City Council Meeting   4/5/2021

If you're watching via Facebook and you want to participate in this meeting, you would go to charlottesville.gov slash zoom and register for the webinar.

That's the only way you can participate in a public hearing is through the webinar.

There is a telephone option.

So when you register for the webinar, you will also get some telephone numbers if you need to participate in that fashion.

Public comment will be taken by council during the consent agenda at the beginning of the meeting.

If you want to speak to one of those three items after the clerk reads them out, you can raise your hand and Mayor Walker will entertain comments for up to three minutes on the consent agenda.

Community matters.

We have spots for up to 16 people.

We had eight people sign up in advance and we can take another eight.

Each person will get up to three minutes to address council.

And those comments should not be one of the public hearing items.

we have two public hearings the first is item number four designation of trees and their protection under the tree conservation ordinance and then the public hearing on the budget so if you want to speak to the trees or the budget you would wait until those public hearings are opened by the mayor for any of those you can click the raise hand icon just to get in line and if you want to

to be one of the eight additional speakers during community matters.

Just wait till we get through the consent agenda and then you can click the raise hand icon.

There's also another opportunity at the very end of the meeting matters by the public where additional folks can provide feedback to council for up to three minutes each.

During each of these public hearing opportunities, speakers only get one opportunity to address counsel.

So if you raise your hand a second time, typically what I do is notify the mayor that you've done that and the mayor will explain the rules of procedure.

I'll read again the list of the first eight names under community matters.

First will be Nancy Carpenter, Rosemary Miller, Krista Bennett, Craig Luther, Lawrence Mann, John Edwin Mason, Chantelle Bingham, and Myra Anderson.

And I see we have one hand up, John Mason.

When we get to Community Matters, we have you as the number six speaker.

So we'll call on you at that time.

And you don't need to raise your hands right now because the consent agenda is going to come prior to Community Matters.

So as the meeting gets started, I'm going to lower everyone's hands.

Again, if you're just joining us, my name is Brian Wheeler, the city's director of communications and city council's finishing up a closed meeting.

They should be joining us shortly for this April 5th, 2021 city council meeting.

If you need a copy of the agenda, it's available at charlottesville.gov slash agenda.

Some other helpful links slash calendar gets you the city's calendar of public meetings.

slash budget gets you the city's budget information, the topic of a public hearing tonight.

As I mentioned earlier, during community matters, we will not be taking speakers on the budget or the tree conservation ordinance.

Both of those items have separate public hearings.

All right.

We're all here.

I move this council certified by recorded vote to the best of each council member's knowledge.

Ms.

Thomas?

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

Thank you.

So I call the regular meeting to order.

Ms.

Ms.

Thomas?

Mayor Walker?

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

All right, thank you.

Next we have announcements.

Good evening, and thank you for having me here.

All right.

And can someone just give a thumbs up that you can see the first slide?

Perfect.

I am happy to be here tonight to update you on how COVID stands in the city of Charlottesville.

As of this morning, the district has had 14,652 cases in comparison to the last time that I updated you when there was 13,255.

The city of Charlottesville has 3,890 cases.

The district has a total of 576 hospitalizations in comparison to 513.

The last time I updated you, Charlottesville

has 99 of those hospitalizations, and we have had an unfortunate 204 fatalities in the district, up from 159.

The last time I updated you, 55 of those were Charlottesville residents.

As you can see from the graph

on the side here.

We have had a little bit of an uptick recently, and I think that that is mirrored a small amount in the statewide and what we're seeing across the nation.

It's been relatively mild in comparison to some of our earlier surges

We continue to see over-representation in both hospitalizations and in fatalities amongst communities of color.

As you can see here in this middle graph for the hospitalizations, 30% of our hospitalizations have been in individuals who are Black or African American, and an additional 11% in individuals who are Latino or Hispanic.

When you look at fatalities, 20% have been in individuals who are Black or African Americans, 2% in those who are Latinx.

Our PCR positivity rate remains very low.

I would just remind everybody that this is a ratio and because the university does such a large number of

PCR tests on a regular basis of their students.

What we see is a very large denominator in comparison to our numerator.

And when you look at the other localities in the district, they more closely mirror the state's rate running around 5% or 6%.

But because of that large amount of testing of individuals who are otherwise healthy and asymptomatic, we end up with this somewhat artificially low positivity rate.

And when we look at the activity level by region, we see that the south, I'm sorry, the northwest is still in a high burden.

It is fluctuating.

That's what these little gray dots mean here.

That is, there is a little bit of up and down movement in our burden of COVID disease, but we do remain in a high burden state at this point in time.

All of our outbreaks right now are either pending closure or closed at this point in time.

So that's a great thing.

I think that the vaccination that occurred at our long term care facilities and other congregate living facilities has been highly successful at really stomping out any outbreak activity.

That being said, we think it's really important that as people move in and out, either as residents of long term care facilities or as staff,

that the facilities continue their vigilance with regards to vaccination and both the state and the local health departments have been working to make sure that there are vaccination opportunities available to individuals that either live or work in these congregate care facilities.

So let's talk a little bit about the vaccine rollout.

Virginia is now pretty much universally in phase 1A, 1B, and 1C across the state.

In fact, there have been some health districts that are beginning to move to phase 2, which is vaccine is available for all individuals.

The governor has asked that

all health districts be in phase two by April 18th and so we will certainly meet that and I really expect that we'll exceed that moving into phase two certainly by the beginning of next week.

We are really encouraging individuals in our community who belong to one of the phase 1a, 1b or 1c categories that desire vaccination but have not yet got vaccinated

to please reach out to us at our Blue Ridge area hotline.

We have pulled all the names off of the preregistration list, but we know that the invitation link, which is an email that comes from the CDC, does sometime

End up in the spam folder of your email address.

And so if you belong to one of these three groups and you have not yet received your invitation, but did pre-register either through the health district or on the Vaccinate Virginia website,

website, please reach out to us and we'll make sure that we can get you scheduled this week to get a vaccination.

So if you belong to phase 1A, 1B, or 1C, please reach out to us and we'll work to get you into the vaccination as quickly as we can.

So right now we have moved from the tent.

We're really grateful for Bama Works and Red Light and all of the individuals that made the tent at Kmart possible.

It was really lovely to have that stood up so quickly and to be able to vaccinate.

However, we did find that weather made it a little bit of a challenge and it wasn't air conditioned.

And as the days were getting a bit warmer,

That was becoming more critical.

So we have moved to JCPenney and we're very grateful to do it for assisting us with that.

We are vaccinating phase 1A, 1B and 1C in that facility.

It is by appointment only at this point in time.

But again, if you belong to one of those phases and haven't received an invitation and feel like you should have, please reach out to us.

Additionally, we have a number of chain pharmacies that are receiving vaccine through the federal stockpile program and they are also vaccinating in all phases right now.

And I will in the next slide show how you can access that.

We do provide vaccination events in each locality each week, again, for all individuals in Phase 1a, 1b, 1c.

And we have begun to distribute vaccine to a number of primary care offices who are also vaccinating their patients who qualify under the Phase 1 program.

We continue to be very grateful for the partnership of UVA.

They did a really stellar job at getting all of their health care personnel vaccinated, which was quite a lift.

And they have really been the primary vaccinator of those individuals over the age of 65.

And for that, we are very, very grateful.

They do assist us with some 16-

64 with underlying medical conditions and again we are grateful for that and they've been a fabulous community partner in assisting us in vaccinating eligible populations that have increased vulnerability and have done a number of very closed points of distribution in conjunction with us.

We're also grateful for the help of Sentara Martha Jefferson.

They did also do their health care personnel and they have assisted with some individuals over the age of 65 and 16 to 64 with underlying medical condition, primarily those individuals that utilize the Sentara Martha Jefferson position.

So really it takes everybody to get our community vaccinated.

So there are a couple of ways that you can get vaccine, and as the state moves to open eligibility, I think it's really important for everyone to be aware of these.

The first is, I'll do the bottom one first, which is Vaccinate Virginia.

This is the state sign-up list for individuals, and if you have not signed up and you want to get vaccinated, please go to VaccinateVirginia.gov and sign up right now.

We will continue to pull names and send invitation links from that for the next few weeks at this point in time.

And so really this is the best way to get access to the vaccine.

So go to vaccinate.virginia.gov and please indicate your interest, fill out the forms there.

indicate all of your various eligibilities because even when we go to open access we will continue to pull down individuals who qualified under 1A who had either chosen to delay getting their vaccine or who have newly moved into the 1A, 1B, 1C categories.

If you have difficulty accessing through the internet you can call and do that registration process over the phone

They have Spanish operators.

They're available all the time.

They have sign language and they can get a translator for any other language that anyone needs.

And so the number to talk to someone to register is 877-VAX-NVA.

So that's 877-829-4682.

I said that there were a number of pharmacies that were participating in the vaccine effort.

They're receiving vaccine through the federal stockpile.

So it's not coming out of our state allotment that comes to the health district, but from the federal stockpile.

And you can find which pharmacies are vaccinating by going to vaccine finder and putting in your zip code and you can put the distance that you are willing to travel

and it will tell you all of the pharmacies that are vaccinating, who they are vaccinating and whether or not they have vaccine available right now or not.

They each unfortunately have their own registration system and so there's not a one-stop shop

So you would have to go to the CVS website, for example, and sign up there or look and see if they have available appointments.

You would have to go to the Kroger website, the Giant website, all of the different websites to find out if they have available appointments for you.

So it does take a little bit of work to use Vaccine Finder, but it does tell you all of the available options.

So two ways.

You can register at vaccinate.virginia.gov or you can go to vaccine finder and look for pharmacies that have vaccine in your area.

And of course you can call your primary care provider because more and more of them will have vaccine.

We are distributing out the primary care providers in our area and we're encouraging primary care providers to register with the CDC so that we can ship vaccine to them.

So here is where we're at as of today for Charlottesville for the state.

We're just under three million.

Sorry, we were over four million doses.

Just under three million people have received at least one dose.

So remember, it takes two doses for Pfizer Moderna to be fully vaccinated.

As you can see from the map here in the Charlottesville area, we're doing quite well.

We've had

26,000 doses administered with 17,000, almost 18,000 individuals that have had at least one dose and just under 9,000 who are fully vaccinated at this point.

So if you look at our rates,

Again, almost 38,000 per 100,000, just about 19,000 fully vaccinated.

So really doing quite well in this area for vaccination.

And I think that's really due to the great partnerships that we've had here.

The demographics of the vaccine, it continues to be weighted towards women, and there's a couple of reasons for that.

Many of the frontline workers and healthcare workers are often filled by women, and so that's going to weight it a little more heavily.

But when you look at the age group, you can see that we really have vaccinated individuals across all of the age spans.

This is Charlottesville specific data here.

And I would just remind people that we we can use Pfizer down to age 16, which is why you see a small number of individuals in this 10 to 19 year old category.

So really across the span here and

fairly reasonable representation with regard to race and ethnicity.

So we continue to do lots of outreach to communities of color and to hold events focused on these communities as well as our larger vaccination events.

That being said, COVID is still in our community.

And so we continue to offer testing every Monday and Tuesday.

The UVA group is on Mondays, the Church of Incarnation, and on Tuesdays at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church.

They will also be now on the 29th will be there next time at Mountain View Elementary School and then the health department vaccinates at Charlottesville High School every Friday evening and we will do pediatric testing certainly ages six and up and we partnered with Charlottesville Pediatrics Associates and they will be coming out in the evenings as well to assist us and they will do any age kit so

If your child is experiencing symptoms and you're worried they might have COVID, you can call our hotline and we will get you registered for testing on our Friday night clinic.

And again, you can sign up for vaccination at vaccinate.virginia.gov and there's a phone number 1-877-VAXNVA.

