City Council Meeting   12/2/2024

Okay, I'm going to have to go backwards a little bit.

The agenda.

You mean on the city website?

Not in email, but on the internet.

And then package track, that'll be right now.

And then just do like...

Hello, I called the Charlottesville December 2nd, 2024 City Council meeting to order.

Ms.

Councillor Oschrin.

Here.

This meeting will be divided into three sections.

The first one is a work session to hear and discuss presentations that do not require a council vote.

The second will be followed by a closed session.

Good afternoon.

Back with budget brief number two.

of three, so you only have one more of these to endure with me as I walk you through part of the ongoing considerations of what the budget team is currently, I'll say, faced with in hearing the many different items that are coming up through budget requests, expenses that we are already aware of as well as increased costs that we're beginning to see across the city with just basic operational costs.

So again, this is an opportunity for us to just share with you the trends that we're seeing that are impacting the budget, highlight what the fiscal demands appear to be, identify those drivers.

When I present the actual budget to you all in March, I will lead with what I see as the fiscal drivers pointing those out to you.

And then the goal is to confirm that your priorities are captured in what we produce in the form of a proposed budget.

This being Housing and Infrastructure, this time the next one will be Public Safety and Transportation and they are going to be a doozy.

Again, looking at the process, we are still in budget submission, I mean in budget review, budget submissions have concluded.

We probably have about two weeks left of budget presentations by departments and offices.

We will wrap that up and that does include a preview conversation that was added to the schedule for December 19th.

where you will jointly meet with the school board and superintendent and hear from them a preview to what their challenges that they are anticipating and or opportunities for their new budget season so that we then can get a chance to begin considering those matters as well.

On the making decision side, we have presented the CIP to the Planning Commission that happened last week.

The budget, the public hearing is scheduled for next week.

That'll be an opportunity for the public to weigh in on what they understand is being proposed and I'm again reminding everyone that that CIP is a draft.

There's still work to be done in regards to what else may be needing to be added and therefore it could lead to adjustments in what has been laid out there, but it is a draft at this time.

I have my budget form with the public on December 12th and that'll be the chance for the public to come in and in that moment have conversation with me and the deputies and other staff members as to what some of the public considerations are for the budget and then I will bring a proposed balance budget on March 4th.

So looking at housing, one of the two big things, of course, that I wanted to be able to touch on in this, and this has been to be high level.

So the goal is to not go too deep.

The consideration of incentives, because that is where a lot of our energy has been focused on.

How do we spur additional investment?

The two items that are on the list for a continued work on our part is the Land Bank.

You all are aware that previously there was $500,000 set aside for the Land Bank.

That $500,000 was used in the acquisition of the Carlton Mobile Home Park.

So at this time there is no money dedicated to the Land Bank as it stands today.

We haven't brought forward an ordinance yet.

The intention is to continue to do that work.

But I'm pointing that out to you that without any money, then all we'll have is an ordinance.

We won't have any money to do anything with.

So that is an item that I do have on the list for us to consider.

And you will see that I'm hoping that I'll be able to come back to you in one form or fashion with some identification of at least the $500,000 that we have previously approved.

The Tax Abatement Program is an additional incentive that is high on the list.

Mr. Williams has referred to the, I'm going to test myself, housing equity and anti-displacement toolkit, HEAT, as where his focus is on tracking the investments, which we'll talk about next, but also to look at additional incentives that are again meant to spur investment.

The tax abatement program is one that we've heard a lot about.

We have heard it from different people suggesting that it should be a priority for us to consider.

I labeled it to be determined because it's an expensive venture and it's one that requires some study so we are doing some work on that now and the goal would be to determine if there is something that we might be able to put in the budget at this time and if not then I would share that with you as an opportunity for a future budget.

and then Affordable Housing Investment.

So we'll talk a little bit about that.

So I just went through all of this.

The land bank, so that ordinance work, Deputy Freese just met with the hack as the ongoing work in regards to the ordinance.

Our goal would be to finalize those discussions and to make a decision on when we bring something to council to adopt in the form of an ordinance or

any further conversations that we want to have about that so that work continues and as I mentioned the tax abatement program is probably at the top of the list of the toolkit items that we are currently considering.

under affordable housing investment.

I'm just using this one slide at this time to just give you an indication of where we are in your commitment and realizing that commitment.

Council and the adoption or the endorsement of an affordable housing plan identified that over 10 years you wanted to make a hundred million dollar investment.

into affordable housing to date, $35 million.

Over $35 million has been identified.

We're still finishing up the work on that and would have a presentation that we would make has now become an annual event in April.

the images that you need to see and how we are achieving and climbing the ladder towards meeting these particular commitment items.

The heat, yes.

And so I know that we're going to specifically dive into one or two neighborhoods next year, if I recall, as far as

and I

Yeah, I don't know that there's a way for us to say right now, really, there's no recommendation that we're ready to bring forward yet.

There could be a pilot.

So the tax abatement could be a pilot because it is going to be an expensive venture.

So therefore, figuring out a way to afford some component might be an approach.

We haven't talked about that.

They have not brought me anything yet.

So I'm only speaking.

They probably don't want me to talk about it like I am.

I have not really spent a great deal of time looking at it other than what I know that we have done.

We did tax abatement work with Friendship Court, so I'm aware of how that has gone for the first two phases.

Yes.

Yes.

That was my question.

Was this focusing on people who are?

Great.

So again, the investment to date is over $35 million.

This current year's CIP or current year investment is $12 million and we're projecting in the FY26 to 30 CIP additional $52 million.

So if you add all that up, that's $99 million in less than 10 years.

That's pretty good.

That's really what I wanted to say to you.

In that moment, there's always going to be other things as it relates to how we're trying to make these things fit into the budget.

When we get to this number, then it becomes something of a question of, and what do I take over affordable housing when something else is coming and there's not enough room?

So I'm sorry, before you move on, so we'll

I would say this slide does not give you the ability to pivot because this slide is telling you what you've already committed to.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

So what it then becomes is a question of how much more can you do?

Do you want to do and or will you do?

And I think those are going to be case by case as things comes up, come up.

And then we also have to figure out some of the answers to some of the questions that you all opposed in regards to what information we need to bring to you.

The city housing portfolio that we have in partnership with the housing authority.

What is the plan for it?

I've heard that before.

the fact that we have housing units that are going to come out of the low-income housing tax credit protection of them being affordable.

What do you want to do in those moments?

Those are legitimate questions, and at some point we're going to have to have answers for you.

In doing this work here to determine where we are in the achievement of the goal or commitment you set, I'm saying that you have hit it or pretty close to hitting it, and then it becomes a question of, and how much further do we go?

Those are going to probably be case by case situations until we can bring more of that information to you.

But that is the work that we continue to do.

Infrastructure.

There's a lot of infrastructure needs across the city.

The three that I highlight for you, just in this particular skim of subject areas, Parks Master Plan, because we haven't had one, comprehensive.

Citywide improvements because there's so many different things that have made the list and continue to be added to the list and internal operations and that's just the cost of doing business.

So when I look at the Parks Master Plan and how we've had the conversation about how do we implement that plan, aside from having the plan, the first thing you have to do is then put some money behind it.

How do you implement the plan?

We have $500,000 already identified within what I shared with you in the last presentation that is a part of the ADA transition plan.

It was $2 million a year that was identified.

for the ADA transition plan of which 500 is earmarked for park-specific projects.

So I start there as priority identification.

We know that the Riverview parking lot and restrooms at that particular park are still in need of resources, so we're working on that.

And the Metal Creek Trail, which I think is going to continue to stress all of us until it is finished, is still a budget

challenge.

Sections one and two have been we've been able to accumulate the funds and know through resubmitting those for cost estimates that the funds are there.

And we expect that those two projects will move in 2025.

Phase three, which is the connection from the park to Mickey drive is not funded fully.

We are expecting to have a updated scope and estimate in March.

that will tell us what the new cost is going to be.

So today I am saying there's a gap and I don't know what that gap is.

I'm pushing the team to help me figure out an estimated number so that at least we can consider something.

My fear is that we're probably going to find ourselves faced with an inability for that third phase to move at the same time unless we put a considerable amount of money aside.

And at this moment, I don't see it.

So those are three specific areas and parks.

And that is before you get the parks master plan.

And that is before we take any real look at what the consultant has recommended that we do.

So that's a bit challenging to accept as well, because we know that they're going to have a list of things that need to be done.

And I don't think there are numbers one, two or three on this list.

So there's going to be a need for other money to be set aside for parts.

So then that becomes the question of, is it Metal Creek Trail Phase 3 that gets it, or is it just the beginning of the implementation of some of the consultants recommendations that we focus on?

So that'll be something that I'll have to wrestle with a bit.

I put this here.

Ashley gave me this as a chance for people to scan if you are looking for the information on upcoming meetings or two meetings that are going to be scheduled on the council agenda for the 16th during the work session.

I'll share some of the time with the parts team.

They'll come in

and they're going to give a general presentation that kicks off basically finalizing the plan and then they'll have a few public outreach sessions that same week.

This will be a chance for you as counsel to hear what the last stage of work is to be done and then eventually you will receive the final document in February, March as a part of your process to consider its adoption and amendment to the comprehensive plan.

and then there's a community meeting on December 17th at Carver.

So this is a chance for you, if anyone, while this is up on the screen can scan it and get the information that has been prepared in advance of these meetings.

So when we go deeper in the infrastructure and go away from parks, then you start to think about some of the things that we've already been talking about.

So what I'm doing here is pointing out to you that there are a number of things that we've already identified numbers for.

And these are identified in the CIP, the proposed CIP at this time.

And there are a couple of things that we don't have numbers for.

Total replacement.

It's updating outdated equipment.

So pole and all.

So some of these $7 million is the ongoing project.

This is just routine work that needs to be done, has been probably backlogged for a little bit and now we're working towards truly strategizing over a five-year plan.

How do we address the most serious of them?

So that's what that $7 million is that we have accounted for.

The sidewalk priorities, 4.7 million makes up the work that Ben Chambers did in identifying what the three tiers of sidewalk priorities are and what the costs associated with them being in those three different phases.

All three tiers, but not to completion.

It's just to what he proposed in that presentation.

Some items would get designs and that's it, whereas some would actually get scopes that would go to what it would truly cost and then others would actually be completed.

So it's a beginning of the delivery of all three phases, but it does not bring all three to completion.

The downtown mall, I put a plus or minus four million dollars because we know that the tree plan, the tree work itself is roughly half of that.

We have added 315,000 for FY26, but nothing for the out years, but we know we're going to have to go back to that.

What we're trying to determine right now is do we add any more for the out years beyond 26 or do we wait until FY26 to add it because we're giving the team a little more time to figure out what they think the prioritization schedule might look like?

Long-term management and maintenance is still a question that is something that I am wrangling with as I work towards getting to the final stages of the ARP plans and how to use those as I have just recently shared with you all.

recommending and what I'll bring forward at the next meeting.

