City Council Meeting   3/2/2020

So I call this meeting to order.

Ms.

Thomas, roll call, please.

Ms.

Walker.

Present.

Ms.

Magill.

Present.

Ms.

Hill.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting?

So moved.

All right.

Please vote.

All right.

Agenda for March 2nd is approved.

No announcements?

All right.

I'm going to vote tomorrow.

Yeah, don't forget to vote.

Anybody can vote in the primary.

All right.

Next, we have recognitions and proclamation.

We have one proclamation.

The proclamation for Census Day is April 1, 2020, whereas Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution mandates a decennial census stating representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, and whereas the 2020 census will address every household in the nation with a simple questionnaire,

with the goal of counting everyone once, only once in the right place, and whereas every household in Charlottesville, Virginia is required by the Constitution to complete their census form and count everyone living with them on April 1st, 2020 by responding online, by phone, or with a paper questionnaire, and whereas the data collected from the survey is used to determine a variety of things, including but not limited to the distribution of congressional seats in the United States House of Representatives.

how to redistrict states and how to allocate federal funds to states which directly impacts communities.

And whereas, additionally, residents, businesses, local governments, real estate developers and city planners use the data collected in a variety of ways to support community initiatives,

build factories and offices, plan new schools and hospitals, and develop new homes and revitalize old neighborhoods.

And whereas data obtained by the survey will be used to help determine how approximately $675 billion will be distributed from the federal government to state, local, and tribal governments annually.

And whereas up to $2,000 of federal funding will be lost for each person not counted, as well as upwards of $20,000 of federal funding lost every 10 years.

and whereas this is important that everyone in Virginia counts, every community matters and that every person who lives in Virginia has equitable access to opportunities, resources and representation.

Mayor Walker, can I add one thing about that?

It's very important that everybody get counted because it's been estimated that it will cost the city $2,000 roughly in grant money not received for every person who isn't counted.

Can I just make a brief comment?

Oh, please come forward.

Do you want to give this to her?

Okay, so I'll just do my little thing.

It'll take one minute.

So we're looking to recruit thousands and thousands of people to work this summer from May to July.

It pays $22 an hour.

You're paid weekly.

Could you speak into the mic so that I'm sorry.

OK.

And so if you were interested in applying, I can give you that information.

And it would be best to apply right now since they're hiring as we speak.

And you would be trained in late April or early May.

And as I said, work through July at least.

So does anyone have any questions?

I'm here with the Census Bureau.

We're looking to hire thousands and thousands of people in every nook and cranny of the country to be census takers.

That would mean you would go door to door and ask people who don't respond to the questionnaire the information on it.

It's nine questions and it's

It does not ask about immigration, social security, or household income.

I forgot where I veered off, but it's hiring now.

The work is from May to July.

They pay $22 an hour, pay training, mileage, and you get paid.

Ms.

Consent Agenda A, Minutes, February 3, Special and Regular Meetings, February 6, Budget Work Session, February 11, Special Meeting, February 12, Meeting with Cadre, February 18, Special and Regular Meetings, February 20, Work Session, B, Appropriation, Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, Fiscal Year 2019, $25,072, Second Reading,

C, Appropriation, Bern Jag, Youth Engagement Programs Grant, $99,291, second reading D, Appropriation, Skatepark Lighting Donations, $47,540, first of two readings E, Appropriation, transfer from the Historic Resources Committee funds to the examination of possible burials near the Gilmer, Craven, Hotop,

Cemetery at Penn Park, $3,500, first of two readings.

F, resolution, playground license for Walker Upper Elementary School, one reading.

G, resolution, referral of accessory dwelling unit, middle density zoning, and affordable dwelling unit zoning text amendments to the Planning Commission, one reading.

If there's anyone from the public who wish to speak, you can come up.

I will tell you that we're about to have a motion to remove G to discuss at the end of the meeting tonight.

And that's the ADU middle density zoning, affordable dwelling unit text amendment.

So that will be discussed by council at the end of the meeting tonight.

Is there anyone here who would wish to speak?

Well, once we vote on it, but that's coming up.

Anyone who wish to speak

on an item on consent.

Okay.

Okay.

Please vote.

Oh, I had a wrong vote.

That's fine, but I would have said no.

All right, is there a motion for the other items?

Yes, I move to adopt the consent agenda without item G. Second.

All right, please vote.

All right, that carries five to zero.

Thank you Madam Mayor and members of City Council to the public.

There were two items I want to bring up tonight for discussion and one pertains to an incident that happened on the downtown mall on December 28th, 2018.

The question was what happened to the individual, the suspect of that crime.

That individual actually pled guilty to the crime and was sentenced and will be sentenced in the very near future.

The next item is pertaining to the gentleman who came and said that he knows a person that would be interested in purchasing the statues but at this time I think that we should wait and see what the state adopts and then at that time we can explore those options as well as others.

I think it's

important that we do wait to see what the state does in terms of the adoption of their legislation.

Yes, that's what we're looking at that.

We'll come back with more information pertaining to that.

As I mentioned last meeting, we would have to actually go out and look at

the cause of that and then be able to really give you a concrete plan of what our options are.

Next we have Community Matters.

Good evening.

My name is Emily Dreyfus and I'm an organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center at 1000 Preston Avenue.

I'm also on the FAR Advisory Council.

And I'm here tonight on behalf of the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

And I have several items I want to speak about and

Other people will talk more in depth, but first I wanted to start with the good news, which is that FAR is having a benefit concert, or will benefit from a concert that is being sponsored by the Albemarle High School Jazz Ensemble, March 15th at 7pm at the Jefferson Theater, and we hope people will join us for that.

It should be a really great evening.

You can get tickets on the Jefferson Theater's website.

And as far as the issues go, I wanted to speak to several items.

One is as you move forward on the budget, both rent and tax relief programs can be bolstered significantly to address the displacement that's happening in our community.

And we really urge you to dig into that issue this year.

And we would be happy to work with you to provide some specific recommendations on those programs and how they could be more user friendly.

If you have a look at the rent relief description on the website, it is incredibly hard to understand.

So if someone is wondering if they're eligible, it would be a very difficult thing to determine that from the language on the website.

And I think the more we can do to spread the word about those programs and ensure that lower income folks are getting the benefits that they are able to access, the better off we will be as a community.

The Housing Advisory Committee is another issue that's important as far as equity in our community and the displacement happening.

Even though there are certainly some things that could be done to improve the process, including the funding distribution allocation process, that body has provided much needed technical expertise about what can be done to address housing problems and to stem the tide of displacement and encourage affordable housing construction.

Along those lines, I wanted to bring up a concern I have about the Steering Committee for the comp plan, affordable housing strategy and zoning overhaul.

The steering committee that met one time so far and has another meeting scheduled later this month was very undiverse.

There were no low income black people in the room at all.

And given that those are the folks that are most dramatically impacted by the affordable housing crisis, that's something that really must be remedied.

So I'd like to ask if council could take action to direct staff or

However, you can take this in hand and be able to make some changes so that people are well represented.

I can't remember the names, but there is an email that has a list of everyone who's on it.

On that committee, I am.

Brandon Collins is representing FAR and Erin Winston is a member of CLIC.

Two people are representing CLIC, one person was added to represent FAR.

Good evening.

My name is Jeff Yeager.

I'm a patrol and field training officer and forensic technician for the Charlottesville Police Department's evening shift.

I'm here tonight to bring to your attention a topic that has been mentioned several times in this chamber, but apparently with not a lot of attention.

All of our officers are here tonight on their time off to advocate for basic improvements that you can help us make to bring our department up to the standards of a world-class city.

The police department currently occupies a small portion of this building which has undergone little to no renovation since its construction in the 1960s.

We are forced to spend thousands of the taxpayers dollars a year to lease enough additional office space to carry out our basic functions.

We often run essential computer systems necessary for timely and accurate information sharing across the nation on generator power.

Last year we were forced to evacuate the lower floor, an area that our patrol supervisors and officers had worked in 24 hours a day due to levels of black mold and lead dust that had grown toxic and rendered that area unfit for human habitation.

We still have to use some necessary facilities in that area at risk to our own health.

The two small showers provided for our officers are a breeding ground for mold and often flood our bathroom and locker room due to poor installation.

For years, officers have reported respiratory problems from doing nothing more than office work in this building.

We brought up the idea of a new facility or at least a substantial renovation in the past.

For years, those suggestions have been pushed down the road either to be studied or simply brushed aside altogether.

What little renovation has occurred is often funded by the gracious volunteers and donors of the Charlottesville Police Foundation.

This facility, in other words, is quite literally a charity case.

Our employees want what any other hardworking American does, a safe workplace and a workplace that we can take pride in every day.

More than that, this is a place where we have to bring crime victims to on the worst days of their lives.

These people deserve our very best, and first impressions leave lasting impressions.

They deserve the impression of confidence that we can deliver the most up-to-date technology and resources to bring their victimizers to justice.

The money is there.

The question is one of priorities.

Our esteemed public safety partner, the Fire Department, has been allocated tens of millions of dollars in recent years with which they have produced truly world-class facilities.

We are both in professions of selfless service, one team dedicated to the preservation of our citizens' property and of their very lives.

We are here tonight reminding you that although our uniforms and functions are very different, we are still one team putting our lives on the line for you and your families every single night and every day.

We simply ask that we be treated like an equal member of that team.

Please prioritize capital improvements projects for the police department.

You have an amazingly dedicated group of men and women here.

Everyone sitting in this room either stayed through the mass exodus or volunteered to serve this community after its darkest hour knowing the challenges it might bring.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're doing a little work, but as mentioned, it's an old building.

So what's unapproved?

Yeah, they're still using some spaces.

We've come to do, in turn to do some, like I said, a remedy to some of the issues that are there.

But like you said, I mean, they can't really house there.

Those discussions were had with the chief in terms of what's going to be done and what's not going to be done.

But as I mentioned before, as I brought to the council in terms of, you know, the different things that we need in this building as a whole, not just the police department, but as a whole, the different things that are needed.

I'm Elaine Poon.

My name is Elaine Poon.

I'm with the Legal Aid Justice Center and we are a member of the Charlottesville income housing coalition.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, Vice Mayor McGill and city councilors.

Before I begin, I want to raise up the community equity requests of the budget.

including the People's Coalition request for fully funding the PCRB, FAR's request for the Community Internship Program, and properly funding the affordable housing efforts including tax and rent relief, fully funding the CAF, and fully funding CRHA and FY22.

But I'm here mainly to address the housing proposal and thank you for removing that from the consent agenda.

And we want to start by commending Ms.

Robertson, Mr. Sales, and Mr. Holuska for acting swiftly and proactively to address this affordable housing crisis.

We're excited about many pieces of this proposal and we appreciate the hard work.

However, I am here speaking today to encourage council to

lift up the housing advisory council.

I know that there is some confusion perhaps.

I just talked with Mr. Sales about whether this is going to be a separate body.

That's not how I read the ordinance.

Based on how I read the ordinance, it would be an elimination of the existing body and reconstituting it with different members.

Just to give some highlights about how important the hack has been to this city in the past several years.

It's one of the most important public bodies in the city of Charlottesville for a positive change.

It has given us the housing voucher program.

They are not only the creators of that program, but they brokered that program, they wrote that program, and they helped engage in administering that program.

It has used its expertise to amend the landlord risk reduction so that it no longer ruins the tenant's credit and runs off of stereotypes.

Based on the housing needs assessment, the HAC created an intervention assessment tool for the city to help project costs to meet the affordable housing need.

It helped advise the city on their legislative priorities this year.

It helped create an incentive program for landlords who rent affordable housing by providing LEAP energy efficiency upgrades.

And it helped create an historic RFP for a comprehensive plan rewrite that actually focuses on equity and redress.

Most importantly, it is a public body with public meetings where people can come and hear about what's happening in affordable housing in our city.

This proposal proposes to remove all of the power of the hack to advise the council directly.

It concentrates all of the power to promulgate, enact, and enforce legislation into one person who does not have a staff at this time.

and it will completely change the makeup of the commission and there's no requirement in that list of members that they have to have any sort of proven track record in affordable housing.

Thank you.

Cordell Fortune, 825 Red Street.

I'm a local business owner.

