Human Rights Commission Regular Meeting   11/21/2024

There you go.

It's official.

We became official.

We became official.

Elizabeth said she couldn't come because it's holiday concert.

Thank you so much.

No Mary tonight this morning.

No Mary tonight.

Oh, we just now did?

Elizabeth has a concert.

Mary has a work event.

We do.

I think we're ready.

And let's make sure that

I'm always a little bit, do I have to check in?

No judgment.

Yeah, you know, don't mind people not knowing.

It's already a growing system.

You run so much, Todd.

It's all good.

I hope everyone's doing okay.

And finally your balance after the beginning of the month or some sort, some type of balance.

Still dizzy.

All right.

I'll introduce you to our roll call.

Catherine?

Jason?

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Awesome.

So would you please recite our mission together?

Awesome.

to notice to members of the public, participate virtually if you experience technical difficulties.

You may call.

434.

Because that phone is not available this evening.

You may call.

Can we do it?

You got it.

434-970-3023.

Say it again.

434-970-3023.

You said the same number twice.

Yeah, you did.

OK, great.

OK, cool.

Because it was some different artists.

I messed up the original numbers, so.

I see you.

Yes, it was some different.

All right, cool.

We are now at Matters of the Public for in-person attendees.

So we do have some in-person people here today.

Glad you are here.

Do you have anything that you would like to bring to us?

No, there is no obligation.

We are supposed to recognize you and ask.

Awesome.

So let us approve our minutes from the 10th, 17th, and 2024.

Would you like to do them one at a time?

Yes.

Okay.

I will go through and do a roll call vote.

Ernest?

Great.

Okay, great.

We're often called to do many things at the same time.

Suzanne?

Approve.

Jason?

Heather?

Approve.

Yes.

All my letters straight here.

All right.

So meeting minutes for 11-7.

And that was a special meeting, right?

So let me get that all done.

OK. Ernest.

Approve.

Wolfgang.

Approve.

Mary.

Kathryn.

Approve.

Dawn.

Suzanne.

Approve.

Jason.

Heather.

Approve.

That's it.

Thank you very much, everyone.

All right, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight.

We have chair-based adults.

Thank you.

I don't know if anyone can attend the meeting that's happening here tomorrow.

Yes, here tomorrow.

I think at 10 in the morning.

10 in the morning.

On homelessness.

Is it?

OK.

I don't know.

I saw something that someone posted on Facebook.

Let me see.

Livable Seabill, 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, hosted by Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless.

This is an event that will highlight the regional strategic plan to end homelessness.

I was supposed to start at 8.30, I'm sorry, 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.

9 o'clock to 11.30 tomorrow morning.

So if anybody can go, probably be a good spot to post up.

I don't have anything else that I can think of, just most holiday season.

And I do understand that per family members and everything else and the state of affairs in our country,

that you may have friends or relatives that you are going to come across that may think a little differently than you.

So just be mindful to have a right to hold your peace.

And you have a right to take care of yourself.

So don't feel that you have to be obligated to

be in spaces on things that don't make you or your family feel comfortable.

But I'll just say that and go from there, because I know this is, again, this holiday season and everybody wants to be with family, be with family and do things together.

But, you know, peace of mind is essential right now.

Imbalance as well.

So, you know, if you feel like putting up the Christmas decorations, put them up.

If you feel like you don't want to put the Christmas decorations right now, don't.

You know, I said to anyone, just take care of yourself.

It's important.

You know, I hope that someone will

decided to step up and take lead of the commission in January.

I think there's important work to be done.

And I think our city manager is doing a great job of trying to make some necessary changes

Can I ask a question along those lines?

I do think it is, and Todd I don't know if you know, but I think it would be really helpful for us to either have a plan as a committee commission and or understand what city manager Sanders needs from us.

In terms of support right now, this is to me, I mean, I haven't been here that long, but I'm going to guess one of the boldest recommendations that has been made that might actually pass for a while when it comes to housing and unhoused in this community.