And then the fact that we have not identified anything in regards to just making amenity improvements to the downtown mall from the work that came out of the study, the group that worked for a year, we still need to put a number there for what is it that we want to try to do to improve the mall, period, just because it exists and we should be doing something.

beyond the trees, which we already knew about and beyond basic maintenance because it's there and we should take care of it.

And then the last item is the urgent infrastructure I shared as a part of our earlier conversations that I was committed to making sure that I would be able to bring forward a recommendation for some funds to be spent in this area of taking away some of the problem area projects, specifically looking at Elliott and going into a couple of other areas.

The to be determined is the actual amount.

I have sourced it at this moment.

I'll be asking you to consider pulling from the surplus, the anticipated surplus, which is no longer anticipated.

You'll hear that in that soon.

But the plan would be to pull from that and use those funds to move some of those projects forward.

So the question would be which projects and that's what the staff is working to finalize right now.

internal operations.

These are just things that cost us money right now.

We have a team working in the parking space to help us figure out what are some additional work that needs to be done in that regard.

So I don't have a cost associated with that.

You know, the trash collection RFP was of interest last year and the fact that there is

Some subsidization of trash collection.

We have to get this RFP done so that we can get an updated cost and then we'll be able to bring forward some opinion as to what that actually looks like with new numbers.

That could cause a different consideration on your part, so we're leaving room for that.

and then there have been multiple requests for software acquisition that we deem to be all important.

Everything on this list, those three, Granicus, SAP Migration and OpenGov are all positive things, but we're still working through figuring some things out, but they all come at six figure price tags, each one of them at a minimum.

and those are the costs of doing business.

So those are things that we know that we're going to have to make fit into a budget and we have not solidified what that cost is yet, but we're hearing as each budget presentation comes, wherever there is a use of software, we're finding that all of them have increased costs that are a bit higher than they have been in the past couple years.

And then I added this slide here just to point out that this is how I look at what decisions are available to be made versus decisions that are already made.

The first five bullets are, in my opinion, are decisions that you've all made.

Affordable housing is a commitment.

Therefore, I'm going to always have to look at every affordable housing opportunity as something

that requires attention and to find space and to figure out a way to help you get it if that's what you choose to do.

Carlton Mobile Home Park acquisition, we've acquired it.

Now we got to pay for it and then we got to do something with it.

So there's going to be continued work and continued interest on the city's part as to what becomes of that project.

So we're in it for the long haul.

Water Street parking garage lease renewal came at a very, very expensive price tag to us.

We have a negotiated new deal.

It is the best deal in the world, but at least we know and it's something that we can anticipate what the added costs are.

So now that decision has been made.

Citywide climate action is continued work that I'm making sure that the team is doing because we need to have all departments prioritizing what are they doing in that space.

But the cat fleet conversion is called out specifically because it's the most expensive aspect of all of this.

And that's something that again,

I acknowledge at this point decision has been made so therefore we have to find a way to pay for it.

And then the sidewalk priorities is just there because again sidewalks my favorite subject.

But I'm now looking at adding four additional items just based on where we have arrived at this moment.

Managing and maintaining the downtown mall is not an expensive venture.

We now know that with the full overhaul to the tree canopy is going to cost us a lot of money.

It's something that's going to have to happen over time.

There's a lot more than just that that needs to be dealt with.

We have identified a number of those things and now we have to determine to what degree do we start to prioritize paying for them.

ADA compliance as I've indicated.

In our CIP, we've added a $2 million a year commitment.

I have at this moment, no, I'm not convinced that that's enough to really, really demonstrate best effort, which is what I'm trying to achieve on behalf of the city is that if we were ever to be visited by anyone who was coming to decide whether or not we're going to survive a

Inquiry

Investment in Parks and Recreation.

We all recognize the importance of parks.

It is the equalizer across the city for everyone.

And for us, it is something that we have not really, I would say, comprehensively prioritized.

And that was why the Parks Master Plan was important as one of those deliverables that we needed to bring forward.

And I am not a fan and have not been a fan and have communicated that that we don't get plans and put them on shelves.

We should get those plans and start to work them.

So now we have to figure that out.

and lastly, addressing homelessness is going to be a very interesting, challenging and expensive venture.

And it is something that we're going to have to commit to as I have already recommended and will officially formalize that going forward.

But these are all things that I then would shift by the actions of this budget into decisions made.

Therefore, the list gets harder and harder to accept additions when we have to figure out how to pay for all of it.

So again, pointing out that this is

what punching above one's weight class looks like when you can fill up a slide.

So, what do you see as, you know,

You hurt me.

Yes.

I'm not convinced, but I said it because I would love to make that possible.

That's the challenge.

But I'll say that.

I mean, this this is a that's a pretty significant list.

I mean,

That's an exceptional list in my opinion of how many things are on that list that are associated with decisions having been made, thus significant investments, committed investments for everything that's on that list.

So if you could just spend a moment to talk about the ADA compliance.

So we're a really old city.

We are.

You know, we're and you know, I know now many sidewalks are

just been there for decades before probably, you know, things.

And so are we required to like update?

How does it work for us?

I'm just using that as example could be current ramps and everything.

So the ADA is law, therefore it's not optional.

And when the ADA was considered, it was a big giant public debate and Congress spent a lot of time back and forth on it because it was basically going to be a huge expense to all communities around the country.

And that's true.

What the ADA being passed as law has meant and what it was supposed to mean up until now, and it's always up until you get visited by the folks who hit you, is you have plenty of time to do something once the law was passed, because that was the shot across the bow of, alright, so this is the law of the land, ADA compliance is a requirement, it's an expectation.

Yes, you're a city that's been around since 1762.

Okay, but we passed it in the 80s.

So we were supposed to commit and get to work and make some things happen.

And I think the reality is, is that what we're seeing is when the DOJ comes and they end up with settlement agreements with communities, it's because they have not been able to demonstrate best effort.

And that's really what they're looking for.

They're not looking for perfection.

They are looking for best effort, but they don't tell you what best effort is, because that's how the federal government works.

So they want you to really show that you have to be able to speak to the idea of we came up with a transition plan, which is required.

So we have that and we'll have a new one.

And then you have to demonstrate your best effort by trying to implement that plan as quickly as possible.

Because what we see the settlements actually dictating is they will

require that your budget be set at a new number that they give you, and they'll give you a new timeline, which is always going to be less than the timeline that you're working under.

And then basically what it does is it changes that list of what your decisions are, because it's going to require that more money be spent on that single topic for that period of time to ensure that you get to compliance or to their level of desire or compliance as soon as possible.

So what we have seen is sometimes there's twenty million dollar settlements, hundred million dollar settlements, and they give you five ten year windows to get them done.

I've made a five year commitment as a proposal to you all just now.

Correct.

Yeah.

We need to do the right thing obviously now and I think we're finally like you talking about a culture of compliance is where it starts and we're not arguing that that we are already there demonstrating best effort I've been a champion of owning the problem for what it is

It's how do we make sure that, one, we have had the right capacity, therefore manpower to get these things done.

We have put together a solid plan that we are ready to implement and consistently work on.

And then then we have the resources to do exactly what we set out to do.

All I'm worried about is, as I see our deputy who is spending a lot of time in this space, when we come across a settlement, we're both looking at what those settlements are saying and they're not good.

I would say it's possible if because what it would mean is that you would have to make different decisions.

If there were new items that are being brought forward, you would either say no, we can't because we can't make that fit, or you would have to do something in creating additional revenue to make it possible to do all of it.

It gets harder.

That's all.

It gets harder.

So the reference to culture of compliance is also for me to ensure that I share with the full team this is everyone's responsibility.

I am working to demonstrate that we are trying our best and we're putting forth a committed effort.

And while we can't turn this tide overnight because it is too much, what we can do is we can really, really wrap our arms around what does good, solid work look like?

What is a great process around that?

Any other questions or comments on this?

Anything down here?

It has come up, but I won't say that we have studied it to figure out how much it could generate, how it might work.

But I think it's one of those things that, regardless of what the city contribution that I might bring forward as a recommendation, it won't be enough.

So there will be a need for more, and that probably would be exactly where we would go next.

Yeah, I think obviously it just may be necessary in order to get to the level of investment people may want.

for the consideration of a business investment.

I would say that that would be a part of an assignment that I would probably give to our economic development director to begin.

Yeah, I mean, I think the reality is that they probably will anticipate it when we're able to demonstrate what it is that we will commit to it because it won't be enough.

The work of the committee, I sat through every committee meeting for a whole year.

There's a lot of stuff on that list of all the various things that we would like to do to them all.

Some of them are basic maintenance and some of those are new improvements.

It's 50 years old, almost.

There's some additional things that we want today that we didn't think about then or didn't prioritize then.

Lighting, for example, is not cheap for what it is that we're talking about on all the cross streets and things like that.

When you put that in, you got to maintain that.

All right, thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Is that it, Sam?

So we ready to go to call session or we had other items?

pursuant to Section 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code, I move that the City Council close this open meeting and convene in a closed session.

It's authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as follows.

Second.

Can we vote please?

Okay.

The motion passes five to zero.

We're now in closed session.

We will return at approximately 6.30 for a regular business meeting.

.

.

Second.

Second.

Can we vote please?

The motion passes five to zero.

We'll begin with a moment of silence.

The Treasurer's Office would like to remind taxpayers that the 2024 second half deadline for real estate and personal property taxes is this Thursday, December 5th.

Taxes can be paid in person by mail over the phone or on the city's website.

Taxpayers can pay online using e-check free of charge by visiting charlottesville.gov.

Have an announcement as well.

This is a note to register for the Move Safely Blue Ridge Virtual Community Open House on December 11th.

Move Slaily Blue Ridge is hosting a virtual community open house on December 11th where participants can provide their feedback on reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries in our region.

It'll take place on Zoom and there's a public survey as well.

And I just want to remind everyone about the Grand Illumination.

That's going to be this Friday at the Pavilion.

There's going to be lots of activities.

Some vendors will be there.

I think the Charlottesville Choir is going to be there.

It's going to be a really nice event.

And I think about 7.15, 7.20 actually, we're going to do the lighting.

So please try to come out.

Are there any recognition this month?

I don't think we have any, do we?

And so we have six preregistered speakers leaving 10 slots for community matters.

Each speaker will be given up to three minutes to speak.

And we'll now open the floor to those who have preregistered to speak.

Hi, good evening.

Happy holidays.

Susan Cruz, Executive Director of the Community Climate Collaborative.

In June of 2017, then President Donald Trump announced the United States withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.

It was a devastating blow for climate action.

And just four months later, the Community Climate Collaborative was born.

That same year, the City of Charlottesville joined the Global Covenant of Mayors to declare that we are still in

for Climate and Energy Commitments.

C-3 and Charlottesville City government recognize then, as we do now, that communities hold immense power to address climate change.

When federal action slows, our cities can still advance toward a just and sustainable future.

