at this over the time, my concern is that we have not been intentional with setting priorities.

So I'm not necessarily, we're still debating about whether we

to handle, continue with the West Main Street project or continue with schools, where's housing gonna fit into that, even though we made a verbal commitment to these things.

And at this point, I understand what you're saying about that these are two policies, but since I have been on council and even before that, we have discussed possibilities

every year.

And I'm for not making any decisions until we, I mean, even the next meeting, we will get a budget update and that we can factor in.

We should know in terms of the larger source of revenue, how, what,

You know, in terms of what was received, you know, for that.

But I for me, I'm going to continue to advocate to make sure that we are at least intentional because we I remember a couple

Maybe it was, Kara's funny, I'm not sure, I have to go back and look, but there was a $600,000, I think, for radio equipment or something that we had already allocated out a pot of money like this, and then we went back and put that money back again after we already knew that we were gonna spend it.

And I don't have my notes out in front of me, but that's one of the things that just popped into my,

my head and so if we are clear about what our priorities are then I think we're on the same page and understanding not making a decision today I get it but or next next council meeting but I still think that we need to be we we're not clear on priorities as a council and that makes me a bit nervous about

what happens to people in this community during a pandemic.

We know what happens to especially the most vulnerable people doing recessions, great recessions, great depression.

I mean, anytime in history you can read.

I'll just concur with staff's recommendation.

I think it's definitely prudent for us to be cautious.

pessimistic about the possibilities of additional stimulus from the federal government.

Hopefully that's able to come, but it might not.

And I just think it's definitely prudent for us to be as cautious as possible, and I think putting some of that money towards the CIP is good, not just to follow our own policy, but I think we saw in our last work session that

Maintaining our commitments in public housing, friendship court, school reconfiguration, in addition to everything else is definitely going to require us to put more money into the CIP because the longer we don't do that, that problem is just going to get harder and harder.

Any other comments?

All right, so this whole item will be on the, as an action item for the next meeting.

And it will have a public hearing at that time.

All right, next up, we have a public hearing and ordinance for closing, vacating, discontinuing a public gas utility line easement within the Stonefield Shopping Center in Albemarle County.

One reading and request to waive the second reading.

Sorry about that.

Suddenly, I couldn't see anybody.

This is Lauren Hildebrand, the Director of Utilities.

Good evening.

Thank you.

Sorry, I hit the wrong button there and lost all the screens.

In 2014, the city acquired a natural gas line easement located in Bond Street, on the Stonefield Development from Albemarle Realty LLC.

A portion of the gas line is now in conflict with a future building site that was not part of the initial site plan.

The property owner has requested the gas line easement be partially vacated and recorded in another location.

A gas line easement for a new location has been granted by the developer already and recorded with Albemarle County.

The natural gas line will be relocated prior to the construction of the new building and the developer will pay for the relocation.

This contributes to objective 3.2 of the strategic plan to provide reliable and high quality infrastructure.

A public hearing is required by law to give the public an opportunity to comment on the proposed conveyance of a public interest.

Staff recommends approval of the attached ordinance to vacate the gas easement located in Bond Street in the Stonefield development.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Mr. Wilber.

If you'd like to speak on the vacation of this gas line easement, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

Okay, so we'll close the public hearing.

I second.

Really quick, what do we have to do to waive the second reading?

Does that have to do after that, Ms.

Let's see here.

Let me take a look at the the ordinance that is in your agenda already has the language for waiving the second reading in it.

I second.

All right.

Any further comments?

No.

All right.

Ms.

That's Mayor Magill.

Okay, Councillor Hill.

And that carries five to zero.

And thank you, Ms.

Hildebrand.

Okay, next.

Yes, Mayor, City Council, Matt Althley, City Planner with Neighborhood Development Services.

Before you tonight, you have an ordinance, as you said, the first of two readings.

This is to rezone the subject property, which is the 817

Nassau Street from R1S residential small lot to R2 family.

On November 10th, Planning Commission held a joint public hearing and recommended seven to zero on the rezoning.

This is a straight rezoning, no development plan in place going just from R1S to R2.

Correct.

So in the R1 districts and the R1S districts, you can have an accessory dwelling unit.

So you could technically have two units on one parcel, but it would need to be owner-occupied, and the second unit would need to be smaller.

So by rezoning to R2, you would have two traditional units.

With no limit on size.

Correct.

And you could have two ownership because you could have a single family attached property.

There are a few things that can be built by right.

Okay, I think that answers my question.

Okay.

I think any questions I had were resolved at the Planning Commission meeting and just comment.

Same.

Any questions I had were addressed and also agree that it's another reason why we need to be focusing on the rezoning and I have no more further comments.

Okay.

Any other?

Good evening, Mayor Walker and Councillors, and I know Ms Robertson may join in here with some additional comments, she may.

Before you, you have the COVID-19 ordinance that the Council adopted back in July of this year, and if you recall during that time, I think a lot of the impetus for that initial

legislation from the council was that the University of Virginia students were going to be coming back into Charlottesville.

And at the time, the governor was loosening a number of restrictions statewide, and the council was concerned about the influx of students coming into the community in about a month from then.

Since that time, and that particular ordinance had a limit of 50 people at a gathering.

Since that time, unfortunately, we have seen the spread of COVID nationwide, beginning once temperatures dropped.

Obviously, the Thanksgiving holiday last week has seen, as we heard tonight in Dr. Bond's presentation, we're now starting to see the local level.

are positives in case counts rise.

State Governor Northam, through an amendment to his Executive Order 67, already has lowered the statewide limit on gatherings to 25 people or less.

