City Council Meeting   1/21/2025

Miss Thomas, will you please call the roll?

Here, Councillor Payne.

Here.

Vice Mayor Pinkston.

Here.

Councillor Snook.

Here.

Is there a motion to approve or amend the agenda?

I move for approval.

Forest and a report by the Charlottesville Tree Commission.

So, Sam, is we ready to go?

And I will be presenting tonight with two others that I'm going to actually have very briefly introduce themselves.

Hi, I'm Susan McKinnon, and I am the incoming Chair of the Tree Commission.

Yeah.

And would you all like us to time keep ourselves for the whole 90, or will we all acknowledge 30 and then go forth?

Sam, how do you want to?

Great.

Give me a second.

I just want to make sure we weren't going to run into a problem.

At the Planet Geo handout, we discussed that.

Which one is that?

Thank you, Susan.

This year's annual planting of one and two caliber trees on schools, parks, and rights of wades, 181 trees.

Just want to make sure you, there you go.

Okay, good.

For the public to be able to see that as well.

If you look at the planet geo scenarios again, it does not come anywhere near the 2600 trees that we need to plant annually to stay at the 38% level or the 3600 trees that we would need to plant annually to regain the 45% level.

Are we talking like little sampling, seedlings?

Yeah, Natalie.

For the tree, the calculation of the tree canopy, is it based on actual like square footage of the size of the greenery on the tree or is it number of trees?

What's out there than the study that Planet Geo did?

Over time, obviously, it gets bigger.

I just would say you need to know Steve Gaines is a treasure and we're really lucky to have him as our urban forester.

And we really rely, I think, on the group of you all and on Steve, up until we have the property and or, yeah, otherwise access points to being professionals in this field.

We're open to any questions or comments or thoughts you have.

Lloyd, I'll start with you, sir.

How do

I think programs like that that are focused on private property, they have to be focused on private property because that's where the land is.

and some thought of how, I mean, A, do you anticipate that kind of response and B, how do we overcome that response?

So there's a lot of different moving pieces there which we hope to continue to address in various ways.

discussion, holding both pieces, if that's okay with you all.

Are there any other questions just on this part?

So the council, anyone, any other questions right now?

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I would love to make sure we can change to the other one.

Remy, can you pull up the stormwater presentation?

And we're curious to hear about what it could be like to adopt some of these practices or to at least discuss them and think about how we can accommodate trees density and have cooler outdoor areas.

So when affordable housing units actually get built, give a scaled waiver that is related to that.

Sorry, just a second.

I'm sure if you guys have any questions.

It's a good set of suggestions and I'll look forward to when the city manager and the NDS staff have had a chance to digest this over the course of the next weeks and get their feedback on it.

Natalie?

But the roadways themselves provide an opportunity for increasing our tree capacity as well that doesn't conflict with buildings and the capacity for humans to have spaces to live.

Thanks.

Michael, you have anything?

I don't know if that question makes sense.

Obviously that's, you know, the details of that would have to be, I'll leave that to NDS to figure out, but it would be a tall order, but I think it's worth pursuing.

Michael, you have anything else?

Is there any data on kind of like what level of the fee is actually changing behavior versus just providing more money to invest in green infrastructure, things like that?

My informed opinion would be that higher would be better, but that's obviously hard to hear.

In addition, you know, if you can provide an incentive to depave, build taller, while also preserving existing green infrastructure, that's kind of the ultimate goal of our comprehensive plan goals.

For sure.

I mean, that, you know, but, um,

So the hope is that this is sort of the beginning of a conversation, for sure.

And as far as the storm water fee changes, I know that that's going to take a lot of staff.

But the intent would be to have a work session at some point later this year.

Any other questions or comments for us?

When they're talking about the raw numbers of trees, that's an estimate based on a combination of multiple tree species.

Thank you.

But I think that we're all talking about the same things.

Good approach.

And I know we also have some former commissioners.

We're now going to go into closed session.

Can we vote please?

Oh, there's more?

as authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as follows.

We're still meeting, folks.

and two under Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A1 for discussion and consideration of prospective candidates to be interviewed for the police civilian oversight board and discussion of members to be appointed to the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

Second.

Thank you.

. . .

Yes, sir.

that to the best of each council member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed session were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session.