We understand the challenge.

We have only five years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent, and four of those years fall under a new Trump administration.

Local climate action remains our strongest and most empowering path forward.

That's why when our team learned about the upcoming grant opportunity for clean school buses, we were thrilled to hear that the city was considering a submission for funding.

The 2024 EPA Clean School Bus Rebate Program presents an excellent opportunity

for the City of Charlottesville to continue its pursuit of zero emissions transit in Charlottesville.

As a mother of two boys who attend our city schools, I would love to see zero emission school buses deployed to pick up our kids.

It would signify our city's commitment toward their health and their future.

The City of Charlottesville will not be able to reach our climate goals without the support of every sector of our community and we need our city to lead the way.

Well, we cannot predict what will happen during the next Trump administration.

We are confident that there will be fewer federal funding opportunities over the next four years.

Now is the time to take action and invest in our shared mission to cut emissions locally.

The city sustainability and transit teams have already proven that they are ready to lead on climate and the C3 team is ready to support them in building the future we know is possible.

We believe in your power to make a difference.

Let's do do this together and please let us know if we can be of any assistance in this application.

This is just such a great opportunity for the city to get some of this funding for our schools, for our kids, and for our community.

Thank you, sister.

The next speaker, Ms.

Saival Flynn.

I'm a climate justice policy manager with C3 as well.

I, you know, new to Charlottesville.

I came here in April.

Since coming to Charlottesville, I have been really impressed and I would say extremely surprised by just how ambitious the city is with its climate action plan, with its decarbonization goals, with the level of collaboration between

people in the city side and different community organizations.

It's been inspiring.

I think it is no coincidence that Charlottesville is the city where a little organization like C3 is able to flourish in pursuing climate justice on a local level, is able to flourish and also grow and set a great example for collaborative models for other locations as well.

We're able to do that because of the

strong collaborative leadership that is shown by our city councilmen, our representatives.

I've been really impressed as well by the open channels of communication, I think it's why Charlottesville is able to pursue such ambitious decarbonisation goals and strategies.

I was lucky enough to join the group going to Champaign Urbana back last month or well just over a month ago now where we saw an example of a

a low, no emission bus fleet for the city of Champaign, Urbana and to see how inspired our leadership was by that infrastructure and by the ambition and the passion for decarbonisation that they all showed.

I would like to echo Susan and say that we're really, really happy to hear that there is this intention to pursue

are a drive to pursue this funding for the clean school buses.

It feels like that is an excellent opportunity and we have to be really ambitious in pursuing every available opportunity because as we know that federal funding is not likely to continue and this is maybe the last opportunity that we have for four years to get more funding for clean buses for schools which is vitally important for our children's health and for our community's health.

So really happy to help you all and to support you all in pursuing this.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ms.

Hi.

My name is Sarah Delgado and I work for the Community Climate Collaborative doing community engagement and youth work.

And I have a kid currently enrolled at Jackson Viya Elementary School.

I want to thank the council members for your work this year committing to greening the CAT transit system with clean fuel technologies.

And I'm here to call on you both as a climate justice advocate and a Charlottesville parent to bring the same commitment to the school buses that are serving children and families in the Charlottesville community.

The exhaust from diesel tailpipe emissions pollutes neighborhoods in Charlottesville throughout the year affecting kids at schools and throughout the city.

and the EPA grant application for electric school bus funding is fast approaching on January 9th.

This might be the last chance to secure federal funding for clean school buses.

Why leave money on the table for an initiative that brings us closer to the city's 2030 benchmark climate goals and helps the health and well-being of the community?

We have shown in the C3 alternative fuel buses report released last year that the reliability and range of battery electric buses has been steadily increasing.

So we should continue to invest in this technology for the future of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

I'm a lot shorter.

I'm Donna Shaughnessy.

I live on Birdwood Road and I am here in two capacities.

I don't work for C3.

One is that I'm chair of the local Sierra Club.

And so we as a whole have been really excited about supporting the city and the county in efforts to get fossil fuels out of our neighborhoods.

And so this is that we really heartily endorse applying for this funding, which as others because I've said,

last chance before the door shuts for quite a while.

And so we're really very supportive of this whole effort.

I'm also here as a person who is a climate activist.

I spend a lot of my time trying to push back against fossil fuels and doing everything I can personally because I am terrified about what's to come.

The more I read, the scarier it gets.

and I used to think, oh, I'm sorry I didn't have grandchildren, but now I'm glad.

When I see the tipping points that are facing us, things are going to be really bad really soon.

And so if we can do anything here in Charlottesville to try to hold the line a little bit, that would be great.

So I urge you to apply for this grant.

It looks like a winner to me.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Everett Koster.

My name is Everest Kester and I am a junior here at Charlottesville High School.

I'm here today to urge you to apply for a grant that would allow the city to purchase electric school buses for the city schools.

These electric buses would reduce pollution and improve air quality as well as show the city's commitment to our climate action plan.

This directly affects my life as a student.

I don't even ride the bus, but I walk to school like every day and I have to walk through clouds of emissions and it's kind of gross.

So with electric school buses, this would be a thing of the past.

So

By applying for this grant, the city would also show even more initiative as well as inspiring citizens of Charlottesville to consider purchasing electric vehicles for themselves.

Considering the future presidential administration along with the deadline of the grant, which is again on January 9th, there may not be many more opportunities like this left.

The city has made so much good progress with being on the forefront of climate action

and Grant would only improve our standing.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Lila Kasselman and I am a junior at Charlottesville High School and a member of our environmental club, Green Bacon.

I am here to support the city applying for the EPA grant for clean school buses.

I want to start by thanking you for the work you have done already in support of sustainability and the environment.

However, I'm aware that there is still much work to be done.

I have to admit, I was surprised and disappointed to hear that we have missed prior opportunities for green school buses.

There's money here for these buses.

There's the support and the infrastructure existing to make electrical school buses feasible.

And not only would these buses make the world we inherit cleaner and safer, but it protects our health and our lungs from the fumes of school buses.

It frightens me to know that this could be our last chance at funding for the foreseeable future, considering the past climate policies of President-elect Donald Trump.

I hope you take this opportunity to demonstrate your continued support of the environment and to invest in the sustainability of our transport and our city.

Thank you.

That's the last of the pre-registered speakers.

Are there others here that like to speak?

We have opportunity for 10 others.

Good evening.

My name is John Woodruff, live in Southern Belmont.

I just wanted to speak on the parking memo that you all are discussing this evening.

I would like to oppose that memo as it stands.

I live on a small street in Belmont.

It's tight, but we work around it.

I do walk to work through Belmont.

I do see business vehicles or trailers parked on the street.

You know, I think it's, you know,

Now everybody has space on their property to park

these business vehicles, business personal property.

The tax is on the residents.

There's a tax on the vehicle.

There's a tax on the trailer.

There's a tax on the personal equipment of the business.

There's also a tax on the business income, but then they're not allowed to have it on the street in the city.

I don't think that's fair.

you know there's a the dual-wheeled vehicles that you also have in the proposed ordinance now walking here from work passed by a city walk and there's a dual-wheeled moving vehicle U-Haul truck sitting on park parked on the city street so if that were

parked out on the street after this ordinance, or if this ordinance would be passed, would they get a ticket for just trying to move in or move out of an apartment?

Also have family that travel and live in a short school bus.

If buses are not allowed to park on city streets for a few days at a time, are they allowed in Charlottesville to visit?

Thank you.

Would anyone else?

Hi, I'm Dave Judd and this is entirely anecdotal but I bought a Nissan Leaf in 2016 and drove it for six years and 60,000 miles and didn't cost me a penny except for tires and electricity so the maintenance on that was like zip and followed it up with a

A bold and we drove that down to South Carolina and with stop for just recharge for lunch and made it back and we've driven it to Washington and again we haven't had to pay anything for it and nothing's coming out of the tailpipe and nobody's had nobody's had the opportunity to steal our catalytic converter because it doesn't have one so I don't know about electric buses for sure but if the my experience with electric cars

is applicable.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Anyone else would like to speak?

Yes, hello.

Move into sample 608 Cabell Avenue.

I was just looking into the proposed smart street changes and I understand that of course you've gone over budget on a lot of these things so you do have to make cancellations and changes.

I would request that you take a closer look at the priorities that you're coming up with.

It seems like

It seems very odd to me to start working on Fontaine Street, which is relatively far from a lot of pedestrian and urban infrastructure, and then your cancelling work that would help make the street on Barracks Road and Emmett Street

You're decreasing the commitments there, just outright canceling them in places that people are actually regularly trying to bike and walk.

It just seems like misaligned priorities.

Similarly, you had something on what was at Fifth Street and

and Ridge.

Again, like smack dab in a big neighborhood that a lot of people do enjoy walking around in.

And we're canceling these things to instead maintain this fontane thing where you're putting up pedestrian lights.

You're putting up large sidewalks.

But people tend to bike and walk in places either where they live or where there are things to do or work.

And that just doesn't describe that area.

It seems odd to be prioritizing putting the money that we have left there.

rather than in the more urban parts of Charlottesville.

Secondly, I wanted to restate something that I'd mentioned two weeks ago, which is I really hope that you are much more liberal than the Board of Review was in these CAFE standards that you're setting.

And then finally, I think

You should really take a look into why so many of these projects are are coming in so far over budget.

I get that it's like a bit of a joke to say we need to make like these government projects more efficient.

I get it's very hard to do that.

But this is like completely beyond the pale.

And there's there's got to be some regulations that can be cut some reviews that can be removed to make these things happen faster.

It's just got to be possible.

Thank you.

Anyone else would like to speak?

Sam, I did have a question.

Yes, there is a grant.

Is it a grant that we have applied for?

Yeah, I requested an answer on that.

Taylor Grants Program Manager.

So we applied for the 2023 grant cycle and we received $420,000

Thank you.

Oh, that's great that we were successful.

Yeah.

Okay, so again, I wasn't sure she was coming to speak.

The next matter we have is the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent Agenda, Number 2, Minutes, November 18, 2024 Regular Meeting, 3, Resolution to Appropriate Funds from the Supreme Court of Virginia Recovery Court Docket Grant in the amount of $240,000 for the Charlottesville Albemarle Recovery Court Second Reading, Number 4, Resolution to Appropriate $408,437

from the Opioid Abatement Authority Collaborative Partnership Grant, second reading, five resolution to reallocate funds from the Meadow Creek Trail and Bridges Project, $253,697, or for the Meadow Creek Trail and Bridges Project, sorry.

Six resolution

to reallocate and appropriate parks and recreation CIP funds to the Rugby Avenue Trail CIP, $155,000.

Seven, Resolution to Appropriate Funding from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS HIV Grant, 2024, I'm sorry,

Okay.

Sure.

I move for approval of the consent agenda.

Okay, can we vote?

Yeah, so tonight I'm here to give you an update on our Dockless Mobility Permit.

The first thing everyone asks me is, what is that?

