Human Rights Commission Meeting   1/16/2025

Good evening.

I'd like to call this meeting to order at 636.

We are the Human Rights Commission.

And this is our regular meeting.

We're meeting our first meeting of the year of 2025 on January 16th.

Here.

OK.

Here.

Very.

Here.

So, so glad you're here.

Would we please say our mission all together, please recite together.

If you are a member of the public participating virtually, if you experience technical difficulties, you may call 434-970-3115.

and a staff person will assist you.

That is 434-970-3115.

Lily, do we have anyone for our matters of the public?

No.

No one online?

Awesome.

All right.

Well, it is now over selections.

What I will do, I trust that I will receive my email.

I did have a few responses back.

So I will say that Susan did respond to me back and said that she could not chair or co-chair right now because she is a chair of another board.

But she was still here, but she couldn't chair or co-chair at this time.

I do have two people, but before I do that, is there anyone that would like the opportunity to chair who did not send me a response?

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh my, Jason.

That's what we think.

That's so true.

No one else?

Okay.

So the two people that sent responses back to me are Heather and Wolfgang.

So, now I don't know if either one of them have a desire to be, you know, strategize to be chair and the other be vice chair or I don't know.

Can we have two chairs?

This one, make sure we have all the information.

of who wants to run and in positions.

So you wouldn't have to do all of that stuff.

Technically, we're supposed to fight a rule.

OK. Then I'm going to you by the way.

So I'll pass it over to Todd.

Go ahead, Todd.

I was not trying to infringe upon your authority.

No, no, no.

No, no.

I just wanted to make sure I did my job as a nominating, as part of the nominating committee to know who was being, who had wanted to be a part.

Thank you, Nominating Committee.

It was an exhausting.

Yeah, that was quite the email.

Well, thanks.

So my first question is to ask if you, as the spokesperson for the election committee,

You told us that the slate of candidates currently is Wolfgang, Heather, and we had a nomination from the floor, which is another step in here.

We'll get to Jason.

Are there any, and you accept the nominations.

Let me ask you that question.

I didn't put my glasses up.

No, I would have been nominated as chair.

Yes.

Okay, by Ernest.

Okay, by Ernest.

Would you accept that?

Heather, were you nominated for chair?

I don't know.

I don't know when I was nominated.

I think I just responded.

But I don't know when I was nominated.

Yes, she was nominated.

Okay.

I nominated myself for vice chair.

Well, I haven't been told that I was vice chair.

I mean, who would have told me in my email that I was nominated for something?

I mean, someone else would have to tell me what I was nominated for.

Put yourself forth for a leadership position.

Is that correct?

I put myself, I said that I would happily be vice chair and that if nobody wanted to be the chair, because obviously that can happen, then I'd be happy to do it.

The reason I ask is we need to make a motion to nominate and then to second the nomination for the chair position.

So if there are a few of you interested in their care, that's fine.

Can we do a sidebar?

Yeah, sure, sure.

Can we leave?

You want a chit chat?

Yeah, we want a chit chat.

It's not a public, it doesn't need to be a public meeting because it's too long.

Okay, public chit chats.

Okay.

Whenever your wishes are, like I'll either be very supportive,

So I can show more consistently if there isn't the pressure of the name with it.

I feel like Jason should be part of this conversation too.

Back and forth consternation of who wants to do it, who actually wants to do it, and I actually want to do vice chair.

So yeah, I'll actually do it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because it needs to be done.

I would have walked away, but I don't use that under your breath.

I would take myself off the slate, which is why I... Oh no, the chair slate.

That's between you guys.

Okay, three vice chairs.

I'm happy to be the chair.

I'm happy for you to be the chair.

I feel like, you know, you've been doing vice chair for a long time, so if you had any

She does an excellent job.

Bandwidth of my life fluctuates a lot.

I don't want to be in a position where I can't consistently show up for it.

I know I can consistently show up for Vice Chair because I've done that this past year.

That's mostly it.

I also really want somebody who has a vision for what this position is supposed to be doing this coming year.

And I don't think I have that vision besides to support what various organizations in this community put forward because they're the ones doing the work.

I'm not currently doing housing work.

And so I have my finger less on the pulse of what the community needs or what the community

Very busy, but manageably busy because I have staff.

I mean, I'd have the time to do it.

I mean, I could do it.

Is time holding you back?

No.

I see the work that Wolfgang has done.

And so I think Wolfgang would be the natural choice.

But I'm totally happy to do it.

We also think about just in practice, the chair is just the first among equals.

The chair and vice chair do more behind the scenes work than anybody else sitting around here.