The amendment before you tonight to your local ordinance

brings the local ordinance in line with this new more restrictive guideline from the governor and it amends the local ordinance which states that currently gatherings are limited to 50 people and this amendment to the ordinance would restrict it to 25 just like the governor's executive order and

That's the substantive change before you tonight in this amendment.

Madam Mayor, I had sent around to other councilors an email this afternoon in which I was expressing my thoughts on the COVID ordinance.

And let me say, as a general proposition, I am in favor of doing anything that reduces confusion in these matters.

And one way of reducing confusion in these matters is to speak with one voice through the governor.

And if we are changing our ordinance so that it more neatly meshes with what the governor has said,

I think we're moving in the right direction.

For a number of reasons, however, I think the better course would be to repeal the ordinance in its entirety.

Number one, because it's essentially redundant, if its provisions are the same as the governor's order, our ordinance is meaningless.

If its provisions are less strict than the governor's order, they are in essence overruled by the governor's order.

If its provisions are stricter than the governor's order and we have a good local reason why it needs to be stricter than the conditions elsewhere in the state, those stricter conditions may be applied because the local reasons would provide a reasonable basis for the stricter conditions.

If the provisions are stricter than the governor's order and we do not have a good local reason why it needs to be stricter, those stricter conditions would probably be illegal.

If the local ordinance talks about something on which the governor's order is silent, I can only think of the age requirement that we have built into our ordinance that is not in the governor's regulations.

That and such additional condition I think could be enforceable, but that's only because it doesn't address a topic that the governor's order has already addressed.

Suffice it to say that we don't agree with either our neighbor or our state in many significant ways.

I'm not going to go through all of those right now.

We know the governor's order is likely to change repeatedly in the next few months as the governor is likely to try to do a number of other things to get the situation under better control.

And I also point out here our definitions don't even seem to mean what we probably think that they do mean.

I think it's terrible regulatory policy to have a scheme like this where you've got to go running to two or three different charts

and statutes and ordinances and regulations and try to figure out what you can and cannot do and you got to go hire a lawyer, figure out what you can and cannot do.

I just think that the better course all the way around is to repeal our ordinance and just say we're going to do what the governor says and then people in Charlottesville at least will know

what they can do.

We have all gotten phone calls from people in the last few weeks or months saying, you know, why are you doing this?

Why can't I do this?

The governor says I can do this.

Why am I being told I can't?

And my simple answer has always been, heck if I know.

I don't understand it.

I don't know what we're trying to do in some of these respects.

Many of the differences that we have with the governor

We don't have an explanation for.

I think that would be very difficult to defend if we were trying to defend our being stricter than the governor's being.

So for a whole lot of reasons, I just think it would be better off, we would all be better off if we repealed the ordinance, said in essence, we're going with what the governor says.

He's able to respond faster than we are to changes that may be necessitated by what may be a crisis in the next month or two.

I don't think we have the authority to be stricter than the governor does.

Any other comments?

I certainly can see the value of simplification and as Mr. Blair kind of outlined what brought us to the point where we had our own local ordinance and it was certainly driven by the pattern of students.

I think the question is what does our local pattern look like that might be different than the state pattern in the months to come until we are more in the clear and I do have concerns about us having to always make modifications to match what's going on with the state

And just before staff weigh in, I think it's important for you have to think about also what the news coverage that people are wanting and asking to hear from their

local leaders like what you are saying and that any type of press release that goes out or any type of press that goes out to say that you're just simply to follow state orders when we just got feedback like the skate park when we were asking people to pay attention

I guess I would just say, I guess we've already discussed, the reason we had a local ordinance that varied from governors was unlike

a lot of other localities.

We had a university, which was having students come back.

And so we did it in conjunction with Albemarle County in reaction to that reality and the spike of cases that it did cause.

And I guess I would just see the utility of the local ordinances really just if UVA students coming back

The point coincides with the governor having loosened restrictions.

And if we're not in that scenario, I would agree it seems simpler to just be in compliance with governor's order, especially in this case, since by following the governor's order, we're

having more stringent COVID restrictions.

Well, and now, again, I'd probably, I will ask Ms.

Robertson to weigh in as well to Councilor Hill's inquiry.

But I think there are a few points to be made.

I think, Mayor Walker, you articulated one thing that was on my mind, which is simply news coverage.

I think, Councilor Snook, understanding your perspective, but I do think

There are a lot of people that a lot of times may be confused just as much by what they hear in terms of news coverage about state restrictions.

So there is that point.

But there is also, I think, one of the, I think, fundamental aspects of law is to obviously provide

an understanding of what is and isn't acceptable conduct and that is criminalized or penalized by the state.

I don't think it's, well it's not controversial to say that

you know during this entire pandemic we seem to have had layers of regulations and moving the pendulum back and forth and it's confusing to any citizen or resident of our city.

I think that's a very fair point.

What I do worry about though is sort of I guess I'll use a finance term regulatory arbitrage so to speak in that

with the vaccine coming, and this is just something for council to think about, with the vaccine coming, and again, that's not, as Mayor Walker said earlier in this meeting, that doesn't make all the problems magically disappear from this pandemic, but

Knowing that executive order and how that pendulum is swinging back and forth with case counts and now probably a medical intervention coming locally even at UVA Health Center perhaps before the end of the year, I think it's realistic to say that

We could very well find ourselves exactly where we were back in July, depending on the rapidity of vaccine distribution.

I mean, it's not inconceivable to see the state loosening regulations if vaccines do become widely available sooner rather than later.

