City Council Meeting   11/4/2024

Okay.

The November 4th, 2024 City Council meeting will come to order.

Ms.

Councillor Oschrin.

Here.

Here.

Now we're going to approve the agenda.

Is there a motion to approve or amend the agenda?

I'd move approval of the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

We can vote.

Motion passes five to zero.

The first one is a work session, and we'll discuss here and discuss presentations that do not require a vote, followed by closed session or recess.

Do we have closed session today, Sam?

We do not.

Oh, wow.

That's great.

Today we will have a report on the Charlottesville Area Alliance annual report.

your liaison, Misty Graves, is distributing the print copy.

First, on behalf of the Charlottesville area allowance, Chris Miller and myself as co-chairs, we just want to express our sincere appreciation for the City Council and the City leadership's continued support

of a livable age-friendly community and the initiative that CAA is pursuing.

So in front of you, you have the annual report, and I'm very mindful of your time.

So we'll have time for questions.

But on page four, if you'll turn to page four, I want to highlight the eight areas

that comprise an age-friendly livable community.

So it says at the top, AARP Livable Communities.

And in 2017, we completed a survey of the region, more than 3,000 respondents, and they told us their top three issues were transportation, housing, and avoiding social isolation.

So we applied to become an age-friendly, livable community initiative, and were accepted by AARP Virginia and AARP USA.

in 2019.

And since then, we've been pursuing particularly transportation, housing, and avoiding social isolation.

But you'll see there are five other areas that comprise becoming recognized as a certified, age-friendly, livable community.

So in the next few years, CAA will be moving into those other areas, open spaces, employment,

Civic Engagement

Health Services, et cetera.

But for this past year, 2023, we were presented the opportunity to utilize three consultants free of charge to CAA and the community by AARP in three of our specific areas of interest.

The first one is Change Labs, a national expert in DEI, helped us look at how we could make sure that we, CAA,

as partners and as the steering committee were diverse and represented all diverse communities and constituents and needs in the community.

The second one was Impact, again a national consultant that helped us look at transportation issues.

Last year we particularly looked at bus stops and the friendliness and convenience of bus stops.

And then the third one for last year, accessory dwelling strategies consultant helped us look at ADUs and the zoning and the great progress that the city in particular has made around ADUs.

So I wanted to point that out.

And behind that will be an actual report from each of the work group committees with details on the kinds

on the activities that we had.

For 2023, we were still primarily virtual.

So a lot of what we did was webinars and zooms.

But as you hear from Chris Miller in 2024, we really moved into in-person with the vengeance.

And so we had several things that we were able to do this year that pursued those goals in housing and transportation in particular.

And the fourth page from the back shows all the current CAA partners.

Any business, any organization, any government, and any individual can sign up to be a partner.

And so these are people who want to help us pursue age-friendly, livable communities.

and that list is growing.

Just got two new partners who signed on.

Hopefully the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce is going to be joining soon.

And then the page after that shows our initial demographics when we put together CAA in 2015.

And you can see we projected from 2000 to 2020

A 75% growth in citizens 65 and older.

Turn the page, we were low.

We actually exceeded the 75% growth in those 65 and older by 11.5%.

So not only is this very timely,

An urgent issue from 2020, it will continue to be a timely and urgent issue for our community.

So it just underscores our continued engagement in working towards age-friendly, livable communities.

So again, I will leave this with you to read.

We'll also send it to you as a PDF.

Please share it with anyone that you would like to share with.

And I'm going to turn it over to Chris Miller to talk about the exciting things we've done in 2024.

Hello.

And Sue and I, as you know, are co-chairs for the CAA.

I'm just going to tell you a little bit about the resources that AARP gave us this year for 2024.

We're still in the middle of it, and what's being passed out now is something that is occurring.

Kind of, it started last week and it's occurring through November, so I wanted to give you all an opportunity to join us.

So let me backtrack.

So we got the technical resources from AARP.

One of them was called America Walks.

And what they did is they helped us organize, invite, and run a walk audit in right along the Charlottesville Albemarle line.

at the 29 and hydraulic.

And so we all came together.

We found out what we should do.

And then we walked that area.

Now it happened in June.

And if you all remember what was happening in June is they were building that roundabout by Whole Foods.

So it was a little it was a little chaotic with with all of the construction.

But we all learned a lot.

We got two wheelchairs and people that are norm that are able bodied like me.

Got to try the wheelchair.

We wheeled ourselves on the sidewalks.

We stopped.

We took buses.

We took the wheelchairs on the buses.

It was a real walk audit.

And it was eye-opening.

There were lots of people from the city.

There were lots of people from the county and there was a whole table of VDOT people there.

It was amazing.

It's possible that you all got the report from that, but I just wanted to emphasize it was great.

Now what's happened as a result of that is we are doing these webinars that I just passed around.

So there's a real interest.

There was a real let's grab this interest and not let it go and make action items out of it.

So we had our first webinar last week.

There are three more coming up.

We will share them with Misty and hopefully with the broader group.

But I just want, it's very exciting for me that CAA is just this group, this coalition of people and with AARP and these resources we're able to make changes.

And so I hope that when the final report comes out at the end of the webinars that you all will read them and get some real

Good things to do in our community.

So I just want to also touch base on the second resource that was provided to us.

It was called MPAC, which helped us last year with the bus stops.

And this year they helped organize a bus ride.

So we came down, she came down, the woman who, Sarah, who was in charge,

and we invited people who walk along the street.

So Chris, quickly, is this impact the coalition of the church?

No.

It's not.

It's actually M-pack, not M-pack.

Close.

So anyway, this very, very group of people took a bus

that came downtown, they listened to a presentation, they ate lunch, and they went back.

The report from that trip is currently being written, and we will share it with you.

Some of the things that we noticed were when they went back, I did not go on it, so this is all you're saying, when they went to the bus stop to go back to the original destination, the bus stop had

no signage on it about when the bus would come and the routes on it.

So those are things that are pretty, I would say, easy action items that will make riding the bus easier for people that don't have smartphones.

And so anyway, the whole report is going to come out again.

It's something that I'm very proud of, that with AARP's help and impact, CAA hopefully is providing you information that you can take and move forward with.

and then the webinar.

So we did a walk-out, we did a bus trip and then the webinars and we'll share all that information with you.

I just have a comment.

I'm turning to the page here with all your partners.

This is a great page where you really, I like the different colors and things like that.

So anyway, it looks good but

I would also recommend that you, not that they have to be part of it but you talk with the Charlottesville, Albemarle tourism visit because they did an audit as well for handy cap type of to make it more accessible and they brought someone out in to do an audit as well so they have some information but it was mainly to visit

like tourists and spots and things on downtown mall and other wineries and things like that.

Well, and I have to say a friend of ours, Lucinda with PATH and the health department, Jen with the health department, did a great job organizing it.

We're working on the report I would say by December 1 we'll have that done and it will also look at as part of deciding where to do the bus trip we did research on bus accessibility to senior living communities and areas with a large senior population like branch lands it's not

A.

the new marketing director of CAT joined us for the bus trip and saw and experienced everything and I think that is very very powerful when staff and staff from the city and the county have been involved in all of our activities but when they experience it personally and get to immediately know

What are the solo hanging fruit?

What are the things we can do pretty quickly?

And then we're very, very pleased that we have been designated the number one liveable age-friendly community initiative in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And what that means is AARP and all of their many partners have resources for it, not only us,

but all of the CAA partners and so we really are beginning to unearth a lot of funding opportunities and I know several of the partners are already looking at applying for funding as a CAA partner next year which will carry weight because we are the number one initiative in Virginia and as their representative Tim Boffey told us

They want to see us succeed.

They want to support us.

I was there for the walk on it back in June and it was lovely.

It was great.

It's getting better though.

I think just as a PS we are not a non-profit and we are nine years old, founded in 2015.

We are purposely not a non-profit because we didn't want to compete with everybody else.

So we're there to be the catalyst for an alliance.

And I think there's power in that and that we can help jumpstart things that might not be as easy for individual partners.

Michael.

Just one question you mentioned, housing is one of the primary focuses.

I'm curious if in that assessment you saw that there were particular things that jumped to the top in terms of unmet needs.

Well, senior housing, affordable housing for seniors.

I think the step you made last year of increasing the

property tax relief thresholds was very good.

One of the issues the housing group is looking at this year, and our co-chairs, our Tracy Mead and Catherine Keever from AHEP, is aging in place.

And what are the resources and where do we need more resources to help seniors age in place in an appropriately accommodated home?

so that they don't have to sell and not be able to afford buying something else.

Thank you all so much for your work.

Thank you, Chris.

We will now go to the VDOT portfolio update.

Good afternoon, Mayor Wade, members of council.

I am James Fries, deputy city manager for operations.

With me tonight, we have Stephen Hicks, our director of public works, Brandon Duncan, our city engineer, and Ben Chambers, our manager, our transportation planning manager.

So tonight's presentation is really going to be about our overall transportation project portfolio and really is

going to, at the end of the day, show how we're improving our performance relative to that portfolio and also demonstrate what has really come to be a strong partnership with VDOT in moving this portfolio forward and in moving towards a future situation where we're able to once again secure state funding to support our transportation needs and have a strong functioning relationship with VDOT moving forward.

So this past summer, as we were as we were preparing for or working with VDOT on this, on looking at our smart scale program in particular, one of the things that was discovered was that the estimates for these projects, many of which were quite old, were now out of line with kind of current estimates of where those project costs are now estimated to be.

reflecting both the years that have passed since these projects were first submitted but also increasing costs of construction and in particular increasing costs for acquisition of right-of-way.

So we saw a significant differential there.

And so we've taken two strategies towards addressing those costs.

One of those strategies is to reduce project scope.

And this presentation is going to go through each one of these transportation projects, kind of touching on each one and show what work we've done.

And then the other strategy is to outright cancel some of those projects, projects that had not yet had any funding spent towards their implementation.

but canceling those projects so that funding could be redistributed to those projects that we are carrying forward with.

So to get into it, here's a snapshot of the overall smart scale project program and this table here reflects the reduced scope.

So this table is reflecting at the end of the day the cost overrun even with the reduced scope work that we had done for some of these projects.

just for

Context SmartSkill Project is one of the primary funding mechanisms the state has for advancing locally identified transportation projects that bring significant value or improvement to the overall transportation system.