You do a lot of lettering.

And there's meetings to be had between to plan these meetings and sometimes discussions about strategic approach to things that we're trying to do.

So it's a bit more of a commitment.

We do have descriptions of those.

Well, it seems to me we have like only one nomination for chair at the moment.

Is that right?

Literally the only person willing to know we want you.

Okay.

I was willing to do it if there was no one else willing to and no one else willing to do it.

But if you were deferring to me,

because you thought that it was logical for me to step up.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

It's fine if some of them take a little bit less fan mode.

Okay, it's a surprise.

I thought you'd want to do it.

So it's a surprise.

But yes, I mean, I can absolutely do that.

We can call for additional nominations from the floor in a moment.

I think that the main thing now would be to

for someone to propose a motion to nominate Heather, if that's what we're getting to.

And then a second for that.

And then anybody else who would like to be a nominee.

Oh, I just made the motion for Heather.

Oh, you did?

So the record will show that Jason made a motion.

Wolfgang, second.

Thanks for Heather as chair.

Anyone else?

For chair only.

Got it.

None?

Okay, any nominations from the floor?

And the thing to understand is that if there's a nomination from the floor, then we would hold a vote for, I think how we do this, we hold the vote.

I think we hold the vote for the first person.

Let me look how I do this.

It's kind of weird.

Maybe save you that by just not having it.

We hold the vote for the first candidate, and if the majority votes for the first candidate, then that person is chair.

If the majority does not vote for the first candidate, then we vote for the second candidate.

Does that make sense?

That's the procedure.

So if there are no other nominations, then we just vote for the only nominee.

Proceed.

Sure.

Any other nominations from the board?

None.

Hearing none, we'll close nominations.

And the one deviation that we've decided upon previously was to offer people the opportunity to speak before the election if there are multiple people.

If you would like to speak, you're welcome to about why you want to do it.

OK.

I'm happy to speak if that would be helpful.

I have run a lot of things in my life.

I mean, I think of myself as very junior on this body, but I've run political organizations and have advised on issues of human rights for pretty much my entire professional career.

If nothing else, we'll go ahead and hold the vote for chair.

So this is a vote for the nominee.

Heather Furchar, I'm just going to roll call vote.

Everybody's ready for that.

Ernest?

Yes.

Mary?

Yes.

Dawn?

Yes.

Suzanne?

Yes.

Jason?

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

All right.

Anyway, thank you very much.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks for your willingness to do it.

I'm very happy to.

So we're going to go through the same process basically for Vice Chair now.

I heard two

Are we allowed to discuss first or do we motion?

You can.

Can I make a motion for Jason Melendez?

Okay.

So the record will show there's two nominations.

The first nomination for Wolfgang and the second nomination for Jason.

OK, so in the process will be that we'll vote first for the first nominee.

And then Wolfgang, if you get majority vote, you are right, Sharon.

If you don't, then you don't.

And if neither of you get the majority, then I'm not really sure what we're going to do and scratch our heads.

Wait, I hope there's an odd number.

Why are we doing two?

Is there a time when the candidate says something?

We added that in.

I just didn't know where.

Both candidates can speak before we do the election, as long as we're closing nominations.

Oh, well, we would give them the opportunity.

It's sort of up to you all.

I personally would, but may I?

So and maybe, so I think I am, I'll just name, I am struggling.

I want you both to, like, I'm like, how do we, like, we have three people who want leadership roles and it, you know, I realized that that's not how we're set up and we, it sounds like we can't have co-vice chairs or co-chairs or what have you.

So,

Wolfgang, you've been doing this work for a long time.

I think you do it incredibly well.

And I think you'd be a great vice chair and continue to do that.

Jason, you bring a new perspective to this work, you know, and that's not lost on me as well.

And it's also not lost on me, like, as I think about, like, facing the Human Rights Commission as well.

Like, there were things, so I am very, I am completely torn right now.

In turn, that's why maybe everybody else is like they know where they want to go.

But just like there was some discussion about the chair, I realize it was amongst yourselves.

I just want to name that we have two great people, both of whom bring probably some similar and some different perspectives.

And I don't know.

And maybe once you all speak about why you'd like to be vice chair, that will be

Thanks, Suzanne.

I want to really appreciate that both of you are willing to do this.

And I actually think that speaks to the strength of the commission, that there are two strong people who are willing to take on leadership roles.

And so I just, I guess I don't want us to be afraid to have to vote and make a decision because I think that is how the process is supposed to go.

And we've only great people to choose from.

Just one comment, question actually.

Yeah.

Why can't we have two co-vices?