We have again UVA students coming in to the community and again there may be some utility in having a more stricter set of regulations locally considering you're going to have your population

aggregate explode just with the return of students whereas other communities in the state will probably be fairly stagnant in the amount of residents that are there on a daily basis.

So, from a legal perspective, I believe that Councillor Snook has outlined sort of the various ways that state and local regulations relate to one another.

I certainly do not take issue with the legality of having a local ordinance.

I do think

that as you're considering tonight, once you have one, you have to take care that you maintain it sufficiently so that it doesn't cause confusion among people and that you are not allowing things that the state would prohibit.

So you have to be careful.

I will say that as well, while no ordinance can be

There is at least one local business and possibly more that fall in the category of entertainment entities and they are struggling with the terminology in our ordinance because we are not as precise in the way of outlining categories of venues as the governor's executive order is.

and as Councillor Snook has pointed out, we regulate the size of gatherings as does the governor, but within our definition of gathering, we refer to community events and concerts and other social events and then we define public

Thank you.

The other thing that I will note in our current ordinance is that another area where our ordinance makes it a little difficult to navigate the two sets of regulations under our ordinance persons who are working at gatherings either as employees or in the contractors don't count toward the limit of persons

In Executive Order 67, if you're one of the uses that's categorized as an entertainment venue, participants and spectators are both counted.

And so depending on whether someone is participating in the entertainment, even if they're an independent contractor with that venue, it's a little difficult to determine whether you get counted or not.

And then finally, after

hearing some of the concerns and the requests relating to the skate park, the exemption in your ordinance for children 10 years and under, even while we're encouraging people to wear, encouraging young people to wear masks while playing outdoors at the skate park is a little bit inconsistent.

So overall, I concur with Mr. Blair,

and Councillor Snook that this really is a policy level decision for city council to make at this time.

Other than there being some lack of clarity in the wording of our ordinance, which we, you can't, as I said, create a perfect ordinance that anticipates all issues that come up, but there's at least one

I would also note that one of the major differences between the governor's order and our statute, our ordinance, deals with how restaurants get handled.

The governor's latest order has two provisions that we don't

to deal with at all.

One is a provision dealing with time, alcohol to be served up until 10 p.m., no alcohol, and then food up until 12 midnight.

We don't have any such restriction.

He's got no restriction as to the capacity of only calling for social distancing and saying no bar seating, whereas both we and the county have said you can have up to 50% of what the fire marshal says you're allowed to have.

and that's it.

I mean, I don't know whether it makes any sense at all for us to have such radically different, completely different ways of regulating that industry or whether we ought to say we're going to follow the governor's order or to say we're not going to do anything at all or to say, OK, people, you've got to do both sets of restrictions, both the governor's time restriction and the governor's

social distancing and no bar seating restriction and our 50% of occupancy load restriction.

As a practical matter, of course, it's very difficult indeed to get to social distancing at 50% of occupancy, so maybe those two aren't really in conflict, but they surely seem to be.

The entertainment venue issue is one.

Indoor and outdoor recreational sports, we don't

attempt to regulate it at all.

So if we were to look at the skate park as an indoor and outdoor recreational sport, at least the governor's order has some provision for it.

I'm not quite sure how we regulate it if we regulate it at all.

And then the ordinance as it was suggested to us

the draft that came out in the packet would define, would change the city's definition of a gathering so as arguably to not regulate concerts, festivals, conferences, sporting events.

And so I look at our current statute

and the proposal to amend the current statute, which is still going to leave huge holes and huge inconsistencies with what the governor's got now.

And it seems to me either we say, gee, Ms.

Robertson ought to go back and rewrite the ordinance with the governor's order in mind or something.

or just to say, we're going to leave that to the governor and the public health people in Richmond.

They've got more information.

They've got more expertise than we do.

They've got a broader range of scientific backgrounds that are informing their decisions than do we.

And it would just make more sense for us to get out of that business and leave it to the folks with more information than we've got.

And I'll just comment again, the bar regulation that we did have a conversation before the governor put that in the executive order.

And that was a request for us to consider.

And we declined to put that, update our order and put that in there.

And so things like that may come up in the near future.

to where we will be asked to consider something, modify our ordinance and may have reason to do so.

Like if we had done that before the governor put it in his executive order, we would, may

may not have been in line with the executive order and may had to prove the reasons why we had a more strict provision, but clearly he got around to it just a little later.

Regarding alcohol, I thought that was not in our purview at all, because I know that one point the university was asking questions about could we put more regulation on alcohol sales.

And I just thought that that was the only thing we could do is we could write a letter to the governor asking for his consideration of those regulations.

Yeah, that's correct.

We generally don't have any local authority to regulate alcohol or the sales of alcohol.

I guess I would say like where there's inconsistencies or ambiguities I think it makes sense

to resolve them by conforming with the governor's orders.

I would agree with that.

And I think, I guess my only concern about repealing it is that at this moment the ordinance is sort of redundant and serves no functional purpose.

But the only concern I have is just in

if at some point over the next couple months, again, we're in a situation where the statewide restrictions are being loosened up while we're seeing a large spike in cases from UVA students returning, which we know is going to cause a massive spike in cases.

And just the potential need in that scenario, we're not in that scenario now.

but just again if we ended up there in the next couple months.

Likewise, the fact that we did it in conjunction with Albemarle County with the goal being to sort of have a bit of a regional reproach with the return of UVA students and so another consideration just being what if anything Albemarle County is doing with their ordinance at this time and if we would want to move in conjunction with what they're doing and any action we take.