And now we, for one of the actions that we took in closed session.

I move that Council appoint Councillors Pinkston and Oschrin, who currently serve on the Regional Transit Partnership, to the recently approved Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

We will now have a moment of silence.

Thank you very much.

Any announcements?

I have one.

Okay.

For more information, you can contact Case Flutter.

Are there other announcements?

So sign up by January 31st for the first quarter at CVillebike.com.

with Sister City and Betheson, France is doing where they offer for anyone through the transit system free e-bikes for use and they have them up to several years and so I'm glad that we're doing this.

It's nice to have a little boost up those hills.

Let me make sure I have it correct.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you all.

The next speaker we have is Ann Binhelm

Thank you.

So is anyone here that's not preventive, Susan?

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're now going to the consent agenda.

9 Resolution to Appropriate Grant Funds from the ICMA Economic Mobility and Opportunity Grant, $24,000, one of two readings.

Motion passes five to zero.

The next item we have on the agenda is City Manager's Report.

So Jason's going to walk you through some updates.

We have a lot of West Coast connection, business travelers, and we have a lot of South connection, Florida.

What are the numbers in the right hand column represent?

The numbers on the right are the amount of passengers per each of those, like Ligordia had 39,000 passengers last year.

Thank you.

As the final destination,

I'd like to talk about it all night if I could, but if there's any questions from you, I'd like to take them right now.

In other words, outside of the standing commercial carriers that you have.

So we do have a general aviation community.

That's the word I'm looking for.

And so yeah, so they maintain all of our general aviation facilities for us.

Michael, do you have any questions?

So we bring every couple of years, we bring someone in and just kind of take a look at it and tell us what they think.

Is there a known existed or planned for growth that you know is blocking off like significant amounts of areas?

So we maintain basically a 20 year plan with the FAA and the area currently that we looked at is planned for facility growth.

Yeah, so I guess your sort of capital improvement project or capital improvement list is pretty substantial.

Got it.

Thank you.

What kind of conversations are you all having on your end about better public transit to the airport?

We're not expert in it by a long shot

Thanks.

I mean, who?

But since COVID and since some of the low-cost carriers that have moved into Richmond, we've seen a little bit more activity that direction, and so I'd consider maybe Richmond would be our biggest competition.

There's no train to Richmond, but there is one to D.C.

Who do you see?

Are you, are you any specific to the commercial air service that we see in a terminal or activity from by aircraft, for example?

By aircraft, maybe it's a general aviation or the

We work with local companies, they come in on a daily basis, and it is now currently the second oldest tree in Virginia.

Well, you can.

Our public safety team does a really good job with the public.

Like, if it was one thing that you feel like you need it from the City Council, what would it be?

The Economic Impact Study that will be coming out will be vital for you to have that piece of information and as we work towards some of these much larger capital improvement projects I think we'd love to make sure we can communicate that with you as well but I will say one of my board members is sitting beside you tonight and he does an excellent job communicating that with I'm sure with you as well so we're very happy to have him.

Thank you so much.

So he'll definitely be coming back and having these moments with us.

Thank you.

Um, Ashley, Ashley has a update as well as, uh, Mr. Fries as well.

That's all I have.

Freese.

So again, happy to answer any questions on both of those items.

Any questions or comments on either one of the topics?

That we should be apportioning those responsibilities so that we can make the sidewalks passable for folks with mobility issues?

and then in particular with the reference to downtown we talked about changing our strategy there right now the snow plan says we have to get to about eight or ten inches of snow before we start hauling snow because again it has to go somewhere right it doesn't go away when we move it but in this case looking at places like downtown where we might actually start hauling earlier those are the types of things that we are going to be looking at for and assessing the cost of for the for next year's snow plan

I have my own things to say about it because you all know I hate snow.

I absolutely hate to test it.

No, it isn't.

Isn't it snowing in Louisiana right now?

I think that's probably the best answer I can give you.

that these are things that we need to be paying attention to and putting more money into.

What does that really call for?

And in that same vein, can you tell us how we were able to issue so many more citations this year?

because one of the challenges we've had in the past is that staff in vehicles find that once they identify a sidewalk that hasn't been cleared, there isn't necessarily a place to park in order to issue the citation.

So thank you.