They're operating from 8am to 8pm and of course our local hotline 972-6261.

And then finally, I would be remiss just to remind everybody that although we're getting a lot of people vaccinated and that's going to be really helpful and we hope that by the summer we've really come full circle around and are able to resume all of our normal activities.

Right now we still have COVID in our community and it's really critical that we continue to do all of the mitigation measures, wear a mask,

Keep that six feet of distance.

And if you haven't added COVID-wise to your phone, you can go to your favorite app store and download it.

And that will provide you with an update if you're exposed to someone who is positive for COVID.

All right.

I have just two questions.

Yeah, we don't have a formal method for tracking.

We can look it up in viz.

There's a variety of reasons people don't get their second dose.

Some people have pretty serious reactions to their first dose, and we would discourage them from actually getting that second dose.

So if they had a mild allergic reaction, it's really a contraindication to get that second dose.

We've also had people get their first dose who had COVID,

recently and the recommendations are you really only probably need to get one dose if you've had COVID.

So we haven't made any formal outreach efforts right now.

That's certainly something that we would like to pursue.

I have to say we've really been focused on just getting people to come to any vaccination event at this point in time because even just getting your first dose offers you a fair amount of immunity.

So it's a great suggestion and I'll take it back to the team.

And then there's a lot of conversations happening about fourth surge.

Yes, potentially.

I haven't seen it to the same degree that I'm seeing it in some of our surrounding areas, but it is spring break right now for all of our schools.

We have seen a little bit of an uptick in the number of children who are testing positive for COVID and our schools are back in session now.

And so there's just more opportunities for them to be exposed.

I think next week, the next two weeks will really tell us whether we're going to get that surge or not because we know that a lot of families have gone and done things over spring break and that puts them at higher exposure risk.

So I think our numbers are pretty reasonable at the moment.

We would always like them to be zero, but

Oh, I did have one more question.

I do not have that broken down by demographics.

It is, we probably, it sounds awful to say, we probably have enough that we could do some broad categories.

The risk of breaking small numbers down in demographics

Well, no, I take that back.

We did have, I can tell you the fatalities and things, but what further demographics do you want, I guess?

Let me go back to here.

So here is what we break out.

All right, I just need to share my screen here again.

We have this broken out by fatality.

So we do have it by race and by age group and gender.

I don't have any, are you looking for cross references between this like males who belong to black?

Okay, no, I missed that.

That is for the whole district.

That is correct.

I don't know that the because Charlottesville has 55 fatalities and it starts to become a privacy concern when we get to small numbers.

So while we can break it out for the district because there's over 200 and we'd really have a very small risk of

inadvertently disclosing someone at 55 to break it down to this many age and race, ethnicity categories.

All right.

All right, next up, thank you, Dr. Bonds, have a good evening.

Thank you.

I sure would, Mayor, thank you.

And I'm hoping that Diane is on with us.

I was just checking our participants.

I'm here.

All right.

That's a whole lot quicker.

I am very, very happy and on behalf of Mayor Walker, the city council, the city staff and the entire community of Charlottesville to like to thank Diane Kuchno

For her tireless service to the city of Charlottesville as the director of the Department of Social Services, the city, many families, and many, many children are appreciative of the care and devotion that Diane has exhibited in her years of service.

Diane retired on April 1st, and we hope her the absolute best with retirement.

Excuse me, it is very, very well deserved.

we'd like to present Diane with a plaque of appreciation for her 27 years of leadership and commitment to the city and Diane will get this to you but we wanted to be able to show it if we could it's kind of the key to the city plaque and it does read for more than 27 years of dedicated public service demonstrated by leadership and professional commitment to the city

April of 2021.

May I say a few words too?

Yes.

I just want to say when I landed in Charlottesville and needed a job badly and this was my second interview was at social services.

And I never thought I would work for government.

That was never my plan.

But I was offered the job the next day.

And it was such a blessing.

I feel like it was more than a job.

It was a vocation for me.

And I can say that, you know, there were times that were difficult.

But in reality, I could not have landed in a better position for the majority of my professional career.

and I am grateful to my colleagues.

I'm grateful to the councils.

You guys have tough jobs.

I feel very honored to have had two of you, Mayor Walker and Councillor McGill on our advisory board.

And I think that we have made significant strides

in changing some of our processes and procedures and hopefully have

have made some major steps in the right direction of serving our community better and better over the years.

So again, I feel thankful and grateful to have been able to serve the city for all these years.

So I thank all of you.

I thank the citizens of Charlottesville also.

And it's hard to say goodbye in some ways, but again, it's time.

Thank you.

Just wanted to thank Diane.

It's been a pleasure getting to know her and the initiatives that she has been encouraging to happen in social services and the change that she has been working on.

I know she leaves a lot of people who are going to continue that change.

and I hope she enjoys rocking some babies soon.

I just want to say thank you.

Thank you.

Same here.

Thank you.

And thank you, Diane.

When we came on board, Heather and I had our meeting with you to get acclimated to social services as a department.

I felt you were very upfront with us about the challenges.

And I always appreciate that, knowing what we have to work on.

So I thank you for that.

And I hope as has been expressed

by other colleagues and Mr. Boyles that moving into your retirement that you're able to enjoy it because of all the work in the city which a lot of it is very challenging but DSS and the high stress levels and the impact that it had on families and when you carry that with you

um day by day and attempt to you know get it right and it stays with you if you don't get it right um there comes a time when you have to relax from that and heal from that so I um hope that you're able to do that and able to enjoy um this next chapter of your life as I shared with you before I hope that you're able to do that so um

Just, you know, cheers to you.

And I hope that you're already off to a good start.

Thank you, Mayor.

Well, you know, I do miss you.

And, you know, today, I mean, the past few days, I've still been getting some emails and calls from staff and stuff, and not necessarily about work stuff.

But, you know, I just, I've worked with a special group of people.

I mean, I've been privileged.

I've been, you know, privileged in this career.

And I, I

Well, thank you for that.

All right.

Thank you.

Good night.

All right.

And Mr. Bowles, you said you're going to make sure that she gets that, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Next up we have a National Dance Week proclamation.

Whereas the National Dance Foundation is a 501 organization committed to promoting dance and fitness in our community with a mission to expose and introduce as many people as possible to the enjoyment and benefits of dance through promoting dance in schools,

expanding community awareness and increasing professional development and whereas the National Dance Foundation has approved Maria Daniel of I Dance Ministry as a volunteer ambassador to carry out its vision in Charlottesville and surrounding counties Maria Daniel a National Dance Foundation ambassador is committed to educating elevating and impacting

the community through dance.

And whereas National Dance Week promotes dance as an integral art that has many vital benefits, including intellectual, social, physical, emotional, and cultural.

And whereas we celebrate the citizens of Charlottesville for their participation in National Dance Week events.

And we commend our local business sponsors for supporting National Dance Week events.

and whereas 2021 is a monumental year for the National Dance Foundation as it looks back on five years of hosting this program that highlights local artists while uniting the community through dance.

Now, therefore, I, Nikuyah Walker, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, on behalf of Charlottesville City Council do hereby proclaim April 16th through 21st, 2021 as National Dance Week

acknowledging our commitment to the Charlottesville dance community and highlighting the many benefits of dance.

And Ms.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Walker.

I'm very honored.

Even though we're virtual, thank you City Council for the proclamation.

I enjoy this event and I could not do this without the support of the Charlottesville Parks and Rec Department, Carver Recreation and all the local artists.

It means a lot to have this acknowledgement, not just for National Dance Week, but for the people of Charlottesville who come year after year

to learn about dance and sometimes just be educated on other forms if you're not familiar with.

It grows every year, this event.

So I'm sorry that we're virtual this year, but we look forward to coming back.

Some of the participants include Chahamba,

Some of them are from DMR.

You may recognize some of these local artists.

Wilson School of Dance, Kay Edge from University of Virginia.

We have everything literally from clogging to hip hop to Irish stepping to the Charlottesville Swing Dance Society.

So next up, we have the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent Agenda, one, minutes, February 16th, work session, closed meeting and regular meeting, February 19th, special meeting, two, appropriation, COVID homelessness emergency response program, CHIRP, Homelessness Management Information System grant award, $29,786, second reading,

Number three, Appropriation, COVID Homelessness Emergency Response Program, CHIRP, grant award, $806,594.

Second reading.

If you're in the audience on the Zoom webinar and you'd like to speak to the consent agenda, click the raise hand icon.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

And we do have a hand coming up.

Krista Bennett, you're on.

I am.

That's correct.

I'm sorry.

I don't see any other hands.

Okay.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I move to adopt the consent agenda as presented.

Did you get- Mayor Walker?

Yeah.

I got Vice Mayor McGill.

Mayor Walker.

Oh, you're asking.

Sorry.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yeah.

Yes.

Councilor Hill.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

I was still waiting for any other questions or comments from Council.

So that's so.

All right.

We've got a couple of questions from not just the last council meeting, but also a couple of questions from the budget workshops.

One being, why do the city police department have a bid solicitation for new weapons, as well as purchasing off-duty holsters?

The city of Charlottesville posted an invitation to bid on behalf of the police department.

This invitation to bid is intended to reduce the inventory of weapons within the police department from 196 handguns down to 131.

In doing so, the police department will not only be reducing the inventory, but it will allow for a standardized weapon platform and move away from nine different models of handguns to only one.

Also, the off-duty holster label is a little bit of a misnomer in that the holsters are being purchased not simply for use as off-duty but also for officers that are in plainclothes assignments such as investigations, detectives, administration, court appearances, and training.

The Charlottesville Police Department policies require any officer operating a department vehicle, they shall be armed even when off duty.

So with this requirement and the fact that the city owns the weapons that the off duty officers are using, it's the responsibility of the department to ensure that the holsters are supplied and they fit appropriately to the weapons that are being used.

That's why we're issuing the invitation to bid for both new handguns and off duty holsters.

Staff was also asked to talk about the school reconfiguration design and consulting services.

A lot of this information was posted in the media just in the last few days.

But the architectural and engineering services contract has been awarded to a local design firm, VMDO, in the amount of $1.47 million The initial analysis of the existing buildings of the schools, the two buildings being Buford and Walker

have been completed including building envelope assessments, general building condition analysis, a building 3D digital modeling, and site surveying.

All city building data including the drawing files back to the original construction of these buildings have been turned over to the architecture firm at this time.

Project kickoff meeting is anticipated the week of April 12th and public engagement with BMDO is set to begin in early May An initial assessment of the findings are due back in June While these will be preliminary and an initial assessment it will begin to start giving feedback and data to the City Council and the Charlottesville School Board

The completed study when done will include the updated capacity and programming documents for each of the sites as well as three conceptual designs for each of the sites.

So hopefully that gives the information on the awarded contract for the school reconfiguration.

We also at the last council meeting, Mr. Emery asked about Riverview Park and a Riverview access point that had washed away during past storms.

The Parks and Rec Department is working with the community and some community businesses on assessing that.

Where they are right now is that they're trying to determine if there's enough structure left in place that there can just be a repair made to the access point

or if in fact it requires a complete rebuild of that staircase.

If it is a complete rebuild, there's a lot of permitting that does have to occur with that that would go way beyond if it is just a repair.

If it is the repair, the Parks and Rec is already working with the community for some volunteer labor that we would supply the building materials for that.

Parks and Rec is also looking at the Ravana River corridor plan that's underway to begin looking at a much larger scale and scope and a more permanent access point that would not be subject to storms and being washed away as the river rises.

In addition to that, we do have some other information that I would like to share.

Hopefully most of you have seen that the city was able to announce today the hiring of our deputy city manager for racial equity, diversity and inclusion.

Miss Ashley Marshall will be joining us on May 10th.