My question to you all, I think I have two questions for clarity, because if you decide to keep the ordinance in place and possibly make some additional edits to it, the first question is whether you intend at the local level to regulate entertainment venues

or whether it has been your intention to leave those types of venues to state regulations.

That is something less than clear by the current ordinance.

My second question, the issue, the definition of public place is here and really the primary place that term is used is under section six

referring to face coverings.

So face coverings must be worn by all persons in public places except as provided in 6B and C, which are the exceptions.

The definition of public place specifies that it can be outdoor spaces where at least six feet of physical distancing can't be maintained.

Is it your intention to apply that

requirement for face coverings, for example, on the downtown mall.

Many of the city's downtown sidewalks are pretty narrow.

So as you're walking on a sidewalk, it would be difficult.

It would be very helpful just to have some guidance if you're going to ask us to further revise the ordinance as to what your intentions are with these local regulations, because

As written, we have entertainment venues that aren't quite sure exactly whether their activities could fall within the definition of a gathering.

I guess I would say my perspective would be on the first question.

to have that aligned with the governor's order at the state level in terms of those definitions.

The second point, what's the difference between ours in the state regulation on that issue about outdoor face requiring face masks outdoors?

Are they just silent on

Mr. Blair, let's see.

Well, that's part of the problem.

Our ordinance defines

public places very broadly, and it refers to any outdoor space where you can't maintain six feet of distance.

As I am looking and Councillor Snook weigh in, I am not seeing the governor's executive order generally requires

or encourages masks in certainly in indoor spaces and recommends it in other places.

What I think the Governor's Order 67 did was rather than have one broad sweeping statement, thou shalt wear a mask in public, under every subsection there are certain provisions about when you've got to wear a mask in a restaurant.

when you've got to have a mask at a farmer's market, that sort of thing.

I think they've opted for a point by point variability rather than some broader stroke.

One thing I need to apologize because I made a mistake on my chart.

I swapped the paragraph, the very last line about defined gathering, what the portion that's under the Charlottesville

should be under Albemarle and a portion under Albemarle should be under Charlottesville.

But that still gets back to my basic point of neither one of those definitions actually is mentioned in any of the statewide regulations.

And to the extent that we think we're trying to do anybody a favor by having Charlottesville and Albemarle's regulations match up, we're not doing it very

But as to the masks, I think that's right.

There's been a whole lot of versions of the state's executive order, but to my knowledge, including the current one, most of the face covering requirements are repeated under each heading, each category of use, and many of them in particular apply to people who are working at those venues.

There is something on page 13 in the governor's order that talks about the section 18.2-422 of the Code of Virginia.

and a waiver to allow the wearing of a medical mask respirator or any other protective face covering for the purpose of facilitating the protection of one's personal health in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency and then recites a couple of other orders, order 51 and order 63 that have certain face covering requirements.

But they were not specifically restated in this document.

So it's a little confusing to me.

Right.

So I think what may be helpful since this came up later today that if we're not sure, unless there is a majority vote to repeal this ordinance, that we should probably

have these conversations over the next week and then vote on this at the next meeting, whether it's repealing it or if there are going to be significant changes that are made to and then to vote on those.

Could I ask an indulgence of the council and this gets back to the earlier point and and again you all will have your policy discussions and and may repeal the ordinance may amend it in more detail but the one thing

Until you change it.

And it just, to have it not being the same number as the governor's executive order, I just, I don't think that sends a good message to the public.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I,

I think that even this conversation and how it will be reported, that could create a lot more confusion because most people are, you know, they're not reading three ordinances and trying to figure out what they are saying.

So even whatever the report on this discussion will be will probably create more confusion than it being in place in the first place.

So is there agreement to vote on this and do we want to make the current changes and then do we want to bring this back at the next meeting or do we want to prepare if you want to send feedback and then we would all get that feedback and have it in

Comfortable voting on it now and then the next opportunity where it has to be amended, taking advantage of that.

Could I possibly ask

if there's any council interest.

I think one of the lack of clear, one of the confusing issues that could be cleared up pretty easily would be if anyone might consider a motion to strike the word concert from the word gathering.

I think that would help us

Well, one of the specific things that the folks at Paramount were asking about was showing movies.

and they've figured out their social distancing to where they could have 100 or 150 or something like that and maintain six feet of social distancing every place and then when they called me and said we want to be able to have our movies and now we're being told we can't have our movies because we can only have 50 people here

Of course, my first answer was, well, I can't be your lawyer in this.

I don't know.

But you raised an interesting question because I was trying to figure out what portion of this ordinance actually regulated them when they showed a movie.

I guess maybe it's a community event.

Maybe it's a social event.

No, I would say that the Paramount is difficult because they do several different things.

but the word theater is in public place and the only thing that our ordinance says about public places is that you have to, the people in those public places have to wear masks while they're there.

So theaters are part of the definition of public place and our ordinance says that face coverings must be worn by all persons in public places unless you fall within one of the exceptions.

The activities at the Paramount that I believe, and Mr. Blair, you can jump in if, you know, when this ordinance was originally drafted, you see anything different.

But gathering was defined to include concerts.

Now, community event is defined in our city code as being things like, you know, the festivals that we have in parks, Tom Tom Festival, that sort of thing.

That's a term of art defined in our local ordinance.

See, I think that this is getting very dangerous because there are a lot of requests.

There are requests for community centers, there are requests for the gyms to open back up, and we have everyone, I mean including like the Heritage Center, following guidelines based on

What is in place?

Well, the problem is we have an ordinance that we're having difficulty telling people who's regulated and who's not.