I mean, it is, that's right.

We don't have any additional voting power.

It's just, it's a little bit more behind the scenes work of approving the minutes.

Is an alternative person to show up when the chair is unavailable?

It's an interesting question.

I think your rules and procedures really don't, they're silent on anything like that.

I can't find anything.

Membership and shall exercise the powers and perform the duties of the chair during the absence, disability or disqualification of the chair.

Yeah.

It doesn't really speak to it.

Interesting idea.

So our rules and procedures, typically you can amend them.

You have to amend them like,

Good question.

Yeah, yeah.

But we can't do another motion now, right?

Can we table the motion?

Risk the rational city attorney who is

I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I think that's pretty.

Here's the here's the here's a thought you could you could entertain.

You could postpone election of vice chair to your next regular meeting in February.

And then

At that same time, you could amend your rules and procedures to allow for co-chairs and co-vice chairs.

Why not do that?

Because I don't think there's any reason.

I don't see a reason, unless someone else does, why that would be OK.

I think it's a really cool idea.

And you don't have to do it every time.

And you two could just flip a coin.

Because one of the things the vice chair does do is preside over meetings if the chair is not here.

I like that it speaks to the idea of what you said, too, is that life is volatile, right?

And sometimes things get in the way.

Sounds cool.

Yeah, innovative.

So we found a solution.

I love it.

I love it.

That's something to consider.

That's also true.

So three days in advance.

And we would have to have the ability to host the public.

Or you could take turns showing up.

It's getting really complex.

I really appreciate you saying that.

I think we could probably handle it though.

Right.

I have a lot of time on my hands.

So if anyone's worried about time commitments or volatility, you know, I just have not a lot to do.

A lot of what I do professionally is the same organizations that we would interact with as a city entity, so I'm having meetings with these folks very often as it is.

This is what I would say is Jason would be, you'd be a great advocate in that position, but that doesn't change anything that you do within

as a support, meaning writing up stuff or being part of the meetings and those type of things.

And I think if you're concerned with things going on in your life or having the ability to make sure you're, because it, because the thing of bouncing, worried about, are you going to be there?

Are you not going to be there?

Are you going to be there and not going to be there?

That's a lot of, that's a lot of

Juglin that you don't have to do if you just have one solid person there.

And, but what you bring to the table does not, you know, it's not a title needed.

You are awesome.

And you would still benefit and do just as much work being in position if you're not a vice chair.

But I think, just to me, Jason,

Yeah, it makes it a little more easier, especially if Heather has to, because she travels every once in a while and can't be around.

And I want you to continue growing from where you've been

so that, because you do classes and things like that that you're doing as well, correct?

I know you can handle it all, but that's just where I am.

And I think, so I'm not trying to diminish anything that you do or bring, but I just, in me, I kind of feel it has to be a chair.

and a vice chair, and not have two people doing that.

So we don't have issues of worrying about who's there, who's not there.

We have to worry about having a public notice and all that type of thing.

That's a lot of extra work.

It sounds very innovative.

It sounds cool to do.

But I think if we just keep it to chair, vice chair, and we just

Fine.

If everybody votes and says we would love to have you in that position, that's what we do.

I'm not asking you to get out of it.

I'm just weighing some things in my thoughts.

So before we go too much further, I want to figure out where we're headed with this, because I think if you are going to table this and vote to revisit at your next meeting, we should

Head that direction, someone should make a motion for that.

If you want to continue with this process, then we can continue with the process as it currently stands.

Just to kind of give you like, okay, we're kind of at a decision point.

Could we continue like just a tiny bit more of the conversation?

I just wanted, I mean, I wanted to ask Wolfgang, you know, you talk about your capacity and not wanting to be chair, but you know, as,

Vice Chair, you have been really consistently here and you keep track of things really well and you're very solid.

So I don't know if you're anticipating

I look for being vice chair.

I have total confidence in my ability to keep doing exactly what I've been doing.

I've seen what it takes to be chair, what Ernest has done, what Mary has done, what Chantelle did, what previous chairs did.

And I knew I do not have that bandwidth because you were on tap on call.

I'm going to scare you off.

But you're on tap for a lot of things, some of which are very in time and flexible.

and often last minute and public facing as well.

And I think you would be great at that, especially if you have bandwidth for it.

I can make bandwidth for it, but only if nobody else was enthusiastic about stepping up into that position.

So I'm glad that you are in terms of vice chair position.

I know I have the ability and the capacity to do it because I've been doing it this past year.

Thanks for that.