In 2017, I created Shamango Body Butters and More.

And through that, we were able to do local vendor shows in Charlottesville and surrounding areas.

And we had very good success.

Everything was good.

But one thing that bothered me, there wasn't people there that looked like me.

There wasn't an African-American presence in these events.

And so with that problem, and the help of the African American Heritage Center, I created the Fortune Shop African American Vendors Market.

And through that platform, we want to give African American vendors in Charlottesville and around the areas a place and to

to promote their businesses, to sell their products, and show their creativeness.

So we did our first one through a grant, September 28th at the Jefferson School.

And through that success, and with the generosity of Centurion Martha Jefferson Hospital, they will help promote a Fortune Shop pop-up one Saturday a month for the rest of the year.

And the first one will be March 7th, Saturday.

at the Carbon Rec Center from 12 to 4 p.m.

So there will be over 30 vendors, African American vendors, selling all kinds of products from jewelry to cosmetics to food.

So trying to get everybody to come out, support black business.

The first 38 people that arrive will receive a gift from the Fortune Shop in the vendors.

So once again, March 7th, this Saturday, March 7th at the Carver Recreational Center from 12pm to 4pm.

Guys come out and help us support us.

Well, thank you.

Well, maybe that would be something that you could check out and see if it could assist in any way.

All right, thank you.

My name is Garrett Trent.

Good evening, my name is Joy Johnson, I was at 802 Hay Hardy Drive and I am trying to find, I had to take notes so I come up here and never forget.

The Housing Advisory Committee was created in order to provide policy guidance to the City Council on one of the most critical important challenges facing our community, the lack of affordable housing for the people who are being priced out and gentrified out of our community.

We have advised the board for tree planting, parking, towing, historic resources, you name it.

Not to say these aren't important issues, but it would be a real shame to disband our advisory board for the affordable housing while retaining one of the trees and cars, the ones for trees and cars.

Housing is a huge problem and the city needs to have to keep doing its job of developing innovative solutions for our housing crisis.

I know that the city staff don't always appreciate having cities involved in developing policy but we have many experts in the housing policy in our community and including residents like myself who have firsthand experienced the housing issues

and the HAT provides a positive forum for these citizens to get engaged and lend their ideas and expertise to addressing the major challenge, community challenges.

So I put that in writing because I always lose thought when I come up here and start looking at all of you all.

But one of the things that I would like to say is that if it wasn't for working with

Hack, and understanding all of the nuance that goes into providing affordable housing and stuff like that.

The 12 women at South First Street would not have been able to design their own community this summer.

And it's because of that and them actually seeing and we actually using

The fact that low-income resident voices are never in the room, and this was one way for us to be able to bring some of those voices in the room, HAC was able to help to do that.

So, just saying.

Right now, I spoke to John a little bit earlier.

I'm a consensus person.

I just feel like we need to come together, talk about it, figure out what it is that needs to be changed, change it.

Thank you.

And I just want to comment, since there are more people on here that are going to speak about it, but there was already comments made about the proposal that came out of HAC and there was already

a change that we received to decrease membership, but still have a policy board in place.

With it going to the Planning Commission, the public would have time to comment there, submit any proposals as normal.

And you would also have an opportunity for that public hearing and when it came back before council.

So this wasn't wasn't the end.

We don't even know what the Planning Commission is going to say about the proposed changes.

And there was a lot of information that we didn't share during the workshop, but primarily my concern in terms of funding, that what we've been looking at as a city and the way some of the funding has been used, it could definitely be used better.

And it could be used more efficiently to ensure that the reason that HAC, one of the reasons it exists, is met.

So the affordable housing piece, if the money is spent

better that there will be more affordable housing.

So that is one of the goals and I'm sure during all these discussions that we will have those conversations about what's been uncovered and how funding has been spent and the goals that we have now.

So we know that those are conversations that we'll have.

So this isn't sending it to the planning commission, there's 100 days in between

when it's sent that there is a comment period.

But I also think that it speaks volumes to how the information was presented, what staff thinks about how their words are honored in this process and if their work at all.

So that's just a comment I want to make because it's going to come up some more.

Good evening, Councillors and everyone.

As I too am coming to speak about affordable housing and the hack, I'll ask those who are here present tonight in support of transparency and how the housing policy is devised to please stand with me.

It's imperative that we have a high level of transparency in how these policies are devised.

We never need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and that was what we initially were concerned about when we saw about the possible implosion of the hack.

We might need to change the bathwater, but we certainly don't want to just toss everything aside at this point.

I stand here as a member of FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents and it's incredible the amount of work that the HAC has done in concert with FAR and with CLIC and with CHALK and with MPAC and with any and everyone in the community that has been devising and pushing for affordable housing.

So I urge you, I pray that you will continue to look at that, give it some really

tough eyes on it.

Let's look at the zoning ordinances to possibly allow for property owners to maybe build affordable housing on their own property.

Let's look at ADUs as an option.

There are many things that we can do to try to tackle this situation.

Two other things I'd like to speak to.

I still stand in concert with the firefighters and especially those who are here tonight.

I wonder what it would look like to the budget if we were to consider adding just three more positions a year for the next three years just to try to get them to the level that they say that they would like to be at.

And also an issue that's very near and dear to my heart, these parking permits.

that go up in communities because UVA, their employees and their students come in and take up the parking in communities.

I find it a complete travesty that people who already pay taxes on their homes and on their property are being taxed again to the amount of $25 to pay for a parking permit in order to park in front of their houses that they already pay taxes on.

That's just backwards to me.

There's got to be a better solution, and the solution shouldn't be to further tax the property owners.

Let's look at UVA possibly putting some sort of restrictions or taxes on those individuals.

Yeah, but it's my understanding that if your home has a driveway, those are the individuals who pay the $25.

which again, I squeeze my head to keep it from exploding.

That just makes no sense to me.

Because if you have two or three vehicles, well that kills the number of permits that you're given.

Greg Wright, 203 Ridge Street, president of the Charlottesville Professional Firefighters.

Before we start, I'd like to thank Mr. Don Gathers and also say that we, with the Charlottesville Professional Firefighters, stand with our brothers and sisters of the police department and their needs as well.

I'm deeply concerned about the impact on firefighters and our fire officers in regards to the current staffing allotment and its ultimate impact on our ability to safely deliver the high quality emergency services our community has come to expect and deserves.

Over time we have added missions based on nothing other than the specific needs of this community.

Recently the resources we have been provided with to carry out these critical missions have not kept pace.

As a group, we are generally very reluctant to speak out loudly about our needs given our understanding that each community gets to decide on the service levels it is willing to pay for.

However, this is one of the times I feel an obligation to speak out.

Make no mistake, this is a turning point in the history of our department and the city in terms of quantifying through the budget process the relative value of what our firefighters do every day for the most vulnerable in our community.

Budgets are indeed a reflection of the community's values and priorities and I believe the community at large places a high value on public safety.

Fire departments are a community's insurance policy against chaos and disaster on both an individual and community-wide level.

We're an essential part of the human infrastructure that allows a community to thrive.

Nobody likes to pay for insurance, and it's not until after one files a claim that one wishes he or she had purchased a quality policy.

Our firefighters proved the value of this historical commitment by multiple councils the weekend of August 12, 2017,

and in the critical role our organization played in preparing our community for the one year anniversary of Unite the Right rallies.

In addition to our highest profile responses, the men and women of CFD prove their worth each and every day as they continue to provide the highest level of service and a limited staffing environment.

As we follow the news about a possible pandemic, we are well aware that the community as a whole will be leaning heavily on the well-trained firefighters of CFD.

As we speak, there are 25 firefighters in Washington State sitting in quarantine for exposure to the coronavirus.

FEMA is preparing for an emergency declaration and we're trying in vain to ensure that our community has a sufficient number of firefighters.

The continued conversation about rightsizing or reallocating personnel and equipment is literally the most dangerous option that exists.

Shutting down or browning out fire engines and thereby sending fewer firefighters to a house fire or other emergency is dangerous for our community, moves us further away from industry standards and increases risk for firefighters.

We are not in an economic downturn and the fiscal health of the city is excellent.

This is ultimately about how our community decides to set its priorities.

And I, for one, believe that most of our community

Most in our community understand the need for a well supported fire department.

And we are having those conversations.

Just say it again.

And we're trying to figure out how our regional neighbors pay their fair share that they haven't been doing for years.

And Dr. Richardson is going to be having those conversations to make sure that the stress on the agency isn't caused by the work we're doing outside of city.

and that also that UVA is contributing what it should.

So we have been having the conversations about how to not end up in this space and how not to have you all stressed to capacity and so it's happening.

So just say that again.

I live at 740 Lexington Avenue.

and I also serve at your pleasure on the housing advisory committee.

First the good.

I'm grateful to city staff and in particular Lisa Robertson, Brian Huloski and John Sales for bringing forward two proposals, collectively division two or the incentive zoning provisions and the proposed zoning text amendment.

I believe that both of these proposed sections should go forward to both the planning commission and the HAC for review, public hearings and a recommendation.

Along with that I am deeply concerned about a number of proposals in the remainder of the recommended ordinance.

My professional opinion is that much of it would devastate our collective ability to provide affordable housing targeted to people who need it the most.

In three minutes I don't have time for a deep dive.

on all the specifics, but here are a couple of examples of things in Division I that aren't ready to move forward, even as part of a ZTA study initiation.

Under the Ordinance's Purpose section, paragraph D2, Roman numeral I, delegates without limits counsel's own duties to establish regulations to an unelected, unappointed program administrator.

There are certainly a host of powers that you ought to delegate so that city staff can perform their duties efficiently, but this is too broad.

Section D, Roman numeral IV would establish sale and rent prices as the barometers of affordability rather than the income of the end user.

Quite frankly, the state enabling legislation for this was written by the Home Builders Association and it has not worked.

It's been counterproductive and borderline scandalous.

Like in Albemarle County, this language would allow a developer to proffer affordable units defined by a price that's set by this commission.

In the county, it's $243,000 or a price that doesn't preclude the developer from recouping costs, which comes straight out of the state code, which is accessible only to people at about 76 to 80 percent of area median income who are creditworthy.

After 90 days, those units then revert to market rate sales.

In other words, it's a fake affordable housing policy.

It's the county's primary housing policy.

There are other issues, but I'll stop there.

Instead, I'll offer that this kind of complex policy work is best vetted via a public process, making use of the range of expertise and experience we are blessed with in the community.

And by that, I don't just mean the local housing providers, but rather the people who live in our communities, the true experts about their neighborhood, their dreams, their hopes, and their abilities.

So in brief, my ask is three things.

Send the proposals under Division II, incentive zoning provisions, to the HAC and to the PC for study and a recommendation.

Table the remainder of the proposed ZTA.

And finally, let's end the power struggle tonight.

Let's all commit to acting in good faith to work together, focused on the only thing that really should matter to us, and that's the well-being of members of the Charlottesville low wealth community who have been systematically denied the basic human right of simple, decent, affordable housing.

Hello everyone.

Good evening.

My name is Officer Curtis.

I'm a patrol officer with the Charlottesville Police Department.

I've served in this community for approximately four years.

I'm currently a SWAT operator and a field training officer.

I was hired back in 2015.

I was ecstatic about the opportunity to serve this prestigious community.

Because of the Charlottesville reputation, I also knew the application field was vast and getting an offer was difficult.

I felt honored when I was hired here.

Ultimately, that reputation that once drew me to this department no longer remains.

Our applications have fallen drastically, and recently our numbers have reached critical levels.

Since 2017, we have lost approximately 60 officers.

It is important to remember that these officers I speak of are also people.

They are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives.

I believe sometimes this is forgotten, but not only in this city, but in society as a whole.

These are the men and women who are in the public, representing the city of Charlottesville on a daily basis.

They do their best to provide for the city day in and day out.

These officers truly care about the community, as you can see behind me that this is why they are all here tonight on their time off.

Not long ago, the department's staffing levels reached critical levels, levels which the department has never seen before.

As previously stated before, a headline once read, Charlottesville Sees Mass Exodus.

This made it difficult to do anything beyond answering calls for 911 and will always remain our priority.

This community deserves a better police response when they need it.

They don't deserve to wait for when their emergency to be shelved until officers are available.