So our ordinance does basically two things.

It regulates gatherings of a certain number of people.

And the primary thing we were trying to do tonight was make sure that that number matches up with the governor's executive order.

And so we regulate gatherings of a certain number of people.

We also require face coverings in all public places.

And that is not something that is causing

any problems or any concerns.

But the main thing that is, so if you look for example at, if you look at a lot of different categories of uses, they're not necessarily incorporated

in the definition of gathering, and that is what's causing a lot of confusion.

The problem is that we're not really in a position, once you adopt an ordinance, we're not really in a position of being able to interpret and counsel people as to what it means.

It's got to be enforced a certain way,

I think I would just be in support of having that mirror the governor's executive orders.

I guess I would kind of view it as kind of a technical change almost just to give more clarity.

A little bit confusing and technical, but I think also just for the public, the bottom line is we're voting to be in accordance with the governor's executive orders, which means a strengthening of local COVID regulations.

And that's really, just to reiterate, that's ultimately what our discussion is about is going into compliance with the stricter orders from the governor due to the huge spike in cases we've seen this month.

So for the short term then it sounds like we want to pass this ordinance and we also want to add a strike of the word concert from gathering.

That's fine.

So there are two places where we're changing 50 to 25.

those were in the draft and then striking the word concert.

Ms.

Robertson's suggestion.

Is that fair to say that those are the only two things we're talking about?

I'm good with that.

Okay.

I'll make the motion.

Just to reiterate for the public again, this is putting us in accordance with the governor's executive orders, which is lowering gatherings from 50 to 25, as well as imposing new restrictions on indoor dining and the sale of alcohol.

And this is being done in recognition of the spike in cases that we're seeing, not just in Charlottesville, but across the entire state.

to reiterate the importance of really taking these guidelines in the pandemic seriously.

I know a lot of people are sort of in COVID fatigue mode because it's been going on so long, but we really are in a very dangerous period and seeing statewide cases match the highest levels they've been at any point during this pandemic.

All right, Ms.

Mayor Walker.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yes.

Councillor Hill.

Next, we have the sister resolution, sister city partnership with Wayway Tenego, Guatemala.

It's one reading.

Hi.

Thanks, Mayor Walker.

As co-chair of Charlottesville's Sister Cities Commission, I'm excited to share a recommendation to pursue a relationship with the city of Huey Tenango, Guatemala, to council.

In recent years, local educators and members of the community have reached out to our community

Asking if we would consider including a Spanish-speaking city to our roster.

There are many Spanish-speaking members of our community, and we have a strong Spanish-language program within the public schools.

We have strong relationships with our sister cities and are proud of the educational and cultural partnerships we have fostered with Besançon, Winneba, and Poggio.

And we believe that the inclusion of a Spanish-speaking sister city, particularly the city of Huey Huey, would be a tremendous benefit to our schools and our city at large.

I would like to note that this is simply to establish a friendship city status with Huehue over the next three years.

So it's kind of that first step in the Sister City program where we're just kind of getting to know each other.

So it's during this trial period that our two cities

It's a pleasure to introduce you all to Jordan Lindbeck and Kelly Epley.

Jordan presented their proposals for Weiwei to our commission last summer and to a public information session earlier this year.

It was an inspiration to our team as we pursued this matter, and I am so glad to have the chance to see your presentation as well.

Great.

Hi, everyone.

Thank you for still being here so late.

I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible for you.

And thank you for the time to be here.

So here's a photo of Wayway to Nango.

It's the nickname is Wayway because you're good to go to the next one, thank you.

The nickname is Wayway because as you can see that's a pretty long word name and it's just pronounced Wayway like W-A-Y, W-A-Y.

So it's commonly used in Guatemala as well, so an unofficial official name.

And in terms of just a little background on my connection to Guatemala and why I care so much about it and believe that it would be a great candidate for a sister city for Charlottesville, I first visited back in 2010.

A good family friend started an organization called the Ishtatan Foundation, which is a nonprofit based out of here out of Charlottesville that focuses on increasing access

to quality education for rural Mayan youth.

I traveled down with her for a week in high school to teach a dance class.

And it made a huge impression on me.

I continued to stay in touch with her and later joined the board, served as board president for three years.

And now Kelly is here with us.

Sure.

Madam Mayor, council members, thank you for your service to our community.

We appreciate this opportunity.

My wife and I first served and got to know Guatemala in the late 80s during the armed conflict.

She and I were down there building homes with Habitat for Humanity.

and also in the mountains of Peru and in Mexico and fell in love with the indigenous people of that region and have been involved in it ever since.

I was on the Ishtaton board in 2002 several times.

and was working for Building Goodness Foundation for, gosh, 10 years when we were sending trips down.

So very familiar with the area.

Also know that there are hundreds, actually, of people from our community that have been involved going to Wai Wai over the number of the last 25 years, hundreds.

In fact, the Guatemala Initiative from UVA, the Ishtaton Foundation and through Building Goodness Foundation.

So we're thrilled that there is this formalization of this relationship.

And as you can see here, the main three things that made me feel very connected to Guatemala and is the reason I care so much about it.

We'll talk a little more in depth about these is the remarkable landscape.

There's everything from tropical rainforest to the very high 12,000 foot mountains and volcanoes, beautiful lakes.

It truly is stunning.

The culture, there is a vibrant and well-represented indigenous culture in the country that is a huge part of the fabric of its cultural identity.

And as a high schooler traveling for the first time out of the country without my parents, they made me feel extremely welcome.

So if you can go to the next slide, please.