So this is state funding that we then here in the city because we own our streets that we administer effectively on behalf of VDOT to implement these projects.

So you can see here we have a total project estimate of 55 million originally, a revised estimate of 71, almost 71 and a half million, and therefore a head over fall of nearly 18 million dollars in this overall program.

So the first one is the design phase, right-of-way acquisition, and then construction phase.

So one of the things to note is that if you cancel a project that you've already begun, you owe VDOT money at the end of the day.

And so that number there, 4.8 million, is the number that we would owe should we decide to cancel one of those projects that's already begun.

Notably, one of those projects that's not begun is the Emmett Street Phase II project, which we'll describe here in a moment, which had a value of around 20 and a half million, which therefore covers the shortfall that we have remaining.

So to dive into each one of these projects individually, one of the kind of critical projects that we have right now is the Emmett Street Skate Project.

This is phase one of our overall improvement to Emmett.

It runs from the intersection with IV through to the intersection with Arlington Boulevard.

This project was originally estimated a total of nearly 18 million.

The revised estimate came in at 23 for a shortfall of 5.2 million.

So this is one of those projects where we're going to put money into it to make up that shortfall so that this project can move forward.

This is an incredibly important project because it's in partnership with UVA and is improving particularly our pedestrian and bicyclist infrastructure on this critical corridor that is heavily used by students but also by faculty, staff, and so on who are making use of the parking in that section of the UVA campus and then accessing the main campus.

I know SmartScale dollars are going towards this project.

Yeah, UVA is contributing, let's see, two and a half, total of five million, but they're contributing a total of five million into this portfolio.

I believe two and a half million of that are going into this project.

And that $5 million itself was actually from the Brandon Avenue project, wasn't it?

I just wanted to point out for the public benefit of

Previously, you heard that there was cash coming from UVA in association with the West Main Project.

I also want to note that

For the public who are seeing this slide, if you go onto our Public Works website, there is a tab for transportation, and I believe now, Stephen, these are available online?

But shortly, by the end of the week, you will be able to go on and you'll see this slide and you'll be able to click on that link down in the bottom corner there and get a link back to a project location on an actual Google map.

And of course, you'll also be able to find there the email address for the project manager.

That date meant that, yes, that's when funds were available at an AP, which is preliminary engineering authorization was to design.

Well, no, I would say that it's not like six years worth of design effort.

There's there's to be honest is probably a variety of actions that have been taken on all of the different projects not necessarily leading to a significant

demonstration if we're ready to go because we're not ready to go.

Yeah.

So the East High Street, Streetscape project, this picks up

where the Belmont Bridge project ends, carries those improvements, again, particularly those pedestrian and bicycle facility improvements all the way around to Locust.

It also includes a stretch of Market Street here, basically right outside our Market Street door.

This project was previously estimated at $10.2 million.

The revised estimate is $15.6 million.

Again, so we have a shortfall of just about $5.5 million that gets made up by the canceling of the Emmett Phase II project that we referenced before.

This project began in 2016.

We're aiming for completion in winter of 2028.

All right, the Barracks Road-Emmett Street Project at the intersection of Barracks and this same road that continues on and becomes Preston at the top of the hill.

So this is Barracks Road from Emmett to Hilltop Road.

This project, actually with the reduced scope, actually comes in under budget.

So what we've done with this project is the original project included a shared path.

The Reduction of this project.

Again, we were well over with the original revised estimate.

I think it was close to 8 million before we kind of revised the scope here.

A lot of those dollars were being used

for retaining walls.

The original scope was going to carry a shared use path up the hill for bikes and pedestrians.

The combination of the actual cost of the retaining wall and also the cost of the right of way to go on to people's property to construct that kind of was really what was driving the majority of the cost of this project.

So we've gone back to VDOT, got approval to reduce that scope.

Excuse me.

Down to just a six foot sidewalk and variable width buffer between the sidewalk and the road going up the hill there So that's where the majority of this cost savings for this revised scope is at All of the improvements kind of at the intersection remain the bus stop improvements remain the the pedestrian improvements pedestrian islands and

Rebuilding all of our traffic signals and getting better traffic operation at the signal for all modes is still there.

In the cost of that those retaining walls and right away acquisitions would be

No, no, so that when we, the 1.5 that is basically we're under budget by 1.5 on construction now.

That's really what that is.

Before we did that, we were eight million over budget.

So really, it's almost like a nine and a half million dollar difference just removing the right of way needed for that.

Yep, that's correct.

Yeah, so we're really, we're holding the existing back of sidewalk that's there today and then kind of narrowing the travel lanes that are there and using that space for the extra, the sidewalk and the buffer.

Go ahead.

Is the design

We were essentially at about 80-90% plans on this with the original design.

Okay, because what I'm seeing in it now is an additional slip lane that's not there currently.

The one at the corner by CVS.

So they're not true slip lanes.

They are still going to be stop controlled.

So there will be a signalized stop there.

Really what that is is to get the perpendicular pedestrian crossings in.

It's very difficult with the

obtuse angles and acute angles at this intersection to get the actual crossing distances down without having kind of that separate lane there.

I see.

So it's still a signalized lane.

That's correct.

It's just shaped like a slip lane and that gives it a pedestrian island.

No, and a lot of that goes into the proximity of the existing buildings that were there.

It is, but you would be at least going 20 to 30 feet into each of those buildings probably in order to get it to work.

Because it's already got so many lanes going into it.

Correct.

Do we get, does this go through MPO or how does it get, what's the next phase for approving the design and whatever of these projects?

Yeah, I mean we just need to finish up the design and get it out to bed at this point.

There won't be as much right of way, but there will be some temporary construction easements and that kind of stuff, which will take a little bit of time.

But the other thing I forgot to mention was by removing the wall, there was other dominion and bright speed power poles and stuff that were going to have to be moved.

Are there going to be any bollards or gates or anything on the pedestrian islands to protect

That would be great.

Sure, still.

Any other questions on the design of this project?

I'm sorry, I do have one more question.

Yeah, there's still going to be a shared use path going up Barracks Road.

I'm sorry, sidewalk, sorry.

How wide of a sidewalk is it?

Six foot wide sidewalk coming up the hill, taking advantage of the existing right of way.

Okay, that's fine.

with exception.

Ten feet is standard.

Ten feet is ideal.

Eight feet is acceptable with exception, but six feet is just considered a sidewalk.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

So this is the other project where we've done a significant reduction in the scope.

Very similar to the one we just talked about.

This one included a significant number of retaining walls and a lot of right-of-way acquisition.

The original shortfall on this project, I think, was somewhere in the vicinity of $17 million.

We were able to reduce that shortfall to $7 million in taking the actions that were taken.

So the original design for this project included fully protected bike lanes on both sides of the street.

The new design keeps us entirely within the existing right-of-way for the most part.

It includes a shared-use path protected

or a buffered, I'm sorry, shared use path on one side of the street, which will require removal of parking on that side of the street.

That is correct.

And I'm sorry, I should note this project basically runs from the intersection with, Fontaine's intersection with JPA and the city line.

It does connect in with the project that VDOT is pursuing that's redoing the interchange there on the other side of the research park.

And so Council will be seeing at some point a project agreement that will allow VDOT to manage this project.

We're bundling those together and that's one of the sources of cost saving.

Well, it's right there where, it's roughly where Strigling comes in at that point.

I think it's kind of a dirt road that comes in.

So you go, as you come in, as you're coming along Fontaine, there's a point in time where you kind of have steep embankments on either side.

Yeah.

I just ask that, I mean, asking because, you know, a lot of times we just want a coordinate.

No, because this one is one of the ones that VDOT is going to be managing, so it's going to happen in conjunction with the larger project that they're doing.

Yeah, do you mind?

Okay.

Great.

Yes.

Great.

The, yeah.

So I'm at Streetscape Phase 2.

This project ran from Arlington Boulevard to Barracks Road.

And this is the project that we have proposed to VDOT to cancel in order to fund the remainder of our portfolio.

This project would have provided, as shown in the image, protected bike lanes on either side of the roadway.

I want to note, in each one of these projects that we're canceling, there's two proposed within this presentation, there is in fact the opportunity to come back and resubmit these projects.

In canceling this project, I've got two questions.

It's not common.

And particularly in this instance where

As much as we describe the challenges we face here, many communities across the state right now are also having challenges with project shortfalls.

And so there's been a general call out to find money within projects, within council projects, or otherwise reallocating dollars to support that.

So the fact that we were able to capture those funds and hold them within the city and reallocate them to our own project portfolio is part of the indicator of the

Okay, that's good to hear.

No, we don't currently have any plans to upgrade.

Sure, but we could keep that in mind for paint and plastic while we reapply.

Right.

All right, so this is the Fifth Street and Ridge Project basically running from the intersection with West Main down past the intersection with Monticello and all the way through to the intersection with Cherry and Elliot.

Primarily, the improvements were at the intersection with Cherry and Elliot.

So this one, we hadn't even gotten an engineer kind of on board yet to do kind of an estimate for this.

So all we had on this one was the estimate that was provided to VDOT when we asked for the funds.

But again, based on the other projects and where those dollars were coming in,

This one was probably going to end up being you know a 10 to 15 million dollar Overage if we were going to keep the original design even with a reduced design You know we're probably going to see you know an overage of some kind.

I was really surprised.

I've been on council three years and I think I must not have been paying attention.

But the first time I recall seeing this design was a month ago.

That's a pretty intense, ambitious project.

Yeah.

For this one, I wouldn't want to really cut it back.

Right, and in the very short period of time we've had to kind of explore alternatives.

And one of the reasons that project, I mean, the part of that project is like road widening and making it more car friendly.

All right, so on top of our smart scale portfolio, we do have a number of non-smart scale projects.

So I just want to go through these.

So there's 10 total projects that are VDOT funded, not in the smart scale program.

Total of nearly $60 million.

Note here, there's a budget deficit.

I'm going to come back to that just in a moment.

So this project is at Monticello and Second, and really at this point this is more about kind of generating awareness of the other projects that we have going forward.

So this project provides pedestrian and bicycle safety at the intersection of Monticello and Second.