And so it feels

really important to me and given the focus of this commission what do we need to be doing and I don't know that that means we all need to be at every single city council meeting but do we need one of us at every single council meeting standing up on behalf of the commission and saying that we support his budget like I think it would be really helpful for us to strategically think about that because it would be it would be

I think the direction is heading the right way, but it would be awful if, I mean, personally, it would, I think, be terrible if the budget that he is proposing does not pass with regards to all the housing pieces, et cetera.

This feels like a critical moment in time for the city and for us as a commission.

I don't think what we could do is, you know, probe the letter that we want to send, that we can put that in there.

And then it would be helpful, maybe Todd, I don't know if you can get information from Ashley or from Sam directly.

And I think the other thing that went out, and don't want to forget that you do have the ability to reach directly out to the city manager as our chair.

to ask questions that are poignant for the commission's work.

So you could do that as well.

Like you don't have to rely on me to do that unless you want me to be the pastor.

I'm happy to do that if that's helpful.

But I think that's a good relationship to cultivate and to sort of make that much like we've done with council, like open that line of communication.

I think that it'd be valuable for Sam to see that, oh,

The chair of the commission might reach out and talk to me sometimes about things so that we can get work done together.

Thank you.

All right.

Staff updates.

No staff report.

That would be you.

We have more guests.

That's exciting.

So you have seen probably the big chart on page whatever that is, 17.

So things I want to call your attention.

So, you know, we've been pursuing the Fair Housing Assistance Program through applied.

We, have you looked at this report?

I didn't mention it in the special meeting that we had recently, but welcome.

We did get a response from HUD.

No.

No, really?

Still more changes?

Fortunately, minor ones this time.

OK.

So we went back through.

They presented a really kind of big PowerPoint about it, which would be really helpful to get.

I haven't been able to get that back from them yet, but we took notes.

We've already made the changes on November 18th.

We met with HUD, and then on November 15th, we started making all the changes.

I think I've captured everything, but I really don't want to go through this cycle again.

So I'm trying to get their PowerPoint so that we can

You know, see exactly anything we missed and make those changes.

But they're fairly small.

So I think that's a good thing.

So, you know, there's some impetus to get this done before the middle of January, because we don't know what policies might change around HUD.

And so therefore, I would like to, if I can get a

hear from HUD again and make sure that they review it informally.

I'd like to get in front of you guys at your meeting on the 19th.

Of course, we're still planning to meet on the 19th.

I can do that.

OK.

You just have to go back to council again and add two readings.

OK. Now, I don't know if it needs two readings.

That's a question for city attorney's office.

It is an ordinance change, which is kind of a big thing, but it's a minor ordinance change.

So maybe they can move it through.

But there may just be a rule that says you have to do two reads or ordinance change.

I don't know.

But anyway, I want to get it right this time.

Yeah, this is we're so close.

It's just I think part of it is.

You know, they're always looking at federal law and saying, like, how do we

How do we interpret this?

And when we try to rearticulate it in an ordinance, they're trying to anticipate barriers to doing the best service possible.

And so they saw a few things that they said, we want you to remove this or change this because that could be a potential barrier now or in the future.

Well, okay.

And so to her credit, the current director said, you know, there was a there was a staffing change, like she had just come in when we were about to present it again.

She's like, I think it's good.

Go for it.

And then she said in this meeting, she's like,

If I had had more time, I should have given you a more thorough review.

We were just trying to get it in through the deadline.

So that was very kind of her to say, but yeah.

But this time we're getting more rushed, but maybe I do want to not push it through council until I'm absolutely 99.9% sure it's going to go.

So there's that.

Other things to let you know about.

That's really the main thing.

I noted on our agenda, I think we were supposed to do the rules and procedures.

I put it in like an agenda a long time ago for you to look at so that we'd vote on it today.

And then we didn't even think about it because it's been like two months since we showed it to you.

So maybe we put that on for 1219 as well, just to get that up.

It's in a past agenda packet.

I'll email it to you all again so you can look at it one more time.