Much too often that's exactly what happens when our staffing is at a minimum.

These officers want to provide the best service possible, but we can't do it with the skeleton staffing.

Additionally, when the staffing is low, it leads to the inability to follow officers to use their vacation time.

Time away from work often spent with families is a prestigious commodity.

Even after lowering the shift minimum, it is far too common for officers to be denied the time off that they have earned.

The last point I would like to make

is our fleet.

To put it simply, our current fleet vehicles are failing the department and the community.

Some vehicles have over 140,000 miles on them.

Some of these vehicles, you have to hit the dashboard several times in order to read the odometer.

We portray Charlottesville as a world-class city and we're driving vehicles that are anything but world-class.

While many departments around us are offering take-home vehicles to their officers, we barely have enough to shuffle between shifts.

The officers in this department deserve vehicles that are reliable and a representation of the image that we are trying to portray.

They serve as our officers and they are the first thing that a citizen in need sees upon our arrival.

This city deserves better, and we deserve better.

You all know me.

The majority of you know me very well.

I've sat back there for three years very quietly, sometimes, and I can no longer be silent.

The city needs to be supported by the police.

The police also needs the city's support.

I appreciate your time, and I'll leave with this one last thought as we move forward.

I would ask that you not consider the cost of fixing these issues, but instead, I would ask you to consider the cost of the city if the seats behind me were not filled.

Thank you.

Members of Council and Mayor Walker, my name is Officer Davis.

I've been an officer with Charlottesville for over six years.

I'm currently assigned to the patrol division as well, but I also serve as a operator on the SWAT team and as a field training officer.

The officers that have come here tonight in support of this feel like it shouldn't be our job to bring these concerns to light, but it's come too far for us to just not come in here and talk about it.

Our position is that better officer compensation

and retention are concerns that need to be addressed by this council.

When the city loses experienced officers to surrounding agencies, this community is less safe.

I want to repeat that.

When we lose good officers, we're less safe.

The city has lost multiple experienced officers to department just outside our city limits.

When this happens, the department and the community have to wait for new officers to get hired, get trained, gain experience.

It costs approximately $50,000 to send one recruit through the academy and equip them for full duty which means the city loses experienced officers, hires new ones, and the city is wasting money.

During this expensive process, the city has left depleted of resources and less experience.

These experienced officers not only have stronger relationships with the citizens and are better equipped to handle many of the calls for service that we go to.

CBD used to be the department that all others in the region compared themselves to, but that's no longer the case.

The city needs a department that has strong incentives to come here and work and to stay here for the length of your career.

The chief reasons for officer leaving CPD has been lack of a pay scale and lack of a robust take-home car program as compared to agencies in our immediate area.

Officers want to know what their future will be like financially and a pay scale would give them that peace of mind.

More officers who want to stay here longer and call Charlottesville home makes for a safer community for everybody.

We're asking you to invest in the officer's future in the following areas.

One, a competitive pay compared to other jurisdictions.

Two, a pay scale in place.

Three, a take-home car program.

And four, improved facilities that the other officer touched on.

Help us do this to retain officers and create a great police department.

And as Officer Curtis said, we don't ever want to see another headline that says Mass Exodus.

That's just not good.

We've already done two pay studies.

Any one of us here can tell you that we're being paid inadequately.

Any one of the officers that has left CPD can tell you that.

Most of us don't make enough money to even live in the city that we police or anywhere near it in a lot of cases.

We only have approximately 10 sworn personnel living within the city limits.

In future hearings, please remember this point more than any other.

This community is less safe when the city loses good, experienced officers.

Incentivize officers to stay here.

Please invest in us so we can continue to invest in this city.

Katrina Taylor.

I'm speaking for the People's Coalition about the budget for the CRB and the adult DMC.

We demand and expect that Charlottesville will align its policies, goals, and budget to further race equity values and active

actively redress our community inheritance of race discrimination resulting in equities intentional and unintentional which continue to this day.

For the CRB we are asking

for 1% of the police department budget, $180,000 to $200,000 in two fully funded positions.

We would also like to know how much will be set aside for the work on the adult DMC in the next physical year.

Thank you.

Andy Socato.

Can you pronounce it so I can know in the future?

Saccadotto.

Good evening.

My name is Andy Saccadotto and I have been in the fire service for the past 14 years of my life.

Nine of those 14 have been as a firefighter with the city of Charlottesville.

I love my job and I can assure you that there is nothing else I would rather do in this world and no other community I would rather serve.

As a fireman, I swore an oath to protect life and property.

When I swore that oath to Chief Charles Warner, I knew that keeping my promise to the citizens of this great city could potentially cost me my life.

I can assure you, right here and right now, that I would absolutely lay down my life for the city, its citizens, and my brother and sister firefighters, and my brothers in blue.

I would gladly do it.

It's my job.

You can ask any one of the firefighters and the police officers in this room right now this very question and they would all give you the same answer I just gave you.

Each of us, every morning we come to work, know that the possibility exists that we might not come home.

We tuck this fact in the back of our minds as we kiss our loved ones goodbye.

It's a fact of our profession that every single one of us understands and accepts in order to do the job that we so dearly love.

You might be sitting here right now saying to yourself, all of you knew this risk when you joined the fire department or the police department.

You're right.

All of us knew the risk, accepted the risk, and will take the risk for the citizens of Charlottesville.

None of us will dispute that.

What I wish council to consider is the fact that if council and the city denies the request for additional staffing made by the Charlottesville Fire Department, the Charlottesville Professional Firefighters Association, and several members of the community, you are increasing the probability that one of us will not get to go home at the end of our shift.

In order to fulfill all the missions that the fire department is tasked with, we need these additional staffing positions, plain and simple.

Let me be clear that we as firefighters will still continue to take the risk to protect life and property regardless of your decision.

However, if you choose not to staff the department in accordance with national industry standards, the probability of tragedy occurring increases exponentially.

Let's take the firefighters out of this for a moment.

All of us, whether city employees or elected officials, took an oath to serve the citizens of the city.

The citizens are ultimately the ones who will suffer if these positions are not approved.

Whether this means an insufficient number of firefighters arrive on the scene to carry out critical tasks when someone's house is on fire or there's no ambulance available to provide life-saving care during a life-threatening medical emergency, the bottom line is that the decision to deny these positions is a hefty gamble.

In my experience, gambling always has a way of coming back to bite you.

Whether the city is choosing to gamble firefighters' lives or citizens' lives, the result will ultimately end in tragedy.

I ask council to take the moment when considering this budget and ask themselves, what's a firefighter's life worth?

What's a police officer's life worth?

What's a citizen's life worth?

The currency that we are gambling with when fire department staffing levels are below national industry standards

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

Staffing matters.

All right.

Thank you.

Before my three minutes begins, I hope I could ask a question of city council, and that is I'm here to talk about the barracks Emmett intersection project.

Yes, we came to the joint public hearing with the Planning Commission, three of us did.

Well, my three minutes is starting now.

I'm here to point out some flaws that I see in the project.

So I've put those, you have what I'm going to read, and I've put some pictures on the back of suggestions that I have for changes in the plan.

So if you're familiar with the plan, it is going to be a multi-use path that's quite wide, I think 12 to 15 feet, plus a grass buffer between that and the highway, which then takes considerable property from landowners going down Barracks Road.

Also it ends up being

a path that bikers going down the hill will also be going with pedestrian traffic and by the way bikers going up the hill walk their bikes generally going up Barrick Sword Hill.

So we're really against the multi-use path and would rather see us not such a wide sidewalk but rather

have the bikes that are going down the hill to be on the other side of the street, the north side of the street.

And I have demonstrated on the back of this, this is the present north side of the, the bigger picture is the present north side of Barracks Road.

and you can see there's a ditch there and there is to be no mitigation of the north side of the street at all in their plan whereas I took a picture if you look at this picture over on Cherry Avenue where there could be a curb put on the north side of the street so bike traffic could still go down the path

on the right-hand side of the road going down the hill.

Some other things that I pointed out, I was going to read this, but my three minutes is not going to allow that, that a lot of the perennial issues on Barracks Road are not even addressed in this $8 million plan, such as speed, safe pedestrian crossings.

There's no way to cross from one side of the street to the other.

safe entrance and exit on Barracks Road from Hilltop and Buckingham Roads.

You take your life in your hands getting out of those roads and turning into them.

Third, everyone that travels down this road knows that everybody wants to go right when they get to the bottom of the hill.

So the traffic backs up almost to Hilltop often because the people that are going right

Can't allow any of the other cars to go down because the road's too narrow.

They haven't addressed that issue between Hessian and Meadowbrook roads.

And finally, it's almost laughable that we're allowing the project to take considerable property from the front yards of the attractive south side of the road.

and not even addressing the ugly and perhaps unstable erosion on the north side of the road.

So please, I see this as kind of a boondoggle, a wasteful and impractical project that came about probably because they got smart scale.

funding of $8 million and then have to do something with it.

So please, I think we deserve better.

I hope you'll have a look at it.

All right, thank you.

And Reverend Goanna, I've called Ms.

Good evening to everyone.

I want to take consideration of the history of Washington Park.

I am the president of the Rose Hill Neighborhood Association.

And the concern is if you would consider naming the pool house, Elizabeth Harrison,

Elizabeth Harrison, also known from the community as Ms.

Snooki.

She was there from the 50s to the 70s.

She was a supervisor at the wading pool and when the pool was redeveloped,

She was a cashier.

She was a cornerstone of the pool in Washington Park.

Thank you.

You got that?

So we can just find out about process that we'll take next time.

Good evening.

I'm Tom Gallagher.

I live at 1920 Barracks Road.

So the essential point I would like to bring up is that I think the proposed mixed-use path on Barracks Road is unnecessarily broad, which will lead to

probably the removal of more trees than are really necessary.

So just to remind you that the latest version I've seen of this proposal is a three-foot mixed-use path between the roadway and the, sorry, a three-foot buffer between the roadway and the path, and the path is 10 feet wide.

So the three feet, anybody who walks up and down Barracks Road understands immediately the three feet is reasonable.

The 10 foot wide mixed use path is clearly something that would be right for a fairly heavy traffic.

The pedestrian and bicycle traffic up and down Barracks Road is anything but heavy.

When they made the survey last summer, it's one cyclist per day.

and tens of pedestrians.

Now with this proposed improvement you might have a few more pedestrians but you are not going to have any more cyclists because the slope of the road is 10% in places.

It's just too hard to climb and people won't do it.

They don't do it now and they won't do it then.

And further, perhaps reducing the number of cyclists, is the fact that now the barracks road Emmett Street now has two more traffic lanes, making it even more forbidding to a cyclist.

As you probably also realize, there's a new CVS at the bottom, and they've put a sidewalk in there that presumably, or pathway, that will connect to this mixed use path.

It's eight feet wide.

I can see no reason why that path should be then widened to ten feet as you go up the hill, where if you're on a bicycle, you will be clearly going at a crawl.

I think making and continuing the path of something like AP would be more than adequate and would save a whole lot of trees.

Thank you.

I live at 593 Rosemont Drive in Charlottesville, and I'm here this evening to really talk about the role of the city manager.

Our current city manager was appointed in May of 2019, Dr. Richardson, and I've been trying to find out with respect what Dr. Richardson is responsible for.

What standards of performance

have been established for the city manager and his or her direct reports.

I submitted a FOIA request trying to find out what those requirements were, what those objectives were.

I've not been able to find anything.

I've been not able to find anything about associated improvement goals, and I've listened here to many speaking prior to my opportunity about what the needs of their particular organizations are, especially the police and fire organizations.

When will it happen that we hold people accountable for key positions that run the city?

A raise was to be given to our city manager, and I read a little bit about the delay, toward the end of 2019, a short period of time after he joined the city.

I'd like to know what was accomplished during that time to warrant such compensation adjustment.

What has been accomplished during that time?

In my business experience, I learned very early on what gets measured gets done.

20 years ago, job descriptions and salary study work occurred in our city.

Nothing has happened.

It's not necessarily Dr. Richardson's fault, but for 20 years, for two decades, we have not provided the kind of information we need to pay our people properly.

We're ready to spend, I believe still, a million, a million five for a study.