Just for geographical context, Hui Hui is in the westernmost portion of Guatemala, touches Mexico, if any of you are familiar with Chiapas, the state of Chiapas.

This area is very mountainous, which can be cold, like I mentioned, up to 12,000 feet.

But Wewetongongo, the city within the department, has a highland subtropical climate, which basically means it's either perfect weather or pouring rain.

So if it is in the rainy season, it's just sunny and lovely and very comfortable.

The next slide, please.

As I mentioned, the indigenous population of Guatemala is a huge part of its identity.

And Guatemala, I do think, is unique in terms of how openly indigenous people represent their culture in terms of a lot of times their dress.

To wear traditional clothing is still just a very regular thing to see around the streets, whether or not you're in the rural areas or in major cities.

There's estimated about 40 to 60% of the population of the whole country is indigenous.

There's a pretty wide range just from how people identify themselves on the census, but

at least half.

I also have here, well, the two photos here are both very distinct clothing styles that are worn in different parts of the way with the Nago department.

And as you can see, there are 22 different languages.

They are distinct languages rather than dialects, languages in their own right with

cultural identities that go along with it.

You can see how distinct they are.

And I have tried to learn some since I've been there, but it is very different and hard, but beautiful.

And of those 22 languages, nine are represented in Huevita Nangos.

It is one of the most diverse departments in the whole country.

Next, thanks.

Just, I guess, dividing the history up into two chunks, even though it's much more than that.

The first older period of Guatemala's history first was the Mam and K'iche indigenous people dominated the way of it to Nango area.

until the Conquistadors came.

This is a statue of a famous mom Mayan warrior named Cai Balam, who's just known for his legends in the area.

The other defining historical event of Guatemala's modern history was the armed conflict that lasted almost 40 years, from 1960, started really in the 50s, and ended in 1996 with the peace accords being signed.

It was a militarized government persecuting and murdering many indigenous people, many of which are in rural areas.

And the Department of Wewe Tenango was one of the most attacked and focused on areas of the country.

It is called the Silent Holocaust sometimes because they would take out entire cities.

And it was an area that

was very remote, defenseless and unseen in a lot of ways.

After the peace accords have been signed, things have continued to improve.

There's still definitely an impact and there's fear associated with representation representing your indigenous culture and there's definitely still prejudice.

But there are Mayan people representing them in high office and the government and

and high profile jobs as well.

And they've come a long way since then.

So in terms of what would bring you to Guatemala, about 2 million tourists go to Guatemala every year.

One of the biggest attractions is the ruins.

So you may have heard a little while back there was this cool new ruin that like detecting technology that National Geographic broke the news about where they found new ruins in a different section of Guatemala, which is very dense rainforest and it was just like cities of ruins to discover.

It's not the same

I'm setting in Hueva Tenango, but there still are a lot of ruins and it can range everything from this top right photo, which is there are ruins named Zaculeu that are in the city of Hueva Tenango, just about 10 minutes less than from the city center, all the way to kind of piles of rocks that have been covered in grass that if you step back and look at can see that it's the outline of what used to be

at Temple.

These ruins at Kuleu are still used for ceremonies.

They are open to the public to visit and were actually used in the 20th century in some Hollywood films, in an episode of Tarzan.

You can also see the top left photo is the city center, which is a hub of activity.

There's a market.

There's also hiking, lots to do outdoors.

The bottom right is a photo of a lagoon that's close by and it's a lovely walk too.

There's also a famous run every year that's, you go all the way up from Huey Tenango to the top of the Cuchimitanes Mountains that people come from all over to run.

And it's about 11 miles straight up with very little oxygen, but very impressive.

In the bottom left is a, it's called the mirador, which is basically means lookout.

There's a beautiful poem called Allos Cuchimatames, or To the Cuchimatames, Mountain Rage, that's inscribed on these pillars.

Kids will hang out and offer to read the poem for a quetzal, a coin, if you agree.

There's also way way there's a lot of sporting events.

I know these aren't things that necessarily are happening right now, but usually there's soccer, there's music.

There are lots of libraries, universities, hospitals that have their heads in way way to non go.

So folks are always traveling from all over the department and even from outside to come to school, to work in the city.

There are many hotels and there are commercial flights now that go from the capital to the city.

So it makes a six hour drive into a 30 minute flight, which is pretty great.

The food is wonderful.

This is my friend Isabel making a type of tamal, which they're just delicious and willing to show you how to make it.

And there's lots of corn, lots of tortillas, really delicious sauces and meats.

And it is very much a way to connect with people that, in my experience, Guatemalans have been very excited to share.

And it's definitely a perk of visiting.

In terms of industry, Guatemala is very well known for its coffee and you can even find Huey Tenango coffee in Shenandoah Joe's or Mud House.

It's known internationally for its quality.

Cardamom is also a huge industry and in terms of Guatemala tends to be very centralized in

its work, and where the government's energy is focused.

But these last two points are two government initiatives that include way with Tenongo as a point of interest and focus for developing more and creating more business.

In terms of opportunities for collaboration, Kelly touched on this some, but there are various opportunities for exchanges.

between Charlottesville and Wewetonongo.

As I mentioned, there are a lot of universities.

And we, through Ishta Ten Foundation that Kelly and I are associated with, we brought a group of Guatemalan students here to the US for anything ranging from a month to three months.

A couple of years ago, visas have gotten a little bit more difficult since then.

But this group had lived with host families and had an amazing chance to participate in

E.S.L.

courses with the county and learn about the U.S.

and focus on learning their English.

We would love to send students from here there as well.