If you have any other suggestions for changes, I think we're making one very minor change.

I think it was in the

No, we didn't vote on that.

No, we didn't vote.

It was in there for you to look at in advance because you have to have it five days in advance per the very rules and procedures upon which you were voting.

So I gave it to you like two months in advance, and then I forgot about it because I gave it to you early.

Anyway, there's that.

More than five days, but no less than.

I don't, let me see if there's anything in here that Lily might have wanted to highlight.

I don't know if there's any outreachy stuff.

Yeah, there's no scheduled tabling opportunities.

There you go.

There it is.

So there you have it.

Questions about cases that you see on there.

Relevant to

last minute, the last minutes.

I had asked about the budget process and about the best time for us to be able to submit those recommendations to council.

And I was curious if you were able to find out more about that.

And that is fine.

I've been thinking about making sure that got submitted on time.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I think, yeah, I can tell you now is a great time.

Here's what's going on.

Internally is all the departments had to submit their budget by the end of October.

And then we each have to meet with the budget office and city management to basically explain why we asked for what we asked for.

And so that's happening right now.

And then

Prior to that, where all the like big capital improvement project proposals, those come through earlier and then the operating budget.

And now they're hearing everybody's thing.

I think we get through that by the end of December, January, then council starts thinking about like other things that aren't like city department related and expenses.

So like that is kind of like, if we get the letter to them, like within the next month or so, that is the time for them to be seeing and thinking about all this.

Yeah, but that is my impression.

Any other questions I've forgotten to ask?

OK, I guess that's it.

Lauren, do you have any updates for anybody?

Hey, Lauren.

No, I do not at this time.

Thank you so much.

When you submit the budget, does it include

Since we didn't use it, so we have a professional services line item, which is kind of where mediation comes from.

and sometimes when we use interpretive or translation services comes out of there there's substantial amounts like 15 in there we never max it out so if we wanted to pull from there we could although I think what we kind of talked about last time was we kind of did a pretty good job and we got a system if we want to

Like let me know we can we can start searching again or just do it the way we did it and come up with a pretty good solid work plan.

Yeah, we can do that.

So, but yeah, open to that.

But we do have some money in there.

We don't have anything else for Todd.

Officer nomination committee update.

We don't have anything for you guys.

But I will be sending you an email.

And inside the email, we'll ask what are your plans as far as continuing with the commission?

And if so,

What are your thoughts on either the position of president or vice president or chair or vice chair?

So be thinking about that.

So get that email.

Please respond back so we know who to make phone calls to.

All right.

I'll take your version over mine.

That's been on my mind all day, but I had a full day of school so I couldn't sit in there.

We have some time, right?

And then you have to stay.

Second, the motion taking a vote.

Any questions to the nominating committee?

We're session finalizing the effective right to counsel letter.

Let's put it up on that big screen.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Let me get this all big.

Which one of the things that I have open is it?

And did we submit the other letter?

Yeah.

We think it might be Mary.

She had requested edit access like two, three weeks ago.

I think that's me.

I can't edit it.

But I just sent it.

I just sent the request to the owner.

Is the owner Mary?

And I know that part of what you talked about before was doing some outreach to see what agencies could take on that workload, right?

To see like, what are we advocating for?

And are you ready for something like that?

I also kind of wonder, this also would be a good thing to do

for the chair to sit down with city manager and talk about a little bit.

One of the things in the other letter

to counsel that we talk about.

We talk about effective right to counsel.

Right.

But what we say is there is that we'll be following up with a letter that further underscores our support for providing universal counsel, as well as regional examples where this has been done effectively.

And I don't think we have those pieces in here yet.

So I just want to just even in terms of as we think about this, this other sorry, this letter,

Not the other letter I'm looking at right now.

Yeah, and I don't know if we added this thinking, like I don't recall if Marriott said that she knows some regional examples or if anybody else in here had, like there's a reason that we included the regional examples.

St. Louis, LA, Connecticut, Boulder, Colorado, Baltimore.