I was really persuaded by Ernest's, you know, co-chairs don't make sense and it doesn't make sense to have to pick which vice chair can go to a meeting, right?

I thought it was a clever idea, but Ernest persuaded me.

Yeah, Billy's point about it being more complex.

Like, oh yeah, we have to publicly notice every meeting.

It's already done.

If you're going to change your track out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

We're good.

Okay.

Sure.

I don't have a prepared statement.

But I would like to first accept the nomination for Vice Chair and

I really value the work that we're able to do, this committee, this commission.

I value the work that we're able to do for our community, to represent our community, to be able to outreach into our community and to provide a really unique space for local human rights advocacy.

I don't see a lot of human rights commissions across the state of Virginia, especially ones as active as ours.

And I've been,

Very grateful to be a part of that since 2015.

We've seen a lot of, yeah, a lot of changes in our city, partly due to local, not just us, but other local community advocates who keep pushing that work forward.

I'll keep it largely brief because this is not an adversarial process by nature.

We feel all very solemn about it, but it's not an adversarial process.

It's just like Catherine said.

It would be helpful to have a new voice in the leadership.

You know, Wolfgang's work is never going to go away.

Ernest was absolutely right in everything he said.

I think it would be super helpful to have a person of color in our leadership as we continue to do advocacy with groups that are deeply impacted by some of the issues that we're working with.

And then I really also want to be able to leverage my legislative background because, you know, for example, when it comes to, you know, us advocating for access to council, I was able to take that idea, walk down the hall and say, Hey, house appropriations committee, we've got this surplus $500,000.

Can we get that in Charlottesville for access to council?

And that is now going to be in our budget and potentially in our budget.

So I, you know, I would like to be able to

work with Versatile, but you know, I can do all of that with the title or without the title.

So that's just, but I have the time.

Okay.

Can we whine a minute about the voting process?

It's very irritating that we have to vote against something in order to vote for something.

In the past, I feel like we voted for a person.

I don't know.

In all of the previous elections that I've run, we've done this thing.

And I was like, that is actually not a thing available to us.

It is true that I was very temporarily vice chair in 2016 because our then chair, Ann, said, do you want to do it?

And I said,

Shore, and I was suddenly vice chair.

You know, because we could always change these, you know, at some point if you wanted to change them, take a look at them, but it works.

I do realize the clunkiness of it.

I just need it to rhyme.

I'm good now.

Thank you.

It's fine.

But yeah, if you do a proposal for a change, we could always make a change to the procedures.

Okay.

So I'm going to go ahead and hold the vote for Wolfgang as vice chair.

So do roll call vote.

Ernest?

Yes.

Yes.

Do I vote for myself?

You can.

Great.

God, if I didn't.

With so much love and appreciation for you, Wolfgang, and the work that you have done, I'm voting no.

I think I feel the same way.

OK. Yeah.

Same.

I'm voting no.

Jason A lot of respect, no.

That's why I pre-wind about it.

I know.

I know.

Heather.

I'm voting yes.

Does that mean it's high grade third?

I think I'll vote now.

Okay, and I know this is a strange process and Wolfgang, thank you for your graciousness and working through this process and having to be the first one.

We'll hold the vote for Jason as vice chair.

I know.

Okay, here we go.

Ernest?

No.

Okay.

Catherine?

Yes.

You say no?

No.

Okay.

Jason?

Sorry, what's the count?

What's the count at?

I'll just say yes.

If I voted yes for Wolfgang, so

Then I vote no for Jason.

I mean, I realize I could vote yes for Jason too.

You can change your vote.

The roles haven't closed.

Wait.

No, no.

Sorry.

Yeah.

No, the whole.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I didn't.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay.

Sure.

I know it's a weird process.

Elizabeth?

Yes.

Okay.

Jason, with one, two, three, four, five, six votes, you have the majority of the votes.

So you

Thank you both for participating and all for participating in this kind of funny process.

So that was not fun.

Where's this process come from to change the way you propose the change?

Take a look at the rules.

It's been the same.

My election, there was another candidate.

We did the same.

Yeah.

But here's the thing.

If you want to change it, take a look at it in the rules and procedures.

Happy to entertain a different procedure.

And yeah, not a big deal.

Thanks for voicing the opinion.

Well, so my role here is done, and I'll turn over leadership to the new chair from here on out.

And Ernest, thank you for all your service as chair.

Thank you for all your service as vice chair.

So Ernest is not the chair as of this moment.

Well, unfortunately, my computer is unable to get on the internet.

So I don't have the agenda in front of me.

I believe we have minutes to approve.

Two sets of minutes.

So does anybody have the agenda in front of them?