This is another project that's kind of continuing the work we've done there at the Belmont Bridge.

Derry Road Bridge.

So this project basically is we need to replace this bridge.

So this is where we see that shortfall that I referenced before.

So 4.6 million dollar shortfall.

So in this instance, VDOT has agreed to provide a state of good repair funding to make up that shortfall and allow this project to go forward.

Again, this is an example of where we are able to partner with VDOT to move critical projects forward.

It's a completed project.

Many of you were at the ribbon cutting for this project.

It's your biggest, biggest one by dollars, right?

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

This was a very significant project, a long time coming.

You all have probably more history on it than I do.

Alright, this is pedestrian improvements at the intersection of Preston and Harris.

I think most significantly here is this will add a pedestrian refuge.

So basically extending the medians that exist there so that they create a place of refuge for pedestrians crossing what are, you know, admittedly very large intersections.

So this project is actually also slated for completion in winter 2025.

Similarly, 10th and Grady, this is installing ADA compliant curb ramps, pedestrian refuges, improving crosswalk markings, et cetera, all looking at this large and somewhat confusing intersection that we have there at 10th Grady, Preston, et cetera.

So that's not going to

Just going to be pedestrian improvements.

Yes, you have a lot of roads coming together at that point in time.

And over the years, there have been a number of proposals.

There have been

Right now we're talking about what can we do right now to improve the accessibility and the safety of this intersection.

Sure.

I don't want to say it's not band-aid.

I mean, these are needed improvements.

We need to make these improvements.

That's very true.

Yes, thank you.

And do we have a preliminary idea of what we might be doing with this intersection?

I'm going to say no at this point in time.

Again, I've seen a lot of different proposals.

There was a private sector proposal that did look at roundabout options.

The city also was considering a project that just really simplified the intersection.

I turned it more into a rather straightforward junction as opposed to what it is today.

There's a lot of different ways we can approach that, but we're looking at this as a project that we're going to develop with engagement from the surrounding neighborhoods and businesses and property owners.

Alright, this Hillcrest project, this is constructed in New Sidewalk, coming around that corner, so there's significant presence of school drop-off happening in this area, so this crosswalk is really about

enhancing safety for students and pedestrians generally in that area.

This project will be completed in the spring.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the answer to that question is that is what was allocated for this project.

This one does have a slightly smaller scope than that.

We're anticipating that that construction cost will be way down from that 755 just to get this kind of done and again try and meet the intent.

The original project was stretching

Wade, Wade passed kind of what was needed.

And this is old enough that it actually goes back and ties to the money that was left over from the John Warner Parkway intersections.

Yeah, this is a long, again, we're, we're trying to clean up a lot of these old projects.

Thank you.

Is this project at least adjacent to a

about the development that's being suggested.

Somewhere in there, and I don't know exactly where it is in relation to this particular sidewalk, but there is a proposal for development.

I'm thinking maybe it's 12 units, but I don't recall exactly.

That's in that vicinity, yeah.

and it's a development on some vacant land.

Basically, I believe if I'm oriented correctly, there you go, across the street and to the right.

I was going to say to the south.

This is the Rugby Avenue shared use path, basically from Westford Road, running into McIntyre Park.

Aimed to have this project completed in the summer, next summer.

All right, this is a new sidewalk, 720 feet of new sidewalk, down by the, as you're approaching the

intersection with 64, interchange with 64.

We, I pass that project every time I have to go into the office.

So I definitely have seen it and what I

I've also seen it, we got a comment saying, look at all this space used for construction and the cars are moving just fine.

Can we widen or put in a bike lane or, you know, it's got, theoretically, it's protected bike lane right now except for the entrances blocked by a VACCO.

Yeah, so currently that's not really a spot in our bike headmaster plan that has a bike lane proposed for it in the future.

There have been some discussions with the county, they're looking at having a shared use path going down Route 20.

And they have been looking at this sort of area in the city as sort of a missing gap for that that study.

So we would look at developing any infrastructure for that shared use path in the county sort of in tandem with them.

But right now we don't have anything

Yeah, I mean we know that there are things that we can do in this area.

It's just a matter of making sure that we're aligned with our partners on the other side of the city-county border.

All right, this project is the Meadow Creek Valley Trail.

It's another project that began back in 2016 and we're aiming for completion in winter of 2027.

2027 or 2025?

Okay.

I don't believe so.

Yes.

So where does this stand?

I mean, just within the last month or two, I've been talking with folks about the apparent not funding the path on up to Mickey Drive.

So that one we were trying to get included in the VDOT roundabout project there.

They kind of came back, since that was a design bill, the cost differential for that person to add that to the contract was not palatable to either ourselves or VDOT.

We have an engineer working on a preliminary design for that right now.

More than likely, it will be one of those where we may end up having to

Compromise the design to fit with the cost to do a wide sidewalk.

It won't be able to necessarily be a multi-use path by design.

But for most people, it's going to be wide enough that they would feel comfortable.

It's a fairly short distance.

But just with the environmental, you've got the creek right there and stuff.

The cost differential to go from a sidewalk to a multi-use path there was becoming a hurdle that we didn't want

to keep that project from moving forward.

So we are moving forward with something there.

As I recall, we were proposing to use something like $700,000 of COVID related money because we were trying to get kids from Mickey Drive to Greenboro School.

And now we're eliminating the path to Mickey Drive, which means obviously it would be inappropriate to use the federal money

from the COVID funding source because we won't be doing what the plan had been.

Is it connected with the parks plan?

No, this has just been one of those complicated projects that has woven a web that even I'm having difficulty keeping track of because there are three sections and I came back twice to ask for money and I just don't have it clear.

One of the things the neighbors were talking to me about was A, we are apparently losing $700,000 in money, and so we won't be able to build the Mickey Drive extension of that.

B, that one of the issues was that the money, apparently there was some right-of-way issue or something,

Michael Payne

Yeah, I can assure you, we will not lose it.

It will go to something else.

That is a fact.

Did I misinterpret what I heard in that?

However, and I also am also interested in getting clarity on that question.

But however it looks like, we won't end up in a situation where there is no type of connection from Mickey Drive.

As as as Bren just noted a second ago, so we're at this point, we're working on a on

extending a six foot wide sidewalk across there.

We're working on the design.

So the functional difference may be a six foot rather than a ten foot.

Yeah.

All right.

Where is what going?

Yeah, the picture doesn't show it.

It's sort of where the baseball park is in the park.

Correct, yeah.

I don't want to say railroad ties, but it reminds me of railroad ties that are forming the stairs down the side along the street.

That group cleared it recently, that's worked on the baseball field.

Wait, I thought it was, there's already stairs leading from the baseball field up to Madison Ave, where we walked during the neighborhood walk.

Okay, so, like here.

Here's the baseball field.

Here's the sliding hill, and then Madison app kind of connects to Rose Hill over here So it's connecting at the back of Madison.

It is.

The picture is misleading.

It's okay.

Yeah

All right, so in total, active VDOT projects, we have 14 total projects for a grand total of just over $131 million.

Those numbers don't add up.

Well, just look at the last two digits.

54 plus 98 does not equal 25.

That is correct.

Which is a wonderful segue to the last part of the presentation, which is those projects that are locally funded.

So we have a total of $6.2 million in locally funded projects, total of 10 projects all in.

The biggest of those is the Strip Lane Avenue Sidewalk Project, which I know you all are very familiar.

I think the main thing I want to highlight here is our schedule at this point, which shows a completion in the spring of 2027.

This is one of those projects that I want to note and offer commendation to our project team for the time they've spent meeting with the neighborhood, meeting with stakeholders there to come to a design that was supported within the neighborhood and allows us to move forward with this project for completion.

Any questions on Stribbling before I move on?

The remaining nine projects that are locally funded are all shown here.

I'm not going to go through each of these individually, but happy to make this slide or the entire presentation available to you for your reference.

Winter 2024.

It's early.

Fall.

Fall.

Is that correct?

That project did complete?

I think they're still working on one corner.

OK.

So one corner to go.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good question.

How does this relate to our sidewalk priority list?

The bottom one?

So the top ones that you're seeing, the ones that say that there is an RFQ associated with them, those are from our Safe Routes to School program.

Those are places where we have done paint and plastic projects over the past couple years and they've been really successful.

So we want to turn them into concrete.

So that's what those first five are.

The bottom four are from our sidewalk list.

Those are the first tier one projects that we've gotten under design.

So all in the entire project portfolio, 24 active projects, $138.3 million worth of construction.

As we look ahead, we've got at this point in time 13 projects that are in various places within the design and right-of-way acquisition and one part project under construction as we

As we move forward, this is not the entirety of that list that we were just looking at.

This is just VDOT and what have been coined as major CIP projects.

As we move ahead, one of the things that we are going to be looking at is making sure that we have new projects teed up so that by fall of 2026 we have that zero has some different number.

So we are designing and preparing for construction of the next wave of projects within the city.

but we do have a busy construction schedule coming ahead in 2025.

So that is my last slide.

Before you take questions, I would like to add a few comments myself.

This is not an easy presentation for us to be making to you this evening.

I'm sure staff would say that they wish we could have avoided it I too wish we could have avoided it But we could not that's why we're here This is Hopefully I'm really hoping I'm close to the end of the apology tour that I've been on since taking this job But ideally this is this is really just being transparent about where things have been and really what we have

I've been working to overcome.

Not placing blame on anybody at this point because I'm past that.

This portfolio was big the day I arrived.

It was big before I got here and I'll probably say too big.

There's been a lot going on, a lot of changes, a lot of requests.

that have led to this just being a complicated series of projects for us to manage over time.

You know me to be a process person.

I keep claiming to be that.

I'll say to you that's what a lot of our focus and attention is on.

That's how we've gotten here to this point.

It's just looking at

Can we figure this out and if we can't figure it out then we got to come up with a workable scenario So my message to to you counselors and to the public is The goal is for us to get a rhythm going and get work done that we all can appreciate But cancelling projects right now is still a part of that reboot.

It's about making it a manageable portfolio that we can actually See progress and getting done we will not

Cease to Apply for Smart Scale Projects.

VDOT has been a great partner.

I owe them a lot.

I personally feel like I owe them a lot because I've been asking for a lot, I'll be honest and say that too.