Okay, great, so there's some regional examples.

I'm looking at articles about all of them.

OK. Philadelphia, Cleveland.

Do we have any, does Richmond, do we have any in the state of Virginia?

Connecticut is one of three states and 15 cities nationwide.

I don't know if it's happening in Virginia.

I'm looking right now.

And we can do it.

In 2023, St. Louis was the 22nd jurisdiction in the US to enact such a measure.

So how do we add that?

Well, let me stop.

Let's do this letter.

Get this one done.

Oh, I thought we were going to include those examples in the slide.

OK.

Yes.

Because we said we were going to add these examples.

OK. What kind of stuff do we want to say about these examples?

Do we want to say, you know, they

The eviction rates have gone down because tenants have gotten representation.

Do we want to say anything about costs or anything about the bills?

Because I think maybe each bill, right to counsel bill, is a little different.

I would think we don't know enough about the nitty gritty of the bills to say anything.

I mean, for me, the most important thing is we know when there is a lawyer representing the tenant that the outcomes are much better for the tenant.

We need huge evaluations of providing lawyers when we already know that that

So as long as we can say it's been used successfully in like three places.

Not even COVID money, though.

So the New York established their program.

They did a cost benefit analysis about a right to counsel.

Actually, it would cost 200 million for a year, and obviously that's New York, but it would save 320 million in terms of costs relating to housing, displaced families, preservation of rent, regulated affordable housing, and then also the cost of unsheltered homelessness as well.

I just don't know how preventing a family from being evicted has to be cost-effective.

Right?

Right.

Are you right?

That's why I don't feel like it urgently needs a whole bunch of complicated numbers because it is,

Yeah, our previous letter in 2021 talks about, what's that?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Go, please.

Our previous letter in 21 talks about how much there's, what the appropriation was for legal aid at Justice Center at that point, how many people they could serve.

And then this says to ensure every low income tenant facing eviction has an attorney,

City Council says three years ago, three and a half years ago, must commit at least $460,000 to its eviction events program to cover legal aid attorneys and an outreach worker.

I don't know where we got those numbers from.

And it says additional funding for a program coordinator or other staff can improve program outcomes.

So I don't know how deep we want to get versus just this is working in other cities and it's something that Charlottesville should consider.

We are going into a $3 billion surplus here.

We had $500,000 worth of Jefferson School this year, so.

I think you'd be more than welcome to, yeah.

I think Senator Dietz is probably, in circumstance, more pivotal in that conversation because he's vice chair of the Senate Finance Committee.

I see some questions for you.

So, I mean, just kind of thinking about the workflow for the commission.

So they propose legislative recommendations, what is it, in September.

I guess they just finalized them recently.

Yeah, and then council combines them with, I guess, regional, other regional priorities, and then TJPDC brings them to the General Assembly.

Is there precedent for council

Yeah, I mean, because within locality, locality, you see them, they ask for some different things.

Like Albemarle is asking for some different things that they'll channel through just through their locality instead of through David Glenn at TJPC.

So I still don't know where to ask.

OK.

Awesome.

So you could include that.

Again, I mean, the likelihood of getting it, it's not, I mean, I couldn't give you the odds of it, but it's,

Yeah.

I recall that they also discussed a potential pilot of rent stabilization program in Charlottesville.

And that is in their, I think, in their legislative recommendations.

I believe so.

Yeah.

I mean, I've mentioned it to Deli Paulson as well.

Just if we can slide a bunch of them in.

But yeah.

OK. And Ernest, I know that Lily had brought that up as well as reaching back out to both of them.

Again, especially as all those councils' legislative priorities get into the mix at the General Assembly, finding out what's the outcome where their sponsors bring these things.

Well, I can probably answer that honestly.

Well, let's do this.

Let's get together email-wise and get with Lily.

Yeah, because usually we just have like a number in mind.

We can slide it in as a budget amendment.