I do.

November 21st is the first.

OK, so thank you.

I don't know why my device has not happened, but clearly neither was I.

When are our first minutes?

November 21st.

Okay.

From November 21st.

Would anybody like to make a motion to approve the minutes from November 21st?

So moved.

Second.

So let's do a roll call.

Is it,

Do I do that?

Do I?

And definitely, we don't even do a motion for the minutes, but we can.

OK. We don't do roll call.

We don't do roll call.

Oh, we do roll call.

Is there any discussion?

No changes for the minutes, I guess?

OK. Yeah.

Ernest.

Yes.

OK. Whoops.

My computer didn't work there.

Yep.

Okay.

Suzanne.

Yes.

Jason.

Yes.

Heather.

Yes.

And our next set of minutes are from the December 19th meeting.

Do we have a motion to approve those?

So moved.

I'll second it.

And I'm just going in order of how it is on my roster.

Usually I'll call the chair and vice chair first, but it's still in this order.

So Ernest?

Yes.

Wolfgang?

Yes.

Mary?

Yes.

Catherine?

Yes.

Dawn?

Yes.

Suzanne?

Yes.

Jason?

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

Okay, next it's business matters.

Ernest, I guess you would not like to provide an update because you're stepping, you're moving on.

So that is my big update.

I will be here much more to be all of our, I do make it to meetings already, but behind the scenes things and all of those things, I will be here much more in Charlottesville.

OHR staff report?

I don't have anything really.

There's not a lot of outreach happening at this time in terms of tabling and yeah, the pregnant workers rights brochure, I'm waiting on the last translation and then we'll be able to get those printed and start distributing them, which is exciting.

Oh yes!

For those who ride city buses, look for Office of Human Rights ads on the buses.

There should be one in every bus either already or in the next hopefully week or two.

Nice.

Yeah, it is.

Especially postcards.

Do you all have anything you'd like to share?

No, I'd say due to the wonderful work of our outreach person, Lily.

We do have some intakes that have increased over time, but I think we're doing a good job as a team to make sure that we're doing them and following through with the process.

Agreed.

I think that it's pretty wonderful to have this team and see everybody kind of really stepping up to do all the tasks that are happening.

We're doing a lot of evaluation on growth right now.

And I think that's an important thing to just think about.

We're about to probably become a fair housing assistance program on the 21st.

Really?

I go to council and present the ordinance yet again.

Hopefully it goes through.

Council, if you're listening, I'm going to ask you hopefully to do it in one reading because it would be nice to get this done soon.

Because I don't know what's going to happen at federal government with this program.

So I would like to get into it before we can.

So there's that.

But with that comes the idea that there could be more work and different work

And so I think we were talking a lot about what that might look like for the office and how we continue to build capacity and evaluate what's the right balance of work and do we need more people and all that kind of stuff.

So there's a lot to think about with that coming up.

But yep, first we got to get this ordinance passed.

Hopefully that will happen next Tuesday.

I know last time you said you didn't need us to come with you, but would it be helpful?

Well, you're always welcome.

Yeah, good question.

Yeah, and I'll do a little coordination.

I'm going to try to keep it short, because it's not super complicated, these changes.

But if you want to show up, that's fine.

Just be in there.

Thumbs up?

That's fine too.

No obligation, but thank you for the question.

Only other thing I was going to mention on here, we are heading into the time where I need to prepare our annual report, which is a big thing.

And Heather, at some point, and potentially Jason,

They'll probably be in June when we present the annual report to council.

I got to write it first, but we'll get it done before the annual meeting because we like to use the data to tell us a little bit about what might be our priorities for the coming year.

And I noticed that, so it's kind of exciting because all of our data is in, and so all of 2024's data is in there except there's an error.

And that error is in the tool number of

Private education and credit complaints in Charlottesville.

For some reason it says there's a whole bunch of them, but that's because the formula accidentally read public accommodation.

And I just figured that out last night.

So the data will change, but those were zero.

We haven't gotten complaints in those two protected activities.

But anyway, other than that, I think the data is solid.

We've done a pretty good job at cleaning it up.

And so we'll get that report out soon.

And you guys will have a chance to look at it before

the annual meeting if I get my act together.

So that's all I have for you.

Anything else that I'm forgetting that we're working on?

There's a lot of work right now.

There's a ton of work, but we're doing it well.

So I'm excited.

It's really great to see the system working and now we just keep refining it.

So thanks.

Okay, so now we're going to move on to the work session.

Are there action updates?

And after this we'll do, I believe a work plan check-in and just confirm when the next work session will be scheduled for February 6th.