And the answer is scooters.

Scooters you see on the street.

VO is our current operator.

They have a permit with us.

It's called the Dockless Mobility Permit Program.

People ask what sort of contract we have with the company.

It's through this permit program.

We revised the permit program back in May of 23.

There were a lot of issues that VO had with the permit and there were a lot of issues that we had with the permit.

Our biggest issue was and still is the parking of the scooters within public right of way in places where it makes it difficult for some of our users to get around.

New regulations included in that permit update included the ability for VO to find their own users who are parking improperly.

So that has been a major change that we've had in the past year and a half

Has it really changed the performance of the system at all?

We're still looking at about half a quarter million rides a year That's translating into 300 some thousand miles of scooter usage on our streets Every fall VO does a

Big survey with their users to sort of figure out what's going on with their users.

Why are they using this service?

Are they appreciating the service?

Right now 34% of their users don't have a car.

Not surprisingly, many of their users are UVA students.

So we're actually pretty glad that they are not bringing their cars out from out of town and parking them on our streets.

Additionally, 17% of these folks aren't licensed to drive a car.

Even if they had a car, they wouldn't be able to drive it.

The ones who do drive cars have said, 78% of them have said this decreases the amount of usage that they are using their car.

Additionally, this is making folks feel like they have more choice, that they are more independent, that they can get around our community much more easily.

For some of them, there are challenges getting around our community and they are overcoming those challenges by doing some things we don't like them doing like riding on the sidewalk.

All of the scooters say don't ride on the sidewalk and yet 42% of their users are saying, yeah, I do it anyway.

And I think all of us kind of understand that that's what's happening.

More than half of them said, I would definitely cut it out though if there was a protected bike lane next to that sidewalk or if there was a protected shared use path nearby for me to take.

Out of any other deterrent that they listed, whether it was fines or just someone saying on the scooter, visibly saying, get off the sidewalk, they said, I wouldn't listen to any of that.

I would listen if there was a protected bike lane here.

So that is pointing us towards sort of infrastructure that we need in order to make this program continue to be successful.

We do still have issues with parking on our streets.

Right now there are multiple ways for you to report that to VO.

You can do it through the My Seville app, you can do it through the VO app, you can do it by phone, or you can email them at Hoa at VO Ride.

The fastest way now to get to them is through the My Seville app.

Previously it would have to go through city staff and we have redirected it.

Now it goes straight to the local VO office, doesn't go through VO corporate,

doesn't go through us, it goes straight to them.

So that's actually how city staff now reports things to VO, is through the Micefield app.

We recommend everybody in the city do the same.

There's also been a bit of a change in how these violations have been sort of called out and then actually enforced.

Back in 23 when we first started talking about VO administering their own fines, they weren't really being proactive about those fines themselves.

They were being reactive to the complaints that they were getting from the residents in town and from the reports that city staff and UVA staff were making.

That has changed this year.

Last year we had 700 reports and they gave violations to about half of them.

They had 360 violations in 2023.

Just in October alone this year they had 240 violations that they gave out to their users.

Through all of 2024 to date, they're at about 1800 violations that they've given out.

and the amount of reports that they've gotten has not changed.

This is actually their staff going out and proactively figuring out, hey, this scooter isn't in the right place.

We need to flag this for our review team so that they can take a look at this and see if this user is operating the vehicle correctly.

So that has changed sort of their relationship with their users and their relationship with us.

They've also added on a new person to their staff who is just going around the city and looking at these problem locations before

They just had the staff that was working back at the shop, maintaining the vehicles, and they had the staff who was going around and picking up the vehicles, servicing when they ran out of battery, that sort of thing.

But they didn't have somebody who was just keeping an eye out, and that's all they did.

Ben, I'm sorry, so quick question.

When did that person start?

It was at the beginning of this UVA session, so it would have been August, September time period.

So they've had quite a spike over the most recent months, but it's been sort of a big build as they change their approach.

So as my last bullet on this side notes, most of these violations are coming from them at this point.

Last year it was coming from us as city staff and UVA staff actually had a really heavy hand in that as well.

Yeah, that's a great thing because what we were saying a year ago is we can't handle this all ourselves as staff.

This is your responsibility as a permit holder to make sure that you're doing this right.

And they're stepping up and taking care of that this year.

It's getting better, like I'm saying, but it's not quite there yet.

We know that we're still seeing a lot of issues on our sidewalks and our crosswalks on our curb ramps.

Vio is issuing fines for improper parking.

They are now providing safety training and parking training at sign up like we asked them to and they also have a new slow speed mode for new users to get used to the vehicles so they're not sort of just

hitting it as soon as they get on the scooter the first time.

We have started testing over the past year and a half hub parking.

We've had some painted ones and some virtual ones.

You may have seen the big orange ones, like you see in this picture.

But there's also virtual ones that you don't see with the naked eye.

But they're all in the VO app.

If you pull up the map, you can see where all of them are.

They're mostly around UVA grounds.

On UVA grounds, they use forced parking.

They say, you have to park in these virtual spots.

In the city, which is mostly around UBA grounds, Rugby Grady area, JPA, we have some of these hub locations, but they are suggested zones.

That has sort of been our approach the whole time, mostly based on feedback from VO of it's really hard for us to create enough zones for this to still work the same way that it does when you don't have these hubs.

We have found that the management of this parking isn't just something we can throw an app at or hubs at or finds at.

It has to be sort of a combination of all of that, plus physical staff presence and clear instructions for the users.

Can you back up to the last slide quickly?

I know I've made this point before.

We're actually going to get away from using the physical ones going forward because the virtual ones are so much easier to maintain and move around when we need to.

One of the other things that I noticed, because I did, I had a work event last week that had a shuttle that left downtown to go out to the venue, which was great.

So not everyone had to drive, but I didn't want to have to park.

So I used a scooter to get to the shuttle and I left the scooter in one of the orange squares.

And when I came back,

Some of it is just vandalism by college kids thinking that they're being funny.

We ran into an incident with that.

at this specific location that we have a picture of where it was clearly college kids who were coming out and rearranging the scooters every night because they thought it was funny.

Yeah, we're also looking at these as potential locations for expansion for bike parking, which we could use as both a mix of dockless mobility parking and regular bike parking.

Since we sort of laid out this is the space for it, those are appropriately locations for us to add bike parking in the future.

All right, so what are we doing with the permit itself?

Similar to two years ago when I was first brought on here, we're going to look at doing some changes to the permit again to make it a little bit easier for both parties.

This is a permit that we have been annually updating.

So the first thing that VO came to us with before we even started discussing the other changes was, can we make this more of a permanent relationship?

Can we make this a multi-year permit?

We understand that that allows them a little bit more flexibility of standing up more staff here because they know that they'll be here for a longer period of time.

That also encourages VO to invest long term in the infrastructure and capital that they're putting into our community.

They are currently going through a cycle of updating all of their scooters and their fleet.

So determining which cities are getting which parts of their fleet.

kind of depends on how much permit and how much fleet size they're allowed to have in a city.

So there are some things that they're looking for from this update.

But more so, we have a lot of changes that we want to make to this update, partly to clarify things for them and for us, because it's kind of hard for us to manage with some language in our permit.

So while we're working through that, we're just going to extend the current permit for about six months.

If we finish the revisions before then then the new permit would kick in with the new regulations and that new permit would be potentially for a multi-year period instead of just year to year.

The year to year was initially set up as part of the pilot program that was associated with this and we're kind of

We're admitting now that we're not in a pilot phase anymore.

This is a part of our ecosystem of travel.

So investing in that for the long term and we're hoping to make these changes to our regulations.

We're working through this with VO and with the UVA staff because we want to make sure that all of these work with them.

First, we want to address the parking issues.

We have shown that the virtual hubs have worked around the UVA area and that the forced parking on UVA is a more effective way of dealing with this overall.

The problem has always been how do you get that ubiquity throughout our entire community?

It's pretty easy to set up those hubs on UVA because there are pretty

specific bottleneck points where people are going on UVA grounds.

It's a little more difficult with our community and so we need VO to tell us what does that transition plan look like.

How do you get to a point where you have a more orderly parking system throughout the city but you still don't lose that benefit of the ubiquity of access that everyone can find a scooter relatively quickly within a quick

from wherever they're starting their trip.

So we want to be able to move in that direction but not lose the benefits that we have currently from the system.

Also, we want our users of that system to understand where they're supposed to be parking a little bit better.

Right now, you can see where these virtual hubs are on your map.

We would like there to be pictures so that when the app is pointing you to a hub, you can actually see what you're looking for.

Vio has also been working with a company and you may have read recently that Vio is going to be introducing AI everywhere.

And it's a little bit of a hype.

It's actually just, it is AI, but it is teaching you where you're supposed to be parking.

It's a very simple program.

It's not doing anything

and

very simple directional tool.

VO is looking at incorporating that, but we want to make sure that that is actually effective and that we're seeing the results that they're promising on that.

There's also some fines that we want to clarify with the permit holder.

Right now we have the ability to find them if they don't show up within a certain amount of time of us reporting a scooter.

That puts a lot of onus on city staff to both find the scooter in the first place and then come back an hour later and see if it's still there.

It's hard

One thing that we have run into with VO over the summer specifically was staffing was an issue.

Some of the issues that we were running into when we were saying, hey, you guys aren't getting out here quickly enough, were because they did not have enough staff people.

actually operating the system.

You need several people at all times a day and they just didn't have that coverage, especially on nights and weekends.

So we would like to make sure that we are continuously monitoring that from our side as the permit managers so that we understand what their staffing plan is for the month and if they're able to maintain that staffing so that we can advise them more properly on what fleet size they should be running.

Right now they have a maximum fleet size of 700 and they stay there pretty much all the time.

but if they aren't able to maintain that fleet, if they're not able to get out there and move those

vehicles around so that they're not just stuck in some neighborhood for a week solid, then they're not managing their fleet, and we need to constrain that fleet a little bit lower.

So we need to set some standards for staff performance for them.

And then lastly, we want to address some information sharing.

We ask for a lot of data in our permit program requirements, and they just sort of dump data on us on a regular basis, and it's just swimming through a flood of data.

We'd like it to be standardized and simplified for us so that we're looking at a monthly report that just lays out sort of the basics.

And having that standardized and simplified, we'd also like to see that shared with the public both on VO's website and on the city's website going forward so that people don't have to come to me and say what's going on with VO.

We can point to VO and say VO is telling you what's going on with VO.

and they can tell you what's going on with violations.

They can tell you what's going on with ridership.

They can tell you what's going on with the mileage that is being on their scooters.

We'd like to capture all of that and make it shareable for people so that we understand what's going on with you and understand how to support it more going forward.

And that's all we have.

Yeah, I think this, you know, before I, you know, I guess was educated on the topic several years ago, I was very much like, I hate scooters, you know, I'd pick them up and with some sort of grabbing device and make a boat anchor out of them, sort of how I felt until I saw these statistics of how many cars they take off the road, managing, and then obviously the climate impacts that that has as well.