Yet we could go down the road to Albemarle County, perhaps,

and see what they do to see what other best practices are in Central Virginia that maybe we can learn from and save money to be used elsewhere.

Budget surplus.

We always seem to come up with a budget surplus at the end of the year.

I can't understand that.

I can't understand that when we have the kinds of needs that we're

the people have been talking about tonight.

Who manages the money?

Who holds people accountable for the money that they ask for to make sure it's spent judiciously?

I believe that the CEO, the city manager, is the person who runs this city

is the man that we need to go to that has bottom line accountability for the kinds of things I'm talking about and for what the people talked about earlier.

We had a six month evaluation and with the previous council we will have another evaluation that will be due in June and it'll run from July 1 to June 30th every year.

Dr. Richardson didn't receive an increase so the salary that he was hired on to

He is still at, so there wasn't an adjustment at the evaluation period.

We have been talking about a solution and measurement group, even looking citywide at how to analyze the dollars that the city is spending and make sure that

The money is spent efficiently.

It's just something even in the two years that Councillor Hill and I have been that we've been talking about but we haven't been able to put a system in place but it is a top priority to make sure that it's in place.

and the compensation study, I've made some comments about how I feel about the 1.2 million, but again, it is something that I know other council members feel strongly.

We all feel strongly about making sure that our staff members are paid well, how to arrive at what that looks like.

But we are invested in making sure that we don't arrive at this place again where individuals have not been receiving raises or haven't been adequately paid.

Alright, so that was the end of our community matters.

We will

Break for 15 minutes.

So we'll come back at 8.

Thank you.

All right, I call this meeting back to order.

Madam Mayor, members of council, this is a special use permit for property located at 1221, 1223, and 1225 Harris Street, property zoned industrial corridor.

The request before you tonight is additional residential density for a total density on the entire site of up to 43 dwelling units per acre, an additional height of two stories.

The industrial corridor limits properties to a maximum of 21 dwelling units per acre as a matter of right.

and a maximum of four stories as a matter of right that does allow for people to seek up to 64 units per acre by special use permit.

That's not the request in front of you tonight.

It's only up to 43 and additional height of two stories.

The Planning Commission heard this at their meeting on February 11th and they recommended approval with no changes to the staff recommendation.

That's all.

Good evening, counsel.

Chris Rediglia from Wood Properties.

I'll keep this brief, just a couple underlying notes.

about the project and then also want to talk about the affordable housing requirement.

One, these will not be luxury apartments.

Our goal is to build an economical building, keep rents in the range, an economical range, and the additional density and height will help us do this.

Also, additional density at McIntire Plaza will help support almost 100 small and locally owned businesses.

They call McIntire Plaza home.

I feel like that's a substantial benefit of the added density that we're requesting with the SUP.

As far as affordable housing, we did sit down with Mr. John Sales to talk about the requirements and things we could do to possibly exceed those requirements to more than what was required.

The project calculations are such that the gross floor area of the building

is less than the total site area that yields a floor area ratio of less than one, which would mean the project's technically not required to provide any affordable, doesn't have an affordable housing requirement.

However, we know there's a need in the community.

We'd like to commit five units on site at the project for 15 years.

Also in our conversation with Mr. Sales, we became aware that there are nearly 50 to 60 people that have vouchers that can't find a department.

So we'd like to hold an additional five units at the building for those people that have vouchers.

And I would like to add Woodard Properties as a company outside of this project does own and manage

I don't know the exact figure, it's around 75 dedicated affordable housing units and we do accept housing choice vouchers in any of our properties.

Just one, I guess it's one request if you were considering approval of the special use permit.

There's a height restriction in the resolution that would restrict the height of the building to 510

Square feet above sea level.

That is 10 feet less than the 520 feet that's allowable in the zoning ordinance.

We would ask that you would consider increasing that to the 500 and giving us the extra 10 feet, not to add additional square footage to the building or additional floor.

But to give us the flexibility during the design, if we had some things that pushed us over that 510 feet above sea level, we wouldn't have to come back for an amendment.

So that's it.

Yeah, I have a couple questions.

Sure.

So you said five units, 15 years, affordable.

It would be 80%.

Yes, ma'am.

So there's a rather large spreadsheet that the city uses to calculate if your building qualifies.

And then if it does qualify, what the affordable housing contribution would be, whether it's units or cash contribution.

The first step of that spreadsheet

runs a calculation if...

You take the total floor area of your building.

So if you have five levels that are, for just an example, 10 square feet of floor, you'd have 50 square feet of gross floor area on your building.

That doesn't include parking garage structures under the building.

So our total gross floor area of our building is less than the total square footage area of our project site.

Usually that's referenced in acres, site acres, and you can convert that to square feet to compare it to the building gross floor area.

So our building gross floor area is less, which would mean that's your floor area ratio.

If it's less than one, the spreadsheet stops, essentially, and you're not triggered into calculating.

You don't trigger the affordable housing requirements, so you're not

You don't proceed to the next section of the spreadsheet which would calculate your contribution.

I just kept doing planning question.

That's largely because there is another structure on the part of the property that this is considered part of.

I can chime in a little bit.

The reference to floor area ratio is straight out of the active assembly that gave us that authority, so that's what the General Assembly drafted up for us.

The reason I had the applicant, I asked him to talk to the housing coordinator and kind of come up with a firmer number is partly because

the parcel with the Habitat store on it is included so that area of the site gets much larger where the numbers I may have quoted at the Planning Commission were probably including the parking garages which apparently are not included so that drops the size of the building down and that's the reason why they would have slipped below 1.0 FAR because of how they're doing it

I would note the statement from the applicant tonight exceeds what you would normally get if the habitat parcels were out of this project.

You can calculate it either way, but I think what they've presented tonight would exceed what they would have been required to do in that situation.

Once again, it's the portion of the building over 1.0 FAR.

And this building is on a very kind of difficult site.

They are new tonight.

When you're looking at five units for the affordable units, what size are we looking at?

Are we looking at one bedroom units?

So the building itself, it's not fully designed yet.

What I'm saying could vary some, but right now we're targeting a mix of about 75% one bedrooms, 25% two bedrooms.

Yes, ma'am, that's the goal.

I think 21 units an acre.

That's around 50 units.

So you would be able to do 50 units without the SUP?

But the rents, so would the rents be within voucher guidelines?

for the units because voucher rents are usually, I mean this is just to clarify for myself, usually the rent is too high just because you can take a voucher.

We don't have the units priced yet so it's hard to say.

We'll say this building will be closer

I'm really not comfortable saying right now without more information on the project and design, but I think they're not going to be luxury apartments.

They're probably in the price point below what we're leasing some of the newer buildings in McIntyre Circle for, which I think are in the range of

We don't have an exact price point yet but it'd be somewhere trying to keep it below that.

So you all haven't run the numbers to know what

It's hard to do that without knowing more about the site and subsurface conditions and what we can build on the site.

And there was a request for

possibly an additional 10 feet of height as well.

And another question just along with that.

So with the additional height, would you be able to do more affordable housing, the 10 feet?

Would you be able to do more than 105 units?

And I still have some questions around this 105, but.

I can chime in about that.

The 510 line comes from the applicant's materials, so there was some concern from staff about how much the height of this building would be a concern of the Planning Commission.

That was one way.

I would suggest a condition as a potential way to kind of lock in what was shown in the applicant's package.

I think the Planning Commission did not really mention any concerns about the height.

There was more concern, I think, or really wasn't a whole lot of concerns raised at all other than traffic access in and around the site, which is addressed by a condition for a traffic study.

I would point out the limit is six stories.

Six stories is how we measure height in this zone.

What the applicant has said is that the height of that six stories would be 60 feet.

The code allows a six story building to be up to 70 feet in height, but you do not gain additional square footage in the building by doing that.

Once you hit your six stories, once you hit your ceiling height, you're done.

It just basically says you can't do

six 20-foot floor-to-hot ceiling height stories and getting a 120-foot tall building.

So just since it was presented, the affordable housing conversation by you, I would just add that, you know,

to receive 50 to 55 additional units, I believe that the number of units could be higher that you would propose to us and that the AMI could be in a lower range than the 80%.

And the number of years.

could be longer than the 15.

The five units with accepting vouchers, there could be more.

And I would be interested not having anything necessarily to do with this project, but if you all have looked at how many

I'll just say this has come up before and I'm sure it will come up a lot in Council and I guess my way of looking at this project is considering what will happen by right versus what will happen through the SUP process.

I don't think this project will

contribute much to the need for affordable housing at the deepest level, 0 to 50% of AMI or 0 to 30% of AMI.

But for myself, I'm trying to think through as a city and as a community, what are the relevant sites of struggle and relevant

Thank you very much.

Not in every case, but in this case I don't think the SUP process usually relates to that goal of 0-30% of AMI.

The relevant policy struggle that we have to fight for is investment in public housing redevelopment, investment in the CAF, investments in community land trusts.

Investment and Free Development of Friendship Court.

And those are the relevant policy mechanisms along with state and federal investment in affordable housing that produce that goal.

And I just look at it, you know, if we say no to this, we're saying a site the developer is going to build no matter what is going to be 50 larger, more expensive units versus 100 more affordable units.

Granted, they're not getting us that deepest affordable housing need, but we've had a lot of conversation in the community about the need to look at the legacies of R1 zoning, what larger density means,

And I think this is what it means.

So if the conversations we've had as a community were serious about what looking at R1 zoning and density means, that means projects like this.

And if the community wants to reevaluate what that means because of that, then

One question I had.

Do I understand this?

I don't remember there having been any discussion of affordable units at the Planning Commission.

Is that correct?

Okay.

And is this suggestion of five units on site for affordability for 15 years, Mr. Blair, is that in essence a proffer?

Well, no, since this is a special use permit, we would make it a condition of the permit that Council's imposing.

And just two comments to Councilor Payne.

So you're talking about an area of the city that the developer is seeing himself is not a, where they would not build luxury apartments.

at you are still talking about 80 percent of AMI at seventy thousand dollars.

And then how many individuals are earning that?

And I don't think we should be approving any development because that's what has landed us in the crisis that we're in now, where people were building and they were not considering AMI's below market rate.

So, again, I've heard your

argument now the past two meetings about what they would build by right.

But you have seen consistently if you've been paying attention that developers are still coming to the table attempting to propose new solutions versus just building by right.

Because, again, if you could build potentially double the number of units,

They are bringing that forward for a reason to begin with.

Well and again, and you know I think this is

a conversation as a council and a community will continue to come up and I mean I absolutely agree with the point that you know in these projects you know you're gonna get maybe a couple affordable units again at 80% of AMI which is not our most important need and they're gonna be temporarily affordable and I think I just think that remains the reality whether the SUP is approved or not

And I do think, I mean, it definitely varies project by project, you know, whether a developer would proceed or not.

But I do think we've seen a number of projects where developers have decided to just go ahead and do what they can buy right, which is either a single family, not in this case, but often a single family home, fewer units, or in a lot of cases, buy right office space or hotels where they don't need the SCP process.

And so I just, again, I think whether we vote yes or no, it's not going to change the reality of having

you know a broken affordable housing system that's not producing what we need and it's not going to change the dynamics of gentrification, displacement and to accomplish that I think you know the more important policy levers are again investment in public housing redevelopment, friendship court, the CAF, having a housing strategy I mean through the SAP process I think we've over 10 years the SAP process we've produced two affordable units

There's a couple more ready to get online, but we've produced two over 10 years.

It's just not a policy tool that's going to accomplish what we need to.

I agree with that perspective.

I also feel that this

I mean they can build 50 units and We can't stop that All right any further questions, I would just like you to consider as you're going forward that So the HUD section 8 guidelines, it's eight hundred and fifty four dollars is the rent

for a one bedroom apartment.

And just if.

If you qualify for Section 8, you really usually cannot and one thousand eighty two dollars for a two bedroom.

If you qualify for Section 8, it's really difficult to go above that.

So just.

Right.

So if I could ask the council, I know that the applicant has agreed

to have the two offers, one concerning the five units at 85% AMI for 15 years, as well as the five units that will accept housing choice vouchers.

We'll write those in as conditions for the SUP at your next council meeting.

Was it 5-10 or 5-10?

They didn't really speak on it one way or another.

I mean, do you, it might be something you, it's hard to answer, but do you have any thoughts on it?