And then we'll be able to do it.

Only action update is we signed the two letters and got them to count.

Yeah, I meant to reply that email.

Sorry, it's been a week as people have readjusted and not to having water again in Richmond.

But yeah, we did Delia Carlson and I believe Senator Deeds may have as well put in a budget request to utilize $500,000 over the surplus for DHCD pass through funding for Charlottesville so that they could implement a eviction council pilot program.

That's good.

Good.

That's interesting.

He's the legislative person.

Oh, he's the legislative person.

Thank you.

Which is a whole other can of worms because the city does.

Kind of put it in context, the city doesn't have a dedicated person doing legislative advocacy at the General Assembly right now.

So really, the closest you get to it is really David Blount, me, Katrina, and Creed.

That's pretty much all you get out of it.

With no current full-time city attorney, there is no one who is currently doing that work.

Whereas in Albemarle, there is staff doing that work.

Council still has a legislative committee that's supposed to take our recommendations.

And they did do that.

They actually voted to adopt some of the recommendations that we made legislatively.

And then how they may incorporate the Right to Counsel letter, which was a policy and practice letter that you sent, may

Doug Teal with this potential legislative action.

So we'll see.

We have a lot of money to work with at the state level right now.

Very exciting.

So let me get this first.

You do one of the deputies of the attorneys, but the portfolios, my understanding is so stretched in that there is no dedicated person, usually at responsibility is housed in the city attorney's office.

There's no dedicated attorney doing legislative review.

It's usually been, it's from what I understand has been picked up by deputy city manager, Eden Ratliff.

David Blood's in Richmond.

So that's the only person that they've got down in Richmond, but we don't have the, it would really be helpful to have an attorney.

Have they had one in the past?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that is always the fine point to remember is that we as a commission, or you all as the commission, can't directly advocate to state legislators.

We can only lift recommendations up to council.

The unique piece is that you're working there, so you can tell

The people you're working with, what people are working on, and it's up to them whether they go, oh, that's interesting, and choose to adopt and move something forward.

But yeah, I think there is a good point that we have to be careful to articulate that this isn't the commission using a backdoor to legislation.

What kind of commission advocate to city council, city manager that we need to have?

You could certainly write a letter to that effect, yeah.

I know they're definitely working on the hiring process.

It's just never fast.

Yeah.

Are there other updates?

Okay, so I think we'll move to the work plan check-in.

I can, my computer doesn't want to do that.

But let's see, how are we doing on our work plan?

We have officer elections.

March 22nd is the date when both of us are unavailable.

You said that you might be able to update your availability.

This is March 22nd?

And then there's a period of time, I think it's 1.30 until 3 that Dawn, you said you were unavailable.

I can find you.

Okay, great.

Okay.

At Carver?

Oh, yeah.

I think my calendar just decided to.

We did, but we did it the year before.

Okay, what time did you say?

Yeah, I have city space held already.

Great.

So here.

Perfect.

Okay.

If you'd like, I can send this as a calendar invite to the... Great.

It'll also have my

My partner's name on there because he needs to know what I'm doing on the weekend.

Fair.

And now Catherine's computer is not operating with me.

I usually have this, you know, all pulled out.

I'm getting a blue.

It's going like this is, you know.

So that's the Wi-Fi.

Yeah.

I don't know why mine won't be, well, join the Wi-Fi, but it just won't.

Okay, all right.

And we need to, okay, let's see.

Yeah, sure.

Will there, let's see, I have on this list also actions between meetings, like things that we might need to take between now and the next.

I'm looking at

Just other things that are in the work plan.

But maybe our next item might be to just to confirm when we are having our work session.

Is that right?

Or if it is needed.

It strikes me that

C before D is a little strange.

Because if there's new business, then we might do stuff.

Yeah, no, I apologize.

No, no, I know.

It's part of the agenda.

It's the agenda having new business last.

Can we go ahead and discuss if there's new business then?

I mean, we're very, okay, sure.

But so yes, I mean, could we just move to discussing new business?

Would that be okay?

Does that, yes, please.

Oh, are we on new business?

Sorry, I don't want to.

I want to make sure that this is OK, that I can do that, that we could just rearrange the agenda quickly.

I do.

I will say that I have been very concerned in the last week to 10 days with the accessibility of Charlottesville on sidewalks.

I have found.

run and I came home one day and said this is my observation it's plowed really nicely where rich people live and Monticello Avenue has not still not been plowed where and I really think that the city can do a better job and I appreciate there are lots of challenges and I just have

Liveable Seville, read a letter, people have seen that.