That's already happening with what Kelly mentioned of the UVA Guatemala initiative with the hospital sending medical students down.

There's also been students that go down to do research on water quality.

Building Goodness Foundation has spent time in Guatemala and is a great local partner as well.

And a very exciting partnership that we have that has emerged in the last couple of years with the Ishatan Foundation is a

English program through the U.S.

Embassy.

We have a wonderful relationship with them, and the Isha Town Foundation staff in Guatemala is currently overseeing all of the English programs in Wayway to Nongo, and it's – would also be a great way to initiate an exchange.

That's that.

So that's basically everything that I had to share with you all tonight.

All right, thank you.

As far as from the Sister City's perspective or

Sure.

So we started this process actually before my time with the commission.

I'm Kate Kogie, by the way.

I'm the co-chair of the Sister Cities Commission.

This process started almost two years ago.

We heard from members of the community, including educators, asking for a Spanish-speaking sister city.

And there was

and outreach for recommendations from members of the public for options for some candidates for Spanish-speaking sister cities.

And we read through these applications.

We had members come in and give their presentations to us.

And through that process, we narrowed it down to a couple of contenders.

And what we did

Back earlier this year, either January or February, we held an event at Beauford Middle School for anyone to come in and watch these presentations on way way and also on a city in Argentina, which were our final two candidates.

And we had members of the public vote.

There was an online voting system as well as a paper voting system.

And from the presentations we saw from community members, along with the votes that were cast by members of the public, we

Okay, thank you.

If I recall in reading the presentation, there's quite a few members of the Charlottesville community who originate or their family originates in Guatemala.

Yes, yeah.

I would say in Charlottesville, largest represented countries would probably be Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras.

No, yeah, just thank you for all the work.

It seems exciting.

And just one thing that came to mind is I think it could also be an opportunity to have important discussions just given the history, some of which you referenced.

I'm just thinking in particular because it was the United States who backed the military coup in Guatemala and likewise provided support for the government, which was committing genocide of the indigenous population.

I should echo the thanks and I'm definitely have heard this rumbling since I've been on council for you know the last couple years.

This has certainly been I know a goal of the sister cities and it's something I've heard from the community as well and so appreciate the effort that went into engaging the community as part of this decision making and

Thank you.

We're really excited to bring this forward.

I'm just curious about what this first step means.

There was description of it as being, I can't remember the term you used, the first step, but not quite all the way there or something.

It's called a friendship city.

It's kind of weird.

It's kind of like dating.

So we take three years to kind of get to know each other a little bit better, start seeing what connections might take place.

So it's a three year process, typically, how we do that with our sister cities.

And so if today's vote is affirmative, then we would report in writing our recommendations to pursue this new city to you guys and then

the city manager would send an official information packet to the mayor of Wayway, along with a letter asking for an establishment of this friendship city status.

There are some protocols.

I have Charlottesville's, our guidelines for affiliating with the new sister city pulled up right now.

And so after this process, after three years, we can make a formal presentation to commission recommending the establishment of a new sister city relationship and requesting that we seek approval from council to sort of change this title from friendship to sister.

And so

it will be no less than three years from that date.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

Okay.

I move that we adopt a resolution initiating the sister city partnership between Charlottesville and Wayway

I'll second the motion.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Councillor Payne.

Vice Mayor Hill.

Yes.

All right, that carries five.

Oh, to officially start the friendship.

Oh, no.

Thank you.

Thank you for the time.

and I just wanna say my camera and mic, my camera was off there because I was charging this device while you all were giving your presentation but I did see the presentation and I was there just in case anybody was wondering why my screen was off.

Thank you.

All right, next up we have a report

Madam Mayor, this is David Blunt with the TJPDC.

Yes, we can hear you.

Yeah.

Ms.

Robertson and I are going to share this presentation this evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you tonight.

The next session of the General Assembly begins in a little over five weeks.

And I think it's going to be unlike any session that we've ever seen before.

The legislature is likely going to deal with about 1,200 bills in what could be a very short 30-day session.

So in order to be prepared to address the many issues that the local governments will be concerned about during that time, you do have before you for your review and approval tonight the 2021 draft regional legislative program.

Madam Mayor, I know that you and Ms.

Hill have discussed the legislative program several times in recent years, but for Ms.

Magill and Mr. Payne and Mr. Snook, let me just say that the program is a slimmed down version.

of its previous self.

It lists just three top priorities for the local governments in the region this year.

And then the accompanying legislative position section has also been significantly curtailed to focus on what are really, I think, the most critical positions and recommendations in other areas of concern to the region.

or to our individual localities.

The three top priorities, if I could just briefly review those for you.

First, there's actually a new priority titled Support for Recovering Communities.

And this new priority really just speaks to supporting action at the federal, state and local levels to protect and assist local communities to ensure their viability in the face of the

on going COVID-19 health emergency.

The next priority deals with budgets and funding, and this is a pretty substantially revised position that really consolidates several of our previous priorities to support several things, enhanced state aid to localities and to K-12 schools, to continue to oppose unfunded state mandates and cost shifting to localities, and also to continue to urge the enhancement of

local revenue options so that you might be able to better diversify your local revenue streams.

And then the third priority deals with broadband.

This priority continues to be very critical, heightened, of course, because of our ongoing situation.

Whether you're talking about the need for broadband for homes or businesses or K-12

or for telemedicine.

There really has been a big spotlight shown on the need for broadband here in the past nine months.

As I said, I thought it was a good time to streamline the program because of the situation that we're in, you know, to really to tighten up the focus to be on fewer priorities.