That doesn't mean it gets in the budget, but let's say come the negotiation time for the budget in the spring, that's when Senator Deeds would have the opportunity to negotiate with the conferees.

And if there's extra money around, that's for example, how the Jefferson School got money.

There's extra money that was not committed before so.

We always end up with a surplus in the state of Virginia.

Do we?

It is a surplus.

It's not a real surplus.

There's a really interesting article, by the way, on ACLU.org about the new report illustrating how right to counsel prevents evictions.

I don't know how old this is.

Maybe a year.

But anyway, it's a couple of years old, but yeah.

So did you, have you shared that with us?

You can close this one and then open that one if you put it on.

She had to copy and paste because there was no edit access.

Did we already discuss that?

I'm just looking at places to have right to counsel that it looks

like Richmond passed a right to counsel bill.

Do we leave my computer and we'll establish that we know this?

Well, I'm not sure you said you found it.

It just looks like Richmond passed a resolution that supports the right to counsel for tenants facing eviction in September, 2024, but actually don't know if like what kind of money was attached to it.

So I'll look.

It was proposed to 2025 city budget, definitely bounded out.

to expand available legal services to tenants.

And that was found on the National Low Income Housing Coalition website.

So nlihc.org.

nlihc.org.

and the state's administration passes resolution to support tenants' access to legal representation and eviction filings.

Okay, you're talking about Richmond?

Yes.

Okay, yeah.

And this is the, they put aside half a million dollars for this pilot program.

Yes.

Okay, all right, sorry.

I might've been reading while you were speaking.

And they didn't actually know who was going to provide the service.

So they kind of didn't have everything mapped out.

Exactly.

Pass it and figure it out.

The funding will go to Central Virginia Legal Aid Society to support one new housing per legal.

So that's an interesting observation because I think that the last meeting, what you discussed was specifically talking to LAJC about this because CVLAS had some limitations around income, but Richmond actually sounds like they allotted it to CVLAS specifically.

New Legal Aid members will grant free legal resources to an estimated 450 tenant families facing eviction in the next year.

It's exciting.

It is exciting.

So I mean, it's right here in our backyard.

Yep.

So it can work.

It's also interesting to think that, you know, I don't know if this is causal or what the right term is, but

I wonder, I hope we don't need to go down this path, but I do wonder about cities and places that have right to council, if that is impacting

Is that like, is there a positive, I don't know that, I don't know that we have data on that, but is there a positive impact on that?

I'm nodding because the thing I just read about Pennsylvania's cost benefit analysis found that not only would it decrease evictions and save money,

but it would also lead to about a five percent annual decline in eviction filings so that would indicate yes.

I think some of the programs are so new that it's hard to look at the tangible points and supposed to be anticipated things.

So they're talking about in Boulder, this article.

So I'm going to talk about, for example, after RTC was passed in 2020 through an ordinance, 63% of those in the cases of border eviction

resulting in a 26% increase in the number of cases that avoided eviction.

Did you get the updated one?

I don't know how much more we want to add.

I mean, one of the things that's interesting in here and even is even the for me.

So you like we talk about it in terms of a racial

Justice issue in here.

They also talk about it in terms of gender justice, economic justice, and children's rights issues.

And I don't know how much we want to go down all those paths, but all of the, like there's so many pieces that, as we all know, play into what eviction actually means for people.

Or do we just leave it?

That's what I'm saying.

It's a gender,

gender justice, it's a children's rights issue, right?

Like I'm saying, it's all of those.

We pull out right now the racial justice.

And that might be, that might be, I don't know that we need to go any further.

But it is all of those things, right?

Like it's

And thus, I don't know.

In particular, Black women.

Right.

It is very specifically an intersectional issue of Black women disproportionately, right?

I think we might have what we need.

I don't know if we should say anything about children.

And I don't know how many children are impacted, right?

Oh, I know.

I said, I just don't know.

Actually, if you scroll up, we do talk about... Do we?

...families in particular.

Yeah, it makes sense.

That's an economic consequence for families.

I'll make this up for you.

Yeah, please.