So those are some, the point of Liveable Seville was that the city should, in the future, start clearing sidewalks and use the plan that it already has.

We're thinking about

Who's using sidewalks for what?

To use an equity lens for deciding where it's really clearing sidewalks.

So I do know from informal conversations that they tried to do a little more.

They used the safe routes to schools to choose places to target.

And then the ice got so bad that there was some progress that then

Not saying it shouldn't be better and that we shouldn't advocate for more, but there appears to be willingness within the city to think about it and do some more.

Well, and there's a differentiation between the actual public sidewalks that haven't been plowed, like parks and

sidewalks around even I'm not sure if public buildings were included, but I know that there were parts where the sidewalks were on cloud.

So there was some attempt to do that.

So they went out afterwards.

The process, as I understand it, is

Property owners are supposed to clear sidewalks.

They have 24 hours from the last snowflake falling, which is sort of officially decreed by the city at some point.

Then they sent out city personnel to identify uncleared sidewalks.

And then they send contractors to see if the sidewalks have been cleared after they've warned.

So we're like days down the road.

And by then it was all iced in.

They're like, we can't even add any more to the contractor's list because they're like out there.

We're a snowblower on day one.

I would argue that it's not that unique in the sense that we

We don't get that much snow usually, and we probably will get, in many ways, less snow because of global warming, but we also have more risk for serious storms.

So it's not melting because there was that Arctic blah blah, and that's actually a global warming thing.

Yeah, I will say the roads were treated really well, or most of the roads seemed, but I don't know if that sidewalks were, sorry, were pretreated.

Let me not say treated.

pre-treated, but I don't know how and if sidewalks are pre-treated around here and what that looks like.

So yeah, so this entire nightmare.

City engineer in an informal social media exchange said that it would be about $65,000 to get the appropriate equipment

It's about 200 person hours of work to clear the sidewalks in the city.

And we were like, that doesn't sound that bad.

But then added on that the lack of ADA compliance actually made it harder.

So I'm laughing, but it's not funny.

Interesting.

Even walking here tonight, right?

Like there are still some places where I as a full able-bodied person had to tiptoe across snow and ice and or, you know, it's

Yes, I agree.

Only if you just go up Barracks Road is just one road that I'm on a lot.

I mean, people are walking in the street and it's a very busy and very narrow stream.

You can't even see the sidewalk on barracks.

There are already power lines right in the middle of it.

It would be very difficult to be in a wheelchair, go up the sidewalk or have a baby carriage or anything like that.

But yes.

I mean, I would suggest that we either

support the livable C-Bill letter, or we write our own letter.

But it seems to me like it's clearly an equity issue.

And I do think that I have friends that lived on streets where they said that

The area where you'd be driving the car was also like a solid sheet of ice.

So I'm not sure that everything is pretreated or that, you know, that clearly not all streets can be top priority, but I think that there could be an equity there as well.

I was driving today.

I had to pick someone up because I was going to the General Assembly the crack of dawn.

and I was picking someone up at Kindlewood and their loading zone outside like their main apartment building was like ice like this thick and that's like the loading zone for everyone that's getting in and out of that building you know who's not parking and walking in and I was really surprised about that because that's a that's an accessibility issue like for elderly folks if you're trying to drop someone off you can risk your car getting stuck on that ice

or they have to somehow get across that ice.

For public buildings, I know

I'm curious if the city might be able to do what it does for road treatments, which is offer the exact timeframe in which the road has been treated.

And not something I imagined would be feasible for any public or sidewalk right-of-way areas, but for public buildings or for buildings that the city manages at least some right-of-way access to, I wonder if it would be possible for them to include that to indicate like the sidewalk has been treated within the past four hours.

because they're able to provide real-time access, real-time updates with road treatments.

I don't know what mechanism they do that if it's like a tracker on a plow, which is what I suspect it is.

But if it's some other form or there's other ways to update that site, maybe they could include loading zones for public buildings and that too.

I just feel like they need to clear, like I'm looking at the county office building on Preston, cleared beautifully.

Voto's always clears beautifully.

In between is the unused railroad track that's owned by Norfolk Southern that has never been touched.

So you're going from Midway Manor to the bus stop in front of Voto's, which I know I see people do.

And do we have, I mean, we would need to, if we want to support the livable Seville letter, you know, we would need to probably review the letter and think about whether or not, you know, that's what we want to do or think about writing our own letter.

Perhaps a work session would be in order or something like that.

I don't think we could,

Figure it all out tonight, probably.

And also, we're going to have potentially another snow event.

And it's precipitation, right?

Yep, you start a draft.