Managing where people leave these scooters obviously has been, I think, the hardest thing in terms of at least the feedback that we've gotten from folks.

It's difficult to be able to say sort of objectively, okay, we have a problem of this size because it almost always feels anecdotal in terms of this person saw this and they're really annoyed with us and they make sure we all know that.

I guess we're doing the best we can really in terms of you know the work that y'all done piloting this and that VO sounds like they've been a good partner and you're going to continue to tailor the the contract going forward the things that you you brought up seem like reasonable reasonable paths forward reasonable things to work on do you still find when you you're going to do an RFP for

No, that's a good question to clarify on our permit.

This permit is open to any provider that wants to step up and put forward a proposal.

They don't have to do it on an annual basis.

They can come to me anytime and say, we'd like to jump in.

We'd like to see what our service can do.

Currently, there's not a lot of people poking around and asking.

I was never anti-scooter, but I also am heartened to see the statistics that you showed us where for the past three quarters it's been increasing and Q4 so far is on track to exceed Q3 as well.

And then the fact that 78% of people reported that they were able to decrease car use, which I think is the most

and

Yeah, and I should also note that the increased ridership is a benefit to the city also financially as part of this permit.

We also collect permit fees based on a per ride value.

That brings in about $45,000 a year that goes towards our bike infrastructure fund.

That's amazing.

It's kind of like a positive feedback loop, which is great.

Some of the notes that I wrote down during the presentation were that the survey results about how people use it and how their behavior can be changed point to the fact that it's not an enforcement problem.

It's not a fine problem.

Fines end up just being a cost of doing business.

People will say, okay, I'm okay with paying this fine if I can do whatever I want.

So it's really punitive actions don't work.

It's really a problem we have to design our way out of, which is the constrained parking spaces, which is adding the bike lanes and those benefit, not just bikers, but the scooter users.

So that's a longer term investment that the city has to make.

something that I'm not sure how this process is going to work with the AI and the maps and the parking zones but you're right that it is kind of a density problem like UVA, tighter space, people know where they're going all within that zone a little more in Charlottesville as a city going to be more diverse you're going to either need

Lots of spaces everywhere.

Ideally, that would be the easiest way to be a user for the system.

What it's going to mean for people in the same way as if you're in a car, you're not going to get princess parking every time.

And it would be in some similar locations, like that space in between the stop sign and that first parked car.

Okay, great.

Because that's another thing for removing barriers to entry is making it intuitive or something you don't even have to check an app for.

Yeah.

So that's great.

Cool.

Do we have any sort of a program or a plan?

3-step procedure or anything that basically allows us to designate exactly what you were just talking with Natalie about there.

Yeah, we haven't worked through that with BO quite yet.

That's what we're discussing with them in this six-month period.

If they, we're either discussing with them, hey, what is the plan and can we put into effect July 1 or

What is the plan to make progress on this plan that we need to build into the permit itself so that we can hold you to that progress that we need to make in expanding this required parking hub system city-wide?

No, they do go under the university grounds.

Yes.

No, the county does not have VO.

There is a three quarter mile buffer around the city boundary that they're allowed to get that far out.

Yep, there's a little dead zone.

Yeah, there's a little dead zone right there that I think might be a geofence issue that they just need to correct.

Okay, thank you.

So I had a couple of comments and questions.

I'm a supporter.

I use a scooter, like a Vespa type of scooter to get around.

And I'm glad that it reduces

the traffic, the vehicles on the road but also do a lot of walking just randomly in different places in the city and people will tell you as I'm doing my walking meetings that I always have to stop and move the scooters from the sidewalk and it irks me and I'm like we because if I were in a wheelchair or something and say I'm just kind of talked about just before our commitment to ADA just like I don't I'm not sure if it's if it's possible and I think that

and they have options.

I think they just, and it's not out near the county line, it's right there where they just stop it sometimes right at the intersection and just leave it.

And I think that we need to do more to incentivize or disincentive them to put it where it should be.

And I think that money, I think we could have

a nice space right there on the side of the road and they just won't do it because they can just hop off.

maybe their own voice in this, but I think that, you know, at least for certain things, it might mean it may need to continue year to year or we need to enforce that because just like you with your tight schedule, you know, you can't go out and enforce the one person.

I'm glad that he or she is out there, but it will be hard for them to do it as well.

We get, you know, we have citizens that sends us pictures all the time of bite and, you know, these things left in

in appropriate places.

So anyway, that just happened to be one of my pet peeves.

Yeah.

So they're, they, I think it's four strikes actually.

So it's yeah, they have an escalating fine structure that

It is still the case.

They haven't, I don't know that they've actually gotten to that case with many of their users.

They've, as I said, put out 1,800 violations in the past year.

They have 7,000 users or so.

Okay.

I just have one, since we are talking about Veo, if you could use

One of the things that VAO offers is an access program.

It is a monthly program for low-income residents who, if you qualify for any other low-income program you qualify for this program, it gives you a low-price monthly pass that gives you

I think it's a $5 pass.

It gives you free unlock fees.

So anytime you unlock a scooter right now, if you're just a regular user, it's a dollar to start.

And then after that, it's a certain per minute fee after that.

With VO Access, that first dollar is gone, and the per minute fee is reduced, and you get one free ride every day.

And there is an education part, because I understand part of UVA's hospital emergency room is not serious accidents, but quite a bit of accidents and things.

Yeah, they have added educational elements to their app.

We're encouraging them as part of their requirements that they already have as part of their permit to do more outreach with the UVA community and do more education, especially with the first years who are coming into this.

And this is the first time they've had that taste of freedom.

And just one thing for that I would like to point out for the general public is when you think about the damage being done by a scooter accident versus the damage being done by a car accident, know that they are in no way equivalent.

And that's something to keep in mind as we talk about it being a replacement for car trips.

Just a couple things just to confirm.

Because you have had, we all have had a lot of repeat inquiry about VO specifically, just confirming for the public's benefit as well that there is no further action by this council as it relates to the extension of this agreement.

The ability to have the scooters operating was the decision that council made previously, and that's the extent of it.

The agreement is an operational matter, so that would come to me, and I would pass that back to Ben saying continue.

The basis for tonight's presentation and discussion was so that I, along with Mr. Chambers, could hear, is there a desire to not extend this agreement?

Is there a

Conditions to Operating I have not heard that so I'm just confirming that that is what we were looking for this evening So I feel like he knows what to do now and I want always make sure when someone walks that microphone They walk away knowing what they're supposed to do But just so the public can hear that the moment that some people have asked for is the removal of scooters

and you all are indicating that you continue to support Scooter, so we're going to move forward to ensure that an agreement gets signed for a six-month extension with the possibility that it could be a longer term within that six-month period if we come to terms with them.

I would like to see more, you know, informational enforcement after

The person has been on, I guess, another six months or so, and to see if that's had an impact on what we're seeing.

At least what I'm seeing.

And for me, my part in listening was to make sure that when I get the agreement, I know what to look for before I'm signing it.

And he knows that now.

Any other comments?

I have additional.

Thank you, Ben.

Thank you.

Two other items just because we're still in my report.

Yeah.

Just wanted to remind the public two event moments that are coming up.

Grand Illumination is this Friday, 10 p.m., 5 o'clock.

Come one, come all.

Unfortunately, I won't be there, but I'll be on vacation wherever you need to be.

and City Manager's Budget Forum is at Carver on the 12th at 6 p.m.

That's my report.

The next item, our action items and the first one is ordinance amending the City Code for Parking Buses and

trucks etc.

Mr. Freeze.

So, yeah, since we kind of went into long discussion last time, I'll kind of not go through it all again, but I did kind of send out a clarification memo that's attached to the council's packet.

I just want to quickly follow up on what our community matters speaker mentioned about

like filming coming to visit in a small bus.

Yeah, you could get just the temporary parking pass and technically under today's ordinance that wouldn't be allowed either.

The the duly requirement and the bus and tractor trailer requirement is already in the city ordinance.

We talked about it a little bit last week about enforcement of these.

It's not something that

Police are regularly going out and looking for these violations.

We have had it in certain instances where someone is leaving or parking a bus or something like that and it's there for a month or two months and the residents around are like, hey, what's going on?

vehicles with more than two wheels per axle.

You're talking about what informally is called a dually?

Correct.

Okay.

Right.

So I appreciated your memo.

It was very helpful.

And so your priorities were in, I guess, descending order.

Number one, semi trucks, then all the way down to six were boats and RVs and seven were trailers.

The only, you know, for me, I still think that, well, a couple of things.

I think that the TARP situation, that's a no-brainer.

We should follow what you've got here in terms of people can't have TARPs covering over their

the identification of their vehicle.

I think the piece you said about farm use and antique plates if they want to have those vehicles in the city then they need to pay the appropriate get the inspections or whatever they need for those otherwise they can be on their on their front yard I guess or backyard.

C6 was, yeah.

So again, for me, six and seven boats at RVs.

As I was driving down to Georgia for the holiday, I was looking at the various types of RVs that are out there.

Most, I guess, pull-behind, you know, pop-up campers or small little RVs are not dual, dualies.

They don't have four wheels on the rear axle, but the large motor homes do.

So I would support, I still think that six and seven on your list, I would not.

I would go along with to the effect that if they have more than two wheels per axle.

So if a trailer that someone has for their job, for landscaping business, if it's just got, you know, two wheels per axle, I don't have a problem with that.

If it's got four, then I think that is an appropriate dividing line.

And the same for RVs or boat trailers.

If they've got, they're heavy enough to have, big enough to have

for wheels per axle, then they don't need to be on the roads, but if otherwise, I don't have a problem with them existing.

I was trying to see as we were talking here about the issue dealing with antique vehicles and

What struck me was, frankly, I had not realized that the antique vehicle license plate is authorized for use only for vehicles that are not used for general transportation purposes, including not being used for daily travel to and from places of employment, but shall only be used for participation in clubs, club activities, exhibits, tours, parades, and similar events.

That is a regulation that is more honored in the breach, I think, than in the observance.

I don't know how many times we have parades in Charlottesville, and certainly the parades tend not to be in the heavily congested areas of Route 29 at 5 p.m.

I've been struck generally by the question of

to what extent people who may have

over the years rightly or wrongly come to rely on the notion that I have a right to park my antique vehicle here.

I have a right to have a farm use vehicle.

I know of one instance of a farm use vehicle on Locust Avenue, which doesn't have many farms anymore, that the neighbors were getting very upset about.

And the police felt that they didn't have the ability to enforce the rule.

Michael Payne.

Some of these changes, either easier or more difficult, do we know?

The only one that I know that's a new one recently is the farm use.

I know it used to be go to tractor supply and just buy a farm use license plate and throw it on the vehicle.

Those are actually, you have to go through the DMV.

For those now, that's within the last year or so that this state actually passed that so you can't

You do have to have a licensed farm use vehicle that's through the DMV now and not just a vehicle that you decide to throw that on.