And they've been right there with us trying to figure this out and expressing frustration, expressing anger.

celebrating wherever they can celebrate.

We're not high-fiving just yet, I've asked.

I keep asking for high-fives emoji.

I haven't gotten one yet.

But we're close and they are looking for us to, they were really looking for us to do some things that they have been advocating for for quite some time.

Our team has been reluctant to come before you and make suggestions like this such as canceling projects.

I have asked repeatedly why and the answer is because we're going to get skewered and we're going to get chewed up and the public is going to be mad and I said, okay, I understand that, but we're still going to do it.

and I've asked them to tell me what are the right things to do and that's why we're here making this known to you that this is how we move forward.

I shared with you and the public some time ago that VDOT was implementing a new performance metric program.

They have done that.

We did not score well.

We knew we weren't going to score well and now they're looking for us to turn things around.

So that's what this is all about.

This is about not getting out of things.

It's turning the ship around.

and it's important for us to be able to have a manageable workload that we can get done and satisfy the needs while working to come up with what's next on the list and meet and exceed those needs down the road.

Can I ask a question going back one slide in your presentation?

The next to the last one, they had the chart of where things were in.

Okay, so as I'm looking at this, it looks like we've got 13 projects, just to sort of use around numbers here.

We have 24 projects.

in the planning and right-of-way acquisition phase and we've got 18 projects where we have some idea of when construction will take place.

Yeah, those are the ones that also were on that last list and stuff.

These are the key projects that we went through each of those slides to show you the cost associated with.

So there's also some that are still at the early phase of concept where we haven't finalized the scope that we haven't shared with you because we have the scoping until we get to like a 30% phase, then that's when we finalize it and start the design.

That's not shown here.

I'm curious about the lead time in all of this process.

Some of the projects were originally approved in 2014 and are expected to be done in 2028.

Of the 13 that are in the P.E.

slash R.O.W.

phase, what are we thinking the lead time is from the point of being in the P.E.

R.O.W.

phase?

to being constructed.

The average project is three to four years.

Correct.

But what we've done and what the city manager requested is as soon as those funds are authorized to start, which is typically July, even prior to that, Ben's group and everyone, we're already doing the scoping in advance.

So once it's authorized, we're not losing any time.

A lot of these projects, as you see that were behind,

They were funded, let's say July 1st or 20th, but they didn't start until like a year later and stuff.

Is there a sense that

Yeah, we are beefed up now to handle any of the existing portfolio we have.

We have a senior project manager.

We have two project managers.

We're getting ready to advertise another engineer position.

And we have Mike Otter, who's the deputy.

So we're ready to handle any other projects.

And then plus we'll use the VDOT CT2.

What measures do we have in place to kind of keep up?

Because I remember when this was happening, when I was doing transportation planning for the county, just keeping up with, I mean, it changes so much based on the economy, just because if things get real lean, you can get a good deal on a project.

So what do we have in place?

So what we have in place is, first of all,

We're back to the fundamentals.

We have a monthly transportation meeting that gives updates.

And then we also have a VDOT monthly meeting just with VDOT that focuses on the projects, the schedules, the timing and stuff.

And where we got into trouble with these projects were the consultants weren't being consultants to us.

And they have a responsibility, sheer responsibility we had to meet with them to make sure these estimates are up to date and just not throwing in a number

of the

Cost of each project down to how many cubic yards we're doing.

So we're going to capture that.

Plus, we're keeping a trend on some of the market bids that are coming in to analyze that, to make sure it correlates to what ours is doing.

So we have it, and plus VDOT we have, as the city manager said, they have a performance metrics now that we have to report back to VDOT of where we are.

That was earlier in the spring.

I gave you all our corrective action plan where we have to report back our status of how we're performing and they're monitoring us.

to remove us from the deficiency plan that got us into this about, I would say, four or five years ago.

So we have checks and balance.

Sounds.

Yeah, I mean, I guess you've been touching on it before to provide

context for the community who may be watching and curious about all this.

Obviously there are projects here for 2011 and 2016.

Well, VDOT, they understand

The struggles we had, and as Mr. Sanders said, we're not looking back, we have a new team.

But we are deficient still in on time because we still are dealing with old projects trying to catch up.

But they also have an area where you get scores for the progress you're making.

and they've already noticed a big progress as in our scores moving up in those areas.

We just have to get some of our projects through right away.

And then once we get to construction, that's when VDOT's really going to see that we're doing a good job.

But right now, we're still at that phase of cleaning up and getting projects just through design to start construction.

But we're still below 30% of projects on time.

But that's because we have old projects that we're trying to clean up.

New projects were on schedule, like the Preston, Tenth Grady, Dairy Road Bridge.

And again, just for context for the community, I mean, would it be fair to say that these old projects are

Largely the reason we couldn't apply for smart scale in this upcoming round and our performance is one of the worst in the state.

Correct.

And even if we were to move forward with them, VDOT would want to manage to make sure.

Thank you.

The only question about a specific project I had, the one that jumped out to me the most is that Barracks Road Emmett Street project.

Just because I think the reduce in the scope, I think that shared use path was a big part of why so many people in the community supported it and was really the main focus of that project.

And this is almost to me a completely different project than

what the community envisioned from it.

So one, there's that concern.

And then two, help me understand, you said the shared use path is gone.

There's still a sidewalk.

Yeah, so I guess I'll take the first part of your question there, if I may.

There was also a large part of that community who didn't like this project at all.

Didn't like the fact that we were changing the tree canopy, that we were going into the hillside.

So while I agree, there was a lot of people that were in favor of the bike lane.

There was also probably 60, 40 split there.

as far as the sidewalk goes, really what we're trying to do is still provide an improved pedestrian facility right now with the slope that's there and the existing

I'll say it's a five foot sidewalk, but really because of that slope and vegetation that kind of migrates out onto it right now, you know, it's it's maybe a three and a half to four foot sidewalk.

So providing an actual six foot sidewalk, we're also going to be, you know, shifting that curb line over.

So we're narrowing the travel lanes, which will, you know, reduce speeds, hopefully on that corridor, just by by narrowing it, making it, you know, a little bit closer to the other vehicles that are going up and down the hill.

Yeah, and I don't know what the ideal solution would even be in the context of needing to cancel projects, but I mean, I do think, I mean, my impression of the community support for it is different.

I mean, there were a small group of wealthy, well-resourced individuals who were opposed to it, but I think the overwhelming majority of bike pet advocates in the community saw it as a very positive thing and very critical

to building a linkage to barracks if there's ever going to be a goal of having that corridor developed into a more mixed use environment that's not just a vehicular area dominated by drive-throughs.

I think staff would agree with you.

We didn't want to do this.

I've continued to fight for that project in its original conception for quite some time.

It just got to the point with the cost of that wall and that right-of-way.

Not overwhelmingly.

I mean, there was a huge construction increase over COVID across the board.

I mean, statewide, nationwide costs went up in some places 200%.

So, you know, right away was a portion of it, but it was not necessarily the, you know, of the 8 million that we were over.

I want to say the right-of-way cost we saved was maybe two or three million of that.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Yeah, thank you.

I do also lament the loss of that shared use path

How this might be to find a question for off the top of your head, but how wide is that road now where we can't find two more feet?

So the eight feet is misleading.

So in order to actually be a shared use path, you need eight foot minimum, but then you need two feet of shoulder on either side.

Because you've got to have, it's just per the guidance to actually be a shared use path.

So really, you would need at minimum 12 feet.

We could.

Okay.

Something I want to kind of chime in on what City Manager was saying was that I think the difference between what this team is doing and what might have happened in the past is that we're able to reallocate and we're not just seating.

We are re-managing, reorganizing.

We have a team that is

using the resources that we do have well, and I think that shows progress, even though we're losing some things in these projects that we all want.

Yeah, I would just echo Natalie's comments.

I want to thank you.

And this has been something I've been working on for a long time to try to get your arms around this and right size it.

And part of that means making hard choices.

But the sense I get from what I've

I heard and saw tonight is that you guys had identified what those hard choices are and the trade-offs involved.

And anyway, I think it seems to me like you've done a really good job.

There's, you know, to Michael's point earlier, I think there's definitely some places where there'll be a loss, but looking at it in the hole, it seems to me like it's

You actually know what the portfolio looks like, and you've got a plan for getting it done, and you've got buy-in from VDOT, and so, you know, it's great to get 90% of something done versus, you know, only a much smaller fraction.

I had one other thought.

I'll use this as an opportunity to put in a plug for something I've been plugging for about four years, which is that I would really like to see the city do essentially what our WSA does

with their list of CIP projects that every quarter there is a list of every project they've got and where it stands, when the project is starting, when it's expected to start construction, when it's expected to complete, what the budget situation is, if there's any narrative to explain what the situation is.

It's about an eight-page document they put out quarterly.

It's actually, we get it as part of our packet on a quarterly basis.

And if something like that could be available to us, to the public, I would bet that probably half of the calls and emails that I get are people wanting to know where a certain project is in the pipeline.

and I have to say, in some cases, in most cases I say I have no idea.

In some cases I write you an email saying, where is this in the pipeline?

I was going to express my agreement.

I think that's something that's within the realm of what we've accomplished.

I think you were going to say the same thing as well.

I hope that the updated website with the transportation of projects at least shown on it as per the slides that we've been showing tonight is a step in that direction.

Yeah, status.

Yeah, no, no.

I don't have any questions.

I appreciate your work.

Someone who's been on the other end getting those estimates.

I know it's really, really hard, particularly working with consultants when we didn't have the staff.

So I understand and appreciate the work that you all

and I think your new steps to meet monthly, that's really good.

You'll be able to stay on top of it then.

So future councils won't be dealing with this.

So thank you.

Just note credit to the staff here that joined me here tonight and of course their staff who aren't here with us tonight, but the project management team

and everybody else involved.

There's just real progress being made.

You brought the right crew.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you all so much.

So I think we'll adjourn until 6.30 is no closed session.

So thank you.

Okay, I think we're...

We did not have a co-session today, so we're going to begin with a moment of silence.

Okay.

Are there any announcements that counselors or anyone have?

I have a couple of.