And children and mothers, yeah.

Let me see if I can find anything.

I don't know if they have anything shared.

What about some of the people who have learning disabilities or who

Emotional disabilities who also can be easy to take advantage up to, which you may not understand by policies works.

Families with children are twice as likely to receive an eviction filing as opposed to adults without children.

Susan, I like what you stated from that article in the summary.

I don't think it's too harsh.

Did you have a number there, T?

Did you get it?

We don't always just edit letters, but these are often just letters.

These are very important.

These are very important.

Yes.

This is a new thing.

Great.

Not great that children aren't getting evicted, but.

OK, Suzanne, did you want to add the sentences that you found about talking about this as a justice issue?

Yes.

If you read that out to me, I can.

OK, I'm going to let you clap.

Yeah, if you look at this.

So you've got like, okay, nationally, 90% of landlords are represented by legal counsel and evictions.

And then the next sentence, we start talking about the categories, we start talking about, you know, in particular, black women.

And then we go back to having a lawyer changes matters dramatically for tenants.

You know?

Does that make sense?

Something?

Alright, that's the element.

I'm highlighting a space after the sentence, highlighting that sentence.

That might be a good space for the ACLU quote.

This issue disproportionately affects people of color and thus be considered urgent matter.

This is a

I feel like you might have just deleted something that I'm not sure if you meant to.

OK.

So where is the quote that you were quoting from?

Yeah.

Sure.

I'm like hanging out in these, you'll use right to counsel.

It's on its way right now.

I can start saying it to you if you want to.

Or it should be.

It's going to be what I just sent to you.

Let's plagiarize that.

No.

Everything you teach has told you.

Sorry, Ernest.

It feels like a good conclusion.

All right.

Leo Sterling, and Maria Marciaga.

And then once we're done with this letter, we should take a look at the other letter and make sure that one feels good to go.

That one, I think the last question was just, was what we had in the letter aligned with what Sam said at the city council meeting?

All right.

I rewrote it.

What do you think?

Could you pull it?

I don't know.

Oh, who's sharing?

Pull it.

Yeah.

Yep.

Same direction.

Oh, there you go.

The bottom.

It's the bottom of the letter.

I don't know if this would be helpful, but I just got edit permission from Mary.

Oh.

I requested it.

implementing whatever you did into the doc, you know, to do that.

It's, we're done, right?

Yeah, the, the.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

These add, they don't need to be below here.

To combine them?

No, they don't need to be below.

I can, so right now it's set up as footnotes.

Okay.

And all the citations are in the first part of the letter.

Okay.

We can make it like a work cited if you want it at the end.

I can also, I also like to hyperlink instead of having footnotes.

Can we do that in a PDF and still have it be accessible?

Got it.

That's a good question.

PDF document is properly exported.

Not all these are actually hyperlinks, I'm realizing.

Some of them are just like Mary cited her expertise.

Well, not herself, but Mary cited like books that she's read on right to counsel.

I just feel so academic.

No, it feels like grade school.

It feels like I'm writing a paper and I'm in middle school.

That's my actual name.

So maybe it's not references, but I want to have the references tied to the

Eh.

So we probably still want Mary to read through this, right?

Oh, yes.

Before we, yeah.

Can we just vote on it?

I think it's pretty common.

We fully agree with the direction.

If any minor changes are made, great.

I don't think we've changed the tone of her letter and she drafted it already.

Right now all I'm doing is updating hyperlinks.

Do you want to keep this one up still or pull up the other?

You had worked on the previous letter as well, correct?

Okay.

Yeah, there was one that was called Bump Bump.

Yeah, I can't remember that.

No worries.

So I'll just name the housing.

So we talked about this at the last meeting, and the main change that was made, need to elaborate, but the main change that was made was

What you see in the second paragraph, rather than encouraging them to do the right, like the last letter was more like, please do these things.

This was thank you so much.

And we support, you know, we support, we encourage city council to support and pass a budget that includes all the housing recommendations and then we just

use the information below and have kept them.