Michael, do you have any comments?

No.

Thank you so much.

Since it is still quite cold out, can you give a quick recap of the various warming centers that are available for folks?

We have found that the facilities that are available have actually had openings or vacancies, so we're not seeing that we need to do anything else at this time.

a safe and warm place to go given the kind of unprecedented long stretch of under freezing temperatures that we're having.

Yeah, I just want our church is hosting the ladies for the last two weeks for another week and it's definitely been several more ladies spending the night here.

Thank you.

So we have a neighborhood leaders meeting every quarter.

They get to submit questions and they do submit many questions and we respond to all of those questions in writing and then attach them to the city manager's report after each of those meetings.

And I saw some note about possibly providing money for mailers.

We're thinking on a way to support, better organizing the neighborhood so that they can better engage with the government.

And I guess that work happens through NDS.

Great.

We could talk about this separately, but which neighborhood groups you feel like have appropriate representation and which ones you feel like are perhaps weaker or not represented well.

We could share with you the list and kind of point out where there might have been.

Let's see if we could help recruit or something.

Perfect.

Okay, thank you.

Chris, why is he here?

our external financial team who's been guiding us on the due diligence work in figuring out how to finance some of the bigger ticket items that land in that area of sustainability.

and you also, no one cares what gender you are, you just choose a restroom and you go in.

What does it mean when you say rooms are sized to strongly discourage co-occupation?

Yes?

Has that started, or are we waiting for Buford to be over?

So that's about what we are right now.

So the transition off of Buford onto Walker should be fairly smooth?

Yeah, we'll roll right into finishing up the design process and then take it into construction.

Is it in the CIP?

We'll see.

And then there's sort of a negotiation and a conversation about what makes the most sense.

So Miss Powell and I talk very regularly and typically what happens is some project will emerge or some need will emerge and she'll talk to me about the feasibility of it.

Maybe you do two projects in a summer if you've got enough staff and enough money?

Sure.

It's very frustrating, but it's how we have to roll.

It's very hard to make any significant intervention in a school without disrupting the education.

Go ahead.

Let me frame it this way.

In the context of a $60 million CIP, is that what we're tracking?

Not most years.

So I don't want to commit anyone beyond that, but that's... Well, I can give you straight facts.

replacement.

Sure.

So that's a big thing.

Are you having those kinds of conversations about?

Other people are going to disagree and say that there are things that just can't be remedied in a school based on the way things were designed back in the day.

University does renovations in the ancient buildings all the time.

I mean, we would have to start.

That would be basically its own sort of study to lay out a plan.

It probably would be.

And then we have the new zoning that's coming on board, which hopefully we'll have more.

There will be a capacity.

I know you've got something you're trying to finish here, but conveniently I'm finished, but Crystal is not.

But yeah, there are a lot of ways you can go about it.

And I would argue that for the next CIPs, I hope for the next number of years, we can, if you feel like you've got the staff, if we could increase the amount of money in this particular program, because it seems like it really is a high impact.

I think Brian was pretty comprehensive there, but are there other comments for right now?

I have a little personal crisis.

But yeah.

Michael, did you have anything right now?

Sure.

and that's really the basic information I wanted to share with you for your consideration this evening.

I guess that is basically you work with with Dominion or somebody.

And so there's a net savings, particularly over the term of that agreement.

So we're leasing to them our roof.

In a sense, we're leasing the power, the equipment.

Correct.

their own financing strategies for delivering projects like this.

That's what you're still working through in terms of what that looks like and what's possible.

And so it has to do with, you know, there are, like I said, there are half a dozen, dozen pretty critical levers that we need to think through before we would bring a proposal forward for consideration.

Thank you.

with, are you finished, Crystal?

I am, thank you.

Any questions or comments?

I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot here, but one of the questions I had after participating in the school board meeting back, was that before Christmas?

Good, 19th.

or maybe money better spent some other way, I'm not sure, but I would be interested in that kind of conversation offline.

And so we will be bringing some decisions back for council, but it is not a quick decision.

and I can appreciate the fact that this PPA piece, how that might be an issue with the bonds and all the rules for that as well as the IRS note you have there as well.

Now you have the full CIP.

It's great to see all the progress.

Thanks, bye.

You ready?

Yes, I'm sorry.