One, I want to remind people again that on November the 9th, which is Saturday from 11 to 3 at Carverette, the Veterans Committee of Central Virginia will commemorate the 10th African-American military experience with a program called Telling Their Stories.

and African Americans have participated in every war the United States has fought, yet they are frequently excluded from the bulk broader narrative.

The mission is to more fully tell the story and honor through education and telling of the untold stories of the African American

participation in the United States past and present.

And at this event, there will be military historians, military exhibits, and telling their story.

And again, that will be this Saturday from 11 to 3 at Carver rec.

And so, and also, I am participating in the shopping spree for the Blue Ridge Fool Bank at

Croger this Thursday morning to try to get some, I think I'm doing it with Chief Thomas as a matter of fact, so we are trying to raise funds and bring awareness to the food bank and hunger in the community, so that should be fun, but also have an impact as well.

There are no announcements.

Does anyone hear from the lung cancer awareness?

Okay.

So the proclamation for lung cancer awareness month, whereas lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and Virginia, accounting for more deaths than colon cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer combined.

The five-year survival rate for localized lung cancer is approximately 60%, yet only about 24% of lung cancers are diagnosed at this stage.

Screening for lung cancer for high-risk individuals using low-dose computed tomography can lead to the earlier detection of lung cancer and save lives, reducing mortality by 20% when compared to screening by chest x-ray.

And whereas lung cancer in individuals who never smoked is the seventh leading cause of cancer-related death,

and accounts for 26,000 deaths in the U.S.

every year.

70% of individuals diagnosed with lung cancer who never smoked are women and their proportion of lung cancer is diagnosed to people who never smoked is increasing in the U.S.

Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among individuals who never smoked and the second leading cause of lung cancer overall.

and others.

are committed to educating about lung cancer and working to increase lung cancer screening rates in Virginia.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that November 2024 is Lung Cancer Awareness Month in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I encourage all citizens to learn about lung cancer and early detection through lung cancer screenings.

We're now at the point for public matters.

There are five preregistered speakers and there are slots for 11 additional speakers on the first phase of the public input process or community matters.

You have up to three minutes to speak.

We'll now open the floor up.

Hi, hello.

Hello.

I'm Renee Bird.

I live at 404 Robinson Street.

I recently requested a crosswalk at Elliott and Second, which was swiftly denied by the city.

I previously spoke at the last meeting.

I am here today because bad design kills, and it has killed people on Elliott Avenue, and it will continue to kill people on Elliott Avenue.

But together, we can do something to change the future of this street.

And we have a choice.

We can save lives by taking action

not just on this crosswalk, but hopefully on other issues on the Elliott.

Hopefully we all remember the woman who died, Mama Wasiwai, who died on 1st Street just a few weeks ago.

But people often forget that there have been people who have died in car crashes on Elliott Avenue between 5th and 6th every year for the past couple of years.

Cars have flipped going too fast on this street and people have died.

I started a petition for this specific crosswalk.

I thought I would get

You know, a couple hundred signatures, but it turns out we got 900 signatures easily just talking to people on the streets, talking to people at the X Farmers Market.

We had people who were handicapped who signed, people who are just my neighbors who signed, children who signed because to so many people this issue is an obvious fix and it's something that everyone expects the city to take seriously because we all know that this is a very dangerous crossing and it's a legal crossing which hopefully most people know but without actually having a marked crosswalk there we are so much more endangered by cars who don't realize people are crossing because they cannot see people

Crossing at this space for a lot of different reasons.

So here are some of the problems that I see with this area.

This particular spot.

Speeding cars are coasting down Elliott Avenue from 5th at 45 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone.

It goes from 45 to 35 to 25 like that.

People don't pay attention to the speed limit, and they will not slow down.

Cars can't even see legally crossing people at this particular crossing.

They have no idea that people are there until they're a split second before they've crossed and passed.

Cars will speed up and refuse to stop for pedestrians at this location that's happened to me hundreds of times.

An Elliott is being treated as a minor arterial by the city traffic engineer, which is an inappropriate designation for this street.

That's something that's used to describe streets that are connected to highways, which have much more traffic flow, do not have residential areas and don't have crossings, all of which Eliot has.

This is fully a residential street, not arterial.

And of course, we're looking at hundreds more pedestrians being in this area as more housing is being built on first.

So at bare minimum, we really need this marked crosswalk.

This must happen.

In addition, I really hope that the city will consider adding speed tables to Elliott to slow people down and prioritize adding sidewalks to Elliott before the marked date of 2030 or TBD, which is, in my opinion, inappropriate.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Ms.

Bird, I just want to make sure I understood you said the last date that you had it.

Yes.

What was that?

2030 or TBD, which is when Elliott is currently scheduled to have sidewalks installed.

Yes.

Hi, my name is Kevin Cox.

I live on a neighborhood street at 311 Fairway Avenue in Charlottesville.

and I'm here to support Ms.

Byrd's petition and commend her for taking action and standing up and challenging the overruling of this very simple thing.

And I wonder if there are other people in the room who are here also to support this petition.

If they'd raise their hands, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I spent a lot of time collecting signatures over the last two weeks.

I talked to hundreds and hundreds of people

and

to please respect the public's intelligence and overturn this decision to not put this needed marked crosswalk at a legal, regularly used pedestrian crossing.

You have money for the curb ramps.

There's, I think, $130,000 in the curb ramp fund right now.

You can do this right now.

The public has asked you to do this.

They haven't asked you to plan to do it or think about it or create a scenario for the future.

They've asked you to do it, to install it.

So please, install it.

And Elliot needs work all over.

We all know that.

It's a terrible road.

It's terribly unsafe.

But it's not the road that is unsafe.

It's not the hill coming down from 6th Street that's unsafe.

It's the driver's decisions.

They decide, that hill is not dangerous when I drive down.

It's dangerous when people decide to make it dangerous and that decision, well, let the hill make the decision for them.

Put in speed tables or speed cushions.

There are methods now that slow vehicles down without impairing fire trucks and emergency delivery service.

I'm sorry, I feel like I'm going in the Groundhog hole.

Like this is Groundhog Day again because I just don't want to hear more promises.

I want to see some action.

I came here on behalf of the public to ask for action.

And it's needed, not promises, not plans for the future.

Please.

Okay.

Thank you, Kevin.

Born in Charlottesville, October the 19th, 1960.

I'm ashamed to see I'm in here.

I'm ashamed of every one of y'all in here.

I'm telling you, move from here to here, October the 19th, 1963.

I'm ashamed to see, I'm telling you, I'm ashamed of you.

I am really, I am.

And you got homeless people downstairs in front of this building.

And I've been wondering here, when you leave here, you're going to sleep in a warm bed tonight.

You know that.

Every one of you, that even that child said, no, she got a car.

None of y'all know that.

None of y'all know doctors.

But it's the same.

You make millions and millions of dollars there every single time you have a concert down here.

every single time, but you're not investing nothing.

You've got that building, all that money over there, you spent on that brand new bridge over there.

But you spray your hoses off every day, you know, all the bricks.

Got to put the ones all under the bridge.

You got to sell them up.

You ain't sell to nobody.

You got to pass them.

Got to put them over there every year.

Summertime, bring them back up like the flowers.

It's a shame.

until I lived in West Haven all that time.

Left here at 17 years old playing baseball.

One of the best baseball, I never bragged on myself.

I'm gonna do it now.

I don't even know about the time I leave and probably none of y'all next week will never know who I was.

Or it would never be.

Got a baseball record over there, my team over there, which is a team, not me.

I'm sliding on by, still got 125.

Who won the game?

The Dodgers.

That was the team of the Dodgers who won the game.

That's what I'm talking about.

That's the problem with this town.

The team, there's no team going here.

Every one of y'all probably getting more bonus money in here.

You don't get validated to yourself.

And your regular people, of your people that get up every morning, your bus drivers, I was one.

Parker Rick, I was one.

Halvin and Thornton, I was one.

Maintenance, I was one.

No benefits.

No benefit working 40 hours every week with no benefits.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

I'm going to tell you, you ought to be ashamed.

You got the trash drugs drivers out there.

Get up every morning.

You got to come from all the counties around here.

They can't even live in this town.

But y'all can't live here either.

But they're a little extra bonus money to get in there.

That's how you make it.

15, that's my number.

It's the same.

It is pitiful.

I'm ashamed.

I'm going to turn my head and get out of here.

Because I'm ashamed to say I ever lived in this town.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

Hello, City Council.

I'm Dan Schleifer.

I live at 320 Fifth Street, Southwest in Fifeville.

I'm here today because I believe that there's an unintended loophole in the city's current noise ordinance.

When the latest set of changes were made to the ordinance in February 2008, there were restrictions on residential neighborhoods, residential noise levels, but no restrictions on commercial zones.

at the time under the old zoning framework, areas like West Main, Belmont, and the corner were considered commercial and had no restrictions.

According to the meeting minutes from February 19, 2008, then Chief Longo told City Council at the time that, quote, numerous calls had been received about certain businesses, but since they were not included in the ordinance, the police were not able to enforce it.

He said that this will give officers another tool.

He said that

46 pages of complaints have been received city-wide and 52 pages downtown.

The amendment was adopted, stipulating a restriction of 75 decibels from 11 p.m.

until 6 a.m.

for restaurants and music halls.

I believe the changes to the ordinance were intended to prevent the restaurant's near residential zones from disturbing the residents.

Based on my personal experience and discussions with the city attorney staff,

However, there appears

which means it must be exceedingly loud up close.

This is verified by recent online reviews of the hotel on Hotels.com.

Quote, there's new rooftop bar and restaurant which blasts loud music.

We were staying there on the fourth floor and heard the bass thumping above us right until 12.45 a.m.

This hotel blasts music so loud you can feel the vibration.

It's absurd and it's so loud that even in the rooms on the second floor you can hear the music.

Let me assure you, I tried to resolve this without coming to City Hall.

I've called the hotel directly twice and asked them to turn down the volume in respect of their neighbors.

They flat-out said no and that they weren't subject to the noise ordinance.

I called the police non-emergency line, spoke with an officer who informed me that until 11 p.m.

there's no noise restriction for restaurants.

I then reached out to the city attorney to clarify.

Rob Hubbard, the deputy city attorney, was kind enough to answer my questions

and my emails and explained that if a restaurant, even if a restaurant is located in a residential neighborhood, there is no restriction on noise until 11 p.m.

