City Council Meeting   2/3/2020

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thomas, roll call, please.

Mr. Payne.

Present.

Mr. Snook?

Here.

Are there any announcements?

For more information visit imaginingdemocracy.worldpress.com.

The first one on February 12th is Local Government Constitutional Foundations in Urban Policy with Richard Schrager, UVA Law Professor from the Miller Center, and Larry Davis, a former Albemarle County Attorney.

Thank you.

No.

Thomas, could you read this consent agenda, please?

D, Resolution City Market Sublease, one reading E, Resolution Afton Express Transit Service Grant Application, one reading F, Ordinance Amending Section 2-5 of Chapter 2 of the Code of the City of Charlottesville Financial Disclosure by Certain Officers and Employees, second reading Yeah, I would move to remove item B from the consent agenda

Please vote.

That carries five to zero.

Motion for B.

Yes.

So I move that we approve item B, appropriation for the Human Services Fund balance for Pacham.

I'll second that one, too.

All right.

Is there anyone who would like to speak on an item on the consent agenda?

All right.

Mr. Blair, I went, there was an announcement that I forgot to bring up.

Yes, you could have the announcement now.

Okay, all right, so we're gonna have an announcement regarding an update with the coronavirus and Dr. Bonds is going to present a quick update.

All right, thank you.

Where can we get flu shots?

And if Thursday or Monday doesn't work for you, just let me know and I will make sure that you can get your flu shot.

Are most of the deaths due to secondary infection, or are they just due to primary?

But we don't know that for sure, because we haven't really seen a lot of data come out yet.

Two had been ruled out, and I was waiting on still hearing a third.

We're still awaiting the results of the last one.

All right.

Thank you.

Next, we have the city manager response to community matters from the January 21st meeting.

Thanks.

First up is Valerie Long.

Thank you very much for consideration.

Lucas.

I see my time.

Kathleen Galvin.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Jackie Martin.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Stark Hi there.

Thank you.

Okay, help me out.

I thought you were going to help.

at least the first step in preventing this country from becoming a police state.

Peter Krabs.

Good evening.

Let the good times roll.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Emily Little,

Every decision in Charlottesville includes climate as a piece of that.

Thank you.

Gloria Beard.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Now I'm here and they built something for the older people and the teenagers over there in Belmont?

Carlton.

Is that how they assessed our taxes for our homes?

We're still at 95 cents.

Diane Hillman.

Oh, sorry.

But it's definitely the case that a lot of these large developments coming in raise land values, bring in more investment and are part of the cycle of assessments rising, which even though we don't set it, equals people paying more money, like you said.

And I have a proposal for this budget cycle too for council to consider to increase the CHAP program, the grant for low income family members which last year when we approved it was up to $55,000 so we will take a look at that during the budget cycle again.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Thank you very much.

So those are my comments to be aware that this is actually a plan to destabilize local government and safety.

So I just wanted to keep people in the know and not end on

The last comment, thank you.

So that's the last comment.

Yeah.

OK.

Thank you, ma'am.

reading, and it's been updated.

And then finally, vote to adopt the FY19 year in appropriation on second reading.

Correct.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

All right, so I'm going to open the public hearing.

We have to do the motion first.

Is there a motion?

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

I am not in favor of the $130,000 for those reasons, the other changes I don't really have a problem with.

But it's my view that we can do both.

During the retreat I did express that I mean I was comfortable with some amounts I would say that the 130 was what was giving me pause because it did seem like it was just a way that we were balancing things and there are a lot of needs that we have that have been brought to our attention that we could be using these dollars for and I do also share a pause that we are using dollars that would go towards an operational account at the same time I did agree and I said that I could see us putting some amount of money towards this account and there was certainly the three folks in support of this amount being the amount

So the advocacy on staff part and what they can advocate for is really different from what council members can advocate for and we don't have the restrictions that they may have and just to keep that in mind.

It was not as though staff stood up here in front of us two weeks ago and asked for this.

Kaki Demick, the Director of Human Services, gave us that same information.

But she gave you that information.

No, she presented, I did, that did happen that way too, which it was factual information, so I don't know why that's being questioned.

Only because the question is when you say staff requested it, or staff proposed it, I didn't say staff requested it, or staff reported on it.

She did.

to you individually.

Was Kaki not in?

A couple days later.

And we can help provide some of that assistance to our struggling families.

and on that logic there is effectively no limit to what we should be putting into this fund.