And then also in the legislative positions section, I really found a number of those statements were outdated.

They were no longer pertinent.

They maybe were more aspirational language that was asking the state to do something that maybe was not really connected to any legislative

or regulatory action.

But I think what remains in that section or in those sections are the position statements that are really the most critical on where we need to take a stand.

So I'm glad to discuss any of those items or answer any questions.

David, one question I had is about broadband and how that would apply to rural areas.

But we've got some perhaps smaller areas in Charlottesville, but nonetheless, the communities in Charlottesville that don't have

as much, I mean frankly broadband is one of those things just very expensive for some people to get.

Yeah, I would say it is largely for expanding the access.

And as you've pointed out, you all are pretty well covered in that regard.

I guess the one thing that seems likely to have impact in the city would be the final bullet point.

Consideration proposal would subject broadband to stricter, more developed regulation as a public utility.

I think that's probably a more aspirational statement at this point.

I think certainly as people have talked about broadband,

Here in the past several years, they've looked back to the early 1900s and the Rural Electrification Act.

I'll also note that within the last

Two to four years there's been a lot of legislation at the state level that mandates particularly municipalities to allow the use of their public rights of way for new small cell facilities and really without getting much of anything in return.

Everyone's sort of looking now to

No?

So there's no vote for this.

We've had a lot of opportunities to provide feedback and there were two counselors working directly with staff.

So I'm assuming that that process went well.

And so, if there are no further questions, then is there anything else that staff needs from us?

Yes, okay.

This just says on my thing, no vote.

Yeah, we definitely need that.

The legislators are putting bills in as we speak, so we need to get that information to them.

Yes, and I'll keep it brief.

So you all have a proposed set of legislative position statements and drafted.

We have received input from your legislative committee and for the most part the provisions that are in this proposed

position statement are positions that city council has consistently taken for several years but we have updated them to adjust for quite a number of legislative successes that were achieved last year and to also attempt to do this year's legislation but

Given the special session and all the focus on COVID, anticipating what will be the major issues in the general session other than COVID relief and related financial issues has been very difficult.

So we haven't given you any position statements that are radically new.

Most of these are adjustments.

We left in the document a number of comment boxes that help explain how we approached editing the environmental position statements.

The environmental legislative area is one in which there were quite a number of successes last year.

And if you have any question about the provisions that we've included here,

We have Crystal Rittervold and Susan Elliott on the phone to answer any questions you may have.

I will also note that, and I apologize that it was so late, but late this afternoon, I forwarded to you some proposed edits to the vehicles and transportation section on pages three and four of the proposed position statements.

Crystal, Susan I. and Garland Williams met and we went over some of the language that had been included but we still needed to get input from Mr. Williams and so based on his input we have a minor change proposed to position statement number three under vehicles and transportation and then we would

recommend that we delete position number six altogether as that is not a position that Mr. Williams was comfortable forwarding at this time.

So unless you all will be happy to answer questions, David's here to help with sort of the larger issues.

And as I said, Crystal and Susan are here to answer environmental questions.

I understand that David also attended a meeting this afternoon at which one of the topics was the use of recordation tax revenue so if anyone would like an update on that David may be able to share where that's going but certainly although it's not expressly in these position statements

Because that was about, we received an update about that back in October.

Yes.

what a little over $205,000 I think it was.

Yes, Madam Mayor, members of council, it's actually just a telephone conference call that I had with a couple of other legislative liaisons to localities in the Richmond area, just trying to look at some ways that we might try to address that.

during the coming General Assembly session.

As you're aware, there was some legislation this past year that basically redirected $20 million in recordation tax funding to a new transit fund in Hampton Roads.

So we were looking at some ways to possibly craft a budget amendment.

you know on the assumption that there's nothing that will be forthcoming in the governor's introduced budget in the middle of actually the middle of next week that would address this and that would be to you know what we were talking about today was you know is looking to how we can

It's not take away the money that was taken away from the remaining cities and counties and towns in the Commonwealth this past session, but to be able to utilize additional recordation tax revenues that are coming in in the current fiscal year and have those distributed in the manner which they were prior to this current fiscal year.

So I think I looked at the revenue

report through the first four months of the fiscal year, so through October, the recordation in tax revenues were up 30 some percent above the projections for the year.

So that's what we're, I think between this work, I think the Association of Counties is also working hard on this issue as well as VML.

Are there any other questions, Councillors, for either Mr. Blunt or Ms.

I had a question about, I think I had asked earlier, I think it just got kind of lost about the idea of, I noticed before we had written letters of support to like other organizations and we support what they, what their legislative agenda is bringing forward.

I believe we had one of those last year in an education field.

Yes.

So I'm going to let Crystal Rittervold address that in more detail.

But in general, the position statements that you have here are very much aligned with theirs.

So in general,

You know, when we offer support for other specific things, sometimes we do that because someone else is sort of a specialized advocate for a particular area.

And we want to sort of sign on to those things in circumstances where we don't have a very similar position ourselves.

Sure, I'd be happy to.

We did take the time to go through the state policy priority document that C3 has published.

And there are a number of items in your packet that are closely, if not exactly, aligned with topics and positions that they've put forward.

So I think that there's good overlap.

As you see the notes in there,

demonstrate that there's some other sources that we used as well, including communications and coordination with peers in some of our other Virginia localities.

I will also share that C3 reached out and inquired about a couple of particular ones.

And I was able to confirm that those are in your legislative packet.

I understand that they're going to be trying to organize some additional

sort of momentum and support behind a few of these items as the General Assembly moves forward.