She's coming from Lynchburg, Virginia, and has been living in central Virginia for her entire life.

We're very, very happy to have Ashley coming on board.

Her credentials are impeccable, both from an education and an experience standpoint.

And so we'll be very, very happy to have her joining us in May.

We've got a number of other positions that closed at five o'clock on Friday, including our

Make sure I get them all right.

There are so many.

Director of Neighborhood Development Services closed on April 2nd.

Our Director of Social Services closed on April 2nd, as well as our city attorney position.

Some of these positions we received as little as four applications.

On others, we received over 60 applications.

So we'll be moving very, very rapidly on those.

We also have out the Deputy City Manager of Operations that will be due next Friday.

And then we're also, we'll have either advertised or we'll be advertising soon, the Director of the Police Civilian Review Board and the Director of the

Human Rights Commission.

We've been working with both of those boards to revise their job descriptions and get re-advertised.

I am pleased to, for those that have been around for a while, to announce that the City of Charlottesville has joined University of Virginia

with a joint membership to the International Town and Gown Association.

This is a group that the city of Charlottesville was actually a founding member about 15 years ago with UVA and let our membership lapse and we will be joining that group again and working with all of the council to get you signed up for participation there.

With that, that is all of my remarks.

Next up, we have Community Matters.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

As Mayor Walker mentioned, we had eight people sign up in advance.

We'll start with Nancy Carpenter, followed by Rosemary Miller.

If you want to speak to the budget, there's a separate public hearing for that.

So if you want to get in line, you can raise your hand as long as you're not talking about the other public hearing items on the agenda.

First up is Nancy Carpenter.

Nancy, you're on with council.

Good evening.

Thank you, Nancy.

Hold on just a moment.

Mary, you're on with City Council.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you so much, Nancy, for proceeding your time.

I'm writing on behalf of the Human Rights Commission to strongly urge you to provide adequate funding to provide attorneys to tenants in eviction proceedings.

A number of social justice groups, I'm so sorry about that, a number of social justice groups sent a letter yesterday

with regard to providing tenants, attorneys in eviction proceedings and spoke about the moral imperative and I think there will be a number of people who speak this evening in support of that.

I simply wanted to point out that at a previous budget hearing there was a discussion about a number that was in the budget that was something like $117,000.

and a fair amount of research has revealed kind of looking at other cities and talking to national experts that that number is just far below what it would need to be an actual to actually get this job done.

The letter that we sent

laid out a cost of about $460,000 to provide tenants to all eligible, to provide counsel to all eligible tenants and eviction proceedings in the first year.

That number is actually pretty low on a per case basis compared to other cities that have done that.

And we're happy, the commission is happy to work with you all to ascertain an appropriate number.

We're also happy to provide

referrals to national experts who have set these amounts in other cities and created these kinds of programs, but did want to make clear that like the other social justice groups that will come before you and that have been in touch, the Human Rights Commission considers this a matter of

very important, both equity and racial justice.

And we hope you will commit to creating this program and doing it right.

Mayor Walker, next up is Rosemary Miller, who will be followed by Krista Bennett.

Rosemary, you're on with city council and you can unmute.

Good evening, Council.

Thanks for listening this evening.

I'm just here.

I actually live in Albemarle County, but have really enjoyed the splash parks with our family, and I hope the city will reconsider the decision to not have the splash parks open this summer.

All families really should have access to a safe place to cool off this summer, and last summer was brutal.

Many have access to private pools or maybe a sprinkler in their yard, but not everyone, and this is a real equity issue.

Families have been really safe all year at public playgrounds, which I'm very thankful for.

I was very glad to hear that the pools will be more available this summer.

The splash parks, though, being totally outside and a really easy place to social distance, they're a great activity, even with all the COVID protocols in place.

So the splash parks are a wonderful, safe way for all of us to enjoy the summer, and I really hope you'll reconsider and open the splash parks this summer for everyone.

Thank you.

Yes, you're correct.

Our next speaker is Krista Bennett.

Krista, you're on with city council.

Hi, yes, thanks.

I'm happy to be able to share with the council a positive update about the project, about a playground at Walker Upper Elementary School.

As a reminder, back in 2018, all sixth graders at Walker participated in design thinking sessions about what would make their school better.

The playground was one of the top things they wanted and we parents in the community wanted to make it happen for them.

The pandemic slowed us down a bit, but it didn't stop us.

In May of last year, we released an online survey to get input on what kind of playground students in the community wanted.

429 Charlottesville residents took the survey, 360 of the respondents were student, and I think that's pretty amazing.

It was a great opportunity for our students to experience being part of decision-making in our city, and I hope that our students do grow up with the expectation that they are part of decision-making, and these kind of opportunities reinforce that for them.

We then held two live community feedback sessions where we narrowed down what was wanted on the playground and in November all Walker students got to make the final vote on the playground equipment.

The second part of this project that I want to talk about is our work with the city to make the playground happen and I'll start with the ADA pathway to the playground.

The school already has ADA accessibility but we also want the playground to be accessible to the community.

When we went out to this site with the city we surveyed the parking lot that is shared by Walker and the Crow Rec Center

and found that the handicapped parking spaces there are out of code, as is the ADA pathway that leads up to the school, of course, that's city property.

But a playground for Walker is overseeing these accessibility points being upgraded.

And I should note that a playground for Walker is funding all of this.

So many things to the generous support of our community.

I want to thank the City for your support.

Todd Brown, Director of Parks and Rec, and Chris Jensik, Parks and Trail Planner, have been working with us since the beginning.

Then David Brown, Director of Public Works and Jack Dawson, City Engineer, have moved us closer to the finish line.

Frankly, the playground part has been fairly easy, but solving the ADA pathway has been very tricky, and it's added a lot onto our budget.

But with that said, Mr. Brown and Mr. Dawson have advised us in ways that have helped us limit the cost, and we are really grateful to them.

I also appreciate the council for your support.

I want to especially recognize Councillor Heather Hill, who's been a champion of the project and provided a lot of guidance along the way.

I want to thank VMDO and Timmons Group who have provided in kind support for the project.

I hope that folks will support these businesses are giving back to Charlottesville making it stronger for our kids.

We've submitted our site plan to the city earlier this year.

It looks like we're going to be receiving approval for that soon.

We anticipate that the playground will be open to students and the community this summer.

I hope you guys are as excited about this news as I and a bunch of fifth and sixth graders are.

Mayor Walker, our next speaker was Dr. Craig Luther, who I do not see as a participant right now.

I'll circle back on that one.

The next person is Lawrence Mann, followed by John Mason.

Lawrence, you're on with city council.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Lawrence Mann and I live here in downtown Charlottesville.

I'm here this evening to discuss Mayor Walker's Facebook post.

I'd like to be honest saying I respect everyone's right to free speech and don't seek to censor the mayor or any of my fellow citizens.

My concerns behind her post are really threefold and I'd like to address them in no particular order here.

First being the reputation of Charlottesville.

We've had a number of terrible events happen in our city over the past few years.

I feel as a resident of Charlottesville, we should be working to grow as a city and a community and in turn regain that great reputation we once had.

These types of posts are a poor representation of Charlottesville and as a mayor, she represents us all.

Second would be the economic impact.

I own and operate a small business here in Charlottesville.

Like many others, we've been impacted by COVID-19.

In my view, these types of comments raise doubt for those seeking to move and or visit our city, which in turn impacts small businesses and their employees.

The third would be the divisiveness of the post.

Why I understand the Mayor Walker's post is a poem and was intended as educational.

In my view, it simply was not.

It was an unacceptable post from a leader in our community, which in turn caused more division.

You can reference the post comments.

Lastly here, I'd like to address the accountability

In my view, Mayor Walker should be held accountable for the post as we all should be when we make these types of publics either publicly or privately.

I'm sad to see that a number of you on the council have stayed away from the issue and not addressed it head on as it gained media attention.

We should always hold our leaders accountable no matter the setting, local politics, state politics, businesses.

I want to say in closing, I respect Mayor Walker and my comments are intended as an attack on her or anyone on the council.

I imagine Mayor Walker and I have different views of the world, different views on politics, both locally and nationally.

We will never grow as a community or city until we discuss the difficult issues in front of us and find common ground.

I would like to try to understand her point of view and her mind.

I hope you all have a great evening.

And again, my comments here this evening were simply to address the things I laid out.

Our next speaker is John Edwin Mason, who will be followed by Chantelle Bing.

John, you're on the city council.

You've got three minutes.

Thank you.

Am I here now?

You are.

Go ahead.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

My name is John Mason.

I live on Fifth Street Southwest in the city.

I am the former chair, former vice chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission on race memorials and public spaces.

Madam Mayor, members of council, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.

I'd like to make three points about the city's Confederate statues in the wake of the recent Virginia Supreme Court decision that allows the city to now move forward.

First, the statue should immediately be covered with tarps to take them out of public view.

Second, the statue should never again

Fall into the hands of those who would treat them as objects of veneration or as places around which to rally those who support the cause of white supremacy.

Third, they should never again be displayed in public unless they are utterly transformed physically so the message of white supremacy that they so powerfully send is likewise transformed.

About the tarps.

There is ample precedent for covering the statues with tarps.

The Lee statue was shrouded after the white supremacist terror attack on our city in August of 2017.

It was a sign of mourning, and it was a sign of the city's rejection of everything that the statues symbolized.

We should do this again and do it immediately.

The statues are layered with racist meanings.

As the Blue Ribbon Commission wrote in our report,

The Lee and Jackson statues embody the lost cause interpretation of the Civil War.

They romanticize the Confederate past.

They suppress the horrors of slavery and slavery's role as a fundamental cause of the war.

At the same time, they affirm the enduring role of white supremacy.

The lost cause interpretation was a key element in the ideological justification of Jim Crow segregation here in Charlottesville, in Virginia, and across the country.

The statues are layered with meaning and after 2017 they added a layer with the murder of Heather Heyer.

That's another meaning that those statues embody.

There is no reason that the statue should continue to blot our city's landscape.

They should be covered until their ultimate removal.

Never again should these statues be on public view except in very specific circumstances.

displaying these statues in the public is like displaying the burned remains of a cross from a Ku Klux Klan rally.

In our report, the BRC said that the statues should not be seen again unless they're utterly transformed, clearly, unambiguously, on at least the same scale as the statues exist now.

such as lowering, covering, de-centering, otherwise indicating a rejection of the Jim Crow narratives that dominated the city when the statues were erected.

The new designs should de-emphasize the centrality of these sculptures and counter the lost cause myth with narrative that achieve real transformation of space and narrative.

There are no Confederate cemeteries and no Civil War battlegrounds that are prepared to do this or even willing to try.

They are not.

Virtually no reputable museum has the capacity or the desire to curate them properly.

This is true.

Okay.

I just want to say that the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation

is also one of those places that cannot properly curate the statues.

So thank you very much.

Our next speaker will be Chantel Bingham followed by Myra Anderson.

Good evening.

Can you all hear me?

We can.

All right.

First of all, I want to start off with saying Mr. Boyles, thank you so much for, um,

Just responding quickly to I know that we put some calls and tweets out there about the director of the Office of Human Rights and I know it was reposted and we really do appreciate when when people and staff are responsive and are quick to follow up with maybe a mistake or something that that had been made.

I'm here to talk tonight about residents or tenants rights to counsel.

and just making sure that you all are, you know, kind of realizing how crucial it is that we do this now.

We all know that there was an eviction moratorium that really enabled every city really across America to protect people from being evicted during this time of the pandemic and the economic downturn.

But that that eviction moratorium is not going to last forever.

And we really do appreciate the foresight.

Right.

And you all thinking about that.

It's not enough, though.

So I know there was a ton of emails that have been sent to council.