No restriction whatsoever.

I don't believe this was the intent of City Council when it enacted the updated ordinance in 2008.

Model ordinances from the EPA, Rutgers University, the World Health Organization and others are based on the sound levels at the receiving end, not what source the business type is.

I would ask that the city council request the city staff to propose new language that makes it clear that restaurants operating in or next to residential district cannot cause sound in the residential zone above the current residential zone level.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate you sending information ahead of time.

We're looking, looking into it.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Eileen Martells and I live at 710 Stonehenge Avenue in Belmont.

I'm speaking in support of the requested crosswalk at 2nd and Elliott.

It is my understanding that when this crosswalk was first requested, it was denied for the reason that pedestrians can cross at 1st Street instead.

Virginia law states, where intersections contain no marked crosswalks, pedestrians shall not be guilty of negligence as a matter of law.

for crossing at any such intersection or between intersections when crossing by the most direct route.

In other words, pedestrians currently have the right to cross Elliott at second, and the city's refusal to do the bare minimum to keep people safe at a crossing they have every right to use is insulting.

The fact that this refusal comes only a few weeks after a pedestrian was killed by a driver a block away while crossing the same street

Indeed, at the crosswalk they expect pedestrians to detour to is outrageous.

I realize that we don't currently have a traffic engineer.

I don't know where you are in the search process, but we cannot have another traffic engineer who is hostile to pedestrians.

Furthermore, anyone who is hired into this role should be required to spend a considerable amount of time walking in the city.

and attempting to cross at some of the busy, dangerous intersections such as Elliot at Second, West Main at Ridge, Monticello at Ridge, Avon at Druitt to name just a few.

Maybe if a prospective traffic engineer understood what it is like to have your life constantly threatened by inattentive, careless, or hostile drivers, they wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the needs of pedestrians.

Walking is not a leisure activity.

It's a method of transportation, and it deserves the same considerations from city government as infrastructure for cars.

My time as a pedestrian is just as valuable as that of a driver, and yet the city continues to prioritize drivers.

We now have slides for 11 people to speak.

Anyone in the audience like to speak?

Hi there.

Thank you so much for letting me speak.

My name is Chelsea Braun.

I live at 617 Alta Vista Avenue and I am here to support the crosswalk on Elliott as well.

My husband was hit on a bicycle.

in the second street intersection.

When a car ran a red light, he was found, the person was on a motorcycle.

They were found to be at fault.

No citation was issued.

His bicycle was ruined and he was injured.

But furthermore, we walk a lot around town and we are constantly stressed and afraid.

We've been almost hit in legal crosswalks on multiple occasions.

I'm a professor of medicine at UVA.

I used to bike commute to work.

It became too stressful and too dangerous for me to ride my bicycle from Belmont to UVA because of hostile aggressive drivers and lack of infrastructure.

And I just wanted to say this is a public health issue.

It demands public solutions, both the ability to walk safely and just the act of walking is very important for our city's public health and our community.

Thank you so much.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Rebecca Cobbs.

I live at 813 Elliott Avenue.

I'd like to thank my neighbors for all of the work that they have done gathering signatures to support the crosswalk at Second Street and Elliott.

And I would just like to reiterate that all of Elliott Avenue needs to be the traffic.

It all needs to be addressed.

I encourage the various traffic calming proposals that have been made.

Specifically, I live near the Rialto and Elliot, which has the main access to Belmont Park for most of the Belmont neighborhood.

I am informed that the crosswalk is scheduled to be redone.

It's currently faded, but cars speed through there also at 45 miles an hour.

And I see pedestrians and bicyclists trying to get to the park every single day.

and cars buzzed by them at 45 miles an hour.

There are intersections like this all throughout the city.

Druid and Avon was mentioned.

There's so many and you know what they are.

And if you don't, then you need a traffic engineer who does know what they are because the pedestrians do.

So thank you to, again to my neighbors, thank you for listening.

Thank you very much.

My name is Christina Reid Black.

I live at 812 Elliott Avenue.

I've been there since 2010.

Any police officers that's been in the city for very long, used to park in front of my house literally every morning to catch the people flying down the hill on Elliott and shooting back up the other side.

I am lucky enough to live and work in Charlottesville and I walk and bike frequently.

and it is a dangerous city to walk and bike around and we need to do better.

Rialto is one that I would love to see a speed cushion, but all of Elliot, I love that there's support for this.

And I would like the city app to be more proactive.

You're asking us to do all the work and the responses we get are months later.

or just closed and it's frustrating.

And same with the closed call reporting.

I've never gotten a response from that.

So I'd love to see more proactive solutions.

Hi, my name is Rory Stolzenberg.

I'm a resident of Water Street.

Thank you, Council.

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight, though it's several weeks too late.

I come to you tonight for the second time in three months to watch and lament as you announce the results of your decisions made in secret meetings behind closed doors several weeks ago to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars, in this case, over $52 million worth of canceled projects.

I don't blame you for having to write size portfolio and make cancellations as needed, but this method of decision making does not give the public confidence that you've adequately weighed the possibilities and the different options available to you, or given the public an opportunity to point out the value of different options available.

In this case, one of the projects you killed, Demetri Escape Phase 2, is a critical link for one of the fastest growing parts of our community and certainly the fastest densifying of the broader city and county community, the Stonefield, Hydraulic 29, Small Area Plan area.

Thousands of units are going into that area in the next few years, and now that area will be essentially car dependent with no way to get certainly to UVA and probably to downtown for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, at Barracks Emmett, we're left with the intersection widening and new slip lane, part of that procedure, part of that process, and removed the pedestrian benefits and bike benefits.

I would in fact submit that with drastic changes to that project, another 22-32 review must be required for conformance with the comprehensive plan.

It's obviously too late to change what you've done, but it's disappointing to see the public learn of the massive decisions you've made from CTB agendas posted for statewide meetings and not straight from you until weeks after the fact.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Elizabeth Bakowski and I live at 402 Robinson Place and I too am speaking in support of the crosswalk.

I think you all have heard a lot of amazing arguments and sort of advocacy on behalf of that crosswalk for my neighbors.

I cross that street almost daily.

I cross it now with a seven month old and we have almost been hit multiple times.

Not just there, but also at Second Street, also at Avon and it's just very dangerous.

So I feel like it's also an accessibility issue.

There is no sidewalk on the other side of the street.

There's no connective tissue apart from that one stretch of Elliott Ave.

People go so incredibly fast down that road.

as others have said, traffic calming measures would be amazing there, but I feel like at the bare minimum, having a crosswalk so that there's actually visibility for pedestrians in that very arterial route right across that street would be huge.

Thank you for your comments.

Anyone else like to speak?

There'll be another opportunity at the end of the meeting.

Consent agenda number three minutes October 21st regular meeting for resolution to appropriate community development block grant COVID relief funds from HUD in the amount of ninety thousand three hundred twenty one dollars and ninety eight cents second reading five resolution to appropriate funds from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development

Virginia Homeless Solutions Program Grant Amendment $93,564 Second Reading 6.

Resolution to Appropriate Funding from the Supreme Court of Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant $115,400.58 Second Reading

No.

7 Resolution for the 2024 Ready Kids Youth Services Proposal, a major amendment to the program year 2024 to 25 annual action plan in the amount of $50,000 second reading.

There was an accounting code error on

on the resolution in the packet, so that will be updated for the certification.

Number eight resolution for a donation of antique fire engine to Old Dominion Historical Fire Society Incorporated.

9, Resolution for Compromise of Claim, Water and Wastewater Leak Credit of $10,887.26 for University of Virginia Foundation 10, Ordnance, Virginia Department of Social Services Temporary Aid to Needy Families Grants $69,312.67, one of two readings

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, can we vote?

We will now go to the city managers report.

Good evening, Mayor Wade, members of council.

James Freeze, deputy city manager for operations.

On the topic of pedestrian safety in our streets and roads within the city, you all will know that following the fatal pedestrian crash we saw several weeks ago, the city immediately moved forward with safety improvements at that intersection of First and Elliott.

I want to acknowledge that those were the solutions that we could do quickly.

Those are what we could do within a matter of days, but that doesn't mean we were done with that work at this point in time.

So staff has been charged with identifying safety solutions both on the Elliott Street quarter and at some other identified places that you all have received notice about and that we've identified independently.

And then we'll be coming back with a set of improvements that we can do within the next year.

City manager has identified what we're referring to as urgent infrastructure dollars that can be put towards these deployments.

very quickly.

So that's our charge, that's our course of action.

Thank you.

A couple of additional items.

Leave collection began today unless something happened in the trucks didn't roll, but I was given that today was the day.

So for members of the public, if you would like to receive text alerts as to where the trucks are, there is a phone number 434-771-0251, where you can sign up to receive that information.

Again, that number is 434-771-0251.

Also our Director of Communications and Public Engagement is really bouncing up and down excited because CityScoop is the new community newsletter.

It will drop this month in November.

We're working to get that first edition ready and then we'll produce a bi-weekly communication to the public.

It is meant for you.

You can request what goes in it.

So we're looking forward to hearing back from the public on things that they have an interest in as well as things that we would like to prioritize being able to share.

The goal is for this to come by email, but we will also make sure that there are hard copies available in City Hall, a few locations on the downtown mall and the public libraries where we're also looking to have copies.

In addition to that, in case you have not tuned in to Inside Charlottesville, that's the City's Public Affairs TV program.

It airs every Friday and Sunday at 7 p.m.

And every Saturday and Monday at 9 a.m.

On Charlottesville TV 10 we would like to invite people to take a look And I have a feature on it called on the spot and they put me on the spot And the point is to be able to communicate to the public on a variety of things So we look forward to you taking part in getting that information as well so the spirit of communication and

and doing better at making sure we get the word out.

We are just pointing out those two things to the public today.

And last but not least, our treasurer and our budget director and our commissioner of revenue, stop it Todd, are here.

We're going to give you a quarterly financial report.

I think that Ms.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Question about city scoop.

Great.

Looks like I'm up first.

Good evening.

My name is Jason Vandiver.

I'm the city treasurer and normally the quarterly update is accompanied by an investment update.

But tonight we're going to do something a little bit different and focus on the city's retirement plans, which is something that we don't talk about too often.