Well, when you can look a family in the face that can't meet their basic needs for a variety of reasons, and if you have the potential to say that you thought replenishing a reserve that was already dollars allocated for expenses such as radio replacement is more important than helping families meet their basic needs, then I guess that's your position, it's just not mine.

I've got nothing more to say.

So you may want to look at some of that information.

Was that at the request of the city manager or the request of the staff?

Any other questions or comments?

All right, so we're now public hearing.

OK.

So please vote.

All right.

So we have one person signed up, Tom Gallagher.

Okay, thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

and I go home very stressed because I can't help everybody that needs help and this will absolutely double the number we could help in one year, so thank you.

Do we have to do?

You would need a motion to adopt the appropriation as amended.

I make a motion to adopt the appropriation as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

be directed just to the county because of this increase in funding.

We can look historically and then look prospectively for the next six months.

So you are you are saying that there is an impact that by us giving more money, it might mean that they will not support us to the same level that they do?

probably maxing out on those dollars.

I'm just getting it like I would like to have the county have a reason to believe to and to step up.

But I don't know if there's any source outside of AIM for or, you know, working through the homeless system of care for folks who are experiencing an emergency crisis in Albemarle.

Any other questions?

So.

Thank you.

Next, we have establishing new form-based zoning regulations, first of two readings.

I think Mr. Holuska will address those comments.

I think there's more discussion to be had and more protections we can look at.

Feel free to come in and also what's coming from the planning commission.

and an ordinance passed 10 years ago that we need updated or modified.

And I'm just trying to understand what flexibility

I would think you would want to have a map that the zoning text would apply to.

Because it seems like the feedback that I've heard from others talking about this is just the map is seems to be where some of it's more clear of the direction we're getting on the overall ordinance, but the map itself is where things kind of get tricky.

Again I don't think you would adopt the text without a map that it would apply to.

input into this.

Does that make sense?

And part of this could be, again, staff works on the text, ETA, the text and talks to the consultant and brings back a report to council as the map review process takes place.

I have no idea why my computer is suddenly making noise.

So we need to make the decision whether we're asking them to come back to us with an update in 60 days or are we asking them to update it to give the information to the consultants or neither?

Well what I think would be possible is based on the direction we could make the ZTA changes as a staff, present them to the consultant, get their feedback and come back to you with a report that includes both the updated ordinance and the consultant's thoughts.

In 60 days?

Maybe not.

The more consistency we have across zoning districts, the easier it is for staff to administer that code.

And similarly, how will the other small area plans that have been adopted be part of that process?

So those are some ideas that we have out there and they'll certainly be working in the context of the overall review of the comp plan and the zoning ordinance.

So the consultant recommendations, they will be making them based on what they feel are best practices and not based on any direction that we are pushing them to.

So our input, the zoning ordinance ought to be what we want as a community.

That will be because they think that is best versus that we have already been investing in form-based code and we want them to go that direction.

And so we kind of want to give them a blank slate and let them do it.

Or is that something that would make sense as part of that conversation as well?

So it has a level of protection that the Hebrew Cemetery, because it's zoned downtown extended, does not.

And both for myself and the public, could you refresh us on some of the conversation about why the Planning Commission recommended to measure in square footage rather than units for the affordable housing bonus?

Moving to square footage removes any ability to game the system by putting, you know, a bunch of units together behind one door and calling it one unit as opposed to like three or four.

Or are they sort of done in terms of their communication with us?

And so, yeah.

And is that something you would like direction from counsel on with more specificity about that impact on CRHA properties?

And finally,

I'm just not sure what this process is.

I think because it's so property specific in advertisement and when you change properties and zoning designations, I think that's usually going to be a tripwire to re-advertise.

Right.

OK.

Right.

And then we would have, based on the council's feedback with the report, we'd probably take the zoning text amendment, the zoning map amendment at the planning commission at the same time for a public hearing with council, and then it would come back to you.

Is this enough direction?

I get the impression that you're in support of them all at this point, so if I'm wrong, let me know.

There's none that I object to, just a question of whether any could be fleshed out further, but there's none I object to.

So we don't need to take any, we don't need to do any.

Just to have an official action.

Second.

So at a higher level, I just have a lot of concerns about the future of this process, about how we're going to make a final decision one way or another on it.

September?

I think it was September.

the work that the consultants are being hired to do.

advancing affordable housing or other goals against their interests, but then trying to separate that out from this as a whole because I have a lot of open, a lot of questions about the effectiveness as a whole and just so we can.