So that is, I guess, somewhat easier to enforce because it should still have the farm use.

comments that you've gotten before about enforcement were related around that or just not knowing you're allowed to drive.

And this doesn't necessarily prohibit anyone from driving an antique vehicle on the city streets or driving a farm use vehicle on the streets.

It's really that overnight parking that we're trying to stop.

It's not going to solve all the issues around this, especially when you're talking about people driving the antique vehicles.

For me and staff that when we were talking about this, it really, for the antique vehicle side of things, it really came back to being able to identify broken down and abandoned vehicles.

Because without that antique tag, even if the police can come and see the antique tag, well, it's got a

an active tag on it.

There's no inspection or anything.

So they don't know if it's a disabled vehicle.

They don't know if somebody's just not driving it right now.

So requiring that instance to be at least parked on private property outside of the city right of way kind of eliminates that.

whole thing of them trying to be able to identify broken down disabled vehicles and get those off the road.

That's kind of the same thing with the TARP.

We don't really have an issue with the TARP.

It's with the TARP being used to accommodate disabled and broken down vehicles that are just there on the street and we can't do anything about them.

It seemed to me that since there's likely, among the folks with those vehicles, there's likely some sort of settled expectation that it must be okay.

Nobody has hassled me.

I've had this car for five years.

What's the problem?

Yeah, I mean, I would anticipate, no matter what we do with this, that there's going to be warning period and, you know, probably a six month of like, hey, like, you know, we've noticed that your car, you know, hasn't moved or hey, you have a tarp on it, you know, you can no longer do this in the city without just going out there and towing someone's vehicle in the middle of the night and then coming out and it's gone.

and we could send out a notification to everybody that these rules are changing using the city newsletter.

Well, I was just going to say, I had a lot of questions about all of this and we talked about some of these issues and last time around and the memo I thought was very helpful.

Yeah, so our code adopts the state code definitions whenever there's a term that needs to be defined.

The term truck is defined in the state code as not applying to pickup trucks.

And so the question that I had, and I didn't spend more than 15 seconds looking at it, so I didn't do sort of a legal analysis, my question is, a duality is a pickup truck.

Well, I don't know that there is a pickup button.

There's nothing in the code that references truck or pickup truck.

City code.

Right, the city code.

The city code uses the term truck occasionally.

But if we just add to it the dually requirement then we can do that I think as long as somebody who has looked at it for longer than I have looks at it to say we are clearly making this applicable to duallys whether they are pickups or panel trucks that the dually aspect of it is what governs

No, I was referencing the specific provisions here.

And again, what I don't know, because I didn't, you know, it was one of those things I was looking at it way too late last night, and I wasn't going to spend a lot more time on it.

But there are portions of these ordinances where they simply refer to trucks.

term truck gets used and my point is simply that when we don't define truck anywhere in the city code it is therefore that which is defined in the state code and in the state code it specifically exempts pickup trucks and panel trucks and so I just whoever looks at this for the last time before

It gets actually put into the code, maybe somebody in the city attorney's office working together with somebody in the police department in the traffic division who may have seen what the judges are actually doing in these cases.

I know the question a bit poses the city's attorney at the office.

So I'm looking at his list because I thought it was helpful.

Well, I think, I think, I don't know.

I think RVs, as far as what's material for this, for our purposes in the city, it seems like

If you're out and you see something that looks like a recreational vehicle, that's what you'll deem it as.

Brian, so I understand quickly.

Was your suggestion for

trailers and RVs that they not be allowed if it's more than two wheels per axle and that's not currently how it's defined in what's in front of us right now.

So if we just struck those two, the more than two wheels per axle would already encompass those uses, you wouldn't have to spell those out specifically.

That's what I would say.

Any use with more than, again, that's what's currently in the city code is, you know,

RVs, you know, have a chassis, and then trailers that could be used for businesses or whatever.

Perfectly clear, but I guess your point is that that's captured earlier on when you say vehicles with more than correct I would actually I'm I'm Persuaded by your argument that boats are not necessary transportation needed within the city and so We're subsidizing hobbies at the expense of overall parking needs.

Okay.

Michael?

If they have a driveway.

Yeah, I mean, I'm in a similar, still in a similar place as last time, I would say I would agree that for me, the biggest issue would be six and seven in terms of if it could be clarified that boats and trailers, you know, aren't allowed only if it's more than two wheels per axle.

To me, that seems the biggest issue.

My concern is still the same and that I just think this is not nearly targeted enough in terms of I think what's needed is to have parking zones throughout the city where you can look at where the areas where parking is extremely tight and where the areas where that is just not the case.

informally walking around, you know, just this weekend and this matches, you know, experience from the past.

There are areas around me where people are parked with many of these activities and just objectively, even during the holidays, there is ample open parking.

And maybe that will change 15 years from now if there's substantial housing development there.

But objectively, it's just not the case now.

Other areas like downtown Belmont or near the downtown mall or areas near UVA,

That's not the case at all.

Parking is always strained, and I think it would make sense to apply all these things.

But to unilaterally apply it throughout the city, I think, is for some pretty common uses, just a needless hassling and finding of people, which I don't think is wise.

And if the argument is, well, enforcement won't look like that.

I mean, what's to stop someone from just continually reporting a neighbor where it does sometimes happen that

One, I'm fine with.

I have two things for that.

Last time we talked, I was a little more persuaded by your argument about

about outdated inspections, but I thought about it since in a car with an outdated inspection, inspection potentially is an unsafe car to operate.

So that's not okay to be out in public usage.

The other thing is we have this culture of cars and people have this kind of unwritten expectation that the public right of way in front of their house belongs to them is their parking area.

and that's not the case.

Even a couple months ago, my dad went for lunch at Riverside and parked on the street and when he got back to his car, the neighbor had left a note on his windshield that said, this is my parking spot.

Don't park here again.

No, that is city space.

And so that's the kind of like culture that we're in and the mental default that people have that this is going to be part of the cultural shift to shake that up for folks.

Your boat on public space is not a public good.

So I'm not that

My final argument would be, and I think this applies in other areas of the city, but it also doesn't apply.

There are other areas which it doesn't apply, but just walking around in the area of southern Belmont this weekend is an area where there are duplexes and triplexes that were single family homes that have one small driveway for one vehicle.

Everyone else who lives there parks on the street.

There's the mobile home park in that area.

Just informally, there were multiple vehicles fitting these, some of these descriptions, not all of them, but some of them.

Even on Nassau Street, there were people who have informal body shop businesses that would violate this sometimes.

But that entire area objectively, there's no shortage of parking.

But you do have a lot of people living in a house where there's only space for one vehicle in the driveway.

The other people who live there do have cars, so no matter what, you know,

Two out of the three residents there are parking on the street currently and again There's no shortage of parking and there's also no permanent parking I just don't think it makes sense for people in that context for something they've been doing for years to start providing a basis to hassle and find them Meanwhile in other areas like downtown Belmont or areas near UVA where there is constant parking pressure I do think doing all this would make sense Because there's an urgent need to do it because parking is strained

So that's where I'm at.

So I know that we said that

Yes, we did.

I was going to offer that before you took it to vote on water.

I did follow up on the question that was posed, and I knew that you all were going to probably still want to talk about it as you just did.

I would ask that you postpone this until the next meeting, both the chief and the Commonwealth's attorney.

have opinions, probably, based on what I'm hearing, that they would like to look at this and just confirm that they're satisfied with the enforcement ability of this.

Did I already do that?

I don't remember.

I don't think we required one.

I don't think we required one.

Well, would it make sense, Mayor, to just do a straw poll?

I mean, that could be a big part of it.

And so I don't want to poll based on insufficient information.

There are

That was the main reason for adding that in here, because right now it's not illegal to have a tarp.

No reason.

So let's get the opinion from the police and it's just to ensure the enforceability.

It's not a judgment on whether or not the right content is there.

It's that they then feel as though that they have the enforcement ability that would fall to them.

And if I could add to the things I'd like to have somebody take a look at is to think about how we have defined or how we want to be defining recreational vehicle because it does not appear to be defined in the state code or in the city code.

In the state code it says manufactured home does not include a park model recreational vehicle.

which is a vehicle that goes on lifts some criteria and I would just like to have somebody who has some sensibility about legislative drafting to take a look at that to say is there something we need to say in there that makes it just absolutely clear what we're talking about.

I think the 40 foot long recreational vehicles that are

Well, that's where the Dooley thing helps because I think the four when you when you move from a two-wheel Axel to four-wheel you're you're moving up a Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, that's a step change I mean a little pop-up camper that someone has in front of their house.

By the way, a pop-up camper is also separately, a camping trailer is separately defined.

Definition, we can add it to the definitions section of the code if we need to.

Something.

Are there any, I know you guys have talked about possibly removing or amending some of these, like are there any of these uses that if we're not voting on it tonight, we're coming back?

Are there any of those uses that you would like us to go ahead and take out as their consensus on that?

I think it's going to come down to a two to three vote.

I think those are the worst parts of it.

I still wouldn't be happy about the others, but I could live with the rest of it.

So you'd be willing to go along with this, seeing we get through the legal, if we tweak the language around six and seven to make it clear that anything for wheels or more was not acceptable?

I think so, yes.

Me personally, my venture into this mainly was to address those vehicles that have been taught for a long time.

We may have some issues with some other things, but that's not, I don't hear complaints about those as much.

Yeah, and I think a little more information about enforcement and how it has been enforced.

I don't... Like the image you showed last time, the three cars that look like they've been there since time immemorial,

would seem like there was some other standard or rule we could apply to say, look, this has been sitting here forever.

It's unsightly.

The information that I've gotten from the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, the police have tried and looked and dug and those were not there.

It sounds like we'll get it, but I am definitely interested in an honest opinion from the Chief just at a practical level.

What does employment look like in terms of feasibility, time, resources,

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's watching.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other comments on, on this for now?

It'll be back.

Um, the next item is, um, I think there needs to be a vote to move to defer to the next meeting.

Second.

Okay.

Can we vote?

That item is, um, will be deferred to, um,

A future meeting.

Will you amend that just in case Michael, so that if they need more time?

Yes.

Good evening, Mayor Wade, members of council.

My name is James Freese, Deputy City Manager for Operations.

All right, so the city's transportation program includes 34 total projects, valued at $185 million.

With our new project management and leadership structure, staff is continuously evaluating the portfolio relative to available funding, pricing, schedule, and staff capacity.

As a result, and as we discussed previously on November 4th, we are bringing forward tonight a resolution supporting canceling the Emmett Street Phase II project

and the Fifth and Ridge Project as well as authorizing VDOT administration of the Fontaine Avenue Project consistent with the MOA that was adopted by Council back this past July.

I want to note staff has been working very, very closely with our local VDOT district office to arrive at this recommendation.

So I have a number of slides

You've seen these before that go into detail about each one of these projects.

I'm starting with Fontaine.