So on the screen here we have just an overview of the city's retirement plans.

There are two main plans and typically when you think about governmental retirement plans you probably think of a traditional pension plan.

So on the left here we have, you know, the city does offer a traditional defined benefit pension plan.

Along with that there are some other post-employment benefits that are offered, health, medical, dental, life insurance, things like that.

We abbreviate those as OPEB.

So I'll refer to those benefits as OPEB benefits throughout the presentation But that plan was started in the 1950s the city Decided not to enter into the Virginia retirement system, but instead create its own independent retirement plan There are about 11 independent retirement plans scattered across the state.

So it's not unique, but it is it is different so, you know, if you're

A public employee in Elmoral County, you're in the Virginia retirement plan.

If you're a teacher in the city, you're in the Virginia retirement system.

If you're a city employee, you're in the Charlottesville retirement system.

So about two-thirds of our employees elect the traditional defined benefit pension plan.

So, you know, 666 currently.

And the way a defined benefit pension plan works is that the benefit that you're paid when you retire is a set amount each month.

and there's a formula that's based on your final average compensation and your years of service and it's kind of designed roughly if you worked at the city for your full career, 30 plus years, it would pay out approximately 48% of your Indian salary and so that along with social security benefits would hopefully be enough for you to sustain your current lifestyle and retirement.

So that's one plan and most of the

employees in the city are in that plan, but in 2001 the city implemented a second plan that employees can opt into.

It's a one-time irrevocable decision that they make when they're hired.

So it's definitely a hard decision, but about a third of our employees are in a defined contribution plan that's authorized under IRS tax code 401A.

So that's very similar to what you would see in the private sector with the 401K plan.

There's a defined contribution amount that's based on the employees' years of service, and about a third of our employees are in there.

and we contract with a third party administrator who sort of sets up the fund platform and the employee is responsible for investing those funds based on their own investment, time horizon and risk tolerance.

In addition to that, there's a special plan called a 457 deferred compensation plan.

Any city employee has access to this, but a lot of employees elect to do a contribution.

So about 40% of our employees participate in the deferred compensation plan.

And that's where if the employee wants to make additional contributions to savings vehicle where they can set aside money from their paycheck, you know, every two weeks into the 457 plan.

and then once they separate service they have access to those funds.

So that's available to all employees whether they pick the defined benefit plan or the defined contribution plan.

So that's a quick overview of the plans that we offer.

All of those plans fall under the oversight of the Retirement Commission.

So the Retirement Commission is a board.

It has several members who are appointed by council and some that are members as stipulated in city code.

But there are three employees.

They're nominated by their peers and then recommended by the city manager and appointed by city council.

There's a member of city council who currently is councilor Pinkston.

The city manager, finance director, treasurer and HR director are all specified in city code as members of the commission.

There's one retiree and then two community members who serve to your terms.

And so I think later this month, the next time you look at appointing members, there's going to be a new applicant.

So if you can take a look at that and we can fill out the 11th member of our commission.

But like I said, the commission has oversight over all of the plans that we mentioned on the previous slide.

Taking a look at the plan assets in total, in all of the city retirement plans, there's about $300 million.

In the traditional defined benefit plan, those assets are split into two parts.

The largest part to pay future pension benefits, that's $172 million.

And the other post-employment benefits, so health, dental, life insurance, that sort of thing, there's $63 million set aside in that trust fund.

The defined contribution plan obviously is much smaller.

It hasn't been around as long.

It doesn't have as many employees in it, but there are about $32 million in that plan.

Those are city contributions, and then the deferred compensation plan, those are all employee contributions that they've elected, and that encompasses about $38 million.

So across all those plans, there are obviously a lot of services that we offer to our plan participants and employees.

We have a full-time retirement administrator in HR who is here tonight.

Lisa Birch, you may have seen her before.

So she assists with the daily operations of the plan, administration and is available to meet with employees from the moment they're hired and they have to make that decision of which plan they're going to go into until when they retire and even after they retire.

She's happy to help them do

pension estimates and answer questions about the benefits that they have.

And so the city through the HR department offers regular educational sessions, sort of like lunch and learns and webinars and that sort of thing on retirement related topics.

Additionally, anyone who's in one of the plans has access to a retirement planning specialist through our third party provider and also access to a certified financial planner free of charge.

So those are just some of the services that we offer at every level to our employees and our retirees.

So the next two slides are going to focus on that biggest piece that we talked about, the traditional defined benefit plan, and so within that pension plan.

And this is just an overview of the asset allocation.

I'm not going to go into details on that other than to show that it's a broadly diversified portfolio.

And this is the asset allocation.

There are 17 funds across 11 managers, and we use an investment consultant at the retirement commission level to make those investment decisions.

So thinking about an individual who has a defined date that they might retire from the city's perspective, we sort of have an indeterminate timeline.

And so we have an assume rate of return of seven and a half percent over the life of the plan, which doesn't have an end date.

And we'll go on, you know, as long as the city exists.

But one thing that we do each year on June 30th, the plans fiscal year runs concurrently with the city's fiscal year.

and so we take a snapshot and measure our performance at that point.

So the one-year return as of June 30th, 12% gross of fees, 11.1% net of fees.

So you can see at least over the last year, of course, it was a very good year for the market.

We did exceed the assumed rate of return of 7.5%.

And if you look at the 10-year returns, 7.7% over that 10-year period.

Generally very good, almost in the top decile of the public fund universe, which we use as a benchmark to measure the plan's performance.

There are about 400 plans in that benchmark.

On the left side you can see the dotted line that steadily increases if the plan had achieved a 7.5% rate of return over that time period.

And you can see some years we fall below that and some years above that just as you would expect.

But over the long run that is the target that they were trying to achieve in the plan.

So this slide is the simplest, but probably requires the most explanation.

As I mentioned, on June 30th, we do a snapshot, both of the assets and the return, but also of the current funded status of the plan.

And so this is just a measurement that compares the fund's liabilities, so the promises that we've made to current retirees and future retirees.

So the benefits that they've accrued are the liabilities against the plan assets.

On June 30th, the funded status was 69.1%.

Our goal and sort of a generally accepted benchmark is that the plan's funded status would be around 80%.

And we're currently on trajectory to reach that in the next three to four years, which is great.

You can see it's been a long journey to get to that point.

Back in 2015, the city embarked on a sustainability study around its retirement plan to make sure that

We could meet the obligations that we were making to our retirees and employees, and a lot of changes, which I'll talk about in about two slides, were implemented.

And since that time, we've steadily, with the help of positive market returns, have improved the funded status almost 20%.

So I just wanted to point that out that, one, this is a snapshot in time of one day, we're required to measure the funded status, and it does go up and down.

and

Defined Benefit Plan sort of had two parts, had a pension part and then an OPEB trust.

This is something that's a little bit unique to Charlottesville in that we are pre-funding our OPEB liabilities.

So like I mentioned, this is to pay future medical dental life insurance benefits for eligible retirees.

So not every retiree qualifies for these benefits.

But the ones that we do, we want to make sure that we have the funds available to pay those.

So localities are required to disclose those OPED liabilities on their financial statements, but there's not necessarily an explicit requirement to pre-fund those liabilities.

Obviously you do.

If you do, it's better because you're setting aside those funds as you go and have the benefit of compounding those returns over long periods of time.

and we've accumulated $63 million in that fund.

And that actually equates to a 93% funded status of those liabilities, which is probably one of the best funded status for an OPEC trust in the state of Virginia.

And so that's something that's really unique when you put those assets together with the pension assets.

The combined funded status for both of those trust funds is about 74%.

and so that's very close to the 80% and I think kind of sets us apart in the sense that we are pre-funding those obligations to make sure that they're there when we need them for our retirees.

And last slide here, just a summary.

I mentioned that sustainability study that the city undertook in 2015 and fully implemented in 2017.

That study sort of set the stage for all the progress that we've made over the last seven or eight years by modernizing plan assumptions, updating mortality tables to more realistic mortality tables.

There were some cost sharing measures that went into place between employees and the city as the employer.

making it a policy to pre-fund any cost of living adjustments that are made for retirees to pay for them when they're granted and of course funding any new liabilities as they come like you did last year with the new liabilities that came along with collective bargaining and making or exceeding all the required contributions every year which we've done.

So that along with what I think is probably one of the most active and engaged retirement commissions we've had since I've been here.

I think things are looking great for the plans and we're hoping to continue leverage the plan partners that we have, the internal staff and the external expertise to make sure that these funds are sustainable and there for our employees and retirees in the future.

Thank you.

We have maybe asked some questions before of course he cuts off this.

Any questions?

So I'm curious how it is compared with like VRS.

Yeah, I can talk about both of those.

So on the benefit level, the state has made a lot of changes to their plans.

They've gone to a hybrid plan.

So it's not just a traditional

Defined Benefit Pension Plan.

They don't give their employees the same options that we do.

So there are some benefits of being in the state-planned economies of scale and that sort, but I think one of the things that's unique about having your own plan is that you sort of get to set the way that you want it run and the way that you want to fund it and you're not, you know, subject to the whims of the General Assembly and what they think the plan should be.

So I think there's a provision in state code that says we have to provide, you know, a somewhat equivalent benefit to what VRS offers and I think that the plan that we offer is more competitive to what VRS offers.

It depends and people have their preferences for sure.

I would say on the funded status question that you had, the state's pension plan

Great.

Thank you so much.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm remembering 30 plus years ago a candidate for city council campaigning on the premise that our retirement funds were underfunded and that there was this great unfunded liability.

And I remember there was some vague discussion of the notion that you're not really expected to get to 100% funded.

I think obviously we would love to be at 100% funded status.

Sort of the generally accepted guideline is you want to be at least 80% to say this is a healthy plan.

You're not in jeopardy of having to jack up your contribution rate.

Our plan

and

You're paying interest on the debt that you've borrowed to be able to fund these benefits.

Yeah, I can do some more research and pull some more information about that and kind of figure out where that 80% came from.

It's just one of those things everybody sort of throws around.

Oh, you want to be at least 80%.

One of the reasons, if I'm remembering correctly, was that there will be some people who are a part of the plan right now who won't stay with the city long enough to vest.