Some of that proposal, as you guys have read over and gotten communications from Mary Bauer, would cover only one in three residents that are facing eviction.

And one thing that was critical to have in that

is an outreach person or someone who can really connect with people that are facing evictions.

One of the things that we heard from Charlottesville DSA when they presented to us is that when you go home and you get an eviction notice on your door,

Oftentimes people do not realize that there are things that they can do to prevent from being evicted.

They just get their stuff and they move, right?

Even if that landlord had no right or did not file that eviction properly, if they were to just show up in court, their whole life could be a little bit different.

And so...

Yes, 100% include money for attorneys.

Understand that how much money that you include will basically say how many lawyers can be on a case, but also it's extremely critical to include money for outreach because without that, this program really isn't going to work at all very well.

We really do need that person or those people that can be able to track the court, track the docket, go to people's houses when they see it being filed and let people know as soon as they see it, right, that this is what you can do now that you have a case for eviction.

We can't leave it up to landlords to notify their tenants of what their rights are.

As much as I would love that to be the case, that's just not how the world works, so.

Mayor Walker, I do not see Dr. Craig Luther or Myra Anderson.

So Chantel was our sixth speaker.

Right now we have four people with their hands up.

If you'd like to get in line, click the raise hand icon in the zoom webinar.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

Again, there is a separate public hearing.

for the budget this evening.

Our next speaker is Tanisha Hudson, who will be followed by Don Gathers.

Tanisha, you're on with council.

Oh, I just want to read an email that came out of the FOIA request with you all announcing this new deputy hire that's happened.

And this email was written back in May of 2020.

This came from Lloyd Snook, Counselor Snook, and he says specifically,

We know that Tehran doesn't want this person to be a deputy city manager.

In most organizations, there's only one deputy.

There may be other assistants, but only one deputy.

We already have one more deputy than most org charts would have.

I don't favor trying to jam this down to Ron's throat.

I don't think this is our call.

And I think we have to let the city manager manage the city.

It is hard for me to see this as an issue that is so important that his disagreement with council

on this would be a cause for termination or a condition of his continued employment.

If it doesn't rise to that level, we have to let him do his job, even if it means that he rejects council's advice.

So I have a question for Mr. Boyer.

Are you managing the city or is council managing you?

I have a question for council.

Do you allow the city manager to manage the city or do you manage it?

See, this is about you all taking accountability for your mistakes.

You can sit there, you can act like you're right and you can look down.

You ain't got to look at the camera because I'm looking at each and every one of you so I know who hid down and who hid is up and who's twitching and being jittery right now.

It's just ridiculous at this point.

And when somebody pull your car for being absolutely wrong because you want things to go your way at that moment, and somebody holds you accountable, a couple of y'all, we know who it is, ain't got to call names.

Y'all just sit there like y'all have to take no accountability.

Then you got people calling and saying, oh, the mayor got to take accountability for a post that she wrote.

That's freedom of speech.

I think we need to date that and leave it alone.

She can say what she want to say.

I don't care what position she holds.

The president did it.

He had the highest position in the world.

We've already discovered the outcome of that.

She can do what she wants because y'all do it.

But y'all be doing it playing with people's jobs.

That's a whole different ball game at this point.

Whole different ballgame.

Y'all gotta take accountability for what y'all did and I ain't gonna let y'all rest and say y'all do it.

So if it means beating on y'all every other Monday at these meetings, so y'all take accountability and there's more to come.

It was an article written today.

Somebody else is already in the works of figuring out this hole and this loop that y'all did to run one person away from this city.

But you're not gonna get bad with doing it.

I'm done.

Thank you.

And I just want to have been saving my comments till the end, but I do want to comment here because just because one counselor wrote an email in disagreement doesn't mean that

the majority of council that's the same conversation that we are having now is when we arrive at consensus.

This position was since I had been advocating for it was thought of as a manager level in HR.

That wasn't the vision.

We're talking about someone who can create a blueprint for equity and help us heal the inequities.

within our city and which even just the job, that being the job of one person is going to be a major challenge.

So ultimately the decision was made to hire a deputy city manager.

And I think, and council, this is something that we need to have a conversation because it keeps coming up about what is our role here.

So if we can't advocate for positions, we're doing the same thing with the climate director at this point, the measurements and solutions office.

And if we are supposed to take what we get from citizens directly,

and bring it back to the city manager.

I have sent those charts out before about how there is a lot of overlap.

Even the city manager is supposed to be able to have conversation with us about policy and little overlap.

And we are supposed, and this is from the ICMA, be able to have a conversation about like operations.

Operations is more on the city manager side.

Policy is more on the council side.

But that is going to take, which we are not doing very well here.

Everyone is trying to carve out their space.

And there's very little collaboration.

and I think everyone even when Vice Mayor McGill and I had a meeting earlier sometime in 2020 there was clear that even amongst staff there was very different thoughts about what council role was there is not a consistent thought about what that means and we are also doing a poor job to define it and so there is nothing since I've been here or watching

you know as a citizen before I was on council that said that council could not recommend a staff position that based on our communication with citizens

based on what we think the community needs.

And just to be very pointed with Ms.

Hudson, you challenging a position about someone whose sole mission is equity, diversity, and inclusion is one of those things that really just confused me about your intention.

Next up is Don Gathers, who'll be followed by Kristin Sekus.

Don, you're on the city council.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

I've got a few things to touch on.

First of all, the mayor's poem would have been extremely refreshing as we continue to talk about ways to unite the city.

It would have been extremely refreshing if the council had come out in support of the message behind that poem, even if he disagreed with the way in which he delivered.

and to that regard, Councilor Payne, I'm very disappointed in the stance that you took.

Councilor McGill, your silence on the matter is deafening and that's disappointing in and of itself as well.

Now moving on to the honorary street sign designation, I did receive an email after the fact from Councilor Hill about the sidewalk signage going up.

The mere fact that I wasn't notified prior to that happening since I was the one who pushed and initiated the Black Lives Matter Boulevard honorary street name designation is troubling.

Also, I don't understand why the signage is not up on the street sign on top of the other signs as it is in other places in the city as opposed to one sidewalk sign on one side of the street at the end of

of Black Lives Matter Boulevard and another sign designated at several blocks away on the opposite side of the street.

If someone can explain that to me, I would greatly appreciate it.

I would also like to know when we can begin the conversation about the removal of the statues.

As the vice chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission, John Mason, said earlier, it would be incredibly moving to go ahead and shroud those or

allow the community themselves to reconfigure that space just as they did in Richmond with the Lee statue and bring about a much more pleasant look, if you would, to that particular area.

So while I applaud the work that Ms.

Robertson did on getting us to that point, I'm thoroughly concerned and I don't know if it would be an investigation launched by council or by you, City Manager, Mr. Boyles.

as to some of the backdoor work that she did behind the back of the mayor in regards to the credit card issue some time ago.

Someone needs to look into some of the things that she did along those lines.

We're so busy always focusing here on development and on parking and on bike lanes and on belittling

Black people in position of power here in this city.

We really need to refocus some of our energies towards actually doing some good and talking about and actually doing the healing that's always talked about here in this community.

So if those things can be addressed, it would be a huge boondoggle and would help with my understanding on some issues.

Thank you.

In regards to the honorary street naming, I know at the time that we were considering where to place, because there was two different applications for the honorary street name, where to place that, that the public works team had weighed in, that it was going to be challenging to put that signage along Market Street for a number of logistical reasons relative to what those street signs are like that are different than some of the other downtown.

And I know there was some assessment as to

moving forward and just looking at is there a more clearer way to market?

And that was when the decision was made.

And I agree.

I know there wasn't a ton of dialogue around that.

And I think I share with you, Mr. Gathers, that in terms of notification, I think it was just a lot of people, like there was a lot of folks changing roles and just trying to get some things done and following the direction of council.

And I apologize on behalf of the city that that communication wasn't, but Public Works has offered to

support a ceremonial initiative and we're happy to work with you on that.

I would include covering the signs and having more of a ceremonial unveiling.

Obviously with COVID a lot of things have been different but again I don't think that was just literally there's a lot of balls are in motion at one time when that was taking place but I know there wasn't a lot of contemplation over the placement of those signs and how it would be feasible in that stretch and

ultimately came to the conclusion that they were going to be in the sidewalk area.

And I'm sure that Mr. Boyles could follow up and get additional information as needed.

Well, I can understand that.

I need to point out that just down at the corner of the library where there's a sign going east and west and north and south, there's an honorary designation on top of those two signs.

So I'm not certain why it would become such a problematic issue to do it on other street signs along Market Street in that same corridor.

Because as I said, there's one right there at the corner of the library where the street runs east and west and also north and south.

So if we could put something there, I don't understand why we couldn't do it in other locations.

Yes, ma'am.

Next up is Kristin Zakus.

Kristin, you're on with city council.

Hi, am I alive?

You are alive.

Great.

My name is Kristin Sekes.

I live on Otter Street in the city.

And first of all, I'd like to thank you all for your service on City Council.

Having done it for eight years, I know it's not easy, and I appreciate you all stepping up to do this.

I'm speaking tonight in the wake of the Virginia Supreme Court decision in favor of the city.

in the Confederate Monuments case.

And first of all, congratulations.

It was a true vindication.

A shout-out particularly to Assistant City Attorney Lisa Robertson, who did such a great job in researching and articulating the city's position.

And now you have $365,000 that you might otherwise have had to pay to the plaintiffs, so that's great.

I know that you've confirmed the city's commitment to move both Confederate statues out of the downtown city parks.

but not what you plan to do with them after that.

So I'm sure there's going to be a lot of suggestions but I'd like to plead with you to not just dispose of them in a way that just passes these symbols of white supremacy onto another community to do their damage there.

It can be argued that Stonewall Jackson statue has some value as an artistic sculpture.

It's possible that a non-confederate themed museum might desire to add it to their collection.

in a way that provides appropriate context rather than furthering its original intent.

But the Lee statue is of questionable artistic merit at best, having been made by two different lesser known sculptors after the first one passed away.

I urge you to find a more creative way of disposing of the statue than simply moving it to another location.

One creative idea I've heard is to melt it down into bronze ingots

that could be used by contemporary artists to tell a truer history of America or to try to bring some healing to our community.

I hope you'll keep an open mind and not just unload these statues to become moral, toxic waste in another community.

Whatever your decision, I trust that you'll remove the statues from downtown as quickly as possible into storage if necessary.

They've transmitted their message of hate and insurrection for too long already.

and I would concur with the previous speakers, Mr. Mason or Dr. Mason and Dom Gathers that covering them in the meantime would be great if it can't be removed immediately.

Next up is Robin Hoffman.

Robin, you're on the City Council.

Hi, everybody.

It's time to look at Charlottesville Public Access TV again.

I got my Moderna vaccine, so I felt like really free.

I was riding around on Easter because I only got one dose.

and I couldn't visit my family.

They have their Moderna.

But anyway, let me just say, as I rode around and I went to a restaurant or two, I inquired of the people that were sitting there, did you get your vaccine?

They said, yes.

I said, is that why you're sitting here?

And they said, yes.

So we do have potential to really get the city back to the tourism and all that.

But I had these ideas while I was riding my bicycle.

So I want to share them with you.

I'm doing this show.

It's with a senior softball team.

They are marvelous.

Anyway, everybody's very excited about me continuing doing a series of them.

But what I shared with them was remarkable that they have a feeling that if, you know, there's industry here that can service their homes, they have pension money, they have all kinds of income.

to put the solar up and to do all the things that they need for their homes and stuff like that, like through K-Tech and the schools and CHS and whatever, getting employed students to do internships and hang up solar for them and all that.

They're very excited about that idea of giving the city money to be able to get that industry going.

And then another thing occurred to me was, I think you guys need a periodical.