We've just changed it so it's more in terms of we affirm rather than we recommend.

So we are affirming the equitable and low barrier year-round shelter, which we talked about last time, the effective right to counsel, and then the supports for homelessness.

And the main outstanding question from the last meeting was, like I said, was what we had in the letter what Sam had laid out?

And these are, and I think several of us have since watched the video, and these are all correct.

I can clean it up and then send it, Ernest, to you and Todd.

Okay.

Okay.

So we don't need to do anything else to this one other than what was added.

Right.

We just wanted a fact check.

No.

Cool, thank you, Susan.

And I'll get that to Todd.

Yep, because that one has to go before the other one.

Yeah, this one has to go.

Yep, yep.

By removing, by making hyperlinks, we got it all on one page.

Which one, the great council one?

Let me have this.

The city's letterhead is way too big.

With its big banner.

The question about the right to cancel letter, it says in April.

We wrote to you in support of an effort to provide universal counsel to tenants.

Did we do that?

I don't remember that.

I don't know, but I thought it sounded a little

Can we send something in April?

I was wondering it was April of 2021.

I wonder if it's an old yeah if it's an old part of that.

Was 2020 August of 2020?

It's not like we've been... Every month, come on!

I'm happy you brought that up.

It was only three years ago.

However, it was COVID-19.

Do you still want this one out?

Are we done with that one?

I'll clean it up and yeah.

Let's clean it up, let's set it up.

Oh, we need to update the date for the vote, though, because we said we unanimously voted, and we did vote it last time.

We voted it during the special meeting.

Yes.

Yep.

So now we just need to look at the right to counsel.

Can we pull that back up again?

Yes, please.

OK. We can move on.

Oh, let me site our letter from the last time, because it should be on our website.

and obviously the starting of new councillors.

Where do we find the resolutions that we've previously submitted?

Oh, on the website?

Yeah.

Ordinance subpage.

It's just a big list.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, it did.

Oh, he actually wrote two letters to council, one in April of 2021 and one in August of 2021.

Okay.

It's been a minute.

Oh, actually, Mary was a 2021 letter.

Let me know if I need to scroll anything.

Wolfgang, is there a period at the end of Invest in Affordable Housing eviction?

Is there a period there?

Okay.

Yeah.

Cursor is there.

Kathryn, you're so like...

It's ridiculous, isn't it?

There are reasons I have to get it.

Thanks for sending me the meeting.

Budget Development Calendar.

Okay, I think I've made all the changes I want to make to this.

Clack of the Clack.

Clack of the Clack.

Notations, annotations, mutations.

Is everybody have a chance to look at that letter?

It feel okay if we were to vote on it tonight that we want that letter to, once we send it to Mary and she look at it, that we will go ahead and send both

We will send the first letter about agreeing and city council supporting the city manager's efforts and then send those right after.

Are we sending this letter to city council or are we sending this letter to city council and city manager?

That goes to everybody anyway.

City manager.

Yes.

Gotcha.

Right.

Ernest?

Yes.

Kathryn?

Yep.

Jason?

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

Thank you, everyone.

I know that was like kind of

Got it done.

So that's what work sessions are for.

If we are done with both of those, are we good with both of those letters so we can move on?

Okay.

Confirmation of work session on 12-5.

I will not be here.

Just lift your hands up.

No.

I mean, all the stuff that we need to do is probably much email.

And we don't need to, I mean, especially anything we're doing with committee nominations and things like that, you know, we don't need to be face to face for that, that I can think of.

I will need to

Um, participate virtually on December 19th.

So hopefully that's okay.

I mean, I'll, I'll fill out all of this stuff, but if you can participate virtually.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Uh, so right now, no meeting on 12-5.

Okay.

Uh, do we need to go over the work plan?

I skipped over that, sorry.

So we are in November 21st.

We'll do that on the 19th.

There we go.

Sometimes when you try to share your screen, you're like, which document is it?

There we go.

Oh, right.