I'm talking about height.

Not really.

In the past we've memorialized conditions or things that the applicant has put in their package, partly because there's a concern for councils in the past have seen items come before them at the

the council hearing and then what actually gets built looks very different than that and so we've tried to address that in some of our past conditions so this is kind of an attempt at that.

It's an area by going to the by right height they're already exceeding the height of just about every building on that corridor so this does set a very different character for that section.

I will point out that there are four-story buildings down the hill from it that they've been built by this applicant so this is

There is kind of a node developing there and I don't know whether it's 510 or 510 at the sea level is going to change much.

Great.

All right.

So again, you could request it because you didn't.

And you could see if they would even bring back to the next meeting a discussion around it.

It's an attempt to get them to do something other than what they brought to the table.

OK.

So next, and if you don't ask, you definitely won't get it.

Good evening Madam Mayor, Members of the Council.

I'm Kyle Kling, Transportation Projects Manager for the Department of Public Works and the city's project manager for this project.

Back in 2018, the city was awarded $8.6 million in VDOT SmartSkill funds.

for improvements at the Barrick and Emmett intersection, as well as the barracks corridor extending from the intersection up to Hilltop Road.

The scope of those improvements include functional improvements to all phases at the intersection, as well as bicycle and pedestrian improvements along the barracks road portion of the JAB.

Last summer, the city began working with Timmons Design Group on the public outreach phase for this project.

Over the past six or seven months, we've been involved in a pretty detailed public outreach phase, which has eventually led us to our development of the preferred conceptual design, which we'll be going over tonight.

Back at the February 11th Planning Commission meeting, the concept was presented to Planning Commission for compliance with the city's comprehensive plan and approved.

We're before you tonight to just seek approval of Planning Commission's recommendation on that.

Thank you, Kyle.

I'm excited to be able to share this presentation with you.

Hopefully by the end of it you'll see that I think this project will have great value, add great value to the Barracks Road corridor.

I'm going to generally go over the project scope and schedule, look at the public engagement process we've been through at this point, present the preferred concept, and look at, lastly, Planning Commission's recommendations.

The purpose of the project is to improve the operational performance of the Barracks Emmett intersection while also providing important bike, pedestrian, and transit facilities for the neighborhood.

The general project limits include the Barracks Emmett intersection extending east to Buckingham Road.

The smart scale project included a new northbound right turn lane on Emmett Street, an additional westbound

left turn lane on Barracks Road which will allow for concurrent left turn movements on Barracks, a significant improvement to the traffic signal work as well as improved pedestrian controls in the intersection, widening the existing medians to provide acceptable pedestrian refuge in the intersection, upgrades to the bike pedestrian facilities on Barracks Road as well as a new cat shelter on Barracks Road.

Through most of last year we've been collecting data, prepared a traffic analysis, engaged with the public significantly, and we're now in the 30% preliminary design stage.

Later on this year we'll be entering into the more detailed engineering design pieces of it.

as well as hold a design public hearing and after which we'll be back here to present the minutes from that.

We'll engage in final design summer 2021, start right-of-way acquisition process, relocating utilities and then hopefully start construction in 2023 which generally lies with the programming of funds.

To kind of go through the public involvement process, back in July 23rd of last year, we met with those individuals who lived on the project corridor, met with them, talked about the general project, tried to hear what feedback they had, some concerns that they had, the things that we heard.

significantly were impacts to trees and that's a resounding theme through the entire process as well as safety.

A couple days later we held our first steering committee meeting where we reviewed some of the corridor challenges, some of the constraints, issues that have been experienced on Barracks Road, again went through the scope and some of the results of the traffic study.

We looked at structuring some

project survey questions to see what questions we wanted to ask the public to try to gain as much information as we could and then lastly open it up for general discussion on the project and some of the concerns there.

Some of the key takeaways we had from that were protect neighborhood character, make sure you're improving congestion and reducing speeds as well as providing a safer biking and walking experience.

Following that steering committee meeting, we held our first public workshop where we presented three intersection options and two bike pedestrian options.

The three intersection options range from doing what we can within the existing limits of the existing edge of pavement and curb lines, while avoiding impacts to off-site properties, ranging all the way from widening the pavement on the outside, introducing more retaining walls, more impacts.

We also looked at four bike ped options up Barracks Road, including introduction of a dedicated bike lane, a protected bike lane, a shared use path with a buffer strip, as well as a shared use path with no buffer strip.

We opened the survey.

We left it open for two weeks and this infographic here generally shows some of the key takeaways from that survey.

We had 90 respondents, 90% of which live in the area or commute through the area.

60% of the respondents preferred an intersection improvement option that had the least amount of impact to existing off-site properties and slopes and trees.

We found that improving pedestrian safety was the number one ranked priority of all respondents.

66% of those preferred the shared use path option versus the in-road bike facility options.

50% of those that preferred the shared use path liked the buffer strip, and 50% of them generally did not.

The respondents generally preferred closing or restricting access to the Meadowbrook Road intersection and restricting access to ride-in ride-out access only, mostly to improve safety at that intersection that's a close distance to Emmett Street.

As part of the Steering Committee meeting, one of the questions we structured was

If it were made safer, would you bike on Barracks Road?

And what we found was that 53% of the respondents said that they would bike on Barracks Road.

They also preferred on the far right-hand lane, the right-turn lane on Barracks Road, instead of making it a through-right, keeping a dedicated right so people aren't stuck behind cars that are trying to take a right.

After the second steering committee meeting where we presented those findings, there was general agreement with some of the findings and some of the things we plan to implement with the exception of whether we include a buffer strip or not.

At that meeting, we also shared what our staff recommendation.

What the staff's recommendation for a preferred concept would be.

That's pictured here in both plan and cross section.

The intersection, we believe this intersection, this option significantly improves the operations of the intersection.

Overall provides a safer bike and pedestrian environment.

One of the things we heard was slow speed, slow the cars down.

So one of the things we're going to do is relocate the curb line, reduce the lane widths to try to slow cars down.

We're going to implement a, or propose to implement a 10 foot shared use path with a reduced buffer strip.

We feel like that's a good compromise between the 4 to 6 foot recommended

in the streets that were planned and go to a minimum of three feet to still get some of the benefits of that with minimizing impacts to the trees and minimizing the wall heights.

And through that, and I think I'll show you later some architectural treatments to the walls that we think we can use to make it look nice.

So today, here's a picture of Barracks Road looking downhill.

And here's what we think it could look like when it's done.

In terms of architectural treatments, we can use a stone facade, brick facade, or a stamped concrete facade.

These details have not been worked out yet.

These are some things that we plan to work through in the engineering process, again, with the steering committee.

Looking more closely at the intersection itself, as I mentioned, the northbound right turn lane on Emmett Street, also adding the concurrent dual lefts.

Today it's a through left.

It's a left, a through left, and a through right, so we're going to add an additional lane for concurrent dual left turns, which we think will significantly improve operations, getting cars through the Barracks Road intersection, realigning the crosswalks with improved pedestrian refuge islands, improving the traffic signal and pedestrian controls most specifically, and improved ADA ramps through the intersection.

On February 11th, we met with Planning Commission and they recommended approval and their concurrence with compliance with a comprehensive plan.

As part of the public hearing portion of that, some of the key takeaways from that hearing were making sure that we're improving pedestrian bicycle safety, making that the top priority, which I think we've done with this project.

Taking steps to slow traffic, which is part of the purpose of realigning the curb to try to

and encourage cars going slower through there and creating a design that seeks to minimize the impacts of trees and retaining wall heights.

Relocation of the curb also accomplishes that and as well as making efforts to extend the project and particularly bike pad improvements down to Ruby Road.

That's not currently part of the project.

It's out of the scope of this one, but we did hear that as something they would like to have happen.

It's a single lane heading eastbound on barracks.

Well, I want to be clear.

I mean, I think this is kind of a no brainer, since as a city we're also spending zero dollars on it.

But I do think there are, I think, some of the questions about tree canopy.

You do want to preserve as much tree canopy as possible.

And I know there are multiple options presented on how to do that.

Right, so the most important thing is just the introduction of a retaining wall.

Typically, on projects like this, VDOT funded, you know, typical highway VDOT projects, you would have a slope, and that would obviously take out all the trees.

So the most obvious implementation that we're doing is introduction of the walls, which we think we can make look nice and create, still kind of create that neighborhood feel.

Also, as I mentioned, the eastbound lane, the existing lane width out there today varies between 11 to 12 all the way up to 15, 16 feet wide.

So we're going to repurpose a lot of that asphalt, move the curb line in, which serves two purposes.

One, it reduces the height of the wall.

It minimizes the impact of the tree canopy while also making vehicles feel less comfortable

There was one citizen who spoke during the meeting that talked about the properties on the, she said south side, losing land as a result of the

On the south side, it depends on where you're taking the measurement from.

But today there is an existing 15 foot prescriptive easement from the existing center line of the road.

There's also a 15 foot strip reserved by the city for future improvements.

So a total of 30 feet exists from the existing center line into those properties.

With the scope of improvements that we're talking about and the implementation of some of the measures that we're taking,

We think the majority of that work that we're proposing can stay within that 30 feet.

Okay, so it won't impact the... From right-of-way acquisition, yes.

From right-of-way it would be minimal.

And then another person brought up just the width of the shared use path.

Standard shared use paths are 10 feet.

It can go down to 8 feet under special circumstances.

When you say it can go down to 8 feet under special circumstances,

Is there some regulation?

Is there some standard?

Just the traversable route and ability for bikes and pedestrians to operate next to each other, particularly on a slope like this.

So I would have concerns if it went to eight feet.

There's also a lateral offset from fixed objects from the shared use path that is two feet.

So we are

We're already somewhat pushing the limits on our ability to use a 10-foot path with the wall sitting right next to it.

Generally, you will want to have a 2-foot buffer from a physical obstruction into the path before you start your 10 feet.

We're starting it right at the wall.

And I want to make sure that I understand what you were saying about the right of way and so on.

You're taking from the center line of the road to the south, you're adding one 15-foot

I guess the road basically at another 15 feet.

Well, you are using.

We've gotten correspondence from the property owner's attorney suggesting that the 15 foot

easement that you're talking about in fact is no longer enforceable.

And just to address that question, Councillor Snook, that easement relates back to the 1950s.

and there's a question about whether the city may still execute and actually have the easement.

We have maintained to the property owners that if we determine that there is not color of title for that, that we would have to use condemnation if there is not a voluntary acquisition.

If I can just add to Mr. Blair's comment real quick.

Anytime there's federal funds on a job, you have to go through a very tedious and regulated process to acquire right-of-way.

So that would include, obviously, negotiating with the property owners up front and just not going in and condemning the land.

There are steps that you have to follow, and there is a negotiation.

It was certainly not my intent to try to get into the middle of that issue.

And again, I'll get to the point where Ms.

Green did it, the Planning Commission meeting.

What we're being asked today is that do we feel this is substantially in accordance with the city's comprehensive plan?

There's still a lot of design work that will be done.

And my understanding is that we'll see that design work at some point.

And so I think this is just an effort to kind of keep this moving forward.

And I agree, and I'll just add, I think it's an exciting project because I think with this you can see how this corridor could change thinking 20, 30 years from now.

To return, as I know everyone wants to, to the Chick-fil-A debate, there is a question of whether that is a walkable corridor.

It's not now, but a project like this I think shows how thinking again

20, 30 years from now it could be.

Where the CVS is now was a proposed apartment complex.

It got shot down, so they built the CVS by right.

I'm assuming that you're going to be looking at, you know,

people coming out of Hilltop Road, etc., through the shared use path, driving across that and how to make that as safe as possible for cyclists and drivers trying to make a turn.

making substantive improvements at that intersection that might involve correcting horizontal and vertical curves is outside the scope specifically of this smart scale project.

I understand there was another

Yeah, that's correct.

So a lot of the comments we've gotten today deal with extending the project or some type of improvements to rugby.

The city is currently working with a consultant to go over striping plans and repurposing the asphalt from hilltop up to rugby area.

The 60% design public hearing, will you have one at the 90%?

Probably the level of engineering design that's necessary at the 60% design public hearing

Generally it's the same level of engineering detail and content that you see at the time.