And so that that money, having been put into the retirement account, remains in that account.

And therefore, you don't have to get to 100%.

Yeah, I think that's part of it is just you don't know what someone is going to do.

I mean, it's such a long time horizon for investments that your mortality expectations could change, investment returns could change.

To say that you have to be at 100% funded today when you have a 100, 150 year timeline, you don't know what's going to happen, you know, 50 years from now with the plan or the workforce or anything like that.

So I think that's why

You know, at least 80% sort of puts you in the ballpark because everything about the funded status is based on these underlined assumptions that we don't know if they're going to come true or not.

They're just sort of our best guess.

And so I think that may be kind of part of what you're saying is that you don't know what people are going to do.

Okay, thank you.

Just that I appreciate your leadership every month when we have our retirement commission meetings and all are welcome to come.

I've learned a lot as part of that.

Jason and you as well, Lisa.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council.

Good evening.

Here tonight to talk to you about the first quarter of 2025.

We're going a little bit out of order as you haven't seen the final results for the fourth quarter of 2024.

The Director of Finance will be bringing those to you sometime in December, I think.

Once the audit is complete, he will report those as final results.

So that is why we don't report those yet pending the audit.

Now that we're just a little over a quarter through the year of 2025, you have in your packet a memo and also some preliminary results of how the budget is faring, specifically for revenues.

I'll note that as of right now, the 2025 budget was just a little under $252 million.

To date, we have collected about 11% of that revenue.

However, for the first time in a long time, we are seeing a little bit of a different trend.

As we have reported to you, we do expect a surplus ending the year 2024.

Starting with the budget process last year, we noted that that would be several million dollars just on revenues alone.

You'll know as we've been coming out of COVID, we have continued to

performed very strongly on our revenues, generating revenue surpluses.

And then we got to this quarter.

And not that there's time to sound alarms or run for the hills, but we are finding that the revenues are more closely aligning to our budget.

There are a few revenues that have actually not performed as strongly as in the past.

And so when we look at the budget based on the trends for the first quarter, our current revised revenue projections are down slightly, just under a half of a percent.

And largely those are being driven by two revenues, one is sales tax and the second one is lodging tax.

So as the revenue team, we are looking at this.

We're trying to look at a bunch of different data to try to figure out why.

We are noting that this is a little bit different from results that the state is seeing and even Albemarle County.

They both have reported slight increases for the same quarter and

You know, meal stacks and the other sort of economically sensitive revenues, as I mentioned, they are tracking very close to budget.

So at this point, we are not anticipating large revenue surpluses anymore.

closer to budget.

And again, I'll just mention that this is the first time we've seen a decline aside from COVID related declines.

This is the first time since 2008, which if you will remember was right before the last recession, that we have seen a reduction in sales tax revenue.

Those were

But the numbers that are here we're projecting out for the year based on the first quarter results.

But as I said, it is very, very early.

This is just slightly over a quarter of the year.

So it's hard to predict.

When you say we're low relative to the state and to Albemarle, how is that compared?

Like they could have budgeted lower and so therefore their revenues are appear higher.

Well, what she's referring to, we don't really, I don't really know what they budgeted for sales tax or lodging tax, but I can see we get reports to show what they're getting in sales tax.

Their sales tax is just doing better than ours.

It's compared to this same month prior year and then year over year.

We're, you know, we're trying to spitball reasons why that is.

You know, we're they've got more retail than we've got.

They've got a lot of big box stores that we just don't have.

I think what you're also seeing is we're just kind of getting in a way it's sort of a return to normalcy after COVID.

During the COVID years,

Us and other localities were getting a hefty injection of use tax, which is paid on online transactions.

Well, that's petered out.

And so we're getting more of what is truly taking place within the city.

And we just don't have the retail that other places have.

I don't want to

I don't want the sound bite to be that we're looking like 2008 here because it's way too early to say that.

It's just, you know, it's a snapshot we're core of the way in.

It could turn around.

Okay, thank you.

If I might, every year when we get new assessments come January, the consequence is, assuming that the assessments rise, the consequence is that the June tax payments are always a little bit more than we had budgeted for.

And I believe it would be accurate to say that the amount that those go up, let's say it's roughly 1%.

Now, it's historically been significantly more than 1%.

So to that end, again, we're looking at these projections by taking the current actual trends for the first quarter and projecting out for the whole year.

Yeah, I wouldn't count on.

Well, the only point I was going to make is that within the movement that we know we're going to get out of the real estate, assuming the assessments continue to rise even a little bit, that that amount is in that it's going to rise is essentially in the same ballpark as the amount that we seem to be a little bit low.

in these other two categories.

Okay.

after the next quarter, but we'll also start talking about this because that'll be February, early February I think would be the next quarterly report.

So we'll be ramping up budget development at that time.

I don't.

I mean, what I think we report, I'm pulling this off the top of my head.

I think what was in the last report, which we only looked at a revenue surplus, I think it was 12 to 14 million, I believe, that was just revenue.

Correct.

Correct.

and yes, and we took some steps in the 26 budget, excuse me, 25 budget to address those vacancies.

That we will.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments on the finance?

Thank you all so much.

Thank you.

Thank y'all.

Sam, do you have any other reports?

Nope.

That is it for my report.

Thank you.

The first item is a public hearing and resolution for the 2024 Parks and Recreation Pollock Branch Trail Bridge Accessibility Enhancement Project and a minor amendment to the program for FY24-25.

annual action plan in amount of $55,527.91.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Councillors.

Mayor Wade, Ms.

Thomas, I am once again come before you.

It's my pleasure to seek your support for what may well be the last of the off-cycle proposals for the CDBG program.

We have an opportunity to support the development of a pedestrian bridge right in the area of the Pollux Branch that is

very closely connected to some of the very exciting public development housing improvement programs that have been referenced earlier in the public comments.

So good evening for the record.

As Mr. Warren said, I'm Brenda Kelly with the Office of Community Solutions.

And I'm here tonight to tell you a little bit more about the project specifically.

And Mr. Warren can answer any questions you have about the CDBG stuff.

And Mr. Gensik is also here to answer any questions you may have.

So you might have seen from the background information in your packet that this project has had many starts and stops.

In its history, the idea came from the CRHA's redevelopment committee when we were first starting to work on the planning for phase one at South First Street.

So this does go back quite a ways.

When the idea first came up, City Council at that time approved $250,000 for the planning and construction.

With that, we got some engineers on board to start the design.

We put together an informal task force committee which included CRHA residents, FAR, Ridge Street Neighborhood Association residents, city staff folks from the technical aspect, and the consultants, the engineers that were designing the project.

As you can imagine, as we started designing the bridge, the pedestrian bridge,

Some other items came up like some of the native habitat that was very unique on the stream bed, size of the stream bed.

So the committee said they wanted to look at a native habitat, flora and fauna plan, which we also put together and a cultural way finding to talk a little bit about the history in the neighborhood.

As we were getting ready to possibly put the designs out for bid, CRA was getting ready to start construction on phase one around the same time.

Part of the CRA construction included stormwater outfall that was kind of in the same area of the bridge, so we posed the question to them, do you want to start the bridge now?

and then we'll have to put up orange construction fence and nobody will be able to use it while you're under construction or do we want to wait?

And coordinating with all of the CRHA construction, the redevelopment committee said we prefer to wait on the construction of the pedestrian bridge.

So that's why it was put on hold at that time.

Because of COVID and some other issues and then city staff capacity when phase one was completed,

We needed to go back out and look at a construction manager and get new cost estimates because we knew due to COVID there was significant increases in materials and deliveries, especially steel.

And this bridge was a prefabricated steel bridge was the intent of the design.

We redid the cost estimate at more than doubled in price.

City manager's office was very concerned about the increase in price and coming back to you to ask for city money.

So we looked for grants to be able to help with this.

Our grants staff did a wonderful job, and they came up with a $307,000 grant with Mr. Gensic's help.

That's in your agenda item.

However, in the last couple days, we were informed that the state had another additional $7,000 left over money from that grant so that we can add now to this project for approximately

314,000.

However, we still had a gap in the cost estimate and that's when we approached looking for us if there was possibly some CDBG funds.

We knew that we had some surplus from previous years that we had timeliness spending issues with.

So Mr. Warren came up with the money for that.

That's what we are here in front of you to ask for you to

allow the amendment to the annual plan and award the funding for this project again stemmed from CRHA and FAR from the idea.

Thank you.

So if you issue your approval today, we can get with procurement and work on getting a bid out as soon as possible.

We'll see how those numbers come in on the bid.

and then as soon as we get that, if we have any responders or what type of response, we can award that right away and get started.

Any other clarifying questions?

Looks like a really solid project.

When we get to that point.

So if there are no other comments from us, I will now open the public hearing.

Would anyone from the public like to speak on this matter?

Hello, I'm Peter Kreps from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'm also a Charlottesville resident.

I've been here before about this project.

It is truly a really exciting project.

And some of the things I like best about it is that it's resident initiated.

It does have all these other layers.

It is a transportation resource, but it's also about history and nature and

Lots of great collaborations have happened.

In fact, I was part of the walkable watershed team that's mentioned in the report.

One thing that I thought of during the public comment that was interesting is actually that walkable watershed is also itself a transportation resource about connecting the

The Greenway that's taking shape around Morris Creek.

There was just a recent pedestrian bridge built right near there.

It connects that Morris Creek system to downtown, so through the X property up through

Kindlewood, but interestingly that walkable watershed path does use the South Second Street crossing, so that's another reason to support that crosswalk.

But yeah, so this is a great project and let's get it built and funded and

under construction really quickly because one of the reasons we keep coming back to council is because it's been delayed over and over and over and those escalations are a real problem.

So let's get it funded.

Hopefully the bids are right.

If they're close, let's not let that stop us, get the thing done.

And I'm so excited to

hopefully see this thing and start using this bridge, which will connect residents to Avon Street, buses, shopping, Belmont Park.

Thank you.

Any other comments from the public?

If not, I'll close the public hearing.

What is the process from this point, Mr. Jenzik?

We're doing the invert in this case.

Ms.

Kelly in Office of Community Solutions gets it to bid and once it goes to bid, Parks helps get it built and then we take the maintenance and ownership of it.

So public works is not implementing this, this is being done?