So when we're asking them to, when we're deferring and asking them to bring us back information, I would hope that we're not asking them to do things that, you know, would take away from us getting that information.

Like what sort of feedback are they going to give us on this?

A pattern to be replicated, is it something that when they look at it they go, we've seen other communities and we have issues with these types of things and maybe there's something good, maybe there's something bad, so I definitely hear the concern that you're mentioning and those will be some points that we'll raise with them this week.

A smorgasbord of options for affordable housing that are not available right now and that may completely change how you look at this and how you look at your zoning code and how the consultants look at the zoning code based on the comp plan feedback.

Vote and

It seems like you want to refer the map questions back to the Planning Commission as well.

So the amending city official zoning map to define boundaries of the new zoning district.

Is that, that seems what the council wanted to refer some of the map questions back to the Planning Commission with staff.

Because you said there's no map without text, no text without map.

Right.

and they have laid out their concerns.

They were out of time.

Now we don't have any deadlines, except when we're imposing ourselves.

Obviously 310 Avon was mentioned tonight but there are, there were some other properties identified very quickly by the commission that I think if we look at it in a holistic manner we could potentially come forward with a map that better reflects their, the will of the commission.

So she wants to amend her motion?

I think you can just have a motion to defer action by the Council tonight and refer the zoning map amendment back to the Planning Commission for further consideration.

Defer my motion tonight.

Defer action by the Council tonight.

Right.

Refer the ZMA to the Planning Commission.

All right, any further discussion?

All right, that carries five to zero.

Next, we have a resolution comprehensive signage plan for Dairy Central.

So I know that was fast, but any questions?

Are there any clarifying questions?

I move to approve the Dairy Central Phase 1 Comprehensive Signage Plan dated December 17th, 2019.

Second?

You know, I will say

So that's my thoughts.

that same passion for outreach that was in the beginning of the project that he should have had for this.

I was there when he brought it forward and asked for people's input on various points.

So I wasn't at the Neighborhood Association meeting, but there was the door-to-door outreach by, yes, earlier on.

The adjacent neighbors were notified of the sign plan.

The standard rules about who gets notified.

Within 500 feet of the property.

And for a lot of people, when they don't believe that, they'll stay home.

from people who saw the news story that the local news did on it and only were who live in the neighborhood and were only aware that it was going up as a large mural facing directly facing their neighborhood because of that news story which went either today or yesterday ran.

And vegans hate this sign.

This is all part of a very comprehensive signage plan that they've been working on for over a year with the city.

the way we make them and so that was another point and again when depending on who we're making the decision on behalf of that's when it's presented in a more favorable light than other times.

I don't think this is going to make or break the project.

I'm just asking the question, like, where are we at?

But it does allow for a project of this scale, it does allow staff sort of a blueprint for when these signage permits come in that we can handle them a lot easier.

Because I didn't know we're discussing just one facet of a much broader project.

Yeah, so if it's the cow mural, I understand that I think, you know, still with the two additional monument signs given the scale, the comprehensive signage plan would be necessary to approve those.

And one question I had just to commit to memory for the future, so the issue with the fading, could you explain that a bit more?

So any further discussion?

The BAR has approved it.

Next we have a report, the report from the study of disproportionate minority contact in the adult criminal justice system.

Hi.

I'm delighted to have three members of the team from MGT Consultants here with us tonight, Dr. Fred Seaman, Reginald Smith, and Andres Bernal, and I think Dr. Seaman is going to get us started.

Thank you.

But it is available for your use.

That 827 times, so it's like it could be one individual with 14 bookings.

I learned a long time ago to stay in my lane and statistics is not my deal, so I'm going to turn it over to our expert, Andreas Bernal, to talk about regression.

And Reggie's going to talk about that as well.

Don't let Andreas talk about these.

I'm going to turn the recommendations over to Reggie.

So that in a nutshell is our presentation on our report and our activities related to this, how we went about doing the study, our findings and conclusions and recommendations, and now we are open to respond to any questions that you may have about our report or our presentation.

Are you presenting this to the county's Board of Supervisors as well?

Can I ask you...

Were you able to determine in looking at the data or did you have enough information to be able to look at, for example, stops on the street versus stops in cars or the method of the police contact with the individual?

But we really would like to get that data and analyze it to be able to respond to that question.

Was that part of the decision of what remained in, what remained out, and so I guess I'll

It's just we started with the data set we had in front of us.