It's just further involved.

To answer your question, the Design Public Hearing would be kind of that final presentation of all the design details to be able to see.

So there would be an opportunity for input at that point?

Absolutely.

And then the 90% would show some of those changes if they were made from the 60 to 90 based on input?

Correct.

All right.

Are there any other questions?

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Please vote.

That carries five to zero.

Thank you.

All right, next we have the

Good evening mayor, council members.

Thank you for taking a few moments tonight to hear about the census.

My name is Kathy O'Connell and I'm a partnership specialist.

I do live here locally, and my job is to partner with local governments, nonprofits, faith organizations, all in support of a complete count for the census.

So every 10 years, our country comes together for a monumental task, and that is to count everyone who lives here, everyone.

We think that's going to be about 330 million people, but in about six months we'll have a better idea about that.

In less than two weeks, people will begin responding to the census.

Thank you for recognizing April 1st as Census Day which of course is where the reference point where someone lives and sleeps most of the time that's where they're counted but response can start before that and that will be on March 12th so I'm here tonight to ask for your support in encouraging everyone in Charlottesville to respond to the census so I just want to share a little bit of information about the importance of the census and what our plan is

So why is this important?

Well, the results of the census are going to impact Charlottesville for the next 10 years.

We only take this count every decade, and then it follows through.

So we have been using the numbers from 2010, and now we have a chance to reset that and to capture the full population that lives here in Charlottesville.

And what does that impact?

Well, representation.

It determines the number of seats in Congress that our state has.

Redistricting.

This data is used by the state for redistricting purposes about a year after the census ends.

Planning for the future, from your comprehensive plan to businesses deciding.

to expand to determining where to build schools.

This population data is used by local governments by nonprofits for grants for many, many different purposes.

And it's important to get it right to have it be accurate.

And I saved the best for last, funding.

Billions of federal dollars are allocated every year based on census data.

Where does that money go?

Well, towards many of the programs

that I heard are a concern to this community.

From housing to social services to roads and schools, every person that's counted or not counted represents a certain amount of money.

And I'll come back to that in just a moment.

So it is $675 billion, again, for roads, schools, health care, nutrition programs.

In your packet, you will find a handout that looks just like this.

And I think this is really important.

This is a report from George Washington University.

And what they did was they looked at 50 of the, actually 55, of the largest federal programs that use decennial data to distribute their funding.

And in 2016, based on that, the state of Virginia received $17.7 billion.

And you can see there that it's for everything from Medicare, Medicaid, Section 8 housing, TANF, WIC, special education grants, the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program, and many, many different programs.

So what happens in the event of an undercount?

What if someone is missed?

Well, money's not coming back here for those programs that we just saw.

So if someone is missed in this census, they're missed for the decade.

That's not to say that we use the exact same number throughout the 10 years.

It does change based on births and deaths and things like that.

But the baseline number stays the same and follows the city through.

So we want to get this right.

And we have a few months to do that.

So for each person that's missed,

There's a value of up to $2,000 per year or $20,000 over the 10 years that is lost in federal funding for our state, counties, and local communities.

This is a value that was determined by the Virginia State Complete Count Commission.

It is not exact, but it's just to represent that for each person,

There are benefits that are tied to their response and that's what we want people to know So what is our goal?

Our goal is to count everyone who lives here So who is at risk of being undercounted?

Renters, they tend to be they tend to move around a lot college students which is of importance here since about half of the population is

attends UVA, low income, low education levels, immigrants or non-English speakers, young children.

So it's estimated that at least a million children were missed in 2010.

And we are working very hard to make sure that that doesn't happen again this census.

And for 2020, just because of the nature of the census that we're going to go online this time, seniors also could be a low response group and households without a computing device or internet access.

Now, if you look on the right, there are some groups, for instance, immigrants,

where you have different factors at play.

So there's an overlap.

So they may be disproportionately represented as renters, low income, they have language barriers, and possibly no internet.

So these are the groups that we want to zero in on in terms of outreach and messaging to really encourage them to respond and to let them know why their response is important and how it's going to impact them.

So for the last two censuses, 2000 and 2010, which we were only male response at that time, you can see that the response rate was pretty similar, 71%, 72%.

It went up in 2010.

That leaves 28% of the population that did not respond initially.

That does not mean that they were missed.

It means that they were at risk of being missed because our census takers had to go out and find that.

We don't really know how many people were completely missed.

But what we want is to encourage people to respond on their own and upfront so that we have that information and get as accurate a count as possible.

This is predicted rates of low response.

So you can see Charlottesville here.

And the darker the color, the higher the rate of low response.

And so you can see, especially around the university area,

that it's over 30% that we're expecting.

Our letters are going to go out around the time that UVA students are on their spring break.

We are working with UVA to get information out to both the students and the parents and let them know that they are counted here where they go to school.

And a lot of people are surprised by that.

But the students are counted here in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

So why do people complete their census form?

Well, number one motivator is what's in it for me.

So what we know is that if we let them know how their response impacts them in their community, they're more likely to respond.

So 30%, it's about funding.

25%, civic duty.

17% is about that planning for the future.

And then representation, things like that, little bit percent.

So what are our strategies for encouraging people to respond?

Well, we're offering multiple response options.

I will talk about that in a moment.

Our messaging is focused on the fact that the census is easy, safe, and important.

We're providing extensive language support, questionnaire assistance, outreach materials for target audiences, and we have a national advertising campaign.

And you're going to start seeing a lot of census ads coming up here.

And we're working with local complete count committees to do that outreach.

So what is happening here locally?

Well, Charlottesville and Albemarle are working together.

There's a communications and outreach plan that Brian Wheeler and his staff have put together that is tremendous, that includes ads on public transportation and things like that.

that will be really, really helpful for getting the word out to people.

There is a regional complete count committee at Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

They have a subcommittee that's looking at encouraging response from immigrants and refugees specifically.

along with other low response groups.

And we are partnering with local organizations from the Health District to the NAACP, Sin Barreras, IRC, Literacy Council, and Welcoming Greater Charlottesville.

So a lot of the nonprofits that are serving are low response groups.

And we're going to be offering mobile questionnaire assistance.

This is to increase access to the census.

We will be sending those census takers out

door-to-door to households that have not responded.

But again, what we know is someone may not feel comfortable answering the door.

They may not be home.

So we're taking the census to community locations.

There will be a census taker at churches, for instance, or community centers, and they will be there where people gather and people can respond on the spot right there.

And then, of course, our census recruiters are encouraging people to apply for census jobs.

We really do want people that live here locally in the community and know it.

A couple of key dates.

So our website is going to go live in less than two weeks around March 12.

That's when response will start.

And letters will be mailed to all households.

It'll be scattered between the 12th and the 20th.

Census Day is April 1st, so that's the point where someone lives and sleeps.

That's where they're counted.

And then the census takers will be out in the community starting in May, going to households that have not responded.

So we want to encourage as many people as possible to respond up front.

So what will you receive in the mail?

Well, on the left is the letter that will go out to all households.

It will have that URL.

It will have a unique ID number, but this is the first time ever you do not need that ID number.

You can respond to the census using your address or even without an address.

So this is the first census that individuals experiencing homelessness can respond on their own, for instance, in a library.

And then on the right is our mail-in form that will not go out initially.

It will go out in April if a household has not responded.

So I'm letting seniors know that if they wait they will still get that paper form and they can respond that way if that's how they feel comfortable.

So what questions will be on the 2020 census?

It's just 10 questions.

There was a time where we had a long form and a short form, but no longer.

Everyone gets the same form.

We're asking people, how many people live or stay in your home?

Is it owned or rented?

The name of each person, the gender, the age, the race and ethnicity, and the relationship of each person in the household to the head of household.

And each piece of information that we collect is used to either distribute or plan for government programs.

What will not be on the census?

We will not ask for your social security number or your income or your citizenship status.

Those things will not be on the census.

And the questionnaire, for those that are interested, is available on our website at 2020census.gov.

You can go there and take a look at it.

So very exciting.

This is the first time ever that we have these top two response options, online and phone.

And it's going to open up a lot of possibilities.

We know they're not perfect for everyone, which is why we're still keeping the paper form, as well as the in-person non-response follow up.

Response will open March 12th at 2020census.gov.

People can go to that website, click on Respond Now.

We are encouraging everyone to just submit one response for their household for everyone that lives there.

And that includes if you have a grandchild living with you, an adopted or foster child, a friend who's staying there and has nowhere else to go and won't be counted somewhere else.

We want to make sure that we're capturing everyone.

So it's not just people who are related at the household.

We know that in order for people to feel comfortable giving their information, they have to know that it is safe.

Federal law protects census responses and our census takers will not share that.

And as an agency, we will not share that either, that information.

This is what our online platform will look like.

You can just click start questionnaire and start from there.

Along the bottom, you can see that the online response will be available in 12 non-English languages.

And with those languages, we're capturing 99% of the population.

Now, in addition to that, for that 1%, we have language guides available in over 50 languages on our website for the paper form for some additional languages.

So you would just click on the bottom and you could complete the form in that other language.

The paper form will be available in English and Spanish only.

So the key messages that we want to share with people is that the census is easy, it's safe, it's important.

We encourage you to respond online if possible or by phone or with paper questionnaire.

The phone option will also have language support, and it will be a live operator.

All census responses are confidential.

They're protected by federal law.

Census Day is April 1st.

That determines where you're counted, especially important for students.

We are asking you to count everyone in your household, your apartment, your residence together on one form.

so that we get just one response.

If we do get more than one response, there is a chance that a census taker will have to double check that.

And we want people to know about those community benefits.

This is going to impact Charlottesville for the next 10 years in terms of housing, healthcare, schools, transportation, social services.

We want to ensure that that

Money is coming back here to provide those services.

I know one of our recruiters was here earlier talking about jobs.

We are paying $22 an hour in Charlottesville.

So we are still hiring for the next couple weeks.

We encourage people to go online, apply for those jobs.

They're part-time.

Flexible hours, you can do this together with other employment or if you're a student.

It also fits very well in that summertime employment time frame.

And we need people.

And we want people from this community.

So that is all that I have right now.

for the jobs.

You would also go to 2020census.gov.

That's sort of our one-stop shop.

And it's forward slash jobs.

And it'll say apply now.

And you can just apply right there.

It is an online application.

If someone does not have access to the internet, they can also go to the CareerWorks or Virginia Employment Commission office for assistance with applying.

There is.

A lot of people want to get their high school kids employed.

Yeah, it is 18 for federal employment.

So you do have to be 18.

But if you're not 18 now and you will be in May, then you can apply.

Yeah.

So thank you very much.

I'm looking forward to working together with the city to make sure that everyone's counted.

I think this is a great way to really bring people together and show that everyone counts.

Next, we have the City Schools budget presentation.

Good to see you all.

Thanks for having us here.

I'm Jennifer McKeever, the chair of the Charlottesville City Schools board.

and we are going to be presenting our budget.

I'm going to pass it off to Kim Powell and Dr. Atkins in a few minutes to be more specific.

But I kind of wanted to make a statement before our before our staff comes forward with their budget proposal and request.

I just wanted to say that you guys may be familiar as newly elected.

Some of you newly elected

members of council that we are regularly talking about in our community, hiring minority staff, professional training for staff, literacy, restorative practices, reconfigurations, changes to the gifted program.

on and on and on conversations about all of these issues that really can boil down to how are the schools going to lead on matters involving equity over and over and over again we hear that.

And tonight the school board is asking the city council to work with our school division

as we have done over the past year and a half to promote equity in our division.

We believe fundamentally that this work cannot be done without our dedicated staff.

The board is in a moment where we have to demonstrate to our staff that we are committed to them.

We must continue to invest in our people.

They are on the ground doing the work every day.

And as a newly re-elected member of the board, I am deeply concerned with the city manager's proposed budget.

Our community supports public service employees.

It includes our teachers and staff in the schools and our firefighters and our police department and all of the employees that work for our city.

I have served for eight years on this board.

This budget year has been markedly different from the past eight.

The school board has never had to come before city council to ask council to intentionally veer from the city manager's proposed budget.

Throughout the years, we have worked in collaboration with the city manager and council to determine what our budget recommendation should be so that we can avoid a messy public dispute over our funding request.