We used to have at least two periodicals.

We have the Seaville now, which for me is lacking in a lot of what's going on in Charlottesville.

Me running around with a camera now, I'm dangerous.

I'm talking to everybody.

And there's a lot going on.

And you would think that people are just depressed and haven't gotten out of their homes or whatever.

But so if you guys had a city council periodical,

That would be awesome.

You could tell your little stories.

You could have, like, highlights.

You could have Lloyd Snook as a cartoon, you know, that sort of thing.

And put it, you know, where the Seville, you know, thing is and all the different peer articles.

Because of tourism, then they were, you know, a lot of people came to the restaurants, too, because they got their vaccine.

And they were looking forward to reading something about what was going on here.

and, you know, maybe we can plaster it in front of the landmark hotel, you know, that this is new periodical and then also shows Charlottesville public access TV on one of the windows of the stores.

Those are my hopes and dreams on my bicycle.

Robin Hoffman was our 10th speaker.

If you'd like to speak to Council at this opportunity, click the raise hand icon.

Right now there are no hands raised.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

One comment that maybe Ms.

Robertson can clarify, but I believe that there is an order of the circuit court still in effect saying that we can't put a tarp on.

And until the Virginia Supreme Court issues its mandate, all of those orders need to be applied.

Is that correct, Ms.

Yes, so the there is a period of time before the Supreme Court's order would be final.

And I will also note that the state law that prescribes the new state law, which prescribes procedures, also prescribes a procedure that is the same for

covering a statue as it is for removal.

All right.

Anyone else?

The only other topic that has been, Mr. Boyles, I know that we exchanged some emails on it, just around the funding

for the eviction support.

Sure.

I'm glad to.

After this was recommended and suggested by the city council and previous budget workshops, we have engaged discussions with the

Legal Aid Justice Center they have presented some ideas of how this could move forward at this point our recommendation is to utilize the American recovery plan funds that the city will be receiving we should receive half of our funding in the middle of this coming May and the other half for next May our discussions with the Legal Aid Justice Center would

Move in the direction of at least a two year agreement.

It would be very difficult to initialize a program like this with just a one year guarantee of funding.

And that initial proposal does include a community outreach person, as was suggested earlier, and very, very important to the program.

I will say the other part of the discussion was making sure that there's very adequate funding as well.

In addition to legal assistance, the best way to keep evictions from happening is to help people pay their rent.

So that is a very strong component of it as well.

And we will continue these discussions later.

Thank you and I just want to echo that was one of my comments that I was going to make that

Hopefully the pots of the money that we allocated for rent and mortgage relief for families, that those type of things would be what we continue to invest in to make sure that people

You know, our families are never into the courtroom and having to go through that process.

Or even if it's just, you know, before court, I just think it's important that that's going to be one of the major things and then advocating on the state level.

for, you know, to make sure that there's a better process for the state of Virginia that then, you know, Charlottesville would fall under once the moratorium is released or maybe it's not released, you know, as quickly and maybe that's part of the advocacy.

And so I know one of our splash parks is down, you know, and I don't know what the time frame for that is, but I would like for us to just be mindful if we just open one, what that may mean, you know, for the city and especially with the larger one being, you know, getting repaired at this point.

So that was one comment.

I made a lot of public comments about my poem Facebook post, so I'm gonna not share that here because it always goes to a back and forth, but there are a lot of Facebook and interview actually about that.

I agree with everything that Dr. Mason said.

said, and it is unfortunate that we can't cover it.

And I hadn't thought about the artwork that was done in Richmond, but that was a beautiful piece of work after the citizens were able to, you know, kind of, you know, redesign that while it was still up.

So we're doing that time.

So that was good.

I know that wasn't the intention, but I just wanted to share that.

Ms.

Bingham she there are two things and I just want to comment on the I know from talking to Mr. Boyles on Friday that he did bring that up to about rewriting the job descriptions but I still want to just I know this hasn't been a you know

that people haven't been necessarily interested in this approach.

But I did think that maybe the PCRB and the Human Rights Commission budget should have been swapped.

And then that if we are still creating the Office of Equity, we were having that that that position may should have been a director level position.

And then those position remain manager.

So I just want to throw out there that

Like the director level at those levels, I'm still struggling with a bit.

So Chantelle talked about that.

So I just wanted to point that out.

I have addressed Ms.

Hudson.

Yeah, Mr. Gathers, yes.

I have to go and look at the sign and then the sign that's down the street.

So I have to, you know, have to do that.

And I think that was...

Madam Mayor, one other point I wanted to add to the discussion about the Penance Rights issue is that particularly if there's going to be something worked out with the Legal Aid Justice Center, I would hope that there would also be conversations with Albemarle County just as they're having the City of Charlottesville.

I've been interested to note that roughly half of the letters that we've received in the last few days

and imploring the city to do something have been from county residents.

And I've asked some of them, well, have you tried sending a comparable letter to the Board of Supervisors?

That might be worth doing as well.

And they said, hmm, that's a good idea.

Maybe we'll do that.

So I would encourage people to think not only about what the city is doing, but also what the county is doing, because they've actually got a larger problem in this respect than we do.

And we're all one housing market anyway.

And I suspect

very strongly that any solution that is really going to be worth anything is going to involve both city and the county.

Mayor, if I could, Councillor Snook, we have inquired already.

That was recommended by the Legal Aid Justice Center as well, not only trying to get economies of scale, but they also said that it would be very, very difficult.

It would take a lot of effort to differentiate

We could only help you if you're on this side of the line, but not help you if you're on that side of the line, which would cause very much confusion as well.

Not to mention, if we could get Albemarle County to partner with us, you know, that's additional resources.

So I have reached out to the county and have already begun those discussions.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have the public hearing and ordinance designation of two of trees for protection under the tree conservation ordinance.

Good evening city council.

I'm Mike Renee and I'm the urban forester for the city of Charlottesville.

In 2013,

City Council passed a tree conservation ordinance to provide additional protections to the community's most valuable trees.

We have in front of you are an additional six trees for your consideration to incorporate into this program put forth by the tree commission.

Each tree nomination has a photograph nomination form tree commission arborist report along with the map of the tree location.

The first tree for consideration is a large white ash behind the Charlottesville Admiral Historical Society.

The next tree is a large American Elm at the Clark Elementary School.

The third tree is a large Post Oak in Maplewood Cemetery.

The fourth tree is a large Sycamore between Riverview Trail and River River.

The fifth tree is a large Schumart Oak planted along the 250 bypass at the Rugby Road interchange.

And the last tree is a large Southern Red Oak in Oakwood Cemetery.

Incorporating these trees into the Conservation Ordinance supports City Council's Green City vision, Goal 2 of the Strategic Plan and Objective 2.5.

There is no expected budgetary impact.

The Commission recommends, the Tree Commission recommends and requests that these six trees be designated as requested and staff can find no reason that should not occur.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you're in the audience on the Zoom webinar and you'd like to address council for this public hearing, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

We do have a hand up.

Marcia Geyer, you're on with city council.

Good.

I don't understand this ordinance, which I suppose I should be speaking about it, but it seems really strange to me that council is talking about

protecting six trees in a city that is losing tree coverage quite rapidly and is actually trying to do something about it.

And it's not clear to me how much a city can do in this state, is permitted to do, to

I'll protect trees that are not on city property.

But I think that's the issue that should be addressed.

You know, I've got my favorite pet tree.

I meditate on it.

It's my neighbor's tree.

I sit on my terrace and I look at it.

But, you know, come on, this is ridiculous, six trees.

What you need is thousands more trees

throughout the city.

And I'm going to stop there.

And last call for the public hearing.

All right.

Thank you.

So we'll close the public hearing.

Sure.

We're still working hard to maintain and expand our tree canopy within the city.

This program

handpicks special trees that provides additional protection so there's actually there's civil penalties if they were damaged or if there was, you know, some sort of development to occur there would be other considerations to take prior to that versus some other trees that do not have this type of ordinance protection.

Yeah, I just wanted to clarify for the public.

All right.

Counselors, any other?

No?

All right.

So this is a no vote.

It will move to the April 19th consent agenda.

All right.

Thank you.

Next up, we have a public hearing appropriation

on the budget first reading FY22 budget appropriation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Tonight we have the public hearing on the FY22 budget and first reading for approval.

The budget is scheduled for final approval on April 13th.

We have revised the recommended budget to include the changes asked for by Council at previous meetings.

We've also updated revenue projections as well as contractual expenditure estimates resulting from changes to the budget.

Staff has continued to not include any projections from the American Rescue Plan funds until those amounts, timings and restrictions are documented.

On the next slide, one of the first uses for the American Rescue Plan funds will be to fill the revenue shortfalls from FY21.

While revenue projections are improving for FY21, we still estimate a $9.2 million revenue loss for fiscal year 21.

For 22, we now estimate an additional $1.5 million in available resources above the original estimated $190,689,000 from the original budget.

This is due to both increased revenue projections as well as updated expenditure decreases.

On the next slide, staff is now proposing a general fund revenue amount of $192,212,843.

This increase is estimated from additional BPOL taxes, state reimbursement for constitutional officer budgets, and a landfill reserve fund transfer.

From input from city council and the community, we've now included a 2% cost of living adjustment for city employees, creation of staffing for a performance management, innovation, strategic planning initiative,

added expenses for contractual obligations and as well as increased vibrant community fund priorities making those identified vibrant community agencies whole with their FY21 funding.

On the next slide, the additional added expenses include a full year's cover for the Deputy City Manager of Administration,

It includes the increased difference for the Human Rights Commission staff to a director level, as well as staffing for climate action personnel.

Reductions include transfers from the police department and a substantial decrease in the budgeted expenses for the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail due to a debt service elimination, as well as due to reduced inmate population.

These changes balance the FY22 general fund budget at $192,212,000.

That concludes the general fund budget and for the FY22 proposed capital improvement program budget, this has been reduced by $255,000 for the transfer of the police mobile data terminals.

Other than this one change, the CIP remains as recommended in the city manager's previous budget.

To reiterate the budget calendar, the final budget adoption is scheduled for April 13th.

We have scheduled an April 8th work session.

If you do feel that's still necessary, and we could either do that on a detailed discussion or a general review of either the general fund and our CIP budget at that point.

We would need direction from Council if you would after tonight, if you'd like to hold that April 8th work session with that.

Chrissy and Ryan are both available.

They can answer any specific questions that you might have.

In your document, though, that's in the agenda packet, I would like to note one error that we identified, and it's identified two different ways, page 90 of 144 of your whole packet or page 6 of 21 of the FY22 budget.

Just the name is in the vibrant community fund.

The name of partners for mental health was left out and it was inadvertently left off.

The funding amount of eighteen thousand three hundred is included in the budget.

It just didn't have the identifying name of partners for mental health.

So we'll make that change before we present this to you for your final approval.

But other than that, we'd be glad to answer any questions or provide input during discussion.

All right.

Thank you.

Counselors, any questions at this time?

All right.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you're joining us via Zoom,

and you'd like to address council about the fiscal year 2022 budget, click the raise hand icon.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

You'll have up to three minutes.

First up is Harold Foley who will be followed by Don Gathers.

Yes.

Okay.

Whatever it is, I'm actually speaking on behalf of the FAR Internship Program.

A little history about me.

In the early 90s, I was incarcerated, got out.

and I couldn't find a job anywhere.

For Profits wouldn't hire me because of my charge.

Matter of fact, I had a job interview at UVA Hospital and the guy came to that box and said, oh my goodness, I don't think we're going to hire you or we can hire you because the nurse is going to think you're going to steal drugs off the car.

So with that, after my 14th interview, I got a flyer from when I lived in West Haven from a, actually I got it from a worker from the Charlottesville Housing Authority about a program called FAR, the FAR Internship Program, Public Housing Association of Residents Internship Program.