I'm sure it's Todd who needs to face it.

I know.

I'm so sad that it's not Todd.

It's a journey.

We're going to get there.

It just needs to be right.

regular meeting 116, that's elections, right?

Are you going to hold a work session on the 2nd of January?

Do I have it on the second?

Have it on the first.

I sound like people who have actual New Year's plans.

I'm like...

I need to go to bed by 10.

Yeah, exactly.

So for actions between meetings in November, the nomination committee will send out.

I have much faith in you.

Ernest, and just a heads up, we put this on here.

Yeah, keep it there.

OK. Keep it there.

Yeah, I just want to make sure.

It's a hard one.

It's one of those ones that we put in there, and it's like, oh, it's an easy one.

Great.

Anything else on this?

Oh, Todd, I'd also maybe suggest in January that 16th, like I know we start the planning for the work session in February, but it could be good in January to just start nailing dates for the work session because it's on a Saturday and yeah.

Oh, fair.

Yeah.

Yes.

Sorry for the retreat.

Usually in March.

It's usually in March, but the first weekend, first and second weekend of March.

It is.

Even in January it might be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Last year we did like a Doodle poll to see when people were free.

Okay.

I can do that.

So maybe in December you're going to set up the Doodle Bowl?

Just like, I don't know.

Before?

Yeah.

So I guess we need to put that as an action.

Say Wolfgang, I'll do it.

Does the Office of Human Rights have any events that are happening on Saturdays as you track any weekends that are bad for y'all too?

I mean, I'll include y'all in April, but... Oh, in March?

Yeah, in March.

Not on Saturdays.

Any other questions, anything else that we need to add to the work plan?

No, no, no, you don't need to put it back on.

I just need to make sure I ask.

All right.

So do we have any new business?

I know that one thing, well, I'll just food for thought.

I sat in an hour and a half meeting about parliamentary procedures today.

It was interesting to hear.

Was this Murray or Robert?

What I wanted to bring to you is that, Mary Martha, I know we used, we intensively used Martha's rules when we were doing the vote on whether or not to hold a public hearing, which I think was inappropriate.

What I did hear take away from this hour and a half training today was that

You know, all of that stuff just exists for you to help facilitate getting work done and none of the pieces of it are required.

And so it's a matter of like, do you clearly know what your decision was?

Did you have a decision making process?

And was everyone heard?

And so it was it was helpful to hear that and go, okay, I don't do anything.

Because I thought when I heard the training was coming up, I was like, oh, they're gonna try to push us all back to Roberts and want to get all formal.

But that's not what they said.

They said, it's kind of my whole job.

Use what you need out of it.

Leave what you don't.

So we're in good shape.

Great.

No, I didn't.

Yes.

Robert says,

Yes.

That's good to know.

We'll carry that with me, because I think that's the important part, is getting the work done.

I know that there are some that are so connected to Robert's Rules and things like that, so parliamentary procedures.

Jefferson's manual.

That is a matter.

Public comment, if you are

For my webinar and your attendance, use the raise hand function.

There's one attendee.

Still no raise hands?

Nope.

All right.

Well, I have one.

Yes.

There is a meeting this Saturday at the public library for people who want to think about how to stay engaged moving forward.

We use the indivisible list and it is indivisible inspired, affiliated, but it is not.

in the Swanson Room at the Central Library, 11th.

This is kind of further out and not so Charlottesville-centric, but it's regional.

In Culpeper, the Circuit Court is doing an event to commemorate three lynchings, and they're going to be having a criminal motions docket to kind of reverse

and rectify the wrongdoings of that.

In Culpeper?

Which to me is kind of worth the drive.

Anything else?

No other commission updates?

All right.

So we have our next steps.

So we'll be getting in contact with you guys.

Please ask an email.

And then per email, we'll be making phone calls.

If you have anything that comes up, meetings or anything that comes up, please get the information out to us.

If you hear anything, see anything, okay?

All right, again, enjoy the holiday season.

Take care of yourself and your loved ones.