This is the project that would be administered by VDOT following the resolution this evening.

This project began back in 2016.

The original project included a three-lane roadway with 10 to 12 foot wide median strips where those were

where those fit, as well as some dedicated left turn lanes, five foot sidewalk, six foot landscape and tree buffer, six foot curb and five foot bike lanes on both sides of the street.

The cost estimate for that original project came to $32 million, which was at that time $18 million over budget.

So you can see here that we worked closely, both staff in the city, working with our counterparts at the VDOT district office, came to a revised scope for this project with a revised estimate of $24,940,000, $24,940,000.

So we still, at the end of that, had just over a $7 billion shortfall.

Significantly,

The reason we were able to bring this project down in cost was by moving this project primarily within the existing right-of-way and reducing the degree of retaining walls necessary.

So here's the original cross-section.

This is not a portion that had medians within it.

It's just a narrow portion of the project.

But again, you can see.

Very wide sidewalks, bicycle lanes on both sides of the street.

So in many ways an ideal scenario.

And is that shared use path is protected?

Right, not just paint.

I should note Brennan is here with me as well, Brennan Duncan, City Engineer to help answer any questions that might come up.

So, and then we have Emmett Street, Phase 2, Emmett Streetscape, Phase 2.

This is one of the projects we're proposing to cancel.

The note here about this project is like both projects that we're proposing to cancel.

One of the reasons we're proposing these projects for cancellation is because

No work has begun on these projects.

So that's a really important point.

and so I want to emphasize that SmartScale, the VDOT funding program, these are lines of credit with VDOT.

Each one is an individual application to VDOT, granting us funds to pursue a specific project with a specific set of outcomes, which were the basis for our application.

The ability to move funds between projects is something that is being given to the city in this instance in recognition for the significant improvements we've made to our program and the recognition of the close working relationship we have with VDOT today.

It's not something that would that would typically be available to us and You know it should be noted also that our score remains very low kind of where we are today

while there's a great deal of recognition of improvement and partnership with VDOT, our score is still reflective of the fact that we haven't delivered any projects on time or otherwise.

I should say we've delivered Belmont at this point, but projects on time.

And that is reflective of our score.

And we've done prior presentations that have shown the dashboard that VDOT uses when they're making decisions about programs.

Our score remains the same.

but our relationship has improved considerably and that has put us in the position today where we're not talking about canceling this full slate of projects or we're not talking about having to identify millions of dollars of city funds to make up the differences on these projects that we're keeping.

What we have is the potential to move forward and shift funding within these projects.

So the second project we're proposing to cancel is the Fifth Street and Ridge project.

We've dug into the reasons why this project is eligible to be, is an appropriate one to cancel.

But again, it's one that we have not spent any money on to date.

There's been no work done on this project.

I'll note that you'll see here a revised, the previous estimate shows a revised number.

We were previously showing $29 million, which was a number that we did get reported to us by VDOT.

But we checked back with VDOT and had this corrected.

So if you go back to that, please.

So we've not done a revised estimate for that.

Easily.

Easily $10 million low.

I suspect

Potentially even more than that.

This is a project that I think is quite a complicated project given all the different pieces of it.

And it's the extended length of it.

I apologize.

Fair enough.

I'll come back to it if it comes to me.

Edmund Streetscape project.

This is a project that we have jointly worked on with UVA.

UVA is contributing money towards making up the shortfall in this project.

But even with that, the shortfall comes to $5,200,000 approximately.

So how much will UVA be contributing to this one?

How much of the cancelled projects are being reallocated to this one?

for this shortfall.

So UVA's total contribution was $5 million into these projects.

Some, it's been proposed that half of that would go to this project and half would go to Fontaine, but where we are right, but we're still left

The last one, Emmett was spelled correctly, the one where canceling Emmett was spelled, doesn't matter.

We'll take down the streets.

Sorry.

It's two tees, right?

Yeah.

I looked weird.

I had a double check.

East High Streetscape Project.

This project continues the work from the Belmont Bridge.

It has a shortfall, estimated shortfall of 5,400,000.

and then we have the Barracks Road Emmett Street project with a revised scope.

In this case, even when we revised the scope to bring us into the right of way and reduce the degree of retaining walls necessary, we don't end up with a shortfall.

We actually end up with some money left, but we believe it's appropriate to retain that money in that account in case there are future shortfalls associated with this project.

especially given that there can be uncertainties in the acquisition right away.

So this... Actually, I'm good.

Yes, you have.

Here's the original scope for the project and the revised scope.

And before you do that, I feel compelled to share a few thoughts myself on this matter since I've been dealing with this personally for three years.

I just want to offer

Additional clarity for the benefit of council and the public as it relates to what has not been an easy process and what has not been an easy decision and or recommendation to bring to you and in really hoping that we can express enough to the to the public at large that we did not arrive at this conclusion very easily.

This is not a

This is not with a lack of thought and consideration to be at this point.

But just to run through a quick timeline with you, because as I thought about, OK, what am I going to say about this?

Because I'm not going to just not say something about it.

In August of 2021, that's 30 days after I arrived here, I was summoned to VDOT.

And in that conversation with VDOT, I was told that the city of Charlottesville was not performing.

as it related to the management of our locally administered program.

and that started what has been a three year saga.

It's probably safe to describe it as that for those who've been involved in this.

And again, not spending a whole lot of time on the blame game and all of that.

We've been through enough of that conversation.

I repeatedly came back to this council, also to the planning commission in May of 22.

I came and asked for additional capacity for the engineering division.

because we were not fully staffed the way we needed to to be able to deliver what we had agreed to do.

In November of 22, I remembered distinctly speaking to the Planning Commission asking them not to give me any additional money for projects because I don't need the money that wasn't my problem.

There was a need to reimagine and re-envision some of how we were going about doing the work that needed to be done, plus I needed to really fill the seats that we did not have and try to bring about the revision to process, procedure, and even philosophy in some cases.

In August of 23, the Commonwealth Transportation Board adopted a new performance management program where they identified that, one, we are not unique in the challenges of managing our own program.

and across the state they have one municipality after the other that's struggling big and small so we are not special we are just like everybody else having some difficulty in being able to manage this and in all of that I offer this to say that again we are not here asking for cancellations and revisions taking it lightly

It is not a good place to be.

Nobody wanted to do this.

I probably pushed the issue more so than anybody.

And I'll say that, as James has mentioned, that a lot of where we are is the result of relationship building.

Like, literally, we are here still driving this bus, making these recommendations to you because we were on the verge of losing that ability.

That's what I want people to not miss in this moment.

That it is it's fair for people to be disappointed that we've had to make changes.

It is fair to be angry that we are canceling projects because we have already allowed you to wait so long thinking you're going to get them and now we're telling them you're not going to get them.

I appreciate that.

But the reality of this is this is still about retaining local control because that is very important.

and actually just fixing the things that we know that we needed to fix.

Some of it we just need a little more time.

The point that James has made about even with all that we have laid out for you in January when the final decision is made by the CTB and we expect that they're going to be in favor of and we pray and hope that they are, I'm going to be deeply disappointed if they don't.

Our score still does not change with that action.

So we're not out of the woods.

We still have real work that needs to be done.

This is about setting us up for success because what we have allowed to happen, and it's just what has happened, our portfolio has been too big, too complicated, and we did not have the right size team appropriately situated to deliver.

That's the fact.

And with all of that, I accept it all.

I think the team has really embraced the notion that it's no one's fault.

It is where we are and we need to move forward.

And the best way to do that is to right size this portfolio for our ability to deliver it.

And that's really why we're where we are.

So just stating the facts for what they are.

Take no issue with people being disappointed.

I am disappointed.

But I also know that VDOT has been a great partner in this conversation.

Yeah, this is more like taking control of our own destiny versus it being handed to us.

Absolutely.

You've spoken to us a number of times about this whole situation and I want to applaud your team for trying to put together what is manageable.

It seems to me like our eyes are bigger than our stomach for quite a long time and that a number of these cost estimates were just, you know, maybe fanciful is not the right word, but they were done in a

Pre-COVID timeframe, I guess, and the numbers are coming in 50%, 100% greater.

We would have never been able to climb out of this without extraordinary measures.

So that's where we are.

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate all that.

And I think that's definitely true.

I mean,

for the community.

I mean these projects over budget some of them because they were funded in 2016 and a lot has changed since 2016 and probably because of six and seven years straight of high level staff turnover, not enough staff, wrong approach towards managing projects that were funded in 2016 just still didn't get completed.

And moving in this direction is all about

and

You know, I didn't realize it's just that in terms of reapplying for these, we're unlikely to be successful because the scoring criteria has changed.

So we should assume that at least similar projects are unlikely to get funded again just because VDOT currently won't score it the same way.

And in that context, is it accurate that with the $14.8 million, if that were reallocated,

There's two factors there.

First off, we don't have any engineering work to date on Emmett Phase II.

So we don't even have anything to base current estimates as to what that project would cost today.

So you can anticipate some level of overrun on that project.

Now theoretically, perhaps you could value engineer that down as well.

But the more important point here is the one we've been trying to make that while we have a very close working relationship with VDOT, VDOT has

So just to make it clear that we're not, this is the deal.

So the cost estimates... Could be ten times that one.

It could be a much more substantial.

There's a big unknown there, right, of how much the additional cost is and the additional, and then, you know, to value engineer into something that maybe fits within that old budget or is closer to it and we're making up a number

That's an additional cost in terms of engineering and that work.

So there's a bunch of unknowns associated with that, but I just, I'm trying to say it without kind of casting dispersions on our partner and VDOT.

VDOT has made it clear, like we, we, the deal is what the deal is.

They, they, they did not, they were strongly discouraging of us keeping these two projects that had not yet begun.

From their perspective, it was a strong benefit to move forward with

I think that's a critical contextual point.

And they're not, their funding is somewhat contingent on a timeline.

Is that inaccurate?

Well, I guess I'm saying, is that...

Well, I'm just asking if, like, if that's the conversation that was had where they're saying, we're not going to give you forever on event phase two and you're not going to get to it in time.

So you might as well cancel it.

No, I think part of it was buying into the idea of what are you all really capable of delivering on with where you are at this point in time?

And we're, and again,

wanting to continue to remind you that VDOT district office has gone to bat for us and secured the ability for some flexibility in the movement of money that is unheard of.

It is now actually being used as a tactic for helping other locally administered programs get done so we are now a model for how to reform.

That's a good thing, too.

But the options that we assume are there are not really there.

Yeah.

And I just want to distill it down for the community.

So it sounds like, you know, the situation is when this began, the default was all of these getting cut because there was no faith in our ability to complete projects on time.

That evolved into keeping some of them.

But our only constraint is not just

Right.

And they're managing a statewide portfolio that has challenges.

So that's the other part that has to be factored in.

We're just one community with issues.

When I speak of what could have been taken away, just simply cancel, anything that we had not moved on was game for being taken away.