I never organized before and I didn't know what was to be of that, right?

I only seen it had $10 an hour.

That's the only thing I saw and that's the only thing that I jumped at.

But what it did, it actually built the foundation for me to be the organizer that I am now.

It's very important that our internship get funded as much as it can.

I am a living example of how I came from not being the organizer, having so many doubts about working, to being the best organizer I can be right now.

So with that said, I support you adding more funds to the foreign internship program.

I'm living proof that it does work.

Thank you and y'all have a great night.

Oh, one more thing.

I support Nakaya in every word that she made in that poem.

Thank you.

Next up is Don Gathers, who will be followed by Jake Gold.

Don, you're back on with council.

Good evening.

Again, councilors, ditto everything that Mr. Foley just said, but also I have not looked, so I'm not sure if it is in there or if it has been put back, but I'm hoping that you all would indeed consider funding to an appropriate level.

and an acceptable level, the Charlottesville Drug Court, as well as the therapeutic docket.

These are two avenues that gives the seated judges and jurists an opportunity to enact some alternate sentencing, if you will, and possibly keep some of our young individuals out of a jail sentence, which

as Mr. Foley just said, it can certainly have an adverse effect on people moving forward through their lives.

These are ways that the judges can look at alternate sentencing.

And I'm just hoping that whatever funding is appropriate, whatever level is necessary, that you all would indeed look at establishing or re-establishing

that funding because it is very much beneficial.

Next up will be Jake Gold, will be followed by Kate Fraley.

And if you're on via BoxCast or Facebook and you'd like to participate in the public hearing, just go to charlottesville.gov slash Zoom to get the registration link.

Thanks, Brian.

And good evening, Mayor Walker, members of council, city manager Boyles.

I wanted to thank you all for your commitment to the ideal of right to council discussed during public comment earlier.

My dad's always taught me not to sell past the close.

So I scrapped my prepared remarks and I'm just going to thank you all off the cuff.

If Charlottesville adopted a guarantee of counsel for all tenants facing eviction, we'd be the first city in the South to take this critical step.

And it's among the most effective mechanisms we know of to reduce evictions.

We'd be setting the stage for statewide implementation in Virginia.

And we'd be helping many of our neighbors, a lot of our neighbors, stay in their homes.

It's a critical investment for our community and for Virginia, and I'm so thrilled that you all are so strongly supportive.

I'm very excited to watch this plan come together from afar.

Thanks again, and I'm really optimistic that we'll have some truly historic, some groundbreaking news to share in the next month and a half.

So thank you all.

Next up is Kate Fraley.

Kate, you're on with city council.

Hi, I'm Kate Fraley.

I'm a Charlottesville resident and thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I'll be talking about the police department budget request and specifically about body cameras.

The first question that is, what is the purpose of body worn cameras?

There's a general order, and you can read it, but one of the purposes that's stated in the general order is, quote, to enhance confidence in law enforcement operations, unquote.

A summary of studies through June 2018 said, and I quote, cameras have not had statistically significant effects on most measures of officer and citizen behavior or citizens' views of police.

Another purpose in the general order is to, quote, to accurately record law enforcement activities and to capture evidence for investigations and court proceedings, unquote.

The camera is aimed on the individual.

It's surveillance.

It's a policing tool.

New versions may even have face identification possibilities.

Cameras are not safety tools.

Camera footage that got Charlottesville bad apples out didn't prevent the bad behavior.

The proof is that cameras don't prevent police using excessive force or prevent more police violence.

Quote, we need to question the assumption that transparency and accountability tools will directly improve performance.

Emerging literature suggests transparency and accountability practices may actually change the behavior of those observed for worse rather than better.

Another purpose is, quote, reducing the number of complaints and lawsuits against the Charlottesville Police Department and its officers, unquote.

That's about money.

That's not about safety.

Body cameras give officers advantage to write reports exonerating officers.

Civilians who complain don't have that advantage to improve their memory.

21st century policing did not recommend body cameras.

It recommended analysis instead.

And I think enough information is in to say we do not want to expand the use of body cameras in Charlottesville.

A recommendation of a report from an evidence

An evidence assessment of the recommendations of the president's task force on 21st century policing said, quote, the task force emphasized the importance of community consultation in the development and adoption of police technology.

This seems particularly important with respect to privacy and civil rights considerations as various information, surveillance and investigative technologies raise important questions about the types of data police gather on citizens.

Body cameras help the police.

That's an end quote.

Body cameras help the police department.

They don't increase safety.

Please don't increase the police budget for these.

That was our last hand that's raised.

If you'd like to speak to Council, you have a few more moments to click the button.

We have somebody participating now.

Jay James, you are on with City Council.

Thanks very much, Mr. Wheeler.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, members of council, Mr. Boyles and the staff.

As always, grateful for the opportunity.

I want to thank all of you for your service.

I'll be brief tonight.

I'm a city resident and I'm a volunteer and a board member for the Bridge Ministry Substance Abuse and Reentry Program.

Even echoing the sentiments of Mr. Gathers, who I respect a great deal, advocating for the drug court and the mental health docket, I'm here to represent an organization that continues to help people dealing with homelessness, incarceration, and of course, addiction and addictive behavior.

I'll be briefing the comments tonight because you've already heard from retired 16th Circuit Court Judge Jay Sweat, who helped to develop the drug court and use the bridge ministry program on a regular basis when he was on the bench in Charlottesville, the same

seat that is occupied by Judge Moore now.

You also have heard in the previous budget session from Valerie Powell Mountain, former Dean of Workforce Services at PVCC, who teaches credential classes, PVCC teaches credential classes, professional certifications at our facility for our residents.

for an inpatient program.

And she talked about her confidence in the program and how she used it on a regular basis to instruct our students.

And we had a 98% success rate of giving men professional credentials to help them achieve a living wage and greater.

some of the same things that Mr. Foley brought up even before in his previous comments.

But really, for me, and we've teached multiple certifications, there was someone who wanted to speak to you all tonight on our behalf who couldn't be here, and that's our Glenn Rust is the CEO of Virginia National Bank because he's someone who understands numbers.

And I know the compassion of the counselors is there.

You care about homeless people.

You care about people dealing with addiction.

I certainly respect that.

But at the end of the day, I know it comes down to the budget and to numbers.

And that's the responsibility that Mr. Boyles has.

And that's the responsibility that all of you take very seriously with taxpayer dollars.

So I would just share with you, you know, we have an inpatient residential facility that can accommodate 50 people.

It's the largest amount of people in our community in an inpatient setting that can be accommodated.

And when you look at the numbers based upon what it costs to annually incarcerate someone,

It's about an average of just under $35,000.

So if you take 25 people in our 50-person facility, 25 from the city of Charlottesville, instantly before any type of investment, that is nearly $900,000 that's not being spent to incarcerate them.

They're in our program for 18 months, which means that would be $1.3 million that's not being spent

in order to incarcerate them when the current projected budget to be spent for city dollars is $3.9 million.

So basically, when you look at the numbers, we're asking for about 29 percent to serve 25 people

versus what it would cost to incarcerate them for nearly $900,000 for a year and nearly $1.3 million for 18 months.

So again, grateful for your consideration.

We know it comes down to a lot of different factors, but we are impacting this community to help save lives of these men and their families.

And we believe it is a worthy investment that we're asking you to consider making

to help members of the city who are incarcerated become productive, taxpaying citizens who don't recidivate when the jail has a 40% recidivism rate within the first year.

We have a 14% recidivism rate.

Yes, ma'am?

Thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you all so much.

All right.

So we'll close the public hearing and council discussion.

And I think one of the discussion points is whether the April 8th meeting needs to happen.

So when we were talking through

getting some of these other programs that council had identified as priorities to be whole with their previous year.

Sure.

Hold on one second.

So for the drug court, that was an additional just shy of $38,000 that was added.

And then for the therapeutic docket, it was about $17,500.

And so that's in the amendments that are before you that Mr. Boyles presented earlier, where it says OAR, instead of breaking it out by program, we did it by agency because that's how it's presented in the actual budget document is by agency.

Thank you for clarifying that.

I was a little confused.

The $500,000 for the ivy landfill that's new, I'm just curious the specifics of, is that contractually required?

So that is basically contractually required with Rivanna.

Over the last few years, we have used part of the reserve to cover that budget.

It's roughly a half a million dollars.

We have been funding about 250 out of a reserve that was set aside some time ago when we underwent a change in the MOU with Rivanna.

And it's a little over two million dollars that we have in reserve.

in case there are any closing costs or things that come up.

And so we are just going to start drawing that down a little bit more.

And it's not like, but for the, so with the decisions for Legal Aid Justice Center, OAR, and FAR, that's to bring them level to last year's Vibrant Community Fund funding levels?

That's the it was for OER.

It was the drug court and the therapeutic docket for legal aid.

It was civil legal services and the support for community advocacy on racial equity.

Both of those two programs.

And then for FAR, it was the internship program to bring them level with where they were last year.

And then the final question I had is just the $190,000 for strategic planning and performance measurement.

I don't know if Mr. Boyles wants to speak to that.

Let me try to get to...

that page because this came up with it was part of a a bigger let me

Because it was part of a bigger plan, the original proposal that we were looking at was a lot larger funding, is that we just put it into a citywide reserve so that we could look at it in more detail and then decide what level of a position would be required, what other type of supporting funding would be needed.

We just didn't have enough information to put a specific number on it right now.

So to follow up on that, that is sort of, I know it's not a long way down the road that Mayor Walker was trying to go down, but it's at least part of the way.

Is that right?

It gets us through the door.

Yeah, the other piece to it, though, I want to be clear about is the strategic plan language in there.

Of course, before you joined us a couple months ago, we had had a number of discussions about trying to get the city's strategic planning process reactivated.

And I think I may have had some discussions with you off public access.

But refresh my recollection.

What is your thinking right now about what that strategic planning process would look like and what the money would be?

Well, I don't know how much money yet.

I have been in conversations with UVA's, the Virginia Institute for Government, who's preparing a proposal to help us with that.

But also, it would...

What my vision is, is as soon as we get through with this budget process, then we begin a strategic planning process that will start to lead us towards the FY23 budget.

A lot of work, as I'm finding out, has been done in the past already so that we can utilize some of that.

But I also believe that a combination of city council, city staff,

and community members need to contribute toward this strategic plan update.

And then that would advise and send us the direction to begin with the FY23 budget.

I don't have a dollar amount to put into that.

I do also believe, and I'm already getting myself guilty of what I've warned everybody else to do, not to do, is to be looking at these federal funds that would be coming in.

Okay.

Yes, and again, as soon as we get through this budget, and as we find out exactly how much money we'll be receiving,

when we'll receive it and what it can and cannot be used for.

We'll start developing a plan of action to address some of the city

needs that we have, go back and allow our vibrant community fund programs to apply either again or just we'll take the applications that we already have.

And again, as I noted earlier in my presentation, one of the very first things we'll look to do with these funds is to replenish our lost revenue from FY21.

Half of the total.

And I don't, I just have the same, I'm just looking forward to the process, what's the process that's going to be for the fiscal year 23.

I still think that

You know, we have to figure out a way to ensure that the funding that we're giving to nonprofits is actually serving the community well.

One of the major points that came out of the task force, or whatever, working group, meeting, I convene, whatever we called it, but was to figure out how to get citizens input.

directly and not just have nonprofits be able to say that X number of people participated and thereby just by participating benefit from the dollars that they were allocated.

I also think that figuring out

how to what the assessment of what staff needs are.

That was something early in this debate.

I mean, this conversation that I felt like it was kind of pitting council the way that things were worded against staff if we had went down that route.