You could work on it until the next meeting.

And, you know, we could cohere kind of cohere everything that we're learning, everything that we know about the livable Seville letter, circulate that, you know, see what we think about it.

You know, maybe consider the upsides and downsides of supporting an organization that's already doing something or give it a new suggestion.

Yeah.

It seems reasonable to me.

Does anybody want to

Yeah, I mean, we circulate the letter amongst ourselves.

Yeah.

Look at it.

There's social media these days.

Consider, well, I mean, I can send a copy of the letter.

I'm sure we can all get a copy of it, but I can definitely do that.

and, you know, consider whether or not we would just like to sign on to it or if we would like to write something of our own.

Does that seem reasonable?

I think it's a great idea.

Is there anything else on this?

Yes.

Well, no, no, on this topic, no.

Yeah, no, no, but other new business.

The other thing I'm wondering and I don't

if it's necessary and I will be leaving the work for you to do.

We should.

I mean, is there any- That's part of our letter, though.

That was part of the letter.

We did vote on a letter for that.

It just feels like there's been more discussion of the community, more issues raised.

If nothing else, I mean, I think the city managers spoke at the Fifeville Neighborhood Association and was pretty great, in my opinion, because he really shut down the hysteria over sexual predators and was like, we're just not entertaining that.

Not based in fact, right?

And I don't know if it would be helpful to at least acknowledge that.

It's funny.

It's serious talking.

Yeah.

I'd like to insist that it actually be low barrier.

Well, I think part of the problem based on what I read is there's no one to run.

Yes, you can't.

Is there more information about this topic that

I'd heard, I knew the Salvation Army.

I think what they're, I'm not even sure which of their rules, et cetera, say that they can't run full true low barrier shelters.

There's a nice article in Seville, two nice articles in Seville Tomorrow.

Really great articles, really well done.

It's going to be parents.

Yeah.

It's seven one.

Yeah, as we just said.

I think it could be.

I mean, we can do this on our own.

But I think in terms of potential things to include for our work session, which it sounds like we is probably the link to the Seville Tomorrow sidewalk letter.

And then I'm happy to pull up the other, and then the links, the links in the Seaville tomorrow.

So livable, yeah, Seaville tomorrow about low barrier.

Yeah, I'm happy to cohere some things and something about.

That'll be good to review all of those things.

Consider them in advance.

More on either this topic or more new business that we should be thinking about.

OK, so it seems like Mary's suggestion was a very good one, that this leads to the conclusion that, yes, it makes sense to do the work session.

It's February 6, and hopefully enough of us can make it.

But at work sessions, we do not necessarily vote, right?

So we don't have to.

OK, good.

But hopefully that will be productive, I bet.

Can we move to matters of the public or in-person and virtual attendees?

This is our public comment section.

If you are online, you can use the raise hand function.

If you are on the phone, you can do star nine to make a comment.

Okay, I'm just looking at you.

Okay, and there does not seem to be any public comment.

And now I'll move to Commissioner updates.

It's not an update, but I have to thank Kathryn and Ernest for I think this is the last session we have with you.

Yes.

Is this your last one?

Is it?

No.

This is not your last one.

No.

Then I will say two more meetings.

It's two more meetings.

OK.

But I was going to thank you and Ernest.

We want to thank you two for your leadership.

Ernest, we tried to get you to be a commissioner before you became commissioner.

So I'm glad you finally became commissioner.

And Wolfgang, I really appreciate all the work that you've done.

as vice chair, I guess I call you a commissioner, but a vice chair.

Well, gang, I don't know if you recall, but at the last meeting, or at the meeting in December, I was convinced that it was their last meeting that night.

Well, I did not, but yeah, but I love, but I've been thinking about like words to say, et cetera.

So let's clear, when is it last?

Catherine and Ernest's last day is?

17th to 16th.

I thought it was, but I thought the elections meant that like it changed.

It doesn't.

Okay, great.

Then I will save my words.

Yes.

Save that.

Well, this isn't necessarily an update, but I am curious how we're doing in terms of applications for the commission to fill these vacancies.

And I would encourage all of us to reach out to people who we think would be good fits.

February 1st, it was October, I thought.

There's like, there's other deadlines.

I believe there is.

Well, there are more deadlines.

Like right now is the tree commission.

You could join the tree commission.

There's not many options.

Yeah.

Good.

Good.

I think it's, yeah, it's really important.

Are there any other updates?

I believe we can adjourn this meeting unless there is anything further.

It says next steps and adjourn.

Do we move to adjourn?

Okay.

I would like to adjourn this meeting.