We have had hard conversations and we've had disagreements.

and council has made really hard decisions involving the meals and lodging taxes specifically.

Historically and for the record, the school board has not requested 40% of the new revenue associated with those separate taxes as a matter of course, something we've never thought or even considered bringing up since we were able to negotiate with council and the city staff for a request that would help meet the needs of the schools and meet the values of our community.

In recent meetings, we have discussed with you, city council and the city manager, the challenges the board has faced as a result of funding allocations, funding reductions from the federal government and the changes to the local composite index that will affect the funding that the state provides to our community.

We have also been affected by this therapeutic day treatment program cuts that reduce the number of adults

supporting our students with the most needs in our buildings, a program that's outside of school budgets but provides essential services to the classroom.

This budget request continues the progress the schools have made around equity and looks to support the staff doing the work that has made this progress.

Frankly, the board and the division ask a lot of our teachers, our principals, our IA's, our assistant principals, our nurses, our guidance counselors, people who see and support our students every day.

We know our staff go above and beyond the demands of their exhausting work, yet most cannot even afford to live in our city.

A step plus the slight raise is not ideal to me.

I want teachers to be able to afford to live in our city.

This modest raise represents a pittance in their paychecks, but will serve to acknowledge their hard work and represent a small token of our appreciation for the demands we place on them.

Keep in mind that by not fully funding the school board budget request, we will potentially have to cut these raises and the funding associated with programs that support equity.

This is not a budget request.

We come too lightly.

Building level requests came to the central office at almost $5 million.

What we have asked for,

Instead of 62 requests, we've advanced 12 requests for a total of $881,000.

Almost $882,000.

There are many requests not part of this budget, including some that we in good faith cut when we were asked by the city manager to reduce our request.

This is a streamlined, pragmatic request that reflects the needs of schools and the values of our community.

The community has asked the board to create a budget that supports staff, that focuses on literacy and equity, and that is what this budget purports to do, despite reductions from the federal government and changes to the LCI.

Please support the board and the schools by supporting this budget request.

And now I'll pass it on to Ms.

Powell.

Dr. Atkins?

Do you all have a handout for us?

We can certainly share and get a handout for you.

Yes, thank you Ms.

McKeever and good afternoon council members and Madam Mayor.

What we'd like to do is divide our presentation into two parts.

One part will be an overview of our funding request.

looking at the revenue and the expenses.

And then the second part are several addendums that go into much more detail about our specific item request that we are making.

So what we'd like to do is start off with a summary of the revenue and go then right into the expenses and our funding request.

Good evening.

So the first chart that's in the PowerPoint is just an overview of our revenue, looking at our current actual fiscal year 20 budget.

You can see revenue by source.

Then it shows you what's in the FY21 proposed budget by source.

The changes are noted there as well as the percentage changes.

In a nutshell, the changes in the pie chart aren't really discernible, but what's happening here is

The city appropriation is moving from like 65% of the total revenue to 67%, while the state and local funding each went down 1%.

So those kinds of shifts in a pie chart aren't dramatic enough to really be picked up, but that's what is happening if you were to have a pie chart on the

I think that's probably the number that catches the eye.

Currently, the city appropriation is the money from the city, from the local taxpayers.

Local are all the other funding sources, which can be anything from local grants.

We are very fortunate to have some local philanthropists.

The money that students pay in when people pay for their lunches, that's local revenues.

The census person mentioned school nutrition.

We have to account for the school nutrition budget and recognize that as part of our budget.

A lot of that's federal dollars, some of that's local dollars every time a student pays on their meal account, those are local dollars.

The non-resident tuition program is one of the local dollars, local revenue funds.

I'm trying to think of what else is in there.

PrEP.

Well, PrEP is a big one and I'd like to speak to that because that's the big change there.

You heard Ms.

McKeever mention the change with how we're handling, currently it's called a regional program to serve our students with disabilities with the highest needs, but that whole model is changing from the state and the way we work now is we work with PrEP and Flubana County is the fiscal agent.

In recognizing all the services we provide to students, PrEP files our application.

So they send us this large bill, which includes some funding for teachers that work within our school system that are on our payroll.

But we have to send that money to PrEP, and then they reimburse it back to us, and it comes back in as local revenue.

That's over $400,000.

I do know that.

It's most of that $524,000 reduction in local

And that is a change that is what I consider a technical adjustment because it's reducing the revenues and the expenses equally.

So it does have a net impact of lowering our bottom line budget, but that in and of itself is a technical adjustment that doesn't impact our ask, the school board's ask of the city.

because now under the new model, each school division makes their own application for reimbursement for these high-need students, so we no longer have that piece of the invoice with prep where we send them money for some people who are paid through our payroll and then they send that money back to us.

I know it's perhaps a little confusing.

I'm happy to discuss it further if there are questions, but that's the largest portion of that change.

Back to the pie chart just really quickly.

The shift to 67% for the city appropriation in this budget proposal is not somewhat in line with the local composite index ability to change.

That increase went from .6772 to .6886, so a little over 1% increase there.

So the way the pieces of the pie moved in the end seemed to reflect what was happening with the local composite index.

Please stop me at any time.

moving from revenues to expenses

This is an overview of our, again, our current budget as it stands for this year and then what the budget proposal that the school board approved for FY 2021.

It's really showing where the money goes from the perspective of the broadest categories which are personnel, services, those are salaries and hourly wages, just wages, employee benefits which are FICA, the pension plan which we refer to as VRS, health insurance,

There's a mandatory disability insurance that's in there.

That's the benefits piece.

And then operating costs is everything else.

And you see that 55% is personnel services, 23% is employee benefits.

The pie chart was run off of the proposed budget just like the previous slide, but I can tell you I did a pie chart for the current.

The percentages don't change.

They are just very small changes.

In fact, with rounding, they don't change at all.

So 78% of the money goes into the people.

And that is, you can look at any school division in the Commonwealth, you're going to see that type of breakdown in their budget.

It's not uncommon.

And this budget proposal doesn't shift those percentages as far as where the money goes when you look at it at that highest level.

This is just a summary of the funding request and the breakdown of how the funding request is arrived at, looking at the request in terms of non-discretionary items, discretionary items, and then considering the adjustments, reductions, and cuts that were made from the original budget proposal.

If you look back, all of our presentations are online, and so the history of all of that is borne out here, and the details behind

the non-discretionary items and the discretionary items all that's in the appendix of this presentation as well as again any of our previous presentations.

We have something called the budget changes document where we try to be very explicit about what's moving and we categorize things by compensation, non-discretionary, school based programs, improvements and then operating changes.

So that's all in the details.

In 15 minutes, we figured you didn't want to go through that document again.

What we did is after our joint meeting, we went back and tried to trim as much out about that total request.

We were at

4.5, somewhere right around 4.3 million at that time.

We went back and went back in the FY20 budget, tried to trim, and in the appendix you'll have a document that shows where we made some additional cuts to try to pare that down as much as possible after our discussion.

And if I may, Dr. Atkins, when they look at these changes,

The changes from proposed, we've tried to be very explicit here.

Changes from proposed reflect changes from the original proposal, and then the far right column as you scroll down, and I don't think those headings carry forward.

We copied and pasted this in.

But when you look and you see changes on the far right, those are actually cuts from our current budget.

So it's a mix.

So one of the areas that we adjusted after we met with City Council, Ms.

Hill, was that we went in, looked at transportation.

There was a $358,000 increase request from transportation.

We lowered that by 189.

We also went into maintenance, lowered that by 8,000.

We went to our art supplies.

You can see how we lowered that by 4,000.

Standards align lesson planning by 10,000.

We also cut out an iSTEM teacher.

We cut out, we had in the original budget, we had put in an entire FTE, one position for the Walker Orchestra.

I've seen a presentation that we did earlier in the year.

We've changed our master scheduling at Walker to achieve more diversity in orchestra and band.

So therefore, we need more.

We have more students who are taking those classes now, and we need more FTEs.

We went in and reduced that to a half-time teacher instead of a full-time.

We have a specialist for annual giving to tap into our philanthropic community.

We had a full-time position there.

We reduced that to a part-time position.

And we had some other programs that we reduced.

Those were washes, though.

And I'm just, I was like, the amended budget you're reflecting, does that reflect the additional five, whatever, hundreds of, like the requests that came in through the summer?

Is that why it's called the amended budget?

If we go back to the, this budget, the actual FY 2020 amended budget,

The $57,834,623 does include the $486,000 that is included in that.

No, I'm just saying the source for us was one-time source.

We included, because when we hired teachers,

We anticipate that teachers, their positions will be continuing.

Well, with what we have set up here, we actually started with an actual budgeted amount that includes that amended amount.

So the request that we are making actually reflected that amended dollar amount in 2020.

We took that back to our board and our board took action on it, so we included the amended

and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have.

We are actually the total budget is eighty eight thousand from FY 20 is eighty eight thousand five hundred twenty three out five hundred and twenty three thousand one hundred and thirty dollars.

Our proposed funding request for FY 21 is ninety two million one hundred thirty four thousand nine hundred and fifty eight

with an increase of 3,611,828, which is a 3.9% increase.

We have to take it to our board on Thursday.

However, we have worked with our insurance broker, and we're in our original budget.

indicated that our health insurance costs

under the non-discretionary contracts would be increased by 15%, that $1.1 million.

We now have worked with our broker and we're able to bring that down by $425,000.

So that's not reflected here yet because it hasn't gotten there.

That is not.

Yes, what was on Thursday, Friday, we were able to work that out.

That was my next question because I'd heard that something had happened there.

So the 3,611,000, the request that 3,873,915 will be reduced by the 425,000.

Above and beyond the $2.12 million.

Yes, correct.

And so you've pulled out, as you said, a few hundred thousand.

I'm only going by what I read in the paper, but I thought that that kind of work session that you had after our joint meeting, it relieved like 700,000.

If we go back to.

So that's showing three.

Of course we have another budget presentation to go through.

I think it will be Thursday before we have any kind of real

Well, it's probably a hard question to answer, so there's that 1.6 million proposed above.

Even with that roughly $400,000 of savings in health insurance costs, the non-discretionary expenditures you need to make are above that proposed $1.6 million.

I think I'm going to try to

rephrase what you're asking me and you tell me if I got this right.

If we have to go back in and make additional cuts, any of those that 1.3 million above the 2.1 million that has already been included in the budget, where might we cut?

What I would do is go back to the FY20 budget, the current one, look at all of the staffing that we have.

In 2009, we had an efficiency review done.

And there were some recommendations made in that efficiency review that we made some cuts then.

But as the needs of our students and the needs of our teachers have increased over that 11-year period, we've restored some of those cuts for better service delivery.

We take a look at that.

We take a look at all of our staffing and programming.

It will take a lot to bring it down 1.3 million.

So we would look at that and then we'll go back to this.

As you can see, other than non-discretionary in our school-based program, those programs total to about $880,000.

And a major part of this conversation, obviously, is that 40%, 40% of the meals tax, right?

I'm just curious about what's the property tax?

New revenue.

New revenue from property tax, sorry.

I'm just curious sort of about the history of where does that 40% number come from?

How did that come into existence?

Does that fit best practices around the country?

So I can tell you Jim Henderson is sitting in the office and he can go back further than I can, but over my tenure in the school division, 14 years, when I came in, there was an agreement between city council and the school board that the first allocation to the schools would be 40% of new tax revenue.

Once that came to the schools then the schools would present a budget asking for any additional funding that the schools needed.

Back maybe five years ago, because each year the schools

did come to the city council and ask for significant amounts above that 40%.

The council commission, the blue ribbon commission to take a look at how can the council have sustainable funding for the schools above and beyond that 40% because

each year that 40% has not been sufficient.

And there were many recommendations in that Blue Ribbon Commission report.

I have, just looking at my email traffic about all of this, people are asking basically two questions about the school budget.

First question is, how come you all spend so much more per pupil than virtually every other place in the state?

And number two, and the second question is sort of this general kind of

Hi, so let's go back to the first question.

How much we spend per student.

We spend, we're probably third in the Commonwealth, we're not the top.

number three.

However, we staff our schools differently and that has been a value that our community and our community members have illustrated over the years.

The state code of Virginia recommends that we staff our pupil teacher ratios can be as high as 1 to 30.