So we were actually at least allowed to rethink our approach to the portfolio.

And that gave them the ability to say, well, you know, maybe we could go to bat for you on keeping that money within your local program.

Just use it differently.

Yes, you cancel a project in order to make that happen.

Other questions on this?

So we had discussed this before, but we thought it would be good to have this kind of public discussion of it.

So I think that it is good because it is, you know, projects that impact the entire community.

Probably everyone travels on these roads and some

I'm sorry, I have one small question.

This is not a derailing conclusion.

But once these, like the, hang on, let me find the right one.

The intersection at the Bergs Road Amidstree project, like we have the rendering of it now.

As a question, I'm going to defer to our city engineer.

So the intersection itself is not changing with the revised scope.

It's really just that bike lane kind of getting... You mean the proposed intersection?

The proposal for the intersection is not changing.

The revised design for that does not touch what was planned for the intersection itself.

My question is throughout the process from this initial phase to when it actually gets built, how much

Is that what's going to get built?

We're pretty close.

We were already at close to 70, 80% design plans.

We've had to go back and revise those to accommodate the revised scope.

But we're still kind of right there.

So we're moving forward with right of way and then towards the design.

There has been talks about doing one more public meeting to kind of show what we're actually doing with this revised scope.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments on this?

No, I just want to note that there is a resolution on this item.

The resolution has cancelled the previous project development agreement that was authorized by council.

itemizes each one of these items, the cancelization, cancelization, yeah, of those two.

Cancellation.

Thank you.

Rolls about it, doesn't it?

Cancell of both of those projects and then the authorization for Fontaine to be administered by VDOT, which I understand that the reason for that is primarily because, or one of the reasons for that is that VDOT is also doing a project at the

Can we please vote?

The next item is resolution for revisions to the architecture design control district.

Is Jeff Warner?

No.

James.

He forgot.

I have to switch hats.

I think the main thing to note on this item is that we received some comments back based on y'all's conversation last time on the cafe spaces

We would certainly welcome additional conversation on this item.

We understand that it's maybe not fully baked at this point.

So, yeah, Councilor Oschrin, you did an amazing job here of you sent us out, you know, your notes and thoughts on this.

I guess I would like some time to work through this and one thing I will say and I, you know, I've tried to think about, you know, sort of our role in this.

I think there are some, like we were talking about with the boats in front of people's yards, a little bit of a philosophical, I don't know, preference or whatever.

I think to some degree, how much control we let people have or how free we feel about that is, maybe preference is not the right word, but a different value judgment that we may make.

I tend to have a lot of confidence in the BAR and I feel like the burden of proof would be on me to sort of come up with something different than what they recommended.

I do know that the sort of mindset of the BAR, at least the folks that I've talked to there, really is more of a

Bair Bones

I don't know, just a different sort of starting point that they might have versus, you know, for example, some of the comments that you made two weeks ago.

And I'm happy just if I could just speak to that for a moment.

So the BAR is charged with issuing these guidelines for the cafe spaces.

or making a recommendation I should say on these guidelines or these recommendations for council adoption and supposed to be updating these on a regular basis.

From my conversations with Mr. Warner

The primary intention of these regulations is kind of both practical and historic preservation, right?

Because the BAR fundamentally is charged with the task of historic preservation and the mall itself is a recognized historic landscape, both state and federally recognized in that regard.

From a practical perspective, we recognize that all of it is public space.

The entire mall is public space.

And therefore, we are essentially the landlords of this space and need to be able to move or change things on a kind of easy and simple basis if need be, right?

If the need arises that we need to be able to make an alteration to a cafe space for whatever reason, we need to be able to do so.

So that's the practical side.

And then the historic preservation site is just a recognition that the BAR is charged with attempting to use a set of standards that recognize the original design intent of the mall.

So one of the primary design ideas of the mall is that it was meant to be kind of an open,

Forest Landscape, if you will, with a brick, forest, floor, and trees.

But it was meant to be open.

The trees, remember the original design, the bricks came right up to the trunks of the trees.

And it was supposed to present this image of kind of an open gathering space beneath the trees.

Cafe spaces were not an original part of that.

But I think the BAR and the community has largely adapted to and recognized the value of those cafe spaces, even if we struggle in some of the details of how they lay out.

So this current set of guidelines are trying to recognize that feel of what the mall was supposed to present while allowing the cafe spaces to exist.

So that's the whole genesis of it.

And one of the points that Jeff made that should be recognized also is that in this iteration of the design guidelines,

They actually reduced the level of requirements on the cafe spaces versus what it was previously.

So they have already lightened up.

One question I had was, so the appeal process, so say we were to adopt the BAR recommendations as they've given us and someone says, I want to do something different.

I think that's the number.

I honestly don't remember at the top of my head, but yes, so the way it goes is so if I want to do something outside of the guidelines, I have the option to go to the BAR on a case-by-case basis.

What would be the practical impact if we just waived that fee?

If we said, you can't just be anybody, but if you're renting a space or whatever, and we adopted the BAR's guidelines and then someone said, hey, I want to do something slightly different.

and they met with staff with Jeff and Jeff was like well that doesn't really meet the guidelines you need to talk to the BAR I mean the $125 I guess I mean that's not nearly paying for anyone's time who's involved in this I mean I'm assuming it's like to prevent nuisance applications or something yeah often time that's what that kind of a fee is a place for right but I mean

If you were to set it up such that only person with I guess the legal term would be standing, you know, a person that is renting a space or whatever could make the appeal, would that help somewhat?

Yeah.

Yeah, there's any number of ways you could cut that.

And I'm going off the top of my head without consulting with anybody, obviously.

But you could argue that our leaseholders, the cafe spaces, are already paying a cafe fee and subject to our rules and requirements, and that therefore we decide to make the appeal process way of the fee for that appeal process.

And as a practical timeline question, the goal for getting these in front of us at this point was because the leases will renew in January.

That's crush.

I don't know exactly when, but it comes up early in the new year.

I think we send the notice in January to remind folks that they've got a process.

I'd like to say just a couple things.

I know I sent this out to everybody earlier today, so that's why we haven't gotten a lot of time to review it.

But just a couple things I wanted to highlight in the memo.

The adjustments I made are not, there's not a bunch of them.

They're just kind of loosening a couple things.

And then a couple of questions that are just like,

There is a, something that the BAR recommended and I'm just wondering if that's, is that really a concern that we have or is it, is it not?

I don't understand your question.

Well I'm just giving some background to the chart.

So like one of them, one of the questions I have is

So there's a picture I included of the Citizen Burger thing and one of the BAR recommendations is no solid panels except for where there already is one and so Citizen Burger has one so it's an example of that and it's like, is that really something we care?

Is it fine?

Like if we're allowing that there, you know, like is that just something to consider?

But then also I included some photos from

some older ones, the trees are young and then some recent ones as well including one where the trees are quite young and it's looking west kind of where the city space is and then there's you know some trees and there's people sitting there and I know this is a snapshot in time

but then I have another photo from the other direction that's much more recent and the big difference is there's a lot more people in the recent photo because there's a cafe space where there wasn't any before and I know that cafe spaces are, you know, you have to pay to use them so it's not mutually exclusive to also have public seating but they bring vibrancy and tax dollars and something to do to what was previously an empty space and

and so that's just another thing to consider.

The third thing I want to point out is the cohesiveness of the mall is pretty evident in just the brick of the floor that ties the space together I think more than you know multicolored umbrellas ever could disrupt.

So I think that lays a very strong foundation for the

the defining the space of them all and also knowing that it's a historic area because that's a traditionally historic material.

Thank you.

And again, I haven't had a chance to review the suggestions.

Like last time, quite frankly, I would be prepared to vote to support the

design review guidelines as presented to us from the BAR.

I think the old regulations, all the growth and creativity we've seen on the mole was possible within those regulations and these are even looser than those and I think do provide flexibility both in some of the guidelines but also in always being able to go to a review process.

So I think to me there's enough flexibility while also preventing, you know, a scenario where the mall became defined by corporate branding, which to me seems like really the ultimate goal of avoiding standardized corporate branding throughout the mall.

And I wouldn't, I haven't had the chance to review the specific changes.

I wouldn't be interested in, you know,

Upending everything they sent us.

I'm not sure how much better of a product we would get.

I think I am satisfied with what the BAR gave us, although I'm sure there's some specific things.

What meeting I'm saying?

That would be dependent on your ability to reach some sort of consensus so that we're not still trying to determine which of the line items are okay or not.

So I think just a reminder of what James has indicated, the ability for you all to engage staff, NDS staff specifically,

It's not the end of the world but ideally you know I would like to have us

Finalize, whatever we finalize before the notices start to go out to the leaseholders.

Yeah, let's set that whole.

Second.

Okay, can we vote?

This item is deferred until December 16th.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

The game plan is to review your memo.

If you're if you're interested in the conversation with NDS staff, we would just need to know that so that that can be arranged.

If you don't feel as though you need to deliberate there, you just want to settle up on what your positions are.

Just let me know.

And just so we're clear on our guidelines and what constitutes acceptable discussion via email and commenting on a live document, because in this chart you can right click and leave a comment so you can make a note and not actually change what's presented.

Yeah, if you do that and I get access to it, then we can read that and determine what we think we learn from you.

I just had a question about using the document in that way, and I think we would need some city attorney input on that.

I'm making it accessible.

Right, which is why I'm suggesting you leave a comment instead of change anything.

Well, I think the assumption, we all know that it's foyable.

So any edits to it means that the document is changed.

So if anyone were to say, I would like to see what council is discussing on this matter, today is one answer.

But I think that the FOIA issue is that if we're doing it in this fashion, it becomes a meeting.

Correct.

Is that your concern, Ms.

I guess the question is, is there a way we can make the document itself available for anybody to read, but not only some of us to change,

so that you don't have to treat it as a FOIA request.

I realize that.

Yeah, so I sent that PDF and we can just use that.

So maybe if you could include those.

If we could, our city attorney representative for Sands Anderson, Pam O'Berry is on.

Let's let her weigh in.

Good evening.

Every version of the document that is a record, meaning as it progresses, every minute that it is a record, the state that it exists in at the time it is requested,

is what must be provided under FOIA.

So if there are versions of it that are saved, each one of those versions that are saved is a record.

If it's a OneDrive or like a same thing as a Google Doc, which means each version is continuously saved inside of itself, but not saved as a separate file.

So the entire history is accessible.

Then the entire history that exists, every record, every version of it that exists, assuming that the request is for every document that exists related to

So would it be better to just kind of

Ms.

O'Berry, I think what you said earlier was that the second option was that what is recordable and foyable is what exists at that time.

That's right.

Yeah, because I think that this can get complicated and doesn't have to be because it highly likely, particularly now, we'll get for it and and then we won't have the right version and then they're going to say we're trying to hold.

So it's going to be just the opposite of what we're trying to do.

So I would definitely say let's have those conversations instead of trying to do this via email or via document.