And so I just hope we end up in a better place where we just know, like what the process is so that we are not, you know, not taking staff concerns and needs seriously.

And there's a way internally

to make sure that the staff, that they are communicating so that they'll know why whichever department requests rise to the top, why that happens.

And then what does that mean long-term?

And...

I have a lot of comments, but I made them over the time.

The other thing, Mayor, that in addition to everything you just named, I think for FY23, too, we want to come up with a means to be able to identify some of our nonprofit and community stakeholders and partners that will become more of a line item within the budget so that they can

Even though it's on an annual basis, it will be a little bit more definitive for them to know they're going to get a funding of a certain amount every year.

It'll always be up to council year by year to decide, but so that there are some very key agencies, I believe, that need to be able to be operating more under a multi-year memorandum of understanding

than to have to come back and apply each year.

Now, if they want to do something new or extra, then that falls into the competitive realm.

And that's something we'll be getting back with you all about for FY23.

And I think that's also important to figure out

who makes that list and why I know part of that thought process is a drug court and a therapeutic court.

And again, those two programs are also two programs that I'm interested in getting the client related feedback for not saying that it doesn't work.

I worked in as a drug court outpatient clinician, I've said that

you know before and so I know that it brings a lot of value to people lives because the alternative is jail but there are some questions that have come up even with that like does do you have to plead guilty in order to participate in things like that and those conversations I think that we should be able to if we're going to put them in that category that we should be able to ask

you know ask those questions and I also want to think about an organizations like FAR

who the internship program and look at the amazing work that they did with the redevelopment phase one of South First Street.

And so when we look at long term, what are our goals, which is to prevent people from ever needing a drug court or a family treatment court, then we have to figure out a way to prioritize those organizations too.

That's one of the points Mayor Walker had raised.

I know one of the staff positions that I think was the second highest priority was the position for measurements and solutions.

Is there a hope that indirectly it could be funded on stimulus money?

I know we can't use stimulus money for recurring expenses, but could it indirectly free up money for that?

Or is that something that is just going to be the next budget year we need to put that at the top of the list?

I'm just curious.

That may come out of that, let me find the category again, the line item that we were talking about earlier.

The performance management.

The performance management line item.

That's what that is designed for.

We just don't have enough details to give you exactly what it would be.

But the hopes are out of the general fund and that line item would support one position.

Doesn't sound like we've got many issues that we would have to discuss.

Yeah, I mean, to me, the biggest question marks are all about what's going to happen with the stimulus money and if we'll even have room to make amendments.

But that's where my biggest questions are.

I do believe that you will have a number of special meetings during that process.

Right.

That makes sense.

That's not that position that was that $170,000 was taken out as Mr. Boies was having those discussions to talk about a larger multi-year type of arrangement.

All right.

I just wanted to check on that real piece.

And, you know, knowing that we've all been sitting here talking about how we are very committed towards

supporting that effort with American Recovery dollars.

Okay.

I don't remember.

The 21st Century, that was under President Obama.

I remember reading that, but I don't remember that part.

So I have to just take a look at that.

I know that a lot of people, just to not avoid that conversation and make sure that I touch on it, because I think it was during this segment, but

because of body camera footage, because of cell phones, and I know we definitely hear it over cell phones because citizens have more control over that at all, that we are more aware.

A lot of this stuff is not having the outcomes we would hope it have.

It's clearly evident that you are killing someone and then there has to be a debate about those things.

But I think

remember the reading for years when it was just police officers word against the citizens and unless there was camera footage from like store nearby businesses homes or whatever it was always perceived that the officer version of the events were true so

You know, I just think that having body of all the things we may want to debate and discuss, and maybe there's a better use for those, but I think that the body cameras are a, you know, part of the process that we should keep.

And I'd like to add to that.

Ms.

Fraley talked about body-worn cameras as though the only issue was going to be one of monitoring, preventing, detecting police misconduct.

I've found in my own practice that it has made an enormous difference in being able to identify instances of, let's say, overcharging where, yes, we know the person did something wrong, but maybe not quite as wrong as the police officer

described it or wrote it up in sort of the heat of the moment.

It has been very valuable to try to reduce the charges in many instances.

And perhaps more importantly, I think jurors tend now to expect it.

And if you don't have the body-worn cameras and you don't have the other videos,

You're suspect.

And so I think the situation has evolved now to the point where I don't think it's an option, really.

We need to have the body worn cameras.

I also think I remember, and maybe one of the financial whizzes here can refresh me on this,

Wasn't there some issue about the body worn cameras having been moved from a capital budget into an operating budget or something like that that causes it?

So there was some there was some change in the way that they were being accounted for.

I remember

years ago, body-worn cameras that were being done by contract, and the contract was coming out of a miscellaneous account rather than anything that could be identified.

And sometimes you just get an accounting like that where suddenly it looks like you've dramatically increased everything when perhaps all you've really done is moved from one column to another.

That is correct.

When we first went to the body-worn cameras, it was a multi-year contract.

We had a large budget for that.

When we actually got to a contract, there was a significant amount of savings.

And so we basically just kept that money in the CIP, paid down the annual maintenance on those.

The contract came up for renewal again, and it was at this point for this budget that we actually moved that from the CIP to the operating budget.

It was originally when the budget was first encumbered for that project.

We thought it was going to be much higher.

And so at the time, rather than, you know, unencumber the money, we thought it was a great idea.

Okay, gotcha.

And I know

Fraley did send us a written version of her remarks that includes some citations.

I definitely don't know all the literature, but it seems like an important tool.

But I also agree, it's clearly not a systemic change that's going to

You know, alter behavior in the ways we would like, but it still seems like a useful tool.

And we just echo when you account for that CIP adjustment, the police budget has been reduced this year, not increased a few staff positions and then a reduction in the line item for mobile data terminals.

And I think for these bigger conversations, I hope

We hit the ground running, you know, immediately a net budget cycle for implementing the Marcus Alert system, implementing the things that have been talked about in the imagining a just civil work group that Mayor Walker has put together.

I know they've been talking about

pre-arrest diversion programs.

I think standing up those programs next budget cycle may be the foundation of beginning to look at new service delivery models and sort of moving in a different direction in policing.

Any other comments?

No.

So that moves to the April 13th.

Right.

All right.

This is just very quickly no presentation here.

This is to support the FY22 budget.

There are no proposed tax rate increases for any of our property taxes or both real property and personal property or any of our other fees and taxes.

And

Councilors, are there any questions?

Okay, and my only question is just to take it back to the CHAP and rent relief programs.

I know that we, this is the second year that we haven't included increases in our budget.

Last year, we were able to give families an additional grant

of I think up to $250.

And so I hope that is something that we can consider doing the conversations over the next couple that we'll have starting in May or sometime in April, as soon as we know, because I think that's very beneficial.

to the families.

As I never, I have, even when I worked in nonprofit, I hated when we paraded like the people we served in front of people for them to tell their story.

So I've never done it.

And I don't ever plan on doing it.

Even with this gift card stuff, there were people who were like, can I come and talk?

And I said, no.

But there are a lot of people who have shared, not a lot.

There have been

quite a few people who have shared, you know, concerns about being able to pay their real estate taxes, housing prices increasing around them.

I talked to one citizen who lived in the 10th and

Page area, and she was concerned about an Airbnb that's in their neighborhood that's keeping them up and wanted to make sure that we were, you know, monitoring that and if it was a better way that we could do that.

But the conversation centered around, you know, being able to keep her home that she brought, I think she said 91.

And so, you

I feel like when we were getting to giving that whole list of things to consider for priorities, both for the budget and for ARP.

I know that Ms.

Yep.

That's correct.

I think it was like 600 and some change, if I recall correctly for the first year.

No, I don't believe so.

I believe that the chat program with the benefits we provide within that are at the

Will of City Council.

What is, what we may have to look at, and I'll have to check with Todd Divers as he's the expert on this, is some of the criteria within that are state regulated and that might be, you know, that would be where we would have to look at changing as far as like some house values and some income levels and those kind of things.

But I know, you know, with the

You know, in speaking with Mr. Divers on the merging of these programs, you know, based on timing right now, it would be hard to do anything until the next budget cycle, but it's obviously something that could be looked at with one of the versions or one of the sets of the ARP funding that comes in.

Okay, no other comments?

All right, so we are moving this to a second reading on April 13, too.

So yeah, so last year in 2020, we enacted a local ordinance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and both on December

10th, 2020, and then again on February 16th, 2021, we amended the local ordinance to bring it closer conformance with the executive orders that have been issued by the governor.

Separately from the governor's executive orders, the city's local ordinance continues to impose local restrictions on the number of persons allowed on food establishments and requires a warning to a property owner or tenant prior to enforcing any state imposed restrictions on the size of the gathering.

Bringing this forward so that council can revisit the question of whether the city's local ordinance should be repealed,

I have concerns, and I don't think I'm alone, that there are things, as things progress relative to reopening over the next, you know, several months, there continues to be confusion and discrepancies between what is being directed at both the state and local level, making maintaining our own local ordinance growingly more cumbersome.

And additionally, I know Mr. Boyle shared a matrix with council that the county had put together that shows just

what's being required for the county, the city at the state level is also anything that UVA has imposed.

And I think nearly on all counts that we are right now aligned with the state level with exception to what I mentioned earlier regarding restaurants and those occupancies.

But I think we can all anticipate that more changes will be evolving over the course of months and just making it much more difficult for us to keep up with and making sure that there is some level of consistency

and so I know that we've talked about this as a council in the past and I think at this stage and given we're in April and we think about the root of where this all started was when UVA students were coming back and then we revisited again over December when we know they were going to be returning again but just in anticipation of you know a lot of changes on the horizon I just think it would be a simpler process for us just to repeal this ordinance and follow what's happening at the state level.

Mr. Boyce, do you have that matrix up?

I think it's just in-person dining.

Yeah.

That's the only difference we are anymore.

So I think what was reiterated was that we are pretty much aligned where we are now, but anticipating that there will be additional changes at the state level as things kind of open up and evolve.

My thought at this point is, you know, I've been opposed to repealing it.

And my thought has been one, the need for stricter regulations, because unlike most localities, we have an influx of students coming in, in the need at that time.

And at this point, if the only difference is the in-person dining, it seems like it's at a point where it's

It's not really even enforceable at this point.

And just for clarity, with the vaccine rollout beginning and just the clarity of the rules, it may be better at this point to just go with the state level ordinances or rules.

Because I think I'm just not sure what

Additional value we're getting from it at this point.

I think we did before the vaccine rollout and when UVA students were coming in.

Because again, we're still going to have all the restrictions that are statewide.

And my only concern is, even though I don't think this would be the impact at all, just anything that could give the impression of like we're out of the clear, because I know, especially at this point, you know, COVID fatigue is definitely a real thing with the vaccine rollout, people feeling like we're done, but we've still got, you know, at least several weeks for vaccine rollout to continue.

And there's definitely real risks there.

But to me, the I just I

Yeah, and my concerns are still the same.

I think that even the state level, federal level, we're very slow

and coming to terms that we were actually in a pandemic and it took that extra push locally and I'm even looking at UVA and I think the day we repealed when we came more in line with the state level at a council meeting or two ago that same day UVA had put these more restrictive measures in place and it was just a time where we're usually

saying, let's listen to the experts.

And then that was a day that we didn't listen to the experts.

So this is just one of those times where even though they did not go on spring break, we're

They have decided to have graduation, which I don't know how their current restrictions fit into that conversation.

But we are going to have, even if there are only so many people who are able to attend graduation, that doesn't mean that families are not going to come, you know, to the area.

And while our numbers are low, we often talk about the 55 people.

I mean, you wouldn't want to be one of those 55 people who are no longer with us.