Many school divisions get very close to that even in the primary grades.

You can have in first grade, second grade, third grade, you can have 30 students for every one teacher in the classroom.

We don't staff at those ratios in Charlottesville.

Therefore, in small, when you have small numbers in your school and you staff lower than that,

You're going to require more teachers, and one or two students will put you over your staffing ratios.

Also, the state does something for us called class size reduction, where we have high poverty areas.

The state requires us to have our pupil teacher ratio

Individual schools, depending on the percentage of poverty in those schools.

So it's all of our schools except Venable.

that's the only school that we have elementary schools that's not a Title I school so that affects our funding also the class sizes that we have we also have in each of our buildings a school nurse school nurses are not required in each building so therefore that's another addition to our budget we also provide orchestra and band

highly valued programs.

Those are not required at the ratios and the depth to which we provide them in Charlottesville City.

We have a very robust STEM program in our elementary schools.

Some of the staffing that we have there is not required by standards of quality.

So when the calculation, the per pupil expenditure calculation is done across the Commonwealth, there's a uniform formula

that's used, however, staffing is not uniform across the Commonwealth.

I mean, the difference, as I recall, I was just sort of figuring it out roughly.

No?

No.

No, you wouldn't be able to divide it directly into the $92 million because of everything that's included in the $92 million.

Nutrition is included in the 92 million.

So you did just say it would be closer to 20, right?

18, right around 18.

It may have pushed up to 19.

And the other question about being top heavy at our division level.

It's nice to be able to answer those kinds of questions, though, with a broad audience.

That's why I asked the question.

When I look at who sits at the table in senior leadership meetings, which we have about once a week, there are six people and seven, including myself.

And that's my senior leadership team.

It doesn't include our literacy coordinator, our math coordinator, but at Division 1 on Derry Road, there are six people.

I have an assistant superintendent, an associate superintendent, director of student services, finance director, HR director, and IT.

And that's it.

and the superintendent, that's it.

So I don't believe that we are top heavy.

And I think a comment I'll just make

with the list you gave that are not essential, like and you mentioned orchestra and band, and this is something that came up in our discussion over the years when I was requesting like this reallocation of funding.

But you have the parents who kids are in the orchestra and band who have predominantly been the children who are in those programs.

And if you talked about cutting those programs in any way, we would have a whole new wave of emails.

about those.

And so that has been part of the discussion for years.

Anytime you try to make program changes that lead to equity, I've been in the room for a lot of those conversations.

There's a whole wave of parents

who are usually the wealthier members of the community who don't want some of those changes to happen.

So I've asked for years because in my mind it made sense that maybe you shift the funding in some way and I understand how

difficult that one would be and then you know I'm not there so I don't know how you still reach all students where they are and shift so that is I know some of the questions that we've been getting and those have been some of my responses just from having kids within the division and having asked these questions for

years what would happen, like what would happen if you tried to dismantle the orchestra program in the city schools.

The orchestral arts program highly valued throughout our community.

So there would be a strong response.

We're adding that point five.

We had a full one teacher addition, one FTE addition to our orchestra program.

just because of diversity.

We have redone our master schedule and we have more diversity in orchestra and band now than we have ever seen in the history of our program.

We actually have more African American students in orchestra than we have Caucasian now at Walker.

And that's the...

you know kind of conversations.

I guess my final comments on it, I mean I know obviously as a community there's been a tremendous discussion around the issue of equity and the achievement gap and I'm sure everyone up here would agree the only way to address that is investing in people, not just facilities and buildings but people and particularly staff positions related to changing programming, changing how things are done.

You know, I echo a lot of people in thinking, you know, like, investment in literacy coaches is extremely important, trying to guarantee literacy for students and investment in staff positions in that way.

You know, it's kind of difficult for us to comment on it, I guess for the public's benefit, like,

On Friday, when it was publicly released, that's the first time we've seen the city budget.

This is our first meeting about it.

There's going to be a number of work sessions going forward about the budget, so it's kind of difficult to talk and think about it holistically at this point, but I think, you know, if we're serious about making that commitment to equity and the achievement gap, there's no way around making investments in people, and I'd say

You know, I think for everyone, it's really important as we move forward this process to try and get to a point where there's an assumption of good faith and some level of agreement.

Because if we're not able to do that, I just feel like it's not going to benefit the community, it's not going to be good for morale, and it's not going to help us make the investments that we need to make.

I agree with Ms.

McKeever.

Our teachers are everything.

They're the backbone to the organization.

And having strong teachers in the classroom is important.

And we are in a very competitive era now.

There are shortages all over the Commonwealth in teachers.

There are shortages in the applicant pool for positions.

and we want to keep the teachers who are in our, those highly effective teachers who are in our school division, we want to keep them and attract others into our school division.

We were very proud this year that 30 percent of the teachers that we hired were African American.

One other thing.

Right before the meeting, we received another email from somebody and just asking about the amount of out of city students enrolled.

It looks like it was 44 students in Greenbrier from out of Catchment.

27 to Venable.

around $1600 per student for tuition.

And some of the history of out of district students goes back to the years in which our enrollment declined.

And that was prior to me coming into the school division, but when I came into the school division, there was a steady decline of enrollment with our students.

We've gotten down to the three thousands with students.

That out of district enrollment helped to level out those declines.

because when the students are coming in they're paying tuition, but also they are being included in our ADM, which is how we're funded from the state.

So they come in, they pay tuition, but we also get funding from the state for those individual students who are coming in.

In addition to that, the calculation of our local composite index, which is the big lever on how we are funded.

The students who come into us out of district are also factored into the local composite index.

So if we were to pull out a little over 300 students who are in our school division out of the division, that would lower our

Enrollment numbers.

When you start calculating that into the local composite index, it will make our city look more wealthy relative to the number of students that we have in our school division, therefore causing our composite index to increase even further.

So having the students from out of district, certainly there is an argument that can be made that we do have to provide services for them when they come into our school division.

But there are also some real benefits that they have to our school division.

And one of them being that local composite index.

I don't think I have anything else.

I am concerned about just the holistic picture, just across the city in general.

You heard some staff members today.

They're not the only staff members that we are hearing this from.

We have the

Cola that's in your budget versus the Cola that's in our budget and that will shift numbers in any way.

But the main thing that I'm concerned about, there are two things.

There is a whole population of people who need services who were missed at the schools, right?

And there's this outside

of the school system that families need services on.

So if we start cutting from other places without taking into account that what cannot be done in the schools need to be done, then that creates a whole other issue that no matter what you all propose, we know cannot be solved internally.

And then just moving forward with the

potential new design of the building, the shifts there and the finances needed.

I just hope that we're thinking about how we're going to do that.

And at some point, there's going to have to be a

decision made moving forward with the building or not moving forward with the building and what the services at current levels possibly looks like when we start that development process.

Because the way this budget looked, what our staff is proposing to us as our debt service levels and what the payment will be required over time for those, we will end up adding

you know more service and increasing like if this is the change that will be expected every year but we would not be able to do this new development which is I think is as essential as the instructions and you know the proposed increases here so that's just some of the things that I'm thinking about trying to weigh that I'll continue having conversations about that I've had

I'm confused on what the expectation is in terms of timeline for when we let them know, because we don't finalize our budget until over a month from now.

Well, I think by, well, we need to have some

some kind of direction that we are proposing or questions asked.

I mean, they are following our budget process closely, but I think at this budget session, we need to be clear about some of the things that we would like to see and what that would look like.

We can't keep delaying it until the next budget meeting, so I'm not saying we'll have a, but there should be discussions by then that we

No?

Yeah, I just know that last year it really was towards the end that we actually knew what we were going to do in terms of revenue adjustments to accomplish different priorities.

And then we had a community budget forum where people weighed in on where they wanted us to weigh in on those priorities.

And I'll talk about those dates.

I just want to manage expectations on like

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that by Thursday we should be asking some questions around where is money possible with supporting tax increases if there is a tax increase.

And I'm hesitant, as I've said before, about supporting tax increases at this point because we are going to definitely have to do it and have a conversation with the community for the reconfiguration.

Yes.

of the school building.

So just it should be a little bit more clear.

And Mayor, I would also say I was here and I heard the firefighters speaking, the police officers speaking.

I tell you

I know we have needs in our schools and we're bringing a big request to city council.

My heart also goes out to them.

I don't know what we would do without our firefighters and our officers who respond so quickly to us when we called.

We had the threat to our school, which was an internet threat.

And when those things happen, we have to make one phone call out to one of the officers.

and they take it from there.

start the investigation.

They provide all the coverage.

They send additional patrols to our schools to take care of our students.

Then they become our right hand in taking care of our students and communicating with us.

And firefighters do the same thing when those fire alarms go off at the school.

So I know it's challenging for everyone and for this council to have to weigh all of these needs and their real needs in our community.

but know that my heart certainly does go out to their request also.

And in the census, I spoke with the young lady who presented with the census.

There's one area that I'm truly concerned about with the census.

Since the last census was taken, there has been a dramatic change in how we

individuals select race and ethnicities, ethnicity and race.

So there have been more options for people now in selecting race.

Therefore we've seen it in our school system where we used to have

High concentrations of black students or families selecting the race as black, we have seen those numbers diminished significantly in our school system because of the number of options that families have now.

My concern with that, and I ask her how was the government planning to actually minimize that effect, how are they going to look at the black race

Thank you.

So we're going, yes.

Not mine, into the restroom.

Five minutes.

Five minutes.

Lifesaver?

Because there was only four people showed up, so they stuck me on it and they told me not to touch the ball.

Okay.

Thank you Madam Mayor, Members of Council, and the public.

Before I get into this presentation, it won't be long, I know it's late night hour, but I do want to say thank you to Brian Davidson as well as Chrissy Hamill.

for all their hard work and dedication in terms of trying to build this proposed budget.

We started a number of months ago trying to look at the various areas throughout the city that needed funding as well as ways that we could look at ways to decrease some of our overall expenditures to stay within

our budget as well as our overall tax rate of 95 cents.

But first and foremost I just want to go and just say the city's been doing a great job over a number of years in terms of the preparation of the budgets and as you can see with GFOA in terms of the success that we've had over those years in terms of the number of budget awards that we've gotten especially in terms of

18 years of getting the consecutive budget award as well as you can see to an FY20 that's getting a proficient and outstanding in all categories.

So we continue to move forward and do great things in terms of our budgeting and we want to make sure that we continue that in FY21 with the proposed budget.

As you can see, over the years, the increase from the previous year in terms of the percentages change from year to year.

So from last year, our budget has increased 4.11%.

And as you can see, that 4.11% is, if you look back at FY 17,

You know, one of the lowest years that we've had in terms of increase from year to year.

But mostly, and what's important and that I keep telling everyone about is that we do have some strong economic indicators.

As you can see, we still have a number of jobs in our community, 41,000 over our 10 square miles.

and which just puts our unemployment rate at its lowest, which is at 2.5%.

And we talk about the vacancy rate for jobs and different things like that throughout our community.

We look at a vacancy rate in our downtowns, I mean, well, citywide at 4.4%, as well as 1% downtown.

Some of the other economic factors are the investment within our commercial

of buildings.

As you can see, we're up to about $145 million in investment in 2019.

And we had about a total, well, over 500,000 square feet of a Class A office space, which is under construction.

So we are starting to see some growth in terms of development in our downtown area.

These are major budget things that we continue to talk about and we've talked about with the council.

One of the main things I'd like to talk about also is to talk about our focus on organizational efficiencies and effectiveness.

That was one of the things we talked about even when I took this job at interview, looking at the overall organization.

And as you can see in the organization, we made some substantial changes as we tried to modify

our various departments as well as the services that we do deliver to continue to improve the quality of the services that we provide to the community.

But as I always tell the community when they ask me about that is that, you know, I had to first fix the internal processes in order for us to create a better end product.

And I think that's what we're starting to deliver.

But as I mentioned before,

It's going to take time in terms of trying to get to that highest tier of services being delivered.

The strategic plan and council priorities, as you know, we're working on that.

We'll be talking a whole lot more about that coming up soon with your retreat in May.

But moving into this budget year, as we talk about the strategic plan, we're still using the model that was implemented in 2016.

So I just wanted you to be aware of that.