But as someone who talked to people who have those long hauler symptoms that we often don't talk about, I think that we are still feeding into what we wish.

our current state would be versus where we actually are.

And I'm very concerned about as we open up and meet the demands of our citizens, some of these same citizens who

You know, have complained about wearing masks, have complained about some of the restrictions, even at places like Skate Park.

I'm concerned about what that looks like over the summer.

As someone who has been an employee before in Parks and Rec, I know what that looks like in a normal summer.

So

I just hope that if and when it becomes clear that and hopefully it won't hopefully everyone will get vaccinated or everybody that can even the people who can only get one shot that they'll be vaccinated enough where this virus is not causing you know long term and significant harm.

to their bodies and families and ending up with, you know, at the ultimate with fatalities.

But, you know, there are places around the country, and I asked Dr. Bonds about this earlier, who are talking about the fourth surge.

And, you know,

Charlottesville has done relatively well and there are a lot of people committed to making sure that as a locality and regionally that we were doing well but it was because of some of those more restrictive measures so I just hope

If there is a time where we have to definitely revisit those, that we do that over the temporary feelings that people are having.

I know people are upset.

People want their lives to return to normal, but we are still not there.

And there are a lot of people who

This vaccine means more than we even have evidence for at this time.

So at first it was just like the vaccine lasts for 90 days.

Now they're up to six months and they're up to six months now because they have the information now.

There's a lot of information they did not have.

three months ago.

And just like there'll be more information they'll have in six more months than they have today.

So I just hope we are just paying attention to that.

I know people are angry and a lot of you can't handle people not being happy.

But I think longer term, they'll be happier.

if we get this right versus just trying to meet demands.

And I hope we give staff the authority to come either to us or city manager when the public is asking for more than we can do, even if the state level is doing it.

I know the state is, you know, on this sheet, it has community pools, 75% capacity, free swim.

We are not even considering opening a pool.

If those public demands start flowing in for us to do that, are we going to ask staff to do it?

Are we going to listen to what they are saying about concerns with physical distancing?

And for me, it doesn't at all.

And if we're in a situation where we need stricter, I'm all for it.

Okay.

Anyone else?

So there's something in review options.

So I would like just to go ahead and

make a motion for one of these options, which is to repeal it.

So it says repealing requires two readings.

Right.

According to Ms.

Robertson, if you want to approve the repeal, then this would require two readings.

So we can just, if there is support for it, we can put on the consent agenda.

I think there's support, but this is one that I'll just be asking to move for a separate vote.

All right.

Next up, we have a resolution, Comprehensive Plan Amendment, Star Hill Neighborhood Community Vision Plan.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Council.

and City Manager.

What's before you tonight, it's the Star Hill Vision Plan was presented to the City Council on November 18, 2019.

Council passed a resolution to transmit the plan to the Planning Commission for consideration.

Planning Commission and staff worked together.

Originally, it was a small area plan, but because of the contents,

and the efficiencies in the land use.

It was agreed with the consultants that will be submitted to the Planning Commission and subsequently to the City Council as vision plan.

And the Planning Commission had a work session on this vision plan.

And on March 9th, 2021,

Planning Commission had a joint public hearing with the City Council and then voted anonymously by seven vote to zero to approve the plan and to recommend it to the City Council for adoption.

So what you have before you right now is a recommendation from the Planning Commission to formally adopt and amend the comprehensive plan.

And with that, I want to turn it over to the

to the consultant and the project management group, Yolanda Harrell, who will provide you with a brief presentation before you discuss and approve the plan or consider the plan rather.

Thank you, Alex.

Well, good evening, Madam Mayor, counselors, city staff and neighbors.

I hope you all had a...

Yolanda Harrell, I hope you all had an enjoyable Easter weekend.

As stated, my name is Yolanda Harrell and on behalf of the community neighbors and partners that participated in developing this plan, New Hill Development Corporation, LISC, Floor Cane, and RW Ventures, we all have had

Ventures, we'd like to thank you for the opportunity to once again come before you to present the Star Hill Neighborhood Community Vision Plan.

Since you all have had opportunity to review the plan, we wanted to use our time to cover the major themes and the envisioned outcomes.

So let's begin with the plan.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

So the first question that we ask is, who benefits from the Star Hill Vision Plan?

Well, in short, the answer is the community does.

Next slide, please.

This plan intentionally centers the Black community, not to the exclusion of others, but rather to the intentional inclusion of us.

This plan specifically looks at opportunities to increase the street-level presence of sustainable, well-capitalized, existing and startup Black-owned businesses.

We've envisioned co-ownership opportunities, incubator space with industry-specific accelerators such as food service and production, retail, e-commerce, solar, and tech.

Our analysis not only looked at the built environment, but it examines the fact that we must address the financing gaps.

Addressing the much needed access to capital would mean friendlier capital options ranging between 50 to 200,000.

These options would consider not just what a person has proven that they can do, but rather also consider what is possible.

Next slide, please.

This plan also imagines future housing options across a wide range of affordability to include rental and ownership opportunities.

Whether you are a first time home buyer, a voucher holder, or someone looking for the next phase of housing along their financial growth path, in this plan we have demonstrated how those opportunities can and will exist.

Next slide please.

This plan explores how to build upon the African American Heritage Center's tremendous work of curation of local history and art, moving it beyond the doors and into the built environment.

The plan elevates and centers the Jefferson School City Center and the Jefferson School Foundation's desire to sustain the Jefferson School to enhance its vitality and importance as a cultural, educational, and community resource.

This plan also speaks to the need for gathering spaces where folks can connect or just simply be, where they can be empowered to congregate and co-create, build and own and innovate and learn.

The community has envisioned a culturally distinctive neighborhood.

This neighborhood will have financial and socially accessible community spaces and activities.

Next slide please.

So next question is, how much housing will be created?

Well, as mentioned earlier, this plan envisions what housing possibilities could look like in this area.

Through the engagement process and the examination of the existing community assets,

City Yard by far offers the greatest opportunity to address the housing needs.

While City Yard represents a genuine opportunity for new affordable housing as part of a mixed-use development, Star Hill's existing residential neighborhood must be sustained and strengthened.

This plan is committed to ensuring that homeowners in Star Hill can afford to stay in their homes.

that measures are taken to alleviate vehicular parking pressures within the neighborhood and that residents have a strong and active voice in Star Hills continued development going forward.

So how much housing will be created?

Next slide please.

This plan looks at what can be done immediately, which is creating housing on Brown Street, thus shoring up and strengthening the integrity of the existing residential neighborhood.

This can be done while we explore other opportunities in the larger plan.

Through the subdivision of City Yard in the immediate, you could see at a minimum 10 to 46 units of new housing to include new home ownership opportunities to first time home buyers.

Next slide, please.

So now let's look at the larger parcel.

There are more possibilities available here.

What we have proposed is simply a vision of what could be done considering the existing easements.

In the pre-development phase of this property, that's where exploration of options with the community and the city will occur.

But if we just for a moment just look at the proposed vision, our city could gain upwards of 250 additional housing units, not to mention the additional office and retail space

to support the presence of Main Street Black-owned businesses, which can significantly change the social fabric of our community.

Next slide, please.

Based on the proposed vision, this slide shows a possibility of what could be done with City Yard if it is subdivided, with an emphasis on what can be done in the immediate and what can be done in the near future.

Next slide, please.

So the next question, does this plan create jobs?

What does this mean for our community from a jobs perspective?

Well, let's take a look at that.

Next slide, please.

Based on the current proposed vision in this plan of what could be built on city yard, this plan could create a considerable amount of job opportunities, upwards of 1400 jobs.

Now some of those would be during and some of those would be after the construction process.

But not only will it create jobs, those jobs will translate into revenue for local small businesses, which of course translates into tax revenue for the city,

and of course, let us not forget about the additional tax revenue once the area is built down.

Next slide, please.

So what has been added since 2020 or rather since we actually came before council back in 2019?

Well, we have addressed one very important aspect of what makes this community and life in this community so very special for so many.

We have also included one big idea

Next slide, please.

Since our last meeting, we were able to meet with leadership from First Baptist, Ebenezer, and Pilgrim Baptist churches to understand more about their hopes

Sheehan Walker, Mike Signer, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker, Ph.D.

Sheehan Walker

Additionally, Main Street will lose parking spaces, and without a parking plan, this church's very survival is at stake.

Currently, the church rents 50 parking spaces for Sunday services.

should and when the Amtrak parking lot become home to new construction, taking into consideration this is currently the main reliable parking available for the church's congregants and allocation of spaces for the church is absolutely necessary.

Growth of the residential community was deemed very positive by the churches because it presents an opportunity to address the repopulation concerns.

In fact, Pilgrim Baptist has a monastery school in the works, and First Lady Cooper was thrilled at the possibility to support additional families with the convenience of an early childhood education center within walking distance.

We have also included some of the history of the current churches and history to remind us of the churches that were once present.

However, we have received some additional information and documents that are

that has helped inform more of that history which we are addressing.

Next slide, please.

And finally, the big idea.

As my partner Shelly would say, if the mind could dream, what would it do?

Well, there's an important opportunity to restore and strengthen the connections between Star Hill to a broader network of neighborhoods from West Haven, 10th and Page to Rose Hill to the Downtown Mall.

That's what the pedestrian bridge offers.

Other ideas to consider as we plan the future of this area and the future of our city.

This could provide us with more connectivity from neighborhoods to the downtown area, creating more opportunities for safer mobility for our pedestrians.

And with this type of connectivity, a pedestrian bridge can also be beautiful works of art, gateway markers, and a way of delivering messages to the broader community.

I will end with this.

This vision is of a Star Hill community whose future growth is guided by a commitment to racial, economic, and social equity.

We will create a neighborhood identity rooted in African American presence and prosperity with real opportunities for the Black community to foster ownership of property, commerce, and culture.

To develop trust and goodwill within the community for this process, we ask this council to honor the vision and the work by not only appending this vision plan to the comprehensive plan, but to also advocate for quick action.

Thank you.

So the pedestrian bridge was actually an idea that came up during our meetings with the Planning Commission.

and the idea is around how do we add more connectivity or the ease of pedestrian passageway?

So I guess I'm not quite sure what

I'm just not sure what that means, because if you're suggesting a bridge across McIntyre, that's not even far to Star Hill at that point.

Exactly.

So the idea, Mr. Snook, was to take a look at while we're visioning, while we're thinking, while we're dreaming, let's think big.

Let's not just look at the smallest part of what we can do, but let's think about the future built environment of our city and how do we make our city more connected.

And so even though that, yes, does get to your point, gets outside of the footprint of the Star Hill community, we have to take into consideration that our neighborhoods butt up against one another.

And so how do we then create this connectivity in between?

As you know, in the plan, we also looked at connectivity of the abandoned rail spur that runs along the backside, which also is about how do we create more connectivity between the neighborhoods?

One of the things that came up during the community engagement process

was about this, a need to feel like the communities are more connected.

As you all know that one of the tunnel bridges, one of the tunnels was, or is closed off because it is,

in the back of city yard.

And so one of the things that this plan speaks to is the fact that by subdividing the city yard, you can even go ahead and open that tunnel up.

So community members are looking for ways in which they can move around safely as many choose to walk, some by choice, some not by choice, because that's their only means of getting around.

And so how do we do that in a way that not only adds safety and security,

but also provides more opportunity for connection and also adds beauty to our city.

It's not something that has to be done.

Well, I mean, I'm all in favor of figuring out a good plan for the city yard and for reopening that tunnel and really integrating it back into the community that, frankly, the railroad cut it off from.

And that all makes good sense.

I guess I'm a little bit puzzled from just kind of, I don't know, a bureaucratic perspective.

This has nothing to do with you.

It's just sort